The Voice inside My Head (15 page)

I perk up, suddenly alert.

“You saw her leave?”

“I didn’t say that.” He leans over and picks up half a dozen weighted belts. Turning his back on me, he starts pulling out weights and piling them on a shelf.

“That’s exactly what you said.” I step between him and the shelf.

“Okay, so I saw her leave.” He glares defiantly. “What difference does it make? She was alone. I don’t know what happened to her. Is that clear enough for you?”

My breath is coming in short bursts as adrenaline courses through my body. I’ve just caught him in a lie, and I’d be willing to bet it isn’t his only one. I’d like to beat the truth out of him, but I’ve already started one fight today and look where that got me, not to mention the fact that he’s right. Seeing her walk off on her own, even hitting on her, doesn’t prove a thing. No one saw him leave with her.

“You know, if I find out you’re lying to me, you’re going to regret it.” My voice shakes with the effort of holding myself back.

“Whatever.” He makes a show of smirking but doesn’t quite pull it off. Stepping around me, he goes back to stacking weights.

I stomp to my room, trying to tell myself I’m overreacting. If hitting on my sister were a crime, half the guys in my high school would be locked up. From what I’ve learned over the last few hours, Pat was on the wrong side of far more dangerous people than this poser. He may not have had anything at all to do with her disappearance. But why is it that every time I get near him, I get a churning in my gut? And it’s not my imagination that he’s equally twitchy around me.

T
he pounding starts in my dream, with images of Pat’s body crashing against a wooden post. Blood streams from her head. She’s struggling with something but doesn’t try to save herself as her body cracks against the wood again. I shout at her to watch out. The post is behind her, approaching fast. Why doesn’t she see it coming? But she can’t hear me over the sound of her own screams. There’s another noise, a sound so familiar it’s like breathing. But what is it? I wake up in a cold sweat and take a minute to realize the pounding is real.

I’m in my darkened bedroom at the Shark Center, which means I’ve slept the whole day away. Someone is banging on the door. I get unsteadily to my feet as the sound reverberates through my body, my head throbbing right along with it. I had my alarm set for midafternoon, so I must have slept through it. That sucks. I wanted to talk to Jamie today. I still haven’t heard his side of the story about the fight he had with Pat the night she disappeared. Even if that leads nowhere, I need to ask him how far Pat got with her drug investigation. How many people could she have antagonized who might
want revenge? I reach for my watch and see it’s past nine; maybe not too late to see him if I leave immediately. I grab my shirt as I unlock the door.

Tracy bursts in, tears streaming down her face. It takes a few minutes before I can make any sense of her garbled sobs, since she’s thrown herself on my bed and buried her face in my pillow.

“I’m next, I’m next,” she blubbers hysterically.

I sigh and sit on the edge of the bed, leaving the door open.

“Is there a problem?”

She pops up and throws her arms around me, giving a few last hiccuping moans before she’s ready to explain.

“You have to come see,” she says, standing up and attempting to pull me to my feet, which doesn’t work because I outweigh her by a good forty pounds and I don’t want to go anywhere with her.

“See what?” I start massaging my temples. I could sell tickets to the drumming in my head. Maybe I shouldn’t have rubbed off the voodoo protection. Or maybe it’s the cause.

“The doll,” she says, yanking on my arm again. “Hurry, Luke, you have to come.”

Of course, I don’t have to come at all, and if we’re talking about another doll, I definitely don’t have to hurry. It’s not like it’s going to walk off on its own.

She plops back down on my bed and looks at me mournfully.

On the other hand, the only way to get her out of my room is to go with her. I don’t know why this girl irritates me so much. Sure she’s a flake, but I’ve met other girls like that who don’t usually bother me. Sometimes they’re even
cute. Also, she was Pat’s roommate and supposedly her friend. It’s probably just the awkwardness of our last encounter, coupled with the comments she made about Pat, which still rankle. Whatever it is, I want to get rid of her. I jump decisively to my feet.

“You’re right, we should hurry.”

She eyes me suspiciously but gets up and follows me outside and down the path to her room. She points to her front step, standing well back, and like last time, I’m the one to reach under and drag it out. I have to admit it bears an uncanny resemblance to her, right down to the blond pigtails and blue eyes.

“Are you missing any hair?” I ask, holding it up next to her head so I can compare.

She shrinks back and stares at me in horror.

It seemed like a fair question, but I drop the doll to my side, curling it into my fist so it’s out of her sight. Now that I’m up, I’m even more anxious to make a quick exit. I’m certain I’m not going to find any clues to my sister’s disappearance here, and I’ve already wasted the better part of a day and night on one voodoo doll. I refuse to waste time on another.

“You have to check my room for me. I can’t go in there alone.” She flaps the bottom of her shirt, twisting it up like an anxious six-year-old.

“I have some things I need to do, Tracy.”

“I’m scared.”

“I promised Zach I’d meet him.”

“Just till I fall asleep.”

She stares at me with her enormous blue eyes and as certain as doping in the Major Leagues, I know she’s playing
me. I’m powerless to resist. It’s as if my rescue-reflex, in response to her lame rendition of chick-in-distress, is hardwired into my DNA. I’d really like to know where girls learn to pull this shit and why no one is teaching guys how to deal with it. Girls already have tits. How many more advantages do they need?

“Just for a few minutes,” I grumble and follow her inside.

She lies down on her bed, which is either proof of good faith or the next step in her campaign to take me down. I sit on the other bed, realize it must be my sister’s and spring up like it’s on fire. Walking over to the desk, I sit there and stare out the window.

“Who do you think is doing this?” Tracy asks.

I’m so preoccupied, trying to figure out her endgame, that it takes me a minute to understand what she’s talking about.

“Don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s Reesie? She hangs around here all the time.”

I cut her a look. “She works here.”

“Pete said you two were on the dock yesterday.”

“If you don’t at least try to get to sleep, I’m leaving.”

“I could fall asleep faster if you’d lie down next to me.”

She pouts in a way that’s meant to be sexy but bugs the hell out of me. I still haven’t followed up on Zach’s comment that Pat was upset the night she went missing. The longer I spend here, the less chance I’ll get to talk to Jamie tonight.

“One more word and I’m out of here.”

She makes a face and rolls over on her side with her back to me. I check my watch. Jamie should be home by now. In
fact, if I hang around here much longer, it’s going to be too late to go knocking on his door. I didn’t see his mom there the last time, but she must live there. If she’s anything like Reesie, she’s not going to take kindly to a strange guy showing up at her house at all hours.

My head is throbbing worse than ever. I look around the room, wondering where Tracy might keep painkillers. There’s only one shelf between the beds. I tiptoe over for a closer look. She’s got the usual chick paraphernalia — hair bands, make-up, Brazilian Bikini Wax Microwave Kit. Girls really are another species.

I pick up a sequined shower bag. It seems as likely a place as any to stash medication. Sure enough, birth-control pills are right on top. I push them aside and see something that gives me such a shock I drop the bag. It crashes to the floor, the contents scattering in all directions. Tracy flips over and vaults off the bed, pouncing on her belongings like a tigress protecting her cubs.

“What do you think you’re doing, going through my stuff?” she shrieks.

“What are you doing with my sister’s necklace?”

She glares at me. “Tricia gave it to me. What business is it of yours?”

“
I
gave it to her.” My mind is so heavy with images that I sink down on Pat’s bed and barely notice.

“She never took it off,” I say accusingly, but I’m not sure whom I’m accusing. I know Pat changed when she came here, but that starfish meant something, at least to me. Even when she left for Utila and I wouldn’t say good-bye to her, I snuck enough of a peek to make sure she was still wearing
it. Could she really have cared so little about me that she’d just give it away?

“I’m sorry,” Tracy says, tearing up. “I told you we were close. I don’t know what to say. Do you want it back?”

“No.”

I stand up and walk to the door. “I have to go now.”

I don’t wait for her reply as I slam out of the room.

It’s a moonless night, dark and foreboding, the wind fierce and unforgiving. I can smell rain coming. I start walking and don’t slow down till I’m on the outskirts of town. The cement road turns into a potholed dirt track; streetlights peter out and darkness closes in. The houses become fewer and most seem to be empty. No lights shine from their windows.

There are long stretches of vacant lots. The few scrubby palms are windswept, their frayed leaves whipping back and forth like the extended arms of frenzied celebrants summoning the dark forces. There must be a seawall running along the edge of the lots because the sea roils against it, sending up spray as the sheltered curve of the harbor flattens out to unprotected coast. Gone are the postcard blues and greens of the daytime; the water is obsidian black.

The police report said Pat drowned off McCrae’s dock at the far eastern end of the island, the direction I’m walking. I wonder if it was a brooding night like this, the air saturated with unshed tears. Was she feeling the way I do now, angry and betrayed? Would that have been enough to make her go into a sea like this? She always felt most at home in the water. It comforted her in a visceral way, not unlike the way it terrifies me. If she was upset, it’s entirely possible she’d want to
be in the water, but maybe it wasn’t comfort she sought. Could something have made her want to drown herself? That would be unthinkable for the sister I knew. But so would giving away my necklace.

“Dude, what are you doing way out here?”

I turn to see Zach huffing up the road after me.

“I shouted at you when you passed the Spiny Starfish, but you didn’t even slow down.” He stops walking and leans over, his hand on his side, panting. “Shit,” he wheezes. “Gotta cut back on the smokes.”

“Which dock is McCrae’s?” I didn’t realize until I asked that that’s where I’m going. I’m not sure I want company, but one dock looks much like another out here. I won’t find it alone.