Invisible (29 page)

“Don’t say that. Brian thinks you can handle this. I do, too.”

She looked out the window. There was the sign for Black Bear. Her dad flipped on the turn signal and they swept onto the road leading to town. “They were talking about Dana.”

“Fern and Larry were?”

She nodded.

They drove for a little while. At last, he spoke. “Dana thinks something made your mom sick.”

“I know.”

“You do?” He sounded surprised, and something else. Annoyed?

“She told me.”

“Well, it’s not true. You know that, right? We talked to the doctors. Doc Lindstrom ran every test he could think of. There was nothing we could have done.”

She remembered. She and Eric had researched it themselves, hunched over his laptop and searching medical sites, scrolling through page after page after page. None of it had made any sense to Peyton. “So why was Dana at the plant?”

“She was testing the air.”

“The
air
?” Like, the air they breathed all the time they were there?
Hours
and
hours
of breathing that air?

“Hey,” he said, looking at her. “It’s okay. She didn’t find anything.”

His voice was even and she believed him. So why was her stomach twisted into knots? “I’m going out with Eric tonight.” Giving him fair warning.
You’ll be alone
.

“Sure.”

They were on their street. A group of kids were walking down the sidewalk, headed toward the lake. Their laughter came in through the opened truck windows.

Dana’s car wasn’t at the curb, which meant that maybe she wouldn’t be home for supper. Again. Peyton could tell her dad had noticed. His face had relaxed a fraction. So he was relieved, too.

She gathered the dirty lab coat together; she’d have to wash it before she went back to work.

 [DANA]

P
UBERTY HAD NOT BEEN KIND TO ME. AT THIRTEEN
, I grew six inches and curves, seemingly both at the same time. Julie hadn’t known what to do with me. She’d slipped through her teen years like the swan she’d always been, but not me. I was ungainly and emotional. I was a giraffe and an elephant slapped together in disharmony, and miserable. At last Julie had said in despair,
Try running
.

The path around the lake used to end abruptly in gorse and dirt, as though whoever had installed it had given up. But now that old stopping point was gone, the new gray asphalt continuing on as though it had always been there, extending far into the distance and curving out of sight.

It had to be Gerkey’s but it wasn’t. Was Peyton at risk or not? My shoes thudded; my breath pounded in my throat. Had Julie been happy with Frank in the end or not?

My cellphone was ringing. I stopped and retrieved it from my pocket.

“Dana.”

“Halim.” Panting, I walked in circles, cooling down. “How nice of you to return my call.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been difficult to reach.” His voice was cool. He hated it when I was sarcastic. “But I understand you spoke with Ahmed.”

“Oh yes. He gave me an earful.”

A slight hesitation.
Good
. I’d caught him off guard.

“I was hoping to have something to tell you, Dana. I didn’t want to trouble you, given your personal concerns. Nothing’s official yet. We’re still waiting for the autopsy report.”

Not a word about my not returning when I’d said I would. Was he worried about my absence or relieved? “What’s taking so long? It’s been six days.”

“They are doing a toxicology screen. Apparently, these results take time.”

“I guess that’s good,” I said slowly.

“It’s very good. If she was high on something, that would explain why she didn’t know where she was.”

It wouldn’t explain how she’d sneaked past the guard. It wouldn’t explain how we’d missed her. The breeze freshened, flattening the long grasses and sending a sandy spray across my ankles. “I’ve been calling White, but he’s not picking up. You need to go over and talk to him. Don’t let him weasel out of paying us.” My mortgage was coming due, my cellphone bill. I’d been buying groceries and gas all week, and every time I swiped my credit card, I held my breath, waiting to see that it had been rejected.

“I haven’t just been sitting here, Dana.” His voice was sharp. “I’ve been working on it.”

“Tell him we’re going to start charging late fees. Contact the people in New Orleans and send them an invoice for our out-of-pocket expenses.”

“That’s not how we usually do it.”

“We don’t usually have clients cancel on us, either.”

“It’s insane. The woman had been living on the streets for years. Her family never saw her unless she needed money or a place to sleep. She was addicted to methamphetamine and she fished other people’s food out of the garbage. For this, they’ve hired a lawyer.”

I couldn’t blame the Hamiltons; this was their daughter and sister. She’d mattered. “We need a lawyer.”

“Lawyers are expensive.”

He was going to quibble about money now? “Then tell your brother to repay those loans you’ve made him.”

“He’ll pay me as soon as he can.” Halim’s voice was smooth, coated with lies. That money was gone. His brother would never repay us, and we both knew it.

I’d made a mistake, one I kept repeating. I’d been so grateful that Halim had asked me to share his business dream that I’d given him free rein. I’d been so relieved to have Halim handle the police investigation that I’d willingly left town. I was still acting like the kid sister, the one who kept taking the easier path, no matter that it wandered around aimlessly. The sun beat down hard across my shoulders. I looked at my feet, the laces untied on one sneaker, the mosquito bites ringing my ankles.

“What about the guard?” I asked. “Have you found him?”

“No, and I doubt we will. Which is too bad. It would have been helpful to know if he saw anything Monday night.”

“This is all my fault.”

“Dana.” His voice was low with warning.

“When we were doing our walk-through, I found a beer bottle. It was new, no dust on it. It wasn’t there Monday night.”

“You can’t be certain of that. Besides, the bottle could have just as easily been left by the guard.”

“If you hadn’t been on the phone with your brother, we wouldn’t have rushed the walk-through. We could have verified where that bottle came from. We could have found her.”

“Are you saying this is my fault?”

Was I? “Even if the family doesn’t sue—”

“We won’t let that happen. You can’t be talking that way. I know it is your way to take on everyone’s burden, but this is not yours to bear.”

“I don’t take on people’s burdens. That makes me sound pathetic.”

“But you do. The crew, Ahmed’s sister-in-law. You’re always putting emotion over business.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that. I’m the one who gets people to pay up. I’m the one who negotiates hard.”

“In this business, Dana, there are few people who listen to women.”

Wait, wait
. “What are you saying?”

A family was picnicking on the shore, the parents laughing as the kids splashed in the water. The children were tossing pieces of bread to the seagulls, shrieking as they swooped in.

“Nothing you don’t already know yourself. You may do the talking, but I’m the one our clients listen to.”

“That’s insulting.”

“It is the truth.”

I’d been gone a week and no one had bothered to contact me: not suppliers, customers, even our own office staff. Did I really want to hear the truth? Yes, I decided. I did. “Tell me, Halim. Why did you bring me into your business?”

“You know why. I needed someone like you, someone smart and capable, someone to take over when I retired—”

“No. Let’s stick with the truth. You never had any intention of my taking over the business. You only brought me in because I’m American, because that was the only way you could order explosives and get permits. What you needed was someone like me who would believe your lies.”

A cold pause. When Halim spoke again, his voice was firm. “Let us allow this current business to settle itself.”

“And then what?”

“And then we’ll talk.”

“I’m done talking.” I closed my phone.

Try running
, Julie had said, and in a way, I’d been doing that ever since.

 [PEYTON]

C
HIMAERAS ARE THE DARK SHEEP IN THE SHARKS
and rays family. They’re weird: long-bodied, smooth-skinned, ribbon-tailed creatures that resemble land animals with their oddly shaped heads and faces. Rabbitfish, ratfish, elephant-fish, ghost shark. There are more than forty in all
.

They live mostly in the deep and we don’t know much about them. They keep to themselves. They’re the only fish in the entire ocean that breathe through their noses as well as through their gills; they have small mouths with stubby teeth that they use to grind their food. They wind through the water like dancers, moving their large fins up and down and all around. But their most distinguishing feature is their eyes, which are huge and emerald green, and infinitely sad, as though they know they don’t belong anywhere
.

The Dairy Queen was bright and noisy, voices clattering against the tiled floors and Formica-topped tables. The afternoon matinee
had just ended and people jostled in line in front of the cash registers. Peyton scraped her spoon around the rim of her plastic cup. “I think my dad’s going to give me my mom’s old car.”

“Tight.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Even if she Windexed it from top to bottom, it would be loaded with impressions of her mom, her perfume lingering in the seat cushions, the grooves where the heels of her shoes had dug into the floormat, the little silver charm dangling from the rearview mirror:
Life is a journey
. It might be comforting; it might be too painful to bear.

Eric stripped the wrapper from his straw. “Adam’s freaked that Brenna’s going to dump him.”

“Adam’s smarter than I thought.”

“What, she say something to you?”

“No, but she was all over the guy who sits next to us in bio.”

“That sucks.”

“He should’ve seen it coming. Brenna never lasts longer than a month.”

“I guess.”

She licked fudge sauce off the sharp brittle edge of her spoon. “Can I borrow your SparkNotes for
Mockingbird
?”

“Sure.” He rolled his shoulders, the cotton of his shirt stretched taut. “My dad says he can get me a job at the loading dock this summer.”

“I thought you didn’t want to work at Gerkey’s.”

“Either that or stay at the lube shop. Gerkey’s pays better.”

“Manufacturing pays better than the loading dock. If you wait a few days, I bet a job will open up there.”

“Cut it out. I bet people spill stuff in there all the time.”

“But Fern was so freaked out.”

“Doesn’t matter. Mr. G would never fire you. Who’d feed his fish?”

She made a face at him, but he had a point. “I guess.”

It had grown dark outside. A bolt of lightning made her glance out the window. Another storm was rolling in. “My mom called Dana just before she died.”

She’d never said it out loud, both words together:
mom, died
.

“Yeah?”

“Dana says it’s because my mom wanted her to help figure it out.”

No need to say what
it
was. Eric had heard all about it.

“Why would she call her?”

“Because she thought Dana was a doctor. Because Dana was her sister. She went to the plant today, to take readings with this instrument she had.”

“No lie. What kind of instrument?”

“Who cares?” She pushed her cup away. The place was getting noisier, kids from school piling up in booths. “Let’s go,” she said, and Eric nodded.

Outside, the air was fresh with the smell of damp vegetation. Thunder rumbled overhead, and it started to rain, fat soft raindrops. Eric’s car was parked at the back of the lot. They ran as the drops came faster, silvering their vision.

Eric fumbled for his keys, extended the fob and pressed a button. A siren sounded.

“Wrong button,” he said.