See Jane Run (15 page)

She pushed through the double doors outside the commons, letting the cool mist of the morning air break over her. She doubled over, huffing huge gulps, hoping that the excess oxygen would clear the gray blur from her head or, at the very least, wake her up.

No such luck.

Riley straightened, her eyes zeroing in on the visitors parking lot where a car was parked dead center. It was a dark blue sedan—nothing special, nothing sinister—and a man was sitting behind the wheel.

Riley's heart started to thud. The air that she sucked in was zapped from her lungs. She squinted. Was the driver looking at her too?

No.

She was paranoid. The guy was probably someone's dad, waiting for his kid to come out after being suspended or barfing in the biology lab.

He wasn't a police officer, a detective, a criminal. He wasn't one of “them.”

No one knew who she was.

Her pulse throbbed.
Except
for
the
man
from
last
night.
She shuddered.
The
man
who
didn't exist.

She pressed herself against the doors, relishing the cold of the glass as it seeped through her T-shirt. It grounded her.

“I'm going crazy,” Riley muttered to herself.

She zipped her hoodie up to her neck and cut across the commons. When she heard the rev of a car engine, she forced herself not to look back, not to check if the blue sedan pulled out. She didn't have a plan other than to move. Walk. Push one foot in front of the other. That was what she was concentrating on when the blue sedan pulled up right beside her.

The sedan slowed to match Riley's pace, and Riley's mind went into hyperdrive.
Stop. Run. Turn around.

“Riley Spencer?” The driver of the sedan leaned against his door toward her, his face shadowed by the sunlight breaking through the windshield.

Riley's heart lodged in her throat. It wasn't the man from the previous night.

It was Tim.

“I just want to talk to you.”

Riley slowed but sidestepped further away from the car.

“I know who you really are, Jane, and your parents are lying to you. They're trying to brainwash you. I know because they did it to me.”

Riley's parents' words rolled through her head, searing like hot lava.

“They were forcing kids to work. They got caught. My stepdad, Alistair—”

Electricity bolted through Riley, and her head snapped toward Tim.

“Do you remember Alistair Foley, Jane? He blew the whistle. Come on, we need to—”

Tim reached out the window, his clawed fingertips brushing Riley's arm as she snapped it away.

Immediately, her body took over. Her saliva soured and adrenaline shot through her system. Suddenly, her thighs were burning. Heart thundering. Eyes watering.

She was running.

It could have been her own scream or the screech of the blue sedan's tires. Whatever it was, it tore through her skull and blanketed out every other thing around her. All Riley knew was that the sidewalk was ending and the car next to her was chewing up the street. The car turned in front of her but the adrenaline coursing through her veins was still vaulting her forward. She jumped, the pads of her fingers digging into the hood of the car. The door kicked open and the driver was out as Riley scrambled over the hood. He lunged for her, his fingers lacing through her hair as it trailed behind her. She felt the sting of the pull, heard the strands as they tore out, burning her scalp.

She winced. Her feet hit the ground and another car screeched to a stop in front of her.

“Get in.”

Riley's heart stopped when her feet did.

“Get in!” JD repeated, yanking her arm.

Somehow, she opened the door. Somehow, she sat down.

“Wha—how did you know?” Riley managed as JD slammed on the gas.

“Lucky guess,” he said, jaw set hard.

Riley slammed back in her seat and fumbled for her seat belt, her eyes checking the rearview mirror, catching the sedan behind them. The driver was staring straight forward. There was a deep frown cut into his face, and though his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, Riley was sure they were boring through JD's back windshield, trying to cut through her.

“He's following us! What are we going to do?”

JD didn't answer; he just drove. He cut across streets and turned down ones Riley didn't even know existed. Within moments, the blue sedan dropped out of view.

Once they were going at a normal pace—obeying traffic laws and stop signs—JD turned to her. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?” His words were clipped, voice tinged with exasperation.

Riley was still struggling to breathe. She clamped a hand over her mouth, fairly certain her heart would pop out if she tried to speak. She looked at JD and tried to force her shoulders to shrug, but she was completely disconnected. She expected JD to grumble at her or kick her out of his car. Instead, he reached into the backseat and handed her a semi-warm water bottle.

She cracked the seal and drank gratefully.

Finally, “Thank you. For…everything.”

JD grinned despite his previous veneer. “Hey, thank you. I'm always looking for a little adventure in my life.”

Riley folded herself forward, tucking her head between her legs and rolling the water bottle over the back of her neck. “If I ever ask for adventure in my life ever again, promise you'll shoot me.”

“Will do.”

She popped her head back up as the car slowed down and scanned the horizon. “Where are we?”

Branches thunked against the rooftop and gravel popped under the tires until JD pushed the car into park. “Nowhere. Just an old frontage road. Seriously, Ry, what is going on with you?”

She swallowed hard. “Someone tried to attack me last night.”

“It seems like someone tried to attack you just now.”

Riley gritted her teeth. “I think someone is following me. I think someone is—is trying to hurt me. For revenge.” It sounded as crazy in her mind as it did out of her mouth.

“And this has to do with Jane?”

Riley perked up. “Jane. You said you found Jane's brother, Tim.”

Jane and Tim O'Leary were two separate entities to Riley. She wasn't Jane O'Leary and this whole thing wasn't happening.

“Maybe. I mean, at least someone claiming to be her brother.”

Riley's breath caught in her throat. She didn't want to be Jane. She didn't want to be Jane with a brother. Tim flashed in her eyes—his blue eyes that nearly matched hers, his strawberry blond hair just a few shades darker.

I
can't believe a stranger over my own parents. They only lied to me to keep me safe—because they had to.

“Why do you say someone claiming to be her brother? I mean, why would someone claim that?”

JD shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe he wants Jane's money or there's an inheritance or something.”

Riley thought of her nice home, her parents' nice cars. They were comfortable, but they weren't rich. At least not rich enough to lie over.

“Who knows? People pretend to be other people for all sorts of crazy-ass reasons.”

Her first instinct was negative, but now she wasn't really sure.

“So what did you find out about this Tim guy?”

JD twisted in his seat and dug in his backpack. “This.”

He hand Riley a curl-edged piece of printer paper, and Riley wished he hadn't. She didn't recognize the web address, but she recognized the picture—it was the man from the mall.

Riley read the message. “Looking for my sister JANE E. O'LEARY. Missing since June 1996 from/around Granite Cay, Oregon.” There was a number to call and a smattering of vaguely recognizable clues:
Has
blue
eyes. Probably red to light red hair.

Riley's throat went immediately dry. She thought of her parents, of Tim, cruising by her in the blue sedan.

“I don't think this is right,” she said, letting the paper flutter to the floor. “Where did you find it again?”

“Just ran some searches. It's weird; it was the only thing I found on her.”

Riley nodded, certain she had upturned every Internet stone. “Tim” wasn't her brother.

Maybe
Tim
was
Alastair?

The thought made her blood run cold.

Shelby's ringtone blared through the silent cab.

“Hey,” Shelby yelled into the phone, “where are you?”

Riley swallowed hard then took a swig from her water bottle. “Uh, I wasn't feeling well.”

“Duh, dork, I was sitting in class with you. I've been looking everywhere for you. You left all your stuff.”

“I totally forgot.”

“I picked up your jacket and backpack. Are you at home? You want me to swing it by?”

“No!” She sat up straighter. “I mean, no, it's OK, you don't have to do that. I'm not home—”

“I can bring it by later. School just got out. Where are you? And if you're off on some mysterious sexcapade, I'm stealing your jacket and throwing your backpack in the dumpster. Well, I'm stealing your jacket, your trig homework, your lip gloss, and your emergency twenty, but then I'm ditching the rest.”

“How did you know about my emergency twenty bucks?”

“Everyone is supposed to have an emergency twenty, Ry. You're the only person I know who actually does. Where are you again?”

Riley chewed the inside of her lip and scanned her surroundings, as if something appropriate to tell Shelby would sprout out of the sunbaked earth.

“The doctor.”

Riley had never lied to Shelby before, and now the word tasted sour in her mouth.

“Oh.” Shelby's voice immediately took on the parental edge she used when babysitting her siblings. “Is it serious?”

Guilt welled in Riley's gut. “No—no. I think I might have just gotten some kind of flu or food poisoning or something. Would you mind just hanging on to my backpack and coat for the night?” She went back to tracing the stitch line on her jeans. “The way I'm feeling, it's not like I'll be doing any homework anyway.”

That wasn't a lie.

“Yeah, no problem. But seriously, I'm wearing this jacket. And I might borrow your backpack too. Yours doesn't have any food stains on it.”

“Fine, but if it smells like Ruffles when I get it back…”

Riley clicked the phone shut, feeling half relaxed and comfortable, half a horrible friend for lying to Shelby and making her schlep her stuff home.

JD sat up. “We should probably be getting back.”

Riley felt herself frown. “Already?”

“School's out. Don't your parents have some sort of tracking device on you once the bell rings?”

“Very funny.” Riley knew that if she didn't come home immediately, her parents would be calling, wondering, panicked—and that made her want to stay out.

“Didn't you say something about a pizza?”

JD had just steered the car onto the road when the calls started. Riley looked at the readout: MOM. The word throbbed there, dancing to the electronic ringtone.
Mrs. O'Leary…

JD jutted his chin toward the phone in Riley's hand. “Aren't you going to get that?”

Riley closed her eyes and her mother flashed in her mind. In a second, her image was gone and a minute angry flame flared up.
If
they
had
just
told
me
the
truth…

“No.” She smiled at JD across the seat, feeling mysterious and dangerous and comfortable. The blue sedan pricked at the edges of her mind, but Riley didn't want to think about it. She only wanted to think about being there in the cab of JD's car, where she was a normal kid playing hooky.

JD flipped on his blinker, heading toward the school.

“Is your car in the lot?”

Riley froze. “No, actually, I got a ride this morning.”

“No big, I'll drop you off at home.”

Dread welled up inside her. “At home? No, you don't have to do that.” She was already in more trouble than she could fathom; coming home with JD might push her parents completely over the edge.

“So, what? Bus station? Want to grab another train and see where it takes us?” He wasn't smiling, but his tone was playful. “Although I don't know any buses or trains that go all the way out to the Blackwood Hills Estates.”

Riley pinched her top lip. “How do you know where I live?”

JD shifted his weight, and the car seemed to slide into a higher gear. He zeroed in on the road in front of him while Riley zeroed in on his right ear. “You told me earlier,” he said nonchalantly.

Riley tried to replay all the conversations she'd had with JD over the past week, but they jumbled and swirled with the stern look of her father and the nervous words of her mother.
Did
I
tell
him
where
I
lived?

She glanced at JD's profile once more, a tiny niggle of fear creeping up the back of her neck.

No,
she commanded.
Stop
being
paranoid.

“How about you just drop me off up at the gate? It takes forever once you get into the development.”

JD smoothly made the turn onto the road that led to the estates. “It's no problem. No one's expecting me home or anything.”

Riley felt herself shift over on her seat, putting an extra quarter inch of distance between herself and JD. He chose that moment to glance over at her, at the shift of her body. The hurt was evident in his eyes.

“It's not like I'm trying to kidnap you.”

“I didn't mean—I mean, what are you talking about? I didn't do anything.”

She could almost see the cogs working in JD's head. He leaned in as if to say something, thought better of it, and stepped on the gas. When they arrived at the wrought-iron gates of the Blackwood Hills Estates, Riley put her hand on the door handle the second JD slowed.

“This is fine. Thanks.” She opened the door before he could protest, before he could turn down the street that led to Riley's house.

Riley jogged toward her house, not bothering to look over her shoulder to see whether or not JD was still parked at the gate. Her sneakers smacked against the concrete, the soft thuds echoing through the empty street as a slow, steady drizzle started overhead. As she rounded the corner to her house, Riley pinched her eyes closed, hoping against hope that when she opened them, everything would be back to normal: her front yard would still be a rocky, muddy mess with the orange spray-painted outline of where her mom intended to plant birch trees and lay sod, the driveway and sidewalks would be pristine and empty—no stray cars, no flashing lights, no cops waiting just inside the door. When she opened her eyes, she was standing in the middle of the street, raindrops breaking on her head and dribbling in rivulets into her eyes. But even through the blur of rainwater, Riley could see that nothing was the same—her once welcoming house now looked foreign and strange, the windows her mother had decorated with frilly lace curtains were gray and ominous as blurred shadows walked jerkily in front of them. Two strange cars were parked out front.

Her cell phone chirped.

“I'm right outside, Dad,” Riley muttered into it.

She strode up the walk and sucked in a sharp breath, the icy air lancing her lungs and making them ache.