Trust Me (5 page)

“Damn it! I was doing my toenails, and I just spilled nail polish remover all over the rug. I’ll call you back.” Yana
hung up before Rae could answer.

Rae set down the phone, then pushed herself up from the bed.
I’ll just read until Yana calls me back,
she thought
as she walked over to the book. She leaned down to pick it up-and froze.

Someone was outside her window. She could hear them rustling around in the bushes. Trying to get more
pictures. Or plant another bomb. But not this time, Rae thought. This time I’m going to find out who you are.

Staying low, she crept toward the window. The spot on her leg that had been numb started to prickle. She ignored
it. Just a couple more steps and she’d be able to see. When she was close enough, she grabbed the windowsill and
used it to keep her balance. Staying in a crouch, she peered out the window. She didn’t see anything. But she could
still hear the rustling sound.

Rae cautiously raised herself a couple of inches to get a better view. “Pemberly!” she exclaimed. It was just the
neighbor’s calico cat in the middle of stalking a bird. “God, you scared me,” she said as she straightened up.

Rae didn’t know which was worse-the fact that someone probably really was after her or the way it was turning her
into a paranoid nutcase. A
real
nutcase this time.

Kidnapping Jesse gave me some interesting information about you, Rae Voight. I finally know what you are

capable of--what your power is. But it might be useful to wait and watch a little longer. Especially because now I

know someone else is watching you, watching you almost as closely as I always do. I can ’t stop wondering why. Is

their reason anything like mine? Do they dream of seeing you dead, too? If I let you stay alive -just a little longer -I

know I will be able to find out the answers. And once I have them, you ’ll be useless to me. Then comes the fun part.

Then comes my revenge. Then, Rae, you die.

*

Someone’s chewing that grape gum again,
Anthony thought. How was he supposed to think with that smell
gagging him? He shifted in his seat. Whoseidea was it to put a ridge down the middle of the chair? It was supposed
to fit your butt, but it wasn’t like there was one uniform butt size. And it was too freakin’ hot in the room. Having
class in an aluminum trailer in a place that got as hot as Atlanta did was moronic.

Face it, Fascinelli. If they held Bluebird English in the friggin’ Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where your butt was cradled

by some four-thousand-dollar chair and the AC was fully cranked, you wouldn’t like it any better.

He glanced down at his reading book and found the sentence Brian Salerno was trying to hammer his way
through. He wanted to be ready when Ms. Goyer called on him. And he knew she would. She kept giving him her
special encouraging smiles.

Salerno finished the sentence. Goyer made some good-boy noises, and then-as Anthony predicted-she called on
him. Suddenly he became aware of his shoelaces pressing down on his feet through his sneakers, and his T-shirt
felt like it now weighed about twenty pounds. He took a deep breath and pretended he was sitting in Rae’s
bedroom. No pressure. Just the two of them.

Okay. Okay. He put his finger under the first word of the sentence-and he could almost feel Rae tracing the word
on his back. “A,” he said. The image of Jesse flashed into his mind-“friend.” He hesitated when he moved to the
next word. It was one of those short ones, the ones he always felt like he should know, thatanyone should know.

Just focus,
he told himself. “Of,” he managed to get out a second later. Then the image of all the junk in his closet
popped into his head-“mine,” followed by the image of a chain saw-“saw.” He could almost feel Rae’s finger
pressing on his skin through his T-shirt again-“a.” He got a mental picture of Big Bird-“bird’s,” then a nest in a tree-

“nest.” And he was done with the sentence.

Anthony pulled in a deep breath and moved his finger to the first word of the next one. He got the picture of the
clay sculpture he and Rae had made together-a little elephant holding on to the tail of a big elephant. “After.” The
word just popped out of his mouth. Instantly a new image appeared-the stick figure on a men’s-room door-“he.”

The bell rang. Every Bluebird in the room scrambled up. For the first time ever, Anthony wished the class had
lasted just a little longer, long enough for him to finish the second sentence. He gave a snort as he pulled on his
jean jacket. He was totally losing it.

“Anthony,” Ms. Goyer called as he started for the door. Okay, yeah, he’d wanted class to go on, like, a minute
longer, but that didn’t mean he was hoping the teacher would ask him to stay. Reluctantly he turned around.

“Great job again today,” she told him. “You’re obviously doing some work at home.”

“Got a tutor,” he muttered.

Goyer smiled like it was the best news she’d ever heard. Which was kind of pathetic. Anthony smiled back at her-just to be decent.

“Good for you,” she answered.

Anthony swung his backpack over his shoulder. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, so he gave a little
half wave and hurried out the door. As he headed to the main building for math, a couple of pom-pom girls passed
him, the plastic of the pompoms making a whispering sound.

Wonder how it would feel to be out on the field and have girls like that cheering for me.
The thought came into his
head like a scene from a movie. Except in the movie, the girls all looked like Rae. And Anthony was in a Sanderson
Prep football uniform. He was on the best team in the state and-He shook his head, trying to make the vision disappear, but it stayed with him. Maybe Rae was right. Maybe he
actually did have a shot at making the Sanderson team.

If he wasn’t too much of a wuss to show up at their practice after school.

“Anthony’s a really private kind of guy,” Rae told Yana as she drove out of the Sanderson parking lot on Friday
afternoon. “So don’t tell him you went on this little fact-finding mission with me, okay? I’m not planning to tell him
anything at all unless I actually manage to track down his father.”

“Got it,” Yana answered. She pulled her collar-length bleached blond hair into a stubby ponytail with one hand and
drove with the other. The way Yana drove, Rae thought it would be better if she had
three
hands to control the
wheel, but she kept the thought to herself.

“How’re things with your dad?” Rae asked instead.

“You wouldn’t ask if you’d ever met him.” Yana made a screeching left turn. “Just picture your father.” She shot a
glance at Rae. “You got it?”

“Uh-huh,” Rae said.

“Now all you have to do is imagine the exact opposite, and you’ll have mine,” Yana explained.

“You mean he has all his hair?” Rae teased. Her dad could definitely use some Rogaine, not that it would ever
occur to him.

“I mean my dad is dumb as dirt,” Yana replied, without taking her eyes off the road. “I mean he’ll throw a fit over
anything.
Anything.
Like that there is hardened ketchup on the inside of the ketchup bottle.”

“Wow. That-”

“Sucks,” Yana interrupted. “Yeah, I know. But in two years I graduate, then I’m gone for good. No forwarding
address.”

Rae just nodded. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to get the message that Yana was done talking about her dad. “We
need to make a right at the corner,” she reminded Yana. Yana immediately cut across two lanes of traffic, ignoring
the blaring horns. Rae took a peek in the rearview mirror to see how close the car behind them had come to their
bumper-and she saw a tan SUV making an equally fast lane change about half a block back. When Yana made the
right, Rae kept her eyes on the rearview mirror. Her stomach turned inside out when she saw the SUV make the
same turn a few seconds later.

“Um, everything okay over there?” Yana asked. “Is there some hot guy behind us or something?”

Rae quickly jerked her gaze from the mirror. “No,” she said. She paused. “It’s just-okay, I might be being totally
paranoid, but there’s an SUV that’s kind of following us.”

Yana laughed. “Following
us?”
she echoed. “Doubtful. Want me to try to lose it?” she joked.

“No!” Rae said quickly. “I’d rather live.”
And if we took off too quickly, it would be pretty obvious that we knew we

were being followed,
she added silently. Of course Yana thought Rae was imagining things-but after everything
she’d been through lately, she wasn’t so convinced.

Rae continued sneaking quick glances in the rearview mirror as Yana kept driving. The SUV stayed a few cars
away from them until they were about a block away from Anthony’s school, then it made a left and disappeared. Rae
let out a deep sigh.

“So, you’re really serious, aren’t you?” Yana asked.

Rae bit her lip. “Yeah, I am,” she admitted. “Remember I told you someone was following me and Anthony when we
were looking for Jesse? I think whoever it is knows where Anthony goes to school. Maybe it was them, and they
turned because they figured out where we were going.” Rae sighed again. “Or maybe the SUV wasn’t following us
at all. Who knows?”

Yana pulled into the parking lot of Anthony’s school.

“Just to be sure, I want this friend of Anthony’s, Dan, to check out your car,” Rae said. “He’s the one who found
that bug in Anthony’s mom’s Hyundai.”

“If it will make you happy,” Yana answered as she pulled into a parking place.

“It definitely-” Rae began. Then she grabbed Yana by the arm. “Get down!” she ordered. Yana obediently slid as far
down in her seat as she could while Rae struggled into a half crouch.

“What did you see?” Yana whispered.

“Anthony was heading this way. I don’t want him to know we’re here,” Rae whispered back. Her neck was already
cramping. A VW Bug wasn’t designed with hiding room. Silently she counted to ten. Then counted to ten again. “We
should be okay now.” Rae wiped the door handle with her sleeve, pulled open the door, and half climbed, half fell
out of the car.

“Ginny, the girl I talked to on the yearbook committee, said she’d meet me outside the main doors,” Rae told Yana.

She shut the car door with her hip, then led the way across the parking lot.

“This isn’t exactly a
Charlie’s Angels-type
assignment, is it?” Yana complained. “I seriously doubt I’m going to get
the chance to kick anyone in the head or even flash some cleavage.”

“You never know the kind of danger you can find while going through old yearbooks,” Rae answered. There were
two girls hanging out near the entrance. “Ginny?” Rae said to the closest one.

“No, that would be me,” the other girl answered. She closed the book she’d been reading and smiled. “And you’re
Rae?”

Rae nodded. “I brought a friend along to help. This is Yana.”

“Hey, nice to meet you,” Ginny said. “All the old yearbooks are in the supply closet.” She pushed open the nearest
door. Rae noticed there were tiny wires running through the glass. Did that mean it was bullet proof?

“I keep telling the principal that they need to be stored someplace with a lot better temperature control, but since
half our classes are held in trailers out behind the baseball field, it’s not exactly a priority,” Ginny continued. She led
them down the hall and around the corner, then pulled open the supply closet door and waved them inside. “All
yours. Just don’t take anything, or I
will
find you,” she warned with a laugh, then left them alone.

“I really believe that girl would hunt us down,” Yana said. “Clearly the yearbook is her life, and that’s a sad, sad
thing.”

“I don’t think Anthony’s mom is over thirty-five, so-” Rae did some quick subtraction. “We should start with these.”

She grabbed three old yearbooks off the highest shelf and handed two to Yana. “Look for Fascinelli. I don’t know
Anthony’s mother’s maiden name.”

Rae sat down on the floor and flipped open the top book in her pile. All she picked up was a bunch of static. There
was too much dust on the books to get any clear thoughts. She flipped past all the club photos until she got to the
individual pictures. Before she could turn to the Fs, Yana gave a little whoop of triumph.