Forget Me (4 page)

A
fter school, Toni and I got into my little Civic, tossing our bags into the backseat. The engine turned over with a cough, and I joined the line of cars exiting the parking lot.

“So what's the plan?” Toni asked.

We hadn't discussed it in lunch or during classes because I didn't want to talk about the whole Evan/Flynn thing with anyone else. I had other friends, but they were surface friends. I wasn't as close to any of them as I was to Toni. And maybe Flynn had rubbed off on me, but I was feeling private lately.

“I guess we'll just go to my house and try to dig up more online,” I said. I slowed the car to a stop at the red light. “I'll just . . . start Googling and figure something out.”

“Take a right here,” Toni said, pointing toward the center of town.

“Why?” I asked.

“We'll stop by Town Hall. Cooper will know what to do.”

Cooper was Toni's older brother. He was a senior at our school, super smart and cute. Though—much to the dismay of every girl in town—very taken. Diana, his longtime girlfriend, was a year older and a freshman at Harvard. He would be joining her in the fall if his financial aid came through. After college they'd get married and have beautiful, valedictorian, Harvard-bound babies.

But Toni was right. If anyone knew how to research, it was Cooper. He could write a term paper in his sleep.

When we were little, Toni and Cooper used to hate each other. It seemed like their main mission in life was to get the other in trouble, and they fought about every single thing, down to who should hold the remote control. It made me glad I was an only child. But since Stell went out of business, their parents lost their jobs, and everything went to hell, there had been a sort of cease-fire. They never actually talked about it, but I'm guessing once the family began to have
real
problems, Toni and Cooper started to rely on each other more and fight less.

I parked in front of the redbrick building. We climbed the concrete stairs and opened the heavy door. The Town Hall was one of the oldest buildings in River's End, and it felt like it—drafty walls, tall ceilings, elaborate wood moldings. I'd never visited Cooper at work, but Toni obviously had. She marched down the main hallway like she belonged there.

“Got a sec?” she called into the second room on the right.

I looked in. Cooper was hunched over a copier that was making grinding noises as papers flew out of the end.

“Yeah, meet me out back by the benches. I'm due for a break.” He didn't even look up, just knew his sister's voice.

I followed Toni out the back door and into a miniature courtyard. A few park benches circled a dried-up fountain. I shivered as the cold from the aluminum seat seeped through my jeans.

A couple of minutes later the door opened and Cooper sauntered out, carrying a Styrofoam coffee cup. He had Toni's sandy-blond hair, but was a full foot taller than her. His eyebrows rose at the sight of me. He hadn't realized I was with her.

“Sorry. I should've brought out drinks for you guys, too.” He sat between us and tipped the cup in an offer to share.

I shook my head no.

Toni grimaced. “You smell like a metal fish.”

“It's that old copy machine. It's nasty, and the room has no ventilation.”

“Oh, poor baby,” Toni teased.

“Plus Mrs. Willis came in today ranting and raving again.”

“Man.” Toni shook her head.

“Who's Mrs. Willis?” I asked.

Toni stopped laughing and explained. “Mrs. Willis used to have Cooper's job. She was a full-timer and had worked here for, like, thirty years. They laid her off, changed the job title, and made it part-time. Then they hired a high school kid for minimum wage.”

“I jumped at the chance,” Cooper said. “You know how many of my friends can't even find a part-time job? It's only copying, filing, answering phones. Easy stuff. But I had no idea what they'd done to this lady, and now she comes in and yells at me that I
stole
her job. Like I'm personally responsible.”

I held back a smile, picturing some little old lady pointing her finger up at Cooper's face. “It's better than mowing lawns,” I said, which was Cooper's previous gig.

He gave me a little elbow jab. “Easy for you to say. You have a cool job.”

“You wouldn't be saying that if you knew how much they paid me.” The local paper had cut their staff photographers a while back and hired freelancers now. I took photos at sports games and school events, and sometimes crime scenes—like when someone toppled some headstones in the cemetery. I submitted photos to my editor. For any shot they used, I got ten bucks. Terrible money, but at least I was doing something I liked. And I didn't have a Mrs. Willis yelling at me.

“So what are you two bums doing following me to work?” Cooper asked. Toni jutted her chin toward me, and he followed with his eyes. “Morgan?”

I suddenly felt tongue-tied. “Um . . . you remember my boyfriend, Flynn Parkman?”

“Yeah, of course. I met him once when you guys came to pick up Toni. Before he . . . before . . . that night,” he said with a familiar look of pity.

“I want to find out more about him. I never got to speak to his parents after he died. I just wanted to get more details, I guess.” I knew I was barely making sense.

Toni piped up, “She thinks he may have lied about something.”

Cooper turned serious. “Why would that matter now?”

Toni looked at me. She had no problem keeping secrets from her brother. They weren't the kind of siblings who told each other everything, so I didn't feel guilty involving her in my lie.

“Just closure, I guess,” I said flatly. “Will you help?”

I knew he'd say yes, but he left me hanging for a moment. The corner of his mouth lifted up. “What do I get in return?”

“Free pizza,” I said.

“Deal. Pick me up at five.”

• • •

Sal brought the large pie to our booth and wordlessly dropped it on the end of the table. I used the tips of my fingers to push the silver plate more toward the center, but it was scorching.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” I muttered.

“It's not really the food I come for,” Cooper said from across the table. “It's the customer service.”

Sal's wasn't what you'd call fantastic, but it was the only pizza place left in town. Sal and his daughter Ronnie—who looked like a thirty-year-old version of Sal with long hair—ran the place. They worked every day, every position. They made the pizzas, served the pizzas, answered the phones, rang the register.

The floors were black-and-white checkerboard, and the dark brown paneling had been on the walls for so long, they probably permanently smelled of pizza. No matter how much River's End disintegrated, Sal's stayed the same. I had the feeling that everyone could move away and Sal would stay, still making his pizzas. At least we always had that one constant.

I slid a slice onto my paper plate and patted it with a handful of napkins. Within seconds the napkins were soaked in grease.

Next to me in the booth, Toni had dumped a truckload of red hot pepper flakes on her slice, folded it in half, and taken a huge bite.

“Dainty,” Cooper said.

“Shut it,” she replied through a mouthful.

I wasn't hungry. I just wanted to know what Cooper had found out with the information I'd given him on Flynn.

“So . . . ,” I began.

He dropped his slice and rubbed his hands on a napkin. “So I found out a lot and . . . not so much.”

I made a “go on” motion with my hand.

“First off,” he said, “Flynn didn't go to St. Pelagius.”

I'd already felt this in my gut, but hearing it confirmed was like a lance to the heart. Lie number one. How many more would there be?

“I called a friend of a friend who's a senior there. No one by that name went to the school. So maybe he went somewhere else or was homeschooled? Or maybe he'd already graduated? He looked like he could have been about eighteen.”

I took a moment to absorb that info. Flynn had told me he was a senior. And I saw him plenty of times with a beat-up-looking notebook. But any time I asked how school was, he'd just answer with some noncommittal “the usual” or “sucks.” No elaborate lies about classes and tests, but still. It stung just the same. Why not just tell me the truth? Whatever that was.

After chewing another bite, Cooper said, “It gets even more interesting from there. He told you he lived on Elm, right?”

Flynn had referred to home as “one of those little houses on Elm.” At first I thought he'd been embarrassed to have me over because my house was bigger and nicer. But then, after some pushing, he'd told me he had family issues and didn't want me to become a part of it. From the expectant look on Cooper's face, there was more to it than that.

I nodded. “That's what he said, yeah.”

“Well, he didn't live on Elm. Actually, I couldn't find a record of his family living
anywhere
in River's End. There's no public listing for that last name in town. I even checked the private listings and voter registrations. No Parkmans.”

My breath hitched. I didn't know whether I should feel curious, sad, betrayed, angry. I settled on nauseated. I pushed my plate of grease to the side. Thinking out loud, I asked, “Then where did they live?”

Cooper shrugged. “Maybe they were squatters.”

“Eww,” Toni said. “That sounds gross.”

Cooper ignored her. “Squatters are people who occupy abandoned buildings or houses. They basically live in them for free, without permission, until they're caught. With the number of foreclosed homes in town, we've had a squatter problem the last few years. The police do their best, but they can't catch them all. Especially if they're quiet and don't draw attention to themselves.”

An emptiness gnawed at me from deep inside. Flynn had been my boyfriend. He'd kissed my lips, held my hand, listened to me spill my feelings. But he was a walking lie. I didn't know where he'd lived, where he'd gone to school, nothing.

Even if he was dead, it was like he'd been a ghost from day one.

Toni was staring at me, and I could practically read her mind. This development certainly fanned the flames of her theory. Evan was a dead ringer for Flynn. And if Flynn had lied about where he lived and where he went to school . . . what else had he lied about?

“D
o you have to head right home?” Toni asked, zipping up her hoodie. The sun was setting, and a bitter wind had taken its place. Dinner ended quickly. I'd lost my appetite after finding out that my dead(?) ex-boyfriend had been promoted from possible creep to pants-on-fire liar. Cooper opted to walk the couple of blocks back to his car at the Town Hall, but Toni stayed with me.

Even though she usually only avoided her house when Cooper was out, she clearly wasn't ready to go home. I mentally calculated the homework I had waiting for me.

“I can stay out a bit longer,” I said. “Where do you want to go?”

She flashed a wicked smile. “It's a surprise. Can I drive?”

I tossed her the keys. “As long as you don't crash or dust up my new paint job.”

Toni laughed. My car was twelve years old, and the only new thing on it was the rust that had started to grow along the wheel wells. I got in the passenger side as Toni pulled my driver's-side seat forward a couple of inches.

“Great,” I joked. “Now my adjustments are all off.”

“It's not my fault I'm height impaired. Just for that, I'm moving your mirrors, too.”

She pulled into traffic and I turned my gaze to the window. My breath fogged the glass as I watched our town glide by. Not many outsiders wanted to move into River's End, and I understood why. The rotting, empty buildings definitely gave off a sad vibe. But I'd spent my whole life here. The town had seeped into my bones and become part of who I was.

Every intersection held a memory. The bowling alley where I'd had a few birthday parties was now boarded up, a faded Commercial Property For Sale sign tacked to the wood. Happy Time Mini Golf was overgrown, the paint on the small clubhouse peeling. I couldn't even count how many summer afternoons I'd spent there, holding my club tightly, hoping for a hole-in-one, my hands sticky from a fast-melting ice-cream cone.

Before I knew it, I'd reminisced myself out of town, through the next town, and then found myself glancing at an unfamiliar open field as we passed.

“Where are we going?” I asked, coming out of my trance.

Toni kept her voice light. “Littlefield.”

I snapped my head toward her. “What?”

“I just want to do a drive-by of Evan Murphy's house. See where he lives. No pressure to knock or anything.”

My heart skipped a beat. “How did you get his address?”

“You think my brother's the only one with skills?” She gasped in mock indignation.

“He was publicly listed?” I guessed.

She grinned. “Yeah.”

“Thanks.” Okay, granted, all she did was type
Murphy
and
Littlefield, MA,
into her phone. But she did it for me. She took charge and drove because she knew I needed answers.

“Don't thank me yet. Let's see what we find out.”

The prospect of coming face-to-face with Evan and/or Flynn turned me into a giant rubber-band ball of stress. I'm not a spontaneous person. I like to think things through, plan every angle. Toni was my opposite in that regard, but it was probably why our friendship worked so well. We balanced each other out. Without her, I'd never leave the house. Without me, she'd have jumped off a bridge because she heard that someone else had done it.

“I don't know about this,” I said. “Maybe we should wait.”

“We're not doing anything,” she insisted. “Just driving by.”

But I knew her. She'd never be satisfied with “just” driving by. She was only saying that so I wouldn't chicken out. My fingers started to tremble as we turned left onto a residential road.

I put my hands under my thighs. “How much longer?”

Toni peeked at the GPS app on her phone. “We're here.”

I swallowed hard as the car rolled to a stop. My eyes traveled up a long driveway to a magnificent white house with three pillars at the center. My breath caught in my throat. Flynn—of the ratty trench coat and beat-up jeans—and this place? The two did not match.

“It looks like your not-so-dead boyfriend is loaded,” Toni said.

“Evan and Flynn
have
to be two different people,” I said quickly.

She grinned mischievously. “There's only one way to find out . . .”

My stomach turned. I imagined myself strutting up to the door and banging my fist. What if his parents opened it? What if Evan was Flynn? What if he wasn't? I wasn't ready for this. I had to have a plan in case the boys were one and the same. And I needed a fake reason to talk to Evan in case they weren't. This was moving too fast.

But here was an opportunity, staring me in the face. Should I really pass it up to wait for a more perfect moment?

I turned away from the house and rubbed my temples.

Toni craned her neck. “The property is gated, but it looks like there's an intercom button. We could pretend to be someone else.”

She was already thinking logistics while I was still trying to talk myself into it.

She let out a grunt of annoyance. “There's no way to see if anyone's home or not. There's nothing in the driveway, but they have a three-car garage. Wait . . . someone's coming down the street . . .”

I looked up and saw another vehicle coming from the opposite direction. It rolled to an almost-stop, like they, too, were spying on the big house. Time seemed to slow. And then, after a moment's hesitation, the engine roared back to life and it sped on.

“That was weird,” Toni said.

But I couldn't respond. A trembling spread from my hands through my entire body.

It was a black SUV.

Exactly like the one that had killed Flynn.