Broken (21 page)

Tony yanks the phone from me before I can drop it, but I can still hear everything. “Nessa. This isn’t a good time.”

“What are you doing there? Never mind. Put Scarlet back on. I want to hear what she has to say.”

“No. Really, whatever is going on, it will have to wait.”

“It can’t wait. That bitch ruined Celina’s life. Her parents are with the cops and Child Services right now and they’re taking Cari away and—”

Her words finally penetrate the ice block that’s encased my senses. I’ve never felt so cold in my life and can’t feel my fingers when I reach for the phone. Tony hesitates then hands it to me. I put it on speaker. “Nessa, slow down. What happened?”

I can’t believe how calm I sound. It’s as if my voice has been frozen along with the rest of my body.

“Your mother. Called Child Services. She and Thorne yanked Celina out of world cultures. But now Celina’s gone, and it’s all your fault.” Her words are clipped and rapid-fire.

I understand what she’s saying, but I can’t put two words together to answer. One phone call, one broken promise, and my mother just destroyed a family. All I can think about is Mrs. Price, lying in pain, unable to see either of her daughters before she dies.

Monster.

The word ricochets through my brain.

“What do you mean Celina’s gone?” Tony asks.

“She saw what was coming and took off. She’s not answering her phone. I don’t know where she is. I ran to her folks’ house, but she’s not there. It’s a mess. I’m afraid of what she’ll do.”

“Do you think she’ll go after Mrs. Killian?” Tony says.

“I don’t know. Jordan’s out looking for her. He’s a wreck. I’ve never seen him like this. I think he’s afraid she’ll do something—like Vonnie did—something crazy. And I—I just don’t know what to do.” Her desperation crackles through the air.

I take the phone from Tony. “Nessa. It’s okay.” I’m lying. Just like my mom always lied to me when things went horribly wrong in the hospital. “Everything will be okay. Are you back at school?”

“Yeah. Everyone’s still here because of the game tonight.”

“Stay there. Keep looking. We’ll figure something out and call you back.” I hang up before she can realize how empty my words were.

Tony’s way ahead of me. “Where’s your mom?”

“I don’t know. At school, I guess.” I glance at the clock. School’s been out for almost fifteen minutes. “Maybe on her way home. She and my dad were going out tonight, I think.”

He nods to the phone in my hand. “Call her.”

I almost drop it. “I can’t. I can’t talk to her.”

“We need to know where she is. If she’s anywhere Celina can find her, it’s our best bet to find Celina.”

“Do you really think? Celina would never—”

“Just make the call.”

I start to but can’t. So I do the next best thing. I call my dad.

“Hey, pumpkin.” He sounds happier than he has in a long while.

Guilt twists through me like a red-hot poker. What I know—what I believe—will destroy his world.

“I was just about to call you,” he continues, oblivious as always.

Anger tangles with the guilt. Why didn’t Dad know? Why didn’t he do something? Stop her?

Why did he bring her into our home to start with? He should have seen, should have protected us.

My throat chokes tight. Thankfully he does all the talking.

“Your mom has to stay at school for the game tonight. They need her on the sidelines or something. Anyway, some guys here at the office were going to take me out, celebrate my promotion. Your mom thought you’d be okay on your own. Said you’d probably only want Ensure for dinner anyway—what do you think?”

What do I think? He really, really, really does
not
want the answer to that question.

But then, that’s Dad. He doesn’t really want the answer to any question. Really doesn’t want anything in his carefully balanced existence questioned at all.

“I’ll be fine,” I grit out, my jaw feeling bruised, I’m clenching it that tight.

“Okay, great. I’ll see you later. Love ya.” He hangs up.

I stand there, staring at the phone. The slideshow plays across the display. Celina and Cari smiling at me. The pictures of the football players during the fight. Then the pictures from last night of my mom.

“What’s she doing?” Tony asks, watching over my shoulder.

“Sleepwalking.” I replay the pictures. “At least, that’s what I thought.”

“What’s that bottle? It looks like pills.”

“My vitamins. She buys them in stock bottles because I go through them so fast.”

“Show me.”

I stare at him. “What do my vitamins have to do with anything?”

“Are they prescribed by your doctors?”

“No. They’re just vitamins.”

“Do you ever feel sick after taking them?”

I turn away, heading out to the kitchen so he can’t see my face. My entire body feels like it’s strung together with barbwire, pulled tight, sharp jabs everywhere as I realize how painful the truth can be.

“They’re up there.” I point a shaky finger toward the cabinet over the stove.

Tony’s tall enough that he doesn’t need to stand on tiptoe to reach. He rummages in the cabinet and brings out a bottle of vitamins and a spice container labeled sea salt.

“What’s that doing up there? We don’t keep the spices there. Mom says the steam from the stove ruins them.”

He hands me the spice jar as he opens the vitamins. It’s a new bottle, still sealed, and I breathe a sigh of relief. How warped is this? Actually thinking my mom was poisoning me and being relieved to see it’s not true.

Maybe all she did was lie to the doctors. That’s bad. I can’t even begin to process the anger and betrayal I feel because of all the pain those lies cost me.

But she’s not a killer.

I hang on to that fact with both hands as Tony breaks the seal and spills a handful of vitamins into his palm, examining them.

“I guess I was wrong.” He hands me the pills. “Sorry.”

I’m staring at the pills. Right color. Right size. Wrong markings.

“Tony.” My voice is small and far away, a mouse scurrying to hide from danger. “These aren’t the pills she’s been giving me.”

He spins so fast he knocks over the bottle, spraying vitamins in every direction. They ping across the countertop, ricochet against the backsplash, nosedive into the sink beside us.

Tony doesn’t even notice. He grabs my arm. Gently, like he has to hold me up.

Maybe he does. Suddenly, I’m not quite sure which way really is up.

“Scarlet. We need to find out what she’s been giving you.”

His words hit my brain like it’s a trampoline and bounce off again and again and again…until I finally get it.

Really
get it.

“I have some. In my pocket. From this morning.” It’s a struggle to translate thoughts into words—there are just too many swirling in my head. Instead I run to my room and rummage for my bathrobe. I think I remember hiding the pills in there…yes, there they are.

“I’ll check on the computer.” Tony and I head back to the dining room. My head is spinning. Not just with implications and realizations and accusations, but with feelings.

For the first time in years, I realize that what I thought I was feeling, what I thought were emotions, were really just the tiniest pinpricks compared to the real thing.

Maybe being numb wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

I pace behind Tony as his fingers fly across the keyboard. I want my beach; I want my hiding place; I want my bubble.

I want to run away from my life.

“Got it!” He sounds excited. Then he makes a noise deep in his throat. A rumble that would make a pit bull back off.

I lean over him, read over his shoulder. “Exzyte? Bang her longer, harder, faster than ever before…it’s an ED pill!”

“Herbal supplement for erectile dysfunction. Which means it’s not regulated. But look at the side effects listed by this medical journal.” He scrolls down. There’s a bullet list.

•
Abdominal pain

•
Nausea and vomiting

•
Metallic taste

•
Dry mouth

•
Myalgia

•
Headache

•
Flushing

•
Dizziness

•
Insomnia

“I have all of those. But you can get those same symptoms from vitamins,” I’m compelled to add. “And none of them are life-threatening.”

“It gets worse.” He clicks on a case report. “A man taking Exzyte herbal preparation presented to an emergency room with Long QT syndrome. Doctors said it couldn’t be distinguished from the real disease. And it’s just as deadly.”

I’m clinging to the back of his chair, fighting to stay on my feet. “Is it—is it permanent? The heart damage?”

My own heart zigzags into a flutter rhythm as I wait for his answer.

He keeps reading. My vision is too blurry to read the screen. Maybe if I can’t see it, it can’t be real.

“No.” He blows out his breath, the tension releasing from his posture. “As soon as the drug is out of the system in a day or so, the symptoms resolve themselves.”

“Tony, I haven’t taken any vitamins since Wednesday.”

“Good. That’s great.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, it’s not. Because I feel worse today than ever.”

Tony turns to me, puts his palm on my cheeks and forehead as if testing for fever. “Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”

“And tell them what? That we think maybe my mom poisoned me and that some of the best specialists in the country are wrong and I’m really not sick at all and here’s the proof…except we don’t actually have any proof, do we?”

“We have the pills.”

“That doesn’t prove anything. They’ll say it was a mix-up. A mistake.”

“But we can’t risk it. What if you get worse? You could—”

I put my hand up. I can’t handle him saying the words out loud.

“Tell me more about this Munchausen thing. Seems like they wouldn’t want to kill the kid because that takes away their little drama, right?”

Suddenly I’m lumping my mother—Mom—in with an anonymous group of crazy ladies. I feel like I’ve wandered into some surreal movie, like
Suspicion
or
Spellbound
where Hitchcock plays with the audience’s minds, convincing them of one thing when the reality is very different.

My life as a movie. I can handle that, observing it from a distance, so much easier than actually living it.

“Some of the moms actually enjoy the attention they get when the kids die. There was one lady in Philly who killed ten of her kids.”

“Ten?” Holy hell, this is warped. I still can’t believe we’re talking about this. Maybe I really am on a beach somewhere and this is all a hallucination. Then it hits me. “But she still had other kids. So it could start all over again.”

He catches my gaze and holds it gently, slowly nodding. “Your brother. That’s why she let your brother die.”

I can’t answer. I’m floating, far away from Tony, from my body, from my life. I’ve almost convinced myself that this isn’t real, it’s just another nightmare, when my heart starts to flutter kick. The pain of it beating out of control is nothing compared to the pain of the truth pulling me back to earth.

I sway and Tony settles me gently onto a chair. He squeezes my hands in his. “But you don’t have any other brothers or sisters, so she’s not really trying to kill you. She needs you. She just needs you to be sick. Right? So you’ll be okay.”

I shake my head. My breath is coming fast and shallow and I feel light-headed, like someone’s sucked all the oxygen out of the room. I’m not sure if what I’m feeling is fear and anger and betrayal and disbelief or if it’s really my heart galloping into a Near Miss. I close my eyes and press my knuckles into them, focus on my breathing. That’s real. I can trust that. Slowly my heart steadies.

“My dad came home early today. To celebrate.” I swallow. Twice. My throat burns with acid and fear. “They’re adopting a baby.”

He stands there, still holding my hands. The entire house holds its breath. Like we’re not part of the real world outside where birds are singing and kids are playing and real moms are cooking dinner for real dads coming home to real families.

Not my family. My family doesn’t exist. It’s all a lie.

Tony drops my hand and spins away, grabbing my cell phone again. He looks at the pictures of Mom from last night. “She took the pills with her this morning. Must be planning to grind them up with the mallet. Maybe she’s done it before.” He heads into the kitchen. “What has she been feeding you?”

I follow him, still a little woozy. Remember the spice jar and grab it. It’s labeled “sea salt” but it doesn’t look like salt. No crystals, just beige powder. “The tofu. It tasted funny. And so did the oatmeal this morning.”

He has the fridge open. “There’s no tofu left. What else?”

“Orange juice. She made it.”

He grabs the pitcher and sets it on the counter. “Anything else?”

I think back to when I was thirteen. The Year of Nothing Good. How I lived on Ensure and vitaminwater. Until I almost died.

But Mom was there to save me.

“Ensure. But that’s sealed in cans.”

He takes the package of Ensure out. We buy it in bulk—it’s not even real Ensure, it’s a generic version. It comes in cans with a small foil seal over the drinking hole.

Tony sets them on the kitchen table and examines a can from every angle.

“Nothing.” He frowns and grabs a can, shaking it hard and turning it upside down, rolling it between his palms.

A single white drop falls onto the table. Bounces, quivers, then dies.

“The seal has been broken,” he says. “She probably used a small needle and syringe. Too small to see. But—” He gives the can another hard shake and a second drop flies free.

“Maybe she just wanted to make me sick enough that the doctors wouldn’t argue about the heart surgery on Monday.” It sounds lame even to me.

“Or maybe she wanted you to die before the surgery. Think of the attention. Such a tragic story. If the doctors had only listened to her, done the surgery sooner—”

“Stop it!” My scream echoes through the empty house.

Tony straightens. Jerks himself as if only now realizing this is
my
life, not a science experiment. He sets the can down carefully and approaches me. He wants to hug me. I back away. Right now, I don’t want him touching me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

My phone rings. I edge past him and go into the dining room to catch it on the third ring.

“Did you find Celina?” Nessa asks, shouting to be heard over the noise of a crowd. “Tell me you found her.”

Shit. I’ve totally forgotten about Celina. “No. Not yet. But my mom’s at the football game. That might be a good place to start.”

“I’m
at
the game. I can’t find anyone!”

“Don’t worry. We’re on our way. We’ll meet you at—” I flounder. I’ve never been to a football game before. The stadium is just on the other side of the gym though. “We’ll meet where the fight was. Outside the gym. Okay?”

“Okay. But hurry.”