Complicit Page 14

  “Do your parents, the ones you live with, do you think they have those items Darlene was looking for?”

  “I’ve never seen them. They’ve never mentioned having them.”

  “That doesn’t mean they don’t.”

  “No … but, there’s one person I want to ask about that.”

  “Your sister?”

  I shake my head. “No, not her.”

  FORTY-TWO

  That night, I’m sitting on the floor of my room watching a bad movie about the end of the world when the phone rings.

  It’s almost eleven and I’ve been up here for hours, ever since dropping Jenny off at her chamber group. When I got home, I had too many questions for Angie and Malcolm that I knew they’d never answer, so I just mumbled something about feeling like crap and came upstairs. You’d think they’d take a hint, but of course, Angie’s already knocked once to remind me about an appointment with Dr. Waverly tomorrow afternoon. Then she knocked again five minutes later to make sure I heard her the first time. Fifteen minutes after that, she sent Malcolm up to see if I “needed anything.” Now my headache has swelled to apocalyptic proportions, so it sort of does feel like the end of the world when my sister calls.

  I pick it up anyway.

  “Hey,” I say wearily.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Cate snaps.

  “I think I’m sick.” I reach to mute the movie I’m watching so I don’t have to strain to hear her over the sound of exploding buildings and panicked crowds.

  “How sick?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. I have a headache. A bad one. Maybe it’s a migraine.”

  “You got those as a kid, remember? They’d get so bad they’d make you puke.”

  “No, I don’t remember that,” I say. “At all. Cate, are you watching me?”

  “What do you mean? Why would I do that?”

  “I feel like someone’s watching me. At night. All the time, even.”

  “You sound paranoid, Jamie.”

  “Do I? Because I’m not paranoid if I’m right, you know. If you really are watching me.”

  “Wow, you’re, like, so deep right now.”

  I stare out the window. The rain’s stopped but the wind’s still blowing. Pounding, actually. “Alarms keep going off near the house. And the Dunnings got broken into on Friday. It was in the paper.”

  “Am I supposed to give a shit?”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Well, you thought wrong. Again.”

  “Why’d you run away from me the other day?”

  “I didn’t run away. You did.”

  “What?”

  “You held your breath until you passed out. I kind of took that to mean our conversation was over.”

  I feel the swift knock of panic rushing to fill my soul. “I don’t remember doing that.”

  “Mmm, you don’t say.”

  “Cate, I think there’s something wrong with me. Really wrong. I’ve been pulling my eyebrows out again. My cataplexy’s getting worse, too. Three times in the last week.”

  “You don’t have cataplexy, Jamie.”

  “What?”

  “I said you don’t have cataplexy.”

  “Yeah, well, what do I have, then?”

  “It’s a convert—conversion something. Shit. I forget.”

  “A conversion? Like being born again?”

  “No! Double shit. Hell, don’t ask me. I’m not a doctor!”

  Unbelievable. “Where are these pictures of our mom? You said you’d give them to me. You promised.”

  She sniffs. “Things change, little brother. It’s the way of the world.”

  A flush of anger runs through me. Why did I ever help her in the first place? Burying her things in the woods and sparing her even worse punishment? Why? She’s not Crazy. She’s cruel.

  I sit up, gripping the phone. “I went to the house where we used to live, you know. Out in Richmond. The woman there said our mom had blond hair. That’s not what I remember. Our mom had dark hair, right?”

  She says nothing.

  “Cate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you hear what I asked?”

  “I heard you. You’re practically screaming.”

  I am definitely not screaming. “Why doesn’t our mom look like how I remember her?”

  “Maybe you only remember what you want to. Maybe that’s your goddamn problem.”

  “I—” I know what I’m going to ask might upset her. I know it might set her off. But I have to do it. “I’ve been trying to remember a lot of things lately. Things from the past. And that time I rode your horse down at the barn, after I held my breath, did you … hypnotize me?”

  Silence.

  “Cate?”

  “Maybe I did,” she whispers. “And maybe I should have done it again. Only I didn’t. Instead I bought into the lie that what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But it can, Jamie. It can hurt bad. You’ll figure that out on your own, though. I know you will. You’re so close. Now go deeper.”

  FORTY-THREE

  The following morning finds me lurking around the parking lot of the Happy Homes Adoption Agency in Stockton, which is a delta town more than sixty miles northeast of Danville. It’s early still and I barely remember the drive out here—the whole trip’s a hazy blur of bad heartburn, brake lights, and gas station coffee. So far, I’ve been passing time by doing jumping jacks to the beat of Ellington’s “Caravan,” and generally looking like a crazy person. A painted mural of brightly colored flowers and brightly colored children adorn the wall behind me, and even though I’ve been freezing my butt off for over an hour in the crisp December air, it was a good call on my part, remembering the cigarettes. This is because when the back door of the agency opens and the woman I’ve been waiting for comes out, she makes a beeline straight for the ashtray I’ve positioned myself next to.

  I stop jumping and watch as she approaches. It’s been ten years, but I recognize her immediately, all the way down to the shiny pack of Kools and plastic lighter she’s got gripped in one chubby hand. Her frizzy hair’s cut short now, but she’s still tall and sort of lumpy, and either there’s something off about her makeup or there’s just a whole lot of it.

  “Hello, Miss Louise.” I try keeping my voice steady, but breath and words spill together from my mouth in a jumbled rush.

  The woman blinks. “How do you know who I am?”

  “I recognized you.”

  “Well, tell me who you are then or I’ll call the cops. You a relative?”

  “A relative? Of who?”

  “Of one of my kids.”

  I’m confused. “Your kids?”

  The look in her eyes isn’t wary so much as weary. She pulls a cigarette out. Lights it. “Not my kids. But mine, you know? The ones I work with.”

  “No,” I say. “I’m not a relative.”

  “Well, then…”

  “I think I am one of your kids.”

  Miss Louise takes a step toward me. Minty smoke leaks from her nostrils, lit-grenade style, and her lips start to stretch into a smile. “Yeah? What’s your name, then? Bet I remember you. I remember all my kids and I’ve been doing this job for over ten years.”

  “My name’s Jamie. Jamie Henry.”

  Miss Louise freezes. Her soft dumpling skin goes white. Then whiter.

  “Oh,” she says.

  I cock my head. “What’s wrong? Don’t you remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you, Jamie. You … you’re all grown now. But I heard about what happened with your sister. That was sad. Real sad. I’m sorry.”

  I nod quickly. My chest is doing its tightening thing again. “Thank you.”

  “How’d you find me?” she asks.

  “Wasn’t hard. I did a search for all the Louises that worked in adoption services. Found your picture on the Happy Homes website. Stockton’s kind of far from Richmond, though.”

  “I didn’t work here when I knew you. I was out in West
County then. Social services.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is everything okay, Jamie?”

  “I guess.”

  “Your parents treating you well? What was their name again?”

  “The Henrys. Malcolm and Angie.”

  “Of course. The Henrys. Terrible what happened to their kids.”

  I lift my chin. “You mean their ‘real kids,’ right? That’s what people call them, you know. Like Cate and I are imaginary.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all. But what happened to them was terrible. You do understand that, right?”

  My shrug is noncommittal. I mean, of course, I understand, but I don’t totally agree with the terrible part, which is one of those nasty truths that can fill me with the most sinister sense of badness. But maybe it’s the way any child born or adopted after the death of a sibling feels, this queasy lurch from gratitude to shame; if Madison and Graham hadn’t died, where the hell would I be? “Miss Louise, do you think I could ask you some questions? About when I was younger? And about my mom? My real mom.”

  She scratches the bottom of her chin with her thumb. “‘Real’ mom, huh? Yeah, sure. Shoot.”

  My mouth goes dry.

  “Sorry,” she says. “That was tactless.”

  I manage to clear my throat. “Do you know what my mom looked like?”

  “Nope. Never saw her.”

  “Well, after she died, did you ever go back to the house we lived in and get some of her things?”

  She frowns and puffs harder. “Yeah, I did. Wasn’t much to get, though.”

  “What was there?”

  “Don’t remember. Nothing valuable. Good thing, too. That neighborhood was not optimal and that’s putting it lightly.”

  “Were there statues? Animal statues? Is that what you picked up?”

  “I don’t know. There might’ve been. Why’re you asking these questions, Jamie?”

  “I’m trying to learn more about where I came from. My past, you know? I don’t remember anything from before I went to live with the Henrys. Sometimes it feels like nobody wants me to remember.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “Not really. All I know is what I’ve been told. That my mom was shot. That we were wards of the state until we got adopted. That they never found out who it was that killed her.”

  “I see.” Miss Louise presses her lips together so hard a stream of ash breaks off, vanishing into the valley wind in an instant. “Well, here’s what I know: You were miserable in that group home with your sister. Always sick and crying. You got nits and your hair fell out.”

  My cheeks burn. “I remember that.”

  “If you remember that, then maybe you shouldn’t be worrying about before. Maybe it’s now that matters. Your life with the Henrys.”

  “But I want to know where I came from! That’s important, isn’t it?”

  “Your parents now love you. Isn’t that more important?”

  “I guess,” I say, but I don’t know. Maybe that’s the unspoken truth of parents whose living children have come after ones who were lost—it’s not that they don’t love us, it’s that they wish they never had to.

  Miss Louise tips her head at me. Soft curls dance across pale cheeks. “Do you know how rare it is for older children to be adopted? Much less stay with a sibling? It was practically a miracle, what happened to you and your sister. And you don’t question miracles.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Oh, no. There’s no truth that can change who you are. But looking into the past, at things that happened a long time ago, that can hurt you. Your sister’s proof of that. So stop. All right?”

  But I can’t stop, is what I want to say but my teeth chatter too hard in the chilled Stockton air. I look away.

  Miss Louise reaches out. Takes my hand. Squeezes it hard enough to hurt.

  “Be a good boy,” she says.

  FORTY-FOUR

  So why am I questioning miracles?

  This is the drumbeat query that gallops through my mind, faster and faster, as I navigate the tight valley fog, winding out of Stockton, leaving behind Miss Louise and the wispy reek of her Kools. The distance between us may be increasing, but her wisdom, however murky, sticks with me. It fills me with self-doubt, a haggard sense of rootlessness. Like swimming in a cold lake at night and not knowing which way is up, I don’t know what the right thing to do is.

  And maybe that’s just how Cate wants it.

  Drops of moisture hit my windshield.

  I switch on my wipers.

  I drive full speed into the murkiness.

  When I finally reach school, I don’t head to my classes or the office or anywhere I’ll be forced to concoct lame, stuttering excuses for my absence. Instead I seek solace in Jenny. In her body more than her words. That sounds selfish, I know, or shallow, but my intent is far from prurient. I just want to be close to her. I need her. And okay, maybe that is selfish, but I like to think she gets something out of being with me. She seems to and I don’t mean in a giving way. I mean in the taking.

  Jenny does a lot of taking.

  She’s the one who grabs my hand when I show up at lunch period to crumple beside her, burying my face against her shoulder, to tell her where I’ve been and what I haven’t learned. She’s the one who drags me through the quad and up into the woods behind the school’s organic garden and beneath the swirling foul gray sky, and where she shoves me up against a bare wood storage shed, scrunches up her face, and presses her lips to mine. I like that she does this, not just for the obvious reasons. I like that she doesn’t pet my hand and ask if I’m okay, when it’s pretty clear that I’m not. I like that she doesn’t encourage me to smile sweetly and tell bland lies in order to spare her feelings. I like her. Period.

  The kiss between us starts out tender, achingly so, like maybe she thinks I’m fragile or on the verge of tears, which I sort of am. But it’s not long before our kissing becomes something more, something urgent, each of us grasping at the other in a way that’s frantic and hungry and grateful all at once.

  Soon I’m not thinking about whether she’s done this with other guys or if they’re better at it than me. The only thing I’m thinking about is how good it feels to be with her and how the briefest of moments can bring such infinite pleasure. I slide one hand up Jenny’s shirt as she watches me, eyes half closed, a wry smile on her lips. She’s not wearing a bra and my fingers revel in the softness of her skin, the shape of her, the way she leans into my touch. I lower my head to kiss her more, to put my mouth around her—

  “Classy,” a voice says, and we leap apart, both of us scrambling to fix our clothing. I stand protectively in front of Jenny as Hector Ramirez sidles up the path with one smart-ass look on his smart-ass face. A beam of sunlight peeks through the cloud layer, lighting his dark hair with amber.

  “What do you want?” I snap, embarrassed at both how hard I’m breathing and how angry I feel. Jenny brushes dust and tree dander from my back and shoulders. I reach to do the same for her.

  Hector shrugs. “I don’t want anything. But I happened to see you two come out here, and right after that, I saw old lady Briscoe take some new family on a tour of the place. I figured they were about five minutes away from discovering you in flagrante delicto and thought maybe you’d want me to give you a heads-up on that.”

  I tuck my shirt back in my pants and glance down the hillside. Sure enough, the school secretary is waddling through the wet grass with some stuffy-looking parents and their middle school kid in tow.

  “Thanks for that, Hector.” I take Jenny by the hand.

  “Hey,” he says before we can leave.

  I look back at him. “What?”

  “You hear about the fire out on Dove Lane this morning?”

  “No. What fire?”

  “Apparently someone used a bunch of M-80s to set the church Dumpster on fire. Burned a tree and part of the roof, too. Cops are going nuts right now trying to find out who did
it.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Danny texted me.”

  “Danny?”

  “Yeah, he’s home for winter break now. Told him it kind of reminds me of stuff that used to happen around here, if you know what I mean.”

  I tighten my grip on Jenny’s hand. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Funny, how that works, huh?”

  “Not that funny. But thanks again for the heads-up. I appreciate it.”

  “No you don’t,” he says grimly. “But you should.”

  My sense of dread is palpable. Jenny and I walk arm in arm back down the trail, but I can’t stop twisting my head to look up at the mountain and out over the rolling hills. I’m searching for signs, omens, anything. Smoke signals of my sister’s ire.

  We make it back to the main quad. Other students see us and stare. I know they know that we’re dating. Or together. Or something. I wonder if that makes them look at me differently, knowing there’s someone who doesn’t judge me by what my sister did. Knowing there’s someone who likes me more than they do.

  “You think Cate set that fire?” Jenny whispers.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So call the cops.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “What would I say? I don’t know anything. I’d sound crazy.”

  “Come on.”

  I shiver. “I can’t tell them what I can’t explain. It’s just a feeling I have. That it’s a warning from Cate. Or a message. But I don’t know what it means.”

  “It means she’s destructive.”

  “Or self-destructive.”

  “Same thing.”

  My head is starting to hurt. I press my fingers to my temple. “I need to think about this more.”

  “What’re you doing after school?” Jenny asks.

  “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment.”

  “After that?”

  “Don’t know. I’m not looking forward to going home tonight, I know that much. Did you have something else in mind?”

  Jenny points the toe of her shoe into the ground. “My parents are out of town. I thought maybe you’d want to come over. Spend the night even. We could talk some of this out. Family drama shouldn’t happen in a vacuum, you know?”