Haunted (10 page)

Cardinal, he reminded himself. He turned on the radio, cranked it, and drove to Little Five Points faster than he
usually drove. He pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall where the comic book store was, then he and Rae
headed inside.

The vampire-pale guy behind the counter didn’t look up from the comic he was reading until they were standing
right in front of him. “You know Jesse Beven, right?” Anthony asked as Rae headed down the closest aisle, running
her fingers across a long row of comics.

“Have a Silver Surfer on hold for him,” the guy answered. “Not for much longer. Supposed to pick it up two days
ago.”

He shot a look down at his comic. Anthony reached out and covered it with his hand. “When’s the last time he was
in?”

The guy let out an exasperated sigh. “A week.

About.” He used two fingers to try and get Anthony’s hand off the comic. Anthony kept his hand where it was.

“Sweat damages the pages,” the guy informed him.

Anthony realized his palms were sweating. The back of his neck, too. And his underarms-a sweat factory. It’s
’cause you don’t think this is going to work, a little voice in the back of his head whispered.

It’s ’cause you don’t think you’re ever going to see Jesse again.

Shut up, he ordered himself as he pulled his hand off the comic. “If he comes by, would you tell him Anthony’s
looking for him?” he asked. Right. Like he’s going to just come strolling in, the little voice commented. Anthony tried
to ignore it.

“Uh-huh,” the guy muttered, already back to his reading.

“I want to pay for the comic-for Jesse,” Rae said as she wandered up to the counter. She slid a twenty in front of
the guy. When he gave her the change, Anthony saw that she made sure to touch his fingertips. Anthony studied
her expression, but it didn’t seem like she was learning anything.

“Nothing,” she said as soon as they got back outside. “I mean, nothing useful. I did get a thought of Jesse’s off
one of the comics I touched, but it was an old one. He was thinking about being late to group.”

“It’s only our first stop,” Anthony answered.

“Let’s leave the car parked and walk around. There are a bunch of places near here Jesse hits pretty often.” A
bunch of places where no one’s going to have seen anything, the doom-spewing part of his brain commented as
Anthony led the way across the parking lot. He wished he could just switch off that part of his brain. Every time it
yapped, his body pumped out more sweat. His T-shirt was plastered to his back, and his hair was slicked to his
scalp. He pressed his arms close to his sides, hoping he didn’t reek.

“I keep thinking about Jesse’s mom,” Rae said as they headed past the strip mall and down the next block. “She’s
got to be going crazy. I wish we could at least tell her that Jesse’s father doesn’t have him.”

“It would make her even more nuts to know that we went and talked to Luke,” Anthony answered.

“She’d never feel safe in Atlanta again. She wouldn’t be sure he didn’t get some info out of us that he could use to
track her down.”

“Yeah,” Rae agreed, stepping over a buckled section of sidewalk. Anthony caught one of his hands reaching out
to steady her and jammed both hands in his pockets. The girl could take care of herself.

A couple of kids around Jesse’s age came speeding around the corner, one on a scooter, the other two on
skateboards. “You guys know Jesse Beven?” he called out. One of the kids came to a stop in front of him; the other
two swerved around him and Rae and kept on going.

“Is he okay?” The kid used his toe to flip his board on end, then picked it up.

The sweat coating his body turned to ice. “What do you mean, is he okay?” Anthony demanded.

The kid flicked one of the wheels on his board. “I heard that some guy pulled him into a van the other day.”

It’s not going to do any good to tear his head off, Anthony told himself. Stay calm. Stay freaking calm.

“Tell me everything,” he said. Rae moved closer to him. She grabbed a handful of the back of his T-shirt and held
on tight.

“Chris, the dude at the skateboard place said he saw Jesse get shoved into a van by this big guy with a purple
Mohawk. It was last week sometime. I wasn’t sure if Chris was messing with me. He makes stuff up sometimes. But I
haven’t seen Jess around.” The kid gave the wheel another flick. “So is he okay?”

Anthony didn’t answer. He just ran, stumbling over the uneven sidewalk, Rae right behind him, still holding on to
his shirt. At the end of the block he took a right, then cut across the street and into the skateboard shop. “I need to
talk to Chris,” he announced the second he and Rae were inside.

A tall, thin guy dressed all in spandex headed toward them. “I’m Chris.”

“We’re looking for Jesse Beven,” Rae answered before Anthony could. She gave the cloth of his Tshirt a twist.

“We think you’re the last person who saw him.”

“Yeah,” Chris answered. “I saw this guy with a Mohawk pull him into a van.”

A kid who’d been studying one of the boards turned toward them. “No way. That lady pulled him out of here,
remember?”

“What lady?” Anthony demanded, turning toward the kid.

“I figured it was his mom,” the kid answered. “She didn’t look happy. Jesse’s probably just grounded or
something.”

“A lady?” Rae repeated.

“What did she look like?” Anthony asked, his words running over hers.

“Short. Kind of chubby. Red hair, like Jesse’s,” the kid answered. “His mom, I figured. Am I right?”

“Don’t listen to him. I’m telling you a guy with a purple Mohawk-” Chris began.

“You’re both losing it,” the girl behind the counter said. “I saw the whole thing from the window. Jesse headed out,
and then he fainted or something. An ambulance came and picked him up.”

“Deirdre, you’ve been watching way, way too many soaps,” Chris told her. “You’re losing your grip on reality.”

“Yeah,” the kid agreed. “His mom came in and dragged him out. He probably had been slacking on taking out the
garbage or he took money from her purse or some bull like that.”

Deirdre shook her head. “I saw what I saw. And since I’m not chemically enhanced most of the time, I think you
guys should listen to me,” she told Rae and Anthony.

What the hell is going on? Anthony wondered.

They’d gotten three stories in three minutes. And Anthony’s instinctive lie detector wasn’t going off.

He couldn’t pick up any signs that he and Rae were being fed a line.

Rae reached out and shook Chris’s hand. For an instant she got that blank, not-Rae look, then she pulled her hand
away. “Thanks for your help,” she said. “If Jesse comes by, tell him Rae and Anthony were trying to find him.”

She shook Deirdre’s hand next, then the kid’s, then she led the way out of the place. “What’s the deal?” Anthony
asked, hoping she’d gotten something that would take them straight to Jesse but almost sure she hadn’t.

*

*

*

“The deal is that all three of them were telling the truth,” Rae answered. She rubbed her hands together, trying to
feel like herself again. All these not-her thoughts and feelings were still swirling around inside her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anthony ran his hands through his hair, and Rae saw the deep circles of sweat
staining the T-shirt under his arms.

“I don’t know what it means,” Rae admitted. “But when I touched their fingers, I didn’t pick up anything that said
any of them was lying.”

“That’s bull!” Anthony exploded.

“I agree. But-” Rae gave a helpless shrug.

“That’s what I got.”

Anthony looked like he’d really love to punch something. Rae totally understood. But they had to stay focused.

“Look, obviously something happened right around here. Let’s just talk to some more people.” She scanned the
street. “We could start with that homeless lady. She’s probably in the neighborhood a lot.”

“Okay. Let’s go.” He spit out the words, and Rae could see his struggle to keep himself under control in the tight
muscles of his neck and shoulders. Even the muscles of his arms looked clenched.

I think I’ll do the talking, Rae decided as they approached the woman, who sat on a faded piece of carpet in front of
a vintage clothing store that had gone under. “Excuse me, my little brother is missing.

He comes around here a lot, and I thought you might have seen him.”

The woman didn’t answer, but she seemed to be listening, so Rae hurried on. “He’s thirteen. Red hair. Blue eyes.”

“On a skateboard a lot,” Anthony added. He pulled out his wallet and slid out a photo of Jesse.

The woman nodded when she saw it.

“A couple of skinheads snatched him,” the woman said. “Shoved him in the back of a station wagon with the
windows painted black.”

“Can you describe them more? Or the car?”

Anthony asked.

The woman’s forehead creased as she thought for a minute. “Not really. You know-skinheads.”

Anthony shot Rae a look, and she knew what he wanted her to do. She pulled a ten-dollar bill out of her purse. The
woman looked like she could use it.

“Thanks for your help,” Rae said, pressing the money into the woman’s hand, making sure their fingertips
touched.

The instant they did, Rae’s mind was no longer her own. It was filled with the homeless woman’s thoughts, layers
and layers of them. Scraps of memory. Fragments of childhood fears. Pieces of dreams. Her stomach cramped with
hunger. She felt a dull headache just behind her eyes. Her lips felt the sweetness of a first kiss. A ball of pure pain
filled her chest, the pain of a lost child.

Her instinct was to try and block the thoughts and feelings. It was too much. Too personal. Too overwhelming. Too
fast. She was hit by so much information, so much emotion simultaneously that she felt like she was being pounded
into the cement. Let it come, Rae told herself. Let it come.

A thought about the red-haired boy, about Jesse, joined the cacophony. Skinheads. Station wagon. The thoughts
were clean and clear. Rae released the woman’s fingers. She’d told them all she knew.

“I hope you find him,” the woman answered.

“Thanks,” Rae said. She and Anthony headed down the block. “She was telling the truth, just like the others,” she
told him when they were out of the woman’s earshot.

“They can’t all be telling the truth,” Anthony burst out.

“I got the thoughts really clear, clearer than any of the other thoughts,” Rae said.

“Is that normal?” Anthony asked.

Rae took a deep breath. “I don’t know what’s normal yet,” she replied, shaking her head. “Especially in the
fingertip-to-fingertip thing. I mean, normal kind of went bye-bye for me a while ago.”

Anthony nodded. “I guess we should ask around at the Chick Filet up there.” He gave a disgusted snort. “Like it
will help.”

“You never know,” Rae answered, although she had the same bad feeling Anthony did. The Jesse situation had
gotten stranger and scarier. It felt a lot more out of control than it had yesterday. “I just need a couple of minutes
before I touch fingertips again.

My head is feeling kind of gooey. I’m getting the headache everyone else had-right behind the eyes.”

“What do you mean, everyone else?” Anthony asked as they headed into the fast-food place.

“All the people I touched to get thoughts from had a headache,” Rae answered. “Or maybe I gave them a headache
by doing it, which would make more sense than four random people having a headache right in the same spot.”

“When you did it to me the other time, it didn’t give me a headache,” Anthony told her.

“Weird. But you know my motto-Weird ‘R’

Me,” Rae replied.

“I guess.” He paused. “Not that you’re weird,” he added quickly. “That it’s weird.” He got in the shortest line.

“Since we’re taking a break, I’m getting some waffle fries.”

“Me, too. And a massive Coke,” Rae said. “Then as soon as we’ve scarfed, we’ll get back to work.”

She tried to make herself sound confident and determined. But when she glanced at Anthony, she didn’t think he’d
even noticed the effort. He’d clearly gotten so caught up in his own thoughts that she could be a hundred miles
away.

Maybe while we’re eating, I could talk to him about the dyslexia book, she thought. It wasn’t exactly the perfect
time. But they needed more info before they could come up with a better plan to find Jesse, so… she might as well
bring it up, right? Her stomach tightened as she tried to figure out exactly what she could say, how to bring it up
without being totally offensive.

She still hadn’t come up with anything good by the time they’d gotten their food and found a table.

Probably because there wasn’t any good method. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t do it. The info she’d gotten
could change Anthony’s whole life, the way it had some of the people’s in the book.

“Want ketchup?” Anthony asked, holding up some of the little packets.

“I’m not a ketchup girl,” Rae answered. “I like them plain-so I can really taste all the grease and salt.” She popped a
waffle fry into her mouth and kept right on talking. Which was gross, but she was nervous. “I had this babysitter
once who used to put vinegar on her fries. Is that nasty or what? She was from Canada.”