Death and the Girl Next Door (12 page)

He leaned back in his chair with a sigh, his dark skin a shadow against the light fabric. After a long moment, he finally said, “He calls it the reaper.”

Brooklyn perked up, but Glitch seemed a thousand miles away. I handed her back the soda then braced my elbows on my knees as Mr. Lusk spoke.

“Says it’s enshrouded in darkness,” he continued, staring into the fire in thought, “and that it comes to take people before their time. For some reason he can see it, could always see it, among other things. His mother said he had a special gift. She believed him even when he was two, when we were at a restaurant in Albuquerque and he told her there was a dead woman sitting in the booth next to us.”

My breath caught with the image, but I forced myself not to react, not to show Mr. Lusk how much the mere thought of that statement disturbed me. “You didn’t believe him?” I asked softly, changing the subject, so to speak.

“Not at the time.” He seemed to regret that. “But his mother knew. She tried to tell me. It was all just so hard to swallow.”

“He’s really strong,” Glitch said, his expression venomous. “Is that part of his gift?”

If Mr. Lusk picked up on Glitch’s disrespect, he didn’t show it. “I suppose.” He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “Don’t really know for sure. Kid’s darned near indestructible. Always has been. His mom told him it was our little secret. She thought if people found out, they would begin to ask questions, maybe even take him away from us.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be right now?” Brooklyn asked.

He shook his head. “Not even a smidgen of one.”

*   *   *

“What about you?” Glitch raised his brows at me, as though everything was normal, as though he hadn’t seethed all the way home after visiting Cameron’s dad the night before.

I dropped my books on my desk, deciding to drop the line of questioning I’d planned as well. We had enough going on without adding fuel to Glitch’s fire. Even though our lives were in utter turmoil, school started at eight in the
A.M.
, sharp as a thumb tack, unwilling to cease its relentless weekday schedule despite our extenuating circumstances.

To top it off, I’d had one of my recurring dreams, the disturbing one where I swallowed something dark and it ripped me in two, trying to escape. I woke up panting and sweating as I always did when I had that dream. Then I tossed and turned the rest of the night, wondering where Jared was, if he was okay.

So, with only three hours’ sleep under my belt, I turned to him in frustration. “Not only am I sleep-deprived and cranky, I’ve also been grounded for life.”

“Me too,” Brooklyn said as she walked into first hour. “My mom was totally pissed. She acted like I committed armed robbery or something.”

“How do you do it?” I asked Glitch, a master at ditching and other nonproductive ventures. “How do you skip school and get away with it?”

With the spotlight on him, Glitch brightened. He took a moment to slick back his hair and polish his nails on his Riley High jacket, then leaned in as if to impart some ancient guarded secret. “Skill, ladies,” he said under his breath. “Pure, unmitigated skill.”

Brooklyn squinted at him. “You were so busted, weren’t you?”

“Yep,” he confessed. “Grounded for two days past forever.”

I whistled, impressed. “That’s longer than life.”

“Bummer, huh?” he said. “I gotta get to class. See you at lunch.”

After he left, I asked Brooklyn, “Think we’ll get detention?”

An older feminine voice behind me answered. “I wouldn’t make any immediate plans.”

I turned to Ms. Mullins, my science teacher, as she handed me an official-looking slip of paper. I opened it with dread. “The principal wants to see me?”

“It would seem so,” she said, peering at me from over her glasses. “Hurry down there.”

“Man,” I whined as I left the room, “my grandma is going to kill me.”

*   *   *

So this was the hot seat.

I eyed the stuffed bear perched atop Principal Davis’s computer as I sat waiting in his office. Appropriate. Everyone called him the Bear, a fact that did nothing to ease my discomfort. My nerves were becoming more frazzled the longer I sat there, staring at that bear, questioning my inane decision to take the previous day off to investigate Houdini. Jared had disappeared. Vanished. And Cameron seemed to have joined him.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance for the fiftieth time at having to be in the principal’s office. As if last night wasn’t bad enough.

Apparently, the school’s automated system called the house when I missed class without an excuse. By the time I got home, which was past my curfew, my grandparents already knew I’d skipped and I was promptly and thoroughly grounded for the rest of my natural-born life.

But Grandpa had faith in me. He couldn’t believe his pixie stick would skip for no reason. Surely I had a good explanation.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with one on such short notice. I hadn’t expected them to find out so soon, and I couldn’t tell them the truth. They would have called their psychologist friend from Los Lunas in a heartbeat. So I lied. I told them I skipped because I forgot to study for a test.

“Okay,” Grandpa said, turning against me in a disappointing instant, “ground her for life. But for heaven’s sake, Vera, don’t take the girl’s phone. I don’t think she’d live through it.”

I laughed at the thought. Grandpa, all bark and no bite. But I had to watch out for Grandma. That woman could put the shrew in shrewd when she wanted to. Thank goodness she didn’t want to very often.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and flipped it open, then squinted as I tried to decipher the text from Brooklyn through my broken screen.

“Sup? R u toast?”

I smiled and texted her back. “Bear not in cave yet. Pray 4 me. Pray hard.”

As I closed my phone and stuffed it back into my pocket, I scanned Principal Davis’s office. Even though it never met the standards of the school’s administrative assistant—she fussed about it constantly—it had always been fairly organized. But not today. Books, newspaper clippings, and scraps of paper with scribbled notes engulfed his desk in a huge, mountainesque formation.

I realized the books were old Riley High yearbooks. A couple were open and written in with thick black marker. With curiosity piqued, I eased up to get a look at what the stalwart principal had been up to. Just as I scanned to a face in a crowd he’d circled and starred, the book slammed shut in my face.

I leapt back in surprise.

“Find anything interesting?” Mr. Davis asked.

With a hand on my chest, I said nonchalantly, “Not really. Are those old yearbooks?”

He took a moment to get situated in his chair before answering. Principal Davis was a tall man, dark and broad. He could charm a snake one minute and send the toughest football player at Riley High home in tears the next. But I’d always liked him. I hoped this meeting wouldn’t change that.

“Yes, Ms. McAlister, they’re old yearbooks. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just have a couple of questions, then you can go.”

I sat in amazement. “You mean, I’m not in trouble?”

“Should you be?” He set a piercing gaze on me, one I knew would come in handy if a Riley High student was ever suspected of international espionage.

“Oh, no,” I said with a light giggle, trying my best to sound utterly innocent of any wrongdoing. Like, say, skipping. He must not know yet. “I was just kidding.”

He eyed me momentarily before asking, “What do you know about that new kid, Jared Kovach?”

No way. Why on earth was he asking me about Jared? “Oh, Jared? Well, not much, I’m afraid. I just met him a couple of days ago.”

“I see. I saw you talking to him. It seemed like you two were friends.”

“Well, we are. I mean—”

“Do you know his parents?”

“Not personally. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

His gaze slid surreptitiously to the yearbook he’d slammed shut before returning to me. “He hasn’t attended a single class since the day he arrived. I just thought maybe you knew something about his situation.”

“His situation?”

“I can’t get hold of his parents. The number he gave has been disconnected.”

“Oh, right.” I was trying desperately to stay one step ahead of him, but it was hard to outrun a bear, especially on uneven ground. I considered doing the fetal-position thing and playing like a rock, but he might think that odd. “From what I understand, his parents are having some problems.”

“What kind of problems?” he asked, clearly intrigued.

“Mr. Davis, I’m not sure I should be answering for Jared.”

“I can assure you, Ms. McAlister, anything you say will be held in the strictest confidence.”

“I understand, but I just don’t know that much. I mean, all he said was that his parents were having problems and—” I tried to think up an excuse for his absences, any excuse. “—and they were trying to work things out, and he just wanted to be with them. That’s probably why he’s been absent.”

I couldn’t tell if Mr. Davis was biting or not. He tapped a pen on his desk and sized me up with a hard stare. Without warning, he shot from his chair and held out a hand. “Thank you for coming in, Ms. McAlister.”

I stood and watched his huge hand swallow mine in a firm shake. “No problem.” With as much tact as I could muster, I looked down at the yearbook then back.

Got it. 1977.

“You can get a pass back to class from Connie.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

His smile held more suspicion than sincerity. “You do that.”

As I left the office, I wondered how I was going to break the news to Glitch and Brooklyn that we would be skipping again today.

ELLIOT

“So this is the library.” Glitch turned in a full circle, taking in the Riley’s Switch Public Library, recently remodeled and modernized. Softly muted colors added to its quiet ambience. “Nice.”

“Yes,” Brooklyn said in a teasing tone, “and they have books, too. They’re made of paper with words inside and you read them.”

He turned to her in disbelief. “Surely you jest.”

She snorted and socked him on the arm for good measure. He rubbed his shoulder and smiled to himself, clearly enjoying the attention.

“Is it just me,” Brooklyn said, gazing thoughtfully out the glass doors, “or is that reporter guy following us?”

We turned back for a better look. Sure enough, a white van with the Tourist Channel’s blue logo sat idling out front.

“I’ve been seeing that van a lot lately,” I said, my suspicions growing.

Before we could discuss that fact further, my grandmother’s best friend, Betty Jo, spied us from behind the circulation desk and brightened.

“Okay, guys,” I said in a low tone as Betty Jo headed toward us, her large body lumbering across the thick carpet, “remember the plan.”

“Got it,” Glitch said, lowering his voice to match mine. “Should we synchronize our watches?”

“Hi, Betty Jo.” I couldn’t help a quick kick to Glitch’s ankle. He cursed under his breath as Betty Jo pulled me into a hug.

“How have you been, precious?” Before I could answer, she asked, “Are you out of school?”

“Well, not especially,” I hedged, uncomfortable with lying to my grandmother’s very best friend, the woman who helped both my grandparents through the roughest time in their lives, my parents’ disappearance. “We’re doing research for a school project.”

“Oh, wonderful. How can I help?” She clasped her hands in a prayer position, ever ready, willing, and able to help on school projects.

“Does the library keep old copies of the Riley High yearbooks?” Please, oh please, oh please, oh—

“Sure does.”

Yes!

“We have them all. They’re in the special collections area. I’ll get the key.”

“Thanks so much,” I said with an excited smile.

“Not at all, darling.” We looked on as Betty Jo circled the desk to retrieve the key.

“I wish I had someone who thought of me as a precious or a darling,” Glitch said almost dreamily.

Brooklyn snorted again. “There are just so many things I could say right now.”

Glitch’s mouth narrowed to a thin line of annoyance as Betty Jo hurried back with the key. “Okay, it’s right over here.” We followed her to a special room at the back of the library. “I’ve already signed you in. Let me know if you need any help.”

As Betty Jo left the room, I turned and spotted the yearbook. “There it is—” I pointed to the top shelf. “—1977.”

“So, what are we looking for?” Glitch reached over Brooklyn, jumping to grasp the book she was struggling to reach. When he landed, he wrapped a hand nonchalantly around her waist as though to make sure she didn’t fall.

I’d started noticing all kinds of these little touches, details I always just dismissed as the everyday remnants of close friendship. After all, didn’t he do the same to me? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized his attention to me was just that: the everyday remnants of close friendship. His encounters with Brooke were much more deliberate and happened much more often. When on planet Earth did his feelings for her morph into downright infatuation? He’d had a bit of a crush on her since she moved here in the third grade, but it seemed to have evolved. I wondered if Brooke knew.

As soon as he landed, Brooke snatched the yearbook from him and sat at the round table that took up most of the space in the closetlike room. She seemed completely oblivious of Glitch’s advance. Probably a good thing at the moment.

With a mental shrug, I dropped my notebook and sat beside her as she thumbed through the pages. “I really don’t know for sure. But the way Mr. Davis was guarding it … wait.” She’d turned the page to find the words
IN MEMORY OF ELLIOT BRENT DAVIS
headlining a memorial layout for a Riley High student who had passed away. I quickly scanned the collage that had been put together to honor him. Both candid and professional shots bordered the main photograph of Elliot Davis. It was a studio shot of him holding a football, and I realized who Elliot Davis had to be. “This is Mr. Davis’s brother.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Brooke said, leaning in closer, “you’re right.”