The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die Read online

  I do as he says. It’s my second time lying down on a back seat today, but at least this time there’s no Plexiglas, no doors that won’t open. And it doesn’t smell like pee or vomit. Instead, the scratchy gray blanket smells like dog.

  For a minute, I’m distracted. Do I have a dog? Do I like dogs? Am I allergic to them? I have no idea. I can picture what I think are all the basic breeds and name them—Labs and German shepherds and poodles—but my memory and my knowledge don’t go any further than that. It’s like there’s a door in my mind. I wonder again how the wall got there.

  I wonder what’s behind it.

  “Don’t say anything for a second, okay?” Ty says. “I don’t want anyone to see me talking.” The car turns around, the sound of the motor changing as we enter the parking lot and he heads for the back entrance.

  Then Ty swears softly.

  “What? What?” I fight the urge to sit up.

  “There’s a car behind me.” His voice sounds funny, and I realize he’s trying to talk without moving his lips. “It might be following us.”

  “Can you see who’s inside?”

  “Just somebody with short dark hair. I think it’s a guy. He’s about half a block behind me. I’m going to make some turns and see if he follows me. If he does, I think I can lose him.”

  It’s like we stepped into some TV show about cops or spies. Only we’re not cops or spies. We’re teenagers.

  “Wait a minute, Ty. If you drive too fast or too crazy and this guy is wondering if I’m in the car, then he’ll realize he’s right. And those people probably have guns and you don’t.”

  I reach toward my pocket. I have a gun. The thing is, I’m not exactly sure how to use it. I obviously know karate or kung fu or whatever, but I’m not sure I want to also be the kind of person who is an expert on guns. Then I really would belong in a movie about cops or spies.

  The car turns left, then a quick right. “Is he still there?” I ask when I can’t bear it any longer.

  “No.” Ty sighs. “He took the first turn but not the second. It must have just been a coincidence.”

  What am I doing, dragging some perfect stranger into a mess that even I don’t understand? “Maybe you should just let me off someplace.”

  There’s an odd note to Ty’s voice. “What? Why?” He almost sounds hurt.

  “Because those guys want me. I don’t know why they want me, but I don’t think they’re going to stop looking. And I don’t think they’re going to let anyone get in the way. It’s not safe for you to try to help me. I can figure something out.” A yawn surprises me in the middle of my last sentence, so the word “out” is stretched and slightly strangled sounding.

  “Maybe what I should do is just take you to the cops. It’s not like anyone is going to gun you down while you’re at the police station.”

  “Before I went into your McDonald’s, I went to Newberry Ranch. They don’t have real cops there, just a security guard. When I was talking to him, he got this phone call from someone. And he said the caller ID showed it was from Sagebrush. I know that’s not true. But he believed them. He locked me in the back of his car and was going to hold me for them, but I managed to get away. I can’t take the chance that the cops here might do the same thing. I mean, the stuff I remember sounds crazy. Why would two men pull some girl’s fingernails out in a deserted cabin? And those men want people to believe that I’m crazy. So it all fits. But I know I’m not crazy. So you should just let me out before they decide they want to kill you, too.”

  “Do you have any money?” Ty asks. When I don’t say anything, he adds, “You don’t, do you? It’s not safe for a girl to be out on her own here at night. I’ve seen what can happen. I’m just saying come back to my place, one of us can spend the night on the couch, then in the morning we’ll try to figure something out.”

  “Won’t your parents ask questions?”

  “I live on my own now.” The words are flat, but I can hear some emotion behind them.

  I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to trust. So I end up saying, “Okay.”

  Saying yes to this stranger. I know as much about Ty as I do about myself. More even.

  CHAPTER 14

  DAY 1, 10:11 P.M.

  Suddenly I feel like I’m suffocating, lying on the back seat covered by a blanket.

  “I want to sit up,” I tell Ty. If I could just see where we were going.

  “Hang tight. We’re almost there.”

  He makes a turn, another, slows down as we go over a bump, takes one sharp left, then turns off the motor. “Just stay down for a second. Let me make sure no one followed us.” After what seems like a long time but is probably only a minute, he finally says, “Okay, let’s go.”

  When I open the door and get to my feet, spots of white light dance in front of my eyes. I lean against the side of the car for a second. Ty is walking into the dark. What am I doing, following some stranger into a run-down apartment building?

  Three stories high, it stretches the length of the block—dozens of units, each with one vinyl-trimmed window overlooking the parking lot, and one sliding glass door leading onto a metal-fenced concrete balcony that serves as a place to park a bike, a barbecue, or a couple of plastic outdoor chairs. Finally, I straighten up and walk to where Ty is fitting his key into a door on the ground floor.

  What else am I going to do?

  A little kid is crying in the next unit. I think of the little kid in the picture of my family. Did my brother cry all the time? But that doesn’t feel right.

  Ty pushes open the door. “Hey, James. I hope you’re decent!”

  I freeze on the threshold. He didn’t say anything about living with someone else. But before I can decide what to do, a guy stands up from the couch where he was stretched out watching TV. His straight hair is dyed black and bleached blond on the tips. He pushes it back from where it hangs over one eye, then bends down and gets the clicker to turn off the TV. James is wearing skinny jeans and a tan T-shirt with a silk-screened brown bear standing on its hind legs, arms raised. He looks a few years older than me, but he’s about my height and probably skinnier.

  “James, this is Katie. She needs a place to sleep tonight, so I said she could crash here, and I’d take the couch.”

  “Hey.” James gives me a nod, and then exchanges a wordless look with Ty.

  Just when I want to run back out the door, a little ball of fur explodes around the corner, yapping. Ty scoops it up. “Hey, Spot. Did you miss me?”

  “Spot?” I echo. The dog is solid black. I hold out my hand, and Spot licks the back of it.

  “Just think of him as one big spot,” Ty says. He sets Spot down. The dog puts his paws on my knee and starts sniffing my pant leg. I wonder if he smells the blood. I see James noticing the stains, too, although he pretends not to when I catch him staring.

  “I’ll heat up some food for you,” Ty says and turns right to go into a kitchen with a breakfast nook. The three chairs at the table don’t match. I wonder how comfortable the old couch—which is brown and bears only a passing resemblance to leather—will be to sleep on.

  “Where’d you meet Ty?” James asks, perching on one of the arms.

  “At McDonald’s.” It seems like a good idea to leave out the part where I pulled a gun on him.

  “Do your parents know where you are, Katie?” James raises one eyebrow.

  I realize he thinks I’m a runaway. Well, I am, but not like he thinks.

  “I’m not sure.” My eyes sting. I guess those people in the photo are my parents, but I don’t know anything about them. Maybe they really are the kind of parents a girl would run away from. But I don’t think so. I wonder where they think I am.

  I wonder if they’re alive.

  James’s expression betrays nothing if he sees how my eyes are shining. “Do you need a phone to call them?” He pulls a cell phone from his pocket and offers it to me. “It might be good to let them know where you are.”

  “That’
s okay.” I wave it off. “Right now, there’s not a way for me to get hold of them.” His offering the phone makes me think of Brenner’s phone. I pull it out and look at the display. The battery’s at less than 10 percent. A dead man’s phone. And it’s almost dead itself. I push the power button until it goes black, then notice James watching me.

  From the kitchen, a microwave bings. We both turn at the sound. “Who wants gumbo?” Ty calls out.

  “I do,” I say, and James echoes me. Remembering the garbage can, I ask Ty if it’s okay to wash my hands in the kitchen sink first.

  The three of us end up sitting in those mismatched chairs. It’s nothing like the food I ate at McDonald’s. Compared to it, the food at McDonald’s isn’t even really food. The gumbo has bell peppers, okra, sausage, chicken, and tomatoes, all of it served over rice.

  “This tastes fantastic,” I say, sopping up some of the spicy brown sauce with a crusty roll.

  Ty shrugs, looking pleased. “It’s just leftovers.”

  “Then I want to eat leftovers the rest of my life.” I concentrate on eating while the two of them talk about their day. I figure out that James cuts hair at a salon, and Ty goes to school before he works at McDonald’s.

  “Like college?” I ask.

  “Like high school. I’m a senior.” Ty’s tone doesn’t invite any questions. For example, why someone still in high school is living in an apartment. And with James, who seems to be gay.

  So is Ty gay? I think of how he caught his breath when he helped me into the garbage can. I don’t think so.

  It’s hard enough trying to figure out stuff about me, let alone other people. And thinking just makes me tired. I start yawning and can’t stop.

  “Let me show you where you can sleep,” Ty says.

  James tips me a wink. “Quick, before she puts her head down on the table.”

  At the end of a short hall are two bedrooms. Through one half-open door, I see a tangle of clothes on the floor. But the room Ty goes into is as neat as if no one lives there. There are only a few clothes hanging in the closet. The bed is a mattress on the floor with mismatched sheets and a couple of blankets. Next to it is a stack of library books. The chest of drawers is made of gray plastic.

  “It’s not much, but it’s home,” he says, hot color climbing his cheeks. He roots around in the chest of drawers—everything inside is neatly folded, which makes it clear just how little there is—and comes up with an oversized green nylon football shirt. “You could sleep in this, if you want.” Ty’s face gets even redder. “You’ll probably want to shower first. I don’t have an extra toothbrush, but I guess you could just use your finger and some toothpaste. Oh, and I’ll put a clean towel on the counter for you. Do you need anything else?”

  I need so much I can’t even name it. But Ty has given me what I need most. A feeling of safety, if only for a little while. “No. Thanks. I really appreciate you helping me out.”

  Even with the bathroom door locked, it’s hard to take off my clothes. I already feel vulnerable. It’s only in the warm shower that I finally relax a little. My body is marked with bruises and scrapes, all of them new looking, and only a few that I remember getting.

  After I dry myself off, I put toothpaste on my index finger and rub it back and forth across my teeth, avoiding the loose tooth. I rinse out my mouth, then look at the girl in the mirror. Her eyes are frightened. What kind of girl am I, that someone would do these things to me?

  CHAPTER 15

  DAY 1, 10:53 P.M.

  When I go back into the hall, I hear Ty and James talking in low voices. I can’t make out the words, just the tone, but I know what they’re talking about.

  Who—or whom—they’re talking about.

  The tan carpet muffles my footsteps as I edge closer. There’s a flapping noise as someone shakes out a blanket.

  “You’ve never brought a girl home before,” James says. “And now when you do, you sleep on the couch?”

  “It’s not like that,” Ty says. “She’s in trouble.”

  “Trouble.” James makes a sound that’s not quite a laugh. “That’s just what we need. What kind of trouble?”

  “I don’t know exactly.” Ty hesitates and then says in a rush, “She doesn’t remember who she is.”

  “Are you saying she’s got, like, amnesia? Why didn’t you take her to the cops or at least a hospital? What if she hit her head or had a stroke or something? Look, this isn’t like the stray cat you kept feeding in the parking lot last year until someone ran over it. Or that baby bird you put in the shoebox. Those were only animals, and look how things turned out for them.”

  “What about Spot? He’s doing okay.”

  “Spot’s great,” James says. “I love Spot, but this is a person. She needs to be checked out by a real medical professional. Not somebody who’s taking an online class about how to be an EMT.”

  “Her pupils are the same size and track normally.” For a second, Ty sounds older. “Her expressions are symmetrical, and she’s not slurring her words.”

  James isn’t mollified. “That’s an expensive sweater she’s wearing. Nobody just threw her out on the street. Whoever she is, she must have a family. She belongs with them. You can bet somebody’s looking for her. And they might not like that you kept her.”

  “Somebody is looking for her. Right after close, two guys in suits came to the door while she was in the bathroom. They said that Katie had escaped from Sagebrush.”

  “What?” James’s voice rises. “Like, the mental hospital? So you brought some crazy girl home? Did they say what she was in there for?”

  “No. Just that she needed her meds.” Ty didn’t tell me that part, but it’s the same thing they told Officer Dillow. “But she says they were lying. That she really escaped from two guys who were talking about killing her.”

  “Killing her? What, we’re in some movie now? The Sagebrush idea sounds a lot more believable. What if she sets fires?” It sounds as if James is pacing, and I pull back a little so he won’t catch sight of me. “What if she kills us in the middle of the night?”

  “You talked to her. Do you really think she would do either of those things? If she was dangerous, they would have had the cops looking for her, not two guys who look like businessmen. And who didn’t offer any ID that said Sagebrush.”

  “Come on, Ty. Really? So you think they’re like some kidnappers slash killers?”

  “She obviously believes it. She was shaking so hard. She was scared out of her mind.”

  “Out of her mind,” James echoes.

  “All right, all right. Poor choice of words.”

  “Maybe they did that electroshock therapy and fried her brain, and that’s why she can’t remember things.”

  Ty exhales forcefully. “If you had met those guys, you would know why I believe her more than them. They had a bad vibe. They were all buttoned up and serious. But underneath you could tell they were really pissed off.”

  “Okay, so if you believe her, why not go to the cops?”

  “Come on, you know what most of the cops are like around here,” Ty says, making me wonder why both of them know this. “Maybe one in ten would listen to her. The other nine would just take these guys at their word and hand her over. They’d just be glad she wasn’t their problem anymore.”

  “So now she has to be our problem?”

  “Okay, if you don’t want her here,” Ty asks, “where do you want me to tell her to go? You know what it’s like out on the street, especially for a girl.”

  “I don’t know, Ty. I don’t know. Then what happens tomorrow? Are you just going to leave her here alone while I’m at work and you’re at school? You just trust her not to make off with all our stuff the minute we’re gone?”

  Amusement colors Ty’s voice. “Hey, she can take off with my stuff. It all came from Goodwill.”

  “Speak for yourself. I live a little higher up the food chain than you. But I am not carting everything I own in to work just to keep it safe f
rom some crazy chick.”

  A bubble of air expands in my chest. I can’t keep hiding in the hall. I step out into the living room, suddenly aware that the jersey ends about mid thigh. Under the jersey I’m wearing panties but no bra. I’m clutching my bundle of clothes in front of me, and the coat hides part of my legs.

  The couch has been made up with a blanket and a pillow. James sees me first. His eyes widen. He presses his fingers against his lips and then Ty turns.

  Spot makes a beeline for me, but I ignore the scratch of his little paws on the bare skin of my knee. The dog is the only one in this apartment who is a hundred percent happy I’m here.

  “Look. I’ll just go,” I say. “I really appreciate the food and everything, but I should be going.” My mouth is dry. I look at both of them. James meets my eyes, but that’s about it. Ty manages a little bit of a smile and shakes his head.

  “You don’t need to go,” he says. “Especially when I know you don’t have any place else to go. James wasn’t there tonight. He didn’t talk to those two guys. He didn’t see those men watching the movie theater and going through the car you were driving. They want you for some reason. I don’t know if it’s really to kill you, but I do know that whatever it is, it isn’t good.”

  I want to insist, to walk right out the door. But where will I go? I’ve got no money. Did Ty lock his car? Maybe I could curl up in the back seat.

  I expect him to keep arguing, but it’s James who touches my arm. “Why don’t you listen to Ty and just go get some sleep. We can figure out what to do in the morning.”

  I can barely lift my feet as I walk back to Ty’s room. I’m past tired, past exhausted. I throw my dirty clothes on the floor. My pants make a clunking sound. Brenner’s phone. Maybe we can use it to figure out the truth, I think, as I put my head down on the pillow. It’s nice to think “we,” even if it’s probably not going to last.