At the mention of Ms. Davis, Connie’s breath caught and her heart leapt forward a beat. Tears sprang to her eyes and she rubbed them away furiously. No. I’m not going to be manipulated.
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied, keeping her voice steady. “I would tell you to ask Ms. Davis, but she’s slightly dead.” Her gut clenched as she said it; it was like pissing on Ginny’s grave. But this game was too serious not to use all of her available ammunition.
The voice chuckled—it sounded like a rubber ball bouncing in a giant tin can. “Trying to keep up with me, Connie? Trying to keep me out of your head?”
“Just being proactive.”
“Ever think maybe that’s what I wanted in the first place?”
Great. Now Connie didn’t know what to do.
“People are dying, Connie, and they will continue to die, while you try to play games with me. While you try to keep me out of your head, a place I’ve already been to. Trust me—you have no secrets from me.”
I don’t believe you. I can’t. “Oh?”
“People keep dying and all you care about is yourself. Oh, you claim you care about your boyfriend, but really you just worry about him because he’s yours. No other reason. You’re selfish, Connie. You’re an actress, after all, and they are a vain, self-centered lot.
“Let me ask you this, though, while I have you on the phone: Do you ever wonder why they always focus on the pretty white girls, Connie? The ones that go missing, I mean. The ones who get killed or maimed or raped or—on a good day—all three. When black girls go missing no one seems to care, do they? If I made you disappear—and I’m not saying I would, though I could—no one would notice.”
“People would notice,” Connie said through gritted teeth, and then slapped her forehead. Damn it! She was doing exactly what he wanted her to do! She was buying into the argument. Accepting the premise. Joining the debate.
“You’d like to think so, I’m sure. Oh, your parents and friends would notice, but no one else. It wouldn’t be a national story. It would make the news in your little town, but even then they would give up reporting on it after a couple of days. They’d devote ten or fifteen seconds to it on the local news the day your raped and mutilated body was found in a shallow grave near the intersection of Grove Street and Route Twenty-seven. You know the spot, Connie?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
“Ten or fifteen seconds. A picture of you from the yearbook. A cutaway to your mother weeping hysterically, and all the white folks watching shrug and wait for weather and sports. But when a white girl goes missing… oh, then they go nuts, Connie. They update you every chance they get. The cable channels get involved and it goes national. People talk about the poor pretty girl who’s gone missing. They gather at work and at school and they post blogs and they go on message boards. They name laws after them. They give you AMBER Alerts in their honor. And when those poor lily-white girls show up dead, they spend more than ten or fifteen seconds on them. They show you the home videos. They show the parents. The friends. They take you right to the memorial service. Why is that, do you think?”
“Because this is a racist society that devalues black lives,” Connie said with heat, then immediately bit her lower lip. Damn it! How many times had Jazz told her that you never let a psycho into your head? You never expose a weakness or an irritation or a rage. They live in your heads forever after that.
“Racism!” the voice chortled in triumph. “Racism! Of course! That must be it! Why, that’s the only possible explanation! But, Connie… what if it isn’t racism? What if it’s just true that your life is genuinely worth less than a white girl’s? What would you say to that?”
In a tone of frosty neutrality, she responded, “I would say that you definitely have the most up-to-date version of the White Supremacist Jackass app on your phone. Good for you.”
A long, sustained burst of tinny, artificial laughter. “I like you so much, Connie. I really do. You give me hope for the future.”
“Glad to help. Now why don’t you tell me exactly where you are and who you are?”
“Heh. That wouldn’t be any fun. We’re playing a game, Connie. You agreed to the rules.”
“I don’t even know what the rules are.”
“Well… basically, the rules to this game are whatever I decide they are. This isn’t like the game being played in Brooklyn. This is our game, Connie. A game for you and me. Something special, just for us.”
“I’m touched and honored,” Connie said sardonically. “When do I get to make my next move?”
“Oh, soon. Very soon. But it’ll be a little tougher on you, Connie, because you broke the rules.”
“I told you, I didn’t call the—”
“There must be a penalty for people who cheat,” the voice went on, “for people who don’t abide by the rules, wouldn’t you agree?”
The droning, toneless roboticism of the voice was beginning to grate, sawing through her brain and generating a massive headache in its wake. “Stop playing around and tell me who you are,” she said. “As if I didn’t already know.” A bluff. Maybe it would…
“Oh, I’ll tell you. In my own way. In my own time. The first clue is in that lockbox.” The voice paused for a moment. “I’m going to give you five minutes, Connie. Five minutes to find the clue and then I’ll call you back. If you don’t have the clue, you’ll never hear from me again.
“Well… until the night I come for you, that is.”
“Wait!” Connie shouted. “Wait! Five minutes? That’s not fair. I can’t—”
“Not fair?” The voice’s aggravation and anger broke through the Auto-Tuning. “Fair? You broke the rules, Conscience Hall! And now you suffer the consequences! Five minutes, beginning… now.”
Click.
Oh. Crap.
Connie rooted through the box. Baby pictures of Jazz with his parents… the birth certificate… was that the clue? That it was Billy? Or maybe the clue was that little crow toy… which could still be Billy, really. She shivered, remembering the creepy Crow King fairy tale.
Or maybe it was something else. Something related. What was the word crow in Latin? In Spanish? In French? She had taken classes in all three languages and struggled to remember, then thought, What if it’s not a crow? What if it’s a raven? And what if the clue is in Russian or German? What if the damn toy isn’t the clue in the first place?
Her clock had advanced a minute. You’re kidding me. Her heart thudded so hard in her chest that she would not have been surprised if she could have seen it throbbing through her shirt.
Less than four minutes left. The desire to speed through the contents of the box was great, but she forced herself to scrutinize each item. Same three people in each photo:
Jazz. No. Not him. Duh.
Mom. Dead. Not her. Double-duh.
Billy. Obvious choice. Too obvious, in fact, now that she thought about it. Billy’s escape from Wammaket had been planned and coordinated and abetted by someone on the outside. So her mystery Auto-Tuned voice would be someone helping Billy. Someone on his side of the game board. Hat-Dog?
Now who’s cheating, jerk wad?
Staring at the photos… Maybe someone was in a background….
Or maybe it’s the person who took the pictures….
That was most likely Jazz’s grandmother. Even though the racial nonsense her caller had spewed would have been right at home in Gramma Dent’s mouth, Connie couldn’t imagine her having the sense or stability to make that call.
So what was the clue? None of the photos were illuminating. She switched over to the toy. Just a chunk of plastic.
It’s hollow.
Is there something inside it?
Can I get it open?
Need a knife.
Kitchen.
Time?
Damn it. Who knows what this lunatic is going to do in… ugh… two minutes if you don’t have the special clue?
Or was the clue the crow itself? Raven. Whichever. Maybe that’s all she had to do when the phone rang, was say, “Crow!”
Too easy. She couldn’t believe it was that easy. Or maybe the voice just wanted her to think it was too easy….
Once you let them into your head…