The Vanishing Game (31 page)

Once we got there, I was made to wait by myself in an empty interrogation room, where I picked at my nails and wondered if someone was going to come in and talk to me. My mind plodded along in a confused cycle. The memory
of hearing Jack's voice on the cell phone filled me with relief and joy. Now I had proof he hadn't died in that car accident. And yet the truth also brought with it more confusion and unanswered questions than ever. Only Jack could tie up the loose ends.

I also couldn't help thinking about Paul Gerard in his black mask. The mental image of the bomb that nasty creep had set, which could have killed us, made me furious, as did the memory of his surprise attack against Noah. It also made me afraid, especially for Jack. Did my brother know how closely this dangerous guy was trailing us, and would he be safe from Gerard's uncanny ability to track his prey?

The minutes crept by for more than an hour, and finally I rested my head on my arms and dozed off. Eventually I woke and stretched. My need to visit the restroom sent me to the door, where I tested the knob and found it was unlocked. Opening it, I peered out but saw no one. The officer who had been sitting outside the door when I came in was no longer in his chair and the hall was empty. I guessed he must have gotten bored and left. I couldn't blame him.

“Okay,” I said to myself, slinging my backpack across one shoulder. If they were going to forget about me, then they could track me down.

I found the restroom and afterward stood in the hall for a few minutes, trying to decide how much trouble I'd get in if I didn't go back to the interrogation room. Deciding it was worth the risk, I walked past the room where I'd
been and kept on going. I passed a closed door and was nearing one that was half open when I heard Noah's voice. I stopped by the wall and listened. Someone was talking to him.

“Maybe you've missed something obvious,” a man said. He sounded familiar, but I didn't think it was Detective Iverson.

Noah's voice was cross. “Don't be dense, Saulto.”

“I'm just trying to help. What if you've left something out?”

“I haven't. And I'm not going over this whole thing again.”

“We're not asking you to.”

Now that Noah had said the name, I recognized Zachary Saulto's voice. But why was someone from ISI talking to Noah instead of the detective?

“Do you realize how close Gerard came to getting his hands on her last night?” another man with a deeper voice asked.

“But he didn't,” Noah retorted. “Do I need to remind you that he found her in the first place because he was following Saulto? And I'm still trying to figure out why you decided to steal her car. Was it to give her no choice but to come to me?”

My car!

“Calm down,” the man said. “You know we're looking out for you both. If it wasn't for some fast talking on my part to that detective, you'd still be getting grilled.”

“I know. Okay, Sam?”

My mind worked over the name, and then I remembered. Sam Marvin ran ISI. He was Zachary Saulto's boss.

“Do you? We're in a tight spot right now, Noah. It's not looking good.”

“But you're not helping. For one thing, why just drop off her car in my driveway? Were you trying to spook her?”

“In a way, yes.” It was Saulto who answered this time. “We wanted to put some pressure on to get her moving.”

“She doesn't need any more of your head games.” Noah sounded angry. “There's enough of that going on with Gerard and everything else. Where is she now?”

“Asleep in the room two doors down,” Saulto said.

“Why don't you talk to Detective Iverson again? See if he'll let Jocelyn and me get out of here so we can finish what we started.”

“I don't know,” Sam Marvin answered. “You've had four days. We still don't have the goods, and it's getting too dangerous. Hell, Noah, this can't go on! You almost got blown up last night. If it's too much for you to handle, then I'll have to step in.”

“Do I need to remind you that you're the one who called me? You waited until she'd already come to my house and then you panicked. You begged me to hire on with you again for one last assignment. So why don't you back off and let me do what I'm supposed to?”

A sick wave of heartache passed through me, and I quietly crossed to the far side of the hallway. Moving fast,
I slipped past the door. My mouth felt dry, my face flushed.
Assignment
, he'd said.
One last assignment
. I reached the elevator and slammed the button, praying it would open before they came out in the hallway and saw me. As the doors finally parted I slipped inside and punched the first-floor button, counting the seconds until the doors closed and the elevator started moving. I let out the breath I'd been holding.

My mind became a spinning kaleidoscope as I recalled coming into the kitchen when he was talking on the phone. He'd been irritated and growled, “I said I'd take care of it!” Now, I knew, he must have been talking to Sam Marvin. And the “it” he was supposed to take care of was me.

Everything made sense now. After that first night Noah had seemed anxious to get rid of me. He'd even left money so I'd go away. But then the second time, when we met at the pizza place, he went out of his way to befriend me. He practically demanded I come back to his house and stay. For the first time it was all so clear.

Noah hadn't stuck with me through this because he cared about Jack or me. Sam Marvin was paying him. And all the stuff that had happened between us must've been a lie too. I'd been so stupid to trust anyone other than Jack. Right then I became gawky old Jocey again, the girl no one could want or love, whose life was a joke and whose heart wasn't worth anything.

The doors opened. I left the elevator and walked with calm determination past the front desk. The officer there
didn't seem to see anything out of the ordinary, for which I was grateful. I made it through the front doors, down the steps, and out onto the sidewalk. A hazy mist still lay over Watertown like a ghostly bridal veil. I hurried away, moving quickly until the police station seemed to be nothing but a distant mirage in the morning fog.

I'm not sure how many blocks I walked, lost in the haze, until I finally found a taxi. Climbing in the backseat, I shut the door and gave the address of Tattoo Orient. Then I sat there as Noah's harsh words,
one last assignment
, circled through my head. I tried to shove the pain away, but it battered me like stinging grains of sand in a dry storm.

After the taxi pulled up in front of the tattoo shop, I paid the driver with the twenty I'd gotten from the ATM. He drove away, and I walked past Noah's black Jeep Cherokee. Once again I experienced the sick rush of crushed hope. Looking away, I pushed open the door of the parlor and stepped inside, an overhead bell ringing.

“Be with you in a minute,” a gruff voice called through black draperies behind the counter.

The walls were covered with dozens of tattoo designs, and a glass display case was full of specialty knives and daggers. Most had decorative handles and hilts, but some were more practical. One, in a black leather box, was just like the knife Jack had left me.

I could hear the sound of two voices and peered through the slit in the draperies. All I could see was the back of a heavyset guy with a buzzed head and tattooed arms and
neck. Beside him were the legs of a young woman lying in a chair. She seemed to be getting something etched on her ankle, and the wincing sounds made it seem that a bony ankle was a painful place to get needled.

Soon the tattooed guy put his instrument aside. He turned around and came through the draperies, looking at me. Staring seemed rude, but I couldn't help myself as I realized it wasn't a guy.

“Hello, Beth,” I managed. She was quite a bit heavier than she'd been when we were kids. Her once-long red hair had been buzzed to a quarter inch, her ears and pale eyebrows heavy with multiple piercings. She wore a loose tank top that showed a body thoroughly tattooed with every writhing design imaginable.

She smiled at me and said, “It's good to see you again, Jocelyn.”

If anyone had ever told me that Angry Beth would someday hug me with flabby tattooed arms and rattle on a mile a minute, I wouldn't have believed it. And yet that's exactly what she did. I stood there watching her yammer away like we were old friends who'd just seen each other a few days ago. It was amazing.

“By the way, Jocey, I've been thinking that I should've told you something the last time we were together. You were one of the best friends I ever had. When we shared that room at Seale House, you always took the time to talk to me. Even if I was hurting too much to answer. In the beginning I couldn't tell you how much that meant to me, and later I kind of forgot. You know how it is, right?”

“Excuse me,” the leggy girl from the back room called. “Are you going to finish this or what?”

“Just a minute!” Beth bellowed through the curtain.
Turning back to me she raised her eyebrows and shook her head as if we shared some secret. “Don't you think she'd know better than to annoy someone using a needle on her?”

“Yeah, no kidding.” I started to laugh, though not because it was funny. In fact, Beth still seemed sort of scary.

She lowered her voice. “I get sick of these little sluts that want a butterfly on their ankle or a flower on their navel. Know what I mean? It really bugs me.”

“I can understand that.”

“I've gotta get back to the ink. Will you come by later so we can talk?”

“Okay.” I couldn't figure out why on earth Jack had sent me here or how I might bring up the subject.

Beth moved behind the counter. “By the way, I'm not sure how long I was supposed to hold on to this.” She picked up a plain envelope with my name printed on the outside. “Do you want it?”

I nodded and took it, murmuring my thanks as she turned away. Over her shoulder she said, “I'll be done in about an hour. Why don't you come back then?”

Leaving the shop, I stepped out onto the sidewalk, thinking of Jack's clue about Beth:
trust least, trust most
. In the past I had trusted her least of any girl at Seale House. Yet with her transformation of a buzzed head, a pierced and tattooed body, and maybe some serious group therapy, it looked like she was now someone Jack felt I could trust.

Opening the envelope, I reached inside and pulled out
a small ink drawing of an elaborate medieval cross that formed a two-inch square. Beneath it, in Jack's blocky writing, were the words: X MARKS THE SPOT. That's when a long-buried memory seemed to rise up out of the opal-colored mist surrounding me.

“We're going to get in trouble,” I whispered. “You know we're not allowed in Hazel's room.”

Jack slowly opened the door. “Don't be a coward. Come on.”

“Where's Noah?”

“He doesn't have to be in on everything we do, does he?”

The two of us crept into Hazel's dimly lit upstairs parlor, and I glanced around the room, which I'd never been in before. My heart was beating fast but I followed Jack, believing—as always—that wherever he went, I must go. He led me to the small, round trinket table topped with an embroidered lace doily and several knickknacks. Lifting up the doily, he grabbed the side and opened a hidden drawer. On top lay a filigree crucifix
.

“X
marks the spot,” he said, lifting it out and pushing aside a couple of papers. Beneath lay neatly arranged packages of marijuana and small packets of what I guessed to be cocaine. There was also some drug paraphernalia
.

“Oh no,” I breathed, holding my hands up in protest and backing away. “Jack, if she knows we've seen this, she'll kill us!”

“The old dragon isn't going to know.” He put everything back in its place and shut the drawer. “Listen to me, Jocey. How many times have I told you that you can't beat your opponents until you know what their weaknesses are?”

“I don't want to beat her,” I whispered, hurrying to the door. “I just don't want to get sent to the cellar.”

I cracked the door and peeked out. Stepping into the hallway with Jack behind me, we shut the door and I sighed with relief. Then I slapped him on the arm. “Next time, leave me out of your stupid schemes, will you?”