The Stranger Inside (37 page)

I looked away, not wanting to see.

The room was quiet now. The howlings instantly gone. Maybe now that Mr. Daniels was gone, the evil was gone as well. Maybe.

I hovered at the door, clinging to it. But I needed Mr. Daniels’ keys. Needed to get out of here
now
.

But his body. It was only half there. I couldn’t go over to it. Couldn’t look. I sank to my knees. Sat, stunned. I was trapped. I could hear the band calling through the door. They sounded frantic. I texted Sawyer. “Mr. Daniels is dead.” Then I added something, praying Sawyer would understand its meaning. “I hope he had life insurance. So Mrs. Daniels can get some money for his death. Lots of money.”

Then I crawled to Mr. Daniels’s desk, praying his keys were there and not in his pants pockets. Thank goodness the keys were in the first drawer I checked. Wobbling, I unlocked my cage with unsteady hands. Jeremy immediately burst through the door. He grabbed me, hugged me so tight for an instant the world receded. There was just Jeremy’s racing heart. I buried my face in his strong chest, his hands tangling in my hair. I could feel his heart pounding.

“Jeez, Jodi, I thought you were going to die. Why’d you do that, idiot?” He held me tighter still. “If you would have died. Jodi … I’d die.”

My heart burst from his words, from his embrace. Even with all of the horror around me, all of the horror that happened, still I wanted to hold on to this moment. This single, tiny moment. Hold it tight. Forever.

I pressed my face against his chest.

He stroked my hair, kissed my head. “Listen, go wait in the hall. I’m going to … clean up the mess.”

I swallowed, tugging on his arm with one hand and clutching my stomach with the other. “No. Let’s just go.”

“We can’t,” Sawyer said. “The police will be coming. Your prints are on the gun. We’ll just throw it into the vat—we’ll throw everything in there.”

I slid against the wall, to the floor, and pulled my knees up to my chest, pretty sure I knew what “everything” meant. It meant the rest of Mr. Daniels’ body.

I sat silent with my head against my knees until Zack came out of the classroom about twenty minutes later. He had Mr. Daniels’ laptop with him.

“Look what I found,” he whispered, sitting beside me on the floor.

He hit play and it was a web-video from Mrs. Daniels to her husband. “I’ve had enough Todd,” she said, her eyes red and puffy from crying. “I’ve known about all your little romances. Affair after affair. I’ve put up with them—for the children’s sake. But now you’ve moved on to teenage girls? That’s too much. I should have put an end to this shamble of marriage in the beginning—with your first affair. That’s right I knew about the first one—I knew you were obsessed with Ann Green.”

Sawyer’s eyes bugged. “My mom?”

He had just come out of the classroom—just heard the very last of the video. Now he was practically on top of the computer, trying to replay Mrs. Daniels’ message.

But suddenly, I got it. What all of Mrs. Daniels’s scowling at Sawyer was about. Seeing Sawyer must have always brought up bitter memories for her.

Mrs. Daniels’s video went on. “I know what you did Todd. I thought Ann Green went off with another man all those years ago. But I found the pictures that girl had. I know what you did to Ann, Todd.”

The video ended.

 Sawyer stopped breathing.

We all knew what Mrs. Daniels was speculating. But no one mentioned that aloud. No one said anything.

Sawyer was silent, staring at Mrs. Daniels’s image still on the screen. He looked shocked. And disbelieving.

He looked so sad and lost. It broke my heart. I got up and put my arms around him, held him tight. “Thanks Jodi,” he murmured. “But we found something.” He showed me some sort of tiny microchip or something.

I could tell he wanted to detach his mind from the thing about his mom, concentrate on this. “What is it?” I asked.

Sawyer gave me an intense look, like whatever he was going to say was critically important. “This is a bug,” he said. “The police obviously suspected Mr. Daniels of Lindsey’s murder.”

“There’s probably more in there,” Zack said. “I found another. These little tiny things, they have video and audio.” He flicked me a look. “The police saw what you did, Kenzie. They saw you shoot Mr. Daniels.”

I could
feel
Kenzie tense up. She was buying it—the crazy lie they were concocting—micro-chip bugs.

“It was self defense—he had a knife. The gun just went off,” she shrieked.

Zack shrugged. “That’s not the way it will look on the video.”

Kenzie clutched Jeremy. “I can’t go to prison. I can’t.” She sobbed. “We’re going to have to run away. You have to come. Promise you’ll come.”

CHAPTER 44

The guys were talking about running, heading to Canada or something.

“No way,” Kenzie said. “What will we do for money?”

Sawyer shrugged. “We can get jobs. It’s better than going to prison, right?”

Kenzie shook her. My head. Now we seemed to share control of my body—almost equal. “No. No way. I’ve been poor before—been poor all my
life
. Not again. Find those bugs, smash them and forget this ever happened.”

“We can’t find them all,” Zack said. “We don’t even know how many to look for.”

“Well, then figure something else out,” she said. “We can claim self-defense.”

Sawyer looked at her incredulously. “Kenzie, the guy already dropped his gun—you had it. You shot him about a hundred times—in cold blood. How can you claim self-defense?”

Kenzie was silent, even though that’s not the way it happened. She had been scared. She thought he was going to throw the knife at us.

Sawyer bit his lip, giving me a meaningful look—but trying to appear hesitant. “Okay I have a different plan.” He sighed and pulled a note out of his pocket, handing it to me. “If you want to do this … I guess we can. I mean, unless you have a different idea. I’m totally open to suggestions.”

That did
not
sound like Sawyer. He always had a plan. Always. And open to suggestions? No way. I looked up at him searchingly. What did he have up his sleeve? Finally, I gazed down at the paper.

The note was from Grey. To me. It was a printed-out email message. I stared at it, confused. “Where did you get this? When did it come?”

“A few days ago,” he said, “While you were asleep after being Kenzie. I deleted it though, off your computer.” Sawyer looked contrite. “Because I didn’t want you to run off —back to your life in New York—back to Grey.”

I stared at him, then read the message out loud so Kenzie could hear. It didn’t sound like Grey, not at all. But Kenzie wouldn’t know that. All she would get out of the message was we were leaving the prospect of being poor behind.

Jodi right before your dad died—when he couldn’t find you—he gave me a lot of money—a LOT of money. He said for me to keep it a few months before giving it to you. Well, it’s been a few months. (It feels like years.) And I really, really want to see you. Please come to New York. Come to get your money. Come to me. Please. I miss you.

Kenzie’s voice came out of my mouth, “Boys, we’re going to New York.”

***

Out in the school parking lot sat Hanna, apparently waiting for us.

“How’d she know we were here?” Zack whispered in amazement.

Sawyer gave a slight grin. “Hanna knows things.”

She stood when she saw us coming, met Sawyer halfway. Her eyes were on him, adoring-like. “I know you’re in a hurry,” she said. “I know that. And you don’t have much time. But I have a message for you from Lindsey,” her eyes gleamed, “and your mother.”

CHAPTER 45

The wind seemed knocked out of Sawyer. He tilted his head. “My mom? You talked to my mom?”

Hanna nodded, her eyes still gleaming with adoration, but other stuff too. Like happiness and excitement. Obviously, her experience with Sawyer’s dead mom went way better than her experience with my dead dad.

Sawyer looked dazed. He let out a breath, like he was trying to keep away his emotions. “What did she say?”

Hanna paused. “Maybe I should tell you what Lindsey said first. She wanted me to tell you that she was having an affair with Mr. Daniels. That’s how she found the pictures he kept in his basement. Those pictures were what she was going to tell you about—that your mom had had an affair with Mr. Daniels before running off.” Hanna’s eyes looked sorrowful. Slowly, she went on, “But then, later, she found the
other
pictures—gory pictures. Pictures proving Mr. Daniels killed your mom. Lindsey was going to blackmail Mr. Daniels.”

Hanna seemed unable to go on. But finally, she did. “That’s why everyone assumed your mother ran away. Because Mr. Daniels disintegrated her body. There was no trace of her.”

Sawyer shook his head, looking confused. “But she left me a note.”

Sorrowfully, Hanna shook her head. “Not that note. She cried all over that note. So, she started over.”

“But—was she going to run away with Mr. Daniels?”

Hanna shook her head. “He made it look that way. He came into your house while you were sleeping that night—after he killed your mom. He packed her suitcase, grabbed her passport, and changed the note.” Hanna stared into Sawyer’s eyes, radiating wonder. “I can feel your mom here. Do you want to talk to her?”

Sawyer’s eyes popped open. “She’s here?” He made a gasping sound. “Yeah. I want to talk to her.”

Hanna was silent a moment. She tilted her head, seemed to be listening. “She says she wrote the note only to explain that she had to go out that evening—just in case you woke up during the night while she was away, so you would know she’d be right back and you wouldn’t be afraid.”

Hanna reached out to Sawyer, sort of like she was his mom, like his mom was inside her. “Sawyer, I didn’t mean to leave you.” Hanna’s voice was suddenly older, more mature—like a middle-aged woman’s. She hugged Sawyer tight. “I chose you, Sawyer. I chose
you
.”

Immediately, Hanna was back to herself. She stepped away from Sawyer, blushing a little. “It’s me—she’s gone.”

“Oh.” Sawyer swallowed, holding back whatever he was feeling—but I knew it was a tangled jumble of confusing emotions. It had to be. I was tempted to go to him, put my arms around him. But I didn’t. Instead, I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

Then I turned to Hanna.

She looked worn out, but not scared. In fact, totally peaceful. I couldn’t help staring at her in amazement. “You’re not afraid of me—of Ethan showing up?”

That seemed sort of promising.

But then she said, “No, I
wasn’t
. I called on the good spirits. Evil spirits run scared of good spirits, can’t be near them. But the good spirits are gone now, and yours are still bad. So I’m out of here.” She glanced back to Sawyer, her eyes still filled with adoration. She gave him a little wave. “Good luck Sawyer.”

“Thanks Hanna.” He smiled at her, kind of adoring-like too.

Yeah, first love, it messes with your heart. And communicating with your dead mom—I bet that does something too.

Hanna started to scurry away, but then turned back at a distance, looking grim, alarmed. Seeing her tortured expression filled my heart with full-on dread. What did she see?

“Jodi, remember—evil draws to evil.” She added ominously, “And watch out for the shadows.” She said it again, looking haunted. “Jodi … watch out.”

CHAPTER 46

As we were buying our tickets at the airport Zack said, “You guys can take off without me.” He gave me a weak smile. “I think I’ll sleep better with Kenzie and me in different states.”

I pursed my lips, going to blurt out a protest, but what could I say? I stayed silent and Zack eyed Sawyer and Jeremy wearily. “I guess the band’s breaking up. Take care.”

Zack saw my troubled expression and gave me a sad smile. “Sorry your ghost wants me dead.” Then he added softly, “I hope you don’t—at least not much.” He stood closer. “Don’t be scared Jodi, but I’m going to hug you.”

He pressed me to him really quick, then let me go and teased, “Don’t get all mushy, Jodi. See ya.” Then he added whimsically, “Or not.”

He started to walk away, but turned back to us. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got a text from Micah. When I told him what was going on, he said he’d text Trista and let her know. She lives out there, pretty close by, and she’ll want to help. He said to give her a call when you get there.”

I was surprised to hear about Trista. Shocked really, to think I might see her again. I opened my mouth to grill Zack about it—how to get a hold of her, but then I saw them—the shadows. They were scurrying along the back walls. Hunting. Searching. Coming.

I backed away in horror.

 “Let’s go. Now,” I said to Sawyer, grabbing his and Jeremy’s arm. “Hurry!”

CHAPTER 47

“We’re going to take the money and leave—with Jeremy.” The voice was in my head. It was Kenzie. “No Grey, no Sawyer, no Clutch.” She went on talking. “How much money do you think there is? Your dad was rich, right? A surgeon. And Grey said it was a LOT of money …”

Kenzie went on, talking non-stop through the whole flight, thrilled apparently, with the way everything turned out. It seemed she was getting exactly what she wanted—money, my body, Jeremy. She was gushing with excitement. It didn’t seem to faze her, not at all, that she’d caused Lindsay to fall to her death or that “incriminating bugs” would soon be in the possession of the Washington State Police. She seemed to have no conscience. And it was very possible that if this plan didn’t go exactly right—which let’s face it, it probably wouldn’t—she was going to be part of my life forever. It sucked.

I kept having flashes of anxiety, mixed-up with flashes of excitement and hope. I couldn’t sit still. Edgy, I glanced out the window, then at Sawyer. “What’s that?”