“Oh, Paige knows I’m teasing her.” Dad winked at me, then turned back to Charles. “Both Ms. Bonnet and I went to Michigan as well. Paige is going to be the first Spartan in the family.”
“Guess we can’t all be Wolverines,” Charles said. “At least she’s not going to Ohio State.” The entire table laughed as if he’d said something remarkably witty. I imagined tossing my sparking water into Charles’s smug sluglike face.
Dad raised his hand. “Ah, this is one of my favorite pieces.” We all paused to hear the sounds of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto coming from the other room. Dad closed his eyes for a beat. All that was missing was him raising a conductor’s baton over his head and guiding the music in. “Charles, did Evelyn ever tell you that she used to play the violin?”
“Dad.” Evelyn blushed.
“No.” Charles nudged her softly. “Look at all the secrets I’m learning.”
“She really had a gift,” Mom added.
I could feel my spine stiffening. The risotto I’d eaten started to twist in my stomach. I prayed he wouldn’t ask.
“Why did you give it up?” Charles asked.
I winced even though I’d known the question would come. Evelyn held up her left hand, wiggling her pinkie finger. “I told you I had an accident, years ago.” The tip of the little finger was gone, not quite down to the first knuckle. It was the kind of thing you might not even notice about her until she started waving it around. “It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make it so I couldn’t play the really challenging pieces. Besides, no matter what my parents say, I wasn’t that good.”
Evelyn was right. She had been good, but I don’t remember at the time anyone in our family talking about her being Juilliard bound. After the accident, however, descriptions of her talent grew until she was practically a budding young female Mozart taken out in her prime.
Cut down by yours truly.
Not that I did it on purpose. It had been an accident. We’d been in the kitchen, helping my mom with dinner. I was eight and was thrilled to be in charge of chopping carrots. Evelyn kept saying that I was doing it wrong. Making the pieces too big. I kept insisting right back that I had it covered. She put her hand down on the cutting board to point out a piece that was the wrong size, and thwack. The tip of her finger came off before I’d even realized what happened.
I’d cried inconsolably at the hospital. I didn’t always get along with Evelyn, but I’d never wanted to hurt her.
“Daddy thinks this is all my fault,” I wailed.
Mom patted me on the back. “Your dad knows this wasn’t your fault.”
Even at eight, I’d known she was partially right. My dad knew it wasn’t my fault, but at the same time he believed it was. It wasn’t that my dad didn’t love me—?he did—?but he didn’t really like me.
I stood to clear the table. My dad passed me his plate without looking at me. He was deep in conversation with Charles on the merits of various golf clubs. And it occurred to me I was sick of feeling blamed. Sick of feeling second best. And if I couldn’t change how he felt about me—?maybe I could make him pay. The plan to go missing was already in motion, but this would be a new wrinkle. That was the first time the idea came to me, but it had been brewing for longer than that. He had always underestimated me.
Twenty
I peeked through the blinds. Two reporters were camped outside the apartment complex right next to the road. The woman was wearing high heels and enough mascara that I swear I could see each individual lash from my bedroom window. The other guy was the cameraman. He looked like a frumpy football coach with ill-fitting chino pants and thick-soled white sneakers. I would have to walk right past them to catch the bus for school. I wanted to kill my mom. This was entirely her fault.
As Drew had predicted, the story had expanded beyond the local news. I’d woken up to CNN talking about how the police had used an unnamed psychic in Paige’s investigation, a student from her school. As far as I knew, I was the only one at my school who did tarot readings. It wasn’t going to take a huge leap for someone to figure out it was me and blab it to the media.
If I was honest, there was also a shiver of excitement when I saw the news. Part of me wanted everyone to know it was me. To realize that maybe they’d made a mistake when they ignored me all these years. I knew it was dangerous to think this way—?if there was ever something I shouldn’t want to be connected to, this was it, but a little thrill was there.
Last night I’d lain awake trying to convince myself that there was no real way to link me to the abduction. We’d been careful. Even if Ryan went to the police, he didn’t know anything; he just had suspicions. And who was I kidding? The police had suspicions of their own. They’d checked out my story. But the longer Paige was gone, the greater the odds that they would keep digging.
I paced around my tiny room picking things up and putting them back down. Ever since I got back from the theater, I had the irrational fear that someone had been in my room going through my stuff, though nothing seemed to be missing. It wasn’t hard to figure out where the paranoia was coming from. I had no way of knowing how long Ryan had been following me, or how far he’d go to figure out what was going on. My anxiety meant I was better able than most to imagine the worst-case scenario. Like one where someone who didn’t like me pawed through my things looking for dirt. I checked the window again. The screen was loose, but I was sure it always had been like that. At least I was pretty sure. My fingers spun the screws that held it in place, trying to tighten them.
Would Ryan really have broken in to search my stuff, looking for answers? He was doubtful that Paige had been abducted. That left me wondering what had happened between the two of them and what he knew about her. If the police put enough pressure on him, he’d do whatever he needed to in order to make sure he didn’t get into trouble. Throwing me under the bus wouldn’t even make him blink.
I knew the kidnapping had been a bad decision, and now it was getting worse. This was turning into prison-level bad. If I thought being stuck in a small town sucked, I was willing to bet being stuck in a jail cell would suck a whole lot worse.
I hate hindsight.
My phone rang, and I checked the screen. Drew. “Hey,” I said.
“Oh my god! Have you seen the TV this morning?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed my history book from the floor and stuffed it into my backpack, trying to remember if it had been at the bottom of the stack of books yesterday or on the top.
“You’re totally going to be famous.”
There was that shiver of excitement again, and I pushed it away. I hunched over the phone as if telling her a secret. “There are reporters outside my place.”
Drew whistled. “Serious?”
I peeked through the blinds. They were still there. “Yep.”
“Are you okay?”
I took a shaky breath. Lester was always on me to breathe, saying how oxygen is nature’s relaxant. “I guess. It’s a bit weird.”
“You want me to pick you up?”