Tainted (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

In Mugz-n-Chugz’s parking lot, I have to pause and wipe away another squashed-heart handprint of Hailey’s on my driver’s side window. Just one more way for her to needle me, to remind me of what she knows, what she can do.

“What’s that?” Bree asks.

“Just some asshole messing with my window.”

I brush the windows after everyone climbs in, taking full advantage of the solitude to swear up a storm.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Em says when I drop into the driver’s seat. Snow scatters to the floor mats when she brushes her coat off. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“Um. Hellooo,” Bree says, dragging out the word. “She kissed your boyfriend. Right in front of you. I wanted to scalp her!”

“Jealousy is a monster,” Jason agrees from the backseat and meets my glance in the rearview mirror. He arches an eyebrow, asking if I have a clue. A slight shake of my head says I really don’t.

“I wish that’s all it was,” Emma mutters. She flexes the hand she slapped Hailey with, and then lifts a confused gaze to me. “It felt like more, like I had more of a reason to hate her.”

“Trying to steal your boyfriend is plenty.” Bree swipes lip balm over her lips, then grabs Jason’s collar. “Give me a kiss,” she tells him. “This frigid weather dries your lips out.”

With a grin, he obediently locks lips with her, pressing Bree into the corner, his hand disappearing under her jacket.

Despite the laughter and breathy whispers in the backseat, a persistent feeling of doom hangs over the drive back to the Ransoms’. It might be trying to drive through white-out conditions – it’s more likely me worrying over the Hailey and Emma cat fight and the expression on my ex’s face. Pleased. Like she got exactly what she came for.

What could she possibly accomplish by angering Emma until Em smacked her?

A car skids in front of us, the rear end fishtailing after hitting black ice. I tap the brakes, whiteknuckling my grip on the steering wheel as another gust of wind obliterates my view. The Acura hits the same icy patch, the tires spinning, car sliding. Spitting a string of cuss words, I steer into the skid and feather the brakes. Emma braces her hand on the ceiling and our friends cease lip suction in the back seat. Jason braces a hand beneath the window and one down by Bree, pinning her in.

The tires hit rock salt on the packed snow, and jerk the nose too far. Trying not to overcorrect, I edge the wheel the other way and the car evens out.

“Nice save!” Jason hoots from the back seat.

“I think I saw my life flash before my eyes,” Bree says a little too seriously.

“Definitely gets the blood pumping,” Em says, remarkably smiling, and relaxes into the seat.

A block from the Ransoms’ house, minutes before Emma’s 6 o’clock phone call from her mom, my phone buzzes. I ignore it. Arriving safely is more important than any text. When we pull into the drive, Bree and Emma launch from the car, blond missiles shot from an Acura cannon. They round the side to the garage door and disappear.

“Dude,” Jason says before I can exit the car. “We need to figure the Emma riddle out.”

My chest sinks with a huge sigh. “I know,” I groan.

“I don’t believe it was coincidence that she went missing before the animal attack, and the Reindeer Games.”

“Me, either.” My voice is a little testy. He can live with it. “But we’re missing some pieces to the puzzle,” I continue. “Why did she disappear? How’d she get there? What did she do?” Is Paul connected somehow?

“We’ll probably never know what she did.” He sits back, rather than open the door. “
She
doesn’t know. So, what does that leave us with? Do we have anything to go on?”

“Well, there’s a common denominator.”

Jason perks up. “What?”

“Ascension Labs,” I say, Katrina’s video confession playing in my head. “Well, at least the last two have that in common. That first flip has nothing to do with Ascension.”

“Dammit. We really don’t have anything to go on then.”

“Just inconclusive blood tests and one video confession that Paul was supposed to turn over to the police.”

“Don’t you think,” Jason leans forward again, “if he had we would’ve heard about it on the news? White River isn’t that big – and a confession to both crimes would be
huge
. The town’s on edge, the town council’s talking about instituting a curfew, if we don’t get snowed in first.”

“I don’t know.” I want to trust Paul. I need to trust him. He’s the executor of my inheritance, the interim CEO of what’s supposed to be my company. He’s the one trying to stop Emma and me from suffering the fade. “I’ll talk to him.”

“I hope you believe what he tells you…” and with that, Jason climbs out the backseat. A gust of wind blows him back, the door slams on his hand. “Sonofabitch!”

Slumping back to my seat, I look over my shoulder at Jason, rubbing his hand. “Y’know,” I say, “I asked Paul to work on a cure for you.”

“He shouldn’t waste his time on me.” Jason shoots me a quick look, then grabs the door handle. “He needs to figure out what’s going on with Emma first. Ironically, back from the dead, dependent on a funky formula and electrical charge, she has a better life to look forward to than I do.”

“Don’t say that!”

But he’s out of the car and the blizzard is my only witness.

How did my father choose between my life and the boys he murdered to revive me? I don’t know how I would choose. Paul thinks he’s close to fixing the rollercoaster of the resurrection treatments. But with Ascension in turmoil and operating on a skeleton crew, curing Huntington’s would take years – years that Jason will deteriorate in, possibly die.

Shoulders curled, I force my way into the wind, then, head tucked down, I wade through the snow to the Ransoms’ side door. Winter has bleached the world, scrubbed it clean. I wish it could do that with my life. I would stake Hailey out in the subzero temperatures if I thought it would chill her out. I couldn’t be that lucky.

I have her to contend with and whatever’s going on with Emma and what to do about Katrina’s video.

Bree’s parents’ vehicles are in the garage, his SUV and her car. Time to put on my happy face. I stop at the door and knock.

Mrs Ransom appears, a smart gray suit on, hair done up in a bun. “Hi, Alex,” she says when she opens the door. “How are the roads? Tell me we’re not crazy for going out tonight.”

“The roads are awful, Mrs Ransom.” I won’t address the crazy comment. “And visibilities are zero at times.”

“Oh my.” She pokes her head in the back stairwell. “Howard!” She shouts at Bree’s dad. “The kids say the roads are bad!”

“Calm down, Mary,” he responds, walking down the stairs and tying his tie. He’s taller than she is, even in her heels. It’s obvious who Bree gets her height from. “Then we’ll take the Jeep. It has four-wheel drive.”

“The rest of the group is in the family room,” Mrs Ransom tells me. “I left money for you to order a pizza or grab take-out.” She makes an apologetic face, then shrugs into the coat her husband holds out for her.

After stowing my shoes on the mat, I join Em, Bree and Jason on one of the sunken benches by the gas-lit fireplace. Bree has it cranked up, her feet propped on the hearth and showing off socks with sparkly yarn. Jason stands by her legs, one hand draped on her thigh and his butt to the heat. Nestled on the bench, Em holds up the corner of a blanket for me to settle under.

She cuddles close, then kisses my neck.

This is as close to normal as we’ve had in a while. Even at Mugz-n-Chugz we had the ghost of Marin’s death staring us in the face from the corner booth. After a couple rounds of debate, we opt for a DVD and ordering pizza. I made it here safely, so can the pizza delivery driver. The moment is nearly perfect and I’m not leaving until it’s time to go, and I won’t check the text until then, either. Ordinary moments are scarce and I’m holding this one in a death grip

In the city, Michigan winter nights are deceptive. The glow of the street lights is diffused through the snow, giving the world a soft appearance. Then the cold steps up and slaps you in the face.

Bree’s parents left strict orders for “the boys to be gone by the time they got home”. Jason and I brave the weakening storm, leaving the Ransoms’ just before 9 o’clock. In the Acura, a few blocks from Jason’s house, he says, “I don’t know what I would do without you, man.”

“Maybe fix your Bronco,” I suggest. “Or get a regular job and buy a better car.”

“Helping my dad in his workshop pays enough.”

“But you won’t get ahead.”

“I’m only worried about now. And I want to spend as much time with you guys as I can while I’m still…” his sentence trails off and he crams his hands in his pockets. “Nothing will ever be enough.”

“Maybe Paul can find a cure,” I offer. Slim hope, sharp-edged, and I cling to it.

“Forgive me if I don’t jump on that wagon, OK?”

“Yeah.” I toss him a side-eye glance. “Would it help if I didn’t mention it?”

“Yes. No.” He groans, bangs his head on the head rest. “I don’t know. I like knowing you have hope. I just don’t want to get let down, y’know?”

“I do.”

The rest of the drive is quiet, except for the weatherman breaking into the local music station and warning us of worsening weather and arctic temps over the next few days.

“Great,” Jason says. “Last time it got that cold, the pipes froze. Now my dad isn’t able to get under the house and thaw them.”

“If it comes to that, call me.” I offer when I turn the car into his driveway. Not that I’ve ever done it before, but if he needs help, I’ll be there.

“Give me a call if anything happens,” Jason says as he climbs out. He doesn’t wait for me to answer – he knows I will. I sit in the driveway, lights shining on the garage door until he’s safely inside. Two flashes of the garage’s interior lights. Our signal that he’s made it in.

Once back on the road, and halfway between Jason’s and my grandparents’, I pull into a building’s parking lot and pull out my phone. After checking the display screen I’m tempted to hurl the phone into the snowbank in front of the car.

Hailey Westmore
.

What now? Wasn’t the scene at Mugz-n-Chugz enough?

Bracing for a bitch-out text, I click on the message, with an embedded file.

I’m tired of this cat and mouse game. Give me what I want, or I’ll use the attached file to my best advantage
.

Holding my breath, I press the icon and load the audio file. A thin layer of static plays over the voices, but they are all too easy to understand:

Hailey’s voice sounds scared when she says, “You hit me!”

“Maybe next time I’ll do worse,” Emma says, hate to Hailey’s fake innocence. “Quit messing with us.”

“What are you going to do?” Hailey plays the victim.

“You’ll find out.” A threat that can cause so much harm.

Oh God.

She recorded the cat fight?

My mind replays the entire scene at Mugz-n-Chugz, scrutinizing every frame. She came in carrying the bag. Looked at the mementos. Put the werewolf dog on the table… Of course! Hailey’s cell phone. She wasn’t taking a picture of her mockery of Marin’s death, she was setting it up to record the argument she orchestrated with Emma.

This is worse than I thought. Much worse. Not only did she pick a fight in a very public place, with plenty of witnesses, she recorded Em threatening her and edited out anything incriminating herself. She’s smart enough to know eyewitness memories are faulty, no one remembers every detail. With the school’s zero tolerance for bullies and violence this recording could get Em in a lot of trouble. Anything putting Em close to authorities is bad.

Snow pelts the window, even with my car sitting still. At this rate, the town will be buried, and Grandpa will be right about one thing. I still struggle to think he might be right about Paul. Frustration and anger crash in my head and chest. Hailey’s behavior has eclipsed normal jealousy. I stab the handset icon next to Hailey’s name and wait while the phone processes my demand to call her. Each ringtone scrapes nerves gone raw. My left hand clenches tight around the steering wheel.

A police cruiser turns into the same parking lot, trolling past, eyeing me. I point to my cellphone, and he gives me a thumbs-up.

His taillights bathe my car in tones of blood, cosmically timed with Hailey answering my call. “Hello, Alex. Did you get my message?”

“You mean your threat?” I growl. “Then, yeah. Message received loud and clear. Did someone drop you on your head when you were little? Your brains have to be scrambled if you think I’m ever leaving Emma, or giving you half of Ascension.”

“Oh, now,” she says, voice dark and silky, “I wish you hadn’t said that. It would be so much better if you just played along.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” My foot taps the gas. If Hailey was in front of this car, I would be tempted to run her down. “You are
not
getting me. You are
not
getting half of my company.”

“You’ve got to admit, it looks awfully bad for Emma.”

“Any idiot can tell you arranged the whole thing.” In a flash, every video of Emma comes to mind – all conveniently taken where horrid things happened. All this time I’ve been thinking Paul was involved… “How many other things,” I ask, in a voice quaking with anger, “have you
arranged
?”

“Excuse me?” Her voice lacks ice, anger, any guilt. She sounds confused.

“You heard me. A lot of things have gone wrong lately, Hailey. What have you done?”

“What have
I
done?” She echoes with a hurt, offended air. “My experiments in the lab, and my honor’s studies at Grand Valley. You can check my records at Ascension. I’ll give you my password and log-in to check my attendance at school, too.”

“Don’t play stupid with me!”

“You know me, Alex. When have I ever pretended to be, or done anything, stupid?”

Never. But I won’t say it out loud.

“I know you think you’re in love with that girl, so save her and her family the heartache of getting to know the White River Police on a first name basis.” How can she sound like she cares about Emma? “Don’t forget I know what you did Christmas Eve. Come back to me, or keep her and give me half of Ascension. It’s what your father intended anyway.”