Notes from Ghost Town (25 page)

Stern’s face shows signs of pain, of struggle. He’s trying to stay here, just to remain with me, as Nowhere tries to pull him back, back to the darkness. He wraps his arms around himself, keeps shaking.

“What’s happening? Are you okay?” I’m terrified he’ll disappear before anything can be solved, again. “Please. Please try and stay.”

“I’m trying, Liv. It’s hard….” His breath is coming short. “Everything’s so foggy. I’m—I’m having trouble even remembering why I’m here—what I’m doing.”

I bite my lip, thinking. We sit in silence for a minute, suspended; consumed. “Ghost Town,” I announce, leaping
to my feet. The fire in my belly is rising, rising. “Maybe there’s some kind of record somewhere of that night—documents that prove people would have been there—workers? Or, what if there was a break-in? Something you got caught up in, by accident? Though …” I stop to consider, pushing the hair from my eyes, “there’d be police reports, if there was, and I feel like it’s something I would have already known about. Something Dad would have told me….” Despite the frigid air-conditioning of the condo, my forehead’s beaded with sweat. “Ghost Town,” I repeat, sure—truly—of nothing else in the world. “We have to go there. Now.”

Stern manages to nod.

I just hope he can stay long enough for me to get him there. I race around my room, searching for the key to Ghost Town that Dad gave me last week. I rummage through every paint-smattered pair of shorts, every wind-breaker, every inch of carpeting. Finally, I turn to Stern, who’s pacing diagonally across the room, seeming almost to float above the ground.
“Shit.”

“What?” He stops pacing, a single dark curl falling over his eye. “What’s wrong?”

“The key’s missing. It’s gone.”

“Are you sure?” He tugs at the ends of his sleeves. “There’s got to be another one somewhere.”

“Yeah—there should be; my dad has, like, four of everything. But he keeps them hidden. He’s a weirdo. He probably came in here when I was gone and took back the key
he’d given me. He’s probably worried I would abuse my privileges.”

“Which you would have,” Stern points out, smiling weakly. He looks patchy, less solid than usual. He’s pacing, bouncing up and down on his toes, flexing and unflexing his fingers. “Can’t you call him?”

When that fire starts burning inside of him, Stern can’t be stopped. It probably explains why he’s able to keep coming back to me, why he never gave up on me, on getting where he needs to go. It explains why he was Mom’s favorite student, too. He had more passion than anyone she’d ever met, ever taught, ever witnessed.

I shake my head. “He’d ask too many questions. Ever since I flunked out of school, he thinks all of my intentions are delinquent. If I asked him for a set of keys, he’d stand there watching every move I made.”

Stern keeps up his furious pacing. “Is there anyone else you
can
call?”

I think for a moment. My stomach feels leaden now.

Austin.

I
pick up my cell phone. Austin’s already called me four times, texted once more.
Olivia, we really need to talk. Please call me. –A
.

A
, I text.
Still not ready to talk. Soon. But can you do me a favor?

Ok
. He texts back, right away.
Anything
.

I turn away from Stern, not wanting him to see what I write next.
Leave the lobby door to Ghost Town open for me? Think I might have dropped my bra somewhere on the floor on my way out
.

I watch the cell phone in my hands, still turned away. Austin responds, again, almost instantly:
Sure, no problem
.

Nerves vein through my belly. I turn back around. Stern stares at me. “Well?” he asks.

“We’re in.”

“Who did you text?”

“Austin Morse,” I say. He shoots me a look and I turn away again, suddenly feeling dirty, self-conscious, exposed. I step into my huge closet and quickly change from my
cutoffs and T-shirt into a soft black cotton dress that I pull off my floor and soft-soled flats.

“You think that’s a good idea?”

I turn back to him. “Unless you can slip through walls at will, we don’t have any other options.” I throw my cell phone into my purse, take in a thick gulp of air. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, Lucas.”

He smiles sadly at me. I haven’t called him by his real name in years. No one has, other than his parents. But, somehow, it returns us for a moment to who we are, in our cells, who we will always be—something he hasn’t yet forgotten. Olivia and Lucas. My Lucas. For a moment, we stand there, facing each other, held in the stillness.

Then my cell phone buzzes, and the moment shatters. I read Austin’s text:
Unlocked
. So curt.

I move to Stern, swift, and put my mouth to his cold cheek. The gesture doesn’t quite work—something ripples, like the air between us refuses to breach the space that separates the living from the dead. And so I cannot touch him—not really, not like I’d like to.

So he follows me outside, both of us quieter than death as we close the front door.

I hop on my bike and Stern climbs on behind me.

He shivers against my back as we ride. I know our closeness must hurt him. But for me, it’s a miracle just
to have him a little bit longer. If Stern is stuck, if Mom is stuck, I, too, am stuck.

Four days
. Wish Mom could be outside right now—wide open view, so much space, all the thick trees wiggling their roots into the soil. Plumeria—a passing breeze, armed with that heavy, soapy smell.

Soon things will be different. She gave me life and I will save hers. I will make it better.

Stern hangs on, somehow. Neither of us speak. I pedal harder, sweat pouring down my face, salt on my lips, on my tongue. It’s the ache in my belly, the second heart that pounds for her, that propels me faster than usual. Palms blur past, the gray shine of their skin and leaves, the wide mother arms of the banyan, the waving wrists of wild sage.

Soon, Ghost Town looms to my right as I pull my bike up the driveway and Stern and I hop off. The eerie quiet sets me on edge. I walk slowly through the lawn to the entrance, twist the knob: unlocked, just as Austin said it’d be.

Stern and I meet eyes. My stomach is a system of hard knots as we walk quietly through the wide, dark, marbled lobby. I’m glad he’s here with me. I think it’s the only reason I’m able to go through with this at all. He’s the only reason I was ever able to go through most everything, after all.

The parlor room with the baby grand is off to our right, and we immediately go in and start wandering the room
in the darkness, looking for some sign, or hint, some glimmer of hope.

I stare around at the cheesy Monet on the far wall with its gilt frame, the lush potted ferns in either corner by the windows. If someone had broken in—what would they have possibly wanted with some parlor furniture and an otherwise virtually empty condo building? But maybe they were after something inside the office …? Computer equipment, telephones?

“I’m going to look over here,” I whisper to Stern, and turn down a dark corridor to the office. The door is part-open. I reach along the wall for the light switch but decide not to: I can’t shake the niggling feeling that Austin might still be here, in the building, desperate to talk. And what if he is? What if he comes in and finds me like this, snooping around? Will he tell Ted? What excuse will I give him?

Heart beating quick, I start at the bottom drawer and pull out a file full of loose papers—searching in the darkness for anything that might lead me back to what happened that night, to who might have been here, arguing.

Nothing. No clues. I’m starting to feel hopeless. A knot is building in my throat, threatening to choke me. I don’t know what I expected to find—a note written in blood? A signed testimonial from a murderer?

Think, Olivia, think
. Stern broke in so he could play on the piano. If it
was
a break-in, why would anyone have any real interest in actually forcing their way into this place?

Maybe for the same reason Austin brought me earlier … for all the empty space, the dark corners, the places to take off clothing. I spot a spare set of keys, just sitting out in plain sight on the desk.

And another thought occurs to me.

Maybe it wasn’t a break-in.

Maybe the person who showed up that night had a key.

Except no one had keys to the unfinished building at that point other than my father …

And Ted.

“Olivia,” a low male voice says from behind me.

I freeze, letting several papers fall from my hands. Everything goes still; for all I know, time itself has momentarily stopped. And then I turn around, and face him.

C
lick
. Ted Oakley turns and carefully locks the door behind him. My heart speeds up. Ted. Ted could have been here that night. Ted could have been here with one of his girls—Austin said there might have been a bunch of them.

I will Stern to come back to me. Could he still be in the parlor room?
Lucas. Lucas. My Lucas
. “What—what are you doing here? Where’s Austin?” I say, all the tone sucked out of my voice. No fear, no passion. A flatliner of a voice.

He doesn’t answer my question. “Olivia,” he says my name again slowly, in his same concerned-father tone. “Austin is sleeping. As you should be. Do you know what time it is?”

I stare at him, look around. “Yes.” I start shaking. I don’t want to be shaking, I don’t want him to know that I’m terrified. That I’m suddenly terrified of
him
. “I know what time it is,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Austin was supposed to meet me here,” I lie. “He texted me. We were going to meet.”

Ted stares at me, like I’m the craziest bat he’s ever seen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, honey. Austin went to sleep hours ago. He’s got practice in the morning.” His voice is slow and obnoxiously calm. He steps closer to me, puts a hand out toward my head like he means to take my temperature. “Are you feeling all right? Should we call up your father and have him come get you?”

I back away from him, straight into his desk, sick of being treated like a child, like an idiot, like a crazy person. “That’s not true. I got a text back from him. I …
someone
sent me a text.”

Ted smiles and shakes his head.

I go on. “You—you had him keep an
eye
on me. It wasn’t because you were worried about me, was it? No …” it’s all dawning on me now, so fast and heavy my brain can barely keep up with the racing of my heart. “No, you asked him to spy on me because I was looking into Mom’s case, because I realized she didn’t do it. There’s no way she did it.”
You did it
, I think, but I don’t say it. Something stops me—something about the definiteness of that statement that I think might push him over whatever edge he’s teetering on.

Might push
me
over the edge. And still, still, I don’t want it to be true.

Ted stands there, looking at me like I’m on drugs, like I’ve just told him if he drinks my Kool-Aid, he’ll be transported to a magical otherworldly place where everything is free and nobody ages. “Oh—honey—you’re
not
okay, are you?” He approaches me, lays his big-lug hand on my
shoulder, rubbing it gently before I shuck it off. The bump in his nose leaves a crooked shadow on his face.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Ted says gently. “We all have. This is how it started for your mother, you know, when she was about your age, wasn’t it? Have you been … imagining things?”

“What? No. I’m not
imagining
things. Why does
everyone
think—?”

“You know, Olivia,” he interrupts, “it
is
genetic. I’m sorry to say, most schizophrenics experience their first episode as teenagers.” There’s a worried little smile on his now clean-shaven face; his hands smooth at his suit jacket. He’s wearing a suit. At midnight. Ink black. “I’m just worried about you—understand? I don’t know what you’re looking for.” He motions to the open files, the scattered papers. “But you’re not going to find anything here. Do you understand me? There’s nothing to find. You think that everything is working against you, that something is
wrong
, that everyone’s trying to
harm
you.” He shakes his head, stooping to collect the paper on the floor and place it neatly back into the bottom drawer of the desk. “That’s paranoid, sweetie.”

“Why are you here?” I blurt out, watching him shut the drawer, and straighten up. “If I’m just imagining things, what are you doing here?”

“Well, some of us have to
work
quite late, little miss. I know you don’t understand that. Your parents never did too much working in their lives, after all—not to pass
judgment, mind you. But, well—we all get where we are for a reason.” Something’s happening to his voice—it’s getting higher, faster.

“Someone took Austin’s phone tonight. Someone texted me. Was it you? You knew I would be here, didn’t you?” He’s still looking at me with a furrowed brow, like everything I’m saying is entirely ridiculous.

And some part of me thinks he’s right. How could Stern’s murderer possibly be Ted? I must be insane to even think it. He’s been such a saint to us. He brought Dad in on Ghost Town as his business partner when he needed work, and he got Mom a new lawyer right after Greg Foster quit … Greg Foster, who killed himself just after leaving the case. Greg Foster, who left an enormous amount of money in Mom’s name.

The pieces are starting to slot together in my skull. There’s a rushing between my ears.

Greg Foster was going to get Mom acquitted. He told us so. But then he suddenly split and Carol took over, thanks again to Ted, and that was that.

Ted
wanted
Mom to get locked up.

“You framed her,” I say suddenly, certainty settling through my bones. My whole body goes hot, then cold, then hot again—like someone’s standing inside of it, flipping a switch.

“Honey, I really don’t know what you’re—”

“My question is
why
,” I say, cutting him off, trying to keep my voice from shaking.