Flash Point (17 page)

Kaylie said, “Well—maybe not your most shining hour, sis. Although that Dumpster trick was pretty good.”

“Shut up,” Violet said sweetly.

Amy glanced at Gran. She lay still, her mouth open. For a horrifying second Amy thought she was dead, but of course she had only fallen into the unpredictable sleep of the sick and old. Just as well. She didn’t need to see Amy make a fool of herself. So far, Amy had been the only one to not escape.

Tommy didn’t either. He spied the bleeding man, looked confused, walked toward him, backed away, rushed forward again, and knelt helplessly beside the man. When the actor grabbed him, Tommy let out a howl of anguish and curled into a fetal position, tears running down his face. The camera lingered on the sight before giving way to “TOMMY: Freezes and cries!”

“The bastards,” Amy said softly.

Kaylie said, “What’s wrong with him? He’s as big as Cai, he could have taken that guy easy!”

“He’s mentally challenged,” Violet said, “and Myra’s even more of a bitch than I thought.”

Violet was the last participant, and hers was the longest segment, with the most close-ups and dialogue. When she was grabbed, Violet pretended she was panting for sex with this “hunky thug, the kind that have always turned me on,” until he released his grip in bewilderment and she ran on those long, long legs. “VIOLET: Strikes a bargain with the attacker!”

“Huh,” Kaylie said, a complex syllable carrying satisfaction, envy, and scorn.

Amy didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t look at Violet, for whom she felt a deep embarrassment that Violet apparently didn’t feel for herself. Amy was doubly glad that Gran was asleep.

The rest of the show consisted of identifying the winners who had voted correctly: “Against odds of 78,125 to one!” There were three winners, each of whom was brought onto the show and presented with a check for $3,333,333.333. The payout was one penny short.

“How did they know how to vote?” Kaylie said. “They didn’t know yet what you guys are each like.”

“Random chance,” Amy said, but she didn’t bother to explain the math. All at once she felt exhausted and dispirited. What had she gotten herself into?

The feeling didn’t go away after Violet left, Amy woke Gran, and she and Kaylie helped her to bed. Kaylie looked thoughtful and said little until they had opened the sofa bed. Then Kaylie looked straight at Amy and demanded, “Why you and not me?”

“Random chance,” Amy said, aware that she was echoing herself. She expected more argument from Kaylie, or more
something,
anyway, but it didn’t happen. Kaylie slipped out of the apartment while Amy was in the bathroom, and Amy went to sleep.

Only to wake to chaos.

Eighteen

T
HURSDAY

“AMY!” BELLOWED MRS. RADUSKI
outside the apartment door. “Get your ass out here!”

Amy woke from vague, unpleasant dreams. Daylight streamed in the window. Mrs. Raduski pounded on the door and Buddy snarled. Amy bolted upright. Gran called feebly from the bedroom, “Amy? What is it?” and Amy jumped out of bed and unlocked the apartment door.

“Mrs. Raduski! What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong, Little Miss Trouble. All them vans blocking the street and banging on my door and upsetting my tenants! Nobody can’t even go out on the public sidewalk without being set on! You just go down there and make them move!”

Buddy lunged and tried to bite Amy. She eluded him with the deftness of long practice. She went to the window, calling over her shoulder, “It’s all right, Gran, it’s just Mrs. Raduski.”

“No, it
ain’t
just me!” Mrs. Raduski said. “See down there?”

Five vans crowded the street, each with the bright logo of a TV station or Internet news link. Around them pressed a crowd of people, mostly young, some of whom certainly should have been in school. One looked up and cried, “There she is!” Cameras and cell phones clicked as Amy closed the curtain, but not before she heard someone else scream, “How do you feel about the attack on Tommy?”

Attack? On Tommy? What was— Her cell rang. Mrs. Raduski snapped, “I mean get them people out
now
!” and slammed the door. Gran called again, “Amy?”

“Coming, Gran! It’s all right, Mrs. Raduski is just upset about— Hello?”

“Amy,” said Myra’s cool voice, “TLN will move you in one hour. Please be ready with just what you can carry. A car will arrive and the driver will have TLN identification.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you seen the news? By the bye, in the normal way you would have needed to be at work in fifteen minutes, which means you’ve overslept. One hour, dear.”

It was the “dear” that did it. Myra Townsend’s condescension, her calm assumption that she could reorder Amy’s life whenever and however she wanted—Amy might even have put up with those as part of the price she’d decided to pay for Gran’s medical help. She had made that bargain, and she would keep it. But Myra’s pretense that she was motherly and kind, acting in dear Amy’s best interests—it was no part of the bargain to accept that. Cold fury, so much more useful than the hot variety, infused her voice.

“We’re not moving, Myra. Here is where I live and here is where I intend to go on living. Nothing in my contract allows you to shuffle me around like a pawn on a chessboard.”

“Turn on the news, dear,” was all Myra said, and clicked off.

Amy didn’t care if the news showed earthquakes and supernovas. She wasn’t going. Myra did not control her private life. There were limits!

She turned on the news.

“. . . wildfire under control in Colorado after aid from local smoke jumpers and the combined resources of three states’ firefighters. Meanwhile, in local news, one of Taunton Life Network’s newest stars was attacked this morning as he walked in Lincoln Park. Thomas ‘Tommy’ Wimmer, eighteen, was gathering spiders as part of his hobby when he was hit with a tire iron by an unknown assailant. Wimmer appeared last night on the new TLN show
Who Knows People, Baby—You?
and unconfirmed reports from eyewitnesses to the incident say that the attacker was a viewer who would have won over a million dollars except for guessing wrong about Wimmer’s show participation. Stay with us as we cover this breaking story. Also this morning, the mayor’s Budget Advisory Committee—”

Tommy. A tire iron. How badly was he hurt?

Gran stood in the bedroom doorway, leaning heavily against the jamb. One look and Amy knew it was one of Gran’s bad days. She rushed to support her to the table even as her cell rang again.

Gran managed a weak smile. “Grand Central Station around here.”

“I—just let me get this.”

She eased Gran into the upholstered chair and grabbed for her cell. Violet.

“Did you see the news?”

“I just did. Violet, what’s happening?”

“A bunch of different things. First, we’re a success, or rather the show is. Second, the crazies are coming out. Myra announced that the prize money is being upped to ten million dollars. Third, we’re all being moved to ‘a secure location.’ Don’t you love it? I feel like the president.”

“You’re going?”

“Of course I’m going! Weren’t you listening when I told you about the hellhole I share with two other out-of-work dancers? It makes your place look like the Taj Mahal. My roommates are teal with jealousy—that’s a shade deeper than green. You don’t mean to say you’re not—Amy! What is it?”

Amy screamed. From where she stood in the living room, she could see past the pulled-out sofa bed and into the dimly lit kitchen. A rat stood on the counter, eating last night’s popcorn that, in the rush of television and emotion, no one had put away.

The rat raised its head and stared unmoving at Amy.

For a crazy minute she thought that the rat was unreal, another of Mark Meyer’s tech tricks like the rats in the plaza outside the doctor’s office. If she moved toward it, it would dissolve. She couldn’t move toward it, couldn’t move at all. Gran called to her, Violet called to her over her cell, and neither of them equaled the message coming from that silent rat with its monstrous flat black eyes and naked tail.

A long moment spun itself out.

Then the rat jumped off the corner and disappeared behind the refrigerator, its ugly tail the last to disappear. Amy put out a shaky arm in Gran’s direction, which was supposed to indicate she was all right. Into the cell she said, “Yes. Yes, Violet, yes. We’re moving.”

* * *

The car, a black Chrysler with opaque windows and a chassis that looked sturdy enough to withstand ballistic missiles, arrived promptly. All but one of the press vans had given up, and most of the fans—if that’s what they’d been—had presumably gone to jobs or school. Only a few cameras flashed as two men in dark suits helped Gran down the stairs and into the car. She sank back against the seat and closed her eyes. Neither of the men questioned her state or spoke more than bare necessities to Amy. Their impersonal efficiency was a little frightening, as if Amy were being aided by machines with their own agenda.

Kaylie’s cell was off, but that problem was addressed by the man who met them at what seemed to be the loading dock of a large building. More alleys, more Dumpsters. Amy had a sharp sense of déjà vu, which then became a phantom in her mind:
a vast brick pile, grimy with centuries of dirt, its windows barred
. Amy had seen that image somewhere before, but where?

Not here. The loading dock led to a concrete room stacked with crates, one wall of which was lined with locked doors. The men, one nearly carrying Gran and the other Amy’s two pathetic suitcases, unlocked one and led them through. An elevator took them to the seventeenth floor, where they emerged into a hallway with thick gray carpet and bronze-colored walls.

“Hello, Amy,” Alex Everett said. “We’re glad to have you here. And this is your grandmother? Ma’am, would you like to see a doctor? I can summon one to your suite.”

Amy thought of all the painful bus rides, all the scrounging for cab money, all the times she’d been told, “No insurance? Well, then, I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do.” And now:
I can summon a doctor to your suite.
Just like that. The profound unfairness of the world flooded her all over again.

Gran quavered, “Yes, please.”

The suite was quietly luxurious without being ostentatious. Two bedrooms with full baths plus a half bath, a main room with two sofas, a chair, and a table that sat six. TV and a desk with a computer. Amy saw Gran settled into bed and then returned to Alex.

“We’ve called your sister and told her to come here,” Alex said. “Any other names you want placed on the visiting list can pass security if they have photo IDs the first time, matching retinal scans after that. You need to get your own retinal scan on file at the security office behind the concierge’s desk as soon as possible. Also tell them what alias you choose to be registered under; only calls addressed to the alias will be allowed through the land line. The clothes Serena chose for you are in your bedroom. You don’t need to report to work today—Myra will call you. Order your meals from room service. Don’t say anything on the phone or online that gives away where you are, and above all, do not leave the hotel for any reason. Any questions?”

“Yes. Where am I?”

“The Fairwood Hotel on Sixth Avenue.”

“How is Tommy?”

“In good condition. The tire iron hit his arm but without breaking any bones, God knows how.”

“Did you or Myra order that attack?”

Alex stared at her. “Don’t be ridiculous, Amy.”

She believed him, and felt a little ashamed. Shame blunted her next question. “How did you get my sister’s cell number? I never gave it to you.”

“She called us.”

“Kaylie did? When?”

“Which time?”

Which time?
Did that mean Kaylie had been calling Alex or Myra regularly? Why?

But Amy knew why. Kaylie wanted to be on the show too. That was why she’d been so nice to Amy lately. And Kaylie could easily have gotten Myra’s number off Amy’s cell while Amy slept, going behind Amy’s back to make her case to TLN. That tactic seemed to have failed, but Amy was pretty sure she knew what Kaylie would try next.

Alex said no more. After he left, Amy went into her new bedroom and sat on the bed, staring at the packages that held all the clothes TLN had picked out for her. Just as they had picked the Fairwood Hotel, had picked Gran’s new doctor, had picked Amy herself.

But not the rat. That had been in the old apartment already.

* * *

The doctor had Gran sign some transfer-of-records forms, gave her some pills “to make you more comfortable,” and promised to return. Amy, who had never seen a doctor make a house call before (all right, “hotel call”), didn’t think he’d helped much. But Gran did seem to be resting easier when Amy finally left her to explore the hotel. The first person she saw in the hallway was Rafe.

He said in his abrupt way, “You’ve seen the clip of you on the Internet?”

“I haven’t even turned on the computer yet.”

“It’s you jumping onto the Dumpsters, Lynn robbing the actor’s pockets, and Violet offering sex,” Rafe said flatly. “Those are the three that went viral. Looks like you girls are winning.”

“I didn’t know it was a competition.”

He grinned, but without mirth. “Everything’s a competition, Amy. All of life. Come on, I’m going to have a late breakfast with Violet. She didn’t know when you’d get here and your cell isn’t answering anymore.”

“I ran out of minutes.” Somehow it was all right to expose her poverty to Rafe, in a way that it wasn’t to, for instance, Cai. Rafe hadn’t even noticed her new clothes, the black jeans and layered silk top, neither of which was what Serena had dictated that Amy wear today.

He said, “Ask Myra for a new cell. I think we can ask for pretty much anything we want. Temporarily, anyway.” He started down the corridor and motioned for her to follow.

“What do you want, Rafe?”

“A medical education.
That
Myra is not going to give me. I might run an EKG and detect her lack of a heart.”

Amy laughed. Violet’s room, large but not a suite, was littered with suitcases and ripped packaging and clothes; it looked like an explosion in Neiman Marcus. Violet, looking great in skinny jeans and a one-shouldered top, shoved everything into a corner. Amy was suddenly ravenous. Their room-service orders appeared with amazing promptness and they ate them on a round table of some silvery material that reflected Amy back to herself.

Rafe raised a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice toward the ceiling. “Thank you, Myra.”

Violet stopped a spoonful of yogurt halfway to her mouth. “You think we’re being filmed?”

“I think everything we do from now on is being filmed. And that we should remember that.”

Amy said, “I think that might be a little paranoid. After all, we weren’t filmed in our apartments, before.”

“We weren’t TV stars, before. And the second ratings fall, we won’t be filmed again. But right now, we’re lab rats—poke them in their cages to see what they do and carefully record the results.”

Amy considered this. “OK, maybe filming in the living room of my suite—I have a suite, guys, see the advantage of having actual relatives—but not in the bedroom. I don’t believe it. And do you see any cameras?”

Violet said, “Don’t you think Mark Meyer is capable of hiding them? He produced an entire forest in a high-rise office, for chrissake. And microcams are easy to disguise these days. But actually, One Two Three, I think you’re right. No filming in bedrooms. Too many potential lawsuits.”

Rafe just shook his head and chewed another forkful of eggs Benedict.

A knock on the door, which Violet opened. “Hey, Cai, come on in and . . . oh.”

Amy’s stomach tightened. She caught Rafe studying her a second before her gaze moved, as if pulled by a tractor beam, to Cai. With him was Kaylie.