See Jane Run (16 page)

“Hey,” Riley said softly.

Her mother rushed across the room and gathered Riley into her arms, hugging her tightly. The act should have been comforting—mother loving daughter—but it struck a cold fear in Riley. She shook her mother off and then immediately regretted it, noticing the heavy bags and redness underneath her eyes.

“Where have you been?”

“School,” Riley said with a shrug.

Her mother's eyebrows went up. “This late?”

“I had to make up for being late this morning.”

The tension in the room seemed to drop down a notch.

“How was school?” her father wanted to know.

Riley wanted to laugh. Her mother just gave her her normal after-school hug. Her father asked how her day was, like he did pretty much every other day of Riley's life.

But it wasn't Riley's life anymore. All three of them were actors playing a role. All three pretending, trying to fool the other, trying to deceive each other into this façade of regular, suburban, tract-home life.

Riley's ears pricked when she heard male and female voices in low, murmured conversation in the next room.

“Who's that? Who's here?”

Her father paled. Her mother pressed her lips together in what Riley was beginning to recognize as her “we're really sorry to tell you this” smile.

“That's Gavin Hempstead and Gail Thorpe.” Her mother let the statement stand as though Riley had heard the names before, as though that was all the explanation she'd need.

“OK, but
who
are they and why are they here?”

Mrs. Spencer turned away and Riley was sure she saw tears rimming in her mother's bottom lashes.

“Gail is an FBI agent and Gavin is a U.S. Marshal. They're helping us out.”

Riley's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs. “Helping us out? Why do we need help? We're in the Witness Protection Program, we live here, I'm not Jane O'Leary. End of story, right? It's not like I told anyone.” She could hear the tinny desperation in her own voice, but Riley kept talking, trying to convince her parents, or herself, that everything was fine.

“Detective Thorpe is worried that there may have been some breaches in our security.”

Riley plopped down on the couch, her head spinning.
Breaches
in
security? Had that really come out of my dad's mouth?

“What does that mean? What's that supposed to mean?”

“Riley—” Her mother had her hand on her shoulder when the door that separated the kitchen from the living room swung open. Gail Thorpe came out first, looking nothing like the toned FBI agents Riley knew from television. She was slightly stout with hair somewhere between stone-gray and brown that was pulled back into a no-nonsense bun pinned at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a skirt suit, but the jacket was slightly ill-fitting and the skirt—not pencil thin or thigh high—was boxy and knee length. Instead of stilettos, Agent Thorpe wore brown loafers with thick rubber soles. Riley was so busy scrutinizing Agent Thorpe—who came toward Riley with an extended hand and a friendly smile, that she almost didn't notice the man coming out of the kitchen behind her.

“Nice to meet you Riley, I'm Agent Thorpe, but please call me Gail. And this”—she turned to gesture and Riley stood stone still, feeling her veins fill with cement—“is U.S. Marshal Hempstead.”

Mr. Hempstead nodded at Gail then brushed in front of her, offering Riley a hand.

But Riley didn't move.

He looked different, somehow, standing in her living room. The man from the train station. He broke into a soft grin while Riley stared, but all she could see was his hard eyes drilling into her at the hospital. The insistent way he asked for her name in the street. How he said he was a doctor.

“Riley,” her mother said in a half whisper, “stop staring, you're being rude.”

“That's OK,” Gavin said, his hand dropping to his side. “I'm sure this is a lot for Riley to take in.” He didn't break eye contact or mention that they had previously met. Riley wondered if his gaze was a silent promise or a warning.

Riley shifted her weight from foot to foot and forced herself to mumble, “Hello.”

“Why don't you sit down, Riley?” Gail asked.

Over the last twelve hours, Riley realized she hated those words. Nothing positive ever came out of an adult telling a kid to “sit down.” She looked from her parents to Gail, and the gray static in her head started up again. She pressed her hands over her ears.

“I don't want to know.”

Her father's large hand circled over Riley's wrist, making hers look like a child's. “You have to, turnip. It's important.”

Riley knew her eyes were glassy. She blinked furiously. “Why are they here?”

Her mother's sharp intake of breath cut through the static in her head. “Actually, hon, Agent Thorpe—Gail—and Mr. Hempstead want to help us.”

Riley's knees buckled and she flopped onto the couch. “Want to help us how?”

Mr. Hempstead perched on the arm of the couch and stared Riley down. His face was relaxed, not unkind, but still it shot ice water down her spine.

From the wing chair across the room, Gail cleared her throat.

“Do you know what a U.S. Marshal is?”

Riley blinked, already on edge, already annoyed at the patronizing sound of Gail's voice.

“Of course I know what a marshal is.”

“I am a supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal. I've been helping you and your parents for the past fourteen years.”

“Let me get you another cup of coffee, Gail.” Riley's mother stood up, and Gail followed right behind her.

“Oh, Nadine, I can do that.”

Riley swung her head from her mother to her father, and then up at Deputy Hempstead. She felt like a stranger in her own living room, like the sole audience member of an incredibly bizarre play.

“So you've always known him?” Riley asked her father. “And her?”

“I've only just met Deputy Hempstead and your parents.” It was Gail now, addressing Riley as she walked in through the swinging kitchen door. Riley hated Gail's familiarity with her house, with her family. When Gail and the deputy shared respectful acknowledgment, Riley kind of wanted to vomit. But she swallowed hard instead, focusing on a scuff mark on the wall across from her.

“Gavin has handled our case since the beginning. Dad checks in with him every month.”

“Wait—he's handled our
case
?” Riley knew her lips moved, but she wasn't sure that any sound actually came out.

“Our family,” her father corrected.

Could
we
even
be
called
that?

“I was in charge of getting you settled, getting your new identities, and keeping all of you”—his dark eyes scanned across the three of them—“safe.”

Riley blinked and blinked. Gavin's smile was familiar—and it was genial and friendly—but she couldn't help but see something sinister in the grin, something evil in his eyes.

He was a liar.

They were all liars.

And now they were forcing her to be one.

Riley zoned in and out while the adults talked over her head. At some point, her mother started cooking and Riley set the dining room table with extra plates for Gail and the deputy. Her mother served spaghetti, and everyone sat around making ridiculous small talk about weather and sports scores.

Riley's cell phone started to blare out Shelby's ringtone, a spastic circus beat cutting through the white noise in the room. Deputy Hempstead, Riley's parents, and Gail all stared at the thing as though it were a bomb. Riley snatched it up and thumbed it to silent.

“Sorry,” she breathed.

The adults went back to staring at each other around the dining table, and Riley went back to poking at the spaghetti on her plate. It was cold, and the cheese had congealed with everything else, so each time she stabbed a fork into it, the whole thing moved together.

“I'd like to get you out as soon as possible,” Deputy Hempstead said. “There hasn't been a breach in security as far as we can tell, but I'm not in the business of sitting around and waiting for things to happen.”

“How long?” her mother asked.

“End of the week at the latest.”

Her father nodded and poked at his dinner. “Yeah, I think that's advisable.”

“We've already alerted the FBI and they're actively searching for new identities for each of you.”

Riley's head snapped up, her fork clattering to her plate. “What?”

“Our location and our identities have possibly been discovered, Ry. We're going to have to change them.”

Riley felt her mouth drop open. “You mean move?”

Her mother forced a smile. “A new life. A new life! I won't have to deal with flu season after all.”

Riley felt her mouth drop open. “Dad—Mom, you studied so hard to become a nurse. You can't just leave! You can't just leave in the middle of the school year. The kids are going to wonder what happened to you. Dad, you can't let this happen! Mom worked so hard.” Her heart was beating hard, the few bites of pasta that she had eaten sitting like a cold, hard fist in her gut. “Tell them, Dad.”

Her father's fake smile mirrored her mother. “Who knows? Maybe our new house will have a swimming pool.”

“A swimming pool is supposed to make up for you dragging me out of my life? I don't want to move. I don't want to run away. I don't want to
be
someone else!”

“Riley—”

“How do we even know they care about us anymore? They've probably moved on or at least forgotten and don't care about us.”

Her father pressed his lips together, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “That's not how it works, Riley. These kinds of people don't just forget things.”

Riley could feel the sting of tears behind her eyes. She felt them break over her cheeks too, but by that time, she didn't care. She would have to leave. She would have to leave Shelby and JD and school.

“I'm not leaving,” Riley said, standing. “You can't make me go. I'll stay here. I'll stay with Shelby's family.”

“Even if that were possible, Ry, if you were to stay, we couldn't ever contact each other.”

The realization hit Riley like a fist in the gut. “Ever?”

“We can't have any links. We can't have any ties from this life that could be traced. Which means, when we go—”

Riley's cell phone started to blare again and she instinctively went to at least pick it up, but her dad pinned her with a look. “Not now.”

“But it's just Shelby.”

The deputy stared her down. “Your dad is right. You should probably give me your phone.”

Gail broke in. “Do you have accounts on social networking sites?”

Riley looked from her mother to her father, hoping that one of them would jump in.

“Everyone's online,” she said slowly, licking her lips.

“We'll have someone delete your pages.”

“What? Why?”

Hempstead's cell phone went next, a curt, conventional ring. His conversation was just as curt and conventional. Riley strained to hear, but his side was mostly “uh-huhs” and “yeses.”

“The FBI has secured new identities and a new residence for you.” He smiled as though he were telling the family something positive. Riley gaped, expecting her parents to jump up, to protest, to say they appreciated it, but everything was going to be just fine.

No one did.

Riley launched herself off her chair. “So that's it, we're moving? I have to give up my cell phone and my Tumblr and everything
and
we're moving? Where? Why? Nothing happened. You said that there isn't any threat.”

“I said there hasn't been any threat yet. That doesn't mean that there won't be.”

Her father stood up. “Riley—” He reached out for her, but she dodged his arm, feeling hot tears pricking behind her eyes. She looked up at him, anger coloring her cheeks.

“Didn't you even think about us? Your family?” The tears started to fall, hot and heavy. “I don't want to move. I don't want to run away or be someone else again. I want to be normal and do normal things!” Her voice was getting high and sharp. No one ever yelled in their house, but Riley didn't care. “I'm not going to move. I didn't ask for any of this!”

Riley's mother stepped in, the set of her jaw stern. “None of us did, Riley. There wasn't any choice.”

Riley's breath was coming in short bursts that pushed against her chest. “You could have chosen not to lie to me.”

Her father took a steadying breath. “You didn't know any different. We thought it would be easier—and safer—for you.”

“But my life—you ruined my life! I can't do anything. I can't go out for cheerleading—”

“And your father and I can't see or talk to our family. It's been hard on all of us, Ry. We had to leave our home and nearly everything in it in the middle of the night. We could only take what we could carry. I wasn't supposed to take the birth certificate.” Her voice broke on the last words. “I shouldn't have. We were the Spencers from California. Your father ran a print shop. I was a stay-at-home mom and you were Riley Allen Spencer.” Riley's mother gave Riley a half smile as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“And I wasn't named after your friend or your family. I was named after a dead baby.” A sob broke in Riley's chest. “And now you're going to make me do it again.”

“If there was any other way, turnip…”

Riley felt herself flinch. Even her father's pet name for her—usually so reassuring, annoying but reassuring—sounded wrong. Did the FBI tell him to call her that? Is that what the
real
Riley Allen was called? She shuddered, the tears coming harder.

“I'm sorry, Ry-Pie.”

The adults moved around the room doing things Riley couldn't focus on. She sat there, silent, pressing her thin shoulders back against the cool wood of the high-backed dining room chair. Shelby called three more times; Riley only knew because she switched the phone to vibrate and shoved it under her leg as she sat, staring. Eventually, her mother came and patted her on the back, saying something in the soothing voice she used when Riley was sick. Riley let her heap some more spaghetti onto her plate. She eyed her father, and he offered a small smile then went back to eating. She wanted to look away from him but couldn't tear her eyes away. She stared at his bent head as he ate.

Riley's cell phone went again, this time thudding wildly as it flopped onto the ground.

“Sorry,” she breathed. She glanced down at the readout, her eyebrows going up. It wasn't Shelby this time; it was JD. Riley looked around the table and knew she didn't dare answer.

Deputy Hempstead carefully set down his knife and fork, lacing his fingers together. “Your service is going off tomorrow. I'm sorry, Ry, but it's safer this way.”

“And one day I'll understand,” Riley muttered under her breath.

“What was that?”

“Right. Cell service off tomorrow. Can I at least tell my friends they can call the house or is that taboo too?”

The muscle in her father's jaw jumped and Riley knew the answer.

“So that service is going off too. What am I supposed to tell my friends?”

“You're not going to tell them anything, Ry.” Her father's eyes were dark and fierce, and Riley felt her heartbeat speed up. “Understand?”

She didn't but nodded anyway.

“I won't be your handler at your new location,” Deputy Hempstead said.

Riley stared at her spaghetti. “It doesn't matter. I'm not moving.”

Gail cleared her throat and put her hand on Riley's. “Jane—”

Riley snapped. “Don't call me that! I'm not Jane—I've never been Jane! My name is Riley.”

“Calm down, Riley.” Her father was standing, his cheeks flushed. He, more than anyone Riley knew, hated confrontation. “It's going to be OK.”

“I know this can't be easy, Riley”—Gail carefully enunciated her name—“but you really don't have a choice. You'll make new friends—”

Anger bubbled under Riley's skin. “This is not about my friends,
Gail
, this is about
my
life
.”

“Riley Allen Spencer! Gail is a guest in our home. You will not speak to her like that.” Her father's eyes were sharp, his nostrils slightly flared.

A tense silence filled the room.

“Why don't you go up to your room and get a few things together?” Riley's mother may have been talking to her, but she didn't look up from her plate.

Riley stomped up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door. She flopped on the floor and yanked out her laptop, staring at the throbbing cursor on the search engine bar.

She started this.

She could finish it.

Before she could consider how she was going to finish the ordeal, her phone blasted again.

“My God,” Riley grumbled. “Shel?”

“Uh, no, it's JD. I take it you haven't seen the news.”

Riley pulled her hand over her face, thumbing away the last of her tears. “That's a weird hello.”

“Turn on the TV, Ry. Channel eight.”

“Fine.” Riley cradled the phone against her shoulder and flicked on the television. The smiling, perfectly coifed anchor people grinned out at her. “What am I supposed to be looking at? I kind of don't care if it's supposed to rain tomorrow—”

The anchor woman's smooth expression immediately dropped into one of practiced sympathy, and the little Hawthorne High Hornet icon filled a box over her right shoulder.

“A Hawthorne High student was the victim of a hit-and-run today at the intersection of West and Falia. The car, described as a late model dark-colored sedan, was traveling east when it struck the female student.” The anchorwoman looked down at her papers but Riley already knew the name she was going to say. “Junior Shelby Webber is in critical condition.”

The picture switched to a uniformed officer standing behind a podium, a doctor to his left as they somberly restated the facts—an unidentified sedan, high rate of speed, victim in critical condition.

Riley sucked in a breath. “Oh my God.”

The officer kept talking, blathering about a number to call if you had any additional information while the picture changed again. This time it was the intersection at West and Falia—just a few blocks from where JD had picked up Riley hours earlier. Riley's chest tightened as she saw students and teachers huddled behind a yellow-taped police line, but it was what was in the intersection, strewn like forgotten garbage, that made the bile rush up the back of her throat: the crushed bumper of the blue sedan, the red smear of blood on the concrete, and Riley's backpack, the color sullied from a drag across the street.

Riley didn't remember dropping the phone or slamming the television off. She didn't remember anything as she bent over the toilet, retching.

Tim had been driving a sedan.

Was
it
black? Blue?

He said he was her brother. He said he wanted to help her.

Riley stifled a sob.

Shelby had Riley's coat, had her backpack—and didn't look all that different from Riley. Riley flushed the toilet and rinsed out her mouth then sunk to her knees. The tears started again, and she crumpled to the floor, her burning cheek cooled by the chilled tile. A shudder ran through her body. Her teeth chattered. She pulled a bath towel from the bar and snuck under it, pulling her knees up to her chest.

It was because of her.

The sedan had wanted her and had hit Shelby instead.

Riley only lay on the floor a few minutes before the canned voice on her cell phone started her message:
if
you'd like to make a call, please hang up and dial again.

The second Riley—with shaking, weak fingers—mashed the END CALL button, the phone blared again.

“H—he—hello?”

“Are you OK?”

Riley swallowed then winced, her saliva like sandpaper running over her raw throat. “Did you find out about this on the news or did someone tell you? Do you know anything more?”

“No,” JD said on a sigh. “My mom saw the police tape when she was driving home. And I don't know anything else about Shelby's condition. But I'm about to find out.” A pause. “Ry, the blue sedan—that was the car that was following you, right?”

But Riley couldn't answer. Guilty tears choked the words in her throat.

“Be outside the gate in twenty minutes.”

As JD clicked off the phone, Riley started to pace.

I
need
to
tell
them
about
Tim. He's obviously dangerous.

If Tim was the one who hit her.

Doubts crept into her head; there were a thousand sedans in Crescent City. They really don't know the color.