Haunted (3 page)

“You up for the Underground? If I don’t get to a mall in the next half hour, I’m going into withdrawal. Not that I have
any money to shop with. But still.”

Rae shook her head. “Sorry. I can’t today. I’m meeting someone.”

“Someone,” Yana repeated with a sly smile, clearly having broken the code that someone equaled guy. “Can’t you
even remember his name? I mean, I know prep school boys are made from cookie cutters-all clean-cut and white
teeth. But I thought, you being a prep school girl, you’d at least be able to tell them apart even if I can’t.”

Rae wondered what Yana would think of Marcus.

He was kind of cookie cutter, except he was the cookie all the other guys wanted to be like.

“So can I meet him?” Yana asked. “I could stash the car on the street. I know that you probably don’t want to be
seen with someone who actually drives a Bug.”

“It is pretty humiliating,” Rae answered. It felt so good to be with someone who treated her like a normal person,
who didn’t seem to think she had to be careful of every word that came out of her mouth.

“But don’t stress about it,” she continued. “The guy I’m meeting drives a Hyundai.” She didn’t bother pretending
the someone wasn’t a guy. Clearly she was busted.

“You’re blowing me off for a Hyundai driver?” Yana cried, her blue eyes narrowed in mock anger.

“It’s Anthony,” Rae explained. “The guy who got framed for that pipe bomb-the one you helped me clear. And we’re
not going to be having fun or anything. We’re meeting with the mother of this kid from our group who supposedly
ran away.”

Why did I tell her that? Yana knew Rae’d been hospitalized over the summer. She not only knew it, she’d seen it up
close and personal when she was volunteering. But Rae didn’t need to remind Yana that she was still doing group
therapy. It was way too hospital-esque.

“Supposedly?” Yana asked.

Rae shrugged. “I don’t know him that well. But Anthony does, and he doesn’t think that’s what happened. And he
thought, um, it might help to have a girl be there when he talked to the mom, that it might make her more comfortable
or something.”

She definitely wasn’t telling Yana that she was going to do a fingerprint search. Yana might not freak. She might be
totally cool about it, the way she was about Rae’s mental health history, but Rae just didn’t want to risk it.

“I guess helping out a friend is a decent reason to pass on the shopping. But you have to promise to go with me
later this week,” Yana said.

“How about Saturday?” Rae suggested.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning,” Yana volunteered. “I want to get there right when the stores open.” She glanced in
the rearview mirror. “Hyundai alert.” She leaned closer to the mirror, her nose almost touching it. “He’s pretty cute, if
you like that bad boy look.”

Anthony gave an impatient double honk. “Go,”

Yana told her. “I don’t need to meet him. I know the type. And you guys have a mission. See ya later.” She lurched
toward the exit, tires squealing.

Rae headed over to Anthony’s car, but not too fast. That double honk was borderline obnoxious, and she wasn’t
going to reward him by scurrying over. She opened the door and climbed in.

Weird. She didn’t get any thoughts off the door handle. She should have picked up at least one or even the static
that came when there was a bunch of old fingerprints.

“I can’t start driving until you shut your door,”

Anthony told her.

Rae slammed it. No thoughts from the inside handle, either. “Did you clean the car before you picked me up?” she
asked.

“Does it look clean?” he asked, nodding at the jumble of fast-food wrappers on the floor.

“I meant the handles,” she said.

Anthony didn’t answer right away. He acted all caught up in maneuvering the car out of the parking lot and
heading for the closest freeway entrance.

“Yeah,” he finally muttered, sounding embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” Rae told him. “I have a lot of thoughts I wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

“You probably get a lot of thoughts you don’t want to know, too,” he answered. “It’s not like people walk around
thinking about kittens or stuff like that.”

Rae shrugged. “A lot of what I get is just routine, you know? Like thoughts about having to study for a test or what
to eat for lunch. But yeah, some are… some I’d be perfectly happy not to hear.” Like the ones about what a freak she
was. Her first day back at school she’d gotten a bunch of them. There were fewer now, but she could still be walking
around, minding her own business, and-wham-get hit with one. And it wasn’t only the ones about her that sucked.

Sometimes she got thoughts from total strangers about other total strangers that were so full of rage or jealousy or
fear that they made Rae dizzy.

“So, does Mrs. Beven know we’re coming?” Rae asked, shifting in the seat.

“I called her yesterday after group. She’s up for it.

I think she’s hoping Jesse will get in touch with me,”

Anthony answered. He pulled onto the highway entrance and merged into traffic in one smooth motion.

Definitely not a Yana-style driver, Rae thought.

“So, you’re pretty positive that Jesse didn’t run away,” Rae said.

“Not without saying something to me,” Anthony replied.

She’d already known the answer, but she’d felt like she had to keep the conversation going. It was still weird being
with Anthony outside of group or the juvenile detention center where she’d visited him after he was framed for the
pipe bomb.

You helped get him out, too, she reminded herself.

But she still felt guilt-coated when she thought about it. Just slimy.

“And he didn’t even hint or anything?” Rae asked. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she felt like an
idiot. If Jesse had hinted, Anthony would have told her. Now it seemed like she didn’t trust him or something. Like
she was interrogating him.

“He just acted the way he always does. Didn’t even mention a fight with his mom or anything,”

Anthony answered. Rae darted a glance at him. He didn’t look annoyed. Just tense, his hands locked on the wheel
so tightly that the veins were standing out.

He’s only halfway hearing what I’m saying, Rae thought. He’s obsessing about Jesse. She didn’t have to be a
fingerprint reader to know that. Rae decided to give him a break and just shut up. He didn’t need lame attempts at
conversation.

They rode in silence until Anthony turned onto a street in a shabby neighborhood full of ragged lawns and houses
with flaking paint jobs. “Jesse’s is at the end of the block,” Anthony said.

“Have they lived here long?” Rae asked.

“About a year. Since they moved to Atlanta,”

Anthony said as he pulled into the driveway and parked.

“So you guys haven’t known each other that long?” Rae was surprised. Jesse treated Anthony like a big brother.

And Anthony let him. She figured they’d known each other for years.

“About eight months, I guess.” Anthony climbed out of the car and slammed the door. Rae was right behind him,
picking up one of her own thoughts off the clean door handle. /Yana’s right/ Anthony led the way up to the door and
rang the bell. Mrs. Beven answered almost before he pulled his finger away, clearly she’d been watching for them.

“Come on into the kitchen,” she said, her words coming out too fast, almost running into each other. “I made
cinnamon cookies. I hope you like them. About halfway through I realized I should have made chocolate chip.”

“I love cinnamon,” Rae assured her.

“Sounds great,” Anthony added.

“It’s right back here,” Mrs. Beven told them, heading into the house with jerky little steps.

I never would have pegged her as Jesse’s mom, Rae thought as they followed Mrs. Beven. It wasn’t just that Mrs.

Beven had dirty blond hair while Jesse’s was screaming red. Or that she had brown eyes while Jesse’s were bright
blue. It was more an attitude thing. Jesse was so high-energy, always excited about something or pissed off, willing
to talk to anybody. His mom was high-energy, too, but in a totally different way, like she was so nervous, she had to
be in motion all the time or she’d start screaming. And Rae got the feeling that Mrs. Beven would rather not talk to
anyone if she could help it.

“Sit, sit,” Mrs. Beven said when they reached the kitchen. Rae took the chair closest to the window. It had plastic
strips for the seat and back, and Rae realized that Jesse and his mom were using backyard barbecue furniture in
the house.

“Go ahead and take the cookies,” Mrs. Beven said, hurrying over to the fridge. “And tell me what you want to drink.

We have cola, orange juice, milk, and water, of course.”

“Milk, please,” Anthony said from his seat next to Rae.

“Me, too,” Rae added. She took a cookie off the plate in the middle of the table. Anthony grabbed a couple, then he
gave Rae a look that said, Go ahead and do what you’re here to do.

Rae’d been planning to wait a few minutes at least, have a cookie, make some chitchat. But whatever. She put her
cookie down on the little flowered saucer in front of her. “Um, would you mind if I used the bathroom?” she asked
Mrs. Beven.

Mrs. Beven turned around so quickly, she almost spilled the two glasses of milk she was holding. “Of course. I
should have offered. You go back past the front door and down the hall. It’s the first door on the left.”

“Be right back,” Rae said. She followed Mrs.

Beven’s directions, then kept on going. She tried the second door on the left.
where is he?
Rae felt a lump form in
her throat as the thought and static blast behind it hit her. The thought and the salty ball of unshed tears were
clearly Mrs. Beven’s.

And so was the room. Jesse would never stand for a lavender bedspread. There was only one more door in the
short hallway, right across from Mrs. Beven’s.

Rae opened it/maybe I could trade my/ -and ducked inside. Yep, it was Jesse’s. You couldn’t even see the paint on
the walls. They were covered, top to bottom, with pages from skateboard magazines and comic books.

“Okay, Jesse, what do you have to say for yourself?” Rae whispered. She turned around and lightly ran her
fingers over the inside doorknob. /can’t believe X-Files/over in Little Five Points/Mom’s sleeping all/that math test/

Emotions flicked through Rae. Irritation, anticipation, worry, anger. But none of it felt intense enough to be a trigger
for Jesse running away.

She scanned the handles of Jesse’s dresser next.

Same deal. Some frustration about his mom. Some hostility about someone Rae thought was a teacher.

Some excitement about a new comic book. A fragment of a plan to meet some guys at the skateboard park. But
nothing that gave her any reason to think he was planning to take off.

Closet door handle next, she thought. But it was a bust, too. All she really got was the fact that Jesse was not a
morning person. Rae opened the closet and peered inside. It was surprisingly neat. Some clothes.

A couple of pairs of shoes. A stack of comics, each in a plastic sheath. A baseball bat. She checked the comics-and got thoughts about comics. She checked the bat-and got thoughts about baseball.

Rae closed the closet and scanned the room. She decided to touch the window frame next. If Jesse ran away,
maybe he snuck out through the window.
no air-conditioning
got to ask Mom/set alarm/friggin’ paper route/

Nothing, Rae thought as the static buzz faded. It wasn’t like Jesse would run away because he didn’t like his paper
route. She wanted to do a few more fingerprint sweeps, but she was worried that Mrs. Beven would come and
check on her if she was gone much longer. It seemed like something she would do.

If he was really upset about something, I would have picked it up on one of the places he touches a lot, like the
doorknobs, Rae told herself. Because if things were so bad, he wanted to bolt, he’d be thinking about it practically
all the time. She hurried out of the room, letting the thoughts and feelings from the doorknob flow through her
again, and returned to the kitchen.

“So there’s no place that you can think he might be?” Mrs. Beven was asking Anthony.

“I can ask around. I know some of his friends,”

Anthony said as Rae sat back down.

“That would be wonderful. I’m so worried about him,” Mrs. Beven said. She picked up the glass of water in front of
her and took a long swallow. “You know he’s run away before. But I thought things were better. Didn’t you?” She
reached out and covered one of Anthony’s hands with her own.

“I did,” Anthony told her. He gave Mrs. Beven’s hand a squeeze, and Rae was struck again by what a decent guy
Anthony was under his bad boy attitude.

“Um, I was wondering if Jesse took any stuff with him,” Anthony said. “That might say if he was planning to be
gone long.”

He doesn’t want to tell her he thinks something else could have happened to Jesse, Rae realized. He’s probably
right. It would completely freak her out.