Haunted (12 page)

Rae took it. Anthony grunted something that might have been a greeting. Rae resisted the urge to grunt back.

“Hey,” she mumbled, lacing her hands together to eliminate any accidental touching of stuff. She was glad that Ms.

Abramson didn’t waste any time getting started.

“Hopes and dreams,” Ms. Abramson said, beginning to pace around the inside of the circle of metal chairs.

“Nothing is more important. Without hopes and dreams, there are no goals. No accomplishments. No new visions in
the world. No heroes. No stars. Today I want you to pair up and help each other discover what your hopes and
dreams are. Ask each other questions.

Really listen to what is said. Then ask some more.

When you’re done, each of you will tell the group about what your partners aspire to do and become.”

Rae turned away from Anthony toward Shawn Miller. But Shawn had already turned toward Kim Feldon.

Reluctantly Rae turned back to face Anthony, just as he was reluctantly turning back to face her.

“So. You first. Dreams,” Rae said quickly. She planned on controlling this little session.

“Don’t have any,” Anthony answered. “What about you?”

“Don’t have any, either,” Rae shot back. They stared at each other for a long moment. “I don’t buy it, anyway,” Rae
finally said, breaking the silence.

“You have to have something you want to do.”

“I have to have something, but you don’t.”

Anthony shook his head. “How does that make any sense?”

“Look, it’s different for me, okay?” Rae answered. “I just want to be normal. Not have people think I’m a freak
anymore.”

Anthony raised one eyebrow. “You’re lying,” he announced. “You don’t want to be normal. You want things to be
the way they used to be, before, you know.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “And I’m one hundred percent positive
you weren’t happy just being normal then. I’ve seen girls like you.”

“Girls like me,” Rae repeated. She didn’t ask him what that meant. She knew it was just going to piss her off.

“Yeah, girls like you,” Anthony went on, uninvited. “Got to have the perfect clothes. The perfect boyfriend. The
perfect everything. Got to be the girl that all the other girls want to be. Which isn’t being normal. Normal’s not nearly
good enough for a girl like you. If you thought you were normal-at least before the whole meltdown thing-you
probably would have wanted to slit your wrists.”

Nailed. So much for me being in control. A few questions and Anthony already had gotten her eyes stinging with
unshed tears. Rae drew in a long, slow breath. Then she tried to answer calmly. “Maybe I was like that. Maybe that is
what I wanted.” Actually, there was no maybe about it. From the time she’d hit junior high, Rae had been completely
focused on making it into the school elite.

“But even if I wanted that now, it’s a ridiculous thing to have as a dream. It’s never going to happen.

Not unless I develop the ability to turn back time.”

She was talking to herself as much as Anthony.

Laying out the logic, trying to make herself believe it deep down where she still kind of didn’t.

“Abramson didn’t say the hopes and dreams had to be possible,” Anthony answered.

“Only pathetic losers have dreams that don’t have any chance of coming true,” Rae told him. She might be a freak.

She might be a social pariah. But she wasn’t going to be a loser.

“So you’re saying there’s nothing else you want.

If you can’t be Little Miss Popular Prep School Girl, you’re just going to lie down and die because that’s the best
thing that could happen to you in life,”

Anthony said.

“Look, you said you didn’t have any dreams at all, so it’s not like you’re-” Rae began.

“We’re talking about you right now,” Anthony interrupted. “We’re talking about what a shallow, spoiled little rich
prep school-”

“I know your dream,” Rae said triumphantly.

“You want to be a rich prep school guy. That’s why you’re always ragging on me. It’s because you want it, and you
can’t have it.” His expression barely changed, but his eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, and she thought the rate of his
breathing picked up a little. Direct hit, she thought. But the burst of triumph faded. It didn’t make her feel that much
better that Anthony had something he wanted but couldn’t have.

“The only reason I’d want to go to your school is that they have the best football team in the state,”

Anthony answered. “That’s it.”

“Would you say that’s a dream of yours?” Rae answered. “To play on the Sanderson Prep team?”

She hoped Anthony could tell it was an attitude-free question. She really wanted to know the answer.

Anthony played with the slit ripped in the knee of his jeans. “Maybe,” he finally admitted, a flush climbing up his
throat.

“I can see you doing that. I mean, you’re not-”

Rae stopped herself from finishing the sentence. She hoped Anthony wouldn’t realize she’d been about to say,
“You’re not that tall.” “You’ve definitely got the build, all muscley and everything,” she said, starting over. “I bet
you’re good. And it’s not like everyone who goes to Sanderson is rich. They have scholarships.”

“Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?”

Anthony burst out. He yanked on the slit in his jeans, and the denim ripped further. “Or is there some special
scholarship for morons that I don’t know about?”

Rae reached out and pulled his hand away from the hole in his jeans, careful to keep her fingertips away from his.

“Did you listen to anything I said yesterday?” She kept her voice so low, there wasn’t a chance anyone else could
hear it. “Being dyslexic, which you definitely could be, doesn’t mean you’re a moron. It just means your brain works
differently than most people’s. Like I told you, people with dyslexia have made all these advances in tons of areas
because they do think differently.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “The book had a bunch of different
techniques to help dyslexics adapt. Why won’t you at least let me tell you about them? Why won’t you let me help
you?”

Anthony eased his hand out of hers. “Okay,” he muttered.

“Okay?” Rae repeated. She could hardly believe she’d heard him say the word.

He nodded, not quite looking at her. “Okay.”

So, none of you have seen Jesse in at least a week?” Anthony asked, searching the faces of the kids who had
been playing basketball in the park.

Rae gave him a nudge, then jerked her chin toward a kid who was way too involved in positioning his water bottle
in his backpack. Looking at him gave her a tingling sensation all down her spine. He clearly didn’t want to talk to
them. And maybe whatever he was keeping secret could lead them to Jesse.

Anthony tossed the ball he’d been holding to the closest boy, then strode over to the kid kneeling next to his
backpack. Rae followed right behind him.

“I guess you heard we’re trying to find Jesse Beven,” Anthony said.

“Haven’t seen him,” the kid muttered, fiddling with the zipper on his backpack. It was obvious he hoped if he just
kept working the zipper that she and Anthony would go away.

“Let me help you with that.” Rae knelt down and jerked the zipper closed. /can’t tell/tattoo/come kill me/ The fear
that came with the thoughts made Rae gasp. Yeah, this kid had information. But he wasn’t going to give it up, at
least not willingly.

“Okay, well, thanks for answering the question,”

Rae said. She stuck out her hand. For a second she didn’t think the kid was going to take it, but then he gave it a
hard, fast shake.

It was enough. Rae got her fingertips into position and used her free hand to keep the connection. She was
sucked up into a tornado of thoughts and feelings.

An old fear of the two strange lights that appeared on his bedroom wall every night. Embarrassment over some
stupid nickname his friends had given him. The secret fact that he liked to pretend he was Harry Potter even though
he was way too old.

Jesse, Rae thought. She needed anything he knew about Jesse, and time was running out. “Tattoo.” She forced
the word out, even though it was hard to speak during the fingertip-to-fingertip contact, and she tightened her grip
on the kid’s hand. New thoughts exploded in her brain. A dark-haired man with the tattoo of a scorpion on his hand,
grabbing Jesse. The man seeing the kid watching.

Telling him to keep his mouth shut or the man would be coming after him next. The kid running until he felt like his
lungs would burst.

The kid jerked his hand away from Rae’s and leaped to his feet. “I’ve gotta go,” he told them as he rushed off. Then
he paused and looked over his shoulder. “Good luck finding Jesse.” He bolted before either Rae or Anthony could
answer.

“I didn’t get a lot of details,” Rae told Anthony as they headed out of the park. “But that kid was the real deal. I’m
sure of it. I didn’t think about it before, but those other people I touched when we were asking about Jesse-their
thoughts didn’t have emotions attached to them. The kid’s did. He saw Jesse get snatched, and he’s terrified the
guy will come after him if he talks about it.”

“Did you get any thoughts about the guy? What he looked like?” Anthony asked. He sounded ready to tear the
guy’s head off.

“The kid didn’t have a great memory of his face.

He had dark hair. And a tattoo of a scorpion on his hand,” Rae answered.

“A scorpion,” Anthony repeated. “I feel like I’ve seen that tattoo. But I can’t remember where. I’ve got that itchy
feeling in my head, you know? But it’s not coming.”

“Maybe if we touched fingertips, I could find the memory,” Rae suggested. “But if it’s not something you’re able to
access, I’m not sure how easy-”

“No, you’re right. It wouldn’t work. If I just stop trying to think of it, it will pop into my head,”

Anthony said quickly.

He doesn’t want to let me in, Rae realized.

“Now I just have to figure out how to think of something else. Because right now all I can think about is Jesse.”

Anthony rubbed his forehead with the heels of his hands, as if that would help his brain work the way he wanted it
to.

“Well, um, I know one other thing you could think about,” Rae answered. She cut a glance at him, sure he wasn’t
going to want to hear what she had to say. “You said you’d be up for trying out some stuff from that book after we
hit the park. It’s at my house. Would you want to come by for a while? Maybe you’ll think of where you’ve seen the
tattoo while we work.”

Anthony’d been praying that she’d forgotten about the whole reading thing. Which was pretty delusional because
it hadn’t been that long since that hopes-and-dreams group therapy exercise. “Okay,” he muttered. What else could
he say? That he had changed his mind? That he was a total wuss? “So, I was thinking,” he said as they started
walking back to the car. “Maybe this stuff with Jesse could have something to do with you.”

“What?” Rae exclaimed, her blue eyes widening.

She sounded like he’d just accused her of snatching Jesse herself.

“All these people with all these different thoughts in their heads about Jesse,” he explained, kicking at the gravel
on the path as they walked. “That’s pretty weird. And right after someone hired David to set that pipe bomb to ki-to,
you know.” He cringed, realizing Rae probably didn’t need to be reminded about the attempt on her life.

“Kids disappear all the time,” Rae answered. She tucked her hands into the opposite sleeves of her sweater as if
she was suddenly cold. “It’s not so weird. There are a lot of sickos out there.”

“That’s not the part I meant,” he argued. “All those freakin’ stories. That’s X-Files weird. And so is the whole thing
with you. The fingerprint thing. Some mystery person out to kill you.” Anthony gave a helpless shrug. “Two bizarre
things happen in less than a month. It would almost make more sense if they were connected somehow.” They
reached the sidewalk, then headed down to the car and got in in silence.

“I guess you could be right,” Rae admitted. She fastened her seat belt, and Anthony pulled out into traffic. “But
unfortunately, even if you’re right, it’s not going to help us any. We’re as clueless about who went after me as we are
about what actually happened to Jesse.”

“How are you doing, anyway? With knowing someone is…”

“Is probably looking for another chance to kill me?” Rae finished for him.

Anthony nodded, feeling like a moron for not asking more often. Rae wasn’t the kind of girl who’d blab on and on
about how scared she was. She could be half out of her mind with fear and never bother saying anything to him
about it.

“I’m, you know, as well as can be expected,” Rae answered. “Except, and this is probably total paranoia talking, a
lot of the time I feel like someone is watching me, following me, even.”

Anthony’s eyes automatically went to the rearview mirror. He saw cars back there, but on this street that was
normal. “Have you seen anything?”