The Remedy (32 page)

“Then what do you want me to do?” I ask him, unsure of a next step. “I’m almost done with my assignment. I’m ready to go home.”

“You have to find Virginia,” Aaron says. “My contract is almost up, Quinn. Sooner than you think. There is something big happening here.”

The words are ominous, and they crawl over my skin. “Meaning?”

“Mitchel left all sort of pages, scribbled notes, creepy shit. He even started drawing spirals, just carving them into his bed frame. It was . . . psychosis or something. I don’t know. Anyway, he would write about dying. About him and Catalina and Virginia, all of them dying.”

“So you think this was a suicide pact?” I ask.

“All I know,” Aaron says, his face clouding over, “is that everything got real dark, real fast.” He puts his hand on the ground and gets to his feet, hobbling slightly because of his injury. “Look,” he adds. “Marie’s already contacted me for extraction. She’s going to pick me up in a few hours. I’m not going to tell her about Virginia or the suicides; it shouldn’t be part of the debriefing. But the other stuff . . . this is on us.”

“What do you need me to find out?” I ask.

“I think there are others,” he says. “Suicides listed as ‘undetermined.’ Deacon’s been researching for me, but we think the grief department has been covering them up. They’ve been using us and other closers to do it. But more than anything, you have to find Virginia Pritchard. Last I checked she was in Roseburg. Quinn, you have to find her before she kills herself. Find out what she knows about all of this.”

“And if I don’t?” I ask, having no idea if I want to chase down Arthur Pritchard’s daughter.

Aaron shrugs. “Then I guess we’ll see if this is bigger than a suicide pact.”

I tighten my jaw, more worried than I want to admit to him. I understand why Aaron needs me to find Virginia. She’ll know what happened to Catalina and Mitchel; she’ll provide some background. Catalina’s life has been scrubbed clean of her intentions. I have to believe part of that is coming from Arthur Pritchard’s daughter. Who else would have known what the department would be looking for when duplicating someone’s life?

Aaron takes out his phone and looks at the time. “We’ll talk more about it after your debriefing,” he says, and steadies himself on his bad leg. I’m glad the bleeding has stopped, the gash clotting dark red. Aaron slides his phone into his pocket and pulls me into a hug. “You be careful,” he says near my ear. “I’ll be back to extract you. Okay?”

He looks at me, and although he doesn’t say it, there’s a hint of worry there. Worry that he won’t come back at all. That he’ll be sent to therapy, and then who knows when I’ll see him again.

“Yeah,” I tell him, forcing a smile. “You’d better.” A streak of paranoia runs its course, and I look around the street, checking to see if we’re being watched. There isn’t a white Lexus in sight, but the feeling doesn’t entirely abate.

Aaron says good-bye, bumping my fist, and then he limps down the driveway and disappears around the corner.

I’m unsettled, turning over all the information in my head. Putting it together with what I learned today. I get in the Jetta and take out my phone. Deacon hasn’t contacted me since I left him this morning, but I try not to let that in.
This isn’t about us,
I told him. That’s especially true now.

I text Marie to let her know there’s been a change in scheduling and I’m close to finishing my assignment and will be done before Friday. I don’t tell her about seeing Aaron or even Arthur Pritchard. I don’t mention suicide at all. There’s a possibility she already knows what’s going on here, and that she and the entire grief department have played us for fools. But part of me wants to believe she’s still on my side. No matter what.

Marie texts back that she’ll notify Aaron of my pending extraction—not mentioning that he’s leaving his own assignment. She doesn’t break procedure. She also doesn’t ask how I am, and that is an immediate red flag. She would have known about my meltdown yesterday, been made aware especially if Arthur Pritchard got involved. And yet she didn’t warn me he’d be here. Didn’t track me down at Deacon’s.

My advisor is hiding something. Seems we all are.

I WONDER HOW MANY “UNDETERMINED”
deaths there have been over the past fifteen years. How deep the cover-up goes. How much my father is involved. Catalina Barnes committed suicide. She was lost in a way that was just her own, isolated and apart from everything and everybody. She didn’t reach out for help—she didn’t want it.

Catalina Barnes killed herself and no one was able to predict it. Her family wasn’t able to stop her. Suicide clusters have existed for years, one death influencing others with no other known stimulus. A ripple effect. It’s why they don’t detail suicides on the news, afraid of the public reaction. But now is that what the grief department is using closers for? To control the perception of death?

Undetermined.
What a bunch of bullshit. They knew how Catalina Barnes died and they didn’t tell me. Instead they used me to help cover it up. I have to find Virginia Pritchard and find out what she knows about the suicides.
If
 Virginia Pritchard is even still alive. A chill runs down my back at the morbid thought, and I quickly refocus on my current situation.

Before I can go to Isaac and finish this assignment, I need to talk to Angie. She was there the night Catalina died. Maybe her sister said something to her. Or maybe Angie knows more about Virginia—maybe she can tell me about the connection.

I drive toward the school. I know Angie sometimes hangs out at Off Campus after classes. I head that way, hoping I’ll see her car and know she’s there. Getting her to actually speak to me might be a different issue altogether.

I slow as I pass the lot, relieved when I find the red SUV I recognize from her sixteenth birthday pictures parked there. Angie’s inside. I pull up next to her ride and shut off my engine. I watch the café through my window, waiting for her to leave. I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror, and I’m startled by my eyes. They’re brown—but they’re not supposed to be.

I hold up my index finger until I feel the contact cling to it, and I take it out and drop it into the cup holder, and blink rapidly to help the stinging. I do the same with the other eye and then check my reflection again. Blue eyes. I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen them.

I’m comforted a bit by my own face. I think of Deacon, how much he would have liked to see me now. How I occasionally catch him gazing at me like I’m his favorite thing in the world. Last night he admitted that he’s been keeping his distance, said it was because he was afraid he’d hurt me again. But then he let me close; he was open to loving me. I felt it. This time I walked away. Maybe one of us always will.

A rush of sadness rolls over me. I miss him, and I wish things were different. Wish
we
were different. But I don’t think either of us can change.

Out of the corner of my vision I see movement, and when I look up, I notice Angie, her long hair blowing across her face so that she has to pick it out of her lip gloss. She’s walking with a friend, one I recognize from that first day at the bleachers. My heart starts to race, and I consider leaving without ever uttering a word. She sees me and it’s too late.

Angie’s posture stiffens, and she turns to say something quiet to her friend. The other girl turns to me quickly, horror on her face. She says good-bye to Angie and heads in the other direction. I get out of the car and move around to the front, slipping my hands into my pockets to look casual. Less combative.

Angela walks past, aggressively ignoring me, but then stops and turns. She jabs her finger in my direction. “What?” she asks, her face screwed up in disgust. “Are you here to tell me again what a terrible daughter I am? Because I don’t really want to hear it.”

“Angie,” I say in my own voice. She starts, surprised that I don’t sound like her sister. She stares at my eyes, noticing the color. But it only succeeds in making her more afraid. After all, I am a closer. “I’m leaving today,” I tell her. “But I wanted to talk to you before I did.”

A flash of grief crosses her face, but she forces herself to be angry again. “You’ve been running around with my sister’s boyfriend,” she says bitterly. “Stealing her identity. And you think that I’d want to talk you? You’re delusional.”

“Angie,” I say, moving toward her. She throws up her hands, falling back a step like she’s repulsed by my existence. She turns to stalk away, but I can’t let her leave without knowing the truth about Catalina. “Angela,” I call, sounding exactly like her sister. Angie stops, frozen. Slowly she turns back to look at me, hurt registering in her expression.

“Don’t do that,” she says, her voice weak. “Don’t . . .” But instead of chewing me out again, Angie dissolves into tears, covering her face.

I hurry around the car to where she stands and awkwardly pat her back, telling her it will be okay. Her reaction isn’t entirely unusual. I’ve seen it before. Even though Angie didn’t want me here in the beginning, I did represent her sister. Once I’m gone, Catalina’s gone for good.

To my surprise, Angie turns around and hugs me, clinging to me as she cries against my shirt. I brush my hand over her hair, my heart aching at her loss. I’ve never had a brother or sister, at least not one of my own. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose them. How much it would hurt to have your blood, your friend, taken away. I close my eyes and hold her close, trying to absorb her pain.

“I miss her,” Angie mumbles. “I don’t know how we’ll be okay without her.”

“You will,” I say. I take her by the shoulders to straighten her up, and she wipes her face, fighting back her flood of emotions. She’s failing at it, though. “Your mom and dad,” I continue, “they’re some of the best people I’ve ever met.” She squeezes her eyes shut, choking on another cry, only this time it’s because she knows how lucky she is. “To be honest,” I tell her, “they’re the best parents I’ve ever had.”

She looks at me, confused at first, but then she sees that I’m trying to lighten the moment, even if my comment is entirely true. She laughs self-consciously and takes a step back, trying to regain her composure. She smooths down her hair and clears her throat.

“I like you better like this,” she says. “It was too hard to talk to you as Catalina; it . . .” She shakes her head and decides not to finish the thought. There’s a boom of thunder, and we both look up at the ominous gray clouds. Angie motions to her car. “Want to talk in there?” she asks tentatively. “It looks like it’s going to pour.”

I smile, grateful that she’s letting me talk to her at all. In a way, I think she wanted to connect before, but was scared. Now that I’m leaving, it’s her last chance. We climb into her SUV, and she turns on the engine to get the heat running. For a moment we both stare out the windshield at the road, watching cars drive by.

“I heard about the intervention last night,” she says quietly, looking over at me. “Kyle told me she hit you. She felt terrible about it.”

There’s a sharp stab of humiliation and hurt, but I shrug like it didn’t matter—even if the cruelty of it all still stings. “They were worried about Isaac,” I say. “I understand.”

“You’re worried about him too,” she says, like she’s figuring me out. “Is that why you’re leaving early?”

“No,” I tell her. “I’m leaving because your parents don’t need me anymore. They’ve accepted that Catalina’s gone. They need you. They need to get their lives back on track.”

Angie lowers her head, thinking that over. After a second she turns to me, her eyes slightly narrowed. “But you liked him, didn’t you?” she asks, turning the subject back to Isaac.

“I liked the way he loved your sister.”

She closes her eyes, overcome by the statement, but when she opens them again, she flashes me a watery smile. “They were sickening together,” she says. “So gross.”

We both laugh, and I can only imagine how happy Isaac and Catalina had been once. Before Virginia came into Catalina’s life. “What happened?” I ask. “What changed?”

Angie rests her arms over the steering wheel and leans forward, staring outside once again. “I don’t really know,” she says. “They were inseparable, but then Catalina wanted to be around him less and less. One time Isaac came to me for advice, and when I told Catalina, she got pissed. Called me a traitor. Said she couldn’t trust anyone.”

“Do you think she stopped loving him?” I ask, unable to figure out why she was trying to cut Isaac out of her life.

“No,” Angie says easily. “In fact”—her expression clouds over—“the day she died, she came to my room and gave me a set of pages. Asked me to hide them for her. When I asked her why, she said she couldn’t bear to destroy them. She didn’t want to lose the memories. I ended up stuffing them into her mattress. Stupid place, I know, but what else was I going to do with them. I read the entries and they were basically about how much she loved Isaac.” Angie pauses. “And then . . . those damn spirals. She’d draw them everywhere those last few weeks. Just absently draw them. I asked her once what they meant, and she told me they represented her soul lost in a deep, dark nothing.”

“Did you know that she was going to kill herself?” I ask gently. Angie scrunches up her face like she’s about to cry, but she fights and keeps her composure.

“No,” she says, her voice thick. “But I should have. She was my sister. And I should have.”

She lowers her head, and I reach to put my hand on her arm. I tell her it wasn’t her fault, tell her all the things she needs to hear. I give her closure, even though I wasn’t hired to do so. When we finish talking, Angie wipes the sleeve of her jacket over her lips to wipe away the tears that have settled there. She sniffles hard, and looks over at me.

“You’re not horrible, you know,” she says, her pretty brown eyes rimmed in purplish red skin, raw from crying.

“Thanks.”

“I’m sorry for being a total bitch to you,” she adds. “It’s just that what you do is sort of . . .”

“Creepy?” I suggest.

“Yeah. But you’re a counselor, too, right?” she asks.