Dead Ringers 1: Illusion (6 page)

“No. We’re not even. I’m up here to check on Adair and you’re not.”

“You a friend of hers?”

I can’t make myself nod. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Sounds like trespassing to me.”

“You’re twisting things around. I’m here to make sure Adair’s okay.”

“Your
non-friend
Adair?”

“That’s right.”

“Why wouldn’t she be okay?”

I’m definitely not telling him about clowns snatching people off the street. “You ask a lot of questions. My turn. What are you doing here?”

He hesitates. “Scouting. Deer season starts in a few months. It was on my way so I figured why not?”

“On your way where?”

“Could you stop waving those keys at me like I’m a serial killer?”

His words, not mine. I hadn’t even considered that possibility. I back toward the Honda Fit, keys still set to gash him. I keep my eyes glued to him and feel around with my free hand for the door handle. When the door’s open, I repeat my question. “On your way where?”

Again, he hesitates. “On my way to the beach.”

I don’t believe him. I don’t believe anything he’s said. If I could make out his features in the darkness, he’d probably be smirking.

No matter how long I stand out here, though, he won’t tell me the truth of why he’s here.

“Yeah, right,” I say so he knows I’m not stupid.

I slip inside the car, lock the doors and turn the key in the ignition. The car engine turns over and I back up, making sure my headlights shine on the back of the truck.

It has a North Carolina license plate. I repeat the series of letters and numbers out loud, committing them to memory. If something’s happened to Adair, I can direct the police to a suspect.

The stranger steps into the artificial light where his dark hair and pale skin look even more dramatic.

He blows me a kiss.

The next morning, I pad down the hall barefoot to the bathroom after rousting myself from a restless sleep. I dreamed the clown was chasing me with a syringe. The guy from the coastal forest stood by, arms folded over his chest, waiting to see if I could get away. The prize for escaping was his kiss.

Voices drift from the kitchen. One of them belongs to my mother. The other is as sweet as corn syrup and as high-pitched as a little girl’s. Except it doesn’t belong to a child.

It belongs to Adair.

My blood pumps so hard I won’t even need my morning caffeine fix. Ducking into the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and run a brush across my teeth. Then I practically sprint toward the kitchen.

“You look great, Mrs. G,” Adair’s voice drifts down the hall. “That suit is like so pretty. When did you say you came back to Midway Beach?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t know you were back.”

“I can’t believe how grown-up you are. You’re stunning.”

I reach the archway to the kitchen and pause. My mother sits catty-corner from a too-familiar blonde at the kitchen table, each of them with their hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.

Yep, it’s Adair all right. Guess I won’t be calling the cops to report her missing.

Mom’s head swivels in my direction. “There you are, Jade. I was about to wake you. Adair stopped by to see you. Isn’t that nice?”

“Hey, Jade.” Adair gives me a sunny smile. She’s nearly six feet tall with high cheekbones, a wide mouth and short, dyed blond hair she gels into tufts. In the last year, she’s probably dropped about twenty pounds, making her model thin. Her look is unusual enough look that heads turn when she walks by. This morning she wears short shorts and a cute white top.

I wish I’d taken the time to change from the oversized T-shirt I sleep in. “What the hell are you doing here, Adair?”

“Ja-ade!” My mother makes it sound like my name has two syllables. “There’s no need to be rude.”

My mom doesn’t know about Adair’s betrayal, but it still ticks me off that she’s leaping to her defense. “Adair and I aren’t friends anymore.”

“That’s what I came over to talk about.” Adair sounds sweet and innocent, the way she always does. Not once, in the months since she betrayed me, has she changed her tune.

“In that case, I’ll leave you two girls alone.” Mom stands up. Her suit is an unusual color. Turquoise, I think you’d call it. Adair’s right. It does flatter her. “Landon should be here any minute to pick me up.”

“Uncle Landon? You’re shitting me.”

Landon Guerard isn’t really my uncle, but I was probably in grade school before I realized that. He and my stepdad are as close as brothers. Correction. They used to be close.

“Jade, watch your language,” Mom warns, waving a finger. “I took my car in yesterday to have some work done, and Landon’s giving me a ride to the shop.”

“Yeah. But why him?”

Late last year my stepfather and Uncle Landon had a falling-out around the time Uncle Landon’s wife lost her battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Still, with all that history between them, I expected Uncle Landon to represent Dad when he got in trouble. He didn’t do a damn thing even though he was a criminal defense attorney before he retired early to buy a surf shop.

“It’s time bygones were bygones,” she says.

The doorbell rings and there’s the sound of the creaky front door opening before a slightly nasal voice calls, “Hello. The cavalry’s arrived.”

“In the kitchen, Landon,” my mom replies.

Uncle Landon strides into the room, acting perfectly at home, the way he used to back when he and my stepdad were still friends. He’s maybe five feet seven on a good day. I used to think his addiction to keeping in shape had something to do with his lack of height, but he’s developed a paunch since I’d last seen him many months ago.

“Hey, there, Lizzie.” He rubs my mother’s shoulder as he passes her and stops in front of me. “Jade, honey! You look more and more like your beautiful mother every day.” He smiles at Adair. “Speaking of beauty, I’m surrounded by it.”

Adair giggles. “Hey, Mr. Guerard. You’re a charmer.”

“I try to be.” Uncle Landon focuses on me. “How have you been, Jade?”

“Where have
you
been?” I’m not about to forgive him for abandoning my stepdad as easily as my mother has.

“We should get going, Landon,” my mother says before he can answer. “Jade, Julian’s in his room and Suri spent last night with a friend. She’ll be with her all day. You’re working tonight, right?”

I’m so miffed at her for interrupting that I don’t answer.

“Jade?” she persists. “I asked you a question.”

“Yeah, I’ll be at the carnival if you want to stop by and lurk in the shadows.”

“Good to know.” She picks up her purse, her expression innocent.

Uncle Landon crosses to her side, like they’re a damn couple. “Catch you later, girls.”

“Have a great day, sweetheart,” Mom addresses me before beaming at Adair. “Nice seeing you again, Adair.”

“You too, Mrs. G.” Adair gives my mother a jaunty wave.

The comment my mom made a few minutes ago about bygones could apply to what Adair did to me, but the hell with that. As soon as I hear the door open and close, I say, “You can fool my mom with your Miss Innocent act but not me.”

“And here I thought both of you were bat-shit crazy,” Adair spits out, her perpetual sunny smile gone.

“Don’t talk about my mother that way.”

“Why not? Everybody knows she’s nuts. The same way they know you’re nuts.”

“That’s funny.” I tap a finger against my mouth. “
Some people
only believe I’m nuts because of what
you
told them.”

After I lost those forty-eight hours, multiple friends let me know they heard Adair warn Hunter that I was having a breakdown. Supposedly she’d convinced him there was a danger that I’d become violent. Within a week, Adair was going out with him herself.

Adair’s stare is cold. “I only told the truth.”

“What are you doing here, Adair?” I demand.

“I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday.”

“What I said to Hunter? Is that a joke?”

“Listen to me, bitch. I won’t let you steal my boyfriend.”

I take a few steps toward her. “You mean the boyfriend you stole from me?”

“Hunter was never your boyfriend. You went out with him
once
.”

“You were my friend, Adair.” My hands clench at my sides. “You knew how I felt about him. You slept with him, anyway.”

“I won’t apologize because Hunter likes me better.”

“You threw yourself at him.” I’d heard from a half dozen people who’d been at the party where they hooked up that Adair was on Hunter like a tick on a deer. “What guy turns down sex?”

“What guy wants to go out with a nut job?” she shoots back.

Nut job, nut job, nut job.

I open my mouth to refute her but the denial dies on my lips. “Get out of here, Adair.”

“I’m not finished.” Her face is pinched and hateful. “I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday at the arcade.”

I shake my head and mutter, “I can’t believe I went out to your dad’s cabin to check on you.”

“Is that why Hunter didn’t come to the cabin? Because you went instead?”

“You were there?”

“Of course I was. It’s where Hunter and I...” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but it’s easy enough to fill in the blanks. The cabin is where she and Hunter get it on.

“Nobody was there at eight o’clock.”

Nobody, that is, except the guy with the black hair and the suspicious story.

“I left before then.”

Hunter worked the early shift at the arcade yesterday. Adair must have stuck around only until she figured Hunter wasn’t coming.

“So what did you say to Hunter?” Her glare is as hot as the Carolina sun.

“Why don’t you already know? Doesn’t Hunter share things with you?”

“What did you say to him?” she demands.

“I said I can’t believe he’s going out with such a slut.”

She jumps up from the kitchen chair, her hand inadvertently hitting the coffee cup and knocking it over. She closes the distance and looms over me, shaking her finger in my face. “This isn’t over, bitch. If you cross me again, it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“Are you threatening me?”

She shoves a finger into my breastbone, and I bat it away.

“What do you think?” I can smell the coffee on her breath. “Even somebody as crazy as you should be able to figure that one out.”

She storms out of the kitchen and through the house, slamming the front door behind her. Brakes screech as Adair pulls her car out of the driveway and speeds off down the street. Strange. Adair’s older sister was speeding last year when she lost control and hit a tree. She’d been lucky to escape with her life. Back when we hung out, Adair was always lecturing whoever was driving about going too fast.

The entire scene had been out of character. Even when Adair said something mean, it was in that molasses-sweet voice. But then, I’ve known for a while now that Adair is hiding her true nature.

To think I was actually worried that whoever took me to that forest had gotten Adair, too. I mean, really. That’s the definition of a nut job.

When I report for work the next afternoon, it’s all over the carnival that Adair and Hunter are taking a break.

“It was totally his idea,” Maia tells me.

She’s the reason the news has spread. Maia’s working at the arcade tonight, but the two venues are close enough that she can dash back and forth when she’s on break. The gossip is so juicy that she seems to have forgotten she was angry with me.

“He’s tired of her shit,” Maia is whispering, but the carnival hasn’t gotten cranked up yet so I can hear her fine.

I’m using sanitizing wipes on the Kiddie Land motorcycle ride, my first assignment of the day. I pause and give Maia my full attention. I had the pretty strong impression she only talked to Hunter on an as-needed basis. “Hunter told you this?”

“Adair did.”

“Adair used those words? That Hunter was tired of her shit?”

“She should have. She texted him that she was at her dad’s cabin. When he didn’t come out to be with her, she let him have it. I guess usually he takes it. This time he didn’t.”

“I’m surprised she told you that.”

Maia adjusts the yellow chrysanthemum in her hair. “Why’s that?”

“She’s usually pretty secretive.”

Maia shrugs. “I guess she needed somebody to talk to.”

So she picked the biggest gossip in Midway Beach?

“Did Adair seem... different to you?” I ask.

“Hell, yeah. I’ve never seen her so mad in my life.”

Not counting this morning in my kitchen, I’d never heard her raise her voice.