Remember Me (24 page)

It's, quite literally, very little to go on. After another hour of staring at the pictures, all I have to give Carson is the “blood splatter that looks like a birthmark” theory and the fact that both the victims were stabbed to death. I'm sure a forensic specialist would be able to get more from the photos. All I'm getting is nauseated.

No matter how many times I scroll through the pictures I don't get over being disgusted. They're horrifying. No one deserves to die like that.

It's only because I've pulled back from the screen that I notice the movement on my second monitor screen. A man steps out of the shadows down on the street. He's looking at our neighbors, our yard, the setup of our house.

He's too far away to get an ID, but I don't really need one. I recognize the walk, the agitation. He paces the same way now as he did in the woods when he chased me.

Kyle Bay.

He's found me.

35

Kyle leaves around two, but I can't manage any real sleep after that. I keep getting up to check the security feed, and when I finally put my head on my desk and doze off, I dream about being buried alive.

The alarm goes off at seven. I stumble downstairs, late, and Bren tells me I can drive myself to school. Gotta think this is a good sign. Either she's getting tired of taking me to school or I'm on the verge of being ungrounded.

Because I'm running behind, I get stuck parking at the very back of the lot and have to hoof it to my locker before the homeroom bell rings. I don't even have the lock open before I hear someone's throat clear.

“I never see you anymore.”

I turn around slowly, stifling a sigh. Ian Bay is leaning against the lockers, both hands fisted around his book bag straps, a new travel magazine stuffed in the bag's side pocket.

“I've been busy,” I say. “I'm still finishing up midterm projects.”

Which is mostly true. I'm just omitting the part where I've been kinda sorta avoiding him ever since I turned in our computer science report. I've had things to do for Carson and I've been looking into my mom. The way those two things are seeping into each other bothers me. A lot.

Then again, now that I'm face-to-face with Ian I feel worse. I'm not the only person who's lost people—and he stands to lose even more if Carson doesn't catch his brother.

“Maybe we could do something after you're done?” Ian asks.

“Yeah, maybe.”

I take my history book out of my bag, open my locker, and scowl.

There's another DVD on top of my books. Must be more interviews. This is starting to move past creepy and slide straight into annoying.

I turn the DVD over, check the inside of the case. No labels.

“What is it?” Ian asks.

“Nothing.” And it is nothing. I'm half tempted to leave it there and slam the door. What's the point of watching anymore? What's the point of any of it?

There isn't.

But I still end up pocketing it.

 

I wish I
hadn't.

I wish I'd thrown the DVD away, buried it,
burned
it.

God, I'm such a liar. I wanted the security footage. You'd think I would have been thrilled, done some sort of happy dance rather than vomit in the toilet.

Yeah, you'd think.

I tell Bren I have a migraine and I go to my room as soon as I get home from school. First off, I check the security cameras for our house and, to my relief, there's no sign of Kyle or Jason. The front yard stayed empty except for the neighbor's dog coming by to use Bren's bushes as his personal potty. Feeling better already, I pop the new DVD into my computer and wait for the virus check to finish while I change.

It's only when I look at the screen that I realize something's wrong—well, not wrong,
different
. There's just one file and usually the interview DVDs include around twenty different video clips.

I sit down, hit play. The video is short, less than four minutes, and it's at a distance, shot from a telephone pole near the parking lot . . . you can see my mom step onto the ledge, you can see her hesitate, and then jump.

Watching it the first time made me hurl. The second time, I nearly cried. The third? I realize she hesitates because she's talking and my heart rams into my throat.

I sit up straight. Is there someone else there? I rewind the video. She talks. She jumps.

I do it again. She talks. She jumps.

I close the video, pop a CD into the other drive, and install an editing software package I downloaded last year from a Russian site. Running the security video back through the program, I can pause on the frame where my mom looks like she's talking. Then I enlarge it, lighten the shadows, tweak the coloring. . . .

And realize there's not just one person standing behind my mom. There are two.

The one on the right is slim, tall, and could be anyone. The second is bulky, tall, and has to be Joe. Has to be.

What's he doing there?

I rerun the enhanced video, watch how the figures move, sweat breaking out between my shoulders. I can't tell what they're doing. There's light from the streetlamps below—enough for them to see, nowhere near enough for me. After another minute, I turn it off, sit on my hands to make them stop shaking. It's been four years. This shouldn't be so hard.

So why's my face wet with tears?

Get it together. Get it together.

Think it through. Why did I get the DVD in the first place? Is this linked to the other interviews I've been receiving?

Possibly, but there's no label, no message at the end of the video, no handwriting like before, so either the person who's been giving them to me has changed it up . . . or someone else gave me the security video.

So who would that be?

What a joke. Like I care. Now that I'm past crying all I can think about is Joe. I know it's him in the background. I
know
it. It's in the line of the shoulders, the way the figure swings to the left after she jumps. It's him and it makes me think of his nasty smiles. Except they weren't just nasty, were they? They were . . . knowing. Smug. Dangerous.

In the months after my mom's death, he used to watch me. It felt like every time I looked up, he was staring. I thought it was because he had forgotten how to grieve. Really it was because he enjoyed watching my pain.

Or because he was trying to figure out if I knew.

If I guessed.

My temples really are thumping now, my pretend migraine coming to life. I scrub them hard with both hands before hitting the eject button. The DVD slides out and, for a second, I just stare at it.

Is that . . . ink?

Picking it up by the edges, I examine the DVD's inner ring and think—
think
—there's a smear of green ink on the inside. Like someone's thumb was stained, smudging ink onto the plastic as the DVD was put into the case.

Griff draws in green and blue ink, but he would never have given me this footage. He doesn't think I should be pursuing this. He doesn't—

Oh, shit, now I'm crying all over again.

36

It takes more courage than I would have thought to walk up to Griff the next morning at school. I wait for him in the hallway, feeling a bit like a spider hiding in a corner, until he stops by his locker on the way to homeroom.

“Griff?” I put my hand on his arm and he recoils.

“What is it, Wick?”

Heat rolls up my neck. “Did you give me the DVD? Of my mom on that building?” I can't bring myself to say “suicide” anymore because it's not accurate. I can't bring myself to say “murder” either.

“No idea what you're talking about,” Griff says.

He does though. Griff's barely breathing. His body's strung so tight and I don't understand. We're not together. He gave me something he knew I would want even though he didn't approve, didn't think I should have it.

He helped me even though I'm the last person he should ever want to help.

How did he even know?

“Thank you,” I whisper, rolling my hands into fists so I don't touch him.

“Don't read anything into it.”

How can I not?
I need to say something here and I don't know what it is. I want him to look at me, but he won't.

Griff shuts his locker hard. “Milo told me you wanted it.”

I blink. Milo had no business telling Griff anything. “I . . .”

“What kind of person would give you something like that?”

I bristle. “Someone who wanted me to know the truth.”

“You really believe that's what this is about?”

“That's
exactly
what it's about.”

Griff yanks his book bag onto his shoulder. “I asked my cousin about your mom and he got the recording from her file. I wanted you to get it from me, not Milo, from someone who cares about you, not someone who's egging you on.”

The pain is brief and brilliant and all I can hear is my mom saying how you will hurt the ones you love even if you shouldn't. This hurts. Once upon a time, Griff would never have hurt me. Maybe that's the difference. He no longer loves me like I still love him.

I shake myself. “He's not egging me on. He's—”

“If you want to concentrate on the truth, remember that there was nothing to see. She jumped. She was alone.”

She wasn't, and if she was murdered, if she jumped to save us, if I spent all this time hating her . . . but Griff walks away before I can say a word. He doesn't even look back, which is just as well probably because now I'm slumped against the lockers, arms folded across my stomach.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Then again, maybe it was.

I love him, and it's ruined me. He's ruined me. He walked into my life like any other person, but there was something about the way he talked to me and then something about the way he treated me and then . . . there I was, hostage for another smile. My life was not my own anymore.

I sacrificed Griff to protect him and Lily and Bren from Carson and from the futures they deserve and he could destroy.

What does that leave for me?

In my bag, my phone buzzes and I ignore it. I can't take my eyes off what's left of Griff. I can see glimpses of his head, his shoulders as he moves through the crowd. I watch until he's gone.

My phone stops buzzing.

Starts again.

I stick my hand in, fish around a bit before finding my cell. Milo. I'm not sure I want to answer. Yeah, I'm glad (is that the right word? I'm not sure) I got the security video of my mom. I'm also pissed at him for going behind my back.

As I try to decide, the call rolls to voice mail, starts ringing again.

I press the answer key. “Milo?”

“Wick . . . I need . . . please.”

He sounds rough—
hurt
—and my throat twists shut. “Are you okay?”

“Please come. Please?”

I can't. I'm at school. I'm grounded. I'm
—the phone clicks. The line's dead. I hit redial as I head for the parking lot. There's no answer.

No matter how many times I call.

 

The restaurant looks
as abandoned as ever when I pull in almost thirty minutes later. I beat on the door, but no one answers. I try Milo's cell again. Still no answer.

Pressing one hand against the front window, I peer through the hazy glass. Someone might be in there. Lights are on and I think—
think
—I can hear a television playing.

So where the hell is Milo? I start to pound on the door again and pause. There's a small half-moon carved into the wood next to the doorjamb, a Cheshire cat smile. It's the same mark Milo left on my CPU's case and reminds me of his smile.

Which I'm going to wreck if this turns out to be some stupid joke.

I grab the door handle and it turns in my hand. “Milo?”

No answer.

I pick my way around the dust-covered tables, heading for the kitchen door. Is it possible he's in the computer room? I brush the door with my fingertips, hesitating, and then push my way in. The empty kitchen stretches out on either side of me.

“Milo?”

“Wick.” It's so soft I almost miss it. I turn, spotting Milo on the kitchen floor. He's splay-legged with a bottle of Jameson held loosely in one hand. He looks like he's been airlifted in from some epic party and I'm instantly pissed.

Then he lifts the bottle, revealing a smear of red along his torso.

“Milo, you're hurt!”

“Just a flesh wound.” He laughs, winces, and settles with giving me a weak smile and swallowing more Jameson. The smile turns into a grimace.

I drop to my knees, using one hand to peel the sodden T-shirt away from his rib cage. “Jesus, we gotta get you out of here.”

Milo doesn't respond so I wedge one shoulder under him, boost him to his feet. “How did it happen?”

He winces and stares into space, teeth gritted.

“Milo,” I prompt, but he still won't look at me. “It was your dad, wasn't it?”

“He's . . . not well. I upset him.”

I angle us through the door and Milo puts out one hand to steady himself, gasping as he does.

“He wasn't always like this. Tomorrow he might be totally different.” Milo pauses, his face going pale as he fights through a wave of pain. “I think crazy is like a bug in your brain, scuttling under your skull, wrenching loose all your wires.”

“Milo, this is way worse than some bug.”

“It's fine. Really. He's actually perfectly normal . . . except when he's not.” He draws in a wobbly breath. “There are monsters living inside us and, sometimes, they win.”

God help me if he's going to get all philosophical again.
“We should get you checked out by a hospital.”

“No hospitals.”