Ghost Flower (3 page)

“Who?”

“My cousin. The one you look like. I sometimes wondered if it was because she was kind of like a storm. Sounds stupid, probably.” The last part seemed more directed at himself than to me.

“You say ‘was.’ What happened to her?”

His lips compressed. “That’s what you, Bridgette, and I are going to talk about.” He frowned. “Why haven’t you asked where we’re going?”

I kept my eyes out the front window, but I was watching Bain in my peripheral vision. “It wouldn’t matter. I don’t waste my time with superfluous questions.”

“Superfluous. Fancy word. Where did you pick that up?”

“I have a library card.”

A billboard for the Highway Motel—“Next exit. Best in class!”—seemed to catch Bain’s eye as we went by it, and I felt his gaze rest on me for a moment, appraisingly. I pretended not to notice, watching the scenery pass, Mary Ann’s Diner, Citco Gas, the Rub-a-Dub Carwash.

Bain shifted his weight in his seat. “Are you always this calm when you get into cars with strange men?”

We sped by the exit for the motel. I said, “I’m fairly certain there’s nothing you and your sister want me to do that I haven’t done before.”

A parenthesis formed at the corner of his mouth as it rose in a small, pleased smile. “Oh, I think you might be surprised.”

Out of nowhere, my mind flashed back to earlier in the day, him calling me a dead ringer, and the first glimmer of fear began to clutch at my intestines. But I was determined not to show it.

We got off the main highway at the ramp just before the “Phoenix next five exits” sign and switched to small roads, the kinds that go straight from pavement to gravel without a shoulder. The kinds favored by organized serial killers for burying their victims because they’re accessible but not obvious and don’t retain tire marks.

The rain had slowed to a misty drizzle. The silver-blue of the Porsche’s headlights polished the wet asphalt into an ebony ribbon.

Traffic was light on the other side, so we bet on how many cars would pass us between each mile marker, a dollar a marker. I won the first and second miles (three cars each); he won the third (six). The fourth was still a draw when he swerved without slowing into the gravel-covered parking lot of a medium-sized general store, spraying a cascade of grey pebbles with the back tires. He braked into a parking space in front of the door, said, “Wait here,” and was out of the car, letting in a wave of cool air before I could protest. Through the window I watched him shake hands with the man behind the counter, exchange a few words, take a toothpick, and come back out.

He had the toothpick in the side of his mouth, rolling it around when he got back into the car. “Bridgette already stopped in for supplies, and she’s at the cabin waiting for us,” he said, his arm extended across the back of my seat as he made a reverse arc out of the parking spot.

“You’re scared of her,” I said.

The toothpick stopped moving. His head was twisted to look over his right shoulder, which meant it was facing me straight on, and he
stopped in the middle of backing up to move his eyes to mine. “No, I’m not. Why would I be afraid of my baby sister?” he challenged.

I couldn’t answer, but I knew I was right. You learn to sense things like that when you’ve lived like I had.

We sat like that, his eyes on my face, toothpick clenched between his lips, for the space of three heartbeats. Long enough to become aware of not blinking. Long enough so that the challenge drained from his expression and was replaced with something else, something intense that could have been longing or hate or anything in between.

His tone unreadable, he said, “Seeing you makes me miss my cousin.”

“Were you two close?”

“We were family.” He was suddenly avoiding my gaze. Turning his head from me, he punched the car into third gear. He kept his foot on the break, revved the engine until it whined like it was begging for mercy, and exploded onto the road doing sixty.

We drove in silence for the next ten minutes, the headlights flashing from side to side as we sped up a curly road, first picking up cream-colored rocks, then grey boulders, and finally trees, taller and taller ones. We passed a silver mailbox, and Bain swung into a gap between the trees, slowed, and rolled the car to a stop in front of a triple-bayed garage. It was set into a wide stone two-story building with a square tower on one side that had vines growing up it. There was a warm yellow light spilling from the windows above the garage doors and the tower, but otherwise the entire area was dark.

“We’re here,” he said, opening his door and starting to get out. “Welcome to the family cabin.”

I climbed out too. “I’m pretty sure most people would call this a castle.”

Bridgette’s voice came to us across the gravel drive saying, “As you’re finding out, we’re not most people.”

She was standing inside a wide door at the base of the tower. She’d changed into grey leggings and a light blue baggy sweater, but she still had on the driving moccasins. Her arms were crossed over her chest. “For one thing, we’re more careful. Before you take another step, tell me your name. And don’t say Eve Brightman. Eve Brightman died eleven years ago; I checked. You’re not even on Facebook. Who are you
really
?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. Nothing about my life had ever really fit into birthday party invitation categories like
Who, What, Where, When, Dress to Impress
. But I couldn’t tell Bridgette that. Instead I put some challenge in my voice and said, “Why does it matter?”

“That’s not an answer. I want an answer.”

I watched a moth flutter around the buttery light next to the well-kept, solid-looking door, and it made me think of the cocoon I’d seen earlier.

I decided to go with the truth.

“I
’m on the run,” I said. “I’ve been hiding.”

Bridgette’s eyes narrowed slightly, and I got the feeling that wasn’t what she was expecting. “From who?”

“Someone who thinks I have something they want.”

“Are the police looking for you?”

“No.” I was pretty sure that was true but not positive.

“So it’s just this—individual. Who is he?”

“That’s none of your business.”

Bain was next to me then. “You didn’t tell me you were a criminal. You played me.”

“I’m not a criminal. And you didn’t ask.”

He said, “What’s your real name?”

I considered it, truly, then said, “I don’t think I want to tell you that.”

Dark indentations appeared beneath his cheekbones as he clenched his jaw. “Forget it. The whole thing is off.”

Bridgette looked at him curiously. “It was your idea.”

“Well, I changed my mind. It’s a bad bet. And as I’m sure you’re
dying to remind me, not the first.” He shifted his eyes to me. “I’ll drive you back to Tucson. Unless you’d rather ride with Bridgette.”

“Either way.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bridgette watching us, and I sensed she was amused. “Bain, may I speak to you for a moment?”

He dragged his eyes from me and glowered at her. “What?”

“Let’s go upstairs. You might as well stay for dinner. I made
macaroni au gratin avec lardon
,” Bridgette said, with a hint of challenge.

Even though I had no idea what that was, I was suddenly ravenous. I’d skipped breakfast and lunch, and my dinner the night before had been a day-old scone. “That’s a favorite of mine,” I told her, like I ate it every day.

Her eyes narrowed again, but she turned and led the way up the staircase. They led up one floor into a wide open space with the windows I’d seen from below on one side, and a wall of French doors on another. There was a fancy-looking kitchen with an island surrounded by six tall stools with backs. An immense overstuffed couch and chairs were grouped around a huge sheepskin rug, facing a fireplace. The furniture was all white or cream and modern but comfortable looking. Three places were set at the kitchen island with plates and napkins and glasses and forks and spoons that looked like they could be real silver, and the smell of something delicious baking came from the oven. The kitchen area alone would take an hour and a half to clean properly.

But what drew my eye was the piano. A baby grand made of a rare dark wood gleaming like a beacon off in a corner by the French doors. It was a beautiful instrument.

Bridgette pushed Bain through one of the French doors onto the balcony that ran the length of the building, said to me, “Help yourself to whatever you want. We’ll just be a second,” and closed it behind her.

I took a bottle of Perrier from the refrigerator and moved toward the piano, which would give me a good vantage point to watch Bridgette and Bain. Lines of photos in matching hammered silver frames marched down the length of it like officers in the Army of Memory.

I picked up the largest one, a smiling group overlooking a tennis court. Unlike the others, it had a dark matte around the edges as though it had been cropped, and the center seemed shifted. A woman with striking silver hair sat in the front near the left edge, with an athletic-looking man in a yellow polo shirt and seersucker shorts leaning against the balcony edge behind her. There were enough physical similarities to make me think he might be Bain and Bridgette’s father. The man was smiling, but he wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking intently to the left, off the side of the photo. On the other side of the old woman stood Bain and Bridgette, slightly younger, both dressed for tennis.

Every detail, from the glint of the double strand of pearls the old woman was wearing with her tennis dress to Bridgette’s unscuffed tennis shoes to the watch tan line on Bain’s wrist above the red handle of the racket combined to make the picture look like an advertisement for How the Rich Live. They were all smiling and appeared to be a complete happy family with everything in the world they could want. But it had a careful, curated feeling that seemed sinister. What was the man looking at so intently just outside the frame?

Suddenly I felt cold. I moved my eyes from the photo to the real thing outside. Bridgette and Bain walked up and down the balcony, so I could only catch snippets of their conversation. At first they went in jerks, a few steps forward, then a stop to argue, then a few more steps. Bain seemed angry and shrugged Bridgette’s hand off, but then his posture changed, got straighter. I made out the words
“fool us” and “leverage,” before they moved on and the conversation got indistinct. Bridgette was clearly in charge. Soon they were strolling up and back in sync, heads close, him nodding at her. I caught something about “makes her dependable,” before they wheeled away again. Watching them was like watching two predatory fish in a tank swimming slowly back and forth. Circling.

“What if they don’t know they’re in a tank?” I could hear Nina asking in my mind. I pictured her sitting on top of the washing machine, leaning out as far as she could to look through the door of the laundry room across the kitchen to the massive fish tank that separated it from the dining table at the Dockwood place.

I had been working for a cleaning service. No benefits, no questions asked about my age or ID or why I wasn’t in school. $7.25 an hour plus tips. Although, despite spending my days inside houses with inlaid marble floors and walls of books that had never been read and built-in safes and ornamental bowls casually used to throw all the remote controls into, there were rarely tips.

Nina was fascinated by the fish, and I felt bad making her stay in the laundry room. But she wasn’t supposed to be there, even though the Dockwoods weren’t home. I knew they had security cameras, and I couldn’t risk her being seen. “You mean, what if we’re the ones in the tank and they’re watching us?” I asked.

“Yes!” she squealed.

“How do you know we’re not?” I asked her.

I knew the question would keep her for awhile. She liked to work things out and come up with concrete answers and often got exasperated by my high tolerance, maybe even preference, for not knowing. I was upstairs polishing the handles on the his and hers vanities—vanity indeed—in the master bedroom when I heard the patter of Nina’s footsteps behind me.

“I figured it out,” she said, sounding so excited I couldn’t chastise her for coming to find me. “If we were in the tank, we wouldn’t have to worry about what we were going to eat for dinner. We’d never be hungry. So we’re not in the tank.”

“No,” I agreed, and the polish cloth in my hand started to tremble. I kept my head down, working the cloth in smooth circles and avoiding looking at her so she wouldn’t see my struggle to hold back tears. “We’re not.” I was trying so hard, but it wasn’t enough. I took a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and raised my eyes to hers in the mirror.

And froze.

There was a trickle of blood running from her nose down her face. “Sweetheart,” I said, turning to wipe it, but it kept coming. “What happened?”

“What?” she looked at me blankly. Then she saw the blood. “I don’t know. It just started.”

“Has this happened before?” I asked.

She looked away. “No.”

“How often?”

She shrugged. “When we were still with Mrs. Cleary, it was maybe once every week or two?”

“And now?”

Her eyes met mine and filled with tears. “Mostly maybe every day.” She started to cry. “I’m so scared.”

I got on my knees and hugged her, and that’s where we were when Mrs. Dockwood came in and saw us and the two spots blooming like bloodred flowers on the edge of her white hand-loomed carpet.

“Not only does she have a girl with her, she has a
sick
girl,” she screamed into her phone at my boss. “This is completely unacceptable.
Bringing something like this into my house. The carpet is ruined.
Ruined
,” Mrs. Dockwood moaned. “We’re going to have to replace the whole thing, and it will cost a fortune. I hope you have good insurance.”

I stared at the floor, squeezing Nina’s trembling hand to reassure her.

“I’m very sorry,” she said to Mrs. Dockwood, and to her credit, Mrs. Dockwood smiled at her and said, “It’s not your fault, dear.” Her eyes came to me. “It’s hers. What was she doing here? This isn’t a day care.”