Beyond (12 page)

At breakfast it’s like dawn of the dead. Me and Dad are both sleepy zombies. I’m nodding off into my cereal, and after his night shift the constable’s about to use his pancakes for a pillow.

I jump awake when I feel something sticking in my ear. Pulling away, I whip my head around.

Mom’s leaning in close, holding an ear thermometer in her hand.

“What the hell?”

“Relax,” she says. “Just taking your temperature.”

“How about a little warning?”

“Well, you bitch and moan every time I ask.”

She writes down my temp in her notebook.

If Mom’s not monitoring my meds, temperature or my migraines, she’s thinking up sneaky ways to test my hand-eye coordination.

Like last week when I kept misplacing my keys, and she would find them and toss them to me. “Catch!” When I caught them she’d give me a little nod. It took me a few
days to realize that she was hiding my keys to give her a chance to check my motor skills.

I know she’s just watching out for me, and I feel bad about what I’ve put her and Dad through. But I make a grouchy patient.

Dad’s trying to chew and yawn at the same time. It ain’t pretty.

“How was the graveyard shift?” I ask.

“Cold, wet and nasty. We had three crashes. People don’t know how to drive in the rain.”

“So, any word yet about those bones you found?” I ask.

“The forensics unit determined that the remains are caucasian, not Indian. So it isn’t from any native burial. Now we’re checking dental records on old missing children cases,” Dad says. “They’ve narrowed the age to twelve or thirteen.”

“That’s too horrible,” Mom says. “Makes my heart hurt just thinking about it. Left out there and forgotten.”

“They find out how it died?” I ask.

“Oh, I can’t listen to this.” Mom gets up. “No morgue talk in the morning. That’s a new rule.” She leaves the kitchen.

Dad squints his bloodshot eyes at me. “Why do you want to know about that?”

I shrug. “Can’t get it out of my head. I was there when you spotted it. Come on, I grew up on cop talk. I can handle it.”

He rubs the fallen bridge of his busted nose, like he does when he’s deciding things. “Yeah, I guess you can. They did the autopsy. The cause of death is blunt force
trauma. There was a severe fracture to the back of the skull.”

For a second I flash back on that skull in the mud. The jaws open wide, trying to breathe, or scream. I push the image away.

“So that’s how it died,” I say.

“He. It was a boy.”

“Any way to tell how long it—he’s—been buried there?”

“If I’d known there was going to be a breakfast interrogation, I’d have brought my notes. The forensics unit is trying to narrow down the time frame. Right now, they’re thinking he’s been in the ground a decade at least. We’re still waiting for fiber analysis on the remnants of clothes they found with the bones. That might give us a better idea.”

“How about the DNA?”

“That takes time. The lab is testing a sample from the remains. We’ll see if they get a match in the database.”

“How hard is it going to be to identify him? I mean, are there a lot of unsolved missing-kid cases?”

“Nationally, there are about fifty thousand kids reported missing every year. Most are found pretty quick. Some turn up on their own, others are runaways or parental abduction cases. But some stay lost. Too many.”

Dad gets up.

“So are we done?” he asks. “Interrogation over? Am I free to go?”

I nod. “For now. But don’t leave town.”

Nowhere is safe anymore. Can’t even hide away at home, in my own room.

This used to be a safe place, the Blushing Rose. Peaceful, quiet—maybe dull. But never dark and creepy.

Now I can’t be here by myself. I help out when Mom’s around. She’s working the counter while I’m in back. I can hear her talking with a customer about tulip bulbs.

I’m potting African violets, mixing worm castings in with the soil. Violets love worm poo, makes them really—

Tap tap tap
.

I drop the pot, spinning toward the sound of—

Tap tap tap
. Knocking at the alley door.

“Delivery,” a voice calls from the other side. Ryan.

I exhale, shaking my head. I am such a wreck.

Rushing to let him in, I take a quick peek in the mirror over the sink. My big startled eyes stare back. My hair is wild as weeds. I try to fix that mess, getting worm stuff in it. Giving up, I go open the door.

“Hi, Ryan.”

His hair is wet from the rain, streaks of mud and soil on his cheeks like war paint. As big a mess as me. But smiling through the dirt.

“Hey, Jane. I’ve got a little bit of everything for you today. I even brought the sun.”

He hands me a potted sunflower, with bright yellow petals the color of summer.

Ryan starts unloading from the truck while I make space in the back room. It’s a tight fit, with us brushing past each other. I try not to say much, keeping it all business.

When he’s done, we check the order sheet.

“I miss anything?” he asks.

“No. Perfect.” I look at the sheet, at the new plants crowding us together, everywhere but at him.

“How have you been, Jane? I mean, is your recovery going okay?”

I open my mouth to say some easy lie, like that I’m improving, getting better. But I can’t. “Don’t know. Still breathing, anyway.”

“That’s a good sign. But you look kind of beat.”

I meet his eyes for a split second but force myself to break away.

“I am kind of beat. Real tired. Not sleeping good.”

“Gotta get your rest. Sleep’s a great healer,” he says. “Can I give you something?”

I feel a blush heating my cheeks and turn around to rearrange some pots so he doesn’t see. “Um … what did you have in mind?”

“Hold on. I’ll show you.” He goes out in the alley, and a minute later he’s back with a plant. “
Cestrum nocturnum
. Night-blooming jasmine.”

The plant’s small flowers are bright white and star-shaped. “Is this more of your mystic medicine?”

“It’s pure science. Aromatherapy. You inhale the scent molecules into your lungs; they get absorbed into your blood and flow to your brain. Jasmine is best for calming and easing anxiety, headaches. Lets you relax and breathe easy. The flowers release their scent at night, so they’ll help you sleep.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, taking the plant from him. “I can use the help. I’ll give it a try.”

“Let me know,” Ryan says, brushing the hair from his eyes and adding a new streak of dirt to his forehead.

Following him to the door, I watch him get in the truck. I hate treating Ryan coldly. Making him think I’m not interested, don’t care, don’t want him. I hate it so much I can’t stop myself from calling out.

“So what are you, some kind of witch doctor on wheels? What else have you got in there? Magic potions? Miracle cures?”

“Whatever you need, I’ve got.” Ryan smiles, leaning out the window. “The name of your flower—jasmine—it’s Persian. Means ‘queen of the night.’ Just let her work her magic on you.”

I give him a little wave and watch my medicine man drive off into the drizzly afternoon.

I’m trying not to stare at the guy sitting across from me in the waiting room of the CT scan clinic.

This appointment got me the day off from school, but I’d rather be stuck in some mind-numbing math class than here. Mom dropped me off between flower deliveries. She was going to stay with me, but that would just make me more tense, so I told her I’d call her after to pick me up.

I flip through an old
People
magazine, but my gaze drifts back to the red-haired guy.

He seems to be napping. Slouched down in the chair. He’s wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and jeans. The guy is skeleton skinny, with twiggy wrists sticking out of his sleeves. Under the hood, I can see his caved-in cheeks and scrawny neck. The angles of his face stand out sharp beneath the flesh. He looks young, like he’s thirteen, maybe. But something’s wrong with him. That’s why he’s here, I guess.

The woman sitting beside him—his mother?—is
focused on a crossword puzzle. She’s hooked up to a portable oxygen tank on wheels, the tubes stuck in her nostrils. What a family!

I shift in my seat to keep my butt from falling asleep.

The door to the scan room opens and the technician pokes his head out.

“Mrs. Garcia? We’re ready for you now.”

Crossword lady gets up and follows him inside.

But the guy in the sweatshirt doesn’t budge. She says nothing to him and never looks back. Not her son, then? Guess he’s got his own appointment with the scanner.

I check my watch for the twentieth time. The seconds crawl by. I toss the magazine back on the table, and I’m reaching for another when a sudden migraine flares through my brain, with a shock that makes me gasp. I lean forward, holding my head. It’s like somebody’s hammering that nail deeper.

I fumble in my jacket for my pills.

Dry-swallowing one of the migraine busters, I try to breathe slowly and wait for it to work. I’m staring at the floor when a loud buzzing sound fills my ears. A side effect of the headaches.

Just gotta ride it out. It’ll pass.

I glance over at the guy. He’s awake, watching me from under his hood. His eyes catch me. They’re such a strange shade—pale amber. A shock of color in that gray face. Holding the look for just a moment, I break away before it gets weird.

I close my eyes as the buzzing surrounds me. I try
covering my ears to block it out. That’s when I hear something past the white noise.

Something … like a voice! Coming from inside my head. I strain to make it out. I can almost—

Jane
.

My breath stops in my throat. What was that?

Jane
.

I press my palms tight against my ears, blocking out everything but what’s coming from inside.

You’re mine, Jane
.

The same voice from my nightmare—buried in the coffin.

You’re mine. Mine. Mine
.

It echoes in me.

Don’t make me hurt you

make me hurt you

make me hurt

“Jane?”

I jump in my seat, my eyes flying open. The technician is standing by the door.

“What? What?” I say, looking around the room.

The sick guy is gone. Where did he go? How long have I been sitting here like this? Lost in my own head.

“We’re ready for your scan now.”

The buzzing is gone. I hear him clearly. And the pain is passing, eased by the pill.

Where did the voice come from?

I get up shakily and follow the technician.

Jumpy and distracted, I half listen as he runs through the CT scan procedure with me.

What was with that creepy guy out there? Where did he go? And how long was I out of it? Felt like only a minute.

I wince as the tech sticks an IV in my arm, injecting the dye that will make the veins in my brain stand out on the imaging.

“Lie down now. The scan will take about ten minutes. Just try to relax. I need you to keep completely still while we’re running the test.”

The scanner is a big blocky thing with a doughnut hole in the middle, and they load you in like a human torpedo. I get up on the tray and lie back, staring at the ceiling, while the technician goes in the next room to fire it up.

That sick guy couldn’t have gone in for his scan before me. I wasn’t zoned out for that long. Was I?

The tray shudders into motion, sliding me into the glowing white mouth of the scanner.

As tests go, this one is painless. But it can drive you nuts, to have to keep perfectly motionless for so long with nothing to look at but the roof of the tube. Gets claustrophobic quick if you let it.

The scan starts up with a deep humming sound. I shut my eyes, trying to relax. Which is impossible.

My mind is going a mile a minute, replaying,
You’re mine. Don’t make me hurt you
.

What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get—

The scanner’s hum cuts off suddenly into silence.

We done already?

I open my eyes to darkness.