Ghost Flower (27 page)

I
followed Roscoe’s eyes and saw Coralee and her crew coming toward us. Roscoe leaned toward me, said, “I’ll see you at tennis tomorrow,” kissed my cheek and took off.

“Wait,” Coralee called, running after him. Grant hung back to stand by me. He held his camera toward me. “Look at the screen, not at me, in case Coralee is watching.”

I pretended to be very interested in the footage he was showing me, which was of Coralee doing some kind of dance in fast-forward. “I think I’d like to see this for real,” I told him.

“Funny, I didn’t peg you as a masochist. Coralee’s dancing is not for the faint of heart. Anyway, the thing is, I can’t stop thinking about kissing you. Don’t look at me; look at the screen.”

I kept my eyes on the screen and bit back my smile. “I liked it too.”

“I have this idea that it could be really pleasant to make out with you for four, maybe five hours. Are you free tomorrow afternoon after the tennis tournament?”

“I have to check with Bridge—”

“So that’s how I shoot a musical number,” he announced, slightly too loud.

I looked up and saw that Coralee had rejoined us. “You’re showing her my Sonoran Sunrise Festival clogging performance?” She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was secretly proud.

“That was really great,” I said, looking sideways at Grant.

She turned to Grant. “I’m going to run to the bathroom, then grab my date. You and Huck get into position in the dining room.”

“As you wish, sir,” he said.

She made a heart with her fingers and held it up to her chest. “Love him!” She grabbed me by the arm. “And you come with me.”

“Clogging?” I whispered to Grant as she pulled me away.

“It begins and ends with her initials,” he explained with a grin.

I was still digesting that as Coralee dragged me through the crowd toward a sign that said “RESTROOMS” in gilded serif letters more suitable for a bank than a bathroom.

There was an arrow pointing down a set of dark green carpeted stairs. “The stairs to the old pool are at the bottom to the left through the door that says ‘AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL’. In case you ‘forgot.’” She put “forgot” in air quotes.

I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

She pulled me against the wall and whispered in my ear, “Look, I know your secret. So you can stop with the I-don’t-remember-anything-about-anything act.”

My stomach lurched with shock. Coralee knew I was an imposter. Coralee. Queen of tweeting. If she told anyone, it would all come out. The deal with Bain and Bridgette. Who I really was…

I couldn’t let that happen. My heart started to pump in my ears. “You do?”

She nodded. “Of course. I figured it out ages ago. But don’t worry,
I didn’t tell then, and I won’t tell now.”

I suddenly had the feeling that she and I were not talking about the same secret. “Thanks,” I said. “Who told you?”

“No one
told
me. I could just tell. I’m good at watching people. The way he always happened to pass by during tennis practice. And I saw him leaving notes for you at the Old Man.”

“Notes? With an Old Man?” I repeated.

“The Old Man? That big cactus near school.” She sighed with exasperation. “I told you, I
know
about it. You don’t have to keep pretending. It was romantic the way you had to be secret and have Liza pick them up and deliver them for you.” My heart foundered as she said, “But now you get a second chance.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. Although, in that instant, I was fairly sure I knew.

“Hugsbyefornow,” she said, pushing me excitedly in the direction of the stairs.

Turn and run
, a voice in my head told me.
Go.
This is one meeting you are completely unprepared for.

But I couldn’t. Like I was being urged forward by an invisible hand.

The face in the scratched-out picture.

I followed the short stairwell down until it ended at a door that said: “NO EXIT. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

I paused, then pushed through it.

The smell hit me first, the clean smell of chlorine and the less clean smell of mildew. My footsteps echoed through the massive tiled room. The pool was empty, but in the dim light coming from the emergency exit signs, you could see it had once been fancy, with a wall of green-and-gold mosaics on one side and a wall of mirrors on the other.

Halfway down the length of the pool, I saw him. He was sitting on an abandoned lounge chair, legs straight in front of him, arms crossed over his plaid button-down cowboy shirt, leaning back with the kind of quiet patience of someone who could wait all day, all year for something. I could imagine him sitting there a dozen, two dozen, times before—same place, same posture. I could imagine Aurora walking toward him just like I did now.

He said her name out loud now, and the way he said it was enough. Even though his face had been scratched out in the photo, I knew immediately who he was.

Colin Vega.

I
could see why Aurora had scratched his face off so completely because if she hadn’t, it would have been hard to be angry with him.

He was the kind of good-looking that smacks you in the stomach, the kind you see a hundred miles away and only looks better when it’s up close, the kind that makes your stomach feel gooey and all your joints seem to be less functional than they were the minute before you saw him. He looked like Superman in the moment right after he’s done something death-defying but before he’s put Clark Kent’s glasses back on—a little rough, not quite tame.

But maybe the Superman impression was wrong because there was an edge to him, a tautness of his jaw. This was no good boy, but he wasn’t a simple bad boy either.

Given what I knew of Aurora, I could imagine the two of them had been sparky together.

He had deep-set brown eyes ringed with thick lashes, high cheekbones that cut his face into plains, and a tight mouth that looked like it could curl up in the corners, but didn’t. His hair was shorter than in the photo strip and kind of fuzzy, like it had been buzzed off. He had a
scar through his left eyebrow. His face looked older than I’d pictured it, or maybe just careworn. His eyes seemed like they were the kind that could dance with mischief or even laughter under the right circumstances, but there was no laughter in them now. There was nothing.

He didn’t stand as I drew closer, just looked me up and down and said, “You cut your hair.”

My heart caught in my throat. I said, “You too.”

He ran his hand over his, front to back then back to front and nodded. “Occupational hazard.”

I said, “You—you’re not supposed to be here. I heard you moved.”

“I heard you were back.”

The coldness in his tone and his gaze was awful. He hated me, or who he thought I was.

“How’s Dartmouth?” I asked.

“I didn’t go. I enlisted instead.”

“Enlisted?”

“Marines. Did a tour and a half in Afghanistan.” He rubbed his thigh like it was really important for the fabric of his jeans to be smooth. Without warning he said, “You know I waited for you that night. And the next day. And the next night.”

I didn’t have to ask which night. I knew he meant the night Aurora disappeared. “I’m sorry.”

“‘I’m sorry’? That’s all you have to say?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

He seemed genuinely at a loss for words. Silence spread through the vast tiled room. “Something about why you didn’t come? Or call? Or show up? Why you ran away without me?” He shook his head and moved his eyes to stare at the middle distance. He said, “I thought you were dead.”

“You sound disappointed I’m not.”

His eyes came back to me, and now I would have given anything for the blankness that had been there before because the pain in them was terrible. “This is not a joke. Do you know what you did to me? Thinking you were dead? It destroyed my life. You were alive all this time, and you didn’t once write? Or call? What happened to ‘let’s run away together’?” He swallowed. “What happened to ‘I love you forever’?”

He stared at me waiting for answers I couldn’t possibly give. “I—I didn’t know,” I said lamely.

I saw the inadequacy, the searing failure of that answer in his face. “You know why I enlisted?”

I shook my head.

“Because I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore. If you were dead, the world wasn’t worth living in. And the whole time there was a part of my mind that still kept wishing maybe you were alive. Maybe one day you would come back, and maybe, just maybe, you could tell me what happened.” He was breathing hard. “And now here you are. I’m listening.” The pain in his expression was lit with a flickering flame of hope.

Seeing it broke my heart. He deserved so much better than the half-lies and tawdry excuses I offered to everyone else like distracting toys. He deserved the truth.

I said, “I’m not who you think I am.”

The pain, the shimmer of hope, didn’t disappear, but it wavered. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not the person you missed. I’m not that girl.” This was hard. Too hard. I had to get him away from me, keep him far away.

He frowned. “Say that again.”

“I’m not that girl.”

He took a deep breath and said, “I am a fool.”

I reached out a hand for him. “No, you’re—”

He recoiled. “Don’t touch me. Whoever you are, don’t touch me.” He sat up straighter, bending at the waist to lean toward me. “Are you telling me you’re not Aurora Silverton?”

I hesitated. But I knew it was the only way. The only way to make this right. “Yes. I’m a fake. My name is Eve Brightman.”

He let a long low breath and shook his head. “What are you here for? Why are you doing this?”

The agony in his voice made me hate myself. What could I say? What explanation could I possibly give? Suddenly the whole thing, the quarter of a million dollars, the not wanting to be lonely, the finding out the truth—everything felt squalid.

Like he was reading my thoughts, he said, “You’re right. Don’t say anything. There is no good reason.”

“It was Bain and Bridgette’s idea. They’ll tell you,” I said. For some reason it seemed important to think of anything that could make me seem less hideous in his eyes.

“No. This isn’t possible. Why would they do that?”

“For money,” I said. “Aurora got some money—”

“When she turned eighteen. So you get it and give it to them and then what?”

“I get a small amount and leave.”

“But they didn’t need you. They would have gotten it anyway from her will. If she wasn’t alive, it went to them.” He paused, and I could almost hear his mind working. “But no one knows for sure she’s dead, do they? Of course. They just need the ID.”

“What?” I didn’t like the tone of his voice, the way his face looked mean, almost sinister.

“A dead Aurora is as good to them as a live one. Better, even. A charred Aurora would be especially good, so they wouldn’t have to
worry about DNA.” He seemed to be relishing my growing discomfort. “You’ve probably noticed by now that Bain and Bridgette are resourceful. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Eve—that’s what you said your name is, right?”

He had become cruel, and it made him ugly. I supposed after what the Silvertons, what Aurora’s absence, had put him through, it was fair. “Eve. Brightman. If you want to alert the authorities.”

“Why should I? I have no love for the Silverton family. Frankly you’re in far more danger from them than they are from you. It’s not just Bain and Bridgette who would benefit from having Aurora die in some highly visible, easily confirmed way. They all would, when the old lady kicks it. Which from what I hear could be soon.”

“She’s fine.”

He shrugged. “Could be. I hope you realize that you become much more disposable after her death. God, and I was sitting here worrying about how I was going to tell you—” He barked with laughter and smoothed the leg of his pants some more. “My God. My God.” Then, as fast as it had come, the laughter was gone, and his body tensed. He pressed his eyes together and rocked back and forth, hitting his head against the wall. “Not really her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” My mind flashed to the photos with the scratched-out face. “I’m sure there was a reason Aurora didn’t call. A good reason.”

He opened his eyes and leaned toward me. “Never say her name to me again.
Never
.” His teeth were bared, and his eyes were dark with rage. “Go. Get away from me. Get out of my sight.” His hands came toward me, twisting like claws. “Go. Before I do something I regret.”

I staggered in the direction of the door I’d come through, unaware of where I was going. The ground was seesawing beneath my feet, and my eyes were swimming.

What had I done? What kind of horrible bargain had I entered into? There was nothing benign or innocent about the horror I’d seen on his face. There was nothing safe. He hadn’t been at the party that night, so he wasn’t Liza’s killer. But the way he’d just looked at me made me think he might very well kill
me
. That look followed me out the door, through the one marked, “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL,” and into the corridor with the bathrooms off of it. I wasn’t ready to face anyone yet, so I went into the lady’s room and locked myself in the stall farthest from the door. Sitting on the toilet, I leaned my forehead against the green trellis wallpaper and fought back tears.

A dead Aurora is as good to them as a live one.

A dead ringer. That’s what Bain had called me the first day. Perhaps he meant it more literally than I’d imagined. Perhaps that was the real impersonation they’d had in mind all along.

No. It was inconceivable.

I was shaking so hard, I didn’t hear my phone right away. When I looked down at the screen, my heart pounded at the “UNKNOWN NUMBER.” I answered it.

“Where have you been, Ro-ro?” the ghost said angrily. “I’ve been trying to call you all day. Trying… to warn you.”

I
felt like I’d spent twenty-four hours preparing for this call, but now I was tongue-tied.

“Liza?” I said.