Complicit (14 page)

Proof that her magic was real and I wasn't destined to lose her.

But instead, kneeling in dust and pine needles on a bright October afternoon, I found that the contents of the sidebag included:

• Three books on the subject of hypnosis.

• One bottle of cheap gin (I knew it was cheap because it came in a plastic bottle and had a $9.99 orange clearance sticker from Big Lots! on it).

• One red-lined notebook in which Cate had recorded all of her induction experiments with the girls and the wicked things she'd made them do.

• One pair of thick fire-retardant gloves that reeked to high heaven of gasoline.

• One silver butane torch lighter.

• One disposable cell phone with a history of text messages that had been sent to Sarah Ciorelli's number between 12:43 and 12:47
A.M.
the night before.

Hands shaking, I scrolled through the individual texts. Each was more agonizing to read than the one that had come before it.

Together they added up to a crime far worse than arson:

hey sarah.

look out your window

hope you're not slow

better be fast

better hurry

better

run.

What I did next is hard to explain. It's also hard to live with.

Believe me.

Earlier that day, mere hours after the fire, an anonymous caller had told the Danville police all about the bag hidden in the woods and where to find it. But it wasn't until the next morning that the cops actually went looking for it. By the time they made their way into the forest to arrive at the broken oak tree beneath the feathery wind catcher, the messenger bag and all its incriminating contents were gone.

Vanished.

Forever.

Buried in a place I'll never tell.

 

 

In the somber weeks that followed, Cate was the lone suspect, but without evidence, no arrest was made. The tension in Danville grew unbearable. Picturing Cate dousing Danny's family's barn in gasoline as payback for his perceived infidelity didn't take a huge stretch of anyone's imagination. Not only did she have a motive, but she was well-known for her moods. Her irrationality.

Her fiery temper.

Still there was nothing to be done from a legal standpoint. A dark stalemate formed between Cate and the world around her.

Then these things happened:

Scooter moped and stopped talking to me.

Sarah regained consciousness, but remained in intensive care.

Angie fretted and began seeing her own therapist again. Twice a week.

Malcolm suffered in stoic silence the way he always did.

My hands kept going numb. The doctors freaked and I convinced myself I was slowly dying.

And so it went for weeks.

Until the day I stopped going to school. Not because of my hands, but because the guilt over what I'd done made my stomach burn so badly I couldn't leave my room. I was in agony. Dr. Waverly came to the house to see me, and I overheard her talking with Malcolm about admitting me into an inpatient treatment program for panic disorder. That was the first time in my life that I thought seriously about killing myself. With a rope. In my closet. This was also the day that Cate marched downtown to the police station in the bright autumn warmth and confessed to setting the barn on fire in a fit of misguided rage.

Judgment was swift: On the eve of my fifteenth birthday, my sister was sentenced to thirty months in a juvenile detention facility for arson. I was in my room the morning she came to say goodbye. She didn't mention the conversation we'd had the night before as I huddled hamsterlike on the end of her bed. Cate simply drifted into my room looking pale and tired and walked straight to my bookcase where she plucked my copy of
Black Boy
right off the shelf. I watched as she ran her finger across the title.

With her back still to me, she asked, “What's that quote you like so much in this book? I heard you telling Malcolm about it. The guy goes to vote and he writes something on the ballot.”

“He writes, ‘I Protest This Fraud.'”

Cate turned around. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Oh, Jamie,” she said. “Don't let anyone else tell you who you are. Ever.”

“Okay,” I said.

She bit her lip. “I … I did a bad thing once.”

“I know.”

“And I don't know how to make it better.”

“You can't,” I said.

She handed me the book.

“I want to try.”

3

PLAYED TWICE

THIRTY-TWO

On Sunday morning, Angie does that thing she always does. She knocks on my door with the backs of her knuckles, tap-tap-tap, then opens it before I can answer.

“We're leaving for church in ten minutes,” she says brightly. Then she freezes.

I sit up, chest bare, hair all rumpled, my mind swirling with memories of Cate and what she'd done and what I'd done and how I'd do anything to get my hands on a photo of my real mom.

Anything.

My hands.

I look down. My hands are working again.

Then I realize what Angie's looking at.

It's not me.

It's Jenny. Beautiful Jenny who's curled beside me, eyes shut tight, soft blond hair spilled across my pillow like a promise. She's so beautiful that seeing her fills me with a twinge of melancholy. Like she's too good for me or I'm not good enough, for her, both of which are true, I suppose.

I glance up at Angie.

“Shh!” I say in a tone dark enough to startle us both. “She's sleeping.”

Angie frowns, lines forming on her otherwise perfect face, but she retreats and closes the door. Okay, she slams it.

Beside me, Jenny stirs and smiles as her eyes flutter open.

“Your mom's going to hate me, isn't she?”

“I won't let anyone hate you,” I say.

Jenny stretches, arching her back in a way that enchants me. “How very chivalrous.”

“Is that so bad? Chivalry?”

“It's only bad if the sole romantic gesture you have to offer is saving me.”

I'm not sure what Jenny means by this, but she's smiling when she says it, which reassures me I haven't done anything wrong.

“Your hands are all better,” she says.

“Yeah, they are.”

Jenny reaches out and rubs my fingers, like she did last night. Only I can feel it this time.

It still turns me on.

“Jenny,” I say hoarsely.

“Yeah?”

“I really like you. That's not chivalry talking, either. I swear.”

“I like you, too,” she says, and then she kisses me.

Jenny kisses me.

I lean back and I let her. It's transcendent, this kiss, this skin on skin, this her touching me touching her. After a while, I reach up to wrap my arms around her waist and we keep kissing and touching until we're both breathing hard. Until waves of pleasure are pulsing through my body like sizzling streaks of fireworks rocketing through the new year's sky. Until there's nothing more I want than to be with her like this, right here, right now. For a long, long time. Forever, really.

I want to lose myself in this moment.

I want to forget

the empty ache where my mother should be,

my sister's madness,

my own rotten feelings of guilt

my complicity

I want to forget it all.

But even in this most perfect of perfect moments,

I can't.

THIRTY-THREE

The fooling around thing Jenny and I are doing is interrupted by my phone.

No, no, no. No way. Come on.

I try ignoring it. I try focusing on my mouth and breath and skin against hers, this moment I've felt only in my dreams.

It's touch.

It's taste.

It's so much more.

But … Monk.

I groan. I pull back and pick up my phone.

Unknown caller.

“I have to answer this,” I tell Jenny. I roll out of bed and walk across the oval hooked rug to stand by the window. Outside there's a hint of sun and a pair of sparrows flit around the branches of the Japanese maple in the side yard. “Cate?”

“Hey, boner.”

My fingers grip more tightly around the cell phone. There's a certain level of apprehension that comes with talking to someone you know is capable of murder. Especially when they don't know you know. “This isn't the, uh, best time.”

“No? Why not? What're you doing? Are you
fucking
?”

“What?” How does Cate do this? “No!”

She yawns. “You sound horny.”

“My God, Cate. What is
wrong
with you?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?”

“Yes! I would!”

I hear her smoking. Picture red-stained lips on gold filter. “Nah, never mind. Look, are we on for today or what?”

“Just tell me when and where.”

“Jesus, you want me to do, like, everything.”

“Cate, I don't know where you
are.
”

She laughs, a strange, uncontrolled giggle. “Me, neither. I'm way too high right now. It's, like, you're asking me metaphysical questions.”

“I'm asking where you want to meet! I want to see these pictures you have. The ones of … Mom.”

There's a long silence. I fret. Have I pissed her off again? I'm pulling at my eyebrows and I am fully aware of it. This is too much. She is too much.

“Peet's on Highview at one,” she says finally.

“Peet's?”

“Or else.”

Click.

THIRTY-FOUR

It's 1:33
P.M.

My sister is late.

She's late and I'm sitting in a corner of the store by myself with a cup of way-too-strong coffee that insists on burning a hole in my stomach no matter how much milk and sugar I put in it.

It's not like I should be surprised. Growing up, Cate was known for her lateness. To everything and everywhere. School. Church. My recitals. Christmas dinner. Her own surprise party that
she
planned for her sweet sixteen. It used to make me so mad, like she got some sort of sadistic pleasure out of making people wait. Dr. Waverly tried to tell me people sometimes did stuff like that when they felt they weren't in control of other aspects of their lives, but even with all of Cate's issues, I never bought into that.

Crazy or not, control's sort of her thing.

I snatch a newspaper off the empty table beside me and try to read. It's local and predictably dull. Last night was the holiday light parade and today there's a candle-making workshop downtown. Oh, and the farmer's market has extended hours all the way up until Christmas Eve. Such events are Big Deals around here, because we're Rich People pretending to have Small Town Values. However, there's also an editorial expressing concern that “those” type of people are prowling around Danville again. For emphasis, this article includes a picture of a homeless family who's been staying in their Honda Civic at a nearby park. The caption beneath the photo reads: T
HEY
C
HOOSE TO
L
IVE
T
HIS
W
AY,
and well, now, that is some nice holiday spirit going on right there, let me tell you. Jesus.

Below the fold, I also learn there's been a spate of home robberies over the past few days. Mostly cash and prescription meds have been stolen, along with some jewelry, and despite the not-even-trying-to-be-subtle implication that the unfortunate Civic family might be involved, it's like the bottom drops out of my gut when I read that.

Over the past few days.

I set my coffee and paper down.

I'm giving her ten more minutes.

That's it.

Right then Scooter walks in. He's preppy as hell in his khakis and Sperrys. He's also got this
fuck-it-all
swagger to his walk that I've never noticed before. Not that I've been looking or anything, of course, since up until last week, I've pretty much ducked my head and avoided Scooter Murphy at all costs for the past two years. Today, however, he's with a crowd of Sayrebrook students, including a couple of girls, and I realize I don't know if he's hooked up with anyone at all since Sarah. For his sake, I hope so. No, it's not a nice thought, considering, but trust me, she wasn't any kind of a catch to begin with. She wormed her way between us. Acted like she was better than me because of where I came from. That's not the sign of a kind person, making others feel bad about who they are and what they have.

The group bunches up at the counter, ordering things like gingerbread lattes and peppermint mochas with whipped cream. They all have pink noses and pink cheeks from the cold. For all I know they're coming in from an afternoon of sweaty group sex, but at the moment they look so damn
wholesome.
All that's needed is snow falling outside and Christmas carolers and an open fire or sleigh or whatever it is that that song says. I look away, feeling a sharp tightness in my chest and that hollow pang of loneliness. I have an urge to text Jenny, but it's been all of an hour since I dropped her off. I don't want to seem needy.

I think I am needy.

“Henry,” Scooter calls out.

I look at him, startled.

“What the hell happened to your Jeep?”

My cheeks burn. Gross, I know, but I didn't have a chance to wash it before I drove down here.

“I don't know,” I say.

“Looks like you blew chunks all over it.”

“I guess it does.”

“Must've been some party.” Scooter wanders over toward my table. This makes me wary for a number of reasons. One, I doubt his sincerity, and two, I can only imagine the sparks that might fly if Cate strolls up while he's standing here.

“It was okay,” I say.