Breaking Glass (20 page)

Am
I really going crazy? Or am I just looking for a way to hurt the only person alive who really and truly loves me? Tears slip past my eyelashes, rolling hot down my cheeks.

Jeremy Glass sat on a wall. Jeremy Glass had a great fall
.

The Christmas lights buzz, surge brightly, then dim and finally fizzle, plunging the room into complete darkness. A breeze that holds the scent of summer rain whispers through my hair. Slowly, a feather-soft finger traces the damp tracks of my tears, lightly brushing across my lips. My breath catches as a fragile weight settles gently on top of me.

It’s her.

The soft cascade of curls falls across my face. I squeeze my eyes closed, afraid that if I open them the moment will dissipate like smoke. Arching my back, I feel her push harder against me, the curve of her skin fitting snugly against my own. Butterfly kisses alight on my eyelids, and when the heat of her mouth opens to mine, I ignite into a white-hot inferno of want.

There’s no quenching my thirst until I’m emptied in an all-consuming fire. Does it matter if it’s real or a symptom of a deteriorating mind?

Finally, the weight lifts, leaving my heated body to cool, my rapid breaths to gradually slow.

There’s a quick pressure against my cheek. The soft words buzz in my ear.

Find Derek Spake
.

I’m curled on my side on the sheets, spent and drowsy. On the floor next to the bed is Susannah’s Book of Death, splayed open to a spread illustrated with a delicate line drawing of a girl cloaked only in her own hair. Resting across the book is a sprig of evergreen, wet, like it was just brought in from outdoors.

C H A P T E R
s e v e n t e e n

Now (December 26th)

It’s the day after Christmas and even though I’m a bruised wreck, Dad has scheduled a torture session with Chaz. The stump must be shaped or it will never fit comfortably into my new leg.

Dad avoids me, except to say that he’s arranged for my first visit with Dr. Kopeck afterward.

He can’t bring himself to meet my eyes and I wonder if he sees my mother every time he looks at me. I wonder if he already sees me come to rest at the bottom of the Gorge. And he wishes I’d joined her there eight years ago and saved him from all this grief.

“Marisa is coming to take you,” he says curtly, before he vanishes back upstairs.

Marisa, I repeat. The sound of her name chimes on my tongue. I remember the photo of Ryan and Spake I tucked away in my coat pocket and hope it hasn’t gone the way of most everything else I have of Susannah’s. I can’t help but wonder if Dad has gathered it all up to show Dr. Kopeck what a nut I am, or even worse, handed it over to Patrick Morgan. But I don’t want to throw any fuel on the fire, so I keep my mouth shut.

As promised, Marisa pulls up in the van and bustles about, all quicksilver efficiency. I try to meet her gaze, but she keeps hers averted, busy with the project of getting me situated. Chaz helps me to the minivan and loads the wheelchair in the back. No crutches allowed for six more days. It’s the chair for me.

God, I’m tired of being hauled around like cargo. I feel like a piece of bruised fruit. The stump sends shooting pains to my non-existent right foot, as if it wants to make sure I don’t forget how it misses the rest of itself.

Marisa’s hair is pulled back again in a neat ponytail. I study her profile as she drives, her eyes trained on the road. I note the upturn of her small nose, the dark lush lashes. She won’t look at me. I can’t blame her. I look like Frankenstein’s monster with my stitched-up face.

“You know you’re taking me to a shrink, right?” I ask, conversationally.

Voice terse, her hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Under the circumstances, I think that’s about right.”

“So you think I’m cracked, too?”

“I wouldn’t say cracked,” she snaps, but her voice gradually softens. “Troubled. Who wouldn’t be with what you’ve been going through?”

I shrug and gaze out the window at the passing landscape, the snowbound hills punctured by skeletal trees. I imagine Susannah’s bones buried somewhere in the frozen muck. If Marisa knew what had transpired in my bedroom last night she’d sign the papers for my committal. I consider asking her about Susannah’s things and if she knows where everything but the Death Book has gone. Instead, I blurt. “Are you sure you don’t know anything about Derek Spake and Susannah?”

Marisa jams on the brakes at a stop sign, jerking me against the shoulder strap. She turns to me, her eyes sparking. “I have no idea who the guy is. Why do you keep harping on that? You
need
to cool it, Jeremy! You’ve turned the whole town upside-down with what you did Christmas Eve.”

“You were the one who brought me the damned Death Book in the first place. Don’t you want to know what really happened to Susannah?”

Marisa’s soft petal lips slip open. I catch a sliver of dainty white teeth. “I’m sorry I did. I never imagined—you just have to accept the fact that we may never know what happened to her. It’s sad and it’s tragic, but—but—”

“But what are you so damn scared of, Marisa?”

She pulls the car to the shoulder of the road and brings it to a halt, then turns to me, her small features chiseled to a sharp point. Slowly, she says, as if the only thing between me and a volcanic eruption is her clenched jaws, “I’m not scared for myself, Jeremy. I’m scared for
you
.”

“Why?”

She exhales and looks to the roof of the car, clearly exasperated with me. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re totally out of control, like a stampeding one-legged bull, knocking over everything in its path, stepping on toes.”

Her words scald me. “I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I just want to know what happened to her.”

She stares bleakly at the icy road beyond the windshield. “As you might have guessed, Mrs. Durban fired me and now… I’m working for the Morgans and they—by acting out like you’ve been, they feel you’ve betrayed them.”

“Oh. So that’s it.” I feel my cheeks go red. “You just need the work. Of course you can be counted on to stay quiet if you happen to know shit you shouldn’t.”

Marisa pounds the steering wheel in frustration. “I don’t know anything! I’m just trying to help you, you fucking goddamned idiot!”

I slump lower in the seat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ve been the ultimate asswipe lately.”

Her lips are trembling. I’ve upset her again. Suddenly, I can’t help myself. I reach to shift the damp hairs that have broken loose from her ponytail out of her eyes, but she swipes my hand away. “Cut that out.”

“Sorry. I’m crazy, remember?”

She glares at me, and I can’t help but appreciate how tiny but fierce she is. “Keep on playing your little games and see where it gets you, Jeremy. I overheard Mr. Morgan tell Ryan that your behavior at the party was the last straw. That he wanted to pull the plug on the fundraiser for your leg, but Ryan talked him out of it.”

“Oh,” I say, drumming the dashboard. “did Ryan really stand up for me? How touching. More likely Mr. Morgan realized what a public relations fiasco it would be to pull the rug out from under a one-legged kid.”

“Jeremy,” she says softly and evenly. “Everyone knows how much you’re hurting. It’s just that you really don’t want to piss off Patrick Morgan any more than you already have. He—he has a terrible temper.”

I study her closely. “He didn’t threaten to hurt you, did he?”

She looks at me oddly. “Of course not. I only meant that you should be focusing on putting your own life back together.”

I stare down at my folded-up pant leg. The sad truth is that she may be right—that I’d rather deal with a missing girl than the missing parts of my body. And my life.

Marisa’s pity stings worse than her anger. I want to open the car door and slither home down the icy road, like the worm that I am. I’m so tired of being freight that has to be hauled from point A to point B. And I would do it, except there is still the matter of Derek Spake.

I pull out the photograph of Ryan and Spake I’ve been carrying around with me and look at it again. “This was in my gym bag. You didn’t put it there, by any chance?”

“What? I didn’t stick anything in your gym bag. Why would I do that?”

I hand her the photo. “Know the guys in the orange circles?”

She takes the photo from my hand and studies it. Her brow furrows and she taps on her teeth with a fingernail. “Well, that’s Ryan, obviously. And the other guy—hmm…” She peers more closely at the photo and her mouth falls open. “Wait a minute. I think I have seen this guy somewhere. Let me think.”

“At a track meet?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t go to those.”

I wait while she scans her memories, then looks at the photo again. “It’s him. The guy from that day.” Then she looks at her watch. “Shit. We’re going to be late for your appointment. Not good.”

Marisa pulls back onto the road. More landscape slips by before she speaks again. “I don’t know if I should tell you this. If I’m just throwing gasoline on a raging fire.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiles sadly. “This could all be nothing. A dead end. And if by fueling your,” she pauses and air-quotes the words, “
investigation
I’m just making things worse.”

“You’re afraid you’re aiding and abetting a madman?”

“I don’t think you’re a madman, Jeremy. Just someone who’s,” she turns to me and smiles slightly, “a bit lost.”

“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me,” I say gruffly. “Just spit it out.”

She shakes her head and sighs. “Fine. Do with it what you want. Just promise you’ll keep your head, okay?”

“Okay. I promise.”

“Well,” she starts. “I was working one Saturday afternoon at the Durbans’.” She continues, her soft accent and the van’s rickety motion soothing my jangled nerves somehow, and I realize that I like hearing her speak. That I like watching her as well—the way her lips shape her words, the way her hair bobs when she wants to emphasize a particular point.

“Papa dropped me off, so there was no car in the driveway. Mrs. Durban had me going through boxes of papers in the basement she wanted to dispose of. What a mess. That woman hasn’t thrown away anything for the past ten years. And she has crude handmade crosses everywhere. I’m Catholic, but to tell you the truth it makes me nervous.”

Marisa stops to wet her lips. Her voice quavers as she continues. “At about four-thirty, a car screeched into the driveway. There’s a pretty good view from the basement window so I stood on a chair and peered out. I didn’t recognize the car, but it barely stopped long enough for Susannah to stumble out. This guy got out of the car and followed her, but she shoved him. Somehow she managed to get into the house and slam the door. He kept banging on it and calling her name.”

“How long ago was this?”

“This past October, I think. Anyway, the guy storms back to his car and peels off. Susannah’s sobbing hysterically. It doesn’t stop. Finally, I can’t stand it anymore, so I go upstairs and find her at the kitchen table. I asked her what happened. She looks up and tells me ‘nothing.’ Nothing happened. Then she added that if anything did happen, ‘what did it matter, since the Morgans control everything?’”

“That’s weird. Do you—do you think maybe he—”

“Raped her? I wondered. It could have been anything. But, I’ll tell you one thing—I’ve never seen her so upset. And this was that guy.”

I stare at my knuckles and wonder if I’m missing something. “Did you ask her what Derek Spake had to do with the Morgans?”

Marisa nods and answers softly. “All she said was, ‘One day, I’ll tell you everything, Marisa. But not today.’”

“Do you think Ryan knew about this? Maybe it had something to do with that drug bust that sort of went away.” I swallow and peer at the photo with her. This leads me to think about my own blood alcohol report, which has also magically vanished. It seems that anything remotely inconvenient for the House of Morgan simply disappears.

I’m starting to wonder if Susannah fits in that category as well.

Marisa shakes her head, her hands clenched on the steering wheel. We pull into the parking lot of the professional building and she slides the van into a spot, then turns to me. “I don’t know, Jeremy,” she says softly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. In this town, it’s safer to let the dead rest. Or you could end up joining them.”

She gets out of the car and tugs the wheelchair out from the back, rolls it over to the passenger side, then guides me down from the van’s high seat. I feel the strength of her tiny body as she helps me ease into the chair.

Shame washes over me. I want her to touch me. But I should be the one sweeping her into my arms. Sorrowfully, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do that to a girl.

Self-pity is crowded out by a cresting wave of anger. I’m disabled, but I’m still alive. A perk Susannah lacks.

No, I am not going to walk off quietly into the sunset on the leg the Morgans bought and paid for. Not while this entire town wants its secrets to stay buried along with its dead.

I’m one-legged Jeremy Glass and I’m an alcoholic. And I’m going to dig until I unearth every last shred of the truth
.

Silently, she pushes me up the ramp to the entrance.

“Marisa, will you take me to find Derek Spake after this session?”

She holds the glass door to the building open for me to roll in. Once inside, the only sound is the swish of my wheels on carpet and the soft tread of her sneakers as she walks beside me. I stop and pivot toward her. “Marisa. Will you?”

She closes her eyes and raises her hand to her mouth. “I’m going to regret this. But I’ll take you. For Susannah.”