The Edge of the Light (31 page)

A
fter their last conversation, Becca fully intended to keep her promise to Dave Mathieson. But she wanted to find the best opportunity to do so. She told herself she wasn't avoiding anything in not telling Derric immediately about Hannah Armstrong. There were, after all, many other things going on.

First of all, there was getting Jenn settled at Diana Kinsale's house. After that, there was helping Seth figure out what to do about Prynne. Beyond that problem, there was the practice she had to continue: blocking whispers, trying to interpret the visions, trying to integrate the whispers and the visions, trying to understand what truly constituted a quickening. These were
pressing
issues. These were
serious
issues. They needed her attention first and foremost.

Only, she knew that all of this was just an enormous jumble of avoiding what she had to do. In the middle of this jumble was the ugliness of her continuing to lie to Derric. Not only to lie to him, at this point, but also to lie to herself about the relative importance of all these things she just
had
to see to before she could see to the boy she loved.

She went over in her head the trail of discovery that Olivia Bolding had been forging. So far she'd been to the Cliff Motel. She'd been to see the sheriff and after that she'd showed up to question Ralph Darrow, who had sent her on a useless mission to Saratoga Woods. There was really only one more place for Olivia Bolding to go in her search for Hannah Armstrong: the high school.

Here, Becca had been most careful. She'd skipped photo day at school both of the Septembers that she'd been there. She'd never joined a club that would put her picture in the yearbook. She'd been caught by a photojournalist last year when a fire broke out at the county fairgrounds, but she didn't see any reason why Olivia Bolding would start looking through old issues of the
South Whidbey Record
on the chance that Hannah Armstrong had been photographed at some time without her knowledge. So since the journalist knew her age—sixteen years old—she would have to come to the high school next. Becca could only hope that whoever looked at the pictures she was showing would either not recognize Becca King in the updated pictures of Hannah Armstrong or they would keep their mouths shut. Olivia Bolding was, after all, a reporter. Becca King was, after all, a minor. That had to count for something.

She was able to cling to this belief for three days. On day number four, her world came crashing down.

She and Derric were walking to his car. He was explaining that the Vicklands and the Mathiesons had met and were planning a large double-family get-together at Deception Pass State
Park. He was in the midst of telling her that he really wanted her to go as well, when a woman's voice spoke behind them.

“You must be Hannah Armstrong at last.”

Derric and Becca swung around. The reporter stood there. She wore a long, crushed linen blouse and Capri-length leggings. Inside her sandals, her toenails were painted red with a flower design rendered on each of the big ones. She held an iPhone in one hand and a stack of photos in the other.

Derric said, “What?”

She said, “You're Derric, aren't you? Sheriff Mathieson's son? I did think he wasn't quite telling me everything.” She shoved the iPhone in her shoulder bag and she fingered through the pictures, selecting one and handing it to Derric. She said, “Not bad, is it? Teenage girls generally want to lose weight. That's how I saw it, and it seems I was right.” She turned to Becca. “Ms. Ward gave you up,” she told her, naming the school's registrar. “One look at the picture and she said, ‘I knew Debbie Grieder was lying that day,' and she told me the name you were using was Becca King and if I wanted to find you, I just needed to look for the sheriff's son. Ms. Ward said Debbie Grieder had Rebecca King's transcripts and a copy of her birth certificate and the rest was supposed to come in the mail but it never did. What I can't work out is what her part in this is. I mean Debbie Grieder's part. She's certainly not your mom in disguise. But is she nearby, Hannah? Is your mom here on the island? In Everett? In Bellingham? Maybe in Seattle?”

Derric said to Becca, “What the
hell
is going on?”

Becca had been using the AUD box, but she now removed the earbud because her entire life as she'd known it depended upon her ability to read every nuance of the next few minutes. If this wasn't her personal quickening, she was going to have to make it her quickening.

• • •

LATER, BECCA WOULDN'T
be able to recall the exact order in which things happened and in which things were said in those critical moments. Most of it was a blur. She knew she began with “I don't know what you're talking about,” which she said to Olivia Bolding. She knew that Olivia responded by saying to Derric, “Her real name is Hannah Armstrong. She hasn't told you, has she? She hasn't mentioned San Diego and what happened there: her stepfather Jeff Corrie. His partner Connor West. A whole pile of missing money.”

Derric looked sick to his stomach. Becca said to him, “What she's saying isn't true. Derric—”

Olivia cut in, saying, “Lies have a way of catching up with you,” which Becca knew was the absolute case, because Derric's lies had caught up with him. Only, his lies had had a happy ending, whereas hers weren't going anywhere close to that.

Whispers were everywhere. They were coming too quickly for Becca to be able to process them and to attach them to the thinker:
No way no way but always knew I could last night there was always a moment to get her away from here she knows the truth there's a story how much I wanted we were always going
to be this is it . . .
In the past, there had been moments in which Becca could work with what was flooding her head, and when she couldn't do that but instead needed to think clearly, she had the AUD box to help with that. But she couldn't risk the AUD box now because she couldn't risk losing the opportunity that
might
arise from within someone's thoughts to lead her to the proper next move. She felt as if she'd lost every power she'd ever had to hear whispers in a way that would help her, to see visions, to recognize who was thinking what, and to determine if only vaguely what they intended to do.

Derric said faintly, “Why?” and that was it. Before Becca could reply, he had simply walked away.

• • •

SHE FACED OLIVIA
Bolding squarely. She knew that there was no way the reporter could actually prove anything. No one on the island aside from Diana Kinsale was aware that Becca King could hear whispers as well as see the memories of other people in the form of visions. So all she had to do was keep bluffing.

She said, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Timeline
was the only whisper in response and then, “Your stepdad does, though.”

“What stepdad?”

Olivia smiled. “You must mean which one of the five you've had. I've done my homework, Hannah. That's what I do. It's what I'm good at. Just like you're good at what you do.”

Becca said nothing. She also picked up nothing. She wondered if this meant that Olivia's thoughts matched her words or if the reporter had worked out how to keep them from escaping as Diana had done.

Olivia went on to say, “Your neighbor in San Diego didn't know the exact date that you and your mom left, but Jeff Corrie did. Allowing for a meandering drive from there to here to confuse the trail, it sounded reasonable to me that it would take a couple of weeks for you and your mom to get here. It was only a matter of logic. And I've always been very logical.”

Becca said nothing. She glanced in the direction Derric had taken. She was in time to see him drive off, practically spinning the wheels of the Forester in his haste to get away from her.

She knew she'd dealt their relationship a death blow, and she figured he was going directly to his father in order to confirm what Olivia Bolding had said to him. She also knew that all she'd ever had to do was to tell Derric the truth about who she was. Not about the whispers and the visions, but at least about her name and about her flight from San Diego.

Instead of seeing Olivia's memories, Becca suddenly saw her own. Foremost among them was that first night on the ferry, coming over from the mainland to Whidbey Island. She'd turned from the view of the massive trees rising up into an evening sky, and she'd seen an unmistakably African boy in the passenger seat of a sheriff's car. They'd locked eyes briefly, and her life had never been the same.

Olivia's words intruded into that memory. “What I've heard
from Connor West is that you've got a very interesting talent. What I've heard from him is that you can read minds.”
Can you read mine do you know what Connor West told me Hannah would you like to know.

Becca blinked but otherwise kept her face impassive. If she showed no sign, Olivia knew nothing.

Would you like to know I think you'd like to know he's not your friend not like I can be if you let me.

Becca remained firm. It was like being tempted by the devil.

Olivia said, “What I know is that you read minds for his company for three years, going in and out of the conference room at your stepdad's investment company, an innocent girl with an afterschool job and a summer job bringing coffee and tea and whatever to people of a certain age who wanted their money to go further in their retirement so they came to Corrie West Investments to see how this might be possible. I know your part was to listen carefully. Your part was to report what you picked up from their thoughts. Your stepdad and his partner would then design a package that quelled the old folks' every unspoken fear about ending up in life without any money and living under a bridge.”

Becca saw that in silence lay power. There was simply nothing Olivia Bolding could do as long as she kept her face a perfect blank.

“It was a great idea. It might have gone on forever. But something happened to bring it all to an end. So you and your mom went one way, Connor West went another, and Jeff Corrie
remained in San Diego, where he ended up holding the bag. Which he didn't much like. Understandably. Who would?” Olivia paused. She glanced at her smart phone, as if expecting a message. Becca figured she was doing it for effect. She then went on. “What I haven't been able to work out is why all of this happened. Not bilking money, of course. People are greedy. I get that. But I don't get the running-off bit unless someone—like you—knew the whole scheme was about to collapse and unless someone—like your mom—knew how to put her hands on Jeff Corrie's half of the money and run off with it.”

“No way!” Becca cried. “We—” And then she stopped herself. She whirled around, set to run.

Olivia grabbed her. The vision was there: that final used-car lot where Becca and her mom had traded for the last car, the one that had brought them to Whidbey Island, the 1992 Ford Explorer.
How
had she found that place? Becca asked herself. In that moment, she missed her mom so badly that she cried out with the pain of it and in that cry, she knew she'd given the game away.

Olivia linked her arm tightly with Becca's. There was no way that she could escape. Even when she pulled, Olivia held her fast.

The visions began to come one up after the other, like a motion picture being run too fast: talking to their next-door neighbor in San Diego; talking to Connor West; looking at a photo album in which Becca could see the pictures of her as a child and a hand removing those pictures and passing them over and then the sight of Jeff Corrie as the person doing it; talking to someone
in an office with piles of papers and awards on shelves.

“I'm just after a story,” Olivia said. “I'm not trying to wreck your life.”

“You just wrecked it,” Becca said.

“I haven't. And only part of the story is here, right now. I'm not writing it till I have the rest. There's no point. My editor wouldn't take it, and I don't write anything my editor won't take.”

“So?”

“So I need to find the other half of this story. I need to find your mom.”

Becca laughed bitterly. “Good luck with that. I've been trying to find her since the night I got here. I got no clue where she is.”

“I can find her,” Olivia insisted. “When I do, will you talk to me?”

“How can you do something that no one else can?”

“I found you, didn't I?” Olivia said. “I can find her. Will you help me do it?”

“What's in it for you if I do?” Becca asked her.

“An exclusive. That's all I want.”

“That and a Pulitzer Prize,” Becca pointed out.

Olivia shrugged, a delicate movement that Becca could imagine won hearts and souls and the trust of people she interviewed. “If that happens, I'll take it. What do you say? Do you want my help in finding your mother?”