Haunted

Melinda Metz

Fingerprints 02 - Haunted

Rae Voight’s clock radio started blaring.

Without lifting her head off the pillow, she reached over and jammed the snooze button. /I’m watching you, Rae/

Rae scrambled out of bed, her heart scraping up against her ribs. Someone had been in her room. A stranger. The
thought she’d picked up when she touched the snooze button didn’t feel familiar. It wasn’t from her dad. It wasn’t
from Alice, the woman who cleaned their house. It wasn’t from anybody who had any reason to be there.

Okay, okay, she told herself. First thing you need is information.

“Come on, you freak, tell me who you are,” she muttered. She ran her fingers lightly over the radio, then over her
nightstand, including the little lamp. / I’m watching you, Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / I’m
watching you, Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / The thoughts were full of hatred-hatred and fury. She could feel the
emotions rush through her body, starting the acid pumping in her stomach, making her knees shake, increasing the
temperature of her blood.

No. This can’t be happening, Rae thought, her heart now ramming into her ribs. A whole… a whole team of people
couldn’t have been in here. It was impossible.

Impossible? Like someone planting a pipe bomb in a bathroom to kill you? Rae asked herself. ’ Cause that kind of
impossible, it’s possible, and you know it.

It hadn’t even been that long since it had happened.

Slowly Rae backed away from the nightstand, her eyes locked on it as if it was going to hurl itself off the floor and
attack her. She stumbled into her desk chair and grabbed its soft leather back to steady herself. / I’m watching you,
Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / She shoved the chair away from her/ I’m watching you, Rae /

I’m watching you, Rae / -and bolted to the door, then wrenched it open.

I’m watching you, Rae / I’m watching you, Rae / The hallway was quiet except for the faint sound of Rae’s father
snoring. She stood perfectly still, trying not to even hear her own breathing. The intruder-no, the intruders were
gone.

Shower, Rae thought, letting out her breath. Then she could think-really think-about what she should do.

Rae hurried to the bathroom and shoved open the door with her shoulder. She pulled the door closed with two
fingers and locked it. / I’m watching you, Rae / Watching you / Shaking, she switched on the water. These people…

they had been here, too. Everywhere. What hadn’t they touched in her home? She stood under the warm spray, the
scent of her citrus shower gel filling her nose. She turned away from the nozzle, then leaned back her head and let
the water soak her long, curly hair. She’d wash it. Then she’d come up with some kind of Rae’s eyes locked on the
showerhead. There was something glittering behind the dozens of little holes.

Every nerve in her body went on red alert. Had they done something to the shower? Was this the second attempt
to kill her?

Rae jerked off the water, then pried at the showerhead with her fingernails. She had to get it off, had to see what
was under there. One of her nails pulled away from the skin. The pain brought tears to Rae’s eyes, but she kept
jerking at the showerhead. Finally the part with the little holes came free from the base, and underneath “A camera,”

Rae whispered. She leaned out of the shower and grabbed her toothbrush from the sink. / Watching you / Ignoring
the thoughts from the brush, Rae used it to stab at the tiny camera lens until it cracked, then she scrambled out of
the tub, banging her anklebone on the side and managing to step on one of the pieces of glass.

Damn. Rae grabbed one of the big bath sheets off the towel rack and wrapped it around herself. She needed to do
a full-house search for more cameras.

But she couldn’t walk around leaving a blood trail.

She balanced on one foot and pulled the piece of glass free, then opened the medicine cabinet/ I’m watching you,
Rae / -and screamed. A man was peering at her between the little shelves. He reached through and grabbed her by
the shoulders. Shook her.

“Rae,” the man exclaimed. He sounded like her father.

Rae’s eyes flew open, and she saw her father standing over her, his blue eyes locked on her face.

She sat up, pulling free of his grasp.

Oh God, it was a dream, she realized, glancing down at the blanket clutched in her hand.

“Sorry. I guess that dream scream came out real, huh?” she asked, trying to sound normal.

“I’ll say,” her father answered. “It must have been quite a nightmare.” He waited, and Rae knew he was expecting
her to tell him what it was about. But she didn’t want to think about it for even a few seconds more.

“Yeah,” she answered. She glanced at her clock radio. 4:01. “But I have time to get in a good dream before I have
to get up.” She hoped she didn’t sound as freaked as she felt. She didn’t want her dad to start worrying. For months
that’s all he’d done-worry about her.

“Let me get you a glass of water,” he said.

“That’s okay,” Rae answered, but he was already out the door. Rae used both hands to shove her hair away from
her face. The roots were damp with sweat.

It was just a dream, she told herself. But that didn’t make her feel any better. Yeah, it was just a dream. But it was a
dream that was all about what she was afraid of in real life. Someone out there wanted her dead. And she had no
idea who. Or when they might try again.

Rae’s dad hurried back in with the water and pressed the glass into her hand. / thought she was getting better /

“It was just a dream, Dad,” she said, wanting him to believe it, even though it wasn’t really true.

Wanting him to believe that their lives were back to normal, that even though she’d spent the summer in a mental
hospital, she was fine, fine, fine. “Just a dream,” she repeated, then pulled the covers up as high as she could. But
she still felt chilled, as if her spine had turned to ice.

Rae headed toward the cafeteria, trying to exude… just your basic normalcy. For years there’d been nothing she
wanted more than getting noticed. And she’d done it. She’d been right there in the center, girlfriend of Marcus
Salkow, Sanderson’s It boy. Then she’d had her little freak-out-make that humongous freak-out-in the cafe the day
she first started getting the not-her thoughts and she’d been sent off to the walnut farm.

Now her biggest ambition was to blend.

Which wasn’t all that easy. People were still way too interested in whether or not she was going to have another
meltdown to take their eyes off her for long. Rae’s steps slowed down. Or did one of them have a different reason
for staring? Could one of the people checking her out be the person who wanted her dead? Her eyes jumped from
face to face. It seemed ridiculous to think that anyone who went to her school had tried to kill her. They spent all
their time planning what to wear and how to get invited to the best parties, and, if they were ambitious, how to get
the SAT scores to make it into the college Mom and Dad had their hearts set on. But that was it.

Right?

Rae did another quick face scan. When her eyes fell on Jeff Brunner, he blushed the color of an overripe tomato,
then lowered his head so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

All he needs is a sign that says Kick Me, I’m Scum, Rae thought.

But Jeff wasn’t acting all guilty because he’d tried to off her. No, all scum boy had done was decide Rae was such
a loser that she’d be grateful to let him into her pants. Fortunately Rae’d gotten that piece of info from his
fingerprints before Jeff had even gotten close to scoring, and she’d put the little weasel in his place. She watched
him scurry into the guys’ bathroom like the rodent he was.

It’s gonna be a while before he decides to try his luck with another “loser” girl, Rae thought with satisfaction.

She continued down the hallway, almost bumping into a guy who stepped away from the drinking fountain without
bothering to look where he was going.

“Sorry,” he said, turning to face her. Marcus Salkow. Rae’s heart gave a jerk and ended up somewhere in her
throat. The parade of the scum boys continues, she thought, trying to get a grip.

“Um, how’s it going, Rae?” he asked, looking somewhere near her face but not directly at it.

“Fine,” she mumbled, heart still slamming around in her throat like a bird that wanted to get out. God, while Marcus
couldn’t look at her, she couldn’t stop staring at him. Did he have to be so gorgeous? He was like a poster boy for
prep school. A clean-cut, football-player-muscled, blond, green-eyed example of a young southern gentleman.

“Fine,” Rae muttered again. She continued down the hall, not wanting to drag out the encounter, afraid if she looked
at him another second, she’d start drooling or something equally humiliating.

You let him off so easy, she thought. Rae hadn’t allowed Jeff to treat her like dirt. Why should Marcus be any
different?

Because I loved him, Rae answered herself.

Because I thought he loved me. Which actually made what Marcus did to her a million times worse.

Without giving herself time to reconsider, Rae spun around and hurried back up to him, ignoring the way her heart
now seemed to fill every inch of her body. Pounding, pounding, pounding. “When I said I’m fine, it was true,” Rae
told him, her words coming out clipped and hard. “Except for the fact that I came back to school and found out that
you’re with Dori Hernandez, which no one bothered to tell me.”

She hauled in a deep, shuddering breath. “Including you.”

Marcus didn’t answer. He just continued to do that not-quite-looking-at-her thing. Rae took a quarter step to the
side, putting herself directly into his line of vision. Her heart-body pounded harder.

“Look. I’m sorry,” Marcus finally said. “You were in the hospital, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to upset you
by telling you… you know. I was worried about you.” Marcus gave a helpless shrug, then reached out and pushed a
lock of her curly hair away from her face. “Really worried,” he added softly.

Rae shrank back from his hand. She didn’t want him touching her, especially because it still did something to her,
started turning her all soft inside. “You were so worried, you never came to visit.”

“I came-” he began to protest.