See Jane Run (19 page)

“It would probably be less crazy than a chick running away from some killer.”

Riley shook her head. “No. It's just that I lied when I told you I have a boyfriend. I don't.”

JD shrugged and crumpled his napkin onto his plate. “No big deal. Could be worse, I guess.”

“How's that?”

“You could have told me you were an alien.”

Riley crossed her arms in front of her chest. “And that would have been a serious issue?”

JD pinned her with a stare. “I have a very real fear of being probed.”

“Noted.”

They were silent for a beat. Then JD jerked his chin toward the phone in Riley's purse. “You should call your parents.”

Riley chewed the inside of her lip, eyes glued to the phone's dark screen. She had turned the ringer off, but her parents—and Gail—never stopped calling. There was even a text from Shelby's mom telling Riley to call home. She let out a long breath then went to dial. The screen illuminated then flipped instantly black.

“Battery died.”

Riley felt slightly guilty—and slightly angry. She knew her parents were worrying. She knew she should just go home.
And
I
will, in a second,
she thought. But that little flame was there. They were going to pull her out of her
life
. They didn't even know if the Spencers were in any real danger, but Gail and Hempstead had already made arrangements.

She would never see Shelby again. They couldn't even text. JD would be gone too. She'd be at a new school. She'd be a new
person
. Tears rimmed her eyes and she wiped them on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Can you take me home now?”

JD nodded, and they both peeled a few bills, laying them on top of Rose's check.

When Riley pushed open the door, she was hit with a rush of cold air that shot goose bumps all over her body—but it wasn't the damp chill that made her teeth start to chatter. Her hackles went up.

“I feel like we're being watched.”

JD scanned the parking lot. “There's not even another car around here.”

Riley brushed her palms up and down her arms. “I can't explain it. I just feel like”—she turned around and around—“I just feel like we're not alone.”

“Well, let's just get out of here.”

JD made a beeline for his car and Riley was right behind him. She had her hand on the door handle when she turned back to the diner, the yellow lights flooding out through the window. Rose was standing there, arms crossed in front of her chest, her head cocked as she balanced a phone on her shoulder. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on Riley, her lips moving fast. Riley swallowed, her saliva sour and metallic—she was beginning to recognize the taste of her own fear.

Riley slammed the car door shut and JD sunk his key into the ignition.

“You ready to head home?”

Riley nodded, a thick lump in her throat. “Guess so.” She paused for a beat, and then, “Can I borrow your phone?”

JD looked at her, brows raised. “Sure.”

He handed the phone over, and Riley played with it absently before turning to him. “I need to call my parents. I've got to tell them everything, come clean, and whatever happens, happens. I mean, it's not like I can go out and track down this guy myself. The police aren't even able to do it.” A heavy wave of sadness rolled over her. This was how it was going to be. And if someone found them in their new house, it would start all over again.

She dialed the phone while JD drove. He mouthed the word “gas” while she listened to the ringing of the phone.

“Hello?”

Riley bit her lip but pushed herself to speak. “Mom?”

“My God, Riley! Where are you? Where have you been?”

Her mother was sobbing, and guilt was twisting Riley's gut. She blinked back tears. “I'm sorry. I'm coming home right now.”

“Riley Allen Spencer, do you know how worried we've all been? Deputy Hempstead and Gail have been working around the clock to find you.” It was her father now, and he did nothing to hide the spitting anger in her voice.

Riley began to cry harder. “I'm sorry, but—”

“Where are you? Who are you with? Stay where you are, I'm coming to get you. I don't trust you to—”

“You don't trust me?” Suddenly, she stopped crying, rage tearing through her. “I wasn't the one lying for fourteen years! I'm not the one who is trying to force his daughter to
start
lying.”

“We don't have a choice, Riley.”

JD pulled into a gas station while she sucked in a sharp breath. “You have a choice. I don't.”

Riley watched JD stuff the gas pump into the car then jog across the pavement into the tiny store.

“I'm sorry, turnip, but we can't take any chances.”

She swallowed hard. “Don't worry. I'm on my way home.”

She hung up the phone without waiting for her father's response then doubled over, holding her head in her hands. She blinked when something small and shiny caught her eye. It was embedded in the black car mat carpeting and she had to yank to get it out. She studied the silver charm in her palm, and her stomach soured.

The charm was broken.

She reached into her purse, her fingers closing around the broken angel that the “squatter” had left in the house across the street. The two pieces, when pressed together, were a perfect match.

“Oh my God.”

When Riley looked up, JD was at her window, holding a Coke out to her. His eyes skittered across the charm in her palm and went wide.

“You've been watching me.”

Anger, fear, and hurt welled up inside her. She blinked back tears.

“You—”

Riley went for the door handle but JD snapped the door shut again.

“You don't understand. Just stay there and let me talk to you.”

She started to shake her head, her hands splayed as she pressed against the door. “I don't want to talk to you. Let me out, JD.”

His lips inched into a mean grimace and his nostrils flared. “You have to trust me.”

We
asked
you
to
trust
us…

A damn of hot tears broke and washed over her face, silently dripping over her chin. Everyone begged her to trust them, and everyone lied to her.

JD pushed back against the car door, his dark eyes challenging. Riley edged back on her seat, moving toward the driver's side, and JD was around the car like a shot, pulling open the driver's side door.

She shuffled the other way.

Riley felt the wisp of wind as JD reached for her, his fingertips grazing her hair as she kicked open the passenger's side door and, once her feet made contact with the cement, took off running.

“Riley!”

The desperate way he screamed after her made her sick. She heard the echoes of the man from the mall, the man from the train station, Gail, and her own parents saying her name, ordering her back, wrapping her in their lies.

Riley cleared the cemented gas station and went for the grove of eucalyptus trees that butted up against it. Each time her foot fell, she heard the crush of dried leaves, the pop of twigs. The menthol scent of the grove stung at her eyes and she palmed the tears away, scanning for someplace to hide, for some way out of the grove and into safety.

“Riley, please!”

JD's voice was behind her, barely clipping at her ear.

“I'm on your side!”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to stop running. She had wanted to stop running just after this whole thing began. She had gone from being sheltered Riley Spencer with a completely normal life to a shadow named Jane, constantly on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder.

“Riley!” JD's voice was fading as Riley covered more ground.

She ran until her muscles hurt, until she was sure JD was gone. She dropped to her knees, feeling the moist earth dampening her jeans, and cried. She couldn't trust anyone. Her best friend was in a coma, and everyone else in her world was lying to her.

JD had been
watching
her. She felt herself shudder. Was JD working for someone? Was he being paid to watch her? Had he known she was Jane all along? The thought made her whole body ache. He wasn't a friend; he was a spy.

For who?

Riley willed herself forward, and after a few steps, her heart sped up when she began to hear the whooshing of cars racing by. The eucalyptus trees were thinner and sparser here, the grove opening up to a sidewalk on a quiet, suburban-looking street. The houses were old but well-kept with manicured lawns and pretty pots overflowing with flowers. The calm scene almost made Riley feel safe.

She stepped out of the forest, focusing on a pot of bright red roses directly in front of her. They were the last thing she saw before everything went dark.

• • •

Everything hurt when Riley woke up. Her shoulders, her stomach, her legs—everything felt heavy and bruised, and her mouth burned with the bitter taste of bile. And it was dark.

Her whole body started to move, to roll, and she instinctively put out a hand and a foot to steady herself—or she tried to. Her legs were bound together at the ankle, a thick ring of duct tape encircling her legs halfway up her calves. There was duct tape around her wrists too, and Riley started to panic.

Where
am
I?

Her eyes weren't adjusting to the overwhelming darkness until flashes of red, one by her head and one by her feet, illuminated just enough of Riley's surroundings for her to make them out.

Black, industrial grade carpet. The faint smell of gasoline. The rumble from underneath her.

A
car! My God, my God, I'm in someone's trunk!

Her mind immediately went to JD, and she cringed, her stomach turning over.
He
wouldn't do this to me, he wouldn't do this to me…

The silver charm flashed in her mind. The image of a dark figure standing in the window, staring down at her. JD.

She gritted her teeth and refused to cry, instead, using her bound feet to kick anything and everything she could reach.

“Help!” she screamed, and struggled against the duct tape, but the more she did, the more it burned hot rings into her skin. “Help!” she screamed again.

The car started rolling again and Riley quieted, trying to listen for any sound—a radio squawk, a police siren—but all she heard was the constant flow of traffic.

What
had
they
told
us
to
do?

Riley had sat through a half-dozen school assemblies about safety and stranger danger and how to run away.
Had
there
ever
been
one
about
being
locked
in
someone's trunk?

She started kicking again, screaming, and trying to use her fingers to claw at the roof.

Nothing happened. The car kept rolling.

After what seemed like a lifetime, Riley felt the car turn onto a road that wasn't as smooth as the other. The car bounced around, and she bounced in the trunk, wincing, completely unable to protect herself from the next blow.

And then the car stopped.

Everything inside her went hot. She didn't want the car to keep moving, but once it stopped—right now—she would be faced with JD. He had drugged her, duct-taped her, and tossed her in the trunk. What was he planning on doing with her now?

She heard a car door slam and the sound of footfalls on gravel. She knew they were drawing near. Her heart thumped with every step, but she couldn't breathe.

Her bladder felt heavy as she heard the jingle of keys and then the smooth way they slid into the lock. She used every last muscle she had to scooch herself to the darkest corner of the trunk, her back up against something hard and metal.

“Please, JD,” she whispered. “Please don't hurt me.”

She couldn't help it; she clamped her eyes shut when the trunk opened.

“I didn't want to have to do this. I didn't want it to turn out this way.”

Riley opened her eyes and stared into Tim's ice-blue ones, which looked as sharp as ever. She started then pressed herself tighter, deeper into the depths of the trunk. Tim reached out and grabbed her bound ankles and slid her forward as if she didn't weigh a thing.

He grinned down at her before pulling her out of the trunk and slinging her over his shoulder. “I told you that you don't have to be afraid, Janie. I told you I'm the good guy in all this.”

Riley knew she should be screaming. She should be struggling or banging on Tim's back with her bound hands, but she was paralyzed by fear. She wanted to believe that Tim was a good guy, but good guys didn't snatch girls off the street, bind their limbs, and toss them in the trunk.

Her throat was bone dry, and all she could do was hang there listlessly as Tim carried her up a cement walkway. She stared down at the concrete as he pushed a key into a lock and, after stepping inside, dropped her on a couch.

Riley looked around, startled. The couch was sagging and full of holes. The room smelled musty and earthy, as if every window was open. It was dark, but Riley could hear Tim moving around, and little by little, snatches of the room were lit up as Tim lit candles all around her. He finished with a Coleman lantern which was in what Riley supposed was the half-rotted kitchen.

Once things were sufficiently illuminated, Tim stood in front of her with a wide grin. He threw his arms wide. “We're home!” he said, as if Riley was a willing participant.

Riley cringed on the musty couch, trying to find her voice. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Tim's proud smile dropped. “Why am I bringing you home?”

“This isn't my home. I don't live here.”

“It's only because it's been so long since the last time you were here. Could have been longer but you changed all that.”

Riley blinked. “
I
changed that?”

Tim pointed to Riley and then to himself. “You were looking for me. I had alerts on my computer. You accessed the Granite Cay databases and searched Jane Elizabeth O'Leary. I thought it might just be a random hit but…” He shrugged, rolling up onto his toes like they were sharing a giddy reunion story. “But it was you!”

Riley's mouth was suddenly bone dry. “How did you know it was me?”

“I traced your Internet for a while, but it had been so long I couldn't be sure. I had to see for myself, so I came out to see you.”

“At the mall…”

“No.” Tim swiped at the air as if she had just said something silly. “I was watching you for a long time before that. You look so different.”

“You—you were in my house?”

He actually looked sheepish. “I gave you the postcard at the carnival, but you didn't respond. I had to go inside.”

Riley's whole body went heavy. “So you came to Crescent City because of me. I—I did this?”

“It was like a homing beacon. And then to find that you were only in the next state! Do you know how happy I was?”

The
Witness
Protection
Program
had
only
moved
us
one
state
away?
Riley fumed. It didn't seem logical. In the movies, they moved families halfway around the world, or into nondescript tract-home communities.
Tim
said
they
were
lying. Tim said they would have made stuff up.

Riley tried to shake off the inching doubt as Tim rambled on.

“Once I found you, I knew there wouldn't be a lot of time. That's why the house—our house—doesn't look as nice as it used to.”

“Our house?” Her eyes darted around the room. The house was clearly a tear-down, because sheets were tacked to the walls, little gusts of wind sucking the fabric through gaping holes. The floor was covered in garbage, dirt, and wood debris; there was a broken lamp tossed on a pile of scorched wood where the floor bowed. In the one spot that didn't look about to be demolished was a small aluminum table with two chairs—rusty but workable. There was a small vase with a couple of mums stuffed in, and behind that, broken shelves were littered with cereal boxes, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and jelly.

“You live here?” Riley asked.

Tim pointed to her and then to himself. “
We
live here. You're my sister, remember?”