Run (17 page)

I dial the number she leaves at the end of her message.

“Mrs. Blume?” I ask, when she answers on the first ring, trying to keep my ever-increasing anxiety on my side of the phone line.

I might need that Xanax after all.

She says hello and then launches into the reason for the call. Her words seem off a little, like she’s unsure if she should be calling. Or, I think, like she’s afraid to call.

“I don’t know if this will be helpful,” she says, “but something strange happened this afternoon.”

I’m hanging on every word, but I don’t urge her on. She’s going to get where she’s going as soon as she can. She’s a little unnerved. I hope her husband is okay, though I don’t know why I would think she’d call me to tell me that.

“After you left, that detective I was telling you about called.”

My heart sinks. He’s following me.

“The one whose name you couldn’t recall?” I ask.

“Yes, that’s the one. Alex Rader. He’s the one from the sheriff’s office. Anyway, he came to our house and asked me questions about
you
. He told me that you were an imposter bent on stirring up trouble.”

My pulse quickens at the mention of his name. Alex Rader is trailing me. Who will find who first? Seems like my biological father and I are in a kind of competition to see who can find the other. I intend to win. I
have
to win.

“I wonder why he said that?” I finally say as though the accusation seems incomprehensible, when deep down I know it is an astute observation. The truth is that I have been an imposter my entire life. But so has he. He’s lived among the shadows, doing evil at night. During the day, he masquerades as an upstanding citizen. A cop. I know that he’s killed all those girls. Maybe others. I know he has my mother right now. I just don’t know where.

“You didn’t tell him where I was?” I ask, trying to hold the heaving of my heart inside my ribcage.

“Oh no,” she answers. “I never trusted or liked him whatsoever. Neither did my husband. He was nothing more than a conceited snot that never gave one whit about Shannon. He said all the right words, but I knew he was just a climber looking for a notch on his detective shield.”

“I know the type all too well,” I say, as I cradle the phone and look over my weapons. “Such a fraud.”

“I wanted you to know that he’s after you.”

And I’m after
him
.

“Thank you, Mrs. Blume,” I say doing my best impression of a warm and unworried tone. “I appreciate that.”

She thanks me and ends our conversation with, “I could tell when we talked that you care about Shannon.”

Though unintended, her words are a dagger to my heart. I know she means to comfort me, but I don’t care about Shannon. I don’t care about anything other than finding my mom and killing my bio dad. Now
he’s
tracking me. I guess it wouldn’t be hard. He probably knew what car Aunt Ginger drove. He might have followed her to see my mother, watching her afar that Labor Day when the two sisters met under the arches at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. Maybe a police traffic camera caught the plates of the Ford Focus? It wouldn’t be hard to find me. As careful as I’ve been.

I hang up. My heart’s pressing harder against my ribcage. I’m only certain of one thing. I have to leave. First I go downstairs to the front desk and tell the clerk that my suitcase is jammed and I need a screwdriver to get into the lock. She pulls one from the top drawer and hands it to me. I go outside, looking north, then south in the parking lot. It is empty. I hurry over to the car closest to mine and remove my Idaho plates. I remove the plates from a blue Dodge caravan, hoping the mother and father will be so distracted by their brood that they won’t notice their missing license plates until long after I’m gone. After screwing their plates on the Focus, I toss the Idaho plates into the trash and return to my room to get my things. I already paid for tonight’s stay, but I can’t remain here.

Exactly two minutes later I’m on the road.

Chapter Fourteen

Cash: $20.

Food: Nothing.

Shelter: The car.

Weapons: Gun, scissors, ice pick, bottle of Xanax, screwdriver.

Plan: Pour gas on my dad’s body and light him on fire. Not really. But something dark inside me tells me that would be permissible. Maybe even fun.

A DENNY’S RESTAURANT SIGN BECKONS. I haven’t eaten a real meal since Aunt Ginger’s place in Wallace. My eyes look hollow and I know that’s a symptom of both hunger and my escalating anxiety. I find a spot at the counter next to an old man nursing a hangover. I spread out the map with Xs indicating where Alex Rader’s victims were last seen and found. When a heaping platter of scrambled eggs, silver dollar pancakes, and a rasher of bacon arrive, I devour it all. If heaven was real and if it had a flavor, it would be bacon swimming in maple syrup. I order coffee too. I let the hot drink roll down into my stomach slowly. Caffeine will help. When the man next to me leaves, I reach for his butter-stained newspaper.

And immediately I see my face. My old face, that is. The face I had before I did the Mom makeover. The headline makes me nearly toss my breakfast up on the counter, but I manage to keep it in my stomach.

KITSAP TEEN WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN FATHER’S

MURDER INQUIRY

I read the article in the Seattle paper—the same paper I was mad at for denying my stepfather’s murder any coverage—and I’m completely aghast. The story indicates that evidence at the scene has led to the case being investigated as patricide—murder of a father by his child. While investigators couldn’t rule out the missing wife and mother, there were indications that “the daughter was deeply troubled and showed signs of rage.”

 … 
Caradee Hagen, a sophomore at the high school and close friend of the missing teenager, indicated that Rylee Cassidy was “a strange loner. She really never had anything to say. She kind of just clung to the background. Probably waiting and plotting.”

Another student, Marilee Watson, said that Cassidy was often seen in the school bathroom. “She was always in there, sulking around. I hope they find her soon because, well, I don’t know that she’s a killer but I do know that she never, ever talked about her family. She must have really hated them.”

One student had a different view. Caleb Hunter said that Cassidy was just another misunderstood teenager.

“Rylee is a lot of things, but she’s not evil. Not at all,” he said.

Caleb was always there for me. He still is.

The article concluded with a mention that an anonymous tip to the Crime Stoppers police-line changed the course of the investigation.

Said a police spokesperson: “We were thinking that it was a homicide and abduction. That’s not the case right now.”

I sit there in stunned silence. The cooks in the serving window between the kitchen and the counter move in slow motion. The lights above me rise further away and darkness overtakes me. I don’t know for how long. I don’t really know what happened. I hear someone speaking but I can barely register what he or she is saying.

“Lady! Are you all right?”

It’s a young man’s voice. A teenager. His voice crackles a little.

I open my eyes. I’d reached overload. I’d blacked out. The idea that I could hurt my family and that those awful so-called friends would say those things about me was like a sucker punch to the gut.

“I’m pregnant,” I quickly say. “Just a blood-sugar imbalance. Or hormonal.”

The kid turns a shade of red I haven’t seen since the year Mom and I pickled beets.

“You need a doctor?” he asks.

I shake my spinning head. “No. More coffee, please.”

He disappears to the coffee station and I pull myself together. I know damn well who the anonymous tipster was. There’s no denying it.
Alex Rader
. Has to be. That twisted piece of garbage is toying with me. He knows I’m looking for him.

When the busboy returns and fills my cup, I point at my purse.

“My phone’s dead. I think I should call my doctor. I’m worried about the baby. I’ve never fainted like that before.”

“Uh—sure,” he says. “My parents put me on some mega plan and I never use all my minutes. Have at it.”

I’m going to give that kid a really good tip.

He hands me his phone and says it’s not password protected.

“Call’s kind of personal,” I say. “I’m going to use it in the bathroom.”

“Uh. Okay.”

It’s a unisex rest room, of the type that I normally loathe for the same reason I hate sharing a bathroom with Hayden. His habit of not flushing and dribbling on the toilet seat seems to be a guy thing that starts at an early age. From the unisex bathrooms I’ve visited, it doesn’t get better with practice. I flip the lock. I know that I have an advantage over other people. I am very good with remembering numbers. Most kids I know can’t even call a friend from any phone but their own. Apparently, they have no capacity to store information like that. I think of the time that Caradee couldn’t phone Gemma because she’d left her phone at home, and nearly lost it in the school cafeteria. Thinking of them brings me right back to the article I just read.

Caradee. That bitch. Marilee that fountain-puker. They both trashed me good in the paper.

I fume a little as I dial Aunt Ginger’s number, which is a bit of a wild card. I’ve never called her before, but I can see the digits on the slip of paper she gave me with the ten twenties.

She answers.

“It’s me. Rylee.”

“Where are you?” she asks, desperation in her voice. “They are looking for you. I saw on the news. They say you did it.”

I’m surprised that she already knew. For the past couple of days I’ve been running around so much, trying to figure out why and what Alex Rader did sixteen years ago, that I didn’t stay current on what was going on at the moment.

“I know,” I say, not adding that I just found out fifteen seconds ago. “I’m okay.”

“Have you found your mother?” Ginger asks.

“No. Not yet.”

I’m not on the phone for chitchat and I have another call to make before I give the phone back to the red-faced busboy at the Denny’s counter.

“Did Mom have a tattoo?” I ask before Aunt Ginger tries to work in a topic of her own.

A beat of silence fills my ear.

Aunt Ginger exhales.

“Yes,” she says. “That’s one of the things he did to her. Not one of the worst things, but one that was meant to be a lasting reminder.”

Like me. That’s what I am. A reminder too.

“What day did she disappear?” I ask, moving on. “Do you know?”

“I’ll never forget. Saturday, July twenty-seventh.”

I was right but I don’t say so.

“Is Hayden there?” I ask.

“Yes, of course.”

I hear her hand the phone to my little brother.

“Rylee, did you find Mom?”

“Not yet,” I say. “I will.”

“You promise,” he says, a pleading tone in his voice.

“Yes,” I answer. “A true promise.”

Hearing his voice makes me tear up a little. He’s so trusting. He doesn’t understand half of what is going on. All he knows is that our mom is gone, our dad is dead, and I’m trying to bring Mom home safely.

“When will you be home?”

I’m not sure. I don’t even know where home is anymore. Aunt Ginger’s, I guess. Hayden is used to “the switch” so he thinks wherever we stay awhile is our new home.

“Soon,” I say. “As soon as I find Mom.”

He starts to cry.

“Hayden, it’ll be okay. I need you to be good and tough and strong. I’m depending on you.”

He fights his tears and I let him catch his breath. I don’t try to fill his ears with more promises, things that I can never make true.

“For what?” he asks. “What can I do?”

“Nothing now, but later. I’m depending on you to help me and Mom when we get home,” I say. “Especially Mom. She’ll be counting on you just as I am right now. You’re the man of the house.”

He sniffs a little and says something about promising to do whatever we need him to do. But he’s only seven and that’s a tall order, I think.

“Love you,” I say, a phrase that I have now said to him on two occasions.

“I love you too,” he says back.

Aunt Ginger takes the phone.

“Be careful,” she says. “Remember, don’t trust the police. That much I know for sure.”

I tell her that I don’t trust anyone. That includes her, but I don’t have much of a choice right now.

I hang up and take a breath. The keypad stares up at me. I start with the area code 360 and my chewed-to-the-nub fingertip dials the rest of it.

“Hey?” Caleb’s voice answers.