Which means, almost certainly, that she isn’t.
The Kaycee impersonator, whoever she is, said that Misha had told her I was looking. And I’m willing to bet that this, at least, is true. Someone had to feed her the information. And the best liars ride as close to the truth as they can.
Besides, the example Misha chose when we met at the new community center to prove her point about the complexity of right and wrong couldn’t have been random. Misha plays dumb, but she’s anything but. Let’s say Frank Mitchell had a customer, a normal man. And let’s say that what he’s really after are the younger girls. She’d said pictures were better than them going out and finding the real thing.
But was she really just talking about Frank Mitchell? Or was she actually defending herself, too? It might have been a kind of confession. It was definitely a hint.
Back in the day, when the Game was heating up, Kaycee kept the photographs for herself, even when her victims ponied up cash. Maybe Frank Mitchell found a way to turn a bigger profit on them. It would certainly explain her father’s nice, new house. And why he’s so eager to tell everybody who asks that Kaycee ran off on her own.
And what does Misha have to do with it?
I remember the secretary who poked into her office that day I went to visit the high school. Misha collects student phones…to prevent cyberbullying, she’d said.
But could she really be looking for new targets?
It all comes back to the Game.
I can think of one person who might be able to help: Tatum. Monty mentioned that she and her friends were involved in the Game. I need to know whether the rules have changed, who the other players are, and who’s keeping score.
I point my car toward Dougsville, and the clinic where May mentioned that Tatum was taken. I’m feeling a little better, a little more in control. I don’t need Joe. I don’t need anyone. All I need is the truth. Still, the periphery of my vision keeps warping in the heat, shimmering into a mirage. Lack of sleep, nothing more.
Dougsville is twelve miles from Barrens, accessible only by the kind of flat roads that make speed limits seem like an inside joke. Corn whips by, tossing its green arms toward the sky. I think of my dream. Was it a dream? Of heat and fire. I think of Kaycee’s portraits scattered around my rental.
My phone rings almost continuously: first a call from Joe, then a local number, then Joe’s again. He’s probably wondering where I went. I silence the ringer.
Growing up, the Dougsville kids struck us all as stuck up: Theirs was the first Walmart in the whole county, and on its heels came the clinic, then a brewery. Their football team was always number one. It’s really little more than a single long strip, all car dealerships, aboveground pool installations, and churches. The clinic shares a parking lot with a big hunting and fishing retail; a sign in the window directs customers to the back for licenses and ammunition.
I head to the Walmart for a plastic-wrapped bouquet of flowers and a Get Well card. The flowers look pretty but exhale a moldy vapor, and for a second that’s just how I feel, like some rotten thing plastered over with a bow and good intentions. I should turn around. I should leave Tatum alone. I should let her get better.
But I don’t.
The clinic is small, bright, and clean. A receptionist at the desk politely asks me whether I’m a family member when I request to see Tatum.
“I’m a lawyer,” I say. The word lawyer is like the word police: the verbal equivalent of a bomb. No one wants to be the one caught holding the package. “Is Mrs. Klauss here?”
She shakes her head. Her eyes have widened into a caricature of alarm. “Go on back,” she says. “I’m sure it’s all right.” So I skirt around the desk and pass through the double doors.
The clinic has only a few examination rooms and Tatum’s room is the last one on the left. It has been transformed into a hothouse of cards and carnations. Tethered to an IV in a hospital bed, Tatum looks young, and very small. Beautiful, too. I think she must be sleeping, but as I ease the door shut behind me, she opens her eyes. They are a shocking, startling green.
“Who are you?” she asks. But it isn’t an accusation. She sounds genuinely curious.
“My name is Abby,” I say. I lift the flowers so she can see them. “I brought these for you. Looks like you don’t need them.”
She closes her eyes and shrugs. I clear a space on the counter for her latest offering.
“I don’t know you,” she says again, as if she’s observing the facts from a distance. I wonder if they’ve sedated her.
“No, you don’t.” I stay where I am, not too close, giving her lots of space, letting her size me up. “Listen, Tatum, I don’t pretend to know what you’ve just been through.”
That, at least, gets something of a normal teenage eye roll.
“I wish everyone would stop making such a big deal out of it.”
“You swallowed a handful of pills.”
“Just a dumb idea. I wasn’t trying to die. I just…had a headache.” When she looks at me then, her expression sharpens into one of distrust. It’s as if, for the first time, she is seeing me. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m from Barrens, too. I left for a while. But I’m back now.” I hate how final the words sound. But aren’t they, after all, the truth? My condo in Chicago feels as far away to me as a dream. “I’m a lawyer. I came home to find out what happened to a girl a decade ago. She went missing.”
“Kaycee Mitchell?” she says, and of course I realize she would have heard of her. I can only imagine the lore, and how the stories of Kaycee were transformed. “She faked being sick and everyone else started faking too. So, what? You think I’m faking?”
“Not at all,” I say. I take a deep breath. “I think Kaycee was in trouble. And I think you are, too.” This gets her attention. She gets even stiller, more alert, as if she’s listening for music playing far away. Then: “I know about the Game, Tatum.”
For a second, her mouth opens wide, and I’m worried she’ll scream, or shout for a nurse. But then, all at once, she relaxes.
“Who told you?” she asks.
“Monty Devue.” This gets another eye roll.
“He’s been obsessed with me since, like, seventh grade.” But she doesn’t sound afraid of him, only annoyed. For a long time, she sits there, obviously debating whether to say more. Then, suddenly she sits up in bed. “You didn’t tell my mom, did you? She can’t know. You can’t tell her!”
“I haven’t said a word.”
She sinks back against her pillow. She stares down at her hands, clutching and unclutching them. “I feel so stupid.”
“Is that why you did what you did?”
“I got scared.” Her voice drops to a whisper.
“Why? Is someone threatening you?”
She waves this idea away. “No. Nothing like that.” As if she, Tatum Klauss, is beyond threatening. “But I got worried everyone would find out…”
I take a gamble. “Because of the pictures?”