Shock Point Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  part one

  one - April 14

  two - Three days earlier—April 11

  three - April 14

  four - April 11

  five - April 14

  six - April 12

  seven - April 14

  eight - April 12

  nine - April 14

  ten - April 12

  eleven - April 14

  twelve - April 13

  thirteen - April 15

  fourteen - April 14

  fifteen - April 15

  sixteen - April 14

  seventeen - April 15

  eighteen - April 13

  nineteen - April 30

  twenty - April 14

  twenty-one - April 30

  part two

  twenty-two - June 1

  twenty-three - June 2

  twenty-four - June 3

  twenty-five - June 4

  twenty-six - June 7

  twenty-seven - June 8

  twenty-eight - June 11

  twenty-nine - June 17

  thirty - June 19

  thirty-one - June 20

  thirty-two - June 21

  thirty-three - June 23

  thirty-four - June 25

  thirty-five - June 27

  thirty-six - July 27

  For the best?

  She arched her back even more frantically, managed to get her mouth free. “Mom—Mom! Help me! Mom!”

  Her mom looked at Cassie, then away. Something was terribly wrong. Cassie felt like she had stepped out into the air, never noticing the staircase beneath her feet. The feeling of beginning to fall.

  Behind her, cold metal clicked onto her wrists, so tight that it pinched her skin. Handcuffs. The man with the mullet let her feet go, and she fell against the man behind her.

  In a strangled voice, Jackie spoke to the two men. “Wait! I don’t—I don’t know if this is right. Do you have to manhandle her like that?”

  The man with his arm looped around Cassie’s neck spoke. “They’re tricky at this stage, ma’am. You can’t ask them to come along quietly—because they won’t. They will lie and manipulate until they’ve got you believing that what’s up is down and what’s black is white.”

  “Mom—what’s happening?” Cassie asked in a choked whisper. “What’s happening to me?”

  “It’s for the best, Cassie. They’re going to help you.” Jackie’s drawn-in breath was like a sob.

  OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  Black Mirror

  The Boy in the Basement

  The Christopher Killer

  Double Helix

  Hunted: Fake ID

  Paranoid Park

  The Shadow Club

  The Silent Room

  The Specialists: Model Spy

  Nancy Werlin

  Susan Shaw

  Alane Ferguson

  Nancy Werlin

  Walter Sorrells

  Blake Nelson

  Neal Shusterman

  Walter Sorrells

  Shannon Greenland

  SPEAK

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006

  Published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2008

  Copyright © April Henry, 2006

  eISBN : 978-1-101-01495-0

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This one’s for Sadie.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  I am the luckiest author in the world, because I have Wendy Schmalz as my agent. She is tenacious, funny, and smart.

  My writer pals Zeke Sinclair and Gregg Main looked at an early draft and gave me their thoughts. Gregg’s daughter, Emily, read a first draft as well. Her excitement helped me know I was onto something. Then Michael Wilde helped make a good thing better.

  This is my sixth book, but John Rudolph showed me what it really means to be edited. The process was truly collaborative, and Shock Point is a much better book as a result.

  My husband and my mother have been unwavering in their support. My daughter listened to me read every word of this book aloud (sometimes many more times than once), gave me lots of feedback, and even named several of the characters.

  P/U INTERIOR PAGES 1-185 FROM LIVE ADJUSTED TRADE FILES ON DISK SAME SIZE AND POSITION

  part one

  one

  April 14

  It was the rough hand over her mouth that convinced Cassie Streng that what was happening was real. That and the way the other man grabbed her legs.

  Five minutes earlier, Cassie had gotten off the school bus and walked up the hill toward her house. A white van was parked in her driveway. She hadn’t recognized the van. She barely recognized the house—after nearly sixteen years of living in the same house, it was hard to get used to someplace you had only lived in for two months.

  There was a squealing metal sound, like a door opening. Then hands grabbed her from behind. An enormous arm wrapped itself around her neck like a boa constrictor.

  She swung her open backpack up and behind her, and heard the man grunt as it connected. A pen bounced off Cassie’s head and a book struck her shoulder. The man tore the backpack from her and flung it on the ground, then pulled her tighter against his fat belly.

  Cassie started to scream, but then his hand was over her mouth, stifling her, pressing so hard that she felt the bridge of her nose shift.

  This couldn’t be happening to her. Cassie managed to catch a tiny fold of skin between her front teeth. She nipped it. Hard.

  A curse word hissed in her ear. The hand loosened for a second. She smelled fried food when she took a shuddery frantic breath, but then the hand was clamped down again, harder.

  No air, no air.

  Another man ran in front of her and grabbed her ankles, easily swinging her up into the air. He was short and solid, with a dyed-black mullet.

  “She’s a sassy one,” he said, and grinned. He was still grinning when Cassie kicked him in the face. Her shoe flew off her foot. Dropping one of Cassie’s legs, he clamped a hand across his nose, which was now spurting blood. The hand across her mouth loosened. Cassie dragged another breath into her lungs, then let it out in a scream.

  It wasn’t as loud as she had hoped; there hadn’t been enough air behind it. But surely her mother must have heard. Or the neighbors, then. One of them might be dialing 9-1-1 right now.

  The men grabbed her again, no-nonsense now. The mullet-haired man lifted her other ankle and caught them both under his arm. The man behind her, the one she couldn’t see, clamped his hand over her mouth again.
/>
  Holding her between them like a rolled-up carpet, the men began to maneuver her around to the back of the van. The doors were now open. Metal bars divided the front bench seat from the empty back. The floor was bare except for a rubber mat and a white five-gallon plastic bucket. An iron bar was bolted on one wall, and from it hung a two-foot-long loop of chain fastened with a metal lock.

  The guy holding her legs grunted as he tried to step back and up into the van. Cassie started thrashing even harder, hoping to throw him off balance. If she could just get her feet under her!

  She heard the front door bang open. Hope bloomed in her. Her mom! Cassie imagined Jackie with the phone in one hand and her stepfather Rick’s gun in the other. That must have been what had taken her so long, unlocking the gun from its safe.

  Her mom ran around the corner. No phone, no gun. Instead she held a suitcase in one hand. The other clutched a brochure, with a starfish on the front, to her swollen belly. Cassie almost didn’t recognize Jackie. Her eyes were slits, red and swollen. Had they beaten her? Had they hurt the baby? Was her mom being kidnapped, too?

  She arched her back even more frantically, managed to get her mouth free. “Mom—Mom! Help me! Mom!”

  Her mom looked at Cassie, then away. Something was terribly wrong. Cassie felt like she had stepped out into the air, never noticing the staircase beneath her feet. The feeling of beginning to fall.

  Behind her, cold metal clicked onto her wrists, so tight that it pinched her skin. Handcuffs. The man with the mullet let her feet go, and she fell against the man behind her.

  In a strangled voice, Jackie spoke to the two men. “Wait! I don’t—I don’t know if this is right. Do you have to manhandle her like that?”

  The man with his arm looped around Cassie’s neck spoke. “They’re tricky at this stage, ma’am. You can’t ask them to come along quietly—because they won’t. They will lie and manipulate until they’ve got you believing that what’s up is down and what’s black is white.”

  “Mom—what’s happening?” Cassie asked in a choked whisper. “What’s happening to me?”

  “It’s for the best, Cassie. They’re going to help you.” Jackie’s drawn-in breath was like a sob.

  “What? Mom, what are they doing? Where are you letting them take me?”

  The man behind Cassie gave her shoulder a little shove. “Okay, ma’am, we need to get this show on the road.” Cassie took one step, two, not resisting. Her mother handed the other one the suitcase and he threw it into the back of the van. He picked Cassie’s shoe up off the lawn and threw that in, too.

  She heard the front door open again, and looked over to see Rick coming out of the house. He came down the steps and put his arm around her mother. “That’s right, Cassie. Just go along with these gentlemen. They’re going to help you with your problems.”

  “I don’t have any problems!” she yelled. “It’s you who has the problem!”

  “Cassie—I found the crystal meth in your room. Don’t try to lie.”

  Shock stiffened her spine. “What are you talking about? I don’t use drugs.” She appealed to her mom. “I don’t! How can you even think that?”

  But instead of turning to her, her mother looked up at Rick, her brows knitting together.

  “Be strong, Jackie. Would you rather see Cassie in jail—or dead? This is her only hope.”

  The man behind Cassie shoved her. She sprawled onto the floor of the van, vainly trying to jerk her handcuffed arms forward to break her fall. Rough hands dragged Cassie forward, and turned her so that she was sitting. They unlocked the chain and slid it through her handcuffs, then clicked it closed again. She only had eyes for her mother. Surely Jackie couldn’t allow this to happen. Surely she would know whom to believe.

  Instead of looking at Cassie, her mom pressed her face into Rick’s neck. Absently, he patted her back, but his eyes didn’t move. The last thing Cassie saw before the van doors slammed closed was her stepfather’s cold stare.

  two

  Three days earlier—April 11

  “Sure you don’t want some roast beef?” Rick asked, holding aloft a slice. A drop of bloody juice landed on the white platter.

  “Gross,” Cassie said, pushing away her plate, even though she hadn’t finished her mashed potatoes and salad. “If he’s going to harass me, can I be excused?”

  “Cassie!” Jackie said.

  “Well, it’s true. He knows I don’t eat meat, but he still keeps asking.”

  Rick looked hurt. “I’m just worried that you’re not getting enough iron. A girl your age has to worry about that. As well as the fact that not eating meat means you’re not getting enough riboflavin. And there are twenty necessary amino acids, and you probably are only getting a fraction of them.” As a psychiatrist, Rick had gone to medical school and liked to show off his knowledge—even if it was twenty-five years old.

  “She eats cheese,” Jackie said, looking back and forth between them. “And eggs. And she takes a multivitamin. I can check to make sure it has iron in it.”

  “I’ve been thinking maybe we should add something else for her health,” Rick said. “Socom.”

  Cassie couldn’t believe Rick thought she needed Socom. He specialized in treating what were known as “troubled teens.” He had enrolled many of his patients in a clinical trial for Socom, and had been amazed by the results. When the company had given him an opportunity to invest in it, he had jumped at the chance.

  Jackie sat back in her chair, shaking her head. “I just don’t think it’s natural to put Cassie on something to change her moods.”

  “Natural?” Rick echoed. “What’s natural? If everything was natural, we would be naked, running around on our knuckles, and eating raw roots.” It was already clear that Rick wasn’t a big believer in nature. He had his hair colored at a salon, his teeth were dazzlingly white, and just last month he had undergone LASIK so that he could do away with his glasses. No matter what he did, though, Cassie thought he couldn’t hide the fact that he was old—at least fifty—and short. “Besides, Socom changes kids’ lives, Jackie. You’ve seen for yourself what a difference it makes.”

  Her mom looked down at her plate. Her voice was soft. “You’re right. It did help them. But Cassie’s not really to the point that we need to put her on a drug.”

  “But Socom’s not a drug. It’s an organically occurring peptide some people are deficient in. You wouldn’t deny a diabetic insulin just because it ‘wasn’t natural,’ would you?” He leaned forward, gesturing with his fork. “It’s the same with Socom. It’s not much different than a multivitamin.”

  “But you told me there had been some problems with it.”

  A frown crossed Rick’s face. “A few patients have been refractory, but we’re already working on fine-tuning that by taking out the right-handed molecules. And that issue only affects a tiny percentage. For everyone else, Socom is making a huge difference. Socom gives kids the piece they’re missing, Jackie. It makes them whole again.”

  Her mom held firm. “Cassie’s just adjusting, that’s all. She doesn’t have the kinds of problems as the kids you see in your practice. It’s a big change for her—us getting married, and then moving to Portland, and the baby coming. Give her a little time and she’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  But after dinner Jackie came to Cassie’s room and begged her to try to be more cheerful around Rick. “I know it’s hard,” she said. With a sigh, she sat down on the edge of Cassie’s bed. There were dark circles under her eyes. The doctor had told her she had to take it easy. Otherwise the baby might come too early.

  From the side, her mom looked misshapen—her breasts were swollen, her belly was swollen, and even her feet, tucked into stretchy black sandals, were swollen. Although they had never talked about the exact due date, it was clear to Cassie that Jackie must already have been pregnant when she and Rick got married.

  “Rick really loves you, but because of his work, he jumps to conclusions. Every day he sees kids who use
drugs, who get pregnant, who drop out of school—and he worries you could end up like them. He’s only trying to help.”

  “But I’m not like that,” Cassie said. “You know that.”

  Her mom sighed and ran her hands through her hair, tucking the strands of her bangs behind her ears. She had short dark curly hair, the same as Cassie’s. “But lately you seem to go out of your way to aggravate him. You’ve changed so much, Cassie. You never acted like this before.”

  “That’s only because he’s always telling me stuff, but he never listens. I thought that was what therapists did—listen.”

  Her mom toyed with the giant diamond ring on her left hand, turning it around so that it looked like a plain gold wedding band. “But you’re not helping, Cassie. The more you talk back, the more you roll your eyes or use that sarcastic tone of voice, the harder he comes down on you. And it just leaves me feeling stuck in the middle.”

  “I’ll try,” Cassie told her mom. Even to her own ears, it didn’t sound convincing. She stayed in her room until Rick and Jackie went out for ice cream. Rick allowed Jackie a daily kid-size cone, as long as she otherwise stuck to the strict diet he had devised. As far as Rick was concerned, this baby was going to be perfect.

  As soon as Cassie heard his BMW pull out of the garage, she went downstairs to the kitchen and turned on the computer. But instead of starting up, a question mark began to blink in the middle of the otherwise gray screen. Cassie didn’t know what it meant, but it couldn’t be good. She shut the computer off and turned it on again. The same question mark appeared. The third time, the screen stayed black.

  Great. Her history paper was due tomorrow, and here it was, 8:17 P.M., and she didn’t even have a way to start it. The library closed in less than an hour, and the last time she had been there, all the Internet terminals had been taken. Besides, Cassie only had an instructional license and couldn’t drive on her own.

  She had figured she could cobble this paper together, do a keyword search on Google, snip a bit here, a bit there, and stitch it together with a few sentences of her own. Good enough for a C, maybe a B minus.