by S. Massery
“What is this?” Riley asks, just behind me.
I can’t breathe.
The board is filled with them. So many car accidents, dating back at least four years, all over Hillshire County.
“Margo,” Riley snaps. She grabs my shoulder, pulling me around. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
Because my stomach is a roiling mess.
“I didn’t know they were—”
The front door slams, and both of us duck.
“Shit,” Riley whispers. She runs to the door and closes it most of the way.
“I’m home!” a familiar voice yells. “Matt gave me a ride since you were sick.”
Hanna.
“We’re standing in Claire’s room,” I say in a low voice.
Riley slowly pivots back to me. “Excuse me?”
“I didn’t know this was where they—”
Footsteps on the stairs interrupt me.
“Claire?” Hanna calls.
Sweet, beautiful Hanna.
I only pray her sister left her out of this mess.
“Closet,” Riley whispers, hauling me across the room.
We slip into it, and I take a moment to be thankful for the size. She closes the closet with the tiniest snick. We both back away. I spin around. The closet is deep and narrow, with Claire’s clothes on both long sides. In the back is a few rows of shelves, sparse except for the boxes at the top.
Claire’s bedroom door flies open. “Claire, I asked—”
My heart cracks. Wherever Claire is, Hanna expected her to be here. And now the twelve-year-old is alone in the big, creepy house, as she called it. I take a step toward the door, ready to reveal myself.
Riley grabs me from behind, covering my mouth with her hand.
“Please, be quiet,” she whispers in my ear.
My lungs stop working.
I’m so sorry.
I thrash my head, clawing at her arm.
She holds on tightly. “Stop, stop.”
“Claire,” Hanna sings, her voice farther away. “Are you downstairs?”
Riley releases me, and I fall out of the closet.
I land on my hands and knees, gasping for air.
She crouches beside me. “Margo, I’m sorry. I didn’t think that would… I’m an idiot. We have to be quiet. Claire lives here—does that mean she’s involved?”
It takes a minute for me to regain my breath, but then I grab Riley’s offered hand and stand. “She’s obsessed with car accidents.”
Riley nods slowly.
I go to her desk, yanking out the chair and taking a seat. Her computer is bound to be password protected—but at least it’s more proof that she has a laptop. Portable computer.
“It can’t be her,” I mumble.
I open the drawers and riffle through loose paper. At the bottom of the last drawer, there’s a wooden box.
I pause. Whatever is in this box was worth her hiding it—or it’s nothing.
If I don’t open it, the contents can’t hurt me. Claire remains innocent.
“What?” Riley takes the box from my hands and flips it open. Inside is a folded picture of me and Caleb. She pulls it out and flattens it.
I gasp. I can’t help it.
She’s…
“That bitch scratched your face off.” Riley’s tone is appalled.
I shudder.
“We need to get out of here.” She looks over her shoulder. “And fast.”
“We still need the yearbook. What if Masters is in on it?”
“Can’t we just trust the police for once?” Riley retorts.
I shake my head, then snap a picture of the photo with my phone.
She puts the picture back in the box, dropping it in the drawer. “Come on.”
I start to follow her, then freeze. “Riley! The boxes.”
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
I slip back into the closet, standing on my toes to reach the boxes on the top shelf. Riley is suddenly beside me, taking the one I hand her so I can grab the second.
We bring it out and set them on the carpet, ripping the lids off.
Sure enough…
A box of jewelry with the initials L.A. engraved in the velvet, a few different baubles, a…
“Is that a mermaid?”
I pick up the glass figure. It looks remarkably similar to the one Caleb found in my room. There’s another one made of porcelain, and a third…
“She collected them,” I say slowly. “And Claire must’ve just needed something to use.”
Riley grunts. “I always had a bad feeling about that girl. But this seems bigger than just her.”
I nod my agreement, and we focus on the second box.
Against one of the sides is a black-and-gold hardcover book.
The yearbook.
I choke on my laugh. “Holy shit, we found it.”
“Great,” Riley says. “Now we need to get out of here before we’re discovered by a twelve-year-old.”
“Right.”
She puts the lid back on, but a notebook catches my eye. I stop her, removing it. I quickly take pictures of the box and then nod. We tuck everything into place, take a look around the room, and creep into the hallway.
The notebook and yearbook are under my arm. We make it almost all the way down the stairs before Riley hits a creaking step.
“Shit,” she whispers. “Go, go.”
We bolt.
Out the door—I close it as quietly as possible behind me—and off the porch. We cut across the grass, sprinting to her car.
“Fuck, fuck,” she yells.
“Riley, go,” I snap.
I dial Caleb’s number.
Straight to voicemail.
I call again, just to be sure.
“Wait, wait,” I say, just as we get to the end of the road.
She pulls over, turning toward me. “He’s probably still running.”
“Yeah.” Still, that bad feeling I had? It only gets worse.
Maybe I’m panicking over nothing.
I call Theo.
“Wolfe,” Theo answers on the first ring. “You okay?”
“I… me? I’m fine.” I shake my head. “I was looking for Caleb.”
“Um… Like, you’re fine, as in, they’re releasing you from the hospital?”
I jerk back. I put the call on speaker, because maybe Riley will be able to make sense of what he’s saying. “Theo, I’m not at the hospital.”
“Oh. Girl must’ve been overreacting. She was crying like you were on the verge of death.”
In as calm a voice as I can manage, I say, “Theo. Where is Caleb?”
“We were on the run, and Claire came by. Said you had been in an accident—I’m glad you’re okay, by the way. She was taking Caleb to the hospital.”
I close my eyes. “I wasn’t in an accident.”
He’s quiet.
“Riley and I went to Caleb’s uncle’s house searching for something. And…” Just spit it out, Margo. “Claire is the one who’s been harassing me.”
“Fuck.” Something crashes in the background. “You’re telling me I let him get in the car with a psycho bitch?”
“I’m sure he made the choice himself,” Riley mutters. “Bullheaded boys.”
“I heard that, Applebottom,” Theo snaps.
“Okay, enough.” I glare at the phone. “We’ll find them.”
“Keep me posted,” he says.
The line goes dead. The fear working its way up my throat is going to bubble over at any moment.
“We can find him,” she says. “You know your foster sister—”
“Clearly not.” I drop my head into my hands. “How long has she had him? Twenty minutes? An hour? Is she going to hurt him? Kill him?”
Riley pinches my arm, hard enough that I flinch away from her.
“Stop it.” She pats the same place she pinched, a silent apology. “We just need to think.”
“I may not know her as well as
I should,” I say slowly. “But…”
“Hanna,” Riley and I say at the same time.
She makes a U-turn and pulls into the driveway. “You want me to come in?”
I frown. “No. I’ll talk to her.”
I go back into the house that has started to feel much more terrible than I originally thought. It holds too many secrets and too many grudges.
I follow the sounds of the television to the living room set toward the back of the house. It’s one of the more lived-in rooms. I stop in the doorway.
Hanna is on the couch, a blanket across her lap, and a bowl of ice cream hugged to her chest.
It makes me smile.
“This is what you do when you’re home alone?” I ask.
She jumps. “Oh my god, Margo!”
She puts down the bowl and races toward me, colliding into me.
I wrap my arms around her and push down the panic. The need to immediately question her. Hanna is a sensitive soul. The first to cry when someone yells or start at a loud noise. The foster system hasn’t been kind to her—but she’s still good.
I try to hold on to that.
“Hanna, I need to ask you an important question.”
She releases me, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Do you know where Claire is?”
A frown flits across her expression, there one minute and gone the next. “Did you just come to see her?”
I take a deep breath. “No, hon. I’m sorry.” I guide her to the couch and sit next to her. “But I think she knows where my friend is.”
Hanna perks up. “Caleb? He’s all she ever talks about. She said she was going to date him when you were gone.”
I exhale. “When I’m gone?”
She shrugs, leaning over to grab her ice cream. “I dunno. She seemed pretty convinced that he was going to fall in love with her.”
Bitch.
I shove away my anger and fear, and instead put my hands on her shoulders. “Can you do me a favor, Han?”
She looks at me with wide eyes.
“I just need to know if there’s somewhere special Claire might’ve gone after school.”
“Well…” Hanna glances around. “She does like to go visit her boyfriend.”
I pause. “She has a boyfriend?”
“Matt! We had to play a silly game and act like strangers at the football game. Isn’t that weird? They said it was like role playing.”
I blink a few times as more pieces of the puzzle click into place.
Of course. Who else would lie—or was it even a lie? She said she was with him, and for all I know… she could’ve been behind my abduction.
“She has a boyfriend but she thinks Caleb is going to fall in love with her?” I make my tone light. “That’s kind of greedy.”
She giggles.
“Come on, Hanna. She wouldn’t take Caleb to Matt’s house, right?”
Hanna’s smile drops off. “She took Caleb?”
“I don’t know.” I shake her shoulders lightly. “Think. Where would they go?”
“I don’t—stop!” She bursts into tears.
Shocked, I release her.
Oh god.
I’m no better than my mother, shaking a child.
I jump to my feet, ready to bolt.
“T-the diner,” she says through her tears. “She’s always talking about hanging out with her future mom.”
Lydia.
The diner.
My mother.
I take a step forward—to hug her, to thank her—but she flinches away from me. It stops me dead in my tracks.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “But Caleb…”
“Yeah.” She swipes at her face. “You and her are the same. Only focused on him.”
Only focused on him. How did I miss that about her?
I run out of the house, down the steps, and straight into Riley’s car. “You remember how to get to Lucky’s Diner?”
34
Caleb
Time is a tricky thing. Sometimes it moves slowly, like when I realized Margo had overheard my conversation with the Jenkinses, or walking into my parents’ room and finding Dad covered in blood. It inched along every second Margo was missing.
Other times, it moves too quickly: racing like the clock can’t withhold it anymore.
Time.
The only thing that could possibly save me is working against me.
I count down the seconds, eyes glued to the dash, and too soon, handfuls of minutes have passed.
Claire asked if I remembered her, and I didn’t have an answer. But the truth?
Yes. I did, and I wished I didn’t.
Past
Margo had just left for school. It had been a while since I was here. I had been trying for almost a year to scrub her from my brain. Since living with the Blacks, my mindset changed the slightest bit.
She wasn’t the boogieman I had to fear, like my uncle always pushed on me.
She was just a disease to be eradicated.
I watched her disappear down the sidewalk, into the mist. There was a bus stop around the corner. At the beginning of the year, I checked the Stone Ridge paper to see where she might take it. What time. I wondered at the commute length, if students on the bus would pick on her or leave her alone.
I climbed out of my car and crossed the street.
The door flew open before I could ring the bell, and a young girl stared up at me. Her mouth dropped open.
Another girl appeared. She was closer to Margo’s age.
I silently cursed myself for not waiting just another moment.
“Caleb,” the older girl blurted out. “Right?”
My lip curled. How did she know my name?
Their foster mother appeared behind them. “Girls? What—oh, hello. Can I help you with something?”
“I just wanted to speak to you,” I said.
Foster siblings.
Interesting.
How attached did she get to them?
Cindy, the foster mom, huffed at me. She was in a certain state of distress: her hair still had curlers in it, her makeup seemed mostly finished, but she still wore pajama pants.
“Come in, then,” she said.
She called to her husband, and suddenly the three of us were in the kitchen.
I looked down at the table we had gathered around. There were dirty bowls—only two of them, one was by the sink—and a half-drunk glass of milk. The husband was a bit frazzled, too, with his hair sticking up straight and his tie loose.
“I must commend you both on taking on such a problem foster,” I said to them.
“Problem foster?” Cindy asked. She turned to her husband, raising her eyebrows. “Claire?”
My eyebrow ticked up.
“You don’t mean Margo,” the husband, Jeff, said. “She’s been a saint.”
“She’s a good actress,” I lied.
I pretended to this family that I knew her. That I could see right into her soul and know the truth.
The foster parents were worried. I saw it in the lines creasing between their brows, and the way they glanced at each other.
“She gets jealous easily,” I said.
Cindy’s hand was resting on her stomach, and I went with my hunch.
“She can dissolve into fits of rage. I saw it happen a time or two. I can’t imagine what she would do if there was a baby in the house stealing all the attention.”
Jeff shook his head. “How do you know that?”
“We used to be friends.” I shook my head. “But she caused my father’s death and broke apart her whole family. She’s destructive. Dangerous. Even if…” My lips twisted. “Even if she acts like a saint.”
“Two years,” Cindy said faintly. “Two years we’ve had these children, and Margo…”
I watched her. It only took an ounce of doubt to infect her viewpoint. She was already classed as a runaway—what next?
“Thank you for letting us know,” Jeff said. “But wh
y now?”
I glanced away. Part of the act. Shame, guilt. “I lost track of her, and honestly? I thought she might get better. But then I saw her the other day, and she was acting just the same as she used to.”
I never saw her. Today was first time I even glimpsed her in a year, and it was the back of her head.
It wasn’t enough.
But soon, she’d be back. Time was running out, and a certain foster home had opened up in Rose Hill.
Did I have a hand in it? No.
Did my uncle? Well, he never denied it.
It was my time to leave. Cindy and Jeff didn’t strike me as particularly trusting people, and they were starting to eye me. It may not be an immediate decision to make Margo move on, but as I said—an ounce of doubt was all they needed.
Just out the door, and Margo’s foster sister—the older one—was waiting for me.
“You are Caleb, aren’t you?” she asked.
I raised my eyebrow.
She grinned at me, eyes wide. “You’re more handsome than she said.”
“She shouldn’t be talking about me.” I let my gaze run up and down her body. “And you shouldn’t be talking to me.”
“I’ve never been one to follow the rules.” She winked. “Nice meeting you, Caleb. I’ll see you around.”
35
Margo
The diner is forever away. While Riley drives, I flip through the yearbook. There’s nothing connecting Masters to the Ashers. In fact, it would appear that he ran in an entirely different circle. Until I get to the last page, which appears to have student-submitted photographs.
“Holy shit,” I whisper.
It’s Jim Masters, and his arm is hooked around my dad’s neck. They’re surrounded by other students in some sort of academic competition. There’re wearing the school uniform from back then, and one of the girls in front holds a trophy.
“What?” Riley asks.
“He knew my dad.”
“This is all sorts of messed up,” she mutters. “I looked in the journal while you were inside. The most recent entry was from a few days ago, and it’s seriously twisted.”
I close the yearbook and reach for the notebook, skimming through until I get to the last page with writing on it.
Why is she so obsessed with him? She hasn’t done anything to deserve his attention. She doesn’t deserve him.
