Run (6 page)

The man catches my vibe and I give him what I know he wants.

“She’d forget
me
if she could,” I say.

He nods. “Yeah, I have a mom like that too. Can you describe what it looks like?”

I shake my head. “Mom-boring. That’s what it looks like. I’d know it if I see it.”

“That’s not the way it works. We have a lot of crap back there. You have to tell me what it looks like.”

“God,” I say. “Dark, ugly. She just said she left it. I’ll just tell her someone took it.” I turn and start walking nonchalantly. Inside I’m waiting. I’m hoping.

“Hey,” the man says. “It’s against rules, but go ahead and look around.”

“Really?” I say, a little relieved.

“I have to pee,” Hayden says.

“Just a second,” I answer.

“No. I can’t wait.”

“We’ll never find that jacket. And Mom will yell at us. She’s such a bitch to me.”

The man looks at my brother. “I’ll take him and stand outside and wait.” He turns to me. “You look for the ugly-ass jacket.”

I return the wry grin on Hayden’s face. He’s not so terribly awful after all. He can take direction. Even if he is a homeschooler.

The door shuts and I instantly feel like I’m in one of those shopping spree videos. I only have a few minutes to get what I need. I paw through the coats and jackets like a wild woman. I can easily see why no one came back for any of them. They’re all totally Ross Dress-For-Less rejects. I find one, a black jacket from the Brass Plum that looks mommy-desperate enough. Next, I grab a bag. It’s black leather with a fake Chanel clasp. It’s the same purse Gemma had at the beginning of the school year. I wonder if she lost hers. I’ll never see her again, so I guess none of that matters. It’ll work better than my backpack, that’s for sure. I find a cool graphic T-shirt for Hayden and wad it into a ball and stuff it in my new purse. My eyes scan the small room.

A white silk scarf. Stained. Gross. But it’ll work. My heart is racing. I know I’m not on a game-show video, but I feel that kind of a rush.
Hurry! Ten seconds to go! You’re running out of time!
I pick through the sunglasses— there are dozens of pairs in a big plastic tote next to the shoes.
Who loses their shoes on a ferry?
It seems like everyone whoever rode that ferry left their glasses aboard. I find a Kate Spade pair that might even be real. Those go in my new purse too.

The door opens and my brother and the Lost and Found guy are there.

“Looks like you found it,” LFG says.

I nod with a sour look on my face. “Yeah. I’d know this anywhere. If my mom had any sense she’d have left it here. But no. It’s her favorite jacket of all time.”

LFG looks at me and nods. He pays no attention to the black leather purse which I slip casually over my shoulder as though it were mine.

Which it now is. Sort of.

THE BANK IS ON FIFTH Avenue and as I look I see a mix of the wealthy and the street people congregating around its big brass-framed doors. I know that Hayden and I fit in somewhere between the two factions vying for coffee, money, and whatever people in crisp, new suits think is important. A black mongrel,with a white spot under his chin that looks like he’s just finished slurping up a bowl of milk, curls up next to a man. At his feet, facing the movers and shakers of that Seattle sidewalk, is a cardboard sign that says in crudely drawn letters:

HOMELESS. ALONE. PLEASE HELP.

You and me both, I think, as my little brother and I go inside.

Even though it is against my better judgement, I tell Hayden to wait on one of those black leather sofas next to the spires of a stiff green plant that looks like it could be a weapon—if I was really desperate.

Hayden is not to talk to anyone. Look at anyone.
Trust anyone
. Just stay put. My heart could not beat any faster if I’d had a gun in my pocket and had planned to actually rob the bank. Which, of course, isn’t my mission. I wait in line with my mother’s ID—the one that had my age at thirty-something. Part of me dreads that I could pass for someone that old, but the other part—the part that wants to survive and find my mother’s captor—desires nothing more than to have the clerk look me over, think I’m my mother, so that I can retrieve whatever is so important from the vault.

I leave my stolen sunglasses on and I make sure my scarf is draped messily around my neck as though I was in a hurry. I
am
in a hurry. A hurry to get out of here as fast as I can.

The clerk, a young man with an X-acto blade-sharp nose and unibrow, looks over my ID and compares it with the signature card that he pulls from a file cabinet behind him. It seems like a very, very long time, but it was probably only a second. His hair is blond—golden, really. I wonder if my hair looks as bad as his.

“This doesn’t look like you,” he says curtly.

“I get that a lot,” I answer in a throatier version of my voice, one that I assume sounds like my mother —or at least someone older than fifteen. I offer no excuse. Sometimes the less you say, the better the odds are of getting what you want.

“Did you change your hair or something?” he asks.

I shrug as if the remark doesn’t challenge me, which it does. “I change my hair about three times a year, so  …  yeah, I changed my hair.”

He raises his unibrow and I instantly think of a big, hairy McDonald’s arch.

“Looks better the way it is now,” he says.

I wonder if he’s hitting on me and if he is, he is breaking the law. I am underage, no matter what that ID card states. At least I am pretty sure I am. I couldn’t be eighteen. Or could I? I don’t have time to pursue that thought now. It’s creepy, but if this guy thinks I’m a woman and not a girl then I must be doing something right.

“Follow me,” he says, dangling the vault key like a dog treat—not quite ready to give it to me, but reminding me how much is at stake and how he literally holds the key over my head. He’s wearing corduroy trousers and as he walks he makes a swishing sound. I almost want to laugh, but I feel so scared and sick inside I think a laugh would just make me throw up.

He leads me over to a little iron gate at the end of the row of cashiers and unlocks it with a big flourish, eyeing me with a look I feel unsure about.
A leer? With suspicion?
I’ve seen looks like that before, but the teller’s face shuts down like a sea anemone poked with the tip of a clam digger’s shovel and I’m unsure about what he’s thinking.
Maybe about his job? Maybe he caught that unibrow in the reflection of the tellers’ booths and finally realizes he has to do something about it?
I follow him to the safe deposit room, down a tiled corridor that is impressively bleak.

He stops at the doorway and turns to face me.

“Passcode?”

“What?” I ask, my pulse quickening.

“You need to enter your passcode,” he says, his eyes riveted to mine.

I feel sweat collect on the back of my neck. Passcode? I don’t have any passcode. His nicotine stained index finger points at a keypad.

“I thought all I needed was my box key,” I say, running every memory through my mind that could lead to a passcode. I knew the code Dad had left in blood meant to get away. But a passcode for a safe deposit box?”

“I have a passkey and you need to give me your personal passcode,” he says. “We need both to enter the vault.”

I think hard and fast. Now my face is hot. It must be red. Great. Nothing’s coming to me and I think Unibrow knows it.

He shifts his weight. “If you don’t have the passcode, you can’t go inside,” he says.

“I’m having a brain freeze,” I say, really hating this guy right now. “So many passwords to remember.”

“We haven’t got all day,” he says, turning to go back down the corridor.

I punch the numbers for my birthday—at least the date that I think it is.

Nothing.

Think. Think.

“You only have three chances and if you don’t get it right we’ll need to arrange for the bank manager to create you a new one. He’s a real stickler for security around here.”

I know I’ll like the bank manager even less than Unibrow, who by the way, is now in my personal top five of all annoying people. Number one is Miley Cyrus.

I punch in my brother’s birthday. Again, nothing. Don’t parents routinely use their kids’ birthdays for such things? We don’t have a dog, so using an animal’s name isn’t going to be it.

“Let’s go see the manager,” he says. A slight smile on his face indicates that he’s happy that I can’t remember the code. He must want to go on a smoke break, because he smells like an ashtray to me.

Then it comes to me. My mind flashes to the day that my mom and dad set up the router for our internet connection. The password they used was the same one they used on everything—whenever anything required some kind of security code.

“Wait!” I say. “I have it.”

My finger goes to the keypad and I hit the following letters and numbers
LY4E1234.

Love you forever and a digit for each member of our family.

Stupid me. Mom told me over and over that our family password for our router, security system, even internet shopping account was always the same.

A green light flickers on the keypad display. I let out a very quiet sigh of relief.

Unibrow looks me over and inserts his passkey. And he leads me inside. It’s a surprisingly large space with row upon row of shiny brass-fronted drawers. A table fills the center space. Three beams of light fall on its glossy black surface.

He looks in my direction but I pay no attention.

Instead, my eyes scan for Box 2443, the number on the key. I insert the little brass key and the box is released from the wall. I’m not really sure what’s inside it, but my parents have told me that everything I need is there.

“All righty then,” Unibrow says. “I’ll leave you to your box. Buzz me when you want to get out of our little prison.”

He says the words with a smile and I know it is supposed to be a joke that he uses all the time. But I don’t return his attempt at humor with a smile or anything that resembles a lighthearted response. Instead, my eyes stick like a magnet to steel on an envelope—the first of many filling the box.

On the outside of the large white envelope is an inscription in my mother’s handwriting.

For my daughter’s eyes only.

I quickly notice that there is a second envelope with another recipient in mind.

For my son’s eyes only.

I wonder if this is in case I’m taken or killed. It sends a current of uneasiness through my body. I know without any uncertainty that my mom and my stepdad had considered I might be a casualty of their choices, their lives. I open the first envelope, the one marked for me—and my eyes only. I’ll save Hayden’s for another time. I can barely breathe. My stomach is the nest of snakes in the bottom of that pit in the old Indiana Jones DVD that Hayden made me watch at least eight hundred times. Dad is dead. Murdered. Mom is missing. And for some reason I’m expecting to find answers—and comfort—in the contents of a letter.

Inside is yet another envelope, imprinted with a warning.

Do not read this in front of the bank employees. There is a camera in the corner of the room.
Turn your back to the camera before you read any more.

I know my mother very, very well. She doesn’t want anyone to see my reaction. She wants me to protect myself. I slowly turn away from the steady red light of the camera. For the first time, I notice how cold the air is in that hermetically sealed room. I shiver as I find my fingertips under the flap of the envelope. I tear it open.

Honey,

If you are reading the letter then I am gone. As I write this I don’t know what exactly that might really mean. It is one of two possibilities. He has captured me or he has killed me. I know you will want to find out where I am, if I’m alive. I know that I cannot stop you from doing so. I am sorry that there is very little here to tell you where I might be. I have put some information into some other envelopes. I want you to take those along with this when you leave. Do not show any of it to anyone. If you do, not only will I die, you probably will too. Please sit down. There is a chair on the other side of this room.

I stop reading and drag the black leather chair closer to the gleaming black table with the open safe deposit box. One wheel is stuck and the chair refuses to go in a straight line. My knees feel a little weak and I’m grateful for the chair as I slide into its icy cushions. I feel that shiver once more and I shake it off. I want to thank Mom, as though her letter is part of a conversation. But it isn’t. It is a message, a request. Maybe an edict. I won’t know unless I read on. I don’t want to, though. It’s like I’m in a car, driving past the worst, bloodiest car accident ever. I know that what I’ll see will freak me out, shock me forever.

My mother doesn’t disappoint.

Honey, I have lied to you. I didn’t mean for my lies to spin out of control and frame so much of our lives. You have to believe me when I say that being a liar isn’t what I set out to be. I lied because it was the only course of action to save you, save me, save Hayden. I used to think that by ignoring the truth just maybe a little of my nightmare would go away. Pay attention to my words and remember the need for forgiveness. It is real. It is the only way to salvation.