Endangered (19 page)

I do not. I want to leave, keep hunting.

“Sure,” I say, because I also want to be on someone's good side today.

There's a row of five vinyl chairs with lacquered armrests dividing them. Taylor sits, and I follow, keeping an empty seat between us.

“Mei and I had Earth Science together freshman year. Remember? She sat next to me and—you'll be happy to know—shunned me, at first.”

“So what changed?”

“I got humiliated. This whole jockstrap-sniffing incident. You might know something about that.”

I nod.

He says, “Even then, Mei tried to hate me. She loves you that much, I guess. It was a long year. I wore her down with charm and an uncanny grasp of tectonic plates. We've been cool ever since. I made a point to never let it be known when you were around. We knew you wouldn't react well.”

“Am I that transparent?”

He shrugs.

“Why help me, Taylor? Why the concern over everything that's happened. I've been terrible to you.”

He looks at me now, straight and plain. “You lost your way.”

“Excuse me?”

“The people you put on blast were all assholes. Me included. I didn't get in your way because, I don't know, I was the one who . . .”

I don't like the sound of that. “The one who what?”

“Created you.”

Oh. Hell. No.

“You didn't
create
me. You don't get to take credit for what I've done. Sure, I started with you, but
Gray Scales
is more than Taylor Durham payback. God, your ego! I helped a lot of people. Me. Not you.”

“You think Keachin would find you helpful?”

His low blow takes my breath.

“Maybe I didn't create you, but I feel some responsibility. You don't see how far off the rails you've gone. Did you even understand what you were doing when you posted those photos of Keachin and Coach Bottin?”

“I was—I mean . . .” The old arguments come to mind. What Keachin did to Nina, her general shrewlike behavior, and so on. Yet as much as I've
said these things in my head, I'm struggling to vocalize them.

Instead, there's Ocie's voice—
You're always a little mean
.

“When that stuff went down back then . . .” Taylor stops, starts over. “When I wrecked your rep after that night at your house, I was shredded on the inside. I saw what it did to you and the guilt felt like . . .” He motioned with his hands, trying for the proper words.

“A corkscrew in your stomach?” I offered.

“Yeah. Right. When you showed those jockstrap photos it was almost a relief. With all that's happened between Keachin and Coach, I can only imagine what you're going through.”

“You mean since I'm the reason she's dead and he's in jail.”

“I don't believe that.”

“You might be the only one.” I feel tears prick at my eyes again.

Taylor rises, moves into the empty seat I'd placed between us. “I'm going to hug you now. Don't claw my eyes out.”

When his arm slips around me I don't fight his touch, or the memories of how I used to love his touch.

My phone vibrates, the buzzing is almost expected. I'm scared to look. But I'm going to. My Admirer knows I will.

There's a photo and message on my touch screen.

The photo is of me and Taylor waiting for the elevator on Ocie's floor.

The message:
Panda? Another distraction? Some ppl never learn
.

“WHAT'S WRONG?” TAYLOR SAYS
.

He's still sitting, I'm not. Every passing face, every hand on a phone that could be taking my picture right now has my attention.

“Lauren?”

Ocie's floor.

I run to the elevator and stab the up button repeatedly.

Taylor's next to me. “What's wrong with you?”

The elevator's five stories up. “Come on.”

Taking the door beside the elevator, I climb the stairs two at a time, not pacing myself, barely breathing. When we reach the fourth floor I'm winded and gasping, a far cry from my track days. Taylor arrives a few seconds later, his breaths fast but regular. We turn the corner onto Ocie's hall and I expect blood-soaked walls, dead bodies littering the walkways. The Admirer is a horror-movie slasher, a supernatural monster, an unstoppable force.

The floor is brightly lit and gore-free. The sounds of laughs and chatter flit toward us from Ocie's room.

I say, “I need you to do something for me.”

Taylor cocks an eyebrow, not agreeing or disagreeing.

“Can you go back to her room and make sure she's okay?”

“What?”

I think I feel an organ fail when I say the next word to him. “Please.”

“Okay, okay.” He starts down the corridor.

“Taylor, one more thing.”

Slight annoyance passes over his face like a storm cloud. “What?”

“Can you take note of who's in the room?”

He rolls his eyes and keeps moving.

Retreating into the elevator lobby, I examine the photo on my phone. It's taken from behind me at a high angle, the back of my head taking most of the frame while Taylor's face is fully visible over my shoulder. It's low-res, lacking the quality of the Admirer's more polished pieces, but better than the dull photos he's sent me of Keachin and Ocie.

How does he keep getting
this
close to me?

My paranoia ramps up when I notice a ceiling-mounted security camera, hidden inside a black glass bubble over my head. Can he access the hospital security? Is he watching me right now?

I smile for the camera and slowly uncurl my middle finger.

“Guess you really don't like hospitals,” Taylor says. Startling me.

Jesus, Panda. Now
he's
sneaking up on you?

“Is she okay?” I ask.

“She's got a bunch of broken bones.”

“No! She's the same as when we left her, right?”

“She's fine. A bunch of people are in there. She's happy.”

I'm glad and hurt. Happy wasn't how
I
left her. “What excuse did you use for coming back?”

“Said I lost my cell and thought it was in the room.”

Smart. Plausible. “And?”

He turns his palms to the sky, a half shrug. “And what?”

“Who was in the room?”

“Her parents. A few other kids. From the band, I think.”

“Like who?”

“Declan Brand, Michaela Holland, Carlos Goya, two other kids I don't know.”

My phone's vibrating again.

Taylor says, “You feel like telling me why I'm gathering intel on Mei's bandmates? Are we bringing down a secret criminal organization? The High Step Mafia?”

Telling him what's happening is not what I want to do. I opt for my phone, regretting it instantly. Three messages.

“Who's texting you?” Taylor asks. He sounds concerned. The fourth message arrives; he should be.

It's Taylor's picture, as bland as the shot of Keachin I received before she died. As badly lit and unflattering as Ocie's picture prior to the hit-and-run.

No.

Turning away from Taylor, putting yards between us so he can't glimpse my phone, I respond.

“Lauren?”

I take a few more steps so that I'm almost in another corridor. As if that makes him less involved now.

The response comes. I read it. Then again. Time rewinds a few weeks, to me and my Admirer's first contact. The conversations were long and exciting. The best I've had since . . . before. Flirty, but always with the air of competition. The pursuit of a win.

This message is six words. A challenge, perhaps the final one.

THERE IS LAUGHTER WHEN I ENTER
Ocie's room. Whatever's so funny has everyone distracted, unsuspecting. They don't notice me. My gaze drifts over the faces of kids I've seen every day but whose names I barely know. Ocie's my only friend here. Maybe. For her, I'm one of many. It tugs something in me to see her be as natural and fun around them as she is—was—with me.

Taylor fills the door behind me, stops short of running me over.

“Which one of you did it?” I say, bringing all but one boy's awkward giggle to a halt. I key on him. “Was it you?”

Mr. Horton stands, a cautious look on his face. The same look I've seen on people approaching a strange, unfriendly dog. “Lauren, are you okay?”

I sidestep him. Focus on the boys I don't know. “Which one of you has been fucking with me?”

“Hey!” Mr. Horton says. Mrs. Horton slips to her daughter's bedside, putting herself between me and Ocie. Between her daughter and the threat.

“Look, one of these creeps is the one who hit Oc—I mean, Mei. He killed Keachin Myer, too. I've got all his messages on my phone. He followed me here, even took a picture of me and Taylor.”

Taylor shakes his head. Mouths, “What?”

“I can prove it.” Everyone with the exception of Taylor, Ocie, and her parents have cell phones in hand. “Whoever you are, you messed up. You just texted me. Your number's in my phone.”

Dialing. No one breathes while we wait for the telltale ring that will reveal the killer.

It doesn't come.

A generic voice mail message sounds through my speaker; it's not loud, but everyone hears it in the crushing silence.

“No,” I say, all set to redial, “his phone's on silent. Or it's off.”

One of the boys holds up his lit and powered phone like a shield. “Not mine.”

The others follow suit. Even the girls. All phones are on. Even if the ringers were silenced, the vibration would've given him away.

“Lauren.” It's Ocie. Such disgust in her voice. “Are you done?”

I struggle for something to say. A hand lights on my shoulder. “Come on.”

Taylor's touching me, motions to the hall with a slight head tilt. If I didn't get the hint, Mr. Horton clarifies, “It's probably time to go, Lauren.”

No offer to drive me, not this time.

I turn and fast step away. In the hall, I'm jogging.

“Hold up,” Taylor says.

Not like I have a choice. I'm back at our favorite hangout, the elevator lobby. Waiting.

“What was that?” he asks, the same wary, in-the-presence-of-a-rabid-beast
look on his face as everyone back in the room.

“He's trying to ruin me. Or kill you. Or both.”

“I'm sorry. All I heard was ‘kill me.'”

“The Admirer.”

“The guy you told me about in the cafeteria.”

An empty elevator opens, and it's time for Taylor to know the whole truth. Not here.
He
might still be watching. “Let's go. You're in danger.”

“That's sounds really dramatic, Lauren.”

If only . . .

AS FAR AS MY PARENTS KNOW
, I'm still at the hospital with Ocie. Visiting hours end at eight. I can reasonably pull off an eight thirty return without raising eyebrows. I do the calculations while I drive Taylor back to his place.

We cruise past my neighborhood, and Ocie's, and we are never even close to Brock's. This is the part of town where there's litter in the streets, and it's gloomy even on a blue spring day. At a red light, there's a guy leaning on a shuttered window, blocking spray-painted profanity with his body and eating something fried from a greasy paper bag. When I look his way, he flicks his tongue at me.

We pass a dilapidated playground where all that remains of the swings are broken chains dangling from rusted A-frames, and a sloping metal chute resembles a sharp-toothed cheese grater more than a slide. Kids are about, girls and boys, propped on benches and picnic tables, but show no interest in the playthings meant for them. With puffed bulky garments
and unsmiling faces, they seem ready for older things.

Finally, we reach the lot at Taylor's apartment building, having to wait to park while the neighborhood boys play a down in their street football game. Once the play ends, they allow us to pass, and I park between a Cadillac SUV with mirror rims and a stripped-down Toyota sitting on cinder blocks.

Taylor exits, begins moving toward the building entrance, while I pop my trunk and grab my camera bag.

“Afraid someone's going to take it?” He laughs after he says it, overselling the nonchalance about his unpleasant, slightly scary neighborhood.

“My Nikon goes where I go.”

He joins me and peeks at the photographer's arsenal in my trunk. “And the rest of it?”

“What about it?”

He sifts through my stuff—tripod, some bulbs, a flash kit, along with other things thieves might usually expect to find in a car trunk. I fight the childish urge to yell, “Mine!”

Instead I say, “The camera's the most important thing.”

“At least you've got your priorities straight.”

He walks away before I can determine if that was a dig. I close the trunk and follow him into a faded brick building that is identical to six others on the street. No illusions of luxury living here. Definitely not “Nature's Home.”

We climb three flights of metal stairs and arrive at an apartment where the door isn't thick enough to muffle the childish screams inside. Taylor lets us in and I'm greeted by two munchkins treating the couch like the world's best trampoline.

“Hey,” he says, “you're just going to keep jumping right in front of me.”

The girl, talking like a Brit, says, “Ye have no authority here, peasant.”

I look to Taylor.

“She's obsessed with the BBC. Don't ask me why.”

The boy pauses, gathers, and does a backflip off the chair. My heart stops while he's in the air. I envision an incomplete rotation and shattered vertebrae. He lands on his stockinged feet, stumbles slightly, then regains his stance like an Olympian.

“You're going to break your neck one day,” Taylor says, echoing my concern, though laughing as he does. The boy bows at the waist.
Ta-da!

“What happened to your eyes?” the boy asks me. I keep forgetting my bruises.

Taylor says, “That's rude!”

“It's fine.” To the boy I say, “I flipped off too many couches.”

His mouth puckers. “Oh.”

Sighing, Taylor introduces me. I never got a chance to meet his siblings before. “Lauren, this is Aaliyah and Jaiden. Midgets from hell, this is Lauren.”

“Ohhhh.” Aaliyah abandons her across-the-pond accent. “You said the H-word.”

“Like you don't say the S-, F-, D-, B-words when you don't think I can hear you.” To me, he says, “You should hear the crap that comes out of her mouth sometimes. Samuel L. Jackson might be her real dad.”

Smiling at the joke, I can't help but wonder about Taylor's dad. Sure, I've avoided being within thirty feet of Taylor in the last couple of years, but that doesn't mean I haven't heard things. About his parents' divorce, and his family's move here, where jumping on the couch was probably a better, safer option than the postapocalyptic playground we passed.

“Let's talk in my room,” Taylor says. Leading me, though I could easily
find it on my own. I can see every door in the apartment from where I'm standing, and there's not many to choose from.

Jaiden jumps in my path, landing in a crouch. “I'm Spider-Man and you have to take my picture for the
Daily Bugle
.”

I say, “I thought only Peter Parker takes pictures of Spider-Man.”

He gives me a knowing smile. We're in the Cool Club together.

Raising the Nikon, I say, “Parker's going to be mad at me for doing this, but how can I refuse you, Spidey?”

I snap three quick shots, the first pictures I've taken for fun since . . . God, when?

I'm into it, getting Jaiden to do some poses, and another couch flip that I catch midair. Aaliyah joins the act as Storm of the X-Men, and I'm ready to bring in some props and extra lights when Taylor gets my attention. “I thought I was in danger.”

“We've got a pair of superheroes here, so you're good.”

The children giggle, but Taylor's right. We've got things to discuss. I tell the kids, “We'll do this again. I promise.”

You promise? Really, Panda? Where's that coming from?

If anyone else finds my sudden commitment to the Durham siblings strange, they don't let on. Taylor nudges me into his room, where two twin beds are pushed against opposite walls. There are no chairs, so I sit on the bed with the Spider-Man comforter.

He sits opposite me. “Now, who's trying to kill me?”

Perhaps I'm getting good at telling the story, like a veteran teacher delivering a patented lecture. By the numbers. I'm not stammering through
the sordid history of me and my Admirer, like I did with my parents. Not feeling the need to justify, like for the cops. Not desperately trying to sell an idea, like I was with Quinn Beck. I'm telling Taylor a cautionary tale, a warning of what's happened and what could happen. It is what it is.

He nods a lot, doesn't interrupt. He was always a good listener. It's one of the things I liked most about him back then.

When I finish, he says, “I thought Coach Bottin killed Keachin. And the guy who hit Mei is locked up, too. That means your guy set them up. How's he pull something like that off?”

I consider his question. Not the logistics of how the Admirer could engineer a murder, a hit-and-run, frame two people, and only arouse
my
suspicions—that's been troubling me long before he asked. I'm taken by his lack of condescension. Mostly everyone I've told has treated me like I escaped from the mental ward when I float my theory. Taylor's assuming I have an explanation.

He's wrong. The vote of confidence is nice, though.

“I'm not sure. If I find his real identity, everything falls into place, I think. That's the problem.”

“I get it. You're not calling him the Admirer for fun. You got any thoughts on who it could be?”

“He goes to Portside. I'm almost certain of that.”

“Okay, a boy at Portside. That's only half the school. What else you got?”

“He's incredible with a camera.” I hand over my phone so he can see
Dante
and
View from Heaven
. “My first thought was Marcos Dahmer . . .”

“But he doesn't have the tech skills you've been looking into.” Taylor swipes several times, looking at all the photos I've received from the Admirer. When he winces, I know he's seen Keachin's crime scene photo.

“Right,” I say, “you told me Brock's a techie, which was news to me.”

“He wants Zuckerberg's money. That's all.”

“I went to see him.”

Taylor meets my eyes. “And?”

“Even if he's got the skills, nothing about him screams photographer.”

Taylor refocuses on the photos in his hand. “Yeah. All this is a little too detail oriented for him. He's more of a sexting-pictures-of-his-junk kind of guy.”

He keeps going through my phone, pauses on a photo and stays there awhile.

I say, “Do you see something?”

“Not really, it's just . . .” He trails off.

“What?”

“How'd your Admirer get my driver's license photo?”

“Your—? Let me see.”

He gives the phone back, displaying the photo of his face taken under harsh lights, a DMV trademark. How did I miss this?

I've seen Ocie's driver's license. She's often flashed it as a badge of dishonor since she doesn't have a car. That's why the picture I got on my phone before her accident was familiar. I was too amped up to see it then.

The plain shot of Keachin before she turned up dead . . . a driver's license photo, too?

How
would
the Admirer get those? None of this makes sense.

Except the one thing.

I swipe back to
Dante
. “This picture was among the first he sent me. He was proud of it. Showing off. I think it means something.”

“The photography stuff is your world. I'll take your word for it.”

“He's all about the double meaning and slick talk.” His “Panda in a
blender” riddle and the pretentious names for his photos gnaw at me. “Dante's
Inferno
. You remember reading it in freshman English?”

“I recall the
Wikipedia
page. Sorta.”

“Okay, slacker. Dante pretty much walked through the circles of hell and watched people get punished for their sins. There was all kinds of torment, but the fire was reserved for really bad people in the lowest circles.”

“What's your point?”

“Coach Bottin's house burned down.” I tap my screen. “Maybe the Admirer was punishing him.”

“For what?”

“Getting with Keachin. A lot of people had a thing for her, right? What if my Admirer had it worse than most? What if he found out about her and Coach way before me, and did this?”

He frowns. “Do you know for sure that's Bottin's house in the picture?”

“No. But I'm going to find out.”

A small, boxy TV sits on the dresser. I motion to it. “That thing get cable?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Do you mind turning it to CNN or some other news channel? Make sure the volume's real loud.”

He looks skeptical, but complies, turns the volume up.

Dialing the number I recently added to my contacts, I wait for someone in the Preserve rental office to pick up.

“Thank you for calling Preserve, Nature's Home. This is Renn, how can I help you?”

“Yes, this is Patricia Parker from channel nine news,” I say, only extra fast and twangy with an exaggerated Southern accent—
Yaaayesss, thisisPatriciaParkerofchannelninenews
. “I'm doing a quick follow-up fact check
on a quote we got from one of the property managers in your complex. Is it true that Mr. Bottin's apartment has yet to be vacated?”

“Lord, am I ever going to hear the end of that pervert?”

“That's a yes then, sir?”

“He's paid up through the end of the month. Even then I gotta wait ten days before I can put his filthy things on the street. It's like the state wants his pervert germs making my other tenants uncomfortable. And who's going to have to clean it all up? Me. I've got half a mind to—”

“Thank you, sir!” I end the call.

Taylor's ogling me like a tentacle's curling out of my ear. “That was impressive.”

“Thanks. Don't go trying to take credit for it.” I honed those skills long after me and him. “I'm going to check out his place tomorrow. Try to find anything that ties him to
Dante
. At least that gives me a direct link to him and the Admirer.”

“Us.”

“'Cuse me?”

“It gives
us
a link. Don't look at me like that. It's my neck on the chopping block, right?”

He's got a point. “Fine. I'll text you as soon as I'm done to let you know what I find, then—”

“I'm going with you.”

“Oh no, you're not.”

“You said your Admirer goes to Portside.”

“Probably.”

“So if he's really trying to kill me, skipping school is like self-defense.”

“It's more like bullshit. You think I'm still off the rails. I don't need you to protect me.”

“News flash, Daniels, it's not all about you. Wanna know something? Keachin was never mean to me. I know she could be an asshole, but sometimes she was cool. She shouldn't be dead right now. If the person who hurt her is really what you say, if he hurt Mei, too, and you—
Gray!
—are taking him down, I want in. If I have to sit in front of your house tomorrow, I will. It's going to be hard for you to sneak out if your parents see me.”

“Who says I have to sneak?”

“You, with the way you keep checking the time on your phone. I got them Sherlock skills, too.”

Hardly. He's right, though. It is getting late.

Standing, contemplating, I say, “Text me tomorrow and we'll go from there.”

“You all right getting home?”

“I'm not the one with the target on my back.” I'm only half joking. Then I say, “Be careful.”

“You should tell him that. I'm not some girl.”

“He's not some boy. With what he does, he's something else altogether.”

Taylor walks me past the couch where Jaiden is already asleep and Aaliyah isn't far behind.

We tiptoe to the door and into the hall. There's nothing else to say, but it feels weird leaving him. The weirdness makes me angry. At Taylor. At Ocie. Of course, at the Admirer.

“Stay alive, please. Everybody's seen me with you, I don't need any more heat for something that's not my fault.”