The Vanishing Game (25 page)

I made it through the glass doors of the care center and outside, where I sucked in great gulps of air. Running across the lawn, I found my way to a bench beneath a tree and sank down. What I'd just learned clicked into place more
neatly than any puzzle piece Jack had left so far. For the first time I finally understood so much about the young vampire boy who had intrigued and bewildered me. Everything he had done at Seale House now made sense.

I looked up. Noah was walking across the lawn.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I asked.

He sat down on the bench in a way that said he felt defeated. “Most of the time she doesn't remember who I am. I just didn't count on that nurse saying something.”

“That's not what I mean. All the hours we spent together as kids and you never said a word!”

“Why would I tell you Hazel was my mother, when you both hated her? I wasn't stupid.”

“Jack and I always just assumed you came to Seale House like the rest of us, but you didn't! Those photographs of the little boy and the baby she was holding—were those you?”

“Yes.”

I searched his face to find a resemblance to the pictures I'd seen. It was slight. “A couple of nights ago, why did you lie when I asked how you ended up at Seale House?”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, interweaving his fingers. “I didn't lie. I told you my mother was a drug addict who got pregnant from her dealer and never really wanted me.”

“But she's so old.”

“Yeah, so? She was in her forties when it happened, and too stoned to do anything about it until it was too late. I don't know why I wasn't born damaged or brain-dead.”

“How'd she get Seale House?”

“She grew up there. Her mother died when she was little and her father raised her. He was mean. She may have seemed strong-willed, but she was always weak and scared … trapped, I guess. She took care of the nasty old guy for years until he died. Using drugs was how she dealt with him.”

“So? Who didn't have a hard life? At least she had a home. Besides, when I was telling you about Melody's past, you said you didn't have any sympathy for people who blame their rotten behavior on a bad childhood.”

He sat up and looked at me with those fathomless brown eyes. “I'm not making excuses for her, Jocelyn. I'm just explaining.”

“How did she end up taking in foster kids?”

“I was about seven. Her inheritance money had gone up in smoke, literally. All she had left was the house. It was such a big place that someone suggested she use it for foster care.”

“That was a happy day.”

“Wasn't it?”

“All this time I thought you were being a hero. Standing up to her for us and acting so brave. But you were really just her errand boy.”

He looked away. “That's not fair, Jocelyn. I was a kid trying to get by, like the rest of you.”

I recalled that first night when Noah had come down into the cellar to tell Jack and me where the blankets and flashlight were. Jack and I believed he was just another
foster kid who'd learned how to survive in the system. We didn't realize how much more there was to his story.

“I guess you're right. It must've been hard doing that constant balancing act of keeping everyone in line. You took care of her and ran the house too.”

“The worst part was seeing how all of you hated her. I was afraid you'd hate me too, if you found out. When I was little, Hazel and I learned the hard way what it was like. The first foster kids beat me up to get back at her. So after we got a new batch of kids, she decided to make it look like I was just another boy in the house. I didn't have my own room, and I called her Hazel the way everyone else did. No one knew I was her son since we didn't look alike. And she'd given me her mother's maiden name, Collier, as a middle name. That's when I became Noah Collier.”

“How did that make you feel, having Hazel deny you were her kid?”

“It was a survival tactic, that's all.”

“Come on, Noah. I was raised by a mother who didn't want to be bothered, either. Remember?”

He took a while to answer. “I sometimes wondered how it'd be if she just let me be her son. I hoped maybe then she might start to care about me, the way real moms do. But even after all the foster kids went away, she stayed the same.”

His unhappy expression reminded me of the times in my own life when I'd secretly hoped Melody would someday love me the way she loved Jack. Those kinds of desperate dreams were always the wish of unwanted kids.

“What happened to Hazel that she ended up like this?”

“A bad stroke a couple of years ago. Then the Alzheimer's, and she really started going downhill. All her past drug use didn't help, either.”

“She's the reason you didn't move out of Watertown,” I said with sudden understanding. “How can you be loyal to her when she was such a terrible mother?”

“Guess I'm just a sucker that way. After all, I'm still hanging out with you in spite of what you did.”

He stood, looking down at me with an expression I couldn't decipher. “So are we done talking about all this crap? We need to figure out why Jack had us come here.”

It started to sprinkle, sweetening the smell of the humid air. The last thing I wanted to do was see Hazel again. Why had I been so determined to find her in the first place? There were too many unresolved feelings churning inside me, but I also knew that until I found Jack, most of them needed to be shelved. When I did finally see my brother, he'd have some hard questions to answer about bringing us here.

“Okay,” I said at last, standing.

We walked back to the building, and I steeled myself to face the old woman again.

Hazel had moved from the wheelchair to an overstuffed chair in front of the television, where she hunched forward with her fingers clutching the remote control. The sound on the TV was low. Her eyes were riveted as she shot through the channels, a blur of soap operas, game shows, and infomercials.

Noah pulled up the other chair and reached for the remote, which she snatched away. “Hazel,” he said in a gentle voice, “how about turning that off so we can talk?”

She shook her head, jiggling that cap of stone-gray hair, eyes still glued to the passing channels. Despite her age and mental deterioration, I still had the strongest urge to smack her. Instead, I said, “Can't you for once in your life try to be nice to Noah?”

Her eyes flicked to me. “You're that bad girl! You locked the door, didn't you?”

I refused to back down, instead staring at her with cold dislike.

“Why don't you let me handle this?” Noah said.

He indicated with a glance that I should start searching the room. I moved out of Hazel's line of sight, and her eyes slid back to the TV screen. Noah tried again. “Hazel, do you remember my friend Jack?”

She didn't answer.

“Did Jack come visit you?”

“Jack in the Box value meal,” Hazel said, stopping on an ad for fast food.

“Remember how Jack was really smart? He always got good grades in school and helped me shovel the sidewalk. We made those chocolate chip cookies you liked.”

No answer.

While Noah patiently tried to prod her memory, I looked around the room. I started with the small corkboard, which had a few papers and a card tacked on it. None of these were clues, and the birthday card was from her insurance agent. Hazel wasn't exactly one of those nice old ladies who got any sort of attention from people other than the paid care center workers.

I again glanced at the photos and took in the details of Noah as an infant and toddler. It touched me with a strange melancholy. I felt irritated with Jack, since I would have been happy to live my entire life without knowing the truth about Hazel and Noah.

After scanning the knickknacks on the shelves and
dresser, I quietly opened one of the drawers. Searching through Hazel's personal items was unpleasant, but since Noah was making no headway with his questions, I kept going. There was nothing much in the first two drawers. Opening the third, I looked under several pairs of old-lady slacks. In the very back of the drawer I found a narrow black leather box. I opened the lid. Inside, embedded in a foam liner, was a polished steel knife with some red paper wrapped around the handle.

“Thief!” Hazel shouted in such a familiar way that I jumped. Turning, I saw her staring at me with angry eyes. “Get out of there!”

“Calm down, Hazel,” Noah said. “I'll take care of it.”

She threw the remote at me. I ducked as it whizzed past and smacked into the wall. It clattered to the floor and the back came off, batteries scattering.

Noah grabbed her wrist and shut off the noisy TV. “That's not nice! If you can't be nice, then I'm going to tell the nurses you can't have your medication tonight.”

Hazel sank back, sullen. “But she's digging in my drawer and she's going to take my pants.”

“No, she's too tall to wear your pants.” He looked at me as I closed the leather case and hid it behind my back. “Are you going to wear her pants?” I shook my head and he turned back to Hazel. “There, you see? She's leaving your pants right where they were.”

Hazel's face all but folded in with a teary expression. “Now my TV is broken.”

Noah went and gathered up the remote and its batteries, putting everything back together. “There,” he said, handing it to her. She turned on the television, starting to channel surf even before the picture came on.

He glanced at me and I nodded, slipping around the side of the bed and heading to the door. Noah started to follow when Hazel's hand shot out. Her fingers grabbed his wrist and they looked at each other. “I did it all for you, Noah. I did everything for you.” Her voice wasn't feeble or whiny anymore, and her gaze was clear as she stared up at him.

“I know,” he said in a quiet voice.

A few seconds later she returned her attention to the TV and began clicking the remote so fast that the images and sound became a garbled blur. We left her room.

Outside, the pavement was soaked from a brief rain burst, though the sun was now peeking out. I felt unsettled, not only because of what I'd learned about Hazel and Noah, but also because of seeing her as such a helpless person. During my time at Seale House she'd been an enemy I'd come to hate, and the passing years had only increased my loathing for her. Now that Hazel was such a pitiful wreck, some of the energy went out of my resentment. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. In a way it was deflating, like in the final
Star Wars
trilogy scene when Darth Vader's mask was removed and he was just this old guy who didn't look even a little dangerous.

Once inside the car, I opened the narrow case. I took
out the knife and unwound three strips of red paper from around the handle.

“Hazel's never owned anything like that,” Noah said. “Jack must've put it there.”

“I agree. Besides, it has these clues, so we know it's from him. Which means he was in Hazel's room not that long ago.”

“Either she was asleep or she doesn't remember seeing him.”

“Or she didn't want to tell us. Look at these strips of paper.”

Noah and I studied them. The first was covered with printed letters, the second with a series of Roman numerals. The third was blank.

“That one looks like simple substitution cipher,” he said.

I examined the groupings of letters. “You're right. There are a lot of
G
s, which are probably either the letter
T
or
E
. I'm guessing the double
Z
s are replacing an
S
or
L
.”

I grabbed a pencil, recopying the letters onto my notepad. Then I started substituting letters to solve the code.

EXTROL KXH XOOHZOL FTZZ ZOKH GI HOKGU
GNCLG ZOKLG GNCLG BILG ICN KXYNA MOGU

Taking the blank strip of red paper from me, Noah turned it to the light. “This has some sort of imprint on it that I can't quite read, though I'm sure you'll sort it out.” He tossed it back to me.

“What's wrong?”

“Everything. These clues are just a bunch of kid's stuff. And why did he bother coming to Hazel's room to hide that knife?”

“I don't know, but I'm sure he'll tell us when we find him.”

“Did you ever stop to think that Jack might be doing all this because he's had some sort of mental breakdown?”

“Don't say that.”

“Listen to reason, will you? Nothing he's doing seems normal … at least not to me.”

“You're upset that he led us to Hazel and I learned the truth.”

“No,” he said in an annoyed drawl. “Because right now I don't really care what you think.”

We were interrupted by his cell phone. He looked at it and then answered. “Hi, Don, what's up?”

After a few seconds talking to his detective friend, he scowled. “Oh, that. Yes, I know. I was going to take care of it …” Noah's glower deepened. “But do I have to right now?”

I could hear the indistinct buzz of the detective's voice cutting him off. Noah said, “Yes, sir. Okay, I'll head there in a minute.”

Ending the call, he bit back a swear word.

“What's the matter?”

“Sometimes Don can be such a pain! I have to go to the courthouse.”

“Why?”

“He ran my name through the system and found out I have an unpaid speeding ticket. It's kind of overdue.”

“How much overdue?”

“A lot. He says because of the investigation into what happened at my place, I need to get it cleared up right now.”

He started the engine. As we drove, my thoughts returned to our conversation on the bench. “Noah, I'm sorry for what I said back there about you being Hazel's errand boy. Fact is, you probably had the hardest time of us all.”