CHAPTER NINE
The blue and pink cotton candy wraps around and around the paper cone, hypnotizing me into believing that ingesting pure sugar is a good idea.
Junk food hunger pains are what I get for skipping out on dinner, although no way could I have sat across the table from Roxy. Accusing her once of trying to abduct Suri wasn’t so bad. Twice, though, could be trouble.
I’m supposed to report to Max as soon as I get to the carnival to give him a detailed report on the dinner fiasco, but Becky’s working the concession stand instead of him. That’s okay. I need to talk to Becky before I start my last day of work. I figure I’ve got about an hour before Roxy arrives and fires me.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve this!” a blond girl wails. It’s Ashley, the DQ Twin who doesn’t work at the White Pelican. Although, from what Maia said, Heather’s no longer a waitress there either. “How could Heather do this to me?”
Ashley’s talking to Rachel Drayton, another girl who cheered in high school. Unlike Ashley and her counterpart Heather, though, Rachel has a functioning brain.
I’m the sixth and last person waiting at the concession stand. I step out of line, intent on gathering intel that will help me figure out if a Ringer could be using Heather’s body.
“Hey, Rachel.” I smile like we’re friends instead of acquaintances. “Hey, Ashley.”
“Can’t you see we’re having a conversation here?” Ashley snaps at me, eyes glistening with unshed tears. If her mascara isn’t waterproof, she’s in for a bad case of raccoon eyes. A girl can only hope.
Rachel pats her friend’s arm. “Don’t be that way, Ash. I know you’re upset, but Jade’s smart. She might have good advice.”
“What’s the problem, Ashley?” I can sound like I care if I try really hard.
For about ten seconds it seems like Ashley won’t deign to answer, but then tears trickle down her cheeks. “Heather doesn’t want me to go to Europe with her,” Ashley wails.
“Heather’s leaving next week on this amazing trip,” Rachel explains while Ashley cries. “She’s going to Paris, Rome, Venice and a bunch of other great cities. Ashley’s parents—”
“Are Heather’s parents paying for the trip?” I interrupt, seizing the chance to gain insight into her family’s financial situation.
Rachel blinks. “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Although her dad did just get laid off.”
Another clue that the Black Widow could have taken over Heather’s body. Constance Hightower, who stashed the bulk of her late husband’s fortune somewhere, wouldn’t have any difficulty paying for a European tour.
“As I was saying,” Rachel continues, “Ashley’s parents said they’d pay for Ash to go on the trip with Heather, but Heather wasn’t up for it.”
Ashley hiccups. Her rapid blinking doesn’t entirely slow her tears. Yes! The mascara isn’t waterproof. “We’ve been besties since first grade. I don’t understand why Heather doesn’t want me along.”
The whining? The crying? The hysteria? If I were inhabiting Heather’s body, I’d flee from Ashley, too.
“Sounds like Heather’s not acting like herself,” I remark.
“Ya think?” Ashley grasps hands full of hair as though she’s considering tearing it out. “It’s like I don’t know her anymore.”
Rachel keeps patting Ashley’s arm. They both look at me expectantly.
“What do you think Ashley should do?” Rachel asks.
Stay away. Stay far, far away. I search for a less incendiary way to phrase my answer. “Let Heather go to Europe alone.”
“That’s it? That’s your advice?” Ashley retorts. She puffs out a breath. “We never should have asked you. C’mon, Rach. Let’s go.”
Ashley grabs Rachel’s hand. Before Ashley drags her away, Rachel meets my eye and shrugs.
The line at the concession stand has dwindled to nothing. I hurry forward, cutting in front of the same chubby kid who was in line with me a few days ago.
“Cutting’s not cool, man,” the kid says.
“Sorry. I’ll only be a minute.”
Becky’s still by herself behind the counter. The air smells of hot dogs, pizza and sugary snacks.
“What are you doing back there all alone, Becks?” I ask.
“Max found me at the funhouse and asked me to cover for him,” she says. “He was pretty desperate. Adair’s sick so he was going it alone. And I mean, it’s not like shutting down the funhouse is a big deal. Hardly anybody goes in there. That maniacal clown laughter is really—”
“Did Max say why he needed you to cover?” Interrupting seems to be my thing today.
“Nope.”
“Hey, cutter! Are you gonna order something or what?” The chubby kid behind me can glare with the best of them. But then so can I.
“I said give me a minute. I need to talk to my friend about something.” I turn my back on him, blocking his view of Becky. “So, Becks, Maia and I saw you and you-know-who at the food court today.”
Becky grins. “I do know who.”
“Maia says you-know-who is into you-know-what.” I tilt my head. “You do know, don’t you?”
Becky’s grin fades. It’s all over her face that she’s aware of Porter’s drug problem. “I only found out yesterday.”
Probably when Porter swung by the Prescott house to buy drugs from Hunter while Becky was in the car.
“He’s only into the mild stuff, and he’s trying to stop.” Becky crosses her arms in front of her. She knows how I feel about drugs. My mom’s pills are by prescription, but I’ve seen the effect they have on her. “I swear, Jade, if you’re here to lecture me on—”
“I’m starving back here.” The voice of the kid behind me wobbles, like he’s suffering from low blood sugar.
Ignoring him is a better option than snapping at him, especially because I’m in the wrong. And I really need to find out if the second part of Maia’s gossip is true. “I’m here to check out a rumor about the, um, seller. Did you stop by his aunt and uncle’s house yesterday morning?”
Becky nods, and I can no longer pretend that Hunter’s not dealing. In fact, everything Maia told me checks out. The lecture Becky doesn’t want me to give her about Porter being a bad bet for a boyfriend taps at the backs of my lips.
“Just be careful. Okay, Becks?”
“She’ll be careful.” It’s the kid again. “What’s the big deal? You’re only talking pot, right?”
After I leave the concession stand, I vow to be more circumspect. Like Max. Not that I approve of how secretive he is. I talked to him a half-hour ago, and he didn’t mention needing someone to cover for him at the concession stand.
I scour the carnival until I finally spot Max near a ride called the Whip talking to—no, arguing with—a middle-aged woman dressed in a gray tailored pantsuit. Everything about her screams classy from her upswept hairdo to her upright posture. Something else about her is familiar, too, but I can’t put my finger on it. Especially since I’m too far away to clearly see her face.
She throws up her hands, shakes her head and gestures at Max with her index finger. Like maybe she’s telling him he hasn’t seen the last of her. She strides away from him, disappearing into a knot of carnival-goers. Max watches her go, an inscrutable expression on his face. After he spots me coming toward him, a full second passes before he smiles.
I don’t return the smile. “Hey, Max. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“I’m right here.” His reply is partially drowned out by screaming laughter that erupts from the people in the cars being whipped around the oval track.
“Who was that woman?” I ask.
“Nobody important.” His answer is quick.
“She sure looked important when she was wagging a finger in your face.”
“You know how it is when you’re wearing the orange T-shirt.” Max gives a small tug to the material covering his chest. “Someone’s always coming up to you complaining about something.”
That almost never happens. Tourists at a carnival by the beach are generally pretty happy.
“What’s up?” Max continues. “Why aren’t you still at dinner?”
I must not have been clear in our brief phone conversation when I was in the tree house with Suri. “Don’t you want to know what I found out about Heather first?”
“Heather? The waitress at the White Pelican?”
“Not any longer. Heather quit and booked a multi-city tour of Europe. Kind of extravagant when your dad’s laid off unless you’ve got your own money stashed somewhere, right? And you know her friend Ashley? The other DQ Twin? Well, Heather told Ashley she wasn’t welcome to go along.”
“You think the Ringer’s in Heather’s body?” Max scrunches up his nose. “I don’t know. She seemed pretty shaken up about the bomb threat.”
“That could have been an act.” I haven’t figured out if I believe that, but then I’m still not totally onboard with the body switching. “What will really tip it off is if Heather suddenly starts hanging out with Roxy.”
“Getting back to Roxy, why aren’t you at dinner with her?”
I’ve got to confess sooner or later. “I blew off dinner after I kinda accused Roxy of being evil.”
“Please tell me you’re not serious.”
“Hey, it wasn’t without cause.” I quickly explain how I panicked when I couldn’t find Suri. “Maybe Roxy wasn’t guilty today, but she’s no innocent.”
“Something’s been bothering me about that,” Max says in a too-loud voice. The Whip has stopped, and the riders are disembarking. He leans his head closer to mine and modulates his tone. “If Roxy’s involved in all this, why did she hire me to work at the carnival?”
It’s a good point, one I hadn’t considered. Why would Roxy risk exposure by someone who’d been part of a Ringer experiment? “There has to be an explanation. Did you interview for the job in person?”
“I didn’t even meet Roxy until my first day of work,” Max says. “Let’s say she didn’t realize who I was before she hired me. Wouldn’t she have told me when I got here there’d been a mistake and there was no job?”
I’ve got an answer for that, too. “You know what they say about keeping your enemies in plain sight?”
Enemies? Now I sound like my mother. It’s probably not even the right word for how Roxy thinks of us. That word is prey.
“We can talk about Roxy later,” Max says. “Right now we need to figure out what to do about Heather. I think...”
Something catches his attention over my shoulder, and his voice trails off. I turn to see Officer Wainwright and his partner walking directly for us. I’ve dealt with the police enough lately to know the second cop’s name is Officer Smalley. Since he isn’t even as tall as me, I won’t forget that any time soon.
“Hey, Max, Jade.” Officer Wainwright’s greeting contains no warmth. Neither cop smiles.
“What can we do for you, officers?” Max asks.
“It’s what you can do for us, Max.” Wainwright looks like he’s about to burst out of his short-sleeved uniform, like the Incredible Hulk. “We need to ask you some questions about Stuart Bigelow.”
Max’s expression doesn’t change. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“Not here,” Smalley says. “Down at the station.”
That doesn’t sound right to me. “Is that standard procedure?”
“It is in this case,” Wainwright says.
It sounds like the police suspect Max. Ridiculous. Except for the fact that Max was at the hotel around the time Bigelow died. I saw him myself. I’d been pretty sure nobody else did, though. The weather that day had been perfect for the beach. None of the other hotel guests were around. When we left the hotel, even the street had been quiet.
“I’ll come, too,” I say.
“That’s not possible.” Smalley steps between me and Max. “C’mon, Max. This will go easier if you cooperate.”
“I am cooperating,” Max says with no trace of the anxiety that’s gripping me. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
I watch the three of them walk away, with Max between the two cops like they’re being careful he doesn’t make a run for it. Nothing to hide. Even I don’t believe that.