Trust Me (7 page)

Rae loved that
we.

“Monday after group-if I can find an address for a Tony Fascinelli there,” she answered.

Yana nodded and cranked the radio. She punched the channel buttons until she found some fast, pulse-pounding
techno. Rae let the music thrum through her body until the feeling of having been slimed by Al washed away.

“You want to stay and have dinner?” Rae asked as Yana pulled onto Rae’s street.

“Can’t. I’m cooking, remember?” Yana said. She came to a stop in front of Rae’s driveway.

“I know you hate to be thanked-but thanks,” Rae told her as she scrambled out of the car.

“Later,” Yana replied, then she was burning rubber.

Rae shook her head as she watched the little yellow car disappear. As she headed inside, she reminded herself to
make sure Anthony’s friend got Yana’s VW checked out for bugs ASAP.

“Dad, I’m home,” she called out. Her father popped out of his office a second later, a big grin on his face. “What?”

Rae asked.

“You’ve got a secret admirer,” he told her. “There was a package waiting for you on the front porch when I got
home. It’s on your dresser.”

A lump formed in Rae’s throat. What if it was from whoever left that picture in her locker at school? Now they were
leaving things at her house, too? Without even responding, Rae rushed down the hall to her room. She burst in,
then stopped and stared at the object waiting on her dresser, at the perfectly folded violet paper covering the small
box.

Just pick it up,
she ordered herself. What was she going to do-watch it until it disappeared? That wasn’t likely.

Besides, why was she so sure it was from the same person who left the picture? Maybe it was even from Marcus or
something. She shook her head, then strode over and took the box in her hands.

things are getting back
Rae will be/those papers are/

All the thoughts she got were from her dad. She did a more thorough search, lightly running her fingers over every
inch of the paper. The three dad thought fragments were all she picked up.

A cold finger traced the ladder of her spine, and she felt her skin break out in gooseflesh. There should be other
fingerprints on that package unless…

Unless someone didn’t want their identity revealed.

Whoever sent this knows the truth about me,
Rae realized. And that meant it probably
was
the same person who’d
left that gruesome photograph in her locker. She took in a long breath, then slowly pulled off the four pieces of tape
and let the violet paper flutter to the floor. Slowly, carefully, she pulled the top off the plain white box.

It was halfway full of gray powder. Rae tilted the box a little and used her fingers to brush the powder over to one
side. Underneath was a photo of a woman, the same woman who had been in the picture Rae had found in her
locker. The words
ashes to ashes
were written across the woman’s face in black pen.

“Ashes to ashes,” Rae whispered. Oh, no. Oh God, no. She shook the box, staring at the powder. Could it be? She
spotted a sliver of something white and carefully fished it out.

Hot bile scalded her throat as she realized she was holding a tiny piece of bone.

“Yo, Anthony.” Anthony turned around just as he was about to go into the Oakvale Institute on Monday afternoon.

“Hey,” he said as Jesse Beven caught up to him. Man, it was good to see Jesse running around. For a while there
he’d doubted he’d ever see Jesse again.

“I’ve been trying to come up with our next step,” Jesse announced. “You know, to find the guy who snatched me,
the one who’s after Rae.”

“I don’t think there is one. Not right now, anyway,” Anthony told him, even though he hated to say the words out
loud. “Frank hasn’t been back home since he grabbed you. If he hasn’t left town, he’s an idiot. I’m sure his girlfriend
told him Rae and I came around looking for him when you were missing.” Anthony ran his hands through his hair.

“Besides, the guy we really want is whoever hired Frank.”

“It has to be the same guy who hired David to plant the pipe bomb and off Rae,” Jesse answered.

Anthony nodded. “And what do we know about that guy? A big, fat nothing,” he reminded Jesse. “Rae touched
everything in David’s room and said even David didn’t know anything about the guy.”

“So we just stand around waiting until something happens again?” Jesse demanded. He sounded pissed. But he
couldn’t be as pissed as Anthony felt.

“For now,” Anthony answered. He checked his watch. “Group’s about to start.” He reached for the door handle.

Jesse grabbed his hand.

“Wait. I’ve got to tell you something. Out here,” Jesse said. He glanced over his shoulder, then returned his gaze to
Anthony. “You know Sean McGee, that friend of Nunan’s?” He rushed on without leaving a space for Anthony to
answer. “Well, Sean, he got ahold of a bunch of security codes. For houses. He’s-” Jesse checked over his
shoulder again. “He’s looking for a couple of guys to help him clean the places out. I was thinking we-”

“I’ll kick your butt from here to next week if you even talk to McGee,” Anthony told him, his voice coming out
rougher than he meant it to.

Jesse’s chin came up. “What? You afraid? You think it might hurt your chances of getting into that snotty prep
school?”

Anthony felt like he’d been sucker punched. “How the hell did you-”

“Nunan was over there making a delivery. He saw you at football practice,” Jesse answered. “I thought you hated
those prep school-”

“This has nothing to do with prep school,” Anthony interrupted. “I’ve been trying to get my crap together since
school started. You seen me smoking?”

Jesse shook his head.

“That’s why,” Anthony answered. “It took me a while, but it finally sank in that if I wanted to get out of school, I had
to get my head out of my butt.”

“Sean’s paying-” Jesse started to protest.

“Money’s not going to do much good if you’re locked away in juvie,” Anthony told him. He wanted to shake Jesse,
but that would be acting way too much like Jesse’s old man. “You’re smarter than me, Jesse,” he continued. “Just
put in the time, then you graduate and get a real job that pays decent money.” He locked eyes with Jesse. “I want
you to promise me you won’t go in on this house deal.”

Jesse hesitated. Anthony waited. “Okay,” Jesse finally muttered.

“Okay.” Anthony shoved open the door. “We have about a minute to make it to group on time.”

“Race you,” Jesse said, taking off down the hall. Anthony took off after him. Jesse gave a triumphant smile as he
headed into the room.

“I let you win,” Anthony muttered as they took seats in the cold metal chairs. Automatically he searched the room
for Rae. She wasn’t there, but a moment later she rushed into the room and took the only empty chair. Which
happened to be directly across from Anthony.

Did her suede skirt have to be so short? Because it got him thinking things he shouldn’t be thinking. At least
things that he shouldn’t be thinking about Rae. She was Miss Prep School, and he-And he might end up at that same prep school with her. The realization made Anthony’s brain itch. If they were
both at Sanderson, would it be so weird if-He refused to let himself finish the thought. No matter where he went to school, he was still going to be a Bluebird.

And Rae was still going to be a Cardinal. End of story.

The second Ms. Abramson announced their group session was over, Rae stood up, smoothing her suede skirt.

She couldn’t wait to get out of there so she and Yana could continue their search.

“Hey.” Rae turned and saw Anthony standing beside her. “I had Dan check out Yana’s car on Saturday,” he told
her, his voice so low, she had trouble making out the words. “You were right. He found something. He stuck it on
somebody else’s car, but that’s-”

“Only a temporary solution,” Rae finished for him.

“Yeah.” Anthony shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Uh, there’s something else I wanted to tell you. I
ended up going to that practice Friday.”

“You did?” Rae yelped. She grabbed him and gave him a fast hug before she could think about it, his muscles
hard and tight under her arms. “That’s so great,” she said.

“Don’t get too excited,” Anthony warned her. “There’s still those academic tests I gotta pass. I thought maybe
when you tutor me tonight, we could-”

“Oh God,” Rae exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I completely zoned. I promised Yana I’d-”

“No problem,” Anthony cut in. He started to turn away. Rae grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him back to face
her.

“Don’t get all testy,” she told him. “How about after we do my swimming thing tomorrow-if you still want to do it-”

“We’re doing it,” Anthony interrupted.

“Okay, so after that, we can do a marathon tutoring session. And tonight you should make some clay models on
your own for words you still need visuals on. I might have the list with me.” Rae opened her purse, ignoring the
fuzzy old thoughts she picked up.

“I don’t need the list,” Anthony told her. “I know what I always screw up on.”

Rae didn’t bother to correct him about saying he screwed up. He never listened. “So, I’ll see you at the Y tomorrow.

”

Anthony grunted something, and Rae hurried out to the parking lot. Yana was already waiting, the motor in her
Bug running. Rae ran over and climbed in after doing a door handle polish. She didn’t think she should head off to
Selma wearing Mush on her fingers. Her fingertips might get her a lot more info than asking questions would.

“I brought us a map.” Rae gingerly buckled her seat belt, using minimal finger-to-metal contact. “I already found
the street and everything.”

“Lucky Tony Fascinelli was listed,” Yana said as she pulled out of the parking lot at her usual Indy 500 speed.

“Actually he wasn’t,” Rae answered. “But Anthony told me about this game that he and his dad used to play,” she
lied. “His dad would call himself all these different names. One of them was Andy Hall. When I did a search online, I
found an Andy Hall in Selma.”

“Kind of a long shot, isn’t it?” Yana asked.

“Yeah. But I really want to do this for Anthony,” Rae answered.

“Are you sure Anthony even wants to find his father?” Yana asked. “If it was me and my dad was MIA, I’d be
dancing for joy.”

“I’ve talked to Anthony about it,” Rae answered. “Not about me looking for Tony,” she explained. “But about
Anthony wanting to know him. He’s always wondered if he’s like his dad since he’s not anything like his mom.”

Yana shrugged. “There’s a snack food bag in the backseat. Get me one of those Sno Balls, okay? It’s not a road
trip without Sno Balls.” She turned on the radio as Rae rooted through the bag, easily spotted the bright pink
coconut of the Sno Balls, and handed a package of them to Yana. She chose a bag of jalapeсo chips for herself and
let herself get hypnotized by the white lines of the freeway flying past them.

She was almost sorry when, a while later, they took the Selma exit, but she sat up, unfolded the map- /•j#Mjo*tf‹s.

froUvfr W pumping gas sucks / and found the circle she’d made that pinpointed Tony Fascinelli’s house. At least
what she hoped was Tony Fascinelli’s house.

Yana got them there in less than fifteen minutes. “Now what?” she asked Rae.

Rae unbuckled her seat belt. “Now we go see if Andy Hall has a son named Anthony,” she answered. She pulled
her sleeve over her fingers and climbed out of the car. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered as she headed up to the
front door, Yana right behind her, and gave a hard double knock.

The door swung open a moment later.
Yeah, this is the place,
Rae thought as she looked up at the guy standing in
front of her. He could be Anthony three years younger. There was no doubt he was Anthony’s half brother. She
hadn’t even thought that Anthony’s dad might have another family, but why wouldn’t he?

“Hi,” she said, realizing she’d been staring at the young Anthony like an idiot. “I was wondering if I could talk to
your father for a minute.”

Young Anthony gave a bark of laughter. “If you want to talk to my dad, you’re in the wrong place. He’s in Scott
State.”

“Scott State,” Rae repeated. The name sounded sort of familiar, but-

“As in Scott State Prison.”