Tighter (Page 9)

I hadn’t. I hadn’t sunk my blade or looked beneath the kitchen sink. Instead, I’d fallen asleep. But late that night, Uncle Jim and Hank had come to me for the first time. They couldn’t reason with me. They didn’t even want to. But they didn’t want me to be completely alone, either, if I decided to do it for real. They were family, after all.

That’s why they were here now.

“Go away,” I whispered. “I hardly thought about anything today. It was only a three-pill day, besides. I’m good.” At least until the pills ran out.

this is no place for help for you this is no place for you

Their thoughts kept ghosting my brain waves, over and over, like a skipping needle on a dusty record.

this is no place for help for you this is no place for you

“Jamie!”

Now my eyes opened for real.

“Jamie!” Her breath was hot on my face. “Sorry to wake you up, but I had a really bad dream!”

“Isa.…” Groggy, I propped myself on an elbow. “What do you want?”

“I want to get in.” So I flipped back the sheet, and she crawled into bed beside me. She smelled like apple shampoo. “I’m still scared.” Her eyes fretted through the dark to meet mine. “Is it safe here?”

“Of course it’s safe.” Though I sensed it, too, a smell of burning and then a flicker in my vision that made me bolt up, spine locked and loaded with fresh pain.

“What?” whispered Isa. “What do you see?”

Nothing. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”

Except that someone had been here. Not Uncle Jim, not Hank. Someone else. Watching me from the far corner, by the bookshelf. My pounding heart was sure of it, someone who had left as quickly as he’d entered Jack be nimble Jack be quick Jack jump over the candlestick and I thought I detected a whiff of tobacco smoke, faint and fading to nothing, as I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets and then snapped on the lamp, squinting into its bright surge.

No. Whatever, whoever, if anything had been here, it was gone now.

Isa was already asleep again. She hadn’t even reacted when the light had switched on.

I snapped it off. Isa’s breath was a gentle rise and fall, but as I dropped back on my pillow, her fingers crawled and hooked me at the shoulder as she bumped her forehead against mine, murmuring words too quiet for me to hear.

Then her arm fell like a branch across my neck. Uncomfortable, but I let it be, rather than risk disturbing her.

SIX

I woke late the next morning. Isa was gone. My head felt thick, my body reluctant. I rolled from bed and forced myself to draw the curtains.

In the morning sun, the mark was harshly visible on the carpet.

A cold shiver passed over me. Here it was—my evidence. On instinct, I quickly backed away, my eyes never leaving the mark as I first observed it from a distance, and then approached carefully, as if it might bite. I rubbed at it with my big toe. Then knelt and touched a finger to it. Sniffed.

It looked and smelled like a cigarette burn. But whose? Was it Milo, spying on me and leaving proof? Or maybe there was someone else who lived here, like a boarder? Except that Connie hadn’t mentioned anyone like that, and she tended to get very MEGO and persnickety when discussing the details of the house.

Maybe there was a boarder she didn’t want me to know about.

Only one thing to do. Today, I’d take a tour. Top to bottom. I’d uncover the hidden staircases and revolving bookshelves, the cloak-and-dagger nooks and crannies. I should have done that yesterday. It would be my first project after breakfast.

Isa had other plans. “Morning, sleepyhead!” She waved a piece of toast. “Connie says you can take me to the beach.” She was ready to go, too, in a bikini printed with cherries, along with a scarf that pinned her hair back from her face.

“How about later, when it cools down? The sun looks fierce.”

“Except everyone’s there now.” Isa frowned. “It’s only six miles. Connie says we can use her car.”

“Um …” As the au pair, did I have to do whatever Isa wanted? Mom had sworn that au pairing was a way for teenagers to make money while doing things they’d have done anyway. But I didn’t want to go to the beach. On the other hand, Isa looked so hopeful that it was hard to disappoint her.

Connie, busy at the kitchen sink, nodded to the fruit smoothie she’d prepared for me, and then returned to sudsing the blender.

“Thanks.” I chugged it as Isa pleaded and persisted.

“Please, Jamie? Hey, and I bet Milo’ll come with us,” she said, loping after me up the stairs and back to my room. My heart was playing scales, wondering if the mark would still be there, or if by some wild possibility it had been a trick of the eye. “Pul-eeze? We’re members of Green Hill Beach Club, so we’ve got a cabana for changing and storage. We can go to the Mud Hut for lunch. And there’s a big pool plus a kiddie pool, but last summer someone pooped in the kiddie one, so I never—”

“Look. Look there.”

Isa followed my pointing finger to the mark. “Ooh, Jamie, you might get in trouble for that. Smoking and wrecking our nice rug.” She paused. Then added, softly, “That’s just like him. Something he would do.”

“Just like who?”

“Jessie’s old boyfriend.” She went right to the mark and tamped at it in the same way that I had, with her big toe. “But that burn looks fresh, so it’s your fault.”

“It wasn’t me. And Milo smokes, too,” I reminded her.

“No,” she answered. “He does not.”

“Yes, he does.”

“You can’t just go and blame your mistakes on poor Milo.”

I didn’t want to get into it with her. “Who else lives at Skylark?”

“Only us four now,” said Isa. “The blue room’s our best. Most everyone’s put in the yellow room down the hall. But Dad told Connie to put you here. He wanted you closer to me.”

“What about Jessie? Was she in the yellow room?”

“No, Jessie lived with her mom and dad. Only this summer, Mr. and Mrs. Feathering shut up Crescent House and went to Italy. Can we go to the beach now?”

“Give me ten minutes.” I snatched my bathing suit and shorts from the drawer and went to the bathroom to shower and change, then encore-shaved my legs and bikini line at the sink. I didn’t want to show up at Green Hill Beach Club looking like some hairy yokel.