Hanging by a Thread (25 page)

“But—Rachel. She didn’t come right out and threaten Amanda, right? She didn’t say, like, ‘
We’re
going to get her’ or anything like that, did she?”

Rachel pulled away from me, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

“No, not exactly,” she admitted.

“And how does she act around you now?”

“Like she always does—super nice all the time. But that doesn’t mean anything. She could have told Mr. Granger, and then he went after Amanda. She might not even know he did it.”

“Don’t you think she’d be suspicious? If all of a sudden Amanda disappeared after she told him?”

“Maybe … maybe they decided together. Or maybe she just wants to be in denial about it. I don’t know.”

“Rachel, I still think it’s a stretch. The police think it was a stranger—”

“No.” Rachel shook her head. With her hair glinting gold in the sun and bringing out her blue eyes, she looked
like herself again. “No. It was him. And ever since then, I’ve known he was watching me. Waiting.”

“Is that the real reason you guys are leaving town tonight?”

Rachel nodded, her hair covering half her face. “Mom told Dad we ought to get out of town because the festival was going to be crazy. She made the hotel reservations ages ago. He has no idea what’s really going on. I mean, it’s like this secret she and I have in the family, and I’m not allowed to ever bring it up, even with her.” Her voice quaked as she added, “I hate that, Clare. I hate having secrets in the family. It makes me feel really …”

I knew what she was going to say even before the wind took her final whispered word and carried it away. I knew because I’d felt it too, felt it so deep it was like it was a part of me, in my blood, lodged in my bones.

“Alone.”

Rachel had to get home to finish her packing, and I was glad her parents were both home, getting ready for the trip. I didn’t want her to be alone.

She seemed fine when she dropped me off. Rachel had always had an uncanny ability to switch from one mood to another. I’d always thought she was just really good at keeping her feelings pushed down and locked away. Now I knew better. She was more fragile than most people would ever know.

I felt like I had no control over my own emotions lately. Worse, I felt like something else—my gift, or else the inanimate objects that brought it out—was in charge of me rather than the other way around.

Ever since I’d touched the jacket, I’d gotten deeper and deeper into a situation that I had nothing to do with. At every step I unearthed secrets about people they would do anything to keep hidden. And I had yet to find any reason for them not to stay hidden, since nothing would ever bring Dillon or Amanda back.

Until today. If Rachel was right, she was truly in danger. She could escape for the time being, but she would never really be safe here as long as Mr. Granger’s rage fueled his desire for vengeance. And how could a parent ever let go of their grief over the loss of a child? Mrs. Stavros had basically stopped living. Mr. Granger had chosen rage instead. Neither choice offered much solace, but who was I to judge?

Sitting at the kitchen table, picking at some leftover pizza I’d found in the fridge, I went back and forth. Either Amanda’s death was unrelated to Dillon’s, and she’d been taken by a stranger who was walking free somewhere … or what? Or Amanda had been killed by Mr. Granger. And maybe that had been enough to satisfy his desire for vengeance. But Winston was a small town, and Rachel was one of its stars. Everyone knew her and everyone liked her—teachers, kids from school, parents—and girls like that are far from invisible. When she marched in the homecoming parade in the fall with the cheer squad, would Mr. Granger
be watching? When the local paper ran an article about the philanthropy club’s beach cleanup day, would Mr. Granger read about its president? When he was at the Dell Market picking up a few things for dinner, would he see Rachel with a group of kids buying sodas?

And how long would it be until his rage boiled over and he decided he couldn’t stand to see Rachel happy anymore, when his son was dead?

Maybe that was why the jacket had found me. Maybe I was being asked not just to understand what had happened, but to prevent Mr. Granger from hurting Rachel. If I could somehow help her prove what Mr. Granger had done, he would be locked up and Rachel would be safe.

An idea was forming on the edges of my mind, a plan for doing just that. I was far from ready, but as I pushed the cold pizza crust around on my plate, I couldn’t seem to stop myself from wondering. Thinking.

Planning.

The jacket was safe in its hiding place in the cellar. There might be evidence on it—something to tie it to Mr. Granger. Of course, I’d touched it too, but I couldn’t do anything about that now. There must have been dozens of fingerprints on it.

Scraping my plate into the trash, I washed up the dishes and then, almost like I’d been meaning to all along, I found myself standing on my porch looking out at the ocean and texting Jack.

“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked as Jack led me to a bench two doors down from the veterinary offices. He was wearing a light blue scrub shirt over his jeans, and there were some questionable stains on it. Even so, he still managed to look amazing. His hair was doing this thing where it was falling in his eyes on one side, and the more he pushed it back, the more it fell forward again.

“Yeah, I can clean cages anytime. Besides, you heard Arthur.”

Jack’s uncle Arthur had practically pushed us out the door, telling Jack to take as long a break as he wanted. Arthur wasn’t what I expected. Yes, I could kind of tell he was sick; he was thin and he wore a skullcap over his bald head that made him look more like a rock star than anything else. He had a huge smile, and I could see glints of gold on his back teeth, like a happy pirate, what with the cap and all. Shaking my hand enthusiastically, he told me I was always welcome and made a joke about offering me something to eat but that all they had was pet treats.

It was hard not to like Arthur. I could totally see why Nana and he got along. All around the office were posters for animal causes. I even thought I saw a couple flyers for Nana’s loggerhead turtle rescue group.

And Jack seemed different around him. Not more talkative, but less … grim. Less volatile. Calmer.

“So. What’s going on, Clare?” he asked as we walked out of the office.

“I … need your help. With something. A … thing I need to do.”

“You got it.”

If he hadn’t answered like that—instantly, no questions asked, no gotta-check-my-calendar, I might not have had the guts to tell him everything. I probably would have gotten even more tongue-tied and ended up asking a lot of dumb questions about anything else. But when I didn’t answer for a minute, Jack put out his fingers, touching my cheek and turning my face so I had to look at him. He didn’t smile.

“Clare—it’s
me
. Tell me what you need.”

I shivered, both from his touch and from the way he always looked right into my eyes, as though nothing he found there could disappoint him.

I started with what Rachel had told me and then I told him what I needed to do. People drove in and out of the office parking lot, hurrying into the dry cleaners and the phone store and the bakery. A few people came with cat carriers and dogs on leashes, but none of them paid us any attention at all, and when I was done Jack just nodded, wrapping his hand around mine.

“So.” I took a deep breath, not looking at him. “I wouldn’t blame you if you thought I ought to be locked up or something.”

“The Grangers will be over at the festival all day. I’ll pick you up around noon, okay?”

Of course I said yes. Sharing my fears with Jack, knowing that he was willing to help, even if I was wrong, even if I was crazy, made it better already. I walked back into the clinic with him—he’d bought his uncle a cookie, despite
the fact that Arthur probably wouldn’t eat it—and said good-bye. I promised Arthur I would come back again soon, give my love to my grandmother, and let him know the minute I talked my mom into a pet so he could discuss her options with her.

As I left, I felt a kind of hope that I wasn’t sure was warranted. After all, we were about to do something really risky—maybe even stupid. And yet, when I biked away from the shopping center, I felt more sure than I had in a long time.

“W
HAT
’
S THIS
?” I
ASKED AS
I got into Jack’s truck the next day. I’d promised my mom I’d meet her at the festival in the afternoon and we could walk around together. No matter what we found, this expedition wasn’t going to take that long.

On the seat was a brown bag, the top rolled over like a lunch sack, but when I picked it up it was heavy and made a clanking sound.

Jack shot me a look. “Breaking and entering one-oh-one. I looked it up on the Internet.”

“Oh, no …” I opened the bag and looked in: a thin strip of metal, a screwdriver, a file, some wire. “Are you sure—I mean, with, you know—”

“My police record?” Jack asked. “Yeah. Wouldn’t look good. So, let’s not get caught, okay?”

He sounded calm; only the slightest edge to his voice gave any hint that he had any concerns about what we were going to do. I felt guilty already, asking him to come with
me, but I hadn’t thought about what would happen if we got caught. I guess I was thinking I would just make up some story on the spot. Maybe I’d be believable, maybe I wouldn’t, but the odds were that as a good kid who’d never been in any kind of trouble before, I’d be able to fake my way out of it.

But Jack? Not so much. He’d been accused of things a lot worse than sneaking into a stranger’s house, and I would guess that the detective he’d told me about, the one who seemed so disappointed not to be able to pin Amanda’s disappearance on him, would be more than happy to have something else to focus on.

“Look, Jack—maybe I should do this alone. I mean, it’s not all that complicated. I’ll just make sure no one’s home and then I’ll only need about a half hour. You could wait for me a few blocks away.”

“No.” Jack was already shaking his head before I finished speaking. “No way I’m letting you go in there alone.”

“But if I make sure no one’s home, nothing can happen,” I pointed out, reasonably.

Jack’s stormy glare told me otherwise. “No. I’m coming with you or I’m turning around and taking you home.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it again. Jack’s determination made me feel safe.

He parked on a street parallel to the Grangers’, in front of a house that was under construction. I was new to the whole wrong-side-of-the-law thing, and as Jack and I walked, I tried to channel my nervousness into acting normal. When I touched his hand he wrapped it around mine.

“Just walk around the side like we belong here,” he said. “We could be watering her plants or taking care of her cat.”

We didn’t see anyone in the streets. Everyone was probably down at the festival, along with the hundreds of out-of-towners who’d come for the day. I followed Jack down a walkway on the side of the tidy ranch house, toward a wooden gate, and Jack dug into his pocket and pulled out some plastic gloves.

“Put these on,” he said. “It’s just in case, worst-case scenario, the Grangers think they’ve had a break-in—the cops won’t find our prints.”

“Oh, Jack, do you really—”

“I’m in the system,” he said quietly. “You’ve never been printed, but I have. If they get a match—”

I slipped on the gloves. On the other side of the gate was a walkway leading to a neatly mowed backyard edged in empty flower beds. Everything was tidy, but there were no signs that anyone had been enjoying the patio. The furniture was covered and the grill looked untouched.

“Sliding glass door,” Jack said, scanning the back of the house, “and that window’s open. We can get in that way. But before we try …”

I followed him around the other side to where a door led into the garage. Jack tried the knob; it opened easily.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “And what do you want to bet …”

The garage was lined with exercise equipment and gardening tools, golf clubs and sports gear, all of it neatly stored but dusty from lack of use. Jack tried the door to the house.