B00B9FX0F2 EBOK Page 15

  “No one’s coming to my house until I figure out what happened to Lacey,” he said as firmly as he could. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

  “Pretty sure the only thing you’re feeling is the aftereffects of Luke’s fist in your face,” Rakesh grumbled before letting the subject of the party drop.

  It didn’t hurt when he didn’t touch it. It took Jason a little while to get it through his head; every time he caught his reflection, his fingers immediately went to the dark and shiny swollen skin around his left eye. And each time, he would wince, and then adjust his glasses, which only made the pain worse. He’d tried putting in his contacts, but his eyelid was too misshapen. He made every effort to stop checking himself out, but the only upside to the beating he’d taken was that he was kind of into what the bruise was doing for his face.

  He’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, and woken up in the middle of the night to find his eye socket throbbing, his torso sore. Bathed in the strange blue glow of the television screen, he fumbled for the lamp, and then blinked rapidly against the harsh light. His eyelashes were like anvils against his cheeks, sending searing pains shooting through his head. When his sight had adjusted, he hunted for his phone in the couch cushions. No missed calls. After he’d left school, there’d been nothing more from the anonymous number. His text to Jenna had been simple, suggesting they meet up the next day, and she’d agreed. He’d wanted to write Lacey, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. Still, on a whim he checked Facebook to see if she had written him.

  She had.

  Maybe it was the fact that he was awake in the early hours of the morning for the third night that week. Maybe it was the soreness he felt all over. Maybe it was just good old-fashioned intuition. Whatever it was, something told Jason he didn’t want to see the message. So he sat disoriented on the couch for a few more minutes. Jason had woken up in the middle of the night feeling unsettled plenty of times before, like his whole existence was off-kilter or the wrong shape, but Lacey had changed that. Or at least he’d thought she had. She had righted him, made him feel like he fit. But now everything hurt — literally — and nothing made sense. The day before, he’d been so full of hope, but now, after another confusing series of events, he wondered if he was further from the truth than he had been when he started.

  When he’d first discovered the obituary, he’d thought maybe he could walk away. Yes, Lacey was the best thing that ever happened to him, but maybe she wasn’t worth all of the trouble. And then he’d gambled, something he didn’t do terribly often and didn’t have too much experience with. He’d decided she was worth a whole world of trouble, and he bet on her. And now he was scared he’d lost, but it was too late to walk away from the table.

  So even though dread had gathered into a pit in his stomach, he opened Lacey’s message. And his insides lurched when he saw what she had sent. It was a photo of her. Her lips were curled into a coy smile, and her eyes were turned upward to the camera, as if she were batting her eyelashes just for Jason. In the background, he could see the narrow buds of leaves coiled up, waiting to bloom. The photo was taken on a beautiful spring day. Like today had been. And between Lacey’s fingers, she held a familiar delicate gold chain.

  Come and find me, her message read.

  Using his thumb and forefinger, he enlarged the photo as much as he could. There was no question about it. She was wearing the necklace.

  Jason was supposed to be overjoyed. Finally, after all of his waiting, here was the long-sought-after invitation to meet. Lacey was alive and well. She was happy. So why did he feel queasy and hollow, as if he’d gobbled up bags and bags of month-old Halloween candy and was dealing with the aftereffects?

  The problem was that Lacey was playing games. Sending him to a cemetery in the middle of the night, only to reclaim the item he’d been chasing. Directing him to her parents’ house so she could show off the prize she’d stolen from him. It was like she was taunting him. He’d fallen for Lacey because she was so straightforward and honest, and now that person was splitting open at the seams, and it scared Jason more than any of his midnight forays to Brighton had.

  He stared down at the photo. She was so beautiful. Come and find me. The picture had been taken outside. The tree behind her was about to blossom, but that narrowed it down to just about every tree Jason had seen in the last week. In addition to the necklace, Lacey was wearing a purple T-shirt, which didn’t seem out of the ordinary. There had to be some sort of clue he was missing, but he was too tired to see it. The clock read 3:42. There was nothing he was going to be able to do about it now. He would ask Jenna if she had any idea where it was taken — or who it was taken by — tomorrow.

  Wearily, he turned off the light and dragged himself upstairs and into bed. When he lowered his heavy eyelids, the fatigue overtook his anxiety, and the next thing he knew, the sun was streaming into his bedroom and it was close to noon on Saturday morning.

  The bruises were still fresh and sore, and his rib cage ached as he fastened his seat belt across it, but the night of sleep had been good for his spirits. Lacey’s mysterious message seemed less sinister now — she was only trying to protect herself — and she was within reach. Jenna was going to help him find her. Jason was loath to admit it, but he was looking forward to Jenna’s reaction to his battle wounds.

  When he arrived at her front door, he was not disappointed. Concern took over her face and she hugged him tightly before asking, “Oh my god, Jason, what happened?”

  He looked around nervously for her mother. As cool as he thought he looked, meeting someone else’s parents with a black eye couldn’t be a good idea. As if thinking the same thing, she quickly added, “Come on, let’s go up to my room.”

  Once he was seated on her bed, Jason started where they’d left off together: with him dropping her off on Thursday night.

  “I was on my way home. I mean, you were in that cemetery with me, it was not the type of place anyone sane would go sneaking around in alone at night. But then Lacey messaged me.”

  Jenna was scrolling through her iPod for music; at the mention of Lacey’s message, Jason watched her shoulders tense. “What did she say?”

  “‘Look deeper,’” Jason said. “I don’t know how she knew what we’d seen, but I went back. And you were right. Troy did bury something. He left a necklace there. It was engraved with their initials, and the letters K and C.”

  “K and C? What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure, but when you say it, it’s KC. Casey. Like the call Max saw her get.”

  “Can I see the necklace?” She had put on Fleetwood Max’s Rumours, and now her attention was fully on Jason.

  “Well, you can’t take something …” At first he started to repeat Rakesh’s arbitrary rules for removing objects from cemeteries, and then thought better of it. “I left it there. And I even went back for it, because I thought it might be evidence or whatever. But it was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yeah. Totally gone. But then, I got this.” He handed over his phone, and Jenna gasped, covering her mouth in shock.

  “Who sent this to you?” she demanded.

  “Lacey,” Jason answered. He thought it was obvious. “Look at the blue sky — the flowers. It has to have been taken recently. Like, yesterday. Do you have any idea where?”

  She shook her head. “It’s so small on the phone. I’d need to see it on a bigger screen. But wait, what happened to your face?”

  “Oh, right.” He sheepishly explained about how Luke had caught him and Rakesh back at Lacey’s grave. How angry he’d been. “I mean, on the one hand, it made sense. We were digging something up at the place where he thinks his sister is buried. But also, that guy has a rage problem. He’s dangerous.”

  “What are you saying?” Her voice was small, and Jason wasn’t sure whether the current he heard running beneath it was fear or anger.

  “Jenna, Luke did this.” He pointed to his eye. “He seemed capable of doing a lot worse.
Rakesh was there. He saw it, too. Don’t you think it’s at least possible that he had something to do with Lacey’s disappearance?”

  “This is Troy’s fault,” Jenna answered stubbornly. Before Jason could protest, she switched her tack. “Let’s look at the photo on my computer. Will you send it to me?”

  “Here, it’ll be easier if I just sign in.” He flinched as he rose to switch places with her, the shifted weight resting on his sore muscles.

  “Ugh, does it hurt a lot?” Her eyes were full of sympathy.

  “Ah, it’s not so bad.”

  She didn’t buy his tough guy act. “Here, sit down, and I think there’s a bag of peas or something in the freezer you can put on your eye. Let me run and grab it.”

  “You really don’t have to.”

  “Jason, trust me, it’ll help.” He looked down at her hand, which was resting on his arm, and then back up. Their eyes met, and they both smiled shyly at the same time before she looked away. “I’ll be right back.”

  He settled into the desk chair and waited for her computer to boot up, surveying the papers and knickknacks she had lying around as he did so. Some of her school notebooks were out, her handwriting small and neat and girlish. Her detailed outline for a European history class confirmed Jason’s suspicion that she was an excellent student. Behind them was a frame, showing her and Lacey, arms around each other’s shoulders, cheeks pressed together, twin huge grins illuminating their faces. It must have been taken during their sophomore year, before everything got so complicated. What would it have been like to know them then? Would Lacey have been so friendly, sharing her dreams of playing with a real band to his face, accompanying him to concerts, cracking him up as they watched YouTube videos together? Would Jenna have looked at him with those big trusting eyes, opened up to him about her friendship with Lacey? Or would he have been invisible to these beautiful popular girls, another nobody guy with a beat-up car and a weirdo record collection? Judging from this photo, with a party roaring behind them, the second option seemed more likely. He wondered what had changed, what had allowed both of them to connect with him. Was it something about them or was it something about him?

  Opening the browser, he typed in f-a-c and Facebook popped up automatically. The mouse was hovering over the log out button when he noticed his profile picture. And then he had the sensation of being on one of those amusement-park rides where you drop fifteen stories in an instant. His stomach was falling at high speed, leaving his racing heart behind, hovering somewhere high in the air. Jason was logged in to Lacey’s profile. Or rather Jenna was logged into Lacey’s profile. He stared at the screen. There he was, his thumbnail-size face lonely as Lacey’s only friend, the status updates that had been written specifically for him scrolling down the page. Had Lacey been here and used Jenna’s computer?

  He clicked the messages tab, and suddenly he was looking at the full-size photo of Lacey holding the necklace. Below that the heartfelt note he’d sent after following her instructions to go back to the cemetery. Jason couldn’t breathe. Me and J Money have been friends practically since we were born — we’re family at this point. He’d wondered why Lacey had come to him and not to Jenna, but Jenna had been in on it from the beginning. Except … the idea was too much to handle, but what if Jenna had been behind it from the beginning? His head was swimming in confusion, but the second he laid eyes on the sheet of loose leaf buried under a stack of textbooks, he felt such an intense jolt of certainty his breath caught. Pushing the books aside, he saw his own handwriting.

  It was all turning gray

  It was all turning black

  Then you were there

  And you keep coming back

  These things tend to get ugly

  Or so I am told

  But now that you’re here

  Everything’s coming up gold

  Drive out, see the stars, in the car, we’re falling hard

  Wake up, feel the sun, touch your hair, see your heart

  It dawned on him then. Jenna had been the person in his room. Jenna was Lacey. At least she was the Lacey he knew. And he didn’t want to think about the other Lacey or what had happened to her.

  What kind of a sick person would do this? You must think I’m crazy. It was what Jenna had said the morning they’d first met. She kept repeating it at the coffee shop. He’d just assumed she meant crazy in a garden variety “Oh, sometimes I suffer from verbal diarrhea” way. Not crazy, like “I’ve been manipulating a stranger and impersonating my best friend and I probably belong in a mental ward” crazy.

  The door began to creak open, and Jason sprang up, knocking the chair over. He’d forgotten about his broken body, but the movement as he spun around reminded him. Jenna was standing in the doorway holding a bag of frozen vegetables.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked innocently, and then her eyes went behind him to the computer screen, where Lacey’s profile was still open. Then they saw the paper in his hand. Her face clouded over, and the vegetables fell to the ground with a thud. “It’s not what you think,” she said quickly, stepping toward him and shutting the door.

  “Oh, really?” he kept his voice as quiet as he could. He still had no idea whether her parents were home. “What do I think? You could start by explaining that to me.”

  “Jason …”

  “Have you been pretending to be Lacey this entire time? What kind of psycho would do that?”

  “Please, just listen to me.” She was on the edge of tears, but Jason didn’t care.

  “You’re not even denying it!”

  “You don’t understand, it was the only way …”

  “Is Lacey even alive?” He was shouting now. He couldn’t stop himself. When she didn’t answer, he pushed past her and charged down the stairs. “I have to get out of here.” He could hear her footsteps behind him, but he was bigger and faster, and he was in the car before the revelation had even fully sunk in.

  She followed him out the front door, calling for him, but all he could hear over the blood rushing in his ears was the roar of the engine as he peeled away from the curb. A block later, his phone started ringing. He pressed ignore but she kept calling, and it was only when he looked in his rearview mirror that he realized the persistent honking he heard was coming from her car behind him. She was chasing him. When he sped up, she did, too, waving wildly for him to stop. He hit a red light, and watched her frantically dialing him. She unbuckled her seat belt and started to get out of the car. Why wasn’t the light changing? He looked left, looked right, and then floored it across the intersection, narrowly avoiding getting hit by an approaching truck, its horn drowning out the sound of his tires squealing. When the truck passed, he could see Jenna jump back in her car. Another car passed before the light turned green, obstructing the view between them, and Jason took the opportunity to hang a quick right into a crowded supermarket parking lot. He popped out of the driver’s seat just in time to see the Toyota sail by, Jenna unaware of his diversion.

  He was shaking when he got back in the car, and he drove home on side streets, still half expecting Jenna to appear behind him at any time. His phone kept ringing until he turned it off. At least he wasn’t thinking about his throbbing eye or battered chest. He was thinking about Lacey and the deafening silence he’d been met with when he asked Jenna if she was still alive. How had he been so blind?

  On a deserted stretch of road, he pulled over. The nausea had been building since he’d seen the profile on Jenna’s computer. Steadying himself against the side door, he retched, watching the cereal he’d eaten for breakfast come up. He took deep breaths when he finished, the fresh air and his empty stomach helping to clear his head.

  It was sharpening into focus now. The cruel, horrible truth that Lacey was gone crystallized in his brain. More than ever, he felt like Hamlet. Hamlet thought he had it bad, he thought things couldn’t get any worse, and then he learned that Ophelia was dead. Lacey was his Ophelia, and she was dead. For real this time. It had been Jenn
a all along. Every personal story he’d told, every intimate detail he’d shared, he’d been talking to Jenna, who had lied to him over and over again, online and to his face. He felt like he’d been betrayed by not one but two different people he cared about. The song lyrics he’d labored over lay crumpled on the floor of his car. Why had Jenna stolen them? Why had she done any of the things she did?

  An answer was forming in his mind, but it was too ugly — too impossible. Something Jenna had said was bouncing around his skull like a pinball. It’s just … I’ve been on Roxy Choi’s balcony, and you have to be pretty clumsy to fall off it backward. He gagged again, but only bile was left in his throat. Maybe the real Lacey had been in danger. And maybe the danger came from her best friend. But it still didn’t make sense. If Jenna had been responsible for Lacey’s death, she’d want to conceal her involvement, not use a fake identity to invite a stranger to come sniffing around. Plus, Jenna might be off her rocker, but she wasn’t violent. Jason was certain of that. But Jason’s track record for certainty hadn’t been very good lately.

  The whirlwind events of the last week kept swirling around and tangling themselves up in knots. First there was Troy, who had hidden his rocky romantic relationship with Lacey from even his closest friend. Troy prostrate and weeping at Lacey’s grave, apologizing over and over again. But the secrets Troy had been keeping weren’t secret at all — Jason had found the video of Troy with Lacey in Luke’s possession, which meant Luke knew they’d been together. Had he found out before or after Roxy Choi’s party? Judging from his reaction to Max in the video, he’d known about Lacey’s dalliances for a lot longer than anyone gave him credit for. And based on the fury Jason had been on the receiving end of at Lacey’s grave, Luke was capable of some extreme violence. Jenna had defended him, blaming his rage on his sister’s death, but Jenna was the least reliable of them all.