Jane stopped and leaned down toward the window. “Let’s talk truth. Do you know what kind of monster you have for a friend?” she said to the other girl, who was driving. “I was in a hospital, with brain damage and no memory, and she started a campaign to turn the whole school against me. She pretended to love me and she made my life hell.”
“Oh, Jane.” Kamala lowered her voice. “You’re confused. Are you high? Are you on street drugs? My mom can get you into a clinic by this afternoon. Let me…”
Jane closed her hand into a fist. “If you don’t get away from me…” Then she turned and picked up a rock and raised it as if to smash it on the pristine black hood of the car.
Suddenly the other girl sped the BMW past Jane, while through the rear windshield Jane could see Kamala turning in the passenger seat to watch her.
With a momentary smile.
Jane wanted to throw the rock at the departing car. Tears sprang to her eyes. She could imagine Kamala saying right now, You see, I tried to help her. I tried to be there for her, even after she killed David. I tried. But she can’t be helped. She kept walking, trying to shove the words out of her brain. She wanted to tell Kamala’s friend, She’ll make you think you’re the center of the world, sisters, bonded in blood, your friend you can tell anything to, and then she’ll watch you die from a thousand little cuts. And she made them all.
Jane stopped. Forget Kamala. Think about the crash. Remember. She looked down the road again and back to the crash site, where the car had veered off so wildly. Not a bend. Not a curve.
What were David and I doing here?
She reached the gated entrance for James Marcolin’s property. The gates were large, ornate steel, taller than she was, automated and elaborate. The street number was artistically part of the gate. Nothing to stop her now from opening the rideshare app and giving them this address.
She stared up at the huge house. It was elaborate—three stories, Tuscan architecture, truly stunning. She stood before the gate’s panel, which had a security touchpad and a speaker box, hesitating to ring the bell. Just to ask him what he heard, what he saw that night. Thank him for calling and saving her life. He was likely at work now.
Her finger inched toward the buzzer for the gate and she glanced toward the house. A camera watched her and moved, slightly, into a better position. Her hand stopped above the buzzer and stepped back.
She gave a little wave. The camera watched, unmoving.
“Hello?” a voice called to her. A man dressed in jeans and a nice T-shirt approached the gate. He was fortyish, with dark hair and eyes and a narrow smile. He held a giant sponge dripping with soap, and she could see he had been washing a sports car in the driveway.
“Hi. Are you Mr. Marcolin?”
“I am.”
“I’m Jane Norton. Um, this sounds weird, but I was in a car crash here two years ago. You were the one who called the police.” Realization dawned on his face and he nodded. “I wanted to thank you. You saved my life.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” He didn’t seem to know what else to say. His voice was soft, with a slight accent she found hard to place: Spanish, perhaps Italian. “Are you recovered now?”
Recovered. What a lovely word. “I lost my memory. Well, part of it. The three years before the crash…” She hated explaining. To so many people, amnesia seemed like something from a movie. So rare that they would never forget meeting her, like meeting quintuplets or an astronaut. She fell back on her lie. “I go to Saint Michael’s. I’m a sophomore there.”
“Ah,” he said. “Perhaps visiting the road will help you remember.”
“I’m sure,” she said, because it was too hard to explain that wasn’t how it worked. Hollywood had trained audiences to expect amnesia to be temporary, like a cold. “I just wanted to ask you if David, the boy who died, did he suffer? You saw us, right? You came down to the car.” Her voice had gone very soft.
He pressed a button and the ornate gate slid open, nearly silent. He stepped out to stand closer to her. “He did not suffer. Please put your mind at ease about that.”
His kindness—compared to how the rest of the morning had gone, with anonymous threats, with Perri pulling her from a car, with Kamala’s poisonous smile—nearly made her cry.
“Thank you for calling. I just wondered…” And despite her certainty that Kamala was Liv Danger, the words I know what you claim you don’t remember. I know what happened rang in her mind. “…This is a dumb question. Did you see anyone else that night, here? Another person, another car?”
“You mean another witness? No, I was alone. I was just back from a business trip overseas, only for an hour or so, when I heard the crash.”
“I meant did you see anyone else near the crash, or on the road…” The question sounded stupid, as if someone was waiting for them to come to that road. Were they? Were they supposed to meet someone here on that dark stretch above the cliff?
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t see anyone.”
“You said you travel?” She glanced up at the gorgeous home. “What do you do?”
“Ah. I work in international finance. I took today off as I’ve been traveling so much. Which I am glad of, since I got to see you, and see that you are doing better, and hopefully answer your question.”
“All right. Thank you again.” She turned to walk away.
“Ms. Norton?”
She stopped and looked back at him. “I wish you well. I hope you get your memories back. Even the painful ones.” Marcolin offered a tentative smile.
“Thank you.”
He glanced down the road. “No car? You didn’t drive yourself?”
“I don’t like to drive much anymore since the crash. I use rideshares.”
“Would you like me to take you where you need to be? I can finish washing my car in a few minutes. You could have a cup of tea while I finish.”
“No, sir, thank you. I appreciate it, though.”
“All right. Good luck to you.” He stepped back onto his driveway and the beautiful steel gate began to close. Jane used her rideshare app to summon a car to his address. He watched her for a few moments and then waved and stepped out of view.
Of course there was no one else. Liv Danger was a lie, designed to upset and scare her on a day that was already difficult. She was going to prove it was Kamala, and if it wasn’t, then she’d find the guilty party and make them look her in the eye and confess.
The rideshare soon arrived, and as she headed back to St. Michael’s, she realized that tracking down Liv Danger was the first real sense of purpose she’d felt in months.
6
JANE? JANE NORTON?”