Revelations (8 page)

You’re just having some kind of stress freak-out being back in this place. And that’s actually totally normal. If it felt

okay to be back in here,
that
would be crazy.

“You all right?” Yana asked.

“Yeah,” Rae answered. She and Yana were getting a little bit closer again. But there was no way Rae was spilling
her guts to Yana. Not after what she’d done.

“Then let’s get going. This might be our only chance to get into Dr. Hachin’s office.” Yana grabbed Rae’s arm and
tugged her down the hall inthe opposite direction from Samantha and the other nurse. She came to a halt near an
open doorway, then slowly backed away from it, pulling Rae with her. “She’s in there,” Yana whispered. “If I get her
out, will you be okay going in alone?”

“Uh-huh. Definitely,” Rae answered. Even though she couldn’t say definitely that she’d be able to walk from where
she stood to Dr. Hachin’s office by herself.

“Go in the visitors’ bathroom for a minute. I won’t need more than that,” Yana instructed.

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.
It felt like it took a full hour,
but Rae was able to make it to the end of the hall, around the corner, and into the bathroom. She locked the door
behind her and leaned against it. Immediately she began to count. “One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three,
one thousand.” She didn’t want time to think. Or to get any of the not-me thoughts-wherever they were coming
from.

When she got to sixty, one thousand, Rae right-foot, left-footed back into the hallway and back down to Dr.

Hachin’s office. She paused outside the open door and listened. “Sounds empty,” she whispered, then she stepped
inside. “Okay,” she said. “I need to touch something that Dr. Hachin would have touched when she was thinking
about Yana.” Somehowspeaking out loud made Rae feel a little calmer.

She scanned the office, and her eyes came to rest on the row of bright green filing cabinets behind Dr. Hachin’s
orange desk. Dr. Hachin believed in color. Rae remembered how the doctor had made her dad bring her a bright
pink sweater for Rae to wear in the hospital, a sweater Rae had ceremoniously burned when she was allowed to go
home.

Maybe I shouldn’t have burned it. Maybe I’ll be needing it again.

“No,” she said aloud. “I’m not crazy. I wasn’t crazy then. I just didn’t know I was a fingerprint reader, so I
thought
I
was going crazy when I got the not-me thoughts.”

Rae tried to shove away the nagging worry that the thoughts she’d been getting today
hadn’t
been coming from
fingerprints. She just wasn’t going to go there.

“Focus on what you’re supposed to be doing. You don’t know how long Dr. Hachin will be gone,” Rae mumbled to
herself.

Finally she found the
S
drawer and pulled it open. /
maybe I should try
/
chipped a
/
the sister is
/

It wasn’t just that the thoughts hadn’t come from fingerprints, though. She hadn’t been touching
anything.

“Just keep looking,” she told herself throughclenched teeth as she continued to flip through files. Wait. There was
a file for Yana in here. A thin file in a new-looking folder. Rae slid it free.
erratic behavior
father extremely/family
history/

This was looking bad. It was looking very bad. Rae opened the folder. Inside was a single sheet of paper with a
notation of a time and date for an evaluation of Yana Savari.

“What?”

Rae jerked her head up and saw Yana in the doorway. Her face was pale. “What?” she repeated.

“It’s not good,” Rae admitted. She swept her fingers over the memo.
possible manic depressive
father
fears/erratic/

“Tell me,” Yana demanded.

Rae’s head was pounding so loudly, it almost drowned out Yana’s voice. “You’re scheduled for an evaluation,” she
answered. “And it seems like your dad has been doing whatever he can to make Dr. Hachin think-”

“That I should be put away,” Yana finished.

No, you should be put away, Rae. I can see the insanity bubbling up inside you .

Rae snatched her fingers away from the sheet of paper as if it were on fire. But the thoughts kept coming.

You need to be back here . Safe in your ownlittle room. Strapped in your own little bed.

Those thoughts aren’t coming from fingerprints,
Rae thought.
And they aren’t coming from me. They
aren’t.

But wasn’t that what all lunatics thought? That the voices in their heads were from God or dogs or aliens or
something?

Have I been crazy all this time? Am I going to end up in here for the rest of my life?
Rae was sure those thoughts
were her own. And they froze the blood in her veins.

There have to be forty TVs in here,
Anthony thought as he stepped into the dark interior of The Score. And who
knew how many guys-the place was filled with mostly guys, guys and waitresses-sitting around drinking and
staring at the screens. He took a quick glance at the photo of Aiden Matthews that Jesse had pulled out of the
Wilton Center computer, then started to circle the perimeter of the sports bar, slowly, methodically, checking out the
face of every warm body in the place. Even if Aiden was disguised in a wig and one of the tight little referee outfits
the waitresses had on, Anthony was gonna find him.

He let out a disgusted snort when he’d completed the circuit. He’d found a big fat nothing.
What wereyou

expecting?
he asked himself.
Did you really think just because the last call Aiden made was to this place that he’d

just be sitting here waiting for you?

Well, yeah, actually that’s exactly what Anthony had been thinking. Or at least hoping. If this was some lame
detective TV show, Aiden would have been here.
Okay, bartender,
Anthony thought. He headed over to the bar, slid
onto an empty stool, and checked out the game on the closest TV. The bartender’s eyes were on the game, too, and
he seemed in no hurry to take Anthony’s order. But when the quarterback fumbled, the guy managed to do his
frickin’ job and ask what Anthony wanted.

“Beer,” Anthony told him, ready to reach for the fake ID he’d gotten in New Orleans. But the bartender dude’s
attention was back on the game. He slid a draft in front of Anthony without even raising an eyebrow.

A waitress with a braid that reached almost to her butt pushed her way up to the bar. “I need three Buds,” she
called to the guy behind the bar. He didn’t even blink, just kept staring at the game.

“Would you reach over and smack him for me?” the waitress asked Anthony. “I can’t reach.”

“I heard you, I heard you,” the bartender saidbefore Anthony could respond. He grabbed the beers and pushed
them in the direction of the waitress.

“Butt head,” she muttered as she slid the beers onto a tray. The bartender didn’t respond. Big surprise.

Clearly I’m not going to get any info out of him until a commercial,
Anthony thought. He took a sip of his beer,
figuring he’d nurse the thing for as long as he had to to stay in the bar. Today was not the day to get hammered. He
had to figure out who was still after Rae-government or not government. Not that she cared. The game on the TV

wavered, and for a second the screen was filled with the image of Rae kissing Marcus. Kissing him in a way that
was making Marcus groan.

Anthony tightened his grip on his beer stein and ordered himself to stop being a moron. He was the one who’d
wanted Rae to get back together with Salkow. They belonged together-two purebred poodles. After graduation
they’d go off to some big whoop college together, then they’d get married, and Rae’d squeeze out some more little
purebreds and everybody would be very happy. As long as Anthony made sure Rae stayed alive to enjoy her perfect
life with perfect Marcus, who’d probably be some lawyer or something and make millions every year.

“Can you shove over the pretzels?” Anthony asked the big beer-bellied guy next to him. Beer Belly sent them
Anthony’s way without taking his eyes off the game. Anthony jammed a fistful of the extra-salty pretzels in his
mouth and forced his gaze onto the game, too. No more thinking about Rae. Except telling himself not to think
about her was thinking about her, and it made him think about her even more. Crap.

Finally a commercial came on. Every guy sitting at the bar started calling for another round. Anthony waited until
the bartender set them all up, then Anthony stuck the photo of Aiden in the guy’s face. “Seen him around?” he
asked.

The game started back up. “Don’t think so,” the bartender answered, his head already swiveling back toward the
tube.

“Can you take another look?” Anthony asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. The bartender didn’t
seem like the kind of guy who would respond to being pushed.

“I told you, don’t know the guy,” the bartender answered without turning back to Anthony.

The waitress with the braid slid between Anthony and Beer Belly’s stools. “I need two boilermakers and, if you can
believe it, a mint julep,” she told the bartender.

“Hey, do you know this guy?” Anthony asked, flashing the picture of Aiden.
Chicks like hearing the details,
he
reminded himself. “He’s my uncle. My aunt sent me to fetch him home. Family dinner nightmare,” he added.

“He hasn’t been in today,” the waitress said. She grabbed the bar with both hands and hauled herself up on it.

Then she smacked the bartender on the head.

“Boilermakers, right,” he said.

“And a mint julep,” the waitress told him as she slid back to the ground. “But your uncle does come in here a lot.

Great tipper,” she told Anthony. She lowered her voice. “Gambles a lot. You should talk to that guy over there, the
one in the pink shirt. He takes the bets.”

“Thanks,” Anthony said. He stood up, grabbed his beer, then headed over to the man in pink, who was sitting at a
big table in front of a TV showing a horse race. Anthony didn’t know which one. Not his thing. But it would probably
be good to act like he was into it. He pulled a twenty out of his pocket, folded it, and dropped it on the table in front
of Mr. Pink. “On the seven horse in the tenth race.”

Mr. Pink flicked the bill onto the floor. Anthony picked it up. What was the guy’s deal? Was the waitress wrong
about him?

“Are you still here?” Mr. Pink asked.

“Yeah, I heard…” Anthony’s words trailed off as Mr. Pink’s cool green eyes swept from the tips of Anthony’s
sneakers to the top of his head.
He’s looking at me like I’m something he should be wiping off the bottom of his

shoe,
Anthony thought. The hand not holding his beer automatically curled into a fist. And Mr. Pink gave a friggin’

chuckle.

Anthony suddenly felt like a twelve-year-old trying to get into a pickup game of b-ball with some high school guys.

But come on, who was this guy to be giving him attitude? He was just some lowlife bookie. Anthony reached down
and snatched up his twenty. “Guess I heard wrong,” he said.

“Yes, you did,” Mr. Pink answered. He pulled the toothpick out of his martini and slid the olive off it with his teeth.

He slowly chewed the olive, continuing to look at Anthony.

Anthony hesitated. All he wanted to do was slink away, especially now that all Mr. Pink’s buds had started to watch
the show. But he needed to ask about Aiden.

“Look, you want another drink?” Anthony blurted.

“No, I’m fine,” Mr. Pink told him.

Does he know how much I would like to smash his superior face in?
Anthony wondered. “I just… My aunt sent me
here to look for my uncle and-”

He’s not buying it
, Anthony realized. “I’m looking for Aiden Matthews,” he said, since all he could think to do was
spit out the truth.

“He’s not here,” Mr. Pink said.

Big freaking news,
Anthony thought. “Do you know where I can find him? I mean, you must know him. Since you
know he’s not here.”

“He’s not here,” Mr. Pink repeated. It was clearly the end of the conversation.

Anthony turned around and started away from the table. What else could he do?

“Hey, kid,” Mr. Pink called after him.

Anthony spun back to face Mr. Pink. He knew he looked way too excited, way too eager, but he couldn’t help it.

“There’s no tenth race today,” Mr. Pink said.

“It says that school personnel and other relatives might be called in and asked questions during the psychiatric
evaluation of a child or adolescent,” Rae told Yana. She replaced the thick book back on the shelf.

“I’m so screwed,” Yana answered. “My principal hates me. She acts like I’m some kind of rabid dog that should be
put down.”

Rae shook her head. “Remember that article we read on the MMPI-2. One of the things it tests for isexaggeration of
problems. Too much exaggeration sends up a warning flag for the evaluator.”