Basic

by E. J. Mara

  “Manda, what’s wrong? You look pale,” she said.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. B-but can I talk to you for a minute? After, I, uh, after I put my stuff away?”

  Mom’s eyes didn’t leave mine as she nodded. “Of course. Are you sure you’re all right? You look sick. Let me check your forehead.” She started towards me, but I backed away and shook my head.

  “I’ll be r-right back,” I stammered before turning away and practically running up the stairs to my room.

  Breathing much harder than I should have been, I closed my door behind me and just stood there, staring into space.

  Pull yourself together. You can do this. You have to do this.

  I set my overnight bag down and opened it, retrieving the small ‘necklace’ Jonathan had let me borrow.

  I put it around my neck, ensuring that its black pendant, which was actually a camera, was resting on top of my t-shirt. Then, I slipped the ‘ring’ he’d loaned me on my finger. It was a little big, but I knew it would have to work because it was the only listening device I had. The jewelry was linked to surveillance equipment Jonathan was able to see from his home computer.

  I grabbed my phone and sent him a text:

  I’m going to talk to my mom now.

  I turned on each of the devices just as Jonathan had instructed and my phone buzzed.

  I checked it and read Jonathan’s reply:

  Okay, I’m watching and recording. Good luck.

  I sent him a smiley face and left my room, dreading what was going to happen next.

  I took the stairs as slowly as possible, wracking my brain for another way to do this… another way to save Mom from what she deserved. Because, how did we know she even deserved to be turned in? Maybe there was a good reason for what she’d done… but, that was yet another reason why this conversation was necessary- to get to the truth.

  I paused at the foot of the stairs, listening to the jazz music and drinking in the scent of cinnamon sweet oatmeal.

  I have to do this.

  Pushing my doubts aside, I left the stairs and walked into the kitchen.

  I opened my mouth to speak when Mom turned around and waved me towards her, “Come here, Amanda. You’ve got me worried.”

  I walked towards her and she watched me carefully before placing her wrist on my forehead.

  She frowned. “You don’t feel warm.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “I just want to talk to you about something.”

  She gave me a long look, her sharp eyes going into ‘assessment mode.’ She nodded and without a word, marched to her phone, turning the music off.

  She crossed her arms, inadvertently mirroring my stance and looked at me expectantly.

  “I…I…I just…” My breath caught in my throat, which had suddenly gone bone dry. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I feel like I don’t…um.” I stopped and shook my head.

  This was too hard.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I didn’t want to do it.

  “Amanda,” my mom said, her tone sharp. “Did you stay with a boy last night? Is that what this is about? Was it that boy you like? Jonathan?”

  My face and neck flushed with heat. Jonathan was, no doubt, hearing every word of this.

  Wanting to keel over and die, I shook my head.

  “No, I was with my friend, Lindsey, just like I told you,” I quickly said. “I don’t lie to you, Mom.”

  Her expression softening, she uncrossed her arms and nodded before looking up at the ceiling and sighing. “Sorry. I was just so different from you when I was your age. Sometimes I forget how good you are.”

  I thought about everything Kimberly and I had done… torching Chicken’s, sneaking around, planting surveillance devices in a strange man’s house.

  “I’m not that good,” I quietly said.

  This got Mom’s attention and her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I…I,” Annoyed with myself and with Mom for making me do this to her, I blurted, “I don’t know who you are. You never talk to me. You’ve only just now started to spend time with me. And I still don’t know you. What do you do all day? Why are you hardly ever home? I mean, how many men are you with? And what about Van? Do you even really love him? Do you love me? I don’t understand you!”

  I didn’t even realize I was shouting, or crying, until I noticed that Mom’s eyes were wide and she was staring at me in shock, as if I’d all of a sudden pulled out a gun and shot her the way she shot Timothy Dawes.

  “Manda,” she said, her eyes filling. She shook her head and walked over to me. Hugging me tightly, she smoothed my hair and then released me. The hug had lasted a total of five seconds. A record for her.

  As she grabbed my shoulders and set her gaze on mine, I noticed that her eyes were already dry. She looked at me intently and said, “Of course I love you. You’re my whole world. You’re the reason I do what I do. And you have to trust me when I say it’s for your own good not to know any details about my job. You have a beautiful, innocent heart, and I’m going to do whatever I need to, to keep it that way. Okay?”

  You’re the reason I do what I do… the phrase reverberated in my head.

  I was the reason she went around murdering people?

  I wanted to hurl.

  But I didn’t, I just stood there with my icy heart turning me into a popsicled version of a zombie.

  “Okay?” Mom repeated, squeezing my shoulders. “Come on, Manda. Be strong. Stop crying, and be strong. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  She frowned, watching me closely. “Never doubt that I love you. Never.”

  I nodded again.

  “I do feel sick. Can I go to bed?” I asked.

  Her hands still on my shoulders, keeping me in place, she said, “Yeah.” She dropped her hands and slowly said, “You know what? If you want this oatmeal, you can have it. I’m going to run a quick errand.”

  My pulse quickened.

  Was she going to kill someone else?

  “W-where are you going?” I stammered.

  She grabbed her phone and shoved it into the pockets of her shorts. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Call me if you start to feel worse, okay?”

  “Okay,” I watched her grab her keys from the key rack hanging near the kitchen’s entrance. With this, she left the room and seconds later, I heard the back door close.

  She still hadn’t told me where she was going. And that only meant one thing- she was up to no good.

  I’d done the exact opposite of what I’d intended.

  Instead of getting her to confess, I’d pushed her to commit another criminal act.

  Cursing under my breath, I took off the necklace and ring, turning each of the devices off.

  I took the stairs up to my room, two at a time and dumped the jewelry into my overnight bag before texting Jonathan:

  Did you see all of that?

  His reply was nearly instant:

  Yeah, don’t blame yourself. We all make our own decisions and she, obviously, made hers.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I stared at his text for a moment, my mind blank with everything except for pain. Finally, I responded:

  I want to try again later. Maybe tomorrow. Okay?

  My phone buzzed with his reply:

  Good idea. I know you can do it. And let me know if you need anything, even just to talk.

  I sent him a thanks and a smiley face before setting my phone aside and trying to decide if I should force myself to eat the oatmeal. I liked Mom’s oatmeal but I’d been so sick with worry I hadn’t eaten anything since the ice cream cones last afternoon.

  Deciding that I should at least try to eat, I went back downstairs to the kitchen and as soon as I began ladling oatmeal into a small bowl, our doorbell rang.

  I had a feeling it was Jonathan, coming to check on me.

  And, well… sometimes my ‘feelings’ have been very wrong.

  This was one such occasion.
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  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Without bothering to check the peephole, I opened the door and frowned at Van.

  He wasn’t alone.

  A heavyset blonde woman stood beside him, and they were dressed in business casual clothes, like they’d just come from work.

  I tried to wrap my still-reeling mind around why my mother’s boyfriend would have brought one of his co-workers to our house for breakfast, and how on earth Mom could have completely forgotten to warn me that we were having company… and then Van pulled a badge out of the inside pocket of his suit jacket. It said Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  I blinked at the badge and then at Van’s face- his lips were moving.

  Frozen with fear, I tried to make myself tune in to what he was saying.

  “I know this may come as a shock, Libby, but I work for the FBI,” he said, speaking slowly. His eyes full of concern, he nodded towards the house. “Can my partner, Shelly, and I come in for a few minutes?”

  I could feel my mouth hanging open.

  So, I closed it.

  Van was a liar. Just like us. Was his name even Van? Should I let him into our house?

  A wave of questions engulfed my brain all at once, returning me to the jellied-panic state I’d been in earlier- so scared and unsure that I’d immediately grown numb.

  “Hey, are you all right, kid?” The woman he’d called Shelly asked. She frowned at me and then glanced at Van, or whatever his name was.

  He seemed distressed. “Listen, we just need to ask you a few questions,” he was still speaking slowly, as if I were a small child. “Let’s go sit in the den. Okay?”

  “So, you don’t love my mom?” I blurted.

  The imposter who called himself Van tensed, and momentarily glanced down before returning his gaze to mine. “Let us in, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  I took a careful step back and opened the door wider.

  With this, the man who my mother thought she loved and his FBI partner stepped into our house.

  ***

  Ten minutes later, we were seated at the breakfast nook in the kitchen and I had a warm bowl of oatmeal and a cool glass of orange juice in front of me. The man masquerading as Mom’s boyfriend had insisted that I eat something and he’d re-warmed the oatmeal and poured the glass of orange juice while his partner, Shelly, watched him with an arched eyebrow, seeming to disapprove.

  “Go on,” he said pointing to the oatmeal.

  I picked up the spoon and said, “So, your name isn’t Vander. And you’re not an investment broker.” With this, I took a bite of the oatmeal.

  I chewed and swallowed, unable to process what I was tasting. All I could see was this supposedly kind man’s face flush red as he briefly glanced down at the table before saying, “You’re half-right. My name is Vander, but I am not an investment broker. I’ve been with the Bureau, the FBI, for six years.”

  “And you’re not in love with my mother,” I added. I set my spoon down, letting it rest in the oatmeal. There was no way I could eat another bite.

  “Libby,” he hesitated. Speaking in a low voice, he said, “The FBI has been investigating your mother for the past two years. I know, for example, that your real name is Amanda. And I know that her real name is Caroline.”

  I gulped.

  “Please eat,” he softly said, pointing to the oatmeal.

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I whispered, closing my eyes and bringing a hand to my forehead, where a headache was beginning to develop.

  “Okay,” he sighed.

  “And we know, what your mother’s been doing to her ‘targets’ for the past four years,” Shelly interjected. I opened my eyes as she continued, “She’s been good about tying up loose ends and covering her tracks. Until now. Now, we have proof of what she’s done.”

  My heart began to pound.

  I looked from Shelly to Van. “What proof?”

  Both Shelly and Van’s phones buzzed.

  Van didn’t make a move for his, but Shelly checked hers.

  He regarded me cautiously, as if he was choosing his response with care. Finally, he said, “We know what you and your friends have been up to. And we didn’t stop you, because we knew it could give us what we needed to secure a warrant for your mother’s arrest.”

  My pulse sped.

  My friends… he knew that Kimberly, Jonathan, Lindsey and Jen were involved. Were they in trouble too? And how did the FBI know that the Farrah Duncan case had any connection to my mother? And how did Farrah’s murder link to my mother? Even I hadn’t figured that part out yet.

  “My friends are innocent,” I said, hoping I sounded calmer than I felt. “They weren’t doing anything wrong, they-”

  Shelly interrupted me as she turned to Van and said, “Caroline’s en route, eta ten minutes. We need to move.”

  “My mom?” I looked from Shelly to Van. “My mom’s coming back? Are you going to arrest her now? Wait, how do you know she’s on her way? Are you tracking her?”

  “Amanda,” Van said, looking me in the eye. “We can’t tell you everything, but we can tell you that you’re not in trouble and neither are your friends. Your mom’s a different story. She’s done some very bad things. And right now, we need to protect the people who she might hurt.”

  “Hurt?” I shook my head. “But she… she wouldn’t…” my voice trailed off as my thoughts were filled with the image of Mom shooting Timothy Dawes.

  “Did you know that your mother placed a tracking device on your phone and bugged your friend, Kimberly’s, vehicle?” Shelly asked.

  “What?” I asked, looking from Shelly to Van. “A tracking… wait, what?”

  “Your mother does whatever she can to control the people around her,” Shelly spoke quickly and looked at me through cold, narrowed eyes. “Including you. She wanted to know where you were at all times and she wanted to learn more about who you were spending time with, so instead of simply asking you, she planted bugs in your best friend’s vehicle and fit your phone with a tracking device.”

  My thoughts raced and stopped at Mom’s claim that my principal had called and told her I wasn’t at school last week.

  “So, when she said my principal called…” before I could finish my sentence, Shelly cut in.

  “She lied. It’s what she does. She lies to everyone, including you.” Shelly crossed her arms and seemed rather smug as she gauged my reaction. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure what I felt or how I looked. I was simply trying to breathe and not pass out.

  “Does that mean my mom knows me and my friends went to that guy’s house and bugged his-”

  “No,” Van shook his head as he cut me off. “We intercepted that information and removed it from the bug she’d planted in Kimberly’s vehicle and from the tracking device on your phone. If we’d let her see that, it could have ignited an already volatile situation.”

  “And now,” Shelly said, “we need to step in again. We need stop Caroline from hurting anyone else.”

  “But to do that,” Van said. “We need your help. We need you to come with us, so we can explain more about the current situation and let you fill in a few missing details. This is what’s going to help us save the people Caroline intends to hurt.”

  I stared at Van, my brain fogging over as the footage of mom shooting Timothy Dawes returned to my thoughts, like a video on a loop.

  The man was a monster, but she shouldn’t have shot him. She should have brought him to the authorities.

  How many other lives had my mother taken?

  And how many more was she intending to take?

  “We don’t have time for this,” Shelly mumbled.

  “Relax,” Van said, without looking at her. Addressing me, he said, “Like I said, you’re not in trouble. And neither are your friends. But we’re rounding up your friends for questioning right now. And we need you to come with us too. You’ll all be together.”

  I took this information in.

  I’d be with them. I’d b
e safe.

  “And then what?” I asked, my voice still coming out as a whisper.

  “And then we’ll explain what’s going on and we’ll come up with a plan to protect the people who your mother wants to hurt,” Van said, speaking gently. “We’ll only keep you for about two or three hours and then you’ll go back home.”

  “If you comply,” Shelly said, shooting Van a look. “That’s what’s going to happen. But if you don’t, things will be a lot different. And trust me, you don’t want to go that route.”

  Van dismissed Shelly’s remark with a waving gesture. “Don’t even think about that, let’s just do the right thing here, Amanda. I know you, and you always do the right thing. Even when it’s difficult.”

  I looked down at my oatmeal.

  What had once looked appealing now made me want to vomit.

  Actually, the entire situation made me want to vomit.

  “Okay. I’ll go,” I quietly said, staring at the oatmeal and wondering if I was making the right choice.

  ***

  Shelly had me text my mom and tell her Lindsey stopped by, asking me to hang out. I knew Mom would be okay with this, she rarely said no when I told her I was going somewhere.

  I sat in the backseat of their cream-colored SUV.

  I was too nervous to ask them questions on the way to wherever we were going, but Van tried to make friendly conversation, which was extremely awkward considering the circumstances.

  I found out that he really did like to cook and that one day he hoped to open a soul food restaurant in Colorado, which was where he was born. Shelly kept giving him warning glances, as if he were over-sharing. He mostly ignored her, and went on to tell me cute stories about a new puppy he’d just bought.

  We drove to downtown Sunnyville, and parked in the lot of a small investment office that sat between a dry cleaner’s and a nail salon.

  I frowned at the ‘Culver’s Investments’ sign on the front of the building, silently wondering why we were there.

  Shelly and Van got out, but when I tried to open my door it wouldn’t budge. Shelly let me out, and I didn’t bother to thank her, because, frankly, she was just kind of a human-turd.

  We entered Culver’s Investments and the blast of AC immediately hit me. I glanced around at the surprisingly modern office.