The Lingering Grace (17 page)

“Marcela was … ” he stopped, then said hesitantly, with a sideways glance at Alice, “She was
really
pretty. I think her mom was a model in Brazil when she was younger. Marcela could’ve modeled if she’d wanted to. I don’t know, maybe she did. Anyway, it’s not important. At first, Danny just had a crush on her and it was totally normal. But then … then it got kind of weird.”

“Weird?” Alice asked though her brain was already filling in the blanks.

“He offered to drive Sofi home a few times, and he wouldn’t come home for hours after. One day Mom got a call from Sofi’s dad. Apparently, Danny was just sitting out there in his car all evening, looking at the house. It freaked Sofi and Marcela’s parents out pretty bad, and after that, Sofi wasn’t allowed to come over. Mom talked to Danny about it, but I didn’t talk to Danny at all for about a week, I was so mad. He promised Mom he wouldn’t do it again, but you can guess how long that lasted.”

“Two minutes?”

Tony nodded with a grimace. “I don’t think he ever planned on stopping in the first place. He just got smarter about it. He kept saying he had study group after school at his friend’s house, but then Mom got another call. It was from a different girl’s mom. Her daughter was having a sleepover and the girls were playing truth or dare. One of them had to go stand out in the dark in her underwear and she saw someone hiding behind the bushes. The girl’s mom went out there and saw Danny running away.”

“Was Marcella the girl in her underwear?”

“No, but she was there.”

“I thought so.”

He frowned. “Things got bad after that. Mom grounded Danny, but Danny wasn’t easy to punish because he just didn’t care about consequences. He would sneak out windows—sometimes he would just walk out the front door. He said Mom couldn’t actually stop him. They had a big fight over that and the night before he got arrested, she threatened to call the police if he walked out the door. I think she wishes she had now.

But he left anyway, and I got a phone call three hours later asking for the lockbox code. Dad had this little cabin up in Blue Lake; we used to use it during the summer, but it was empty most of the year. I gave him the code. I thought he was just planning on staying there so he wouldn’t have to come home and face Mom. Well, like I said, two minutes later we got the call.”

“From the police?”

He gulped. “Yeah. Marcela didn’t come home that night and someone said they saw her get into a car with a boy who looked like Danny.”

Alice’s heart raced, thinking how close she had come to doing the exact same thing. “He kidnapped her?”

“She didn’t realize it at first. She thought he was just offering her a ride. But then he started driving out of town and she got scared and tried to get out, and he, well … He pulled over, and he … ” He cut off, taking a long deep breath. Alice put her hand on his arm.

“He knocked her out,” he said at last. “And then …” Tony threw a hand in the air.

“Did he—?”

“He says he didn’t. Marcela says he did.”

“But she was unconscious?”

“She had … injuries,” he said quietly, and Alice understood.

“And Danny still claims that he didn’t do it?”

“After they arrested him, he confessed to a lot—that he abducted her, knocked her out, took her to the cabin. But he still swears he didn’t rape her. I try to believe him.”

“But then who did?”

“I asked him once. He wouldn’t answer me. But I just can’t see him doing something like that. I can imagine him doing all kind of crap, but not that.”

To Alice, it seemed like wishful thinking, but she kept her mouth shut if only to spare Tony’s feelings. Her brother had never done anything more criminal than forging their mom’s signature on permissions slips; she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be so disappointed in someone so close to her.

“Anyway,” Tony continued, clearly eager to move past this part of the story, “right after I gave Danny the key code for the lockbox, Mom got the call from the police about Marcela and Danny; they were trying to figure out where he’d gone. I told her and she told them, and it wasn’t long after that they caught him. A couple hours later, he was already at the police station. He got out on bail for a little while, but after the trial he didn’t come home for years.

“Then, the month after he left for college, Mom found out he’d been in prison again.”

“Another girl?” asked Alice. He moved and she let go of his hand, clasping her own in her lap.

“No, this time it was trespassing on a research facility near campus. He and a couple other kids broke in and hacked into the facility’s research database.”

Alice breathed a little easier, glad this crime non-violent and more cut-and-dry bad judgment. “Did you ever find out
why
? It seems kind of … random.”

He shook his head. “At first I thought it was probably just a dare. It seemed like something stupid like that, you know? But then things got kind of weird. No one would tell us exactly what the facility studied—I know it had something to do with brain research—and Danny wouldn’t testify in court. Neither would the other kids. I think the most they got out of them was that they were just trying to ‘better’ themselves. I don’t get it.” He shrugged. “Maybe they were high.”

“Maybe,” Alice agreed. She made a mental note to research the story when she got home. “Was that the last time?”

“Yeah, and you know the funny thing? He got more time for breaking into the stupid facility than he got for what he did to that girl. Does that seem right to you?”

Alice didn’t answer; she didn’t need to.

She didn’t realize they had turned onto her street until she saw the very familiar pink house her brother jokingly called “Pepto Manor.” Tony was completely mentally checked out; he almost drove right past her house.

“Oh! Sorry,” he said, stopping abruptly when she asked him where he was going.

“It’s fine,” she assured him. “It’s late. And I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t picked me up.”

“I still can’t believe Eva did that to you,” he said, nodding to her face.

“Does it really look that bad?”

“You look great. But I don’t like seeing you get hurt. Big bruise, little bruise. It’s still a slap in the face either way.” He put the car in park, then leaned over and ran a finger across her cheekbone. “Does that hurt?”

“No,” she whispered. He was very close to her, so close she could smell him. He always smelled good to her, and she wasn’t sure if it was deodorant or cologne or shampoo or (as she preferred to believe) all natural. It was a woody scent, with a touch of vanilla, and it reminded her of her grandpa’s old leather recliner. She could vaguely remember, when she was very young, curling up between the worn armrests, feeling safe.

He kissed her. He ran his hand through her hair.

“I need you to promise me,” he whispered, pulling away. “Promise me that if you see my brother again, you’ll let me know. Don’t talk to him. Don’t go
anywhere
with him.”

She rested her hand on his shoulder and leaned her forehead on his cheek. “I promise.”

Grabbing his hand, she asked, “Why did you say you were afraid this would happen? Why is your brother even interested in me in the first place?”

He sighed and his hand tightened around her shoulder.

“I didn’t want to tell you. I probably should have.”

“Tell me what?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then, heavily, he said, “My brother is … one of your fans.”

Alice pulled away and sat up straight. For a minute she stared blankly; then she shook her head and spluttered, “My what?”

Tony rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “It’s really something you need to see for yourself … I don’t know if I can explain it. I can send you the link.”

“The link to
what
?” How in the name of all that was sane and normal could she have fans? She hadn’t
done
anything. Even that time her school choir had been on the local news, the cameraman had mysteriously skipped over her. The closest she’d come to fame was almost dying in Maine, of all places. They’d had her picture on the news or something; she hadn’t seen the broadcast, obviously. It wasn’t exactly something her parents had recorded for posterity.

“Do you remember how, before you were … you know, totally
alive
, my dad did an ‘interview’ with you?”

Alice put a hand to her forehead. Tony’s dad—a ghost hunter by trade—had interviewed her during her last midnight appearance in the real world. He’d videotaped her explaining the curse and talking about how it felt to be not quite alive, hovering between life and death. Alice remembered less what she had said and more about how she had felt—the strange combination of exhaustion and fear had left her head spinning and her heart aching.

“The video,” she whispered, beginning to see where Tony was going with this but desperately hoping she was wrong. “What did your dad do with the video? You said no one would believe it anyway. That they’d think it was fake.”

Of course they would have thought it was a fake. She woke from the coma the night after the video was made; people would have accused Tony’s dad of filming it after the fact. Nobody in their right mind would believe that it was
actually
a video interview with a comatose girl’s disembodied spirit.

Tony pulled at his shirt; he didn’t look her in the eyes as he explained, “I didn’t think anyone would believe it. But I didn’t realize how many totally insane fans my dad has. I always wondered how he managed to make a living writing
ghost hunting
books. I mean, really? But people
read
this stuff. People
love
this stuff.”

Alice’s mouth was dry as she asked, “Are you saying that the video of me … ?”

“He posted it online. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but by the time I realized it was up it already had so many views … ”

“How many views?” asked Alice, who was having trouble believing any of this. It was so far-fetched. She was Alice Montgomery, a perfectly ordinary high school girl. She was not Ghost Girl, an online sensation.

“The views don’t matter so much. It’s more the message boards … ”

“
Message boards?
”

“On one of the big ghost-hunting sites, there’s a message board where members can share tips. There’s a whole board devoted to you.” He glanced at her, grimaced, and added, “They call it the ‘Alice in Haunted-Land’ thread.”

“Well that—that—” Alice stammered, unable to form a coherent reaction to any of this. “That,” she declared, “is a
dumb
name.”

Tony looked at her, a smile tugging at his lips that contrasted with his furrowed brow. “Really? Of all the things about this situation you could have a problem with, you’re picking the name?”

“
It’s ridiculous!
” she spluttered. This wasn’t a joke—not the name, not the board, not any of it—and the fact he found it funny irritated her. “Of all the puns. Why is it
always
Wonderland? Why?”

“They’ve got some nerve,” Tony said seriously, but with a tremor in his voice that made her suspect he was seconds away from laughing.

“So your dad told you all of this? I didn’t think you cared about ghost hunting,” she said, suspicious.

“No, actually, my brother mentioned it to me,” Tony assured her. “It was a week after he got released. I’d never have joined the stupid boards if I hadn’t been trying to figure out what he was doing.”

“Oh, so you’re a
member
now.”

“I don’t
like
being a member, but it was the only way to view the conversation.”

She frowned and folded her arms. “What’s on the board then?” She was almost afraid to ask. But while the idea of people discussing her online made her shudder, she also felt oddly disconnected from the whole thing, as though this had nothing to do with her at all—as if the Alice of “Alice in Haunted-Land” were an entirely different person.

“There’s a lot of arguing,” Tony began.

“Welcome to the Internet.” The combination of annoyance and panic was triggering a level of snarkiness that she usually associated with PMS.

Tony nodded and went on. “A couple people think the whole thing is fake, but the rest of the community verbally eviscerated them, insulted their intelligence, their mothers, you know how it goes. Most everyone believes the video is one hundred percent legitimate.”

“So they believe it. I guess your brother believes it too? Was that why he was following me? To get a peek at ‘the girl who lived’?” She could only imagine how miserable the next few years would be if she had to worry about random people stopping her in public to ask her about her near-death experience.

“No, it’s worse than that.”

His expression was somber again and Alice held back a shudder.

“A couple weeks after I got an account,” he said, “I noticed that my brother and some of the other people who were really active in the group had this weird symbol in their signatures: two arrows pointing at each other with a line in between them. I finally pretended to be a new ghost hunter in Australia and messaged one of them to ask what it meant. It took some convincing, but eventually after ‘verifying’ my identity—”