Gifted Touch (8 page)

“We had some wonderful conversations when I would visit,” her father continued, his voice the slightest bit thick. “We talked about you a lot, of course. She wanted to know every single detail. Every burp. Every smile. But we’d talk about philosophical questions, too, the way we had when we were dating.”
He loved her so much,
Rae thought. That was clear 79

every time he talked about her. Every time Rae
let
him talk about her. She knew he’d talk about her more if Rae didn’t go into shark-attack mode when he did, reminding him what this goddess had done.

“Did you ever have any sense that something was wrong? Before what happened, I mean,” Rae asked.

She usually hated talking about her mom. But this was info she needed now.

“No,” he answered immediately. “Not really,” he added, his words coming slowly. “Except that near the . . . the time, she seemed agitated. She was ecstatic because you had just been born. But I knew she was worried about something. She wouldn’t tell me what.

She never did, not even afterward, when she was in the hospital.”

He shot a glance at Rae, his blue eyes unusually intense. “I think she was protecting me from something. She was like that, always putting other people first.”

Rae focused all her attention on adjusting the air-conditioner vent in front of her. If it helped Dad to be delusional, maybe she shouldn’t burst his pretty bub-ble.

“I didn’t want to push her. Not when she was in the hospital. I thought there would be plenty of time for her to tell me what was bothering her. But then, a few months after she was institutionalized, she got 80

sick. Her body began to deteriorate. It happened so rapidly that her doctors weren’t able to diagnose her before she died,” he continued. “And I never got to . .

. We never got to really talk again.” Her father grabbed his sunglasses off the dashboard and put them on, but not before Rae saw the tears in his eyes.

“They wanted to do an autopsy,” he continued. “But I wouldn’t give them permission. I just . . . I couldn’t.” Her father wiped his face with the sleeve of his white shirt. Then he pulled onto the exit leading to Oakvale.

“Thanks for telling me,” Rae said softly.

“I’ll always answer your questions,” he said, shooting her a glance. “I
want
you to know about your mother. You would have liked her, Rae. You would have loved her.”

Rae adjusted her thin beaded hair band. She and her father fell into a somewhat comfortable silence that lasted until he pulled into Oakvale’s parking lot.

“See you in an hour,” her dad said. Rae nodded and pulled open the door.

/Whoo-hoo, time to party/

That thought again. She’d noticed that some of her not-her thoughts were on a loop or something. They’d come back now and then, but each time they were a little bit fuzzier. Which would be encouraging, except she got new not-her thoughts all the time, and they came in loud and clear.

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Rae slammed the car door —

/why is this/

—and hesitated. There was something about that why-is-this one that was more comfortable than a lot of the others. Closer to one of her own thoughts, but not exactly. Actually, the whoo-hoo thought was like that, too. Why? She had no clue.

“So where’s my ten bucks?” a voice called from behind her as she headed up to Oakvale’s main doors.

Rae turned around and saw Anthony striding up, his hand stuck out for his money.

At least he’s not NutraSweet nice to me,
she thought,
like one wrong word and somebody’s going to
have to go running for a straitjacket.

Rae didn’t even bother to pretend that Anthony was wrong about school. She just reached into her mesh bag, feeling for her wallet. Before she could find it, Anthony caught her by the wrist, his fingers light but firm.

“You don’t have to pay,” he told her.

Rae glanced down at her wrist, and Anthony instantly released her. She noticed he wasn’t wearing his Backstreet Boys T-shirt today. Just a faded tan T-shirt that made his brown eyes look even darker. It fit a little better, too, showing off some nice definition in the chest and ab areas. Make that very nice.

“Were they completely, uh, hellish? Your first two 82

days?” Anthony muttered, not quite looking Rae in the eye.

Rae snorted. “Well, let’s see,” she said sarcastically. “To people at school, I’m either this poor thing who can’t even eat without someone to wipe her mouth for her. Or I’m this freak who should be avoided in case I might still be contagious with some kind of insanity disease. Even to my friends. Would you call that hellish?”

“That sucks,” Anthony said. He managed to briefly look at her. Rae was surprised to see sympathy in his eyes. Not poor-little-Rae pity. Real sympathy.

“Yeah,” Rae agreed. “It completely sucks. So what about you? Did you end up puking or anything?” Anthony gave a harsh laugh. “No, but hanging around with the friggin’ Bluebirds all day made me want to.”

“Bluebirds?” Rae shook her head. “What are—” A deep flush started to creep up Anthony’s neck.

“Slow learners,” he muttered. “I have to go take a leak.” And he bolted.

All righty, then,
Rae thought.
That was a bizarre
little exchange. One where I think we actually both
told each other the truth
—
and didn’t exactly plan to.

She pushed open half of the double door—

/WHAT A MORON/

—and stepped inside. A girl from group, around 83

Rae’s age, who looked like she bought all her clothes from an army surplus store, immediately rushed up to her. “I can’t believe we’re back here again. Can you believe group meets three times a week? It’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah,” Rae agreed. She had the urge to back away a step but didn’t.
Is this how I look to people?
she wondered.
All nervous and jittery and about to go off?

“Hey,” the girl said, nervously tickling the side of her neck with the end of her braid. “Your mascara is sort of smudged. Do you know where the bathroom is? It’s—”

“I know. Thanks, Cynda,” Rae said, finally remembering the girl’s name.
Thanks for giving me a
great excuse to get away
, Rae added silently as she hurried down the hall. She pushed open the bathroom door—

/TOTAL MORON/

—and almost bumped into Anthony. “Guys’ is flooded,” he mumbled as he ducked past her.

Whatever,
Rae thought. She headed over to the closest mirror and peered in. What was that Cynda girl talking about? Rae’s mascara wasn’t smudged at all. She leaned on the rust-stained sink—

/never know what hit her/

—to get a closer look. And suddenly a blast shook the floor beneath her feet. Something hard struck the 84

back of Rae’s head. She fell to her knees, white dots exploding in front of her eyes.

Dimly she could hear shouts from the hall. But the voices sounded much too far away. And something warm was dripping down her neck.
Blood
, she realized slowly. From her head. She had to get up. Had to get help.

She grabbed the sink with both hands—

/they’ll think Anthony did it/definitely kill Rae/get out of here/

—and pulled herself to her feet. Her legs felt soft as marshmallows. She gripped the sink harder so she wouldn’t fall again.

/how does this thing/should have brought/definitely kill Rae/

That thought again. Why did she get that thought again?
Definitely kill Rae.
Had someone just tried to kill her?

Anthony jumped out of his metal chair so fast that it crashed to the floor. That explosion—it sounded like it came from the direction of the girls’ bathroom.

Where Rae was! His body reacted instantly, and he was out the door and down the hall in seconds, then pushing through the bathroom door.

A dozen different pieces of data hit him as soon as he was inside. Stall door blown off. Smell of smoke.

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Smell of blood. Pieces of broken tile. Rae swaying on her feet in front of the cracked mirror.

Anthony reached her just as her knees buckled and caught her before she hit the floor. He scooped her up, one arm around her shoulders, one under her knees, and carried her out of the bathroom, using his back to open the door. Her face had lost all its color, and her eyes were only slitted open. “I’m taking her to the nurse,” he announced as he strode past Ms.

Abramson and most of the group.

“Everybody back to the room. And no one goes into that bathroom,” Abramson called. A second later she caught up to Anthony. “Rae, can you hear me?” she asked loudly.

Anthony stared down at Rae’s face. His stomach turned over as her eyelids fluttered open and she looked directly up at him. “I don’t need to be carried,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, right,” Anthony answered, not even considering putting her down. What was it with this girl and being helped?

“I’ll get the door.” Abramson rushed on ahead and jerked open the door to the nurse’s office. “Sheila, we need you,” she cried, her voice shrill.

When he reached the door, Anthony turned side-ways and carefully maneuvered himself and Rae through. The last thing she needed was another bump 86

on the head. He could feel her blood soaking into his T-shirt.

“Put her over there,” the nurse ordered, waving toward the closest of three empty cots along the back wall.

“I can walk,” Rae protested again, giving a little squirm.

“You can fall on your butt,” Anthony answered.

He strode over to the narrow cot and carefully laid Rae down on the thin blue blanket. “Don’t even think about trying to sit up,” he warned her. He backed up to let the nurse move in next to the cot, but he didn’t take his eyes off Rae, his gaze locked on the tiny scratch that ran along one side of her face from the top of her cheek to the corner of her mouth.

“Anthony, we’ve got it covered now,” Abramson told him. “You can go back to the meeting room.” He nodded, but he didn’t move. He kept thinking there was something he should be doing. Water. He bet Rae would like a drink of water. Anthony scanned the room and spotted a water cooler, then he hurried over to it. He rejected the wimpy paper cups and picked a big blue plastic one off the shelf over the cof-feepot. As soon as he got it filled—almost full, but not so full it would be easy for Rae to spill—he rushed back over to the cot.

“Here. I’m leaving this for you.” Anthony put the 87

cup on the little table next to Rae. He hesitated a moment, but he couldn’t think of anything else she might want, so he headed out.

He could hear the chaos in the meeting room before he was even halfway there.

“Is she okay?” Cynda asked as soon as he stepped back in the room. She gnawed on the end of her braid as she waited for him to answer.

“Yeah,” Anthony said. He started toward the closest empty chair but was intercepted by Jesse.

“They’re saying it was a pipe bomb,” Jesse said, clearly eager to be the one to give Anthony the info.

“Sounds like bull. Who would put a pipe bomb in the girls’ bathroom?” Anthony asked. His heart was still beating like crazy, and his body hadn’t figured out that it was okay to stop pumping the adrenaline.

And the sweat.

“I don’t know. But that’s what I heard Mr. Rocha saying,” Jesse answered. He used his fingers to comb his red hair off his face. “You should have seen him.

That little vein by his eye looked like it was about to explode. Rocha’s totally out for blood on this one.”
Yeah, and I bet I’m on the top of his list,
Anthony thought.
If there’s trouble, any kind of trouble, who you
gonna call? Fascinelli.
Mr. Rocha, the director of the institute, was exactly like Mr. Shapiro in that way.

But this time I’m totally clean,
Anthony told him-88

self.
Even if Rocha wants to, he’s not going to be able
to pin this on me.

Except for the little fact that Rae saw Anthony coming out of the girls’ bathroom. The sweat on his body turned cold. Rae could place him at the scene about two minutes before the bomb went off. If that.

She won’t say anything,
he told himself. He and Rae weren’t friends. Hardly. But she wouldn’t—

Anthony gave the sleeve of his T-shirt a yank. Rae’s blood was starting to glue itself to his arm.

You’ve known each other for, like, two hours,
he thought.
Get real. You have no idea what she is or isn’t
going to say. Fascinelli, you are totally screwed.

89

Chapter 5

“Are you feeling okay sitting up?” Mr.

Rocha asked Rae. “We can go back to the nurse’s office and talk. That way you could keep lying down.”

“I’m fine,” Rae answered. She lightly touched the bandage on the back of her head—

/good as new/

—and grimaced when she realized a little blood had soaked through.

“You’re sure?” Mr. Rocha pressed.

Like you care,
Rae thought. She didn’t see any real concern in his hazel eyes. And even though it would feel good to lie down again, she did
not
want to have this little chat with Rocha with her in bed and him looming over her. Just too icky.

91

“I’m fine,” Rae repeated.

“You’re also very lucky,” Mr. Rocha told her, adjusting the crystal paperweight so it was exactly in the center of the stack of papers on his desk. “If you’d been a few feet closer to the bomb when it went off, we wouldn’t be talking about whether you’re feeling well enough to sit. You’d be in the hospital. Or dead.”

“Wait. Bomb? There was a bomb?” Rae demanded.

The not-her thought she’d gotten in the bathroom ripped through her mind.
Definitely kill Rae.
Did that thought actually mean something? Was someone trying to
kill
her?

“A pipe bomb,” Mr. Rocha answered. “It was in the stall closest to the door.” He leaned across his desk toward her. “What I need to know is, did you see anything unusual in the bathroom?”