Rippler (8 page)

“You know how complicated our lives are right now,” said Mickie. “This is not the time

—it wouldn’t be fair to her.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you. Even if there
were
anything to talk about.”

Mickie let loose a string of highly uncomplimentary adjectives ending with the word

“idiot.”

Neither spoke for over a minute.

“Aw, Mick, don’t.” Will moved closer to his sister. “Don’t cry.”

She was crying?

“Listen.” He spoke gently. “There’s been no sign that we’re being tracked. It’s been almost two years since the Pfeffer disappeared. Maybe we’re safe now, Mick.”

Mickie sat down on a large log. She drew in a long and shaky breath. Will sat down

beside her and cautiously put one arm over her shoulder.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Mickie said, her voice flat, dull. “Three

researchers who studied Helmann’s Disease just died from a gas leak. They studied

Helmann’s
, Will; not even Rippler’s Syndrome. Things are escalating.”

Chapter Seven

OVERHEARD

A shiver ran along my spine. It took me a moment to realize what that meant—that I had a solid spine again. The shadows hid me as I listened.

“I read it in the Fresno Bee. Two days ago. I didn’t know how to tell you or what we should do about it. I hoped time hiking in the Park would help me clear my mind.” Mickie sniffled, passing the back of her hand across her nose. “And I wanted to give you a nice memory to keep of your new friend. Will, I was thinking about moving already, even before finding out there’s another rippler in this town.”

“How do you know they were killed? Did the paper say it was murder?”

“Will, come on.
Gas leaks
? It’s like whoever’s behind this isn’t even worried about covering their tracks.”

“You’re telling me the truth, Mick? This isn’t some crazy way to get me in the Jeep right now?”

“Like I’d make this stuff up?”

“You
hid
this from me.”

“I hid it so the news wouldn’t wreck your trip to Yosemite.”

Will hurled a rock far into the dark night. “Geez, Mick, when are you going to stop treating me like a kid?”

She put her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees.

Will sighed heavily and looked at his sister. “Aw, crap. I’m sorry. I know you’d do anything to keep me safe.”

“Not lie to you, idiot.”

“Yeah. Okay. I said sorry.”

Mickie shambled to one of her garden beds and began pulling weeds, something I’d seen Sylvia do when she was stressed.

“Maybe there really was a gas leak, but it wasn’t intentional,” said Will.

“Not intentional?” Mick hurled a large weed past the cabin. “You know that’s bullsh—”

Her expletive was drowned by my yelp of pain as my eyes closed too late, trapping dirt missiles between my eyeballs and eyelids.

Will was at my side immediately, herding me towards the kitchen. I heard Mickie

shuffling in behind us, heard her open the refrigerator.

“Milk works better,” she said.

The water Will guided over my eyes had already removed the dirt, but not the scratchy feeling. Mickie moved her brother, held my head in one hand, and slowly poured milk over my eyes. The relief was amazing.

“Thanks.” I sneezed as milk ran up my nose.

“A towel, here, Will?” Mickie’s voice had a defeated edge.

“Where’d you learn that? About milk?” I asked.

“Raising this idiot,” Mick mumbled, passing me a towel.

I dabbed at milk, tears, mud, and a bit of leftover mascara draining from my eyes.

Glamorous.

“Didn’t see you there hiding in the dark,” said Mickie.

I couldn’t tell if her remark was an apology or an accusation.

“’S’okay,” I mumbled beneath the towel.

“What did you hear out there?” Will asked me.

Mickie muttered, “Oh, here we go,” and collapsed on an ancient papasan chair, cradling her head in her hands.

“Something about dead people who studied Helmann’s,” I replied.

“It’s past your curfew,” Will said. “Did you ripple to come over here?”

I nodded, a proud smile spreading across my face. I wanted to whisper to Will how

amazing it was, gliding through the night like a shadow, but seeing his sister, I wiped the grin off my face.

Will turned to Mickie. “There’s one option you haven’t considered, yet.”

She looked up at him wearily, across a row of boxes filled with books and kitchen pots.

“Killing you myself so I don’t have to worry about someone else beating me to it?”

Will laughed.

His sister scowled.

“Mick, you’ve finally met someone who can ripple,” Will said. “Besides me, obviously.

Just think about how much more there is to learn here. Not to mention, your objectivity would be a million percent if you didn’t have to rely on me for all your info on rippling.”

“There’s no such thing as a million percent. I swear I’m homeschooling you next year.”

Mickie growled and I realized what she reminded me of: a mama bear with a cub. She would do whatever it took to keep Will safe.

“Aren’t you curious?” Will asked. “Knowledge is power, man.”

Mickie looked from me to her brother, frustration and desire mixing equally on her face.

“Yeah, well who taught you that?”

She wanted to know more about me.

“I’d be honored to be part of your research,” I said.

“I’ll sleep on it,” Mickie said. She rose and walked down a short hall and kicked open what had to be her bedroom door.

“Her door sticks bad,” Will muttered.

Will insisted on walking me home. The jeep would have drawn attention to the fact I was breaking curfew, and he wasn’t having me go by myself, which I told him was nice but a bit pointless. I could’ve just rippled again and kept perfectly safe.

He shrugged and smiled. “Maybe I like your company better than my sister’s at the

moment.”

My heart squeezed. “I was afraid you’d be packing up,” I whispered. “I came over to check.”

“We were packing. Well, my sister was,” he said. “But I don’t think she’ll go through with it. Not after the way we both played the knowledge card on her.” He laughed. “You were brilliant! ‘I’d be honored?’ Genius!”

“I
would
be honored, dweeb,” I said, elbowing his ribs.

He chortled. “Okay, okay. So I’ll text you tomorrow morning.”

“You’re sure you won’t be leaving?” I asked.

“I’m starting school on Monday,” he said. “With or without Mick.”

“See you Monday,” I said.

Will took off at a run into the weird glow of fog visibility lights. The warm night air rippled around him and he was gone.

When I awoke the next morning, Sunday, I had two text messages: one each from Will

and Gwyn.

“i know micks curiosity will get the best of her c u monday”

I sent a smiley face to Will and flipped to Gwyn’s message.

“ok sam spill the beans how was yosemite i heard u came back alone i mean w/o his
sister!!! i m gettin kittens in Oakhurst. come with! tell me everything!!!”

I pointed out she couldn’t legally drive me.

“hello! tell your folks i m 17,”
she replied.

My folks didn’t ask, and within an hour Gwyn and I were humming down the road in her mom’s Mini Cooper. Before we left my driveway, she started the cross-examination.

“So, Yosemite? Tell me everything. The whole town says you came back with just Will last night.”

I rolled my eyes. “Why would the whole town even care?”

“Um, well, in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a distinct lack of entertainment options here.”

Sam as entertainment?
This was new. I tried to figure out what I could reveal, what I had to hide. “They had a fight,” I finally said. “And she took off and we were supposed to meet up at the car, but then she left a note saying she’d gotten her own ride home.”

“Wow. Fighting with your sibling takes on a whole different dimension when there’s no Mom or Dad to force you to get along.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “They get along pretty well. I think Mickie has kind of a short fuse, though.”

“Bet she gets that from her bad-dad,” Gwyn said.

“Probably.”

“So, I asked Ma about Will.” She looked at me anxiously. “How much do you like him?”

My smile gave me away.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?” I demanded.

“I’m not sure you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”

“So stop being dramatic and just spit it out.”

She lowered her sunglasses ‘til they rested on the tip of her nose and then looked

imperiously over the top of them at me. “
Moi?
Dramatic? Please.”

I sighed. She was impossible to hurry in this mood.

“So you know how Ma has all these rental properties?” asked Gwyn.

“No,” I said. “I thought she just owned the bakery building.”

“Yeah, that and about a dozen others,” said Gwyn, taking a curve fifteen miles-an-hour over the speed limit.

My eyebrows leapt up. “Really? No offense, but you guys don’t exactly live like real estate tycoons. And what does this have to do with Will?”

“I’m getting there,” Gwyn said. “And you’re right. The living-simple is this totally Chinese thing: you work your ass off so your kids can get ahead.” Gwyn rolled her eyes dramatically.

“That sounds nice,” I said, wondering how I’d get us back to Will again.

“Yeah, Ma has this plan I’m going to be a doctor so she’s saving for med school. Which I’m totally not doing. I’m moving to Hawaii and opening a yogurt stand. You can work there for me if you want.”

I chuckled. “Okay, Gwyn. Just cut to the chase and tell me this bad stuff your mom told you about Will.”

“Fine.” She paused. “So here’s the thing: Will and Mickie rent from Ma, and their rent is paid every month from one of those tiny countries in Europe that have banks people use to hide their money because it’s illegally acquired or dirty somehow. Slovakia. No. Sweden, maybe?”

“Do you mean Switzerland?” I asked.

“That’s the one,” she said, red lips pinching together. “Switzerland. So anyways, some nefarious criminal pays their rent every month.”

I frowned. “I don’t think having a Swiss bank account makes you automatically a

criminal, Gwyn.”

She shrugged. “Or maybe their dad makes big money selling drugs and they know all

about it but they turn a blind eye.”

“Or maybe their mom wanted to prevent their dad from ever accessing her kids’ money,”

I said. “Honestly, Gwyn, just because you can make up a crazy story doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“Maybe. But Ma says they’re a strange pair.”

“This, from the woman who thinks
you
want to be a doctor?”

She laughed so hard she snorted. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“I’m just saying, this is Will Baker we’re talking about. Politest-guy-on-the-planet-Will.

And Sylvia really likes his sister.”

“I know,” said Gwyn, sighing. “But I care about you. And there’s just something about them that doesn’t add up. That’s all I’m saying. So be careful.”

I gazed out at the pines flashing past and wondered if there was anything I could say without giving away their secrets. Finally I said something about how they’d both been through a lot, and didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

“Now you sound like Ma,” said Gwyn. “Please. I get enough of the bleeding heart club at home. Maybe some people deserve a second chance, but I think it all depends on what they did with their first chance.”

I sensed this was an argument I couldn’t win.

“But I’ll give you cute,” she said, grinning mischievously. “He’s all over tall, dark, and handsome.”

I smiled.

“Maybe he’s bi-polar, you know, like Jekyll and Hyde,” said Gwyn.

I shook my head. “I don’t think being bi-polar was Hyde’s problem. Not to mention, it’s fiction.”

“Truth is stranger than fiction, girlfriend,” said Gwyn, looking at me over the top of her sunglasses again.

You have no idea,
I thought.

“Does he
like
you?” Gwyn asked.

She slowed for a hairpin curve and a pair of dragonflies whirred past, their white tails a sharp contrast to their black-and-clear wings. I couldn’t tell if they were flying with or away from one another.

“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. It’s complicated. He might not want to . . . think of me that way, even if he does like me. His sister’s got this no-dating thing.”

“You like him.”

“I want to be his friend.”

“Liar, liar, pumpkin-eater!”

I cracked up. “Liar, liar,
pumpkin eater
?”

“Pants-on-fire. Whatever. Quit laughing at me or I’m taking you home right now.”

I laughed harder.

“The only reason you are in this car is because I felt sorry for you,” said Gwyn.

It was a joke between us. When Gwyn had moved back to Las Abs last year, she had seen me and remembered about my mom’s death and felt sorry for me.

“There you were at the track, pretty much
daring
anyone to come over, looking like the opposite of someone I would have said hi to in Orange County. And me, thinking, oh, what the hell. I’m going to go rattle that girl’s cage. And bestow my everlasting friendship upon her.”

I snorted.

“So be nice to me or I am dumping you like last year’s high heels.”

“Slow down—cops like to hang out here.” I pointed to the speed limit sign as it flashed by.

“So what did you do with yourself before I came along?” asked Gwyn.

“I ran a lot.”

“Yeah, but, you can’t run all day.”

I laughed. “Can, too!”

“Wow. So you ran for eight years straight? ‘Til I said hi?” she asked.

“Let’s just say I know these roads really, really well.”

“Ma would
kill
me if I ran the roads around here. You got some kind of death-wish?”

I looked down.

“Oh, Sam,” she said, flushing deep red. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to do that . . . that walking-on-eggshells thing with me.”