Rosebush (32 page)

Even with the heat turned up full blast in Liam’s red Jeep, I shivered the entire way home. Before he let me out at the end of the block, he said, “You okay?”

I nodded.

“Good girl.” He grinned at me and cupped my cheek in his hand. His lips came over mine, soft, then harder and demanding, pushing me against the door until the handle gouged my back. I knew there was something I was supposed to be remembering, that something had just happened, but all I could think about at that moment was that Liam Marsh was kissing me.

“Remember, you were home all night tonight. You didn’t see your friend, and you didn’t sneak out to go to a party.”

I nodded. How could I think of anything except his kisses?

“I’ll call you and we’ll go out.”

He did. We went out almost every night for the rest of my freshman year. Under his wing I became popular. I had everything I’d ever wanted.

Bonnie’s suicide shocked everyone. “How—what? Why? Jane, why would she take her own life?” her mother said, pleading with me for answers.

“I don’t know,” I told her.

“A godforsaken party.” Her father paced their kitchen, wearing new grooves in the yellow linoleum. “Bonnie never went to a party in her life.”

“Who were those people she was with?” her mother wanted to know. “I know you girls weren’t as close recently, but who were they? Why did she want to be with them?”

Her father raked his hand back and forth over his hair, leaving it standing up in patches. “She said she was going to your house. Why would she lie to us? Why would she do this?”

“I feel like I didn’t even know her anymore, my own daughter,” her mother sobbed. “Oh dear, I’m sorry, Jane, I know this must be hard for you too.”

I was numb. I pushed the pain down and the confusion down and I chose to believe what Liam had told me and what I had told everyone. I became the girl who hadn’t been at the party, the girl who dated Liam Marsh. The girl who was popular. Who everyone loved. The girl who forgot the truth about Bonnie.

I’d traded my best friend for a few kisses and a place at the popular lunch table. Because after my dad died, I was too scared to be left alone. I didn’t see that I wasn’t alone at all. I had Bonnie and my mom and Annie. And myself.

I’d been a coward. But I was done with that now.

“Bonnie didn’t commit suicide,” I repeated in my hospital room, saying it to my mother and Joe and Annie.

“What are you talking about, Jane?

“I was at that party. Bonnie wasn’t alone in the corner with her book like they said. She was with Mark Ellis. I think he gave her something, some kind of drugs. I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t. I think he must have given her too much. She OD’d, but not on purpose, I know not on purpose. She died in the Jacuzzi and they must have moved her afterward. I saw her, there in the water. She looked—peaceful. Like a princess.” I gasped when the word
princess
came out of my mouth. A dead princess. How had I not realized what I’d been photographing all these years? “I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn’t. She slapped me and told me to get out of the way. I tried to get her to stop, I did, but—” I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face.

“Jane, what are you saying?” my mother demanded. “You weren’t at the party. You were at home. In bed.”

“I snuck out. That’s where I met Liam. And—” It was time for me to come clean about this to myself as much as everyone else. “I think he only dated me to keep me quiet. It’s hard to talk when you’re being kissed.”

My mother was frozen. “All these years, all this time. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“I didn’t know anything definite. I just had a hunch. And I guess it seemed like it didn’t matter. Whether she’d tried to kill herself or overdosed accidentally, she would still be dead.”

“There’s a huge difference.” My mother’s hands were clenched. “An enormous difference.”

“I know that now,” I said miserably. Bonnie mattered. Her parents mattered. And the fact that someone got away with murder definitely mattered. “I almost did tell you at the funeral. But then Liam came over and you gave permission for me to go with him. How could I after that? You seemed so happy to be rid of me.”

“Rid of you? Darling, I just wanted you to be happy. I knew what Bonnie meant to you; you two had been inseparable and I thought maybe if you had new friends, it would help ease your grieving. I was trying to let you know you didn’t have to stay to take care of me.” My mother sank down into a chair with her head in her hands. Joe put his arm around her. “My God, her parents.”

I swallowed, gulping back tears. “I want to call them. To tell them.”

My mother looked up. “No, darling, I’ll do that. You need to focus on getting better. It’s too hard.”

“Doing something hard will help me get better.” I’d been sitting on the sidelines of my own life, watching it all through autofocus, for too long.

Joe had been completely silent through my story. Now he came toward me and stood at the side of the bed. His face was set, almost angry. He said, “That was a brave thing you just did, kid. And a brave offer. I’m impressed. Shake hands.”

He held out a hand. I held out my hand. We shook. I felt more tears prick my eyes.

“Good. Now I think we’ll both agree I should get your mother and sister home.”

I looked at them. My mother looked shattered, fragile. And old.

”Thank you,” I said, with genuine gratitude. “Thank you, Joe.”

They left the room, her arm around his waist, his over her shoulders.

Annie came over and kissed me on the cheek. “I thought it was brave too. I have the best big sister in the world.”

“I have the best little sister,” I whispered. Tears hovered at the corner of my eyes.

“What kind of cake do you think you will have for your welcome-home cake?”

“I don’t know. What do you think?”

“Ice-cream cake.”

“That sounds like an excellent choice.”

She left and I was alone.

I waited until I heard the elevator doors open and close before reaching over and pressing Robert Frost’s toe.

My father’s voice, low and sweet, came to me, wrapping me in its honey.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…”

The tears poured out of me in a torrent, like a cleansing stream. When they were done, I was spent, exhausted. I dozed off. Through half-closed eyes I had the impression of someone peering into my room, but it must have been a dream because it stayed quiet.

The phone rang. “Hello,” I answered, half in a dream. I glanced at the clock and saw it was ten minutes to ten. “Scott?”

But it wasn’t Scott’s voice that said, “Good night, Jane.”

I was awake now. Awake, alert, and sure of what I was hearing. I thought. “Stop calling me. You’re not my friend, you’re a murderer.”

“I know you are, but what am I?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You hurt everyone who cares about you, don’t you, Jane?”

“No, that’s not true.”

“With your secrets and your lies. Everyone is just a pawn in your little game.”

A chill ran through me. This had to be a real phone call. It couldn’t be in my head. Because I didn’t believe that. “I’m not like that. I’m not.”
Was I?

A slide show of faces flashed through my mind. Bonnie. My mother. Kate.

I couldn’t take any more of this. “It’s time for this to be over.”

“I agree. See you tomorrow. Sweet dreams.” The line went dead.

I was hyperventilating. I clutched Robert Frost to me as my father’s voice intoned, “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”

Whether the killer was in my head or outside it, this was going to end.

Monday

Chapter 29

 

“You can say that again,” Loretta said, coming into my room.

“What did I say?” I was just waking up and must have been talking in my sleep. I looked at the clock. It was eight thirty in the morning.

“It sounded like ‘my eyes.’ Will you look at this thing?”

I propped myself up and saw that Loretta was carrying a massive floral wreath. “This is about the limit,” she said. “You’d better get well soon and check out of here or we’re going to run out of space.” She handed me the card.

The wreath was made of red and yellow roses in two entwined hearts and had a white satin bow across it imprinted with WE’LL MISS YOU! in gold.

“Didn’t they get the message wrong?” Loretta asked.

I opened the card.
Don’t worry, Jane, our destinies are linked. I’ll take care of you anywhere you go. Love, Your Secret Admirer.

Something must have shown in my face because Loretta shook her head. “Don’t go trying to say this is a threat. It’s hearts. Hearts aren’t a threat. Two interlocking hearts means love.”

“Of course. You’re right.”

My mother called to say she and Joe wouldn’t be in until later because Annie was running a slight fever. As I hung up, Dr. Tan, in yet another tan suit, appeared.

He was jolliness in person. “Good morning, Miss Freeman. I hear they’ve caught the driver of the car that ran you down.”

“If you believe it.”

He appeared to work hard to stifle a sigh. “You don’t?”

“I remembered someone leaning over me while I was trapped in the rosebush and saying, ‘You’re a goner, Jane Freeman.’ The Barney Brothers—the convenience store robbers—didn’t know my name, so it couldn’t have been them.”

“Or perhaps this is another fictional memory. Another clue in our arsenal.”

“Why wouldn’t I want it to be the Barney Brothers?”

“We’re still working on that. Any more delusions? Hallucinations?”

“The killer called last night and told me I would meet him today.”

“That’s interesting,” he said. Pretending like he believed me. “When?”

“He called at ten minutes to ten.”

“Well, then, we’ll have to keep an especially close eye on you. Ten minutes to ten. Does the number ten have any significance to you?”

Oh, that was bad. How had I not thought of it? “My birthday is on October 10.”