See Jane Run (13 page)

“We left when I was three, because the roof leaked,” Riley finished. “And then what?”

“Well,” her father cut in, “we left that place as fast as our little legs could carry us. The roof almost came in—in winter in Chicago! You have no idea how cold the weather can actually get. You've been way too spoiled by the weather out here.”

He smiled jovially at Riley, but every part of her was tense, focusing.

Riley's mother stepped in. “We moved in with one of your father's colleagues for a short time while we looked for a place of our own—big enough for all three of us. And then your father got the offer out here. Oh, we were so relieved. Your dad would get to run his own store.”

Riley blinked at her mother, feeling her own mouth tighten as disbelief set in. “And my grandparents?”

“Your grandparents passed away. Mom's parents and my mother before you were born, and my father when you were much too small to remember.” He spoke slowly as if trying to make sure that Riley understood, could make the connections—or as though he were speaking from a script, carefully trying to make sure every line was right.

Riley felt herself bristle, and her father slipped back into that easy, relaxed smile.

“Riley, why are you all of a sudden so interested in all of this? You know all of it. You were born in Chicago. We moved to California when you were about three—” Her father started to recount everything they had just said while a flicker of interest turned into a white-hot fire in Riley. Her blood was pulsing as if every lie her parents told her—everything so carefully rehearsed—thrummed under Riley's skin.

“It's not true,” Riley said to her cereal bowl.

“What's that, hon?”

Riley swallowed, earnestly trying to keep her heart from slamming against her ribcage. She felt faint. Her skin felt tight and hot. She tried to steady her breath as much as possible.

“Who's Jane Elizabeth O'Leary?”

The sentence was out before Riley knew she'd said it. It hung out there in the air between her parents and herself, an untouched thing with a heft and a weight, a life all its own.

The room was deathly silent.

Riley's heart clanged like a fire bell.

Her father's eyebrows shot up. Her mother's hands fluttered over the grapefruit knife, leaving it stabbed in a center section. She clasped both hands together, folding them into her lap. The silence could have gone on for five seconds or five hours—Riley had no idea. All she could see was her parents' eyes on her, their breaths coming in tight little wisps.

“Were you going through your father and my things? You know you are not supposed to go through our things without asking.”

“I found her birth certificate by mistake.”

Her mother took a slow, metered breath as if she were counting to ten, trying to pull herself together.

“By mistake?”

“It was in my baby book.”

“Which I know is in my closet, which I know I didn't give you permission to rifle through.” Her mother worked to keep her voice even and steady, but Riley could detect a slight tremble in it.

“OK, I'm sorry. But the birth certificate was in
my
baby book. Don't I have the right to look through my own baby book? It's about my life.” Riley licked her bottom lip, suddenly completely unsure. “Isn't it?”

Her father picked up his newspaper, his eyes flicking from Riley back to it as he folded the paper into a perfect rectangle. He touched Riley's mother's hand and they exchanged a look that Riley couldn't recognize.

“Nadine, Riley has every right to see her baby book.”

“I don't care about the baby book,” Riley said, louder than she intended. “I want to know about the birth certificate. This birth certificate.” She slapped the paper on the table and felt like she was being punched in the stomach when she saw her mother's eyes go to it and immediately start to tear up.

“Glen,” she whispered.

“Riley,” her father started, “this birth certificate is not important. You don't need to bother with Jane Elizabeth.” He reached out and began to slide the birth certificate toward him.

Riley's arm shot out like a cobra attacking. She smacked her palm on the table, on the birth certificate, stopping her father, surprising even herself.

“Who is she?”

Her father swung his head. “Riley, just trust us. It's nothing you need to bother with.”

“Then why won't you tell me?” she exploded. “If it's nothing, if it's just some birth certificate you found, why won't you tell me?” Her heart hammered and leapt into her throat as she locked eyes with first her mother then her father. “Is it because it's mine?”

She hadn't meant to say the last part but it was there now, out. A sob choked in Riley's throat.

“Did you kidnap me?”

The silence was palpable, and Riley's mind was racing.
What will happen now? Will they admit it? Will I be reunited with my “real” parents? Will these parents go to prison?

She didn't want that. She didn't want a new family; she didn't want to live with anyone else.

Riley's heart started to thud. Her father ran a printing store. He helped giddy brides pick out wedding invitations and donated a banner to the Crescent City Little League team every year. She couldn't imagine him caged, like an animal, with all those criminals.

But
if
he
kidnapped
me, he
is
a
criminal.

She thought about her mother, now sitting primly at the table. She was an elementary school nurse who wore horrible, holiday-themed turtlenecks underneath her sterile white smock. She had a whole drawer stocked with Sponge Bob and princess-themed Band-Aids. She got cards and drawings from the kids at the school and tacked them up on the fridge, right next to Riley's stuff.

Not
criminals…

“Oh, Riley,” her mother said finally, breaking the silence. “Honey.”

Riley began to shake her head, fear like she had never felt crashing through her body, making her break out in a cold sweat.

“Did I have a family? Are they looking for me? Did they ever come looking for me?”

Her mother started to shake her head and her father opened his mouth as if to say something, but shut it. Instead, he looked to his wife, to the tears flowing down her cheeks.

Riley's palms were wet. Her stomach folded in on itself.

I
just
accused
my
parents
of
kidnapping.

And her mother was—laughing?

Riley swung her head, incredulous. Tears flowed over her mother's cheeks, landing with tiny little thuds on her bare plate. But her shoulders shook, and she was pressing her hand against her open mouth, trying to stifle the giggles.

“No, Riley,” her father said, resting his hand on her mom's shoulder, “we didn't kidnap you. You're our daughter. We're your parents.”

Relief washed over Riley and suddenly she felt light, silly. “I'm sorry,” she said, looking at her hands. “It's just that I couldn't find any information about the baby and the parents and—who does it belong to, anyway? Who's Jane?”

Her mother immediately stopped laughing and her father's eyes went wide. “Did you ask anyone about Jane?”

“Well, no. I mean, I—”

“Riley, this is very important. Did you talk to anyone about Jane? Or about the O'Leary's?”

Riley's nerves kicked up again. “Well, Shelby was with me when I found the birth certificate.” Riley bit her lip, considering. There was no reason to tell her parents about JD. No reason to tell them about her visit to the hospital or the hall of records. She shrugged, hoping it came off nonchalant. “That's it.”

“How did you conduct your search?”

“What do you mean—?”

Her father hung his head, pressing his fingers against his temples. His tone was stern, impatient. “How, Riley?”

“Just on the Internet, geez. But I couldn't find Jane O'Leary. Who is she?”

Again, her parents exchanged a glance. This one was clearly stern, clearly questioning. Her father gave a short nod and pressed his chair away from the table, standing. “I'm going to call Mr. Hempstead,” he said before leaving the kitchen.

“Mom, what is Dad—?”

Her mother put her hand on Riley's shoulder and turned her chair to face her. “Ry, you are Jane Elizabeth O'Leary.”

Someone sucked all the air out of the room. Riley wanted to cry, to scream, to question, but all she could do was sit there, stone-faced, staring at her mother. After what seemed like hours, she was able to get her lips to move.

“My parents?”

“We're your parents. We're the O'Learys.”

It started low in her belly. A flicker, a flame. A fire. Riley tried to hold herself, hugging her arms across her chest. It was all so ridiculous. She started to giggle, just like her mother. A maniacal, loose, bobbing giggle that weakened her entire body, made it shake throughout.

“What do you mean, we're the O'Learys? We're the Spencers. I'm not Jane, I'm Riley.”

Riley became very aware of her mother's hands on hers, gripping tighter. “It's not important, Riley. None of this is. You're our daughter, we're your parents. Forget all the rest of this.”

“But—”

Riley's mother shook her head, batting at the air like her whole confession was an annoying gnat at her ear—nothing more. “Don't worry about it. Please, Riley, just trust us.”

Riley yanked her hands free and sat back in her chair. “Trust you about what? You didn't tell me anything except that Jane Elizabeth is me. Why do I have a different name? Why do we all have different names and I have a fake birth certificate? Are you my birth parents? I don't understand.”

Riley saw her father pacing in the next room, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He didn't look like a stranger. He looked like her father who was a goof and called her turnip and did horrible Jimmy Stewart impressions at Christmastime. She saw him mutter something into the phone and then he took it from his ear, pushing it into his back pocket. When he turned to face Riley, he was still her father but his face was ashen and worn, as though he had aged ten years in the walk from the kitchen to the den.

“Riley, you're going to be late for school.” He picked up her backpack and held it out to her. Riley stared at it blankly.

“What? You tell me I'm—I'm a different person and—and I'm just supposed to go to school and act like nothing happened?”

Her father's eyes were flat and emotionless. His face was stern, but otherwise void of anything Riley could recognize. “You need to trust us, Riley.”

Riley felt the tears stinging at the back of her eyes as she looked from her mother to her father.

She snatched her backpack. “I don't see what I am supposed to trust about you two. You haven't told me anything true. You haven't told me anything that makes any sense at all!” The tears were falling freely now, heat breaking over her cheeks. “‘We have this fake birth certificate for you, but you should just trust us.' ‘We've been lying to you your whole life, but you just have to trust us'?”

“Riley, we're still your parents—”

“Are you? How do I know that? Why would my own parents change my name and my birthday? Why would my own parents hide a birth certificate for a girl who doesn't exist?”

Her father grabbed her shoulder. Riley couldn't tell if she was hyper aware or if her father's grip was more severe that he meant. She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, saw the desperation in his eyes as they skimmed over her then went to his wife.

“Glen, she shouldn't go to school today. We should keep her here with us until Mr. Hempstead can get here.”

“Why can't you just tell me right now? Why do we have to wait for some guy I don't even know?”

“Please, Riley. It'll be easier this way. Mr. Hempstead—”

“Forget it. I don't want to be here! I don't want to be here with people who are lying to me!”

Riley snatched her jacket and hiked up her backpack, clearing the kitchen in three long strides. She threw open the front door and pounded through it, slamming it with a tremendous snap behind her.

Hands fisted, tears rolling down her cheeks and sliding over her chin, Riley ran down the sidewalk, loving the lone echo of her sneakers as they hit the concrete. It was somehow soothing to know that the sound that reflected back was her own—even if she wasn't entirely sure who
she
was.

She heard the garage door opening somewhere behind her. The faint sound of car doors snapping shut, of an engine being revved.

Riley couldn't stand it.

She crossed behind a bank of nearly finished houses, skipping through backyards that hadn't been fenced yet, until she was up against the wrought iron bars of the Blackwood Hills Estates. She tossed her backpack over the top and shimmied through the bars, taking one last look over her shoulder. She saw her parents in their car, slowly driving away from the house, her mother scanning the sidewalks, her hands pressed against her cheeks. Riley waited for the familiar pang of guilt or sadness but got nothing. She just pressed her legs harder, face against the wind, and took off running.

It didn't take long for her breath to burn in her lungs and for Riley to meet up with the street. Her parents, had they gone toward the school, would have already passed her, so Riley walked along the road, backpack hiked up. She was huffing and out of breath, but her anger pushed her forward.

• • •

Riley spent the entire day curled on the closet floor of one of the model homes that lined the front of the Blackwood Hills Estates. When the fog swallowed the sun and turned the sky a smoky gray, she slipped out of the closet and into the street, unsure whether she was ready to face her parents.

She heard a car engine moving slowly up the street and her heartbeat mirrored her heavy footfalls. Her parents. They must have been out looking all day. But the car's engine revved and it sped past her, a black blur taking the curve in front of her house with a little too much speed. The screech of the wheels echoed and Riley rolled her eyes then sucked in a breath, steadying herself on her front porch.

The whole house was dark and she had to step into the meager yellow beam of streetlight as she searched for her keys.

“Damn,” she muttered when she realized that they were lying on the kitchen table. She beelined back up the walk and pushed the doorbell, listening to the stupid chime as it echoed.

No one answered.

Riley tried the door and wasn't surprised to find it locked. She dumped her backpack and went to the backyard, yanking the sliding glass door and trying all the windows. She was locked out—keys inside, cell phone tucked in her father's desk drawer.

“Crap.”

She was coming around the front again when she noticed the black car parked across the street. It was a few houses down and with the headlights off, bled into the darkness.

Riley took a step, and the headlights flipped on. The gravel crunched under her sneakers, and the black car's engine came gurgling to life.

A cold sliver of fear raced up her spine, and her adrenaline started to rush.

She fisted her hands and started down the sidewalk, aiming toward the glowing lights of the realtor office and the cheery faux neighborhood of houses behind it. Riley's was one of the houses at the furthest end of the horseshoe-shaped development, so she walked with purpose, her heart hammering as she passed the bones of houses yet to be finished. She didn't need to turn to know the black car was following her.

As she sped up, it did too, the patter of its engine swallowing up the sounds of her sneakers pounding the pavement. She sidestepped into the dirt, cutting through a gravelly front yard and slipping into a new model that was half studs, half walls. She dipped behind a piece of wallboard, and the black car flipped on its high beams. Blinding white light flooded over the house.

Riley was certain the sound of her heart slamming against her ribcage would give her away as she huddled down. The sweat beaded on her upper lip, and her teeth were chattering. The wallboard stopped about three feet to her left, and the rest of the houses were an unhelpful forest of narrow two-by-fours. Behind her, the wrought iron gate penned her in.

She was trapped.

The car engine revved and then all at once, Riley was plunged back into darkness.

Riley let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. The engine had cut too, and while her eyes worked to adjust to the pitch black, her ears pricked, trying to pick some semblance of sound out of the silence.

And then she heard it. The car door opening. The sound of a boot digging into the gravel. She heard someone suck on a cigarette, smelled the faint tarry smell as it carried on the breeze.

The man ground out the cigarette and took another step.

Riley rolled to her hands and knees, but her muscles felt slack and heavy. She willed herself forward, cringing as bits of wood splintered into her clawing fingertips and the toes of her shoes shifted debris underneath her. Her breath was coming in quick, short bursts. Her heart was pounding. Everything she did was loud.

“Come out, come out,” the man sang, his voice deep and eerie.

Riley crawled to another corner and quietly slipped off the house's foundation. She was lying on her back, pressing her body into the dirt, trying to blend into the dirt and new construction.

She refused to think what was wriggling underneath her.

“Riley?”

Her skin crawled when he said her name.

“I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

He took another hard step and the wood floor slab vibrated under his weight.

I
have
to
get
out
of
here,
Riley thought. The tears were pouring from her eyes, rolling over her cheeks and wetting the earth on either side of her.
If
I
don't get out of here now, he's going to find me.

“Come out, come out wherever you are…Jane.”