CHAPTER SEVEN
By the next morning, I’ve seen the last car on the passenger train crash at least a half-dozen times. Not on the news or a YouTube video. In my dreams. Each time the car plunged backward down the tracks and into oblivion, the horror of what could have happened jarred me awake.
An accident, Roxy called it before she went about carnival business as usual.
I don’t believe that.
I think Roxy figured out I’d be in the last car and tried to kill me.
It’s a miracle Suri slept through my gasps. She moved into my bedroom yesterday to make way for Uncle Landon.
“Ja-ade.” Suri sits up in the other twin bed. She wears pink shorty pajamas decorated with red hearts. “Are you awake?”
I flop from one side to the other to face her. “I am now.”
“Then I can do this!” Suri hops out of bed on her tiny bare feet and spreads her arms wide. “Good morning, world.”
She skips over to the window and pulls up the blind. “Good morning, sky. Good morning, birds. Good morning, sun.”
Our mother used to wake us that way when we were younger.
My head hurts. If Suri acts this perky every day, she might have more to fear from me than Roxy. But it’s not my sister’s fault she’s happy. I want her to be happy. “You’re in a good mood this morning.”
“Uncle Landon’s taking me and Julian to the water park today!” She rushes out of the room like it’s time to go right this minute. I check the alarm clock. It’s only nine o’clock.
I lie in bed for another five minutes until I summon the energy to roust myself and pull on shorts and a T-shirt. I emerge from my bedroom rubbing grit from my eyes.
“Jade, I’m glad I caught you.” Mom heads down the hall in a pale pink blouse that’s partially untucked and a gray suit that washes out her skin. She sounds okay, though, her speech neither too fast nor too slow. “I’ve got something for you.”
A purse is slung over her shoulder. She slides it down her arm, opens it and withdraws a sealed envelope with my name scrawled on it. She holds it out to me. “It’s from your father.”
“He’s not my father.” I don’t know who that is, thanks to her. Every time I’ve brought up the subject, she changes it. The last time I asked about my biological dad, she told me I was better off not knowing. As though he was the worst kind of monster. Like Hannibal Lecter bad.
“Take the letter, Jade.” Her hand shakes the slightest bit.
I grab the letter and shove it in the pocket of my shorts. Going along with her makes more sense than refusing and risking another of her meltdowns. Nothing says I have to read the letter. I haven’t read any of the others he’s sent.
“He was disappointed you didn’t visit with us.” Over Mom’s right shoulder is the family picture where the five of us are smiling stupidly, with no idea of what’s coming. “He wants to talk to you next time he calls.”
In his dreams.
Which probably don’t involve roller coaster car crashes.
I won’t tell my mother about that, either. Who knows what kind of dark tunnel that would lead her down? She already thinks people are out to get me.
“Are you actually going to work?” I change the subject mostly to get her to stop talking about my stepfather, but I really do want to know.
“Why wouldn’t I go to work?’
I look up and down the hall to double-check that Suri or Julian aren’t around and whisper. “Because of the voices.”
She leans so close that I can see she hasn’t plucked her eyebrows in a while. “They went quiet, but you still need to be careful.” Her eyes bore into mine. “Are you being careful?”
“Sure.”
She touches my cheek and then she’s gone, her heels clicking on the laminate floor as she leaves the house.
Uncle Landon’s in the kitchen wearing a Hawaiian shirt with flowered swim trunks and reading the Wilmington News. My stepfather started getting the newspaper delivered to the house shortly before he held up the liquor store. Suri’s at the dishwasher cleaning up after herself.
“Morning, Jade.” He looks at me over the newspaper. I wonder if there’s anything in there about the roller coaster car leaving the tracks. Even though Wilmington’s an hour away, the paper has some stories out of Midway Beach. I don’t read the print copy, but I have looked up some stuff online.
“Morning.”
“It’s nine-fifteen!” Suri announces before she whizzes by me, her bare feet slapping on the floor.
“I told her she had to wait till nine-fifteen to wake up your brother,” Uncle Landon explains. “We want to get to the water park when it opens at ten. Want to come with us?”
“No thanks.” I cross to the refrigerator and take out Greek yogurt and a carton of OJ.
“You dropped something.” Uncle Landon puts down the newspaper and bends over, straightening with the white envelope clasped between his fingers. “What’s this?”
“Nothing.” I get a glass out of the cabinet and pour myself some OJ.
“You sure about that? It looks like Zach’s writing.”
“It’s a letter from him, okay?” I snatch it out of his hands, crumble it up and toss it in the trash. “It’s not like I’m gonna read it.”
“Probably wise,” he says.
“Mom wouldn’t think so. But then she doesn’t know what kind of person he really is.” It occurs to me that Uncle Landon never verified that. “Does she know?”
“I didn’t tell her,” he says. “But I’ve got a good idea of what’s inside that letter.”
If he thinks I’ll ask him to explain, he’s even nuttier than my mother.
“Zach’s worried that you haven’t enrolled in community college yet,” Uncle Landon says. “That’s what your mother said.”
Good thing I didn’t read the letter, then. “Save it. I don’t need another lecture.”
He puts up a hand. “Hey, I wasn’t about to give you one.”
The text tone on my cell goes off. It’s in my shorts pocket ’cause you can never be too far away from your phone. It’s from Max.
Any ideas?
The message doesn’t need to be longer for me to figure out what he means. He wants to know whether I’ve come up with any other Ringer candidates or if I’ve thought of someone else we can quiz about the runaway roller coaster car. The coaster repairman we tracked down yesterday wouldn’t talk to anyone on advice of the construction company’s lawyer.
“Who’s that from?” Uncle Landon asks.
I give him the raised eyebrow. “A friend.”
Still thinking, I text back.
The next message comes almost instantaneously, but it’s from Maia.
Guilt $$ from Dad. Up for the mall?
Yet another text tone. This time it is from Max. Pick u up so we can think together?
As tempting as that is, I’ve got to give it a pass. I send a few more texts, scarf down my breakfast, change my clothes and tell Uncle Landon I’m going to the mall with Maia.
If somebody knows something, it should be the biggest gossip in Midway Beach.
An hour later, though, I get the impression Maia invited me to the mall to pump me for information.
“So the last car just broke off?” She’s wearing one of her cutest outfits, a short white skirt with a turquoise tee and matching canvas flats. Her long, silky black hair—for once, without a chrysanthemum—cascades down her back and swings while she walks over the mall’s gleaming tile floor.
“Yep. It made a groaning noise and then it was gone.”
The mall’s almost empty. The building was renovated a few years ago, with skylights and lots of greenery. Not such a great idea. When the weather’s nice, the temptation is to leave your shopping dollars behind to spend time in the sun.
“I heard you switched seats at the last second,” Maia says.
No use denying the truth when a dozen other people can verify it. “You heard right.”
“Good thing you switched.?
?? She nudges me, shoulder to shoulder. “I like my friends in one piece.”
That’s it? She’s not gonna come up with a conspiracy theory?
“Lots of people know I make a dash for the last car,” I say to give her ammunition.
“Bet you won’t do that any more.” Maia’s head swings sharply to the right. She points to a little black dress in a window display. “Not bad, but I’ve seen cuter.”
I’m not interested in the dress. “You don’t have a theory about why it happened?”
She gives me a blank look. “On why what happened?”
“The coaster crash.”
“Oh, that. It was because the attachment mechanism was defective,” Maia says. “That’s what the Wilmington News said.”
I should have checked for myself what the media had to say. Uncle Landon was hogging the newspaper this morning, but it’s easy enough to look online. Of course, you can’t believe everything you read. The late Stuart Bigelow might still be alive if he didn’t have a habit of making up stuff to improve his stories. Or if his wife wasn’t so nasty.
“You were playing musical chairs to sit by Max.” It’s not a question. Maia really is plugged in. “Max saved your life.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way.
“Now that’s a dress!” Maia veers away from me, heading straight for a store too rich for my bank account. She stops in front of a headless mannequin wearing a clingy red number. “I’ve got to have it!”
The price tag hangs in full view, the number high enough to make me do a double take. “Can you afford it?”
“My dad can.”
“He didn’t give you a limit on how much you can spend?”
“Are you kidding me?” She hunts through the rack of dresses for her size. “The more I spend, the less guilty he’ll feel about blowing me off to take his new girlfriend to the Bahamas.”
Maia doesn’t sound hurt, but then she never does. Since her parents divorced a few years back, her dad has been dating non-stop. He’d never make time for her if her mom didn’t go out of town on business every few weeks, Maia says. She must be used to it by now.
She holds the red dress against her body and examines herself in a store mirror. “If this fits, I’ll need new shoes and a new purse.”
A couple hours later, Maia’s dad is almost a thousand bucks poorer. Not that poor applies to anyone who lives at Ocean Breeze. Otherwise, they wouldn’t market the houses there as estates.
“Did you hear about Heather?” Maia says as we walk through the mall laden with packages. I’m carrying half of her purchases. All I bought was a sundress on sale that Maia said made me look like I have more up top than I actually do.
Heather is the waitress who got the call about the bomb threat. I went through high school with Heather and her silly friend Ashley, and after graduation I’m just now getting them straight. “What about Heather?”
“She quit her job at the White Pelican. She says she’d rather travel.”
Who wouldn’t?
“I hear she’s booking a cruise to Alaska and a twelve-city tour of Europe,” Maia says. “If I could stand her, I’d think about ditching the arcade and joining her. I’m sure I could get my dad to pay.”
But who’s paying for Heather’s trip? I seem to remember that Heather is headed for community college. That could be because she didn’t make the grades to get accepted elsewhere, but it could also be because her family can’t afford four years of traditional college. Wonder how I can find out whether her parents are well-off. In the meantime, Heather zooms to the top of my list of Ringer candidates. It’s not a perfect fit because of her hysterical reaction to the bomb threat, but she could have been putting on an act.
“Let’s do lunch.” Maia suggests.
“Sounds good.” It’s half past twelve, and the food court is in sight. Unlike the rest of the mall, it’s busy, even quasi-crowded. “I like that Chinese place where you order by the numbers.”
“Forget it. We’re not eating at the food court when my dad’s treating. Let’s go to that seafood restaurant near the bridge.” Maia starts to breeze by the food court, then comes to a full stop. “Oh, my God. Is that Becky with Porter McRoy?”
Becky and Porter sit on the same side of a table for four, close enough that their chairs are touching. Plates of food are in front of them, but they’re too busy staring at each other to eat.
“When did that happen?” Maia asks.
I’m surprised she doesn’t already know. “The night of the bomb threat.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” She seems offended.
“That was only the night before last.”
“Whatever.” Maia shrugs and resumes walking, juggling her packages from arm to arm. “If Becky wants to get mixed up with someone like Porter, it’s her business.”
I have to hurry to catch up to her. She’s better at being a shopping beast of burden than I am. “What do you mean someone like Porter?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“You really won’t tell me?”
“It’s just gossip.”
“You thrive on gossip, Maia. You once told me it’s what makes life worth living.”
“Rather dramatic of me, don’t you think?” She giggles.
“I’m waiting.”
“Oh, okay.” She keeps on walking but lowers her voice. “Ever wonder why Porter’s so quiet?”
“Just tell me, Maia.”
“Word is it’s because he’s always stoned out of his mind.”
As much as I want Maia to be wrong for Becky’s sake, the gossip is probably true. Maia has a perfect pipeline of information. She works with Porter at the arcade.
“Of course, knowing who we know, it’s pretty easy to get hooked up with some stuff,” Maia says.
No joke. One of their co-workers at the arcade is the tattooed kid who talks and acts like he’s on a perpetual high. It’s no surprise he’s dealing, too.
“One of these days, though, Hunter will get caught,” Maia declares. “It would serve him right for breaking up with me.”
“Hunter?” I’m so surprised she brought up his name, I don’t point out that she’s been telling people since junior year that she broke up with him. “What does Hunter have to do with it?”
Maia puffs out a breath. “Honestly, Jade. Haven’t you been listening? Hunter’s the dealer.”