Vengeance Bound (21 page)

Maybe Jocelyn was telling the truth about Mindi being crazy. Now Dylan’s rant about hanging out with a mental patient makes perfect sense.

Still, I can’t fault Mindi for going off the deep end over her mother’s death. Aren’t we all a little unstable at times? Her mom being murdered seems like a pretty good excuse.

The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. We both look up. All I want is to get the hell out of Crazytown, but I can’t. Mindi is my friend. I swallow nervously. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I can bear to sit through sixth and seventh periods. Wanna go to the mall?” I half-expect her to bite me.

Her eyes widen. “You mean cut class?”

Looks like meek, slightly more stable Mindi is back. Crazy as she may be, she’s still the best friend I have. “With Carson gone, there’s no one to stop us. We should get out while we can. Come on. I’ll buy you a pretzel and we can get makeovers.”

Mindi gives a hope-filled look. Although she’s surrounded by people, she doesn’t have any real friends. Not anyone willing to put her first.

“Okay,” she says, wiping away her tears with a piece of toilet paper. “But we should wait until the late bell rings before we try to leave. I’m sure someone will see us if we go right now.”

“No problem, but I think I’m gonna go wait in my own stall.” She giggles, and I give her a wide grin, feeling for the millionth time like a complete fraud. As a smile lights up her face, I know that I can’t go near Niko again, no matter how I ache for him.

Once again They are right. Nothing lies down that path but pain and heartbreak. Mindi is proof of that.

Still, I have to wonder if it might not be worth the trip.

CLOSE CALL

There’s a cop car sitting in front of my apartment building when I arrive home after dropping off Mindi. It’s dark out, and the interior light in the cruiser illuminates the officer bent over paperwork. My breath hitches. The police make me nervous. I’m not exactly a model citizen.

I get out of my car and head up the walk, and the officer does the same. He gives me a friendly smile and calls my name. “Corrine Graff?”

I stop and give him a confused smile. “Yes? Can I help you?”

The officer holds out his hand to shake, and I take it. “Officer Harmon. Jason Harmon. I’m here to ask you a few questions about Mr. Carson’s assault. I understand you’re the last person to see him before he was attacked.”

I widen my eyes and nod. “Oh, okay. Uh, can we talk inside? I live upstairs.”

Harmon nods, and I lead the way into the building and up the stairs. Once inside I take off my shoes, eyeing the closed door to my bedroom. I can’t remember if I tucked all of my news clippings away in my trunk before I left this morning. My thoughts were so totally focused on getting back at Amber that I’m pretty sure my past crimes are completely visible.

Only a door separates me from the possibility of a very, very long prison sentence. I should’ve talked to him out on the sidewalk.

But Officer Harmon isn’t here for me, and I have no intention of changing that. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen?” I offer. He nods, and I lead the way.

Once we are in the minuscule kitchen, I pull out a chair for the officer. He sits down and declines my offer of tea or water. I grab a bottle of water for myself and sit in the chair across from him. He already has a notebook out, and he levels a gaze at me, his expression serious. “Why don’t you call your parents, Miss Graff? I don’t want to do this without their permission.”

I laugh, and shake my head. “Well, you’d have to hold a séance to get their permission. I’m an orphan, Officer Harmon. This is all mine.” No point in lying to a man who can easily look up my past.

Officer Harmon frowns slightly. “This is your apartment?”

I nod, a smile curving my lips. The Furies love keeping the cops off balance. “Yup. At least that’s what the lease says.” Actually, the lease says Bernadette Allen. But he doesn’t need to know that.

Just to make sure he’s a little distracted, I stretch and let out a soft sigh, fighting a smile as his eyes lock on the pull of fabric across my breasts.

Gotcha.

Officer Harmon shifts in his seat and studies his notebook closely, pretending he’s not checking me out. “Okay, Miss Graff. Why don’t you tell me what happened this morning.”

I tell him the same story I told the secretary, adding a few hair flips and catlike stretches for his benefit. He interrupts me several times to stutter out a few terse questions. I get the impression that Officer Harmon is not exactly overflowing with personality.

“So you didn’t see the boys who attacked Mr. Carson up close?”

I shake my head for the third time. “No. After they ran up to Mr. Carson, I ran to the office. I’ve never seen anything like that before. I was scared,” I say in a small voice. It’s the truth. The only problem is that I wasn’t afraid of Carson’s phantom attackers; I’m afraid of myself.

Officer Harmon nods and stands. “Okay. Thanks for all of your help.”

I stand as well. “No problem, Officer. Oh, how is Mr. Carson doing? The rumor at school was that he went to the hospital.”

The officer nods. “He’s pretty beat up.” He catches himself, then looks at me and taps his pen against his lips. “I’m not supposed to discuss that kind of stuff.”

I nod, eyes wide, lip trembling. “I understand. I was just so worried, when those boys ran up to him . . .” I shake my head, like I’m trying to clear a bad memory.

Officer Harmon clears his throat and lays an awkward hand on my shoulder. “Umm, yeah, that kind of experience can be pretty upsetting. But Mr. Carson will be fine. He has three broken ribs and a concussion, but nothing life-threatening.”

I’m surprised to hear that I broke his ribs after all. There’s a moment of perverse pleasure, but I push it down before the officer notices. That’s Them, not me. “Do you think it’s safe to go back to school? I mean, do you think the people who did this will come back?”

Harmon smiles. “I think it’s safe enough.”

I see the officer out and lean against the door with a sigh. I’m pretty sure that I’m not a suspect, but I need to think about getting out of town. I’m not sure what the chances are that Harmon will tell the school that I lied on my admission paperwork, but if he does, it won’t be good. If I want to stay here, I’m going to have to hack into the student files and update my information.

But why would I do that? This is entirely too close for comfort, and things are getting complicated. My control on Them is thin, and I’m no closer to finding Dr. Goodhart. It is way past time to leave town. We can find the doctor just as well from the road as we can from here. And I can’t guarantee that They won’t do something violent at school again. There is entirely too much risk in staying.

And yet . . . I don’t want to go.

I grab my bottle of water and a bag of carrot sticks and head into my bedroom to look for Jefferson Halsey some more. I pause. Maybe I should take my mind off things for a little while. TV sounds good right about now. I turn toward the oversize sofa, plop down, and flip through the channels until I land on a police drama.

I love those shows where the cops always catch their criminal, and the perps end up in jail for the rest of their lives. The stories are so unrealistic. Half of the guilty that I hand down justice to have never been to a jail. If the cops ever do catch a suspect, the court system is lucky to put the person away for a minimum sentence, let alone the maximum. Still, I like the false hope the shows give me.

On the screen two bleary-eyed detectives in overcoats question a job site foreman. Satisfied with his answers, they walk away. The shorter guy shakes his head. “I wonder if that guy knows his employee of the month has ten aliases,” he says, and snickers.

My breath catches. Aliases. Why didn’t I think of that? As a girl who has a drawer full of driver’s licenses, I should have considered that Jefferson Halsey might be going by a different name.

I should’ve considered that maybe Dr. Goodhart changed his name. Maybe I haven’t been as focused on finding him as I thought.

I run into my work area and pull Halsey’s article out of the drawer, ignoring the way the rest of the articles flutter in a warm breeze. It’s just Their way of letting me know They like what I’m thinking.

I scan down the article until I find what I’m looking for. Tickles the Clown.

I type the name into the browser, and get millions of results. I narrow the search down to Pennsylvania, and the first page that pops up is a company called Party Solutions out of Downingtown. That’s a little more than an hour away.

The website has pictures of the clown at parties. Under one of them is what I’m looking for: Tickles the Clown, played by Mr. Ulysses Halsey.

I’ve hacked into the DMV’s intranet before, and returning is effortless. I pull up Ulysses Halsey’s PA license. A smiling Jefferson Halsey stares back at me. The man is so stupid that he took his hometown as his first name.

Of course, it kept me from finding him for a while, so maybe it wasn’t such a dumb move.

I drum my fingers on the desk, debating whether I should do a quick search through the government databases to see whether or not Dr. Goodhart changed his name after Charlotte. If he did, I should be able to find something in the Social Security database.

I pause, fingers poised over the keyboard. If I find him, They’ll want to carry out his justice. The thought of confronting him twists my stomach into knots. It feels too personal to kill someone from my past.

I shut down the computer before I can analyze the feeling too closely. There will be time for my personal vengeance later, after I’ve sated Their hunger.

In the back of my mind, They begin to stir. Restless, eager, excited. The screen goes dark, and in the reflection of the glass, They stand on either side of me, grinning and anxious to hand down our delayed justice.

It’s a good night for hunting.

THE WRONG GUY

Jefferson Halsey lives not in Downingtown but in a depressing apartment complex in King of Prussia. While the area is better known for the mall, there are also a number of cheap housing developments, allowing the retail-wage slaves to live nearby. King’s Choice is one of these complexes. It looks like it was once a motel. The building is painted the color of dog crap, a brown so repulsive that I wonder if it isn’t a worse punishment to make Halsey continue to live in the dump.

Doors open onto a common outdoor landing, and I try to look nonchalant as I walk along, looking for number 23. After passing three doors, I give up the act. There is a party going on, and people are standing on the landing smoking and telling stories about how drunk they got at the last party. Foot traffic moves between apartments, while rock, dance, and rap music mingles in the chilly night air. Halsey’s apartment window happens to be the only one that’s dark at this time of night. I guess it’s not his kind of party.

As I make my way, I try to calm the fluttering in my stomach. After Alex Medina, I’m pretty nervous. If anything goes wrong, a lot of people are going to get hurt.

I don’t even consider coming back to do it another time.

“Hey, do I know you?”

I turn around, and a beefy guy wearing a tight, glittery polo shirt walks up. His dark hair is gelled to within an inch of its life, and he actually flexes a little when I look at him. I swallow a grimace and smile.

I shake my head. “Nope. My roommate and I just moved in.”

The guy grins. “Well, in that case, welcome to the neighborhood. You should invite me in.”

Ick. Like that would ever happen. The Furies don’t even have to chime in. I can tell this guy is a loser by his bad midwinter tan.

I shrug. “I would, but she locked the door. I can’t even get in.” I pout prettily, and Sparkle Shirt moves closer.

“Well, I could probably help you get into the room. Is your window unlocked?”

Halsey’s big picture window is right next to the door. I eye it. “I don’t know. How do I check?” I shrug again, pretending to be stupider than dirt.

Sparkle Shirt hands me his beer, and I hold it while he pops out the screen and jimmies the window open. Big handprints are left behind as he slides the glass up. Better his fingerprints than mine. He laughs. “Like that. Now, since I helped you get into your apartment, why don’t you invite me in?” Translation: “I let you into your apartment; now let me into your pants.”

I giggle and hand him back his beer. “Sure. Why not?” But what I really mean is, “Not in a million years, Neanderthal.”

I climb inside the opening and land on a couch that reeks of cat urine. I close the window behind me and lock it, settling the blinds back into place. Instead of opening the front door, I move deeper into the apartment. It takes the guy on the landing a few minutes to realize I’m not coming back, and he begins to pound on the door.

“At least gimme your number,” he shouts from the other side.

I’ve made my way to the kitchen, and I duck behind the counter when footsteps come from the back hallway. I peer around the corner and see a middle-aged man in a ragged bathrobe crack open the front door just a bit. The meathead outside pauses midpound.

“Hey, bro. Uh, is there a really hot blond girl in there?”

Halsey sighs and rubs his balding head. “No, I’m afraid there isn’t. Could you please stop knocking on my door?” His voice is soft and meek. It’s hard to believe someone so polite could do the things he’s accused of.

Sparkle Shirt looks uncertain for a moment. He turns his head at a shout from down the way and holds up his hand. “All right. I’m coming.” He turns back to Halsey. “Sorry, man. I’m really, really drunk.”

“Of course you are,” Halsey mutters, but Sparkle Shirt has already stumbled off. Halsey closes and locks the door, and when he shuffles back to his bedroom, I move from behind the counter and fall into step behind him.

“Jefferson Halsey,” I say. He spins around, eyes wide with fear, and I release the hold I have on Them. He tries to push past me but falls back and scoots backward across the floor, his bathrobe falling open to reveal the stained boxers and undershirt he wears beneath. My vision splits into three, and a scorching wind swirls around the tiny apartment, melting the cheap carpet.