Rattled (12 page)

“Chillax, would ya? I'll be ready in two secs.” She bit her lip. “I don't suppose I have time to dry my hair, do I?”

“Uh,
no
…you don't.” My blood was boiling.

Jilly got ready surprisingly fast, finishing off with a dab of lip gloss.

We stood on our front step, looking up and down the street. I wished it was later, darker.

“Where's Mom and Dad?” Jilly asked.

“They went to Sears to look at lawn mowers.”

“Oh.” She looked down and pointed to the envelope in my hand. “What's that?”

“I thought of this at the last minute. If someone sees us going up to their house, we could say we're returning a letter that was delivered to our house by mistake.” I held it up so she could see it had the Swickers' address on it. There was even a stamp.

She looked impressed and nodded her head.

We tried so hard to look nonchalant and casual as we crossed the street, but our body language was screaming “Guilty!” I was so nervous, tiny giggles kept erupting from my body.

My heart was pounding loudly in my ears as we stood at the Swickers' front door. I pulled the key from my pocket. The bell on the end of the key chain tinkled, sounding like cymbals crashing. Why is it when you try to be super quiet, every little noise seems extra loud? Peter appeared, purring at our feet.

“Hurry up,” Jilly whispered urgently.

I got the door open and she pushed me inside. We each took a deep breath and I wiped my sweaty hands on my shorts.

“Okay,” I said. “You stay here and watch the street. I'm going downstairs.”

“Oh no you don't. I'm coming too.”

“Jilly! That was the deal! You're the lookout, remember?”

“Uh-uh, there's no way I'm going to be the one standing here if Mrs. Swicker walks in the front door. I'm coming with you.”

“Apparently I should have held some kind of seminar to explain the role of lookout,” I hissed.

“Just stop talking. You're wasting time.”

I sighed. She was right. We could always fight about this later. “Come on then.”

We hurried downstairs. I led the way to the furnace room and flicked on the light.

Jilly nudged me. “Check it out.” She was pointing to a box with a bunch of vodka bottles. All empty. “Someone has issues.”

I nodded my head. But that wasn't the box I was interested in right then.

“There it is.” I lifted it down off the pile. It seemed to be the way I'd left it.

Handing the pink blanket to Jilly, I told her to unroll it. I lifted out the blue one and felt for the rattle inside. We both pulled them out at the same time.

“
Amy Elizabeth
,” Jilly whispered. “What's yours say?” She leaned over.

Her long wet hair draped across my face. “Give me some room!” I pushed her back. The heat in the furnace room, the stress, and the smell of Jilly's strawberry shampoo was making me feel sick to my stomach. I held up the rattle and read the engraving. “
Michael Edward
.”

Jilly and I looked at each other, the same confused expression on our faces. We held both rattles out in front of us, side by side.

Same rattle, same style of engraving.

“Look,” I pointed. “Same date.
July 1, 1994
.”

Jilly turned to me. “Twins!”

“Who
are
these kids?” I frantically dug around in the bottom of the box to see if there was anything else that could be a clue. A couple soothers, a tube of diaper cream, and a flattened, quilted diaper bag. I lifted up the diaper bag to check underneath. It felt kind of heavy. I unzipped the zipper and stuck my hand in and felt around. “I think there might be something else…” My voice trailed off as my brain registered what I'd found. Even though it was wrapped in a blanket, there was no doubt what I'd grabbed onto.

Jilly took one look at me. Her eyes widened. “What? What is it?”

I pulled it out. I peeled back the baby blanket. A gun.

Jilly shot to her feet. “I asked if we were looking for a gun! You said no!”

“Well I didn't know it was here, now did I?”

“Just put it back, put it back, put it back,” Jilly frantically whispered.

“I am, I am.” But for a second I just stared at it. I'd never seen one close up. Even against the blanket of cartoon yellow duckies—it totally scared me. It scared me more to think it might be loaded.

There was a loud noise. My entire body jerked and my stomach dropped like an elevator.

“Just the furnace,” Jilly breathed.

My eyes darted to the huge metal contraption clunking away in the corner. “Let's get out of here,” I said. With shaking hands, I quickly wrapped the gun and put it back in the bag.

“Yeah, I'm starting to get freaked out.”

My legs were wobbly when I stood up. Jilly helped re-roll the rattles and I placed the box back on top of the pile.

I took a final glance around the furnace room, turned out the light, did the same thing upstairs, and locked the front door. Jilly and I forced ourselves to walk at a normal pace back to our house. Once inside, we bolted up to my room. Jilly closed the door firmly behind us.

“We're okay. Mom and Dad are still out,” I said, sitting down at my desk and resting my head in my hands.

Jilly sat down on the corner of my bed. She was breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down.

The thoughts in my head were whipping around like a windstorm. Amy and Michael. Who were they?
Where
were they? And the gun? What about the
gun
?

Jilly must have been thinking the same thing. “You know…people are allowed to own guns,” she said, almost like she was reasoning with herself.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Like, she
is
a single woman, living alone.”

Jilly was right. Someone in Mrs. Swicker's situation might think they needed a gun, but, “If she had it for protection, wouldn't it be in her bedside table, or in a kitchen canister or something? Somewhere she could get to it quickly? Not hidden in a diaper bag in the basement.”

“Yeah…you're right.” Jilly looked stressed.

The gun thing was kind of stressing me out too. Then I had a thought. “I suppose we could be way off. Maybe at one time she had a gun for some reason, like they lived in a bad neighbourhood or something, and now she's packed it away because she doesn't feel she needs it anymore.” I wasn't sure if I believed that, but it
was
possible, and it definitely lowered the scariness level.

Jilly looked thoughtful, but didn't agree or disagree. “So who do you think these kids are then?” she asked.

I shook my head slowly.

“I guess all we know is that they're twins,” she said.

“They'd be about my age…” My birthday was June twenty-third.

“And about Megan's age,” Jilly pointed out. “Maybe she has another brother and sister, besides Sam, I mean.”

“Her age? No, that doesn't make any sense.”

“Maybe she's a triplet.”

“No…I can't imagine that's it. And where are they, then?”

Jilly looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You're the one who thinks Mrs. Swicker's capable of murder. And now you have a weapon.”

“Yeah, but I'm thinking worst-case scenario she did something to her husband, not her kids. Even I don't think she's capable of
that
. And Megan would have told me if she had another brother and sister.” I started to doubt myself. “At least I
think
she would have…” I drummed my fingers impatiently on the desk.

“Well, who could they be?”

I stared back at her blankly. I was as puzzled as she was.

The sound of car doors slamming drifted in through the window.

“Mom and Dad are back,” Jilly announced.

“Girls!” Dad called up the stairs. “Come see the new lawn mower!”

Jilly rolled her eyes. “Oh
joy
.”

We trudged down the stairs and out to the front lawn.

“Check it out, girls,” Dad said, both arms pointing at the shiny new lawn mower, his new baby. “Is she
sweet
or what?”

“She's beautiful, Dad,” I said.

“We shall call her
Gabrielle
,” Dad sighed.

I looked at Jilly.

“She's so high-tech, she'll practically mow the lawn herself,” Dad cooed, caressing the handle bar. “You girls could do it in no time flat.”

Jilly made a choking noise. “Can we be done looking at the lawn mower now?” she asked loudly.

“Sure, girls. Thanks for showing some interest.”

Jilly tugged on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “Come on.”

I was just closing my bedroom door when Mom's arm sliced through the opening like something out of a slasher flick. She pushed open the door, came in, and sat on the corner of my desk.

“Okay, girls, spill. What are you two up to?” Her eyes were narrowed and her tone oozed with suspicion.

“What are you talking about?” Jilly asked, sounding totally innocent.

“Call me crazy, but the last time you two willingly spent time together behind closed doors was in the late nineties.”

“Mom, you're overreacting,” I said.

“Well…it's just a little out of character, wouldn't you say?” she asked.

“Mom. We're just talking. You should be encouraging us, not
frying
us.” Jilly crossed her arms.

“Maybe you're right,” she nodded, not looking convinced. “Maybe I'm overreacting.” She started to leave, then stopped and turned. “I
hope
I'm overreacting.”

Once the door closed, we both let out a huge sigh.

“Maybe we should just tell Mom and Dad what we found,” I suggested.

“Oh, okay, brainiac, love to see you work
that
into a conversation. Especially the whole breaking in part. Plus,” she put her face really close to mine, “there's no way you're taking me down with you. If they shave any more time off my curfew, my life is over.”

“Technically, we didn't break in,” I said, but I knew she was right.

“Look. Obviously us hanging out together in plain sight is causing a ripple in the universe or something, so I say we break for tonight, sleep on it, meet up tomorrow when Mom's busy with other things.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “Tomorrow we'll figure out where we go from here. Assuming you want to keep trying to find out who Amy and Michael are.”

“Well
yeah
.”

“Okay then, that's what we'll do.”

Chapter 17

“H
mmm…what to do, what to do…” Jilly lay on my bed, thinking out loud.

I watched her pick up my pink sequined pillow, toss it up in the air, then catch it. She did it over and over.

Something instinctively told us not to ask or involve Sam and Megan. The fact that we
both
felt this way we took as a sign. We decided that if we were going to find out who Amy and Michael were, we had to get as much info on Mrs. Swicker as possible—she was the key.

After making a list of all the strange things we'd observed or discovered concerning Mrs. Swicker, we rated each item on a weirdness scale of one to ten. Everything came in at a nine or better. The whole waterfront slash gift-shop incident actually rated an eleven, tied with the box in the furnace room.

“God! I wish I had been in that gift shop with you!” Jilly groaned.

I cringed inside as a tiny wave of guilt washed over me, knowing I had strategically planned it so she
couldn't
be in that gift shop. “Yeah, me too.”

“Give me the instant replay, one more time.”

“Jilly, I already told you everything I remember.”

“And that lady seemed sure Mrs. Swicker was this Reenie Barretto?”

“She seemed pretty sure to me.”

“Well, do you think you can remember her name?” Jilly asked.

“I don't see how that's going to help us.”

“Maybe we could track her down, talk to her.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you nuts? How are we going to do that? Not to mention, we can't just call up a complete stranger!”

“She could be our last resort, you know, if we can't find anything on our own. Just try to remember.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers against my temples. I could feel Jilly staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

I went through the scene step by step. The woman with the sunburn pouncing on Mrs. Swicker, me behind the cookbook rack, Mrs. Swicker turning pale as a ghost, the woman poking herself in the chest, saying, “It's me, Phyllis…
something
, of course now I'm Phyllis…
something else
…smoking Kools under the bleachers…it's me, Phyllis…”