Secrets (12 page)

Rae felt like a squirmy five-year-old as she waited for group therapy to end. Every second that went by was a
second she couldn’t use to find out the truth about her mother. Every second that went by was a second Rae might
desperately need to save her life.

Come on, come on, come on,
she thought as a new girl-Rae couldn’t even remember her name, and the girl’d said
it about three minutes ago-stammered her way through a tour of her psychosis. Rae reminded herself how hard it
was to learn to spew personal stuff in front of strangers and tried to give the girl an encouraging smile. But she
couldn’t make her lips move that way.

Come on, come on, come on,
she thought.
You’rethe last one. When you’re done, we’re done, even if it’s a few

minutes early.
Rae had called Yana after school and filled her in on what happened to her painting. Before Rae could
even go on, Yana had jumped in and said they should go straight to the Wilton Center, today. So she was picking up
Rae from group, and then they were heading over.

Finally the girl talking came to an abrupt halt.
Thank God,
Rae thought. But then Ms. Abramson, the group leader,
asked the girl a question. Of course. Because that was her job. Getting them all to dig deeper, look harder.

Rae realized her heel was tapping rapidly against the floor. She pressed her hand on her knee to force her foot flat
to the floor and keep it there. Things like that-unconscious repetitive motion, or signs of anxiousness, or signs of
lack of social awareness-could and would all be noted in her chart. And if she wanted to stop coming to this bizarre
fun fest, she had to make sure she was so normal, she put people to sleep.

“Okay, that’s it for today,” Ms. Abramson said. Rae managed not to leap out of her chair and whoop. Instead she
stood up quietly, like a normal person, put on her jacket, like a normal person, gathered her stuff, like a normal
person, and walked out of the room, like a normal person.

She was only a few steps down the hall when Jesse Beven caught up to her. “Shouldn’t we be doing
something?”

he asked, his blue eyes intent on her face.

“Doing something?” Rae repeated.

“Yeah, doing something,” Jesse said. “You know, to find out-” He took a moment to check that no one was
listening. “To find out who kidnapped me and who tried to
kill
you. Are we going to come up with some kind of
plan? Or are we just going to keep sitting around with our thumbs up our butts?”

Rae knew Yana was probably already waiting for her in the parking lot. But it was clear Jesse wasn’t going to let
her go without some kind of answer. “I want to do something, yeah, of course,” she told him. “But we’ve got
nothing, remember? The guy who kidnapped you is long gone, and we have no idea who hired him. Or who hired
David Wyngard to set that pipe bomb. How can we come up with a plan when we’ve got nothing?”

Jesse’s frown deepened into a full-fledged scowl, and his eyes darkened.

“Has something new happened?” Rae asked. “Are you worried-”

“I keep having nightmares, okay?” he blurted out. “I’m back in the warehouse and-whatever.” He avoided her
gaze, and she noticed his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Every time I wake up, I’mpissed off. I’m not letting
whoever did that to me get away with it.”

Rae nodded, worried that Jesse wasn’t so much pissed off as terrified. But she wasn’t going to ask. That was a
Ms. Abramson kind of question.

“If anything happens, anything that would give us a starting place, you’re gonna be the first person I tell,” Rae
promised him, feeling a little spurt of guilt. Finding out the truth about her mom could end up leading her to the
person she and Jesse both wanted to find. But she didn’t know that for sure. If she did get any info that Jesse
would want, she’d… well, she’d decide what to do then. “I’ve got to go, okay?” she said.

“You better not be getting all momlike and trying to protect me,” Jesse told her. “This isn’t just about you.”

Rae nodded, biting her lip. Momlike. Ha.

Jesse started off down the hall.

“Jesse,” she called out without actually deciding to. His name just sprang out of her mouth.

“Yeah?” He turned to face her.

You don’t need to know this,
she told herself. But she asked the question, anyway. “Um, do you know where
Anthony was-I mean, do you know why he wasn’t in group?”

You shouldn’t care,
she thought.
You don’t needAnthony Fascinelli.
But the image of acid eating through the
painting of her mother’s face wouldn’t leave her. And even though Anthony had shown zero interest in what was
going on with her lately, he was the person she wanted to tell what happened.

“Oh, right. You were a little late. Abramson announced that he isn’t coming anymore. I guess he’s going to be
checking in with her by himself,” Jesse explained. “The group was going to get in the way of his football practice,
and skipping practice would mean losing his scholarship.”

Jesse didn’t sound like he thought losing the scholarship was such a bad thing.
He must feel like he’s losing

Anthony, his almost big brother,
she realized. This was the main place they saw each other. “I’m sure you’ll still see
each other,” Rae said.

“Whatever,” Jesse answered. He walked away without another word, clearly not wanting to have some mini-therapy session with Rae about his feelings over the Anthony sitch.
You need to go, anyway,
she thought. Time.

Going. Tick, tick, tick. She started power walking down the hall but only got about five steps before Ms. Abramson
fell in beside her.

“Rae, I just wanted to talk to you for one minute,” Ms. Abramson said.

“Sure,” Rae answered, even though she wanted to scream. Ms. Abramson steered her over to one of thebenches
that lined the hall. “What’s up?” Rae asked as they sat, wanting to get the conversation started so it could end.

“I noticed you were a little agitated in group today,” Ms. Abramson began.

Rae rolled her eyes, disgusted with herself. Then she immediately worried that Ms. Abramson had seen the eye roll
and thought that Rae was giving her attitude.

“I, yeah, you’re right,” Rae answered. “I don’t know why. Ants-in-the-pants syndrome.”

Ants-in-the-pants syndrome? Had that actually come out of her mouth? Good thing extreme dork-ishness wasn’t a
sign of mental illness, or Ms. Abramson would be bundling Rae off to the hospital.

“Those metal chairs aren’t exactly comfortable,” Ms. Abramson answered.

Is that it?
Rae thought.

“But sometimes an issue will get raised in group that strikes a chord,” Ms. Abramson continued.

Of course that ’s not it. What was I thinking?
Rae asked herself.

“Sometimes you don’t even realize what’s happening. It can express itself as simply feeling uncomfortable or
anxious,” Ms. Abramson said. “Try to remember when you first started getting that ants-in-the-pants sensation.”

“I had it before I even got here,” Rae answered. Which was true. It had started up right after she got the stop-asking-questions warning. No big psychological mystery there.

Ms. Abramson studied her for a moment. “Did anything unusual happen at school today?”

“Not really. Just… typical school stuff,” Rae told her, being careful to make direct eye contact. That was important
to Ms. Abramson. She looked back at Rae, as if she thought if she stared long enough, she’d pull out everything in
Rae’s brain.

Rae liked Ms. Abramson, liked her more than any of the other therapists that she’d had to deal with. But God,
sometimes it felt like Ms. Abramson wanted to peel her like an onion, stripping away layer after layer. And what
would be left, that’s what Rae always wondered. ’Cause with an onion? There was basically nothing there once all
the layers of skin were pulled off.

“Typical school stuff,” Ms. Abramson repeated after she’d finished the soul-searching look. “Okay, well, I just
wanted to check. Oh, and I also wanted to schedule another of our individual meetings. How about after group next
Monday?”

A question that wasn’t really a question. Rae stifled a sigh. “Sounds good.” The only answer she could give.

“All right, then. Enjoy the rest of your day,” Ms. Abramson said.

Rae stood up and normal-walked until she was out of the building. Then she sprinted over to Yana’s Bug and
climbed in, breathless.

“To the Wilton Center,” Yana said as she started the car.

Rae gave a halfhearted
whoo-hoo.
She’d been counting down the seconds until she could actually get out of the
Oakvale Institute, where the group was held. But now that she and Yana were heading toward the center, it was like
Rae could feel acid splashing on her own face again and again.

I could do it,
she thought.
I could stop asking questions. I could-

I could die.
That was the alternative.

Rae scrubbed her face with both hands. “You okay?” Yana asked.

“Me? Could not be better,” Rae answered, her voice coming out a lot more sarcastic than she intended it to.

“All righty, then,” Yana said. She flipped on the radio, and they both listened to the music until they arrived at the
Wilton Center, the place where the group had been held, the group that had Mandy’s mother, Rae’s father, and that
basketball-playing prisoner so freaked out.

“It looks… extremely normal. From the outside, at least,” Yana observed.

“Yeah.” Rae climbed out of the car, taking in the clearly kid-made masks in one row of windows and the clearly
adult-made whirligigs on the center’s front lawn. Her eyes came to rest on the sign to the left of the whirligig display,
and she felt like someone had slid an ice cube down the back of her shirt. The sign looked exactly the way it had in
the picture of her mother and the other people in the group. “My mom was standing right over there,” she
murmured.

Yana grabbed her arm. “Let’s go inside.”

“Your hands are freezing,” Rae complained as Yana towed her toward the main entrance.

“Well, I’m a little scared,” Yana admitted, tightening her grip on Rae. “I’ve never told you this before… but people
who knit? I find them disturbing.”

“Is it the needles?” Rae asked. “ ’Cause they are kinda big and pointy.”

“No. It’s not the needles. Or the yarn. It’s
the people.
The people, I tell you,” Yana said. “They want everyone to be
just like them. They won’t rest until we’re all knitting woolly socks.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s a cult.”

“Okay, we’ll avoid them,” Rae assured her, trying not to laugh as they stepped inside.

“It’s even more normal looking in here,” Yana commented.

“Mmm-hmmm.” The walls were painted a soft yellow, the floors were covered in speckled linoleum, the air smelled
like paint and paste and-Rae took another sniff. Like books. Lots of books. In the distance she could hear a string
quartet rehearsing. And it sounded like there was flamenco dancing going on right overhead. “I guess all the
classes are in the middle,” she said. There wasn’t a person in sight.

“Which makes this the perfect time to look around,” Yana replied. She started down the hallway to the right without
letting go of Rae. A few of the doors they passed were open, but all she saw was more
normal.
A group of women
making a quilt. Some little kids watching a puppet show. Some people doing yoga.

The sign outside is the same,
Rae thought.
But everything could have changed inside. It ’s been almost twenty

years. Maybe there’s nothing here to find. Maybe-

“Let’s try back there,” Yana said, pulling Rae away from her thoughts. She nodded toward a door with a sign that
said Wilton Staff Only.

Rae glanced over her shoulder. The hallway was still empty. “Okay. I think we’ve seen enough up here.”

“Yeah. I’m about to go into a diabetic coma. This place is even nicer than wherever it is they live on
7 th Heaven,”

Yana answered as she led the way to the door.

“Haven’t seen it,” Rae admitted.

“You’re not missing anything,” Yana said. She pulled open the door. Rae peered over her shoulder. All she could
see was a narrow stairwell leading down.

Yana hesitated for half a second, then started down the stairs, heading for the tiny landing. Rae pulled the door
shut behind them and followed her. The smell of paint and paste grew fainter, overpowered by the scent of some
industrial cleaner. They must have switched bottles halfway through mopping the stairs because Rae was getting a
blast of pine and lemon. Not a nose-friendly combo.

Rae switched over to mouth breathing, the sound of her breaths loud in her ears. But there was something else.

Another soft sound. Rae grabbed Yana by the elbow. “Stop a second,” she whispered. She held her breath. The soft
sound continued. What was it?