Tell Me You're Sorry (35 page)

All at once, she felt his hand around her ankle, tight as a vise. He yanked her down. Helpless, Jenny lost her grip. She banged her elbow against the steel ladder as she plummeted down and crashed to the ground. The wind was knocked out of her.

For a few seconds she couldn't breathe or see anything.

Then he came into focus. He stood over her. The blood on his face was streaming down the side of his neck.

He bent down, and Jenny saw his fist coming at her face.

She felt the hammer-like blow.

Then she didn't see a thing.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FIVE

 

“I
can't believe it,” her father announced, a glass of orange juice in his hand. “We're all having breakfast together, and it's not even a special occasion.”

“But it is a special occasion, Dad,” Danny piped up, his mouth full of Cap'n Crunch. “Jenny's here!”

Sitting next to Danny at the kitchen table, her father's friend was sipping out of a mug that had a cartoon cable car and “JENNY” written on it. She patted Danny's shoulder. “I think I love this guy.”

“Give it another twenty-four hours, it'll pass,” Alison said. She went back to eating her Honey Nut Cheerios.

It amused her how Jenny acted like it was a big deal to get breakfast ready for everybody. All they were having were toast and cereal. It wasn't like she'd whipped up eggs Benedict or something. Still, Alison liked her. After all, thanks to Jenny, she'd gotten out of the house last night and was able to hang out with her friends at Alki Beach. She didn't even mind so much that Shane pulled a no-show. When Alison came home, Jenny wanted to know everything that had happened, like they'd been confiding in each other for years or something. But Alison lapped up the attention. Jenny insisted she keep the scarab bracelet for the next day or two.

Alison was wearing the bracelet this morning. She planned to show it off at summer school. It gave her something to look forward to. Thursdays were always a drag, because they tacked on a two-hour chemistry lab in the afternoon.

Everyone else had something going on today. Danny had a birthday party to attend at 11:30. Meanwhile, her dad had to be at the station to film promos at 10:30. So he'd worked out some elaborate plan to drop off Danny at a friend's house, and they'd give him a ride to the party from there. But the friend's mother had just phoned minutes ago saying her little monster was sick with the flu. It had thrown her dad into a panic—for about thirty seconds.

Jenny came to the rescue, saying she'd stay with Danny, and drive him to and from the birthday party.

Her dad said he didn't expect her to be running errands and babysitting. But Jenny seemed eager to do it. As much as Alison liked her, she still felt their houseguest was on a major campaign to get in good with their dad. At least, that was what her friend, Cate, had thought last night, when she'd told her about Jenny.

“Watch out,” Cate had said. “My wicked stepmother acted the same way when she started dating my father. There was nothing she couldn't do for us. Then she married my dad, and wham, she turned into a total bitch overnight. Still, that's a cool bracelet. So what does she look like anyway? Is she pretty?”

Alison glanced around the breakfast table. She reached for her purse, which was hanging off the back of her chair. Then she fished out her iPhone. “Hey, I'm getting a picture of this ‘special occasion' and posting it on Facebook.” In reality, she just wanted to get a shot of Jenny to show to Cate.

“Oh, no, not me,” Jenny protested. “I'm a mess.”

Alison snapped a couple of photos anyway—mostly of Jenny. It was light enough in the room that she didn't need a flash. “Oh, c'mon, you look gorgeous!” she said, getting to her feet. She stepped back from the table and raised the camera phone again. “Say cheese!”

“No!” Jenny said, putting a hand in front of her face. “I mean it, seriously!”

“Just one shot . . .”

“Alison,” her father said. “I don't think—”

“You look great, Jenny,” she said, snapping the photo. “What's the problem?”

“Damn it, no means no!” she snapped. She sprang up from the table, almost tipping over her chair. “When someone doesn't want their picture taken, you should respect that.” She kept her hand in front of her face and bolted out of the kitchen.

“God,” Alison murmured. She turned to her father. “Talk about touchy . . .”

“Nice going, Alison,” Danny said.

“You should go apologize to her,” her father whispered.

With a heavy sigh, she treaded out of the kitchen. She still had the iPhone in her hand. She found Jenny standing by the stairs to the lower level.

“Alison, I'm sorry to fly off the handle like that,” she said, touching her arm. “I don't know if your dad told you. But one reason I'm staying here is because I had this stalker guy bothering me at my hotel. The last thing I need is for someone to be posting my picture on Facebook. I don't want this creep tracking me down here. You understand, don't you?”

“God, yes, of course, I'm sorry,” Alison murmured. He father had mentioned Jenny's stalker situation when he'd told her to get the place ready for company last night. She still felt Jenny had overreacted a bit. Alison had no intention of posting any breakfast table snapshots on Facebook. She just wanted her friend, Cate, to see what their houseguest looked like.

“Here,” she said, showing Jenny the camera phone—and the photo of everyone at the table. Jenny had her hand blocking her face in the shot. She clicked the delete button. “Here, I'm deleting it, see?”

“Thanks, Alison.” She stroked her arm. “Are we still friends?”

“Of course,” Alison said. “Listen, I should get a move on. I don't want to be late for school.”

She headed back into the kitchen with her iPhone.

She didn't tell Jenny there were still two shots of her in the camera phone.

 

 

 

From the outside, the high school looked like a huge, turn-of-the-century brownstone train station. In jeans and a black T-shirt, Ryan wandered the halls, carrying an envelope full of printouts of news articles. He asked one passerby after another, “Do you know where they teach the driver's ed classes?” It was Alison Metcalf's morning class. She'd mentioned it on her Facebook page.

Ryan asked six people, before one scrawny-looking kid with a red-and-white-striped shirt right out of
Where's Waldo?
gave him an answer. “That class let out about five minutes ago,” he'd said, squinting a bit at Ryan's too-blond hair. “I know, because I'm taking it. A lot of the kids hang out afterward by the courtyard entrance. Do you know where that is?”

“Not a clue,” Ryan said.

The kid pointed down the hall. “Just keep following those exit signs and they'll lead you to it. Is there somebody from the class you're looking for?”

“Alison Metcalf?” Ryan replied, but somehow it came out as more of a question.

The kid nodded. “Yeah, she's usually there.”

“So what's the story on her? Is she nice?”

“Yeah, she's pretty cool.”

“Thanks, man,” Ryan said. “Thanks a lot.”

As he wandered down the corridor—only marginally crowded with summer school students—Ryan couldn't ignore the sensation of something pressing against his chest. It was an anxious, shaky feeling that had been nagging him ever since last night when he found out about Stephanie. He was still hoping against hope that she was okay. He'd gone on the Internet this morning for an update on the explosion. The Portland police still hadn't found a body. So there was a reason to hope. They'd tracked down the owners of the Ford pickup seen speeding down the block as the blast occurred. The owners, a Beaverton couple, insisted they hadn't been anywhere near Stephanie's house at the time of the explosion. Apparently, after some grilling by police detectives, the wife finally confessed that her husband had gotten all riled up about the reckless, pill-popping lady pilot who had endangered a planeload of passengers. So they'd driven by Stephanie Coburn's house at five in the morning, and her husband hurled a brick through the front window. “It must have set something off, because the whole place went up,” the woman told police.

Ryan kept reminding himself that Stephanie had been staying at a hotel last night. There was every possibility she hadn't been home when the place blew up. Still, why hadn't she gotten in touch with him to tell him she was all right? That awful pressure in his chest wouldn't go away. Only a phone call from Stephanie would get rid of it.

He kept following the exit signs as the
Where's Waldo?
kid had instructed. At last, he stepped outside and found himself near a courtyard by what looked like a new attachment to the turn-of-the-century building. The wing had blue and white tiles and big, modern-looking windows. Several park benches bordered the crowded quad. Some guys on skateboards were off to one side, zipping around, performing stunts.

It took Ryan a while before he spotted a cute girl who looked very much like Alison Metcalf in her Facebook photos. She had brown curly hair and wore a sleeveless white shirt with khaki shorts and sandals. She and a friend sat on top of the back to a bench—with their feet on the seat part. She was showing her friend her bracelet.

Ryan made his way over to her. The friend seemed to notice him first, and she elbowed Alison and nodded toward him. Alison locked eyes with him. He tried to smile. “Hey, how's it going?” he said. “Are you Alison Metcalf?”

“No, she's Angelina Jolie,” her friend said. “But she's often mistaken for Alison Metcalf.”

He worked up a chuckle. “Good one.”

“I'm Alison,” she said, banging her knee against her friend's. “Who are you?”

“My name's Ryan Farrell. Your dad is Mark Metcalf, the news guy, right?”

She gave him a wary look. “Why do you ask?”

He reached into his envelope for the 1986 photo of both their dads and the two other guys.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Have you been calling the news station?”

“Is this the wacko?” her friend asked. “Oh my God . . .”

“I don't know what you guys are talking about,” Ryan said. He handed Alison the photo. “My father knew your father back in high school—in the Chicago suburbs. That's your dad in the white shirt, isn't it?”

Alison laughed. “Oh, my God, he looks like such a geek!”

“That's my father beside him on the right,” Ryan said.

“He looks like you,” she said, a bit more serious.

“Only without that ridiculous hair,” her friend chimed in.

“Oh, you should talk, Miss Clairol Jet Black,” Alison said, giving her friend another nudge. She studied the photo again, and looked at Ryan. “So—what's this all about?”

He looked over at her friend. “I probably don't know you well enough to ask you to get lost, but do you mind? I really need to talk to Alison alone.”

Alison's pal glanced at her, and Alison nodded. The girl frowned at Ryan and pointed to another bench. “I'm going to be right over there, watching you two.”

“Thanks,” Ryan said. He sat down on the bench.

Alison climbed down from the top of the seatback and sat beside him. She looked at the picture again. “So—what's going on? What's the big secret?”

Ryan took a deep breath. “If one of the blogs I read is true, than we both have something in common—besides the fact that our dads knew each other in high school. You and I—we both discovered our mothers after they committed suicide.”

Alison stared at him. “I don't think you're very funny.”

“It's no joke.” He pointed to the young men in the photo for her. “His first wife slit her throat. There was your mother in the garage with the car. And my mom hung herself. This guy on the end, his wife died of some kind of stroke. Each one of these guys met a woman and got married again. And shortly after that, the guy, the wife, and the whole family were killed. I lost my dad, my sister, and my brother six weeks ago. Everyone in that picture—except for your father—is dead. And their families died with them.”

Alison shook her head and handed the picture back to him. “I don't want to hear any more.”

She got to her feet.

“Has your dad met someone recently—a woman, a potential girlfriend?”

Alison turned to face him. Her hand went around the bracelet on her other wrist.

Then she sank back down beside him.

“Wait a minute,” Alison said, studying the photo of Ryan's father and Lacee Roth. “This woman here, she looks a lot like Jenny, the woman staying at our house.”

Sitting next to her on the bench in the school's courtyard, Ryan pulled out another shot of Lacee, an earlier photo Stephanie had found. “This is a better shot of her,” he said.

Alison quickly shook her head. “She doesn't look like Jenny there. But in this shot with your dad, she does. It's the same thing with this Halle person. The hair's different and the makeup's different, but the bone structure's the same . . .” She handed him the pile of photos and stood up. “Let me show you. C'mon, follow me . . .”

She waved at her friend across the quad, and then led him into the building. “You said your grandmother met Lacee a few times?” she asked.

He had to hurry to keep up with her. “Yes.”

“And you showed her that photo of Lacee from a couple of years ago—before she met your dad?”

“Right, and she said it sure looked like her.”

“
Looked like
, yeah,” Alison said. “But did she say it was positively her?”

Ryan remembered his grandmother had been a bit vague about it. She'd said it wasn't a very good picture.

Alison led him into a dim, windowless classroom with tiered seats. A big white screen was in front of the blackboard. She took the envelope from him. “Shut the door and pull the shade, will you?”