Ink and Ashes (18 page)

“I remember.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you know if your father ever sang that to you?”

“I think he did, but—” I sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know if the things I remember are really my memories, or if they’re things I think I remember because Mom’s told me about them so much, or if they’re ideas I make up because it’s what I would have wanted to happen.” I bit at my lip. “Why do you ask?” And how would whoever did this to us know about that song, anyway? There couldn’t be that many kids at my high school who knew the Japanese melody. Not even Fed.

He gritted his teeth, then relaxed his jaw. “The pieces don’t make sense, but we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

DAD WOKE ME
up earlier than usual the next morning. I moaned and pulled the comforter over my head, pleading late-night arson interrupted my sleep. He lifted the blanket off my face, unsympathetic. “Meet me in the garage in five minutes.”

I grumbled, but I got out of bed and changed into a tank top and shorts, expecting more self-defense practice. I’m sure all the moves we went over every Saturday were beginner’s stuff, but he still insisted we practice.

In the garage, the cars had been backed into the driveway, and a padded mat had been placed on the concrete. Dad was at the punching bag. His hair might have been peppered with gray, but I was proud of the way he kept himself in great condition. Beneath his white T-shirt and navy jersey-knit shorts were well-defined muscles.

“Where are the boys?” I asked.

“I thought we’d spend some one-on-one time.” He stopped punching. “They’re cleaning up the front yard.”

What he meant: the boys hadn’t gotten boxes like I had.

We both moved to center of the mat. Dad put his hands on his hips. “What are the parts of the body where you can do the most damage?”

By now, I knew this as well as the alphabet. “Eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee, and legs,” I said.

“What parts of the body are most effective for inflicting damage?”

“Elbows, knees, and head.”

He nodded. “Today I want to practice choke holds.” He faced me and placed his hands around my throat. I put my right hand on his esophagus, extending my arm to push off him as I took a step back with my left foot and twisted my body in the same direction to break free.

“What’s another way you could break the hold?” He put his hands at my throat again.

In one continuous move, I swung my right arm up and across both of his arms and used the momentum to keep rotating counterclockwise until my back was at his chest. Then I was able to direct my left elbow backward to his face. “Good,” he said. “Let’s do that a few more times, and then we’ll practice a choke hold from behind.”

“So where were you?” I asked as we went through the moves.

“Phoenix.”

“What’d you do there?” I swung my arm and broke his hold.

“Same old stuff,” he said. “I had to check out an international antiques distributor to see if it’s a worthy investment.”

I raised a brow, unable to stop curiosity from beating out reason. “What’s the name of the distributor?”

“The Copper Cactus.” He dropped his arms. “What are you really trying to ask me?” His eyes narrowed, and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t understand why something like that would be such an emergency,” I said and twisted my body. “Seems like you’ve been gone more than usual lately.”

“That’s the job sometimes. When it comes to finance, everybody’s in a hurry. And when you’re dealing with people who have a lot of money, they expect you to be on their schedule even if it’s not during usual business hours,” he said. “Okay, let’s practice some from behind.”

Throughout all my questioning, he had answers for everything even when I thought I might catch him off guard. He never flinched. I realized I probably had been paranoid over nothing and let the subject drop. I would, however, check my GPS app later to make sure.

We practiced the same moves over and over again until Dad was satisfied.

“I’ve got to run to the hardware store,” he said. “I shouldn’t be too long. For now though, I think we should try to fly under the radar, maybe stick around the house instead of going anywhere.”

“Sure.” I agreed with him anyway. Last night’s fire had me a little shaken.

He left, and I folded the mat and leaned it against the wall. I went upstairs and jumped in the shower, then sat at my desk and stared out my front window. The boys were still in the yard, picking up branches and raking leaves. I probably should have gone outside and helped them, but I couldn’t bring myself to see the damage up close in the daylight yet. A big part of our tree had burned, but I hoped enough was left that it could survive.

The police had taken the mannequin with them so they could submit it into evidence, but the image of the charred body wearing my uniform stayed with me. Was that the future someone had in store for me? My mind whirled, not really catching on any one thought about the events of the last several weeks. Before I knew it, an hour had passed, my brothers had finished outside, and I was still no closer to any conclusions, except that I didn’t want to remain a prisoner in my own home because someone thought they could scare me.

A soft knock hit my door. “Claire?” Fed pushed open the door slowly.

I spun the chair around. “Hey, Fed. What’s up?”

“What happened to your tree? It looks like a bomb hit your front yard.”

Fed flopped his gangly body onto the bed, and I noticed he was hanging over every edge in a way he hadn’t last year. He wasn’t quite as tall as Nicholas and was a lot skinnier, but he was definitely getting there.

I told him about the break-in, and the effigy, and the fire in the tree. “I don’t know how you didn’t hear all the sirens and everything, even at the end of the street.”

“Crap, Claire. Are you scared?” He sat up, eyes wide, lips parted. “That’s a stupid question. Of course you’re scared. Uh, not that you’re a chicken or anything, that’s not what I’m saying, I mean, I would be scared if I were you.”

“It’s fine, Fed. I get it.” I got off my chair and sat next to him on the bed. “And yeah, I’m kind of scared.” Except I was more than kind of scared, and I didn’t know what I could do to stop all of this, and that scared me even more. Would I always be afraid of what bad thing was coming next?

Fed stood up. “Okay well, never mind then. I was going to ask you for a favor, but that would be pretty uncool right now. Hang in there.” He headed toward the door.

“What did you need?”

He turned back to look at me. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’d feel bad—”

“Fed.” I got to my feet. “What do you need?”

He flashed his toothy grin, bunching up his freckled cheeks. “I need a ride to work because Nicholas abandoned me.”

I tilted my head. “Abandoned you?”

“He’s at a debate tournament and Mom’s working. But seriously . . .” He waved both hands at me.

“Let’s go,” I said, grabbing my car keys and wallet from my top drawer. I told myself I could do this. I wasn’t going that far. I’d be back before Dad got home. Maybe whoever was doing this wanted me to sit home and to be afraid, but I didn’t have to let myself be bullied.

“Thanks.” He put his arm around me like Nicholas always did, but it about knocked his featherweight body over when he pulled me next to his side.

Fed fidgeted in his seat, dancing to the music from the radio. Every few seconds, he’d change the station, dance around, then change the station again.

Normally I would have made him choose one station and stick with it, but my head crowded with questions. Chase had been at our house looking for someone, but why couldn’t he have called or texted him? Or her. But it still didn’t make sense. The most recent events made me think it was more likely everything was tied to my father rather than someone at school.

But our father had died more than ten years ago. What would someone have to gain by terrorizing us now? Hopefully it would remain terrorizing rather than escalating to something worse.

I eased the car down the winding roads of our neighborhood and made a right turn at the stop sign.

“Hey, so do you think you can take me shopping this weekend? I need to get a birthday present for Parker.”

“Seriously? Are you forgetting someone else’s birthday? Mine is before his, remember?”

Parker was a senior, and I was a junior. But in age, Parker was ten days shy of being a full year older than I was. I don’t know why Mom had had us so close together, but for those ten days we were the same age, I made sure his life was miserable.

I checked my mirrors and signaled to get into the left lane.

“Relax. I already got your present,” he said. “And you will totally love it. I think. So will you take me?”

“Maybe.”

I rolled to a stop at a red light in the left turning lane. The phone rang over the speakers, and the touch screen displayed Dad’s name. I pushed the button on my steering wheel to answer.

“Where are you?” Dad asked.

“I’m dropping Fed off at work. Why?”

“Because I got home and you weren’t here,” he said. “What part of ‘flying under the radar’ did you not understand?”

I threw a hand in the air. “Dad, all I’m doing is dropping Fed off like a mile away. I’ll come right back. You’ll see me in ten minutes.”

“Come straight home after you drop him off,” he growled, and hung up.

“Is that not what I said I would do?” I said to the dead phone line.

“Uh, sorry about that.” Fed fiddled with the buttons again. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you take me. This is getting serious, Claire. When someone blows up your tree, and they blow it up with you in it, you know, the fake you, and they violate your room, and all that other stuff too? Then I think you have to consider maybe they’re trying to send you a message.” His voice soared to a high pitch.

“You think?” I was often surprised and amused at how long it could take for someone so academically intelligent to conclude the obvious.

“Okay, maybe you already knew that, but in my experience—and by experience I mean manga and anime—usually someone only does stuff like this if they want something someone else has, so they intimidate you until you give it up, or they want revenge. Besides Chase, who do you know that would fit into those categories?”

No one would want anything I had, and even if this was tied to my father’s days in the yakuza, what did that have to do with me or the rest of my family? “I can’t think of anyone, and no one would want something of mine.”

The light turned green, and I made my turn onto Highland.

I didn’t need to look at Fed to know his forehead and eyebrows were pinched in, and he was biting his bottom lip—the expression he wore when his thoughts churned in never-ending circles like mine did. He stayed quiet for the next few minutes as I drove, but I could tell his mind was sifting through data.

I turned into the parking lot of the strip mall where Fed worked as a fry cook at Stan’s, a popular hamburger joint where kids from our school liked to hang out.

“I’m sorry I made your dad mad at you,” he said.

“It’s not your fault. He’s being paranoid, and I mean, I’m worried too, but I refuse to let someone control my life so much that I can’t drive ten minutes away from my house.”

“I get it,” he said.

I pulled the car into a spot right in front of the fast food hot spot and put the car into park.

Fed undid his seatbelt, climbed out of the car, and yanked his bag from the floor. “Thanks for the ride.” His thin lips broke into a big smile. “And I don’t suppose you could send someone else to pick me up when I’m done so I don’t get you in trouble?”

“I’ll be here at five thirty. And I expect you to have a peppermint shake in hand for me. Don’t be stingy with the candy pieces.” I sighed. “Unless I’m not allowed to be outside the house for more than ten minutes, in which case I’ll send my mom.”

“Thanks.” He gave me a big smile and closed the door.

The same thoughts reeled through my head as I started home on State Street. I outlined the chain of events. Was it possible that all of it was connected? I tried to imagine every event that had happened as a puzzle piece, but the pieces felt more like forcing circles into triangular holes.

I glanced in my rearview mirror before I signaled to switch into the left lane. The car behind me followed. I changed lanes a few more times. The same white car happened to be there in the rearview mirror.

Probably just a coincidence,
I thought. Someone trying to beat State Street traffic. I was being paranoid.

I switched lanes again. With every movement I made, the car waited a second, then followed. Not likely another coincidence. It wasn’t a black SUV, so maybe it was a police car, the kind that looked like a normal car until the headlights flashed red and blue. Mom and Dad would kill me if I got another speeding ticket. I was only going four miles over the speed limit.