DANICA IS JUST BOARDING the T-bus as Wes pulls out of the school parking lot, turning onto the main road to follow.
“You know where she’s probably going, don’t you?” Wes asks in a tone that tells me he does.
“How would I?” I ask, surprised at how sure of himself he seems.
He tsk-tsks at my obvious ignorance. “Still living under that rock, I take it?”
“So then, excavate me, will you? But don’t take too long.” I check the time on his dashboard clock. “I have to be to work in an hour.”
“The excavation will have to wait,” he says, switching lanes. “I have a bus to pursue and more licorice to eat. Plus, I like to see you suffer.” He pulls a few more lint-covered sticks from his pocket and shoves them into his mouth.
A few minutes later, the bus pulls over in front of Landry’s strip mall. Wes follows, finding a parallel spot with a fully fed meter.
“She works here,” Wes says, nodding toward the Press & Grind.
“No way,” I say, completely dumbfounded to think that in all the time I’ve been coming here I’ve never once noticed her.
“It’s true. I was a wee bit shocked myself when I saw her carrying a tray full of brownies from the back room.”
“So, it’s a new job?”
“One would assume. I mean, let’s face it, this place is practically my second home. I even noticed when they changed their brand of t-paper—to the sandpaper stuff, FYI—but you also never know. Maybe she only works in the back, prepping all the bakery stuff. Maybe that’s why we’ve never seen her.”
“Maybe,” I say, more than eager to ask her about it.
“Hey, check it out,” Wes says, pointing toward Ben’s motorcycle, parked in the corner of the lot. “It looks like we’re not the only fans of this fine establishment.”
“What’s he doing here?” I ask, knowing it must have something to do with Danica.
A couple of seconds later, the bus doors thwack open and Danica gets out, pausing a moment to tie her hair into a tiny pigtail and pull an apron from her bag. She fastens the apron around her waist and then makes her way inside the shop.
“Should we go in?” Wes asks.
I’m about to get out of the car when I notice a black sedan parked in front of Muster’s Bakery—the same car that was parked a few houses away from Danica’s on the day I paid her a visit.
“What’s wrong?” Wes asks, turning to look.
“That car,” I say, squinting hard, trying to see if I can make out anyone inside, though the tinted windows make it nearly impossible.
“Ford Taurus, late nineties. Not really my taste,” Wes says, trying to be funny. “I prefer the kind of German engineering that only rich parents whose goal it is to try and make their dorky kids look cool would purchase.” He grabs a rag to polish the Audi logo on his steering wheel.
“You know you’re not a dork,” I say, rolling my window down.
“Are you kidding? My dad reminds me of it at least once a day.”
“Whoever’s in that car has been following Danica,” I say.
“And you know this because…”
“Because the car was parked outside her house the other day.”
“Are you sure it’s the same one?” he asks, ever the devil’s advocate. “Because shitboxes like that are a dime a dozen around here.”
“It’s the same,” I say, pretty positive that I’m right.
“And so maybe the driver lives in her neighborhood and happens to love coffee.”
I stick my head out the window to get a better look. The car’s license plate is tilted forward, making it hard to read. “Any chance you could drive by so I can get a closer view?”
“Sure thing,” Wes says, but just as he does, the Taurus moves away from the curb, out onto the street.
I tuck my head back inside Wes’s car and scramble to close the window.
“So, if this guy’s supposedly stalking the Stick—my code name for Danica, FYI—why does he take off just as soon as she arrives?” Wes puts his car in drive, makes a U-turn, and starts to follow the Taurus, four cars behind.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Maybe he wanted to see that she arrived at work safely. Maybe he forgot something at home and plans to come back here later.”
“That’s my vote,” he says. “If it was purely about safety, he would’ve followed her right from school.”
“Do you think this is a good idea?” I ask. We’re only two cars behind the Taurus now.
“Maybe we’d be better off talking to Danica inside the shop, or finding out what Ben’s doing there.”
“You can’t be serious,” Wes says, eating more licorice.
I shake my head, knowing he’s right, but nervous just the same.
We follow the car for several miles, finally entering the town of Hayden, not far from the community college.
“What’d the odds be of this cretin living in the same apartment building as Adam?” Wes asks.
I feel my stomach churn, imagining that the driver may have noticed us behind him.
There’s only one measly street sweeper vehicle between our car and his now, and it seems we’re heading into a seedier part of town. The streets are less congested. There’s trash on the sidewalks, spilling out from Dumpsters and garbage cans. And a lot of the houses—aside from a string of brownstones and a curiously placed piano store—have been boarded up or fallen victim to tagging.
“Maybe we should turn around,” I tell Wes.
“No way,” he says. “I haven’t had this much excitement since the season finale of CSI, 2009.…You know, when Grissom was still on the show…”
The street sweeper takes a turn down a dead-end road, and now we’re directly behind the Taurus. I try to read the license plate. But not only is the plate tilted forward, there’s a shadow box covering it, making the numbers even harder to decipher.
A moment later, my cell phone rings in my pocket. I check the ID, seeing that it’s my mom. I switch the phone to silent mode, just as Wes takes a detour down a dark alley.
“What are you doing? We’re going to lose him!” I shout.
“That’s what you think.” Wes turns down another alley, surprisingly confident in our surroundings. He gets about halfway through, then pulls over to the side. A moment later, the car in question drives past our street.
“How did you do that?” I ask, impressed by his maneuvering.
Wes hesitates before driving to the end of the alleyway. He takes a turn to resume following him again. The Taurus is a good ten houses in front of us now, crossing over a set of train tracks.
The next thing I know, the road begins to close behind the Taurus, signaling that the train is on its way. Wes steps on the accelerator, hoping to cross the tracks before the train comes, but a barricade drops down in front of his windshield, stopping him. A few moments later, a train whistle sounds.
“We’ve lost him,” I whisper as the train comes speeding by, passing right in front of us.
At least ten train cars later—I eventually stop counting—the crossing sign lifts and the Taurus is nowhere in sight.
Wes brings his fist down hard against the steering wheel. “Crap!” he shouts.
“Because we lost him?”
“Because he knows,” he says, shaking his head, his voice barely above a whisper.
Dear Jill,
I asked if you wanted to ride around for a while, telling you about the beautiful view of the moon over Breakneck Pond. But you weren’t fully checked in. Sitting on the bench, you kept fumbling with your necklace and fishing inside your backpack. Were you searching for your cell phone? Did you have some sort of weapon in there?
Still, you got into my car, which told me that deep down you truly wanted this. I suppose my stories about growing up near Breakneck Pond-how my parents used to take me there every summer-made things a little easier.
I’m sure that by now you know the real truth about my childhood. Needless to say, it doesn’t p
aint nearly as pretty a picture as swimming and picnics at a pond. I hated having to lie to you, but you have to admit, there’s something comforting about picturing people engaging in familial pastimes. And you deserved to be put at ease, regardless of the consequence.
We pulled off down a narrow dirt road, where it was quiet and secluded-again, I picked a tranquil place, keeping you in mind. I remember looking into your face, suddenly reminded of the girl just before you. But not really lookswise: she’d been a lot shorter than you, with curly hair rather than a long braid. Her face was a bit chubbier, too: rounder, with double the freckles.
But she’d been awkward like you, so unsure of herself in her circle of friends.
I hate to bring her up, but at this point you must’ve heard some stuff about her-about what happened to her. For the record, it isn’t true. I’d barely just picked her out, barely had even started to watch her, when fate intervened. Please know I’d never let anything like that happen to you.
You were getting all teary again, so I pulled a couple spiked lemonades from my cooler, still trying to get you to let down your guard. I led the conversation while you drank, explaining that I knew how it was to feel like a misfit all the time.
“I can help take your pain away,” I said, assuming you’d be happy about the offer, but you were still looking a bit shaken. You’d almost completely torn the label off your bottle; the glue and paper remnants were stuck beneath your fingernails.
I truly felt sorry for you.
About halfway through the bottle, you asked me how I could take your pain away.
Finally, you were getting it.
“Just watch,” I said, putting my car in reverse.
You got startled when I accidentally steered the car into some tree branches.
“Relax,” I said, complaining that there weren’t nearly enough lights out there. “Not even the moon can help us,” I joked.
You asked me where we were going, and I told you to have another drink. “The cooler’s in the back,” I said. “Now, hang on tight and enjoy the ride.”
…
Dear Jack:
It’s strange the way fate works. I’d been working behind the scenes at the coffee shop for over a year—in the back room, opening boxes full of frozen pastries, lining the sweets up on big metal cookie sheets, and heating them in the ovens.
Barely coming into contact with anyone.
And then one day, Olivia called in sick, and I was forced to work the front counter. Carl said he liked me at the cash register. Apparently it hadn’t cashed out as accurately in months.
And so he asked me to work there permanently, which is how I met you.
I have no idea why I’m telling you any of this, except maybe to give you some insight as to who I am. Or who I was. Not the most experienced type of girl. Someone who believed that you were the person she wanted—the type of person that people are supposed to want all along.
But sitting in your car that night—in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, with the smell of rotted fruit thick in the air (was there an apple you’d forgotten about in your glove box? An old banana peel left under the seat? Or maybe it was just the heat inside your car)—I had a feeling I’d made a big mistake.
If there was a pond, like you said, I couldn’t spot it anywhere. There were tall, sprawling trees surrounding us. Their branches dangled onto your car, shrouding us even more. You’d said you wanted to show me the moon, but for all the time you’d spent describing how pretty it was when it reflected off the water, you didn’t mention it once when we got there.
I stared out the window, avoiding eye contact. Looking at you only made everything more real. I thought about opening the car door and fleeing, but I knew I wouldn’t get very far.
The brush was so thick, I wouldn’t be able to run very fast. Plus, I doubted anyone would hear me if I screamed.
“I know what it’s like for you,” you said. “To feel like a misfit all the time. To feel like you don’t belong. Even at home.”
“How do you know the way I feel at home?” I looked at you again. The overhead light enabled me to see that your face was sweaty. Mine was, too. It had to have been at least ninety degrees in your car, with the heat pumping through the vents and the windows fogging over.
You moved in a little closer and touched my neck, making a spiral shape on my collarbone with the tip of your finger. Over and over and over again. I dug my fingernails into the lemonade bottle in my lap, clawing away at the label, trying my best to stay calm.
Your fingertips felt coarse, and I wondered if they were leaving a mark. You told me that you were very observant. I wasn’t sure if it was in response to my question, or if you were just trying to inform me. But your words made everything feel darker than normal, boxing me in, making me feel confined.
You told me how pretty you thought I was, and then you asked if you could show me that it was true.
“How?” I asked, wishing I’d stayed quiet. Because the next thing I knew, there was a weird grin across your face. It exposed the hole in your smile: a small gap right beside your incisor where the flesh of your tongue poked through. I hadn’t noticed that about your smile before, and now it gave me the chills.
You put the car in reverse and began to back out through the tunnel of trees.
I looked away again, out the fog-covered window, telling myself to relax. But then you started whistling a tune. “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Eventually you added words, but they were the wrong words: “Jack and Jill ran up the hill to fetch a pail of water,” you sang. “Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.”
“It’s a nursery rhyme, not a song,” I said, correcting you, without thinking better of it.
You told me how much you loved nursery rhymes, saying that they had a soothing quality, bringing one back to the simplicity of childhood. “’Jack and Jill’ just happens to be my favorite,” you told me. “I like how in sync the two of them are, working together. They’re partners forever.”
Somehow I nodded, trying to play it cool. Meanwhile, bile coated the inside of my mouth. I swallowed it down, just as you told me to have another drink. You motioned to the cooler in the backseat.
I know it may sound naive, but I’d been so nervous when you handed me that first bottle of lemonade that I didn’t even notice it’d been spiked. There’s a reason that people become victims. And by that point, I knew I had become one of them.
…
WES SMACKS HIS HAND down against the steering wheel several more times on our drive back to Freetown. “You definitely think he knew that we were following him?” I ask.
He pulls up in front of Knead. “At first I didn’t, but then it seemed kind of obvious, like he was trying to get away.”
“So, why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t we turn around?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, putting the car in park. “I got a little carried away. I tend to do that sometimes.” He nods toward the backseat, where he’s got a pair of binoculars, his camera bag, and a fresh box of latex gloves.
“So, what now?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but it might be a good idea to discuss all of this with Ben…just in case.”
“In case what? What does Ben have to with any of this?”
“Why don’t you ask him? He was at the Press & Grind, after all. So maybe he’s more involved than you think.”
“Not just maybe,” I say, in light of the most recent Ben-and-Danica sightings (in the library and the cafeteria, and now, allegedly, at the Press & Grind). “Probably. ”
“So, he can probably help you. I mean, you have to admit, the guy’s saved your life four times now.”
“Since when are you Team Ben?”
“Correction: I’m Team Camelia.” Wes lets out a sigh and looks away, more flustered than I’ve ever seen him before.
“The danger is directed at Danica,” I remind him. “Not at me. I’m just trying to help her—the way I helped Adam.”
“
You had your whole head sticking out the window at one point, Camelia.”
“So?” I swallow hard.
“So, if he saw you, and if he saw that we were following him, you can bet he’s going to find out who you are.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says, looking back at me. His dark brown eyes are sullen and serious.
“And how are you so sure?” I ask, remembering how this isn’t the first time that the guy saw me—how he peeled out down the street when he spotted me in front of Danica’s house.
“I’m just looking out for your best interests.”
“And what’s in my best interest?” I ask him. “To end things right now? To ignore the fact that Danica’s in trouble?”
To my surprise, Wes shakes his head. “It’s too late. You’re already involved. Maybe that’s what the ‘ there are two’ clue is all about. Maybe there are two potential victims here: Danica and someone else.”
“Someone else…meaning me?” I ask, trying to catch on.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “But if I were the psycho in question, and I found out that some girl was having premonitions about what I was up to and then started following me—”
“How’s he going to find out I’m having premonitions?”
“Have you told anyone else about them?”
I clench my teeth, thinking about Adam.
“I have to assume that I’m involved, too,” Wes says, thinking out loud. “For all I know, he saw my license plate.”
I want to reassure him that everything will be okay, but I have no idea if it will—if either of us should feel reassured about anything. “I have to go,” I say, suddenly feeling sick.
“Yeah,” he says. “Me, too.”
I get out of his car, forgetting to thank him for all his help. I turn back to flag him down, but he has already pulled away from the curb and turned onto another street.
AS SOON AS I WALK INTO KNEAD, Svetlana practically pounces on me. It seems several of the adults want to try the wheel and Svetlana can barely get them past the centering stage. I spend several minutes explaining the steps of throwing a bowl, but a couple of the women want to see me do it for real.