CHAPTER NINE
Max’s eyes are unfocused when I stoop down to knee level, his face bathed in sweat, his head shaking back and forth. Nothing around us could have caused his reaction. No stick figures suspended from trees. No ominous piles of rock. No kid so scared he can’t operate a camcorder without shaking.
“No! No! No!” Max is definitely seeing something, though, even if it isn’t in front of his eyes. “No! No! No!”
I grab his upper arms and shake him. His muscles are tense, his body rigid. I shake harder. “Max, it’s okay. C’mon, Max. Look at me.”
He blinks a few times, his eyes finally meeting mine. He looks confused, as though he doesn’t know who I am. But then, slowly, the fog seems to clear. The panic doesn’t entirely leave him, but he falls silent.
“You’re doing good.” I rub his still-tense shoulder. “You were having some sort of episode.”
He nods. I’m not sure he understands, though. Not yet. When I had a similar experience inside the funhouse, the past merged with the present. I could have sworn the evil clown was actually standing over me with the syringe.
“You’re safe, Max. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” I speak slowly, gazing directly into his eyes. “Whatever you saw, it’s not happening now.”
Any trace of vulnerability vanishes. He nods again. “Okay. I’m okay now.”
Shaking off my wordless offer to help him up, he ignores my hand and stands on his own power. “We’re getting out of here.”
He heads for the path before I can agree, walking so quickly I need to jog to keep up. We reach the end of the path in half the time it took us to get to the field. His pickup is in sight. So is Heron Lake, its blue water glimmering in the sunlight.
“Max!
He keeps walking.
“Stop! Please.” I’m sure he’ll continue to ignore me, but then he comes to an abrupt halt. I circle in front of him. His face is impassive. “We shouldn’t leave just yet. I know whatever happened back there was traumatic, but we came here for answers.”
He doesn’t respond. A muscle works in his jaw.
“You remembered something, right?” I feel like I’m talking to a stone. “You can tell me.”
Just when I think he’ll continue to ignore me, he says, “Yeah. I remembered something.”
“More details, Max.”
His chest expands and contracts. Even though his skin has started to bronze since he came to Midway Beach, the color hasn’t returned to his face. He starts to shake his head.
“Please,” I beg. “Don’t shut me out, Max. We’re in this together, remember?”
A warm wind kicks up and sweeps over us. Like an omen. Another few beats of silence pass.
“I remembered being tied to a chair and that splitting headache,” Max finally says.
“What else?”
He gazes out at Heron Lake, as though he can find the answer there. The wind is blowing harder now, rustling the material of his T-shirt. “That’s all.”
He’s lying. I’m certain of it. His reaction was too extreme if all he remembered was the chair and the headache. That’s old news. “No clown?”
“No.”
“No syringe?”
“I told you what I remembered.” Max isn’t acting like himself. He’s less animated, more guarded. I don’t have a clue how to get him to open up.
“But you recognized the field, didn’t you? I did. I know I’ve been there before.”
“It’s the right field.” He rubs his forehead like he’s still suffering from the headache. “How did you know to come here?”
Maybe if I open up to him, he’ll do likewise. Besides, there’s no reason not to tell him. “Have you heard of Cam Stokes? He was a country singer who was big about ten years ago.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” Max says. “Didn’t he commit suicide?”
“Right here in Wilder Woods. A field near Heron Lake. It started a trend, which I’m guessing is why that path wasn’t marked.”
Max says nothing. The wind seems unnaturally loud, like a storm’s brewing.
“What do you think it means that both of us were taken to the same field where Cam Stokes killed himself?”
“I don’t know.” His answer is too quick.
The text tone on my phone goes off. I pull my cell out of my shorts pocket and check the message. It’s from Hunter.
Home from hospital, it reads. Stop by l8r?
Maybe I wasn’t wrong about Hunter dropping hints at the carnival on the night he was poisoned. Maybe he really does want to spend time with me. I wait for the leap of excitement, but it doesn’t come.
“Excuse me,” I tell Max. I put some distance between us and type a reply to Hunter: U bet. Will text when I’m on way.
“Something important?” Max asks.
If he’s holding back from me, no way am I sharing everything with him. “It’s my mom. She needs me home.”
He sweeps a hand toward the parking lot like he’s grateful for any reason to leave. “Let’s go, then.”
Nobody’s home when Max drops me off after a trip notable only for the rainstorm that kicks up and the silence between us. The driveway’s empty, but Max doesn’t ask why my mother summoned me when the house is empty. Turns out Mom took Julian and Suri to the aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores a short drive up the coast. Her note says they won’t be back until after dinner.
The rain doesn’t let up. Instead of riding my bike through puddles to Hunter’s house, I go online to research Cam Stokes, who it turns out had an uncanny resemblance to the iconic actor James Dean. Stokes played up the likeness, slicking back his hair and wearing jeans and a tight white T-shirt topped by a leather jacket.
The Wilmington-born Stokes got his big break when he appeared on a country music reality show as an aspiring singer/songwriter. The TV show only lasted six episodes, but Stokes’ songs about heartache and despair caught on. He was signed to a major record deal and went on tour to packed houses. Nobody guessed the brooding quality that made Stokes and his songs so popular would lead to his death.
People speculated that Stokes killed himself because of his breakup with another young country singer. I’m more interested in why Stokes committed suicide in Wilder Woods, although I can’t find a reason anywhere. Only one of the stories mentions the location prominently. To my surprise, I recognize the byline. Stuart Bigelow must have been fresh on the job when he covered the singer’s death for the Wilmington News.
Maybe if I can get Bigelow to tell me all he knows about Cam Stokes, including the stuff he didn’t report, I can figure out why Max and I were taken to the same field where Stokes committed suicide.
Bigelow’s cell phone number and email address are listed on the Wilmington News website. He doesn’t answer his cell so I leave a message. While I’m emailing Bigelow, I get a text. It’s from Hunter, asking if I can drop by tomorrow morning instead of tonight. I can hear the rain still pounding the roof of the house.
Works 4 me, I text back.
I’m casting about for something to do tonight when Suri, Julian and my mom get back with the DVD Gremlins. I shelve plans to go out. Who can resist a kid-friendly horror movie on a rainy night?
I curl up on the sofa between Julian and Suri and across from the armchair occupied by the teddy bear Julian won for our mother. Both my brother and sister laugh more than they gasp, and I go to bed way earlier than usual. Good thing, because I’m out of the house the next morning before anyone is awake. I leave a note on the kitchen table that I’m a no-go for visiting day, hop on my bike and head for the beach.
Loving the way the surf smells after the rain, I take a long, barefoot walk on the wet sand. Then I read a hundred pages of the old Dean Koontz book about the vanishing ski villagers. When it’s late enough in the morning for a visit, I bike to Hunter’s house. A blue car that looks like Adair’s Miata turns off his street. It’s too far away to see the driver, but it can’t be Adair. Hunter wouldn’t arrange for both of us to visit on one morning, would he
?
The house where the Prescotts live is located in what was the most expensive area of Midway Beach in pre-Ocean Breeze days. It’s immaculate, with summer flowers lining the walkways and hanging from baskets flanking the front door. The glass in the windows looks spotless even in the sunshine. I’m almost afraid I’ll leave a fingerprint smudge on the doorbell. After a few moments, the door opens.
“Jade.” It’s Hunter’s aunt. At least she remembers me this time. She purses her lips. “If you wanted to see me, you should have called and made an appointment.”
Swell. She remembers me, because she thinks I want her to fix the screws I have loose. “I’m here to see Hunter.”
“Oh, dear.” She blocks the entranceway with her body. She’s dressed in a tailored navy blue business suit and carries a handbag, like she’s heading off to work. I’ve got seriously bad timing. A couple minutes later and I might have missed her altogether. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. My nephew is still recovering. I can’t let people pop in and out willy-nilly.”
“How about if I promise not to be willy-nilly?” I get the blank look of a person who has no sense of humor. “Okay, scratch that. But if Hunter didn’t want me here, he wouldn’t have texted and asked me to come.”
“Hunter did that?” Mrs. Prescott pauses, clearly surprised and conflicted. Of the various emotions that flit across the face, the only one I recognize is disapproval. “Well, then, I guess you should come in.”
She finally admits me to the Promised Land. Inside the house, the tile floors gleam and the ceiling soars. The walls are decorated with modern art, and the color scheme of the furniture is a dramatic red, black and white. Hunter is in a spacious family room, propped up by red pillows on a black chaise. He wears a T-shirt and shorts, with his legs stretched in front of him and his feet bare. A flat-screen TV that’s at least sixty inches is tuned to a sports highlight show.
“Hunter, you have a visitor,” Mrs. Prescott announces.
Hunter glances my way and gives me that heart-fluttering smile. “Hey, Jade.”
“Hey, yourself.” I shift from foot to foot and nervously smooth the skirt of my cute sundress that doubles as a beach cover-up. Not the best choice for bike riding, but I always get compliments when I wear it.
He picks up the remote, muting the sound but keeping on the TV. It’s some kind of countdown of bad plays. A baseball player backs up to the warning track to catch a ball. It bounces off his head and over the wall for a home run. Hunter laughs.
I’m not a big sports fan, but I understand the appeal. Like life, sports are unpredictable.
“I’ll leave you two to it.” Mrs. Prescott hovers for a moment, like her feet are glued to the floor. She finally unsticks them, casting a worried glance over her shoulder as she walks away.
“You look good, Hunter.” An understatement. He looks great, perhaps paler than usual but still better than ninety-nine percent of guys his age. His golden-brown hair falls over his forehead, and his body is lean and muscled. If he concentrated on athletics instead of acting, he’d probably star at that, too. “How do you feel?”
He pulls his gaze from the television. “Lucky.”
I sit down in the circular black chair across from Hunter, sinking into the cushions. “We were all worried about you.”
“By we,” he asks with a laugh in his voice, “do you mean you?”
“No. Yes. I mean, of course I was worried. Everybody was.” I feel my face flush. “So why did you ask me to come over?”
“To talk,” he says. “I’m sure you’re curious about what happened or you wouldn’t have eavesdropped on my aunt and uncle at the hospital.”
If the circular chair didn’t have such deep cushions, I’d squirm. This isn’t the way I expected the conversation to go. “I wouldn’t say I was eavesdropping, exactly. I overheard a couple of things.”
“Then you know it was rat poison.”
“No, I didn’t. Rat poison, huh? Wow. That’s awful.”
“Rat poison’s not that different from arsenic,” he says matter of factly. “I got a pretty good dose. Any more and I’d have been a goner.”
Arsenic is what the Black Widow used to poison her husband, except Constance Hightower did Boris in with small doses over a lengthy period of time.
“How did the rat poison get in your system?” I ask Hunter.
“How do you think it got there?”
“How would I know?”
“You’ve got an opinion, don’t you?”
I’m not sure what he’s driving at, but I don’t like his tone. “The rat poison must have been in something you ate or drank.”
“That’s the going theory.” He follows his comment with silence.
“So what did you eat or drink that night?’
He crosses his arms over his chest like his aunt did at the door. “Nothing from the carnival concession stand.” He waits a moment for that to sink in. “You were wondering about that, weren’t you?”
Hunter’s aunt must have told him I asked if the police had questioned Adair. “Of course I was wondering. Most people order something at the concession stand.”
“Not when they go to the concession stand to talk to someone who works there.”
“Even then.” We seem to be doing a verbal dance. “Who can resist candy apples?”
“I can, and I did,” Hunter says. “I stopped by to talk to Adair. That’s it.”
“I heard you got a coke.”
He sits up straighter on the chaise. “Who told you that? Max Harper?”
“No.” That’s the truth. Nobody told me. I’m throwing a dart to see if he flinches.
A vein in Hunter’s neck bulges. His lips curl. “Because he’s lying.”
I’m not up to defending Max after the way he clammed up in Wilder Woods, but I can’t let hypocrisy go. “The way you lied about your last name being Prescott?”
He glares. He doesn’t look nearly as hot as he did when I walked into the room. “I don’t owe you an explanation for anything.”
“You won’t tell me if you ate or drank anything that night?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?” He shrugs. “I had a coke at the arcade. A fountain drink.”
The same kind of drink available at the carnival concession stand.
“I was working the counter where kids redeem tickets for prizes. When I went to the restroom, I left the drink behind,” he continues with what sounds like a rehearsed speech. “Anybody could have spiked it.”
“Anybody who has a problem with you.” Like Adair, who was pissed about Hunter showing interest in me.
“Or somebody who’s nuts.”
The implication hangs in the air, but I don’t think Hunter truly believes I tried to poison him. I think he’s trying to rattle me. I’m not sure why it doesn’t work. I’ve spent the past six months hoping he didn’t believe the things Adair told him about me.
“Even crazy people need a motive.” I stand up. I’ve had enough of Hunter’s insinuations. “I need to be going.”
“Later.” He picks up the remote and turns the volume back up on the TV.
I don’t ask if he and Adair are back together. It’s pretty clear he asked me to stop by in order to deflect suspicion from her. But if Hunter’s right and Adair didn’t poison him, who did?