Catch Me (40 page)

I went straight for my gun. Far edge of the parking lot, beneath the prickly bush. I looked right, looked left. Coast clear, so I bent down to retrieve it.

Except it wasn’t there. I dug around. Little more to the left, little more to the right, then abandoning all pretense and frantically unearthing the snow mound with two hands, like a terrier pawing away the earth.

Nothing.

Gun was gone. All that remained was an icy hole, topped with plow sand and city dirt.

In the distance, sirens sounded. One, two, three patrol cars.

Who could’ve taken it?

I’d told no one. Hidden it only at the last moment, when no one was watching. How could someone foresee something I hadn’t even known I would do?

The hairs prickled to life on the back of my neck. I finally understood.

The killer was in Boston.

He/she was watching me.

And he/she was already one step ahead.

This was it. No more countdown.

My own murder had officially begun.

I couldn’t help myself. I staggered away from the dirty, grimy snowbank. Then, unarmed and genuinely panicked, I began to run.

J
ESSE WOKE UP
Saturday morning in his mother’s queen-sized bed. She was rolled away from him, facing the far wall, her arm flung out, snoring softly. Jesse didn’t know what time it was. Probably later than usual, because the room was bright, the sun pushing and shoving at the corners of the drawn shades.

There was a time Jesse would’ve gotten up on his own. Padded into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Then he would’ve turned on Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe, if he felt like pushing things, logged onto the Internet and entered the world of AthleteAnimalz.

Now he pressed up against his mother’s sleeping form. He liked the feel of her body, warm and soft, against his back. He smoothed the red-flowered comforter with one hand and peered at the far gray-washed wall.

He was too old to sleep with his mommy. Other kids in his class, they would tease him if they ever found out. On the other hand, maybe he’d stay one more night. Or the night after that. Then it would be the school week, and school would help. His mother said so. The counselor lady, too. Routine would be good for him. They both said that, though when his mother uttered the words, she’d had two small lines pinching her brow, right between her eyes. He didn’t like those lines. He wanted to reach up and brush them away.

He’d hurt his mom. Worse, he’d scared her, and now, just like he couldn’t stop jumping at loud noises, she couldn’t let him out of her sight. So they’d spent all day yesterday huddled together on the sofa, watching stupid TV shows and eating junk food until even Jesse
started worrying that he was rotting his brain. He could actually feel it, growing warts and holes and lesions, like a zombie brain, right there inside his skull.

He’d set aside his half-eaten Twinkie and requested an apple.

His mother had burst into tears. He’d immediately picked up the Twinkie, but she’d taken it from him, so apparently the Twinkie hadn’t been the problem.

He’d been a bad boy. That was the issue. He’d broken the rules, followed a stranger, met a demon, and watched a boy die. And he didn’t know how to undo it. It had happened. He’d been bad. And now…And now…?

If he could, he’d go backwards in time, like a video in rewind. Look, here’s Jesse walking backwards to the library, then up the outside stairs, then up the inside stairs, then sitting down with the stranger danger boy except now getting back up and moving away from the stranger danger boy, back downstairs to his mother. Look, here’s Jesse with his mother. Stay, Jesse, stay. Be a good boy, and your mommy won’t cry.

The police had taken his computer. Thursday night/Friday morning, he guessed. He’d fallen asleep in the back of the police cruiser, which had taken them home from the station after all the questions, questions, questions. His mother, he guessed, had carried him upstairs to their apartment, all three flights, though he was way too big for that, too. She’d put him on the sofa, where apparently he’d been so exhausted, he’d never stirred even when she’d taken off his shoes.

At 6 A.M., he’d bolted awake screaming the first time. Bad dream. He couldn’t remember it, but it had something to do with a scary thin demon with jagged shards of teeth and too bright blue eyes.

Back to sleep, his mother had said. So he’d tried, only to wake up screaming an hour after that, then an hour after that.

At nine, she’d let him get up. Good news, no school for him, no work for her. They’d have a mental health day, she told him, but that frown was back, those two little lines wrinkling her brow, and he could tell she wasn’t really happy and they weren’t really having fun.

They went out to breakfast, at the little diner around the corner. On the way back, she broke the news. The police needed their
ancient laptop to help them with their investigation. She’d handed it over to the officer who had driven them home. They might get it back when all was done, but Jesse’s mother had told them not to bother. She never wanted to see it again.

She’d looked at Jesse as she said these words. He didn’t argue, just nodded. She’d sighed a little, her frowny forehead momentarily clearing. One burden off her shoulder, a million more to go.

Jesse thought he understood his role now. He’d been bad. And you couldn’t go back in time, you couldn’t rewind, undo what had been done. He could only try to fix it, to balance being a bad boy with being a good boy, like in order to eat Twinkies, he had to drink a glass of milk. Good behavior to offset the bad behavior.

Last night, the police lady had said they needed his help. He was a witness. And they needed him to be brave, to tell them everything that had happened. No need to be embarrassed, nothing was his fault. He just needed to talk.

Jesse had done his best. Except he was very embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy who’d so easily lured Jesse out of the library when Jesse knew better. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy exposing his privates. And he was even more embarrassed by the slinky, dark-haired demon girl, who’d appeared with her gun and her too blue eyes, and the way she’d smiled right at him, which just hadn’t been right.

The boy was evil and the woman was evil and Jesse was embarrassed by all of that, but mostly by the fact that he’d been very, very scared and so he’d closed his eyes. For most of it. For all of it. For every second of it that popped into his head.

Once he’d left the library, he didn’t want to know what had happened next. He wanted it gone, if not rewound, then erased. A series of video frames burned from his memory. Then he wouldn’t wake up screaming anymore. Then his mother wouldn’t look over at him and wince.

He’d resume going back to school, and they’d have their little routine again, Jenny and Jesse against the world.

That’s what he wanted. More than anything. Him and his mother, all well again. Jenny and Jesse against the world.

“Mommy.” He rolled over, stared at her sleeping form.

She didn’t move.

He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Mommy.”

“Mmmhmm?” came a soft answer, but she still didn’t move.

He touched her long brown hair, spilled on the pillow. Kind of like the demon’s, he thought, but his mother was nothing like her. For one thing, his mommy was real, and that girl with the gun had clearly been a monster.

Jesse sighed softly. He hated to wake his mother. But he understood what he needed to do. He’d been a bad boy. No rewind. Now he would be a good boy. Fix the trouble, be the glass of milk.

“Mommy, wake up.”

His mother sighed, rolled over onto her back. Her eyelids flickered. She yawned, peered up at the ceiling.

He could tell the moment she woke up, really truly woke up, because her face, so soft and relaxed, immediately froze. Her eyes shuttered up, her brow furrowed. She turned to him.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked immediately, and even her voice was tense.

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too, sweetie.” She took his hand. “Bad dream?”

“No. I don’t want to eat Twinkies today.”

“Okay.”

“We should go outside. Get fresh air.”

“Okay, Jesse.”

“I’ll eat oatmeal for breakfast. No sugar. Plain, like you do.”

“Jesse—”

“I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too. We’re going to get through this, Jesse. It’s going to be okay.”

He started crying then. He didn’t know why. He hadn’t meant to. But she held out her arms, and he curled up against her chest, just like he’d done as a little kid, and she patted the top of his head and he cried harder because she was his mommy and he loved her and he just wanted it to be Jenny and Jesse against the world. He loved it when it was Jenny and Jesse against the world.

Eventually, they got up. She made him breakfast, he set the table. They both had oatmeal, slow-cooked stove-top because his mother for once had the time. He loaded up his first spoonful of the paste-like concoction, screwed his eyes shut, and bravely swallowed. Immediately, he heard a high tinkling sound.

His mother, laughing. His mother, nearly keeling over at the tiny wooden table, giggling uncontrollably at the horrified look on his face.

Which made him laugh, so he ate another bite, and she ate her oatmeal, and it wasn’t really so bad, unsugared and gooey and all. He might even eat it again. Maybe.

After breakfast, they bundled up and walked to the park. It was very cold, barely ten degrees, his mother said. But the sun was out, bouncing off the snow and back up to a sky, so blue it hurt his eyes.

That’s when it came to him, on the swings, soaring up to that blue, blue sky.

He was so excited, he let go and almost pitched forward at the tip of the arc. At the last second, he grabbed the chains again, lowering his feet to drag against the ground. Then, once he’d slowed himself enough, he vaulted off the black swing and raced toward his mother.

“I remember, I remember, I remember. I know something for the detective people. You have to call the detective people.”

“Okay, okay. What is it, Jesse, what is it?”

“Her eyes, her blue, blue demon eyes. I know why she looked like a monster!”

“Why, honey?”

“They’re not real, Mommy. I’ve seen them before. In Halloween catalogues. They make contacts. Like vampire eyes or zombie eyes, but also cat eyes. Blue cat eyes. That’s what she wore. That woman wasn’t really a demon. She’s just some girl all dressed up in disguise!”

D.D.
WOKE WITH A JOLT AT 6 A.M.
No baby crying, no alarm blaring, no Alex up and preparing for work. She lay there for a second, conducting a mental review, then it hit her. January 21. The anniversary of two past homicides. The day Charlene Grant had predicted for her own demise.

D.D. got out of bed.

She threw on Alex’s navy blue flannel robe and padded into the kitchen to brew coffee. While there, she checked her cell phone for messages. Nothing.

She retreated to the bathroom to brush her teeth, take fresh inventory of the purple shadows beneath her eyes, the wan color of her sleep-deprived features, and a new but distinct loosening of the skin beneath her chin. She jiggled the suspicious flap, figured this is what happened when you turned forty-one, then scowled unhappily before returning to the kitchen for her first cup of coffee. She phoned in to work and checked voice mail for messages. Nothing.

She should check in with her parents, whom she’d now managed to avoid for nearly twenty-four hours. They wouldn’t be happy about that. Probably had every right not to be happy about that.

Upon further consideration, breakfast first.

She cooked bacon, eggs, and had just started waffles when Alex stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen. He wore a gray FBI Academy sweatshirt over the white T-shirt and turquoise scrubs he favored for bed. His cheeks were shadowed with salt-and-pepper stubble. His sweatshirt bore baby spit-up on the left shoulder.

They were both old, she decided. But all in all, they still looked pretty good.

She poured him a cup of coffee.

“Don’t you have today off?” he mumbled, accepting the mug gratefully.

“Not on deck. But hopefully, a big day in our shooting case. Awaiting a call from ballistics anytime now.” She topped off her cup.

He caught her refilling, raised a brow. “Thought you’d given up the java express.”

“Yeah, but there’s something about homicide that simply demands a good cup of joe.”

Being a man who drank coffee all day long, Alex didn’t argue.

He took a seat at the table. D.D. fed him breakfast, a rare turn of events as the kitchen was generally his domain. Another cozy scene, D.D. thought in the back of her mind. Last night it had been her and Jack, mother and son. Now it was her and Alex, essentially husband and wife.

It was aggravating to think that her mother might be right.

They ate in comfortable silence. Alex read the paper, then worked on the daily crossword puzzle. D.D. puttered around the kitchen, washing dishes, drying them, putting them away. Her mind was churning. She knew herself well enough to know she was working something out. She just wasn’t sure what.

Seven thirty, Jack joined the party. Alex fed him, while she showered. Eight
A.M.
, she decided it was still too early to bother her parents, checking her cell phone and her voice mail for work messages instead. Nothing.

Charlene Grant should be off duty now. Looking for her. 22. Not finding it. Realizing the police were onto her. Or maybe too distracted by the date, the perceived danger to herself, perhaps fresh grief over what had happened to her friends, to home in directly on the police. Maybe she’d just panic instead.

What did you do on your final day alive? Take a nap to be better prepared for the coming showdown? Pick up some hottie for last-day-on-earth sex? Indulge in a final fat-, sugar-, and calorie-laden meal?

Call the people you love and tell them good-bye?

Except Charlene didn’t really have anyone left. Just her aunt Nancy and a stray mutt.