Delusion Road (12 page)

D’Entremont looked at his feet. “Shlefme.”

It took Keegan a moment to translate the single word into three:
She left me.
It seemed to take Jaffrey a beat longer. Then his eyes widened. “I’m so sorry, Laird. I had no idea.”

D’Entremont swallowed hard. “She lefanote.”

“A note? When?”

“Thish afternoon. S’waiting for me when I got home.”

“And you didn’t know something was wrong before that?”

The mayor ran a trembling hand over his eyes. “I
knew
, yeah, but wha’d she ex”—another hiccup—”exsphect?”

“I’m not following you.”

“You can’t—” The man’s throat worked like he was swallowing an apple whole. “You can’t ashk a man to
choose
—” He swallowed again. “But she did.” Then he dissolved into sobs, his shoulders quaking.

Keegan could tell that Jaffrey was embarrassed. “Look, Laird, how about I take you home?”

D’Entremont struggled to get himself under control, reached for more paper towel and mopped at his face. He shook his head,
the action making him sway on his feet. “Too much ganhanning to do,” he slurred, and Keegan had no idea what he meant.

But Jaffrey did. “I think the glad-handing can wait for when you’re—when you’ve got your head clear.”

“Though selections don’t win ‘mselves,” said d’Entremont, and Keegan struggled to interpret the drunkspeak:
Those elections.

“No argument here,” agreed Jaffrey, “but better to put your best foot forward, don’t you think? What if I take you out the back way? The only person who might see us leaving is Mort Fetter, and he’s the soul of discretion.”

Keegan remembered seeing a van parked outside marked Fetter Security, with the ridiculous tagline Sleep Better with Fetter.

“Mebbe you’re right,” murmured d’Entremont.

“Of course I’m right,” said Jaffrey. He put his hand on d’Entremont’s shoulder, gently turning him toward the door.

In the mirror, Keegan saw the mayor stumble and Jaffrey put his other hand under the man’s elbow, steadying him. “Easy does it,” said Jaffrey.

D’Entremont hiccuped again and then burped loudly, the sound like the bark of a seal. This time it was Jaffrey who shook his head. “Do you think you can make it outside on your own, Laird? It wouldn’t be good for someone to see me holding you up. There’s a reporter here from the
Herald
,” he added.

D’Entremont nodded and drew a ragged breath. “I owe you, Carleton,” he said as Jaffrey swung the door wide for him.

Keegan watched in the mirror as d’Entremont walked unsteadily through the opening. Jaffrey allowed the door to close momentarily, and the smile that suddenly brightened his face was even wider than his daughter’s when that reporter had commented
on her dress. “I’m counting on you to remember that,” Jaffrey muttered, then opened the door again and went out.

“Shh,” Keegan heard as he came through the front door. He looked up to see his father tiptoeing down the staircase, one finger raised to his lips.

“What’s wrong?” whispered Keegan, his heart already jack-hammering. He cocked his head to one side, listening for the things he half-heard during the night when fear jerked him from sleep and made him hold his breath until he could identify the barking dog or backfiring car that had entered whatever dream was already slipping away.

“He’s been off all night,” his father murmured. “I finally got him settled down a half-hour ago. I was just in his room checking on him.”

Keegan felt something in his chest release, the anger he’d nursed during his walk home from the community college evaporating. Anger at his father, at Willa Jaffrey, even at Jaffrey’s dad for having that goddamn fundraiser in the first place. Keegan had waited in the washroom a long time until he figured the reporter had had time to take everyone’s picture. When he’d finally returned to the refreshment table, Willa had refused to speak to him, which had made the next hour with her even more awkward. He figured they’d both been glad when her father came around again and thanked him for his help and said he could go. When Jaffrey suggested that Willa drive him home, Keegan had quickly said he needed the exercise, and the relief on Willa’s face wasn’t
hard to read. Fortunately, it had stopped raining and the sky had cleared, but the blanket of stars overhead didn’t lift his mood any as he walked the six blocks home. In fact, his anger seemed to ramp up a little with each block, and he’d been pretty much at full steam when he finally came in the door.

But none of it mattered, of course, in the face of that other thing, the shadow that hung over them, the shadow and the constant fear.

“Is he asleep?” asked Keegan.

His father nodded. He reached the bottom of the staircase and turned into the living room. Keegan followed.

“He got locked into one of his loops,” Evan said as he settled himself onto the sofa. Its burgundy upholstery matched nothing else in the room, which also held a blue armchair, a brown vinyl loveseat, and a black coffee table, its bottom shelf crammed with jigsaw puzzles. The room looked a little like the set of one of those early-morning children’s TV shows, but the furniture had come with the house, so what could you do? The important thing was that Isaac felt comfortable there.

“Anything set him off?” Keegan asked as he sat on the other end of the sofa.

His father shrugged. “Might’ve had something to do with what he saw at school this morning. My guess, though, is that your arguing with me didn’t help.”

Keegan heard the implication in the “your,” like
he
was the one at fault. And what had his father said earlier?
It isn’t just yourself you have to think of.
Yeah. As if Keegan would ever have the luxury of thinking only of himself again. He felt the anger he’d nursed earlier return, tried not to give in to it, but it was there
just the same. “What’s it like?” he asked, his voice low because of Isaac asleep upstairs. But there was no masking its intensity.

“What’s
what
like?” his father asked.

“Being right all the time. And when things don’t work out, knowing that it’s always the rest of the world that screwed up.”

His father looked away, didn’t speak for several seconds. Finally, “What I did, Keegan,” he began, but he seemed unable to complete that thought. “After all we’d lost, I was angry. More than angry. Defeated. The bank took everything we had, and then the government bailed the bank out. They ground us up, spit us out, and then got rewarded for it.”

“And that justifies what you did,” said Keegan. “Excuses everything that happened to us afterwards.”

Evan opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. He dragged a hand across his forehead, then pushed himself to his feet. “I’m tired,” he said, and left the room. The creak of worn oak treads followed him up the stairs.

Keegan felt the muscles in his face work hard to keep his mouth shut, to keep him from cursing, from letting everything inside him just pour out.

It was several minutes later before he finally trusted himself to get up from the sofa and climb those stairs himself.

G
riff knew it was his own fault. He’d been stupid to try to play Sonia Martinez without being sure. But the girl drove a
Micra
, for Christ’s sake. Nonetheless, he’d always prided himself on being thorough, and this time he hadn’t been.

He figured the problem was all the stuff in the media about cyberbullying—people were more aware of the consequences of their online actions. At least, Sonia Martinez was. She might be a slut but she didn’t spread rumours, which was what Griff had been counting on. Instead of simply passing along to Talia the information he’d sent her about the guy being investigated for rape, implying that was why the family had left Ohio, Sonia had apparently shown Kayley’s message to Soccerguy89.

It hadn’t helped that the guy’s father was former military brass and still heavily connected. Not only had Kayley’s Facebook account been deactivated in short order, Griff could see evidence of someone with high-level cyber-savvy tracking Kayley’s digital footprints. By now, someone in authority had learned that Kayley Sheridan was a ghost who spent almost all of her Facebook time viewing Talia Lombardi’s page.

Griff was confident there was no way they could trace any of this back to him, but that was the end of Kayley, and he really didn’t have the time to invent somebody new. He was going to have to find another way to keep tabs on Talia.

Pondering his options, Griff smiled.

“A
re they shooting a horror flick somewhere around here?”

Keegan blinked, suddenly aware that he’d been standing motionless in front of his open locker like he was trying to close the door with mind control. He glanced over his shoulder to see Raven grinning at him. “Why’s that?” he asked.

“You and Bailey have this whole zombie vibe going today.”

Keegan looked left, then right. No Bailey.

“Just passed her staring at
her
locker,” Raven explained. “She looked even more stunned than you do.”

Keegan finished shoving into his locker the books he wouldn’t need until that afternoon, and shrugged. “Lost in thought.”

“Looks to me like you could use happier thoughts.”

He grimaced, thinking again about the tension at the breakfast table that morning. He was sure Isaac had sensed it, too. “Math,” he lied, glimpsing his calculus text in his backpack as he zipped it shut. “Shedrand’s killing me with all the work he assigns.”

“Must be true, then.”

“What?” he asked.

“I hear he likes small class sizes, and the workload is his way of getting people to drop back to regular math. Calls it ‘weeding the garden.’” She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’m not
taking accelerated math till next semester, so see what you can do to soften the guy up, okay?”

Keegan grinned. “I’m on it,” he said as they turned to make their way toward their homerooms.

Heavy footsteps came up behind them. “Where did
you
disappear to yesterday?” asked Russell, falling into step between the two. The front of his XXXL sweatshirt read
When I haul ass, I make two trips.

“Medical appointment,” Keegan replied, choosing not to say anything about Isaac. It was the second lie he’d told in under a minute. Forbes would be proud.

“I’d sure like to have one of those this afternoon,” said Russell, a wistful note in his voice.

“Not feeling well?” asked Raven.

“I won’t be by then,” he sighed, turning into his homeroom without so much as a
See you later.

“Jeez,” said Raven as she watched him go, “what
is
it with this place? Are they slipping benzos into the drinking water?”

Rounding the corner, they saw Greg approaching, his acne-covered face looking troubled. “Have you guys talked to Bailey today?” he asked when he reached them.

“Tried to,” Raven replied. “She seemed a little, I don’t know, distracted.”

Greg nodded, concern in his eyes. “I just saw her by her locker. She hardly said a word to me. Did I do something wrong?”

Remembering the way Greg had looked at Bailey the other day, Keegan couldn’t imagine the guy ever doing anything to offend her. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said.

“I dunno,” said Greg. “The look on her face—” He shook his head. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Like
I
know anything about girls, huh?”

“Trust me,” said Keegan, clapping him on the shoulder, “I don’t think guys are supposed to.”

Raven put her finger to her ear as if activating a hidden communication device. “Code red, girls!” she hissed. “They’re on to us!”

Keegan stared at the paper that Shedrand had passed out following another lengthy note-taking session. Ten numerical sequences stretched across the page, and the class was supposed to analyze each one and create equations that described the patterns they followed. Keegan had finished seven, but his mind had begun to wander as he pictured his brother enthralled by those patterns. Of course, Isaac wouldn’t be able to create the equations, but Keegan was pretty sure his brother could identify the next numbers in each of the sequences. Although Issac was only eight, his ability to recognize patterns was far more advanced than that of, say, Todd Thomas, who was frowning over the task across the aisle. Looking at Todd’s furrowed brow, Keegan was pretty sure the paper in his hands was one of Shedrand’s garden-weeding tools.

Keegan’s eyes continued to roam the classroom, and he found himself gazing at Willa Jaffrey bent over her desk two rows away, her face rapt in concentration. He was surprised to see she was working on the last sequence—he hadn’t pictured
her as somebody with a lot going on in the brain department. Yeah, she’d enrolled in the accelerated program, but so had every other student in the room, and Keegan was pretty sure that a few of them—Todd Thomas, for one—wouldn’t be there next week.

But it looked as if he might have been wrong about Willa Jaffrey. Intelligence-wise, that is. His first impression of her still applied. The girl was all flash and shine, and unkind, too, judging from the cutting comments she’d made about some of the people she’d pointed out last night. The description he’d given his father yesterday
—a grade A bitch
—was no less accurate today. She was just a grade A bitch with brains.

Keegan watched Willa study her paper, a grimace playing at the corners of her mouth as she worked on that last numerical sequence. She repeatedly tapped the keys of her calculator, pencilled notations on the page, and then slumped back in her seat, her lower lip pooched out. Sighing, she tapped the calculator once more, and then her eyes widened. Leaning forward, she made another notation and punched more keys, nodding to herself as she worked. And then she smiled.

Something about her expression in that moment tugged at him. Her smile was nothing like the shit-eating grin she’d given him in English class their first day when she told him his dad worked for her father. Nor was it like her smirk last night as she enjoyed seeing him eat crow à la Jaffrey. This was different, genuine, something that came entirely from inside. Like someone had turned on a light two rows over.