The Edge of the Shadows (20 page)

THIRTY-EIGHT

W
hat the
Broad Valley Grow Skag
message meant didn't concern Becca as much as the fact that Ralph's handwriting was so changed and the other fact that he'd forgotten how he'd even gotten the message in the first place. She did find out that Broad Valley Grow
ers
was near a town called La Conner, which was itself situated in Skag
it
Valley, but when she got their phone number and tried to find out how they related to herself, to Parker Natalia, to Seth Darrow, or to Ralph, she came up empty. The place was a tulip farm and they had “no reason in hell that I c'n see, miss” to be calling Ralph Darrow's home on Whidbey Island.

Becca concluded that someone had been calling
about
Broad Valley Growers, and Jenn McDaniels was the most likely person. Jenn was, after all, hot on the trail of all things related to Aidan Martin and to Wolf Canyon Academy.

When Becca cornered her at her locker at the high school, though, Jenn said no. “Don't know nada about tulip farms anywhere” was how she put it. “But I got more on Aidan anyways, courtesy of the Squatman.”

Becca smiled. “How'd you twist his arm this time?”

Jenn shook her head. She opened her backpack to shove in some books and a pack of cigarettes fell out. She glanced up, saw Becca's look of disapproval, shoved the cigarettes back in place, and said, “I'm quitting, I'm quitting. I was only testing to see if you noticed.”

“Yeah. Right, Jenn. Way to go. What about Squat, then?”

“He found out when Aidan got to Whidbey.”

Becca brightened. “You actually got him to break into the district's computer system?”

“Not hardly. He wasn't going for it no matter what I tried and believe me I tried everything but taking my clothes off 'cause him and me aren't
ever
going there, let me tell you. Nope, he found out using the direct approach.”

“Which was?”

“He called their grandma and asked. I was sitting right there when he did it, and I swear that kid made
me
believe he was Mr. Vansandt checking on some dates of enrollment at the school and blah blah blah about how ‘the kids' like the island and all that. He talked so smooth that Mrs. Howard never said a thing except ‘Lemme just check my calendar for you' and that was that.”

“And?” Becca said.

“Aidan showed up three days before the first fire.” Jenn slammed her locker shut. “So we got him and we better turn him in before he decides to torch South Whidbey Commons. Do we tell the sheriff or the fire chief?”

It seemed like the logical next step, but Becca felt reluctant to take it. She was aware of something tugging at her. She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but she thought it had to do with the idea of quickening and what she'd read in
Seeing Beyond Sight
. So she said, “But that means he would've gotten to the island and set his first fire in less than a week. Why? If he was in a special school or a lockup or whatever because he set fires, they wouldn't've let him out if he wasn't cured.”

“So he convinced the shrinks there that he was cured. But he gets out and the fire itch gets to him and he has to scratch it and—
blam
!”

“But if he does that and he gets caught, he goes right back into Wolf Academy, doesn't he?”

“Maybe that's where he wants to be,” Jenn said. “I mean,
look
at Whidbey, Becca. He gets here and he feels like he's in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and he wants out and that's the fastest way. Only no one thinks at first that it's a pyro at work, so he has to keep upping the fires till someone figures it out. He wanted out of that school or whatever it is, and then he wanted back into that school.”

“Why would he want back
into
the school? It's a lockup.”

“Maybe there's some babe inside and she was putting out for him and he wants to go back because of her.”

Becca thought this didn't seem likely. Something was missing. She didn't know what it was but until she discovered it, she didn't want to pass on information that might prove to be false. She said to Jenn, “Lemme find out if this Broad Valley Growers message means something before we pass along any information, okay?”

Jenn said it was fine by her and then muttered, “Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.”

• • •

TROUBLE WAS AIDAN
Martin himself. He was skulking along the corridor, hugging the wall, skateboard under his arm. He was heading in a direction that would take him to the back of the school where the fire had been on the night of Seth's appearance with Triple Threat. That seemed long ago, but the danger associated with that fire still was out there waiting to be eliminated. With Aidan slinking toward the doors that led directly to the location of that disruptive fire, Becca and Jenn looked at each other and made a decision simultaneously.

Once outside, they kept their distance. Aidan headed in the direction of the forest, which covered the easy rise of acreage just beyond the athletic fields of the school. The rains of autumn having not yet begun, both of the girls knew this could mean trouble if Aidan Martin was truly a pyromaniac.

He passed across the athletic field and disappeared behind a huge cedar with drooping branches that hid him at once. Jenn and Becca broke into a run. Just beyond the cedar was a children's playground filled with woodchips that would catch fire nicely if Aidan had anything with him to help things along.

When they got to the cedar, though, he was nowhere in sight. Jenn said to Becca, “Where the hell . . . ?”

“You two looking for me?” was the answer that told them Aidan knew they'd been on his tail. They swung around. He spoke from next to a half-finished wooden chain-saw sculpture that was being fashioned by someone from the stump of a fallen Douglas fir, and as he talked he fixed his stare on Becca.

She caught
needs to be done to fix her good,
which pretty much chilled her to the bone. She immediately wanted to put some distance between Aidan and them, but she wasn't about to be intimidated by what was in the guy's head.

She walked over to him. So did Jenn. “What're you up to?” Jenn demanded.

He looked her over dismissively. His whisper of
she does girls so obvious
told Becca what he thought about Jenn. She wanted to counter with “As if that matters,” but instead she said, “Why're you heading out here?”

He said, “Why d'you want to know?” His gaze went to her breasts and then to her face. For once his whispers told her nothing. Jenn's were claiming that
pin this pig against the wall
was the best way to go, and she put that into action with, “Because of Wolf Canyon Academy, Aidan, and why you were there and what we know about you.”

What happened next was unexpected and, to Becca, completely unrelated. Aidan was suddenly replaced in her field of vision by an SUV at the side of a busy highway. She saw a group of people surrounding it. This meant nothing at first until from this group emerged a fireman in gear and another one with a baby in his arms and then a woman crying and all of a sudden a girl—little, maybe six years old?—who was white in the face and clutching a little blue blanket.

As the vision faded, what Becca said burst out of her without her control. “What happened to your little brother, Aidan? Did you burn him up, too?”

Jenn gawped at her. Aidan stared. And then he said the worst thing possible, directing every word of it to Becca. “Lots of people do ‘research,' you know.” He sketched quotation marks in the air. “You aren't the only one who c'n use the Internet. But in
your
case, Becca . . . ? You don't know jack.” Then he turned and sauntered off beneath the trees.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Jenn asked Becca as they watched him.

“It means he's just shooting off his mouth,” Becca lied. “In his position, we'd probably do the same thing.”

But what Becca knew from their encounter with the boy was pretty simple. Just as she could close in on Aidan Martin, so could Aidan Martin close in on her.

• • •

WHEN DERRIC PHONED
her that night, she thought at first that Jenn had told him about their run-in with Aidan because what he opened with was, “Becca, you're doing it again,” and his voice had that tone it sometimes got when he was trying to control his temper.

She said, “Doing what?” and added, “Hey, babe, are you off restriction?” in reference to his calling her at all.

He said, “I get phone time now. Twenty minutes a night because I've been a good boy and the shrink loves my ass for showing up on time once a week and lying my head off about how coming to the U.S. of A. has made my life complete. I got drunk once and it's no big deal, Doctor Mindpicker, sir. It isn't evidence of anything.” And then he added fiercely, “Because it frigging
isn't
.”

“Still pretty bad then, huh?” She wished he were there so she could see his face. But over the phone, she had only his voice to go by. And that was never enough when it came to Derric.

“Uh . . . yeah, it's pretty bad, Becca. And nice of you to make it all worse.”

“
What
?”

She was in the kitchen, where Ralph had called her to the phone. There was a message bulletin board on the wall above it, and on this she had tacked a picture of herself and Derric taken in the summer. They were on Double Bluff Beach among masses of driftwood. Derric leaned against an enormous log and she leaned against Derric, his arms around her and his chin resting on her shoulder. She remembered the day and the feeling of his arms. “I love you,” he'd murmured into her hair.

The memory was sweet and, caught up within it, she missed what he was saying until she heard one telling word.
Rejoice
.

She said, “What? Derric, what're you saying?”

“Christ, Becca, aren't you even listening?”

“I got distracted.”

“Great. Thanks. How 'bout
un
-distracting yourself?”

His tone was surly, but beneath it she could hear an element of fear. Sometimes, she knew, anger was an easier place to go to than acknowledging fear, so instead of being ticked off at him because of the tone, she said, “I'm listening now. What's going on?”

“What's going
on
,” he told her, “is Mr. Wagner. What's going
on
is Mr. Wagner telling me how cool and nice and
Christian
it was of me to set my girlfriend up with a pen pal in Uganda. What's going
on
is Mr. Wagner saying her name: Rejoice Nyombe. And the best part of what's going
on
is Mr. Wagner saying all this in front of my parents, Becca. So what the hell are you doing? I only ask, see, because I had to have a special session with Doctor Mindpicker and my mom
and
my dad and what I got to hear is that the orphanage is closed down now and no one knows for sure where the kids got sent but ‘really, it's nothing to worry about, Derric, so when we learn anything about Rejoice . . . Honey, is that what's been going on with you?'”

“Oh no,” Becca whispered. “Derric, I didn't think Mr. Wagner—”

“Yeah, that's it, Becca. You didn't think. And now aside from trying to hide how totally freaked out I am about what
might
be going on with Rejoice, I get to fend them off when they keep asking all about why her last name is Nyombe like mine was and ‘isn't that a coincidence and is she a relative that you've never mentioned and is that why you've written letters to her?' See, it's all about those letters, Becca. It's all about how you messed up my life when—”

“I'm only trying to help you.”

“That's what you still don't get. I don't need your help with this. I don't want your help with this. I don't know how many different ways I c'n come up with to tell you. Only . . . what difference does it make at this point because I'm well and truly screwed.”

“Why?”

“Because d'you
think
my mom is gonna let this go?
My
mom, the original delver-for-information?”

She said, “But don't you see how this is a good thing? Because if she can't rest till she has information when she's after information, then she's gonna find out what happened to Rejoice. And for God's sake, you
want
that, don't you? Or is this all about keeping yourself looking good in your parents' eyes? I mean, the hell with Rejoice, really, because Derric can't look bad, which is how he'll look if Mom and Dad find out he never told anyone some little girl was really his sister. Is that what this is?”

He was silent. Becca knew at once that she had gone way too far. She also knew that had they been in the room together where she could have seen his face and heard his whispers and—if she was lucky—pick up a memory vision from him, she would have been far more careful. But, she told herself, he'd pushed her into it. He was blaming her and she would
not
be blamed when all she had been trying to do from the very first was—

He swore, which he
never
did. He did it in a low hard voice. And then he said, “Nice going, Becca,” and he hung up on her.

He'd never done that before. She felt sick.

THIRTY-NINE

H
ayley was more or less grateful that her fingers had come upon Isis Martin's electronic cigarette that night in the tree house. Had she not come across it in the folds of Parker's sleeping bag, she knew that putting the brakes on what was happening between them would have been impossible. She'd been so hot for him that she could barely think at all, let alone think of what it meant that Isis's cigarette was in the tree house. Her mind was telling her that this was a detail she couldn't exactly overlook. But her body was saying who cares?

It didn't help in slowing things down when Parker removed her sweater and her bra. Less did it help that she'd wanted him to do so. Least of all did it help when he murmured, “This is not like
anything
I've ever felt before . . . Not like this . . .” and this at last gave her an opening.

She managed to gather herself together enough to say in a rush, “Parker, I can't. I'm not on the pill and I don't have condoms or anything.”

He moved away from her. He sat up on the edge of the cot and put his head in his hands. At first she thought he was ticked off, thinking that she was a tease or something, but then he said, “You're right. Your first time isn't going to be in here on this crummy cot, which would probably fall apart anyway.”

Her body was still clamoring, though. It wanted her to say, “Where then? And when, when, when?” But finally her mind managed to make itself heard. It told her that there were a couple of things she needed to know first, so that was when she brought the electronic cigarette out of the folds of the sleeping bag beneath her leg. She said to him innocently, “Gosh. What's this thing? It looks like a cigarette but it's made of . . . Take a look.”

She handed it over to him. She battled with herself because she needed to read him, but at the same time what she wanted to read was the inability to lie.

Parker took it in his hand. He said, “I don't know.”

She felt a little blow to her spirits. “I think Isis Martin has one of those.”

Not even a pause interrupted the flow because he said, “She does?” and he looked around the tree house and frowned as if Isis might jump out from behind the wood stove.

Hayley said, “Parker . . . are you and Isis . . . ? Has she been here with you?”

His head whipped around. “No way! First Isis and now you? She's never been here. Or at least she's never been here with me. I got no idea if she's been here on her own. It's not like I lock the door or anything.” And then he gazed deeply into her eyes and he let his gaze wander over the parts of her body that he'd helped her uncover. He went on with, “If you could feel what I feel when I look at you, the one thing you'd know is that I'm not into Isis Martin at all.”

Then he kissed her and she wanted him to kiss her and she wanted more. But he said, “Nope. We're not going there, Hayley,” and he helped her get back into her clothes.

She decided to believe him. She decided to trust him. Still, there was the matter of the electronic cigarette, so she held on to it, knowing she would have to do something with it eventually.

• • •

THE OPPORTUNITY AROSE
sooner than she expected, right in the parking lot of South Whidbey High School. Hayley pulled into a parking space near the tennis courts and before she had a chance to gather her school stuff from off the floor, the passenger door of the farm truck was flung open. Isis Martin climbed inside.

“I thought you'd
never
get here,” she cried. “Why're you so late? What's going on?
Why
don't you have a way that I can text you?”

Isis clutched a notebook to her chest and for a moment Hayley thought Isis had something inside that explained her state of desperation. But Isis didn't open it, merely clutched it more fiercely to her as her eyes fixed on Hayley's and she went on. “Brady called. Right when he got to school for swimming practice because
no
way could he call from home. And it's the absolute worst. He wants the ring.”

Hayley's thoughts were on Isis's electronic cigarette, so for a moment she had no clue. “Didn't you send it to him right when you bought it?”

“Not
that
ring,” Isis said. “His father's ring. He says his dad saw that he wasn't wearing it and he asked him why and did Brady lose it and can't he be trusted with anything and they had a big fight and Brady called me and he wants it back. But I think he's lying. I know he wants it for that skank Madison Ridgeway and that's
exactly
what I told him. So he said, ‘What happened, did you lose it or something? I need it back and I need it now.' Like everything's all about
him
, and if I don't do what he says he's going to come up here and I-don't-know-what.”

“But you want that, don't you?”

“What?”

“Brady. Coming up here.”

“Oh, he's not coming up here. Don't be an idiot. He just wants that ring and I don't have it and that's the point. I looked everywhere for it.”

“I thought you wore it all the time.”

“I
did
at first because I'm just that stupid but I took it off right after me and Parker . . . Oh, I don't even know for sure when I took it off.”

Hayley felt icy all at once. “When you and Parker what?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“You said you took the ring off when you and Parker . . . and you left off the rest. So I'm asking: when you and Parker what?”

Isis said, “What the hell? What does it matter? Geez, Hayley, this isn't
about
Parker. Don't you even get what's happening here? Brady wants that ring. If I don't get it back to him, he's—”

Hayley fished in her purse. She brought out the electronic cigarette. She opened her palm and showed it to Isis. “What's the deal with this?” she said. “You either left it there or you put it there, Isis.”

Isis stared at the device. Her gaze then went to Hayley's face. “Where?”

“You know exactly what I'm saying.” Haley's voice was firm.

“God, I do not believe this!” Isis cried, grabbing the cigarette. “Here I am coming to you for advice and all of a sudden it's all you, you, you. I thought we were
friends
, Hayley. But if you're so insecure that you're going to let some . . . some
Canadian
guy come between us . . . Don't you see what's going on in my life right now, or do you just not care because oh-my-God, Isis might have done it with Parker?”

“Have you been to the tree house with him?”

“Like that's even
important
right now? Brady wasn't s'posed to give that ring to anyone. It's not his, it's his dad's. Only he gave it to me and
don't
you see? I took it off and now it's gone. Can I spell it out any better for you? For all I know, my stupid brother took it and sold it so I can't send it back to Brady and Brady will
never
get back together with me now. And by the way, great, on top of everything, I've just found out that you're so self-involved that I can't even depend on you to help me out. And why? Because I'm doing Parker . . . like that's even important. Hey, why don't you tell the sheriff I'm the person who set the fires, Hayley? Yeah, go ahead and do it. I might as well die because everything in my life turns to shit anyway.”

She leaped out of the truck on her final words, and she crashed its door shut behind her.