Jekel Loves Hyde (9 page)

I stared at him, in doubt about... everything. "I... I..." I had no idea what I was about to say and no chance to say it because, suddenly, downstairs, I heard my mom enter the

kitchen. We'd completely lost track of time.

"You have to go, Tristen! My mom is home!" I searched the room, desperate. We were on the second floor, and the only closet was tiny. "You have to hide somewhere!" I cried, eyes darting everywhere. "And I have to get out of here!"

Tristen didn't seem to share my concern. He calmly packed up the box, replaced it on the shelf, stuck the novel into his messenger bag, and walked to a window, which he unlatched and opened with one powerful shove. He paused and looked to me as 71

I heard my mother's footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Go, Tristen! Please."

"Think about what I've offered, Jill," he said, stepping over the sill.

"It's a good bargain."

Then Tristen Hyde slipped out the window and pulled it shut behind him. I heard his footsteps cross the porch roof and disappear, leaving me to turn and face my mother, who stood in the doorway looking very tired and very, very unhappy.

Chapter 19
Jill

"MOM
...
I WAS JUST
..."

What was I doing? My eyes darted around the room again, to the box and the window that Tristen had just shut, and the

photograph of me with my parents. "I just remembered this, and I really wanted it," I lied, snatching the picture off the desk.

"You're not to be in here, Jill," Mom said, through gritted teeth.

"I've told you!"

"But Mom ..." I wanted to defend myself and say that it wasn't so bad, was it? To be there with Dad's stuff? But the look on Mom's face stopped me. She wasn't just upset. She looked almost beyond anger. Her eyes were getting empty again, like after Dad's funeral.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, hanging my head with guilt and so I wouldn't have to look at Mom's face. Those flashes of

vacant-ness ... they were scarier than anger. "I didn't mean to upset you," I added, cradling the picture against my chest. 72

"Go to your room, Jill." Mom stepped back from the door so I could pass. "Now."

"Yes, Mom." I stared at the floor as I brushed past her. She smelled like hospital disinfectant, but I caught a faint whiff of staleness, too, like maybe she hadn't showered that day. "Good night."

She didn't answer. As I walked to my room, I heard her slam the office door shut, and the faint click of the lock slipping back into place. I closed my own bedroom door behind myself and stared at the photo I'd taken on impulse. Did I even want it, really? Did I want to look at Dad?

Tucking the picture in a drawer, I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed. I couldn't sleep, though. I just kept thinking about madness and money and bargains.

Dad had stolen from me ... Mom seemed to be losing touch again

... Tristen might
kill
himself... Thirty thousand dollars, all for me ... Was it a good bargain?

Yes. No.
Maybe?

I tossed and turned for hours, and by the time my alarm went off in the morning, I had made my decision.

Chapter 20 Tristen

I WAS AT MY LAB STATION,
rotely completing a very basic experiment, when Jill

approached me, face pale and drawn, as if she hadn't slept the night before.

73

"I'll do it, Tristen," she said, her pink lips crushed into a white line.

"I'll help you if you help me."

Although it was
my
deal on the table, I took a long moment to consider Jill's offer, regretting that I'd told her so many of my secrets--and sorry at the same time that she would enter into this arrangement without knowing all of them. She probably deserved to know everything--even the terrible thing that I feared had happened in London--but she was already too scared. "Are you sure?" I asked, lowering my voice. "Because we
will have
to work in secret. My way, according to my rules."

Even through her glasses, I caught the flicker of hesitancy in Jill's hazel eyes. "Why in secret?" Her voice dropped to the merest whisper, too. "Can't we at least tell Mr. Messerschmidt?" Tam the lab rat, here," I reminded her. "I told you, there will come a point when I begin
drinking
things. Do you think Messerschmidt will stand by and let me sip from beakers? And more to the point, don't you think he'd wonder why I was doing it? What would we say?"

She tucked her hair behind her ear. "But--"

"We
will
enter the contest," I added. "At the last minute, regardless of what we learn on my behalf. We will record our work, develop a presentation, and have an entry in time to win you thirty thousand dollars."

Her financial situation must have been desperate, because at the reminder of the money, she hesitated just one more moment, then took a deep breath and actually extended her small hand. "Okay. We'll do it your way. In secret."

I took Jill's hand, clasping her fingers, amused by her attempt to seem mature and businesslike. Amused and somehow touched.

"It's a deal," I said. "We'll start tonight. Say, nine?" 74

She nodded, and although I saw that she was still uncertain, agreed. "Okay. I think my mom will be working then."

"Meet me behind the school near the cafeteria," I said, recalling a place where smokers sometimes congregated. "There's a padlocked metal door, used to bring in kitchen supplies. We can probably get in through there."

Jill's fair cheeks blanched, but she kept nodding. "Sure. See you there."

As she returned to her lab station, I watched her ponytail swinging in time to her steps, and I kept thinking that she was not only smart but also a good person. Genuinely good to help me after the insane, truly insane, things that I'd told her. I was fortunate, indeed, to have her as a partner.

I also couldn't help but notice that Messerschmidt, Darcy Gray, Todd Flick, and Becca Wright were all trying hard to pretend that they hadn't just watched what had passed between Jill and myself.

Chapter 21
Jill

"TRISTEN, I DON'T THINK
I want to do this," I whispered, touching his sleeve in a weak attempt to stop his hand and an even weaker attempt to reassure myself that I wasn't alone in the pitch-black parking lot behind the school. My other arm squeezed tighter around the box I'd taken after sneaking again into Dad's office. "Just be patient, Jill," he said. "It's fine." As Tristen picked the lock, I stole a look over my shoulder. My 75

dad had been stabbed to death in a lonely parking lot, and his killer had never been caught...

"One more moment," Tristen said, jiggling the lock. "I've almost got it."

And before I could object again, he drew up to his full

six-foot-something height, tugged on the lock, and we were in. Or not quite in, because I didn't move.

I stood rooted to the ground behind Tristen--the inky silhouette of Tristen, who held open the door with one long arm, waiting for me to walk past him into even more profound darkness.

If we went inside that empty school, what would happen? We would pick another lock and enter Mr. Messerschmidt's room, where we'd break into the stores of chemicals, too. Two doors would close behind me. Behind
us.

No one knew where I was or who I was with.

"Jill." Tristen's voice was low, deep, inviting ... and tinged with a hint of warning. I knew what he meant just with that single word.
You promised. We made a bargain.
But Tristen had confided that nightmare to me, too.
This thing inside of me attempts to kill a
girl...
Relishes
the slaughter.

"I don't dream of you," Tristen said softly, like he'd read my thoughts. "I swear, Jill, you're safe with me." I stayed stuck to the spot, throat tight. "Who ... who is it, Tristen?

The girl?"

"No one," he whispered, still holding the door. "A girl I was with briefly over the summer. Not you. Just come inside." He meant to reassure me, but the reminder made me even less willing to join him.
Over the summer...
"No, Tristen." I backed away, clutching the box. "I don't want to."

76

Then I turned and ran all the way home, leaving him standing alone in the dark doorway without the documents he hoped could save him.

Chapter 22
Jill

IT STARTED TO RAIN
while I was running home, and after I locked the door behind me, I went straight to my room. Straight to my mirror, actually. Standing in front of my full-length reflection, I stared at my face; my wet, bedraggled hair; and my shivering body, thinking about Tristen, who I'd left waiting at an open door. Tristen ... And Becca.

Becca had mentioned seeing Tristen over the summer, knew "his type" of girl, and had been salivating to tell me some story about him.

As I studied myself in the mirror, I could practically see my friend's reflection standing shoulder-to-shoulder with mine, and I envied everything about her. Her thick hair, her gleaming white teeth, and her full lips, always red and glossy. There was a good chance that Tristen had kissed Becca's lips, or wanted to kiss them, not by accident in a graveyard but on purpose. Because he'd
wanted
her.

By comparison everything about me seemed dull and washed out. My ordinary brown hair, limp from the rain. My eyes like two greenish mud puddles. My pale lips. I was too thin, too. Almost as skinny as my mom. And why had I ever bought the ugly, white collared shirt I wore? Just like its wearer, the blouse had no style. I was pretty sure that Tristen dreamed of Becca. Yes, they were 77

bad dreams. But that night I envied my friend for inspiring even nightmares. Would anybody
ever
dream about me, bad or good?

Downstairs, I heard my mom open the back door, home from the hospital, and I snapped off the light, plunging my reflection into darkness. I was supposed to be in bed already. Taking off my boring shirt, I pulled on a T-shirt and sweats that were even more shapeless, slid the metal box under the bed, and crawled between my blankets, pulling them to my chin.

How did people like Becca literally
shine?

I curled up, pretending to sleep and listening for Mom's footsteps on the stairs.

But Mom didn't come upstairs, and after about fifteen minutes of complete silence I started wondering what in the world had happened to her. I didn't even hear her making tea or the sound of the TV. Tossing off the covers, I went to the top of the stairs and listened more closely, getting nervous. "Mom?" I called down. There was no answer, so I crept downstairs and went into the living room.

And as soon as I saw Mom crumpled on the floor, face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking violently, I knew. That cliff I'd feared she'd been sliding toward ...

She'd fallen off completely.

Chapter 23 Tristen

I SAT ALONE
in the living room of the rented house I shared with my father--on the rare occasions that he was home--eating 78

cold pizza and listening to the rain on the roof, wondering if Jill had gotten caught in the storm as she'd run home.

I knew that I should have chased after her and insisted on giving her a ride, but I'd been frustrated as she'd darted away. Angered at her fear of breaking a small rule. Angered at her fear of
me.
I'd tried to reassure her that I meant her no harm. Even a monster couldn't hurt someone as gentle, as timid, as Jill Jekel. On the contrary, she sparked in even me a profound desire to
protect.
At times I found it almost impossible not to reach out and steady her, help her.

Tossing the tasteless pizza back into the box, I looked to the end table, where a red light glowed at the base of the cordless telephone.

I should call her. Convince her at least to loan me the documents

...

I started to reach for the phone--only to jump as it seemed to anticipate me, ringing shrilly in the silence. "Hello?" I grumbled, assuming that Dad was calling, as usual, to advise me not to wait up. However, it wasn't my father's baritone on the other end of the line. It was a soft, scared, but determined soprano asking, "Can you come over, please, Tristen? I need your help. Now." Although Jill had abandoned
me
earlier that night, I found myself hanging up and getting into my car without even questioning what was wrong.

My primary motive was to get that box while I was inside her house. That, I told myself, was the main reason I jumped so quickly at her summons. However, if I had been honest with myself as I drove through the rainy night, I would have admitted that there was something--
someone
--else in that house that I was starting to want, too.

79

***

Chapter 24 Tristen

"THANK YOU
for coming, Tristen." Jill swung open the door almost simultaneously with my knock, as though she'd been watching at the window for me. I saw raw anxiety in her eyes and in the way she licked her nearly white lips. "I know you probably don't feel like you owe me anything after the way I left you," she added. "But I just didn't know who else to call." I stepped into the foyer, following Jill, who was already moving toward the living room. "It's okay," I said, overcoming my last lingering trace of irritation. She was scared, and she
did
sound sorry for leaving me, and the more I thought about it, the less I could blame her. I was a strong, six-foot guy who'd admitted to being half monster, trying to lure a defenseless, tiny girl into a dark, empty school. A girl who'd lost her father to violence.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

I didn't need to get an answer. As I entered the room, I saw Jill's mother crouched on the floor, her arms wrapped around herself like a self-imposed straitjacket, rocking slightly.

"Oh, hell," I muttered, stopping short. "How long has she been like that?"

"About an hour," Jill whispered, moving to her mom's side, kneeling and stroking her hair. "I can't even get her to talk."

"Jill," I demurred, "I know I told you that my father is a psychiatrist, but that doesn't make me an expert in a situation like this."