The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die (15 page)

“That kills the virus,” Ty says. “I've read about killed virus vaccines. Killed virus can't cause an infection but it will still kick the immune system into gear if someone is vaccinated with it.”

Liz nods. “That's right. Janie was so excited when it looked like the vaccine might be successful. Then she and Patrick began to suspect what Z-Biotech was planning on doing with it. But they needed proof. If they made accusations that turned out to be wrong, their careers would be over. And without proof, Z-Biotech could just destroy the evidence. So they started secretly taking photos and going through files.” My aunt's voice gets an edge. “I told Janie it wasn't safe. But you know your mother—she's stubborn. She said they were covering their tracks. But someone at Z-Biotech must have realized what they were doing.”

“But what's happened to them since they called you?” It's hard for me to get the words out. “The radio said they found human remains in our family's cabin.”

Liz leans forward and squeezes my hand. This time I don't pull away. “Oh, Cady, did you think it was them? That story was probably planted by Z-Biotech. Yesterday morning your parents went to work and got caught getting the last piece of evidence they needed. They took Max and left. They tried to warn you, but couldn't get in touch. So they left a bizarre message at your school to let you know something was wrong. And then they called and asked me to help you.

“But by the time I heard your mom's message, those two men had already grabbed you. Beaten you up. Searched your house. They wanted to know where the evidence or your parents were, but you said you didn't know.” Her eyes search mine. “But now that you know what really happened, are you starting to remember?” She lets go of my hand.

“Maybe.”

“Z-Biotech is not only looking for the evidence your parents took but for something else. Your parents are the only ones who have ever been successful in making a hantavirus vaccine. But they used some trick, some formula to make it work, and they told me they planned to take that with them. It's only in their heads, not on paper.”

The pressure in my temple eases a little bit. “So now Z-Biotech won't be able to sell the virus and the vaccine to the highest bidder?”

“They still have a batch of vaccine in production, plus a little that was left over from the earlier testing. But that's it, unless Z-Biotech can find the formula. That must be why they searched the cabin, in case your parents had hidden anything there. But they found nothing, and you seemed to know nothing. So they decided to kill you. To them, you were as disposable as a piece of Kleenex.”

Ty shakes his head and makes a wordless sound of protest.

“After you escaped, they knew they had to start spreading lies about you. That way, if you went to the police, they wouldn't believe a word you say.” Her eyes never waver from my face. “But the thing is, Cady, I think you really do know something. I think your mind shut down to prevent you from telling those men. I think you know where your parents are or where they hid the information.”

“I don't though.” The throbbing in my temple is worse. “Or if I did, it's all gone. Some of what you said does sound familiar, but I can't remember any more than that.”

“Please, Cady, you're the only chance we have to find my sister. To find your family. Janie and Patrick must be holed up someplace, not sure whom they can trust. I know people who could help them. But that can't happen unless we find them or unless we can find evidence that proves what Z-Biotech is doing. And we can't let the company get to them or that information first.”

“But I don't know anything.” If only my head didn't hurt so much! My thoughts are muddled and slow. Everything my aunt says has set off echoes in me, but they're so faint and fleeting I can't grab hold of a single thought.

She stands up. I tilt my head to look at her. It feels like a stainless steel spike is being driven through my temple. “You know how I know you know something?”

“How?” I look past her at the fluffy white bed. If only I could climb under the covers and pull the pillows over my head. Block out the light, go to sleep, and forget the pain in my body and my mind.

“Because your parents prepared you. Look at how you knew how to disable this man, this Michael Brenner. The typical sixteen-year-old girl wouldn't know kung fu or karate or whatever you used.”

“That just came out of nowhere,” I say. It's still horrifying to think I killed a man. Killed him like I was on autopilot. “I didn't even know I knew how to do that until suddenly I was doing it.”

“The same thing might happen with your mind. Maybe if you can get in the right space for it, you'll remember whatever it was they so desperately wanted to know.” Liz nods, as if she has made a decision. “We should go to your house. Once you're in a familiar environment, things could come back to you.”

“But seeing you didn't help,” I point out. “It didn't change anything.”

She frowns. “Yes, but it's not like we saw each other in person more than once every year or two. Being back in your house, the place where you lived with your family, the place where these men captured you—that could jog your memory. Maybe you'd even figure out where your parents might hide something.”

Ty says, “But you said Z-Biotech already questioned Cady, and she didn't know anything then.”

“But she was determined not to answer because she wanted to protect them. So determined she managed to lock everything away. I don't think Cady threw away the key. It's like Tyler said, Cady.” She points at my head. “It's all still in there, someplace.”

“Yeah, well, speaking of keys, I don't even have a key to my house.” I think Liz is wrong. I think my memories are gone forever.

From the pocket of her jeans, she produces a silver house key. “I have one from when I house-sat for you while your family went on vacation in Hawaii.” But after Ty gets to his feet, she says, “You should probably stay here, Ty. If anyone catches us, we could all end up in jail. Cady is a suspect in her parents' disappearance. At a minimum, you would be charged with aiding and abetting.”

“I've come this far.” Ty sets his jaw. I haven't even known him for a full day, but looking at his expression I know he won't be dissuaded. “I'm not leaving Cady, not now.”

“But you're the one who stole the car in Bend,” Liz points out. “That's a felony.”

He walks over to me and puts his hand under my elbow. “That doesn't matter. I'm not leaving Cady.”

 

CHAPTER 32

DAY 2, 6:21 P.M.

 

Liz's car, a sleek dark blue Avalon, is parked not far from where we left the Subaru. I sit in front with my hood pulled up. Ty sits behind me.

At first, I try to recognize landmarks, the signs and buildings and businesses in the center of the city, even though I hadn't when we first drove into town. I rest my forehead against the cool glass and ignore my pounding head. Everyone is quiet, and the radio isn't on, so I don't have to worry about hearing my name. The sole sound in the car is the
swish-swish
of the wipers.

It's only after I give up, after Liz turns the car in to a neighborhood of older two-story houses with porches and yards and the occasional basketball hoop that something begins to stir in the back of my mind.

Am I imagining it, or do things look familiar? Or maybe every city has a neighborhood that looks like this. My index finger is pressed into my temple, providing a counterpoint to the pain inside.

Lost in my own thoughts, I'm startled when Liz pulls over and parks. “Your house is just up the block,” she says. “We'll go in the back. Quickly, in case one of the neighbors thinks you really are some sociopathic killer.” She surveys the empty street before she gets out of the car. The rain is now coming down hard enough to discourage anyone from being outside.

We run through the downpour toward a two-story green house with solar panels on the roof. The house sits silent and dark. Yellow crime scene tape crosses the front door. Three brick steps lead to the porch. On the top one, a pumpkin sits to one side, grinning.

Wait. That pumpkin. I know there's a fat white candle inside of it, surrounded by a puddle of blackened wax. Or
do
I know that? Am I just imagining it? And if there really is a candle, what does that prove? It would be easy enough to guess. We dart around the side of the house, past a white-curtained window, then two panes set higher, as if over a sink, each with a window box full of herbs. The herbs are being bruised by the rain, and their green scent hangs in the air.

Liz puts her key into the lock of the back door, also crisscrossed by crime scene tape. Ty touches my arm, and I jump. Does anything seem familiar? I feel like I'm seeing double, what's here now layered over a fainter image of what used to be. Liz pushes the door open, and we duck under the crime scene tape. We're in the kitchen, but it's been trashed.

A piece of pink paper pinned on the refrigerator catches my eye. I know I've seen it before. That it was important to me. I walk over to it, my feet crunching over cereal, flour, coffee grounds, and shards of broken glass.

“Cady?” Ty says. I don't turn around.

It's a poster. In the middle is a photo of a stack of mattresses. Standing next to the stack is a guy dressed like a king, wearing a silver crown and a long robe with black-spotted white fur cuffs and collar. On top of the mattresses sits a girl, cross-legged. She's leaning over to rest her chin on the top of the king's head. She's got a crown, too, but it looks cartoonish, and her hair is divided into two very nonroyal pigtails. Across the top it says, “Wilson High Presents:
Once Upon a Mattress
.”

The girl is me.

I'm an actress.

Don't act. Be.

And now I can put a face with those words that have been echoing in my head for the past two days. In my memory, I see a middle-aged man with a clipboard sitting in an otherwise empty auditorium, looking up at me on a stage. I can't remember anything else he said, or whether I was alone or not. But I remember how his words resonated.

My head hurts so much I have to close my left eye. I turn in a circle, looking at the rest of the house without seeing it, not the drawers emptied and thrown on the floor, not the ripped-up carpet, the scattered papers, the sliced upholstery.

“What is it, Cady?” Liz asks eagerly. “Are you remembering something?”

“I'm not sure.”

She steps closer and grips my wrist. “What do you think those men wanted? What did they think you knew?”

I feel like I'm going to fly apart. “I don't know.”

“Do you think your parents could have hidden the information here in the house? If we can find it, we would have a bargaining chip to get Z-Biotech to leave them alone. There must be something you know. A hiding place where they might keep a safe-deposit box key or a flash drive. I know your parents told you something, Cady, but until you tell me what it was we can't help them.”

Without answering Liz, I shake my head and pull my wrist away. It's all up to me, and I'm failing. My stupid brain won't cough up part of an answer. Won't even hint. Where would my parents go? Where would they hide something?

“Well, where do you think they are?” Liz's face is only inches from mine. “Did they leave you a phone number? A code word? Is there a friend they might have gone to? We can't help them if we can't find them.”

I press my fingers against my temple so hard I'm sure I'm leaving bruises. In my mind's eye, I see more flickers of memories. A little boy blowing out birthday candles. The man who is my father pointing at something, his face serious. The woman from the photo in my backpack standing over this very stove, holding out a wooden spoon for me to taste.

“I don't know,” I say. “I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.”

“Come on, Cady,” she urges. “Surely you remember something.”

I'm so overwhelmed by the mingling of past and present that it takes me a long moment to answer her. “No.” I need to explain that it's all still like a dream or a nightmare, bits and pieces that don't make any sense. I'm opening my mouth when her face tightens.

“All right,” she says firmly, and she steps back and pulls a gun from her purse. Ty lets out a gasp. “If you're going to be like that.” Not taking her eyes off us, she calls out, “Michael?”

And Michael Brenner, the man I killed, steps in from the hall.

I cry out and put my hands over my eyes as my memories come flooding back.

 

CHAPTER 33

EIGHT WEEKS AGO

 

I was supposed to be doing homework when my dad knocked on the door of my room. “Okay if I come in?”

I clicked off the YouTube video I had been watching on my laptop and back onto the screen with my English essay. “Sure.”

But when he pushed open the door, my mom was standing in the hall behind him. What was up? They seldom came into my room together, unless I was in really big trouble. Last May, when I had skipped school and taken off to the coast for the day with some friends, they had talked to me at the same time. Or talked
at
me. But what had I done lately that would cause them to look so serious?

My dad took a deep breath. “Your mother and I have been around and around about this.” They exchanged a glance I couldn't read. “But we have to tell you at some point, and you're old enough to know.”

A door closed in my head. Closed tight. Part of me had been wondering and worrying that this day was coming. Lately, it had been so obvious that something was wrong at our house. The closed doors, the muffled arguments, the conversations that turned into whispers or were dropped altogether when I came into a room. So which one would I end up living with? Would I have to move?