Secrets (18 page)

“Drink this,” the man instructed. Rae felt hard plastic against her lips. The man put one hand on her forehead and
pressed until she tilted her head back a little. Then she felt water streaming into her mouth and down her chin. She
swallowed convulsively, managing to get some down.

“Do you need to use the bathroom?” the man asked Rae when he’d finished feeding her. Shewanted to say no, but
the pressure on her bladder had gone from annoying to painful. Was he going to watch her pee? She had to say no.

But how many more hours would they be kept here? God, what if she ended up peeing all over herself. Would he
clean her up or- “Yes or no,” the man prompted.

“Yeah,” Rae answered. Her chest was pulled closer to her knees as the man grabbed the rope connecting her
hands and feet. The breath was squeezed out of her lungs, and she felt like her rib cage was compressing, pressing
against her heart. Then, abruptly, the pressure was gone. Rae was able to straighten her spine for the first time in…

however long she’d been sitting on the bed in the Motel 6. Each vertebra burned as she gently twisted from side to
side, but it still felt so good to get out of that hunched-over position.

“On your feet,” the man said. He didn’t wait for her to respond, just grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her up,
then led her out into the hall, Rae stumbling with the tiny baby steps that were all the cords would allow her.

Where is everyone in this place?
she thought.
Why isn’t anyone here to see me get dragged blindfolded through

the hall?
And why was the man even risking it? Why didn’t he make her use the bathroom where Yana was?

Rae heard a knock on a door and then a door opening, and she was pulled into what she figured was another
motel room. After a few more stumbling steps she heard another door open, and then there was tile under her feet
instead of carpet. The man untied her hands and guided them to cool porcelain. “This is the toilet. You have thirty
seconds. Don’t take off the blindfold.”

That voice… she
knew
she recognized it. If she could just remember where she’d heard it before. But her brain
couldn’t seem to make the connection.

Footsteps moved across the tile, then Rae heard the door close.
Thirty seconds,
she thought, jerking herself into
action. She got her pants and underpants down-no farther than they had to go-and felt for the toilet seat and sat,
trying to keep her thighs apart even though her feet were tied together. Then nothing. Her bladder was aching, but
nothing.
They’re not watching,
Rae told herself. But she knew they were there-at least two of them-right on the other
side of the door. With guns. Waiting to tie her back up. Waiting to-Rae stretched out her hands to both sides. She fumbled around until she found the sink and then turned on the
water. It worked. She was able to pee. The second she was through, she struggled to her feetand yanked her
panties up. She was zipping up her pants when she heard the door open.

The man-same one, different one?-tied her hands again. Rae winced as the cords tightened over a raw spot on the
inside of her left wrist. “Okay, move,” the man said. It was the same guy as before-that familiar voice. Every time he
spoke she seemed to get closer and closer to placing it, but the answer still wouldn’t come. She knew it wasn’t
Aiden, and she was starting to feel certain that Aiden actually hadn’t been involved in this at all. The woman who’d
called her had said she was calling for Aiden, but she must have been lying. She’d known somehow about Rae
visiting the center and meeting Aiden, and she’d used that to lure Rae here. So whoever kidnapped her had done it
because she was at the Wilton Center, getting too close to something. But she’d been right about her sense that
Aiden wasn’t a threat-he was terrified himself, probably terrified of these very people.

“I said, move.” The man jerked her up by her arm and marched her back into the other room, where he sat her
down on the bed. Rae was hoping he’d leave off the cord between her hands and feet, but he didn’t. A little cry of
pain escaped her as her back was pulled into the bent-over position again.

“Now you’re going to make one more phone call,”the man told her. “Should have done it before I got you tied back
up. Tell me the number of your boyfriend.”

“What?” Rae asked, and the man cuffed the side of her head.

“Anthony. He’s been leaving messages for you. You’re going to tell him the same thing you told your dad. Nothing
else. Now, what’s his number?” the man asked.

Suddenly it hit her-with a force so strong she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long. The man’s voice was
giving her that same creepy chill in her spine that she’d felt very recently. It was the sensation she’d gotten standing
in front of her house talking to the meter reader who wasn’t really a meter reader.

Oh my god,
she realized, her heart racing. It was the same man-one of her kidnappers had already been that close
to her, talking to her in broad daylight. Was there something she could have done before now?

“Are you looking to get hurt here?” the man asked, a strong edge to his tone. “What is the number?
Now.
”

Rae swallowed, trying to slow her pulse, then recited the number in as calm a tone as possible. She heard the little
beeps as the man punched it in, thenshe felt the cell phone against her ear.
This could be your only chance,
she
thought.
You’ve got to find a way to-

“Hello?”

“Anthony? Hi, sweetie, it’s me.”
That should give him a clue right there,
Rae thought. Hoped. “Yana and I decided
to go to a concert tonight.”

“What the hell-” Anthony began.

Rae kept talking. She didn’t have much time. “Sorry I didn’t tell you. We’re going to be wiped, so we’ll crash before
we come back. It’s like that time Yana and I went to New Orleans-an impulse thing. But closer to home.”

The man pulled the phone away from her ear.
Did Anthony get it?
Rae wondered. Had she made it clear enough?

I should have known something was wrong,
Anthony thought. He ate one of his curly fries, and his stomach rolled
over. Anthony pushed the plate away.
I just assumed she blew me off to hang with Yana, but I should have known it

was something else. She’s the one who said we should go back and see Jackie again. It was her idea. I’m such a

freakin’ idiot.

He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Jesse rushing acrossthe Chick-fil-A toward him. “So what happened?” Jesse asked as he slid into the seat across from Anthony.

“I don’t know anything more than what I told you on the phone,” Anthony answered. “Have you talked to Rae at
group? Do you know if she’s-”

“She hasn’t told me anything,” Jesse interrupted. “Don’t you guys see each other at school all the time?”

“Not really. We don’t have classes or anything together,” Anthony answered.

“But if there was some big thing, she’d tell you,” Jesse insisted.

Would she? Things had been screwed up between them since he started at her school. They were starting to get
okay again when they went to see Jackie together, but-

“Well?” Jesse pressed, grabbing a few of Anthony’s fries.

“Eat them all,” Anthony told him. Just the smell was making him want to spew. “I think we should just focus on
what she said when she called me. She was trying to tell me something, but whatever it is, I didn’t get it.”

“Okay, tell me what she said again,” Jesse answered. He tore open a little packet of ketchup and squirted it on the
fries.
Like blood,
Anthony thought,his mouth getting all wet with that pre-puking feeling. He forced his gaze to
Jesse’s face.

“She said that she and Yana were going to a concert and that they’d be tired, so they were crashing before they
came home. And then she said it was like the time she and Yana had gone to New Orleans-an impulse thing. But
closer to home,” Anthony answered. “She called me sweetie, too, but I think that was just to let me know something
was wrong. I don’t think it was part of whatever she was trying to tell me about where she and Yana are.”

Jesse added more ketchup to the curly fries and started scarfing them. Anthony took a long swallow of his Sprite,
hoping it would keep his stomach under control. “Okay, so concert. Have you and Rae ever been to one? Or has
she talked about one she wanted to see or anything?”

“Rae and I haven’t really been talking much lately,” Anthony admitted. Jesse shot him a questioning look, but
Anthony didn’t say any more. He didn’t want to talk about the weirdness that had been going on between him and
Rae. He didn’t want to think about it. All he wanted was to get her back.

“She can’t have been trying to tell me she was in New Orleans,” Anthony said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have said
the closer-to-home part.” Crap. Ifhe was smarter, he’d already know where she was. What was-

“Okay, so closer to home. Does that mean Atlanta, you think? Like near her house? Or someplace near Atlanta?”

Jesse asked, chain eating the last few fries. “Maybe we should check out what bands are playing. Maybe one of the
band names will mean something.” Jesse leaned over to the empty table across from them and grabbed the
newspaper lying there.

Would Rae even know what bands were playing where? Anthony realized he didn’t have a clue. There was so
much he didn’t know about her. He’d spent all this time around her and-

“Okay, we got the Blake Babies at the Echo Lounge. Slash’s Snakepit at the Roxy. And Propagandhi, Fabulous
Disaster, and J Church at the different Masquerade levels,” Jesse said. “Those are the big places. Mean anything to
you?”

“Nothing.” Anthony scrubbed his forehead. He felt like tumors as big and hard as marbles were sprouting all over
in his brain. He was never smart, but now- “She could die because I can’t understand what she was trying to tell me.

”

“Slash’s Snakepit, Blake Babies, J Church, Fabulous Disaster, Propagandhi,” Jesse muttered. “Roxy, Echo,
Masquerade.” He took his finger andran it across the ketchup-smeared plate, then licked the ketchup off his finger.

“Doesn’t mean anything to me, either.” He moved his finger toward the plate again. Anthony snatched up the paper
plate and crumpled it. Jesse raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Anthony muttered. “Just-sorry.” He shoved his fingers into his hair and rubbed the top of his head. It
didn’t help. “The New Orleans part seems the most important. But the hell if I know what she meant.” Anthony
wanted to slam their table down to the floor or shove his fist into the face of one of the people happily chowing
down. He wanted to do anything. Anything but sit here while Rae was… while Rae was who knew where having
who knew what done to her.

“You guys went to New Orleans to talk to my dad,” Jesse reminded him.

“Yeah. Before you got here, I was thinking about that trip,” Anthony answered. “Thinking about it until my head felt
like it would explode. But nothing. We drove in. Got fake IDs. Went to this club called Hurricanes, where your dad
was bartending. And that’s it. Except we spent the night at the-” Anthony closed his eyes and groaned. “I am such a
moron. That’s it. We spent the night at a Motel 6. There are at least three of them in Atlanta. That could be whatshe
meant when she said they were crashing and that it was like the time in New Orleans.”

“So we need a phone book, then we’re on our way,” Jesse said.

Anthony was already on his feet.

Rae felt like she was floating in blackess, as if her whole world was the soft blackness of her blindfold. “I feel like
I’m about an inch above my body,” Yana said.

“Huh?” As soon as the word was out of her mouth, Rae realized she’d actually heard what Yana’d said. There’d
just been this weird time delay between hearing and understanding. “Me too,” she answered. “Like I’m hovering
right above myself.”

“Do you think they’re listening?” Yana asked. “Do you think we were right?”

“Maybe,” Rae said. It didn’t seem to matter much if they were right or wrong. Nothing seemed to matter much.

“Have you ever fallen asleep with youreyes open?” Rae answered her own question before Yana had the chance. “I
did once, at a slumber party. We were trying to stay up all night, and I didn’t want to be the first one to go to sleep.

But I did somehow, without even closing my eyes. When I woke up-I think it was only maybe a minute later-everyone
was staring at me like I was some kind of freak.”

“Nuh-uh. Never happened to me,” Yana answered. “But I never went to many slumber parties.”

Rae always forgot how different their lives had been… how different they still were, even though they were friends.

And if it weren ’t for me, Yana wouldn’t be here,
Rae thought with a fresh stab of guilt. Yet another person she cared
about that she’d managed to drag into danger.

“Are you scared?” Rae asked. “I know I should be scared-terrified-but I just feel all-”