When They Fade

by Jeyn Roberts

  Hannah is a town that Tatum no longer has any privileges in. No matter where she goes, people stop and stare. Then they talk. Discreet isn’t a word in their dictionaries. Even Mom, with her “Ignore it and it’ll all go away attitude,” has grown weary of hang-up calls in the dead of night. What’s worse are the emails suggesting Tatum be “hospitalized.” She’s become the town Lolita, the harlot, the girl everyone wants to see fail.

  “Okay,” Mom says. “But be home by seven. And keep your phone on.”

  “In the library?”

  “There’s no law against silent mode.”

  * * *

  Tatum’s day is blissfully uneventful. Sure, there are the whispers, the laughter, more red lipstick on her locker—but that’s nothing she can’t handle. She’s learned to deal with all of that stuff like a pro.

  Lunch is spent in an empty classroom, once everyone has already headed to the cafeteria. Experience has taught her that unless she eats with her back to the wall, she’s an open target for all sorts of food-related attacks. These days she’s better off finding a quiet corner somewhere and eating alone with a book.

  Hiding isn’t what Tatum does best. She’s always enjoyed being surrounded by groups of friends. She’d much rather spend her weekends at parties and socializing than sitting at home pretending to study. In the past few months, she’s read more than she did in her entire previous high school life. Books may help her escape, but they’re not the reality she wants. She misses sitting in the lunchroom with Claudette, Juniper, and the others, gossiping about the boys, comparing teachers, complaining about assignments, and all those other important things that make high school so much fun.

  Now, when the bell rings for her last class, she makes haste. She heads for her locker, uses some tissue to remove the lipstick drawing of her weighing roughly six hundred pounds, grabs her books, and practically walks right into Graham and Levi, who have decided to corner her for a laugh.

  “Looked just like you.” Graham tries to reach out and stroke her face, but she pulls back at the last second, nearly smacking her head into the locker.

  Levi leers at her next. “I heard you go to Taco Bell every day and order twenty bucks’ worth of food. No wonder the bio room smells so bad.”

  Pushing past the guys, she ignores their taunts. It’s not like she hasn’t heard it all before. They’re not exactly the most original when it comes to insults. Part of her always wants to respond—she’s got some great comebacks for the never-ending fat jokes—but experience has taught her to stay silent. If she answers, they’ll just follow her around. They’re dogs that can’t ignore the cat.

  Outside, she makes it to her car without running into Claudette. All four tires are still full of air, and a quick walk around reveals no suspicious wet marks. Tatum jumps in and peels out of the parking lot. She drives carefully for the first few miles to make sure no one’s tailing her.

  All in all, it’s been a good day.

  At the Bellevue exit, she heads to the closest Seattle’s Best Coffee and snags a good seat in the corner. She plugs her laptop into the wall and brings up Google. In another tab she loads the library website and puts in her PIN information. Accessing the newspaper catalog, she pauses.

  There are so many. Hundreds of different papers in Washington State alone. Thousands throughout America. Quite possibly millions of articles to go through.

  And all she has is a first name.

  Suddenly Tatum feels foolish. What was she thinking? That she’d punch in a few letters and magically pull up all the information she needed to solve a murder? She doesn’t even have a date. Sure, Molly did look like she was out of the sixties, with her long flowing skirt and love beads. But there are lots of girls who dress that way even now. The hippie style is always in. Even Tatum has a peasant blouse hidden away in her closet.

  The odds of finding this girl are about as good as Tatum waking up tomorrow morning and discovering that the past few months have been nothing but a bad dream.

  A needle in a haystack.

  Sigh.

  But she has to try. It’s not as if she’s got a million other things to do. Taking a sip of her mocha, Tatum stares at the computer screen. She goes back to Google and begins to type.

  Molly. Murder. Hannah, Washington.

  Millions of hits.

  Refusing to be dejected, she reads through the first few pages. There’s nothing useful, mostly information about the ecstasy drug with the same name, the occasional person named Molly involved in an obscure murder trial, movie reviews, and a bunch of inconsequential stories, mostly involving people named Hannah. Why couldn’t she come from a town that didn’t have a female name? Towns like Bellingham or Everett would be a lot easier to Google.

  Tatum spends the next half hour going through different words, trying to come up with something. Anything. The front door to the coffee shop has an annoying bell that sounds every time it’s opened. Each time it rings and dings, she looks up just in case. After the twentieth or so time, she sees a familiar face. She almost spills her drink all over the laptop in surprise.

  Scott Bremer.

  Okay, not worth getting upset over. At least she doesn’t think so. Scott isn’t part of Claudette’s crowd. He moved to Hannah a year ago from the East Coast, and he’s a bit of a loner. He sits in the back row and never speaks up in class unless asked a direct question from a teacher. She’s never actually seen him hang out with anyone. Sure, he talks to a few of the guys, but not in a chummy sort of way. At lunchtime, he’s usually in the cafeteria, surfing the Internet on his phone with his headphones on. Scott lives two blocks away from Tatum. She remembers how the girls thoroughly checked him out the first month. He was new meat and not bad-looking, either. He’s got this amazing spiky brown hair and piercing dark eyes. But if Scott wanted a girlfriend, he didn’t show interest. He even blew off Claudette’s flirts as if they were nothing more than polite conversation from his grandmother. It ended with Claudette declaring him probably gay or a eunuch, and he was pretty much ignored from then on.

  Tatum has talked to him an entire two times. Once because he sat behind her in chemistry class and asked to borrow her notes after being out sick for a few days. The second time was a polite hello when they came across each other on the street. He was walking their family dog, a big, hyper chocolate-brown Lab. The animal jumped on Tatum, and Scott seemed really embarrassed about it. He couldn’t get away fast enough.

  Actually, she’s talked to him three times. He was the one to give her the napkins yesterday when she was trying to deal with the urine on the tires.

  Is it possible that Claudette has recruited him in her games?

  No, it doesn’t seem that way. In fact, it looks like Scott actually has a job at the coffee shop. He goes behind the counter and starts chatting to the girl at the cash register. Running his hand through his hair, he briefly catches Tatum watching him. A look of surprise crosses his face before he nods in her direction. Then he disappears into a room in the back.

  Tatum finds herself exhaling in relief. Nothing but a coincidence. She goes back to her work.

  Molly. Disappearance. Washington State. 1960–1969.

  Six hundred fifty thousand hits.

  Maybe she should try looking at the missing-children website. How many Mollys can there be?

  Nope, that turns out to be useless. A quick search tells her she’s not going to gain any ground that way. Unless she finds a last name, she’s going nowhere fast. Besides, the records don’t go that far back. They focus more on people who wouldn’t now be in their sixties.

  “Hey.”

  She looks up to see Scott Bremer standing over her with a broom in his hands. He’s looking at her computer screen. His voice is soft and he doesn’t sound sarcastic, unlike everyone else who talks to Tatum these days.

  “Um…hi.”

  “Lost someone?”

  “No.” She closes the website instantly, feeling stupid. “Just doing some research for a project.”
/>
  “Really? What one?”

  Of course he’d have to ask. She pauses too long, trying to come up with a reasonable answer. “Just my own thing. I’m writing a story.”

  Scott leans on the broom. “Cool. Like a creative writing thing?”

  “Yeah, something like that,” she says. A part of her wants him to go away. Another part wants him to stay. It’s been too long since someone her age has actually talked to her. “A ghost story,” she adds.

  “Very cool. What kind?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Scott looks back at the register to make sure it’s still empty. “There’s all sorts of ghosts. Poltergeists. Evil spirits. That paranormal-activity crap. Then there’s the kind that are searching for something or can’t cross over until their secrets are uncovered. True stories. Made-up stuff. All kinds.”

  Tatum grins. “True story,” she says. “About a ghost named Molly. One I heard about recently. A girl who was murdered in Hannah.”

  “I didn’t realize Hannah had its own ghost story.”

  “Neither did I,” she says. “But like I said, I just heard it.”

  Scott tilts his head to the side and puts more weight on his broom. “So what does she do?”

  “Do?”

  Scott gives her a look as if to suggest that Tatum is way out of her league. “What’s her ghostly shtick? Does she hang by the river and lure men to their deaths? Haunt castles while wearing a bloody gown? Freak out cats? All ghosts do something.”

  “Oh,” Tatum says. “I think she’s a hitchhiker.”

  Now it’s Scott’s turn to smile. “Ahh, the old standby. Hitchhiking. Gets into a poor unsuspecting stranger’s car, rides along for a while before disappearing from the passenger seat.”

  Tatum’s hopes soar. “You’ve heard about her?”

  “Nah. But the hitchhiking ghost story is famous. An urban legend. She’s always a local girl who gets killed by some crazy nutjob. There are different variations. My mom always uses hitchhiker stories to freak out my little sister and make sure she never accepts rides from strangers, that sort of crap. And my granny loves all that supernatural stuff. She’s got tons of books.”

  “Is your grandmother from here? Do you think she’d know any of the local stories?” Tatum can’t help but think this could be a lead. “Molly haunts Frog—I mean, the road that goes past Evander, and it stuck with me. I found a forum with people who claim to have seen her. I thought it would make a good story. I do a lot of writing. Just me and my laptop.” She swallows hard, trying to make her mouth stop moving. She’s overdoing it. Scott is going to call her bluff. The last time she wrote something for fun was years ago. She’s no writer. Tatum can barely keep up with a diary. What if Scott asks her more questions? Oh God, what if he wants to read her nonexistent story?

  Thankfully, Scott is cool. “Not sure. What do you need to know?”

  “A last name,” Tatum says. “And some more information. I think it happened in the sixties. If your grandmother lived here then, she might have heard something.”

  “Yeah, she’s been here forever. My mom grew up here too.” Scott scratches his arm. “I’ll ask for you. Like I said, Granny’s really into all that spirit stuff. She’s even gone to a séance before. She’ll bore you to death if you ask about it. A ghost named Molly. Haunts the road by Evander. I can remember that.”

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  There’s a bit of an awkward pause while they try not to stare at each other. The barista behind the counter starts up the espresso machine. The sound of milk steaming only intensifies the silence.

  “Um…I didn’t know you worked here.”

  “I started a few months ago. Saving for college. But I’m surprised. You’re the first person from school I’ve seen in here.” He absently kicks at the broom bristles with his foot. “It’s a long ways to come for coffee.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes I need to find a quiet place where I can actually get work done.” She practically cringes at the lame excuse. And by the look on Scott’s face, she knows he’s thinking about Mr. Paracini. Of all the stupid things to say, she had to say the one thing that would bring attention to those horrible lies.

  But thankfully, Scott doesn’t go there. He just nods like driving forty minutes out of the way for a mocha is something he does all the time. In fact, he does, considering he’s the one with the job way out here. There are plenty of places closer where he could earn a paycheck.

  “Well, I’d better get back to work,” he says as he looks over his shoulder, where the female server stares off into space. “I’ll ask my grandma about the ghost. She’ll love the idea of someone writing a story. She’ll probably demand to read it.”

  “Thanks again. Have fun.”

  Scott turns and begins to walk away. Pausing briefly, he almost turns back to her, but then something must make him decide otherwise. Swishing the broom across the floor, he does a little dance step to the Nirvana song playing over the speaker. He looks back at her and winks. Tatum grins before she can stop herself.

  Be careful.

  No, maybe everyone in the world isn’t out to get her after all. Maybe Tatum’s been wrong about Scott all this time. Perhaps he isn’t a loner, just more of the shy, silent type. She looks at the back of his Hendrix shirt and decides she likes the way his jeans fit. Also, he’s wearing a kick-ass pair of Docs. Black with bright blue laces. Maybe if she hadn’t listened to Claudette she might have given Scott the time of day much sooner.

  But can she trust anyone?

  Sighing, she slams her laptop closed and shoves it in her bag. Today’s been nothing but wasted time. No, that’s not completely true. Hopefully, Scott will be able to find out some information.

  What she needs is a chance to talk to Molly again. She grabs her things and heads for the door. She’ll be home early for supper, and Mom will be thrilled. And after it’s dark, she’s going to have to take a drive out to Frog Road again.

  * * *

  “What do you think?”

  They were hanging in the bathroom during lunch. Claudette was staring at herself in the mirror, trying out a new lipstick. Dark red. She smacked her lips together a few times before applying a second coat.

  “It’s hot,” Tatum said without really looking. Juniper had just sent her a text, wondering where the hell they were. She had snagged the good table, and the cafeteria was serving burritos that looked like rancid crap. Not a good visual. But it would have to do; she’d already tossed the lunch Mom packed for her. There was only so much tofu a girl could take.

  “So Barry and I are going to spend the night together on Friday. His wife is taking the kids down to visit the grandparents, and he’ll have the house all to himself. Can you believe it? An entire night together.”

  “What about last weekend?”

  Claudette sighed dramatically and tossed the lipstick in her bag. Although she’d checked when they first came in, she bent down a second time to make sure the bathroom stalls were empty. A sure sign that something especially juicy was about to come from her lips.

  “Last weekend we spent at that motel that smelled like dead fish,” she said. “Sure it was fun and Barry bought me those roses, but it’s not the same. This is going to be at his place. In his bed! Oh God, Tatum, I’m going to be lying right where his wife sleeps. How weird is that?”

  “I thought you said they don’t sleep together.”

  “They don’t. Not that way. But I’m pretty sure they don’t have separate rooms. Besides…” Claudette moved in closer until her lips were practically touching Tatum’s cheek. “You and I sleep together all the time too. Does that mean you’re my girlfriend?” She planted a big sloppy kiss on Tatum.

  Tatum laughed and swatted her away. “Okay, point taken. But still, you’re right. That is weird. I wouldn’t be comfortable at all.”

  “Oh, I plan on being very comfortable.” Claudette grinned. “And in the morning I’ll make breakfast for him in bed. It’ll be sup
er romantic.”

  “You can’t cook.”

  “That’s so beside the point.”

  Tatum’s phone beeped, but she put it in her bag instead of checking. Juniper would have to wait. “What are you going to say to your mom?”

  “Mom thinks I’m spending the night with you,” Claudette said.

  “I don’t know,” Tatum said. “What if she calls?”

  “She won’t.” Claudette rolled her eyes before turning back to the mirror. “We’ve had a hundred sleepovers. A thousand. She’s never called once. You’re worrying about nothing.”

  Tatum nodded. Claudette was right. That was one of the best things about having such a close friend. They spent so much time together, their parents didn’t bother checking up on them anymore. It had worked to their advantage more than once: going to parties, staying out past curfew, using the whole We were just hanging out watching movies routine.

  “I guess it’s okay,” Tatum said. She didn’t add that they’d made plans for Friday night and Claudette had obviously forgotten. Tatum didn’t blame her and wasn’t angry; she knew how easy it was to forget when a guy was involved.

  “Everything will be fine,” Claudette said. “You’ll see.” She paused and looked Tatum carefully in the eyes. “Are you okay? You’re not going to say anything, are you?”

  “No. No, of course not.” Tatum swallowed, worried that her face might be giving away her disapproval. “But…”

  “But what?”

  Tatum swallowed again. She had to tread carefully. Claudette wasn’t always rational when it came to thinking things over. “Don’t you think you’re going really fast with this? I think it’s cool and all, but what if someone finds out? You could get in a lot of trouble.”

  “No one’s going to find out anything,” Claudette said with a frown. “Unless you tell them. You’re the only one who knows.”

  “What happens in the summer when Mr. Paracini leaves his wife? They’ll all know then.”

  “I’ll be eighteen,” Claudette said. “It won’t really matter what they think then.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Tatum thought that line of reasoning was blurry, but there wasn’t any point in trying to convince Claudette. Turning eighteen and immediately going off with a man would give the impression that something had happened way before her legal birth date. And something like that could easily land Mr. Paracini in trouble. If he was taking all these precautions to keep the whole thing secret, why would he suddenly be open about it?