The Vision (7 page)

He'd gotten most of the way down the block while I stood paralyzed by my imagination. If he turned into a building or ducked down another street, I'd lose him.

And I couldn't lose him.

My hands clenched into fists, I started down the alley. I was within half a block of him when he paused, pulling out a set of keys and descending three stairs to a door. He unlocked it and slipped inside.

A light went on. I moved closer, crouching low, able to make out a sink, stove, and table. His kitchen. The counters held a toolbox, coffeemaker, and neatly stacked pile of magazines. It was frustratingly bland. No photos. No clutter or mess. No collection of empty booze bottles. Or guns or drugs or swastikas or signs saying “I'm a bad guy. Don't save me.”

I waited, trying to ignore the bitter wind blowing through the corridor where I squatted, while he sifted through papers and envelopes. Finally he walked to the back room, turning on the light before disappearing into a bathroom.

I crept to the window, straining my eyes to see his nightstand where a photo caught my eye, the only personal thing I'd seen so far. It was a woman and a boy, I thought. The colors were washed out, but I couldn't tell if it was age or just a bad camera. And I couldn't discern at all who the people were, the woman equally likely to be his wife, girlfriend, or mother.

The man came back into the room then, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, and slid between his sheets, a book in hand. I watched for another minute, then sat back, thinking.

He'd made it safely home. Anything that might happen tonight—a stroke or heart attack—was probably beyond his or my ability to stop. There wasn't a chance I was knocking on his door at this hour anyhow.

I stood and edged carefully to the front of the house, checked the address, and ran back to my apartment, a plan having formed almost unconsciously in the time I'd spent watching him.

I flicked on the computer, changing into layers of my warmest clothes while it booted. I threw a flashlight and the binoculars
National Geographic
sent Petra into my backpack, then sat at the desk and typed in the address I'd repeated all the way home. The reverse search came up with nine names, five of them men. After chucking the ones way too old or young, I was left with Mark Leventhall, 42, Peter McDaniels, 50, and Jackson Kennit, 48.

The computer's clock read 4:32. I'd already been gone nearly an hour. Quickly, I googled each name, jotting down key info and kicking myself for not taking an extra five seconds to look at the names on the mailboxes before running off. Two of these guys were a waste of time, but once I left the apartment I'd lose the chance to learn that Mark Leventhall was a newlywed or that Peter McDaniels worked in cancer research or—as the last search screen popped up—that Jackson Kennit had been arrested for drug possession three years ago. The things that might help me determine the value of his being here or gone.

Finally, I shoved the pages into my backpack and hustled back to his apartment. I had a pretty good idea who he was even before I saw his name—J. Kennit—freshly added to one of the building's three mailboxes.

I took a quick look in his window. He was still sleeping and still marked. Which meant he was still alive.

I pulled out the binoculars and trained them on the bedside photo. Definitely a woman and boy, about five or six years old with dark hair. Both were squinting into the sun. There was blue sky, grass, and absolutely nothing distinguishing about the landscape or way they were dressed. The picture could have been from forty years ago as easily as from last summer.

Slowly I panned the rest of the room, but there was little to see. It was unfair, but I was disappointed. Now that I knew his past, I'd hoped this would be a no-brainer. That there'd be a stash of powder-filled bags peeking out of the closet. But the apartment didn't look like an ex-con's drug den. It looked neat and clean; he looked clean, like a man on the mend.

I shoved the binoculars back in my bag and stood. Six forty-three. People might be up, getting ready for church soon. I walked back to the sidewalk, hoping there was somewhere to wait.

By ten the sun shone brightly, the temperature had hit thirty, and I'd learned what little I could from Jackson Kennit's neighbors.

By two I was exhausted and starting to wonder if maybe Jackson Kennit had already expired, though he was still marked every time I checked.

Finally, around two thirty he emerged, clean-shaven, neatly dressed in jeans and boots, and bundled into his jacket and scarf.

The anxiety and fear I'd felt on first seeing him at The Diner had dulled to glazed-eyed boredom over the past twelve sleepless hours, but when I saw him pass me they rushed back, jolting me upright. Jackson Kennit was awake, on the move, and still marked. He had less than ten hours to live. Unless I changed that.

I stumbled as I stood, my feet numb from so long in the biting air. I'd been ducking into a nearby store as often as possible but had still spent way too long outside.

Jackson Kennit didn't notice my odd, half-frozen gait, keeping his head low as he walked, just like the night before. I stayed close, aware that it could happen at any time—as he crossed the street, passed a dog or a precariously hung street sign. As always, I had no idea what kind of death I was waiting for.

Halfway down the block, he stopped and leaned against a post with a sign at the top. The bus his neighbors said he took to work. Weekend overtime at the machinery plant.

My heart sped up as my steps slowed down, the moments seeming longer and longer, like an old film whose projector has been shut off in midreel. I had a weird and awful sense of déjà vu. Of standing at another bus stop with another marked man. Robert McKenzie. The one I'd followed when I'd first learned what the mark meant.

And suddenly I realized that my time with Jackson Kennit wasn't limited by the hours left in the day but by the minutes until he passed through the doors of Sterner's Manufacturing, because it seemed pretty unlikely they'd let some seventeen-year-old girl dressed like a bum trail him around at work. Just like I wouldn't have been allowed to follow Robert McKenzie into court or his office. Not that I'd needed to.

I watched Jackson Kennit, steps away from me, could see the small nick near his chin where the razor had cut too deep. He glanced up, maybe feeling my stare. His eyes were hooded, set under a heavy brow and purposely blank, like he was used to hiding things.

“Hi,” I said, the word out before I realized it.

He studied me an extra second before answering. “Hi.”

“Um … do you know if any of these buses go to the city?”

He shook his head. “Don't think so.”

“Oh.” Now what? I should ask something meaningful, get insight. I couldn't think of a thing. “Uh … well, is there somewhere good to eat around here?”

He frowned.

“I'm new to the neighborhood,” I added.

“There's a diner down the street.” He jerked his thumb toward where I'd first seen him. “ 'Bout five blocks away.”

“Great. Thanks.”

We stood in silence. Jackson Kennit shoved his hands in his pockets. Across the street a woman left an apartment building, carrying a baby in one arm and brown grocery bag in the other. She dropped her keys, juggling the baby and the bag to pick them up.

Jackson Kennit and I watched. “Should we help her?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Bus is coming.”

It was. Two blocks down, it pulled away from the curb, lumbering toward us. The woman across the street glanced up, saw it, grabbed at the keys, then dropped the bag. The baby started crying.

“Hold the bus!” She waved to get our attention. “Don't let him leave.”

Jackson Kennit said nothing so I yelled back, “Okay!”

I watched her thrust the keys into her pocket, stroke the baby's cheek, and give him a quick kiss before shoving two stray oranges back into her paper bag.

The bus pulled in front of me, blocking my view. The doors gasped open and Jackson Kennit climbed up, depositing his change.

“There's a lady with a kid coming,” I heard him tell the driver. “Think she needs to get on.” Then he walked to his seat without a backward glance.

The driver stared at me expectantly, but the lady had rounded the front of the bus then, breathing hard.

“Go ahead.” I waved her toward the door. “You first.”

“Thanks so much,” she said gratefully. “What a morning.”

The woman hitched the baby higher, turning to fit herself and all her stuff through the doorway. I waited, hoping there'd still be a seat near Jackson Kennit. Behind him would be best. Once I worked up the nerve, I could just lean forward, quietly tell him what I knew, and urge him to go back home. I should have done it already, before he got any farther out into the world, but no one else on the bus was marked so I knew this ride, at least, was safe.

The woman mounted the stairs, the baby staring back at me over her shoulder. He waved, his hand covered with a brown-and-white mitten with ears. A cow. He still had a button nose and traces of roundness in his cheeks, but he was closer to two or three. Not really a baby. I could see the beginnings of his grown-up face in the shape of his brow, his pursed lips and bright, observant eyes. I could almost imagine what he'd look like at ten, or seventeen, or twenty-five.

If he made it that far.

And then they were gone, his mother still carrying him as she walked toward the rear of the bus where Jackson Kennit sat, his shoulder pressed against the window—a brown coat, outlined with a hazy light.

The driver looked at me, impatient now. “You coming or what?”

I hesitated, then shook my head. “No. Thanks.”

He scowled and rolled his eyes, pulling the lever to fold the door closed.

I watched the bus, cruising slowly, farther and farther down the street, feeling scared and empty, not fully believing that I'd just done it. I'd let him go.

I'd never see Jackson Kennit again, this man I didn't know but had spent the night with. By tomorrow, he'd be gone. I wanted to run after him, couldn't shake the way he'd looked down at me from his elevated seat as the bus rolled past, like the truth had somehow suddenly dawned on him as he watched me watching him drive away.

But what if it was that little boy's life—and all the possibility in it—that I traded for?

That's what had stopped me.

It made me sick to think of it because it might not be a little boy who I'd saved. It might be someone much worse, someone who didn't deserve or want it at all. Like the old man on the bench or Eduard Sanchez, the man I'd warned in Kansas who killed his wife.

Or it might be no one at all.

I might have let Jackson Kennit die for nothing.

I walked home, freezing, exhausted in body and otherwise, wishing this day away and fighting off the dark and suffocating guilt that was trying to worm its way in.

I focused on the only thing I could—the tiny bit of hope that Demetria could help me make sense of what I'd just done and what I was supposed to do the next time. Because that was the one sure thing: there would be a next time. I just hoped I had some answers by then.

chapter 9

I slept most of the rest of Sunday and a good part of Monday too, calling in sick to the funeral home and skipping school. I had a huge calc test, but there's no way I could get my head into it.

“How're you feeling?” Petra asked, flopping onto a chair, still in uniform after her Monday shift.

“Better,” I said, though I wasn't really. I didn't have a cold, like I'd told her, just a chill that felt like it might never leave. I'd already thrown out the newspaper that told me about the accident at the machine shop yesterday.

“How was the loony bin?” I asked.

“Awesome.”

“I'm going tomorrow.” I couldn't live like this, not knowing, toying with people's lives. I needed answers.

“You know, Cassie, I've been thinking.” Petra eyed me carefully. “I'm not sure your going to see her—this Demetria—is really such a good idea.”

I kept my face blank, refusing to show the panic edging in. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged uncomfortably. “I saw your name in the file, just a small note, that you'd raised your voice with her. Not a big deal on its own,” she added quickly, seeing I was about to butt in with explanations and excuses. “It's not just that, though. When you talk about her after your visits you seem …” She bit her lip, thinking. “I don't know. Kind of empty? I'm just not sure you're really going to get anything out of it. Not what you're looking for, at least. I mean, she's not your mother; she clearly has problems that your mother didn't …” Petra stopped and I could almost see her picking through what she remembered of my mom's hospital records. She'd been the psychiatrist on duty when I'd gone looking for them. The one who told me my mom committed suicide, read me the notes about her “delusions.” It was pretty awful stuff and I think it weighed on Petra, made her feel, in some part, responsible. Especially since, as she told me after we moved here, her mom had spent time in a mental hospital too.

“I can understand your wanting to connect and find some kind of closure—believe me, I
know
how you're feeling—but if closure exists, I don't know, this might not be the best place to find it.”

No, I thought, it's the
only
place to find it. I forced myself to stay calm, keeping my voice firm and measured, the best way to convince Petra. “I know Demetria's not my mother, but maybe she's enough like her to teach me something. I didn't really raise my voice to her,” I said. “Not in a mean way. She was with me and then she wasn't, you know? I was just trying to get her back, keep her attention.”

“Yeah.” Petra nodded sympathetically. “I totally understand how frustrating that can be. But it's like that a lot with the patients.” Petra sighed. “Maybe I'm not expressing it very well,” she said. “I just see you holding on to this too tightly, hoping for too much …”

“And you don't want me to be disappointed.”

“Right.”

“I won't be,” I said, knowing full well that I would—
devastated
might be more accurate—if I didn't get what I needed from Demetria. But I told Petra what she wanted to hear. “I get it that Demetria's case is different from my mother's, but …” I shrugged. “You know, sometimes when I'm there, I think about my mom spending the last four years of her life at the Barrow Center without many visitors, maybe thinking no one cared or wondering why Nan or I never came. Even if I'm not learning about my mom from Demetria, I feel like it's still helping. Like maybe I'm making up for the things I wasn't able to do for my mother, in some kind of roundabout karmic way. You know?”

Petra smiled cautiously. “Okay. I just want to be sure you're not pinning too much on learning what your mom was like by visiting this girl. From what I can see, there's about as much that's different about her and your mom as there is that's the same.”

“Right. Don't worry, Petra. It's all good.”

As long as one of the similarities was the one I was looking for.

I had no luck with Demetria the next day, though. I felt like we were in reverse, actually, unable to even get her to make eye contact. Patience, I kept telling myself, remembering Petra's warning.

Between her and Jackson Kennit and exhaustion, I'd been a virtual ghost in the hallways at Franklin Parris High.

“Where the hell have you been, Renfield?” Liv demanded when she finally caught up with me by my locker on Thursday.

“What do you mean?” I looked up at her innocently, but it felt so fake I quickly busied myself rearranging my books.

“It's like you've been avoiding me.” Liv turned her head, sniffing her armpit. “Do I smell bad?”

I smiled. “No, Liv. Sorry. I've been busy this week, extra hours at work and stuff.”

“Uh-huh. Dead people are better company than I am, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that.” I
had
been ducking out, spending lunch in the library and purposely taking paths through school that would keep me away from Liv, Hannah, and Erin. And Zander. They were all too much of a distraction. Jackson Kennit had been a bleak reminder that I needed to focus on what I'd come here for: finding answers.

“Well,” Liv said, “I'd been hoping you'd share some of that expertise with me yesterday, but you were MIA so I went without you.”

“Went where?”

“To the funeral.”

For a second, I thought she was talking about Jackson Kennit's funeral, which the obituary had said was on Wednesday. Yesterday. I'd considered going. It would have been the right move researchwise, but I wasn't ready to face his people. It was one thing to study mourners at Ludwig & Wilton and try to figure out how things might be different for them, but doing that with the family of someone I saw the mark on and decided to let die? Way too close. I couldn't go there yet. Not on my first one.

But I still had no idea what Liv was talking about. “Whose funeral?”

She looked at me like I had two heads. “Where have you been, Cass? Really. If I hadn't seen you practically running down the hall away from me yesterday, I'd say you'd been cutting classes. Nick Altos's dad died Sunday. His funeral was yesterday. We all went. You know Nick—quiet? From my art class? We talked to him at the mall that night …” She shook her head. “You were probably too wrapped up playing touchy-feely with Zander Dasios.”

But I did remember, the guy from Loserville. My heart sank, thinking of the photo by the bedside. The boy with dark hair. Like Nick's. “What was his name?” I asked faintly.

“Who? His dad?”

I nodded.

“Jack Kennit. Jackson, actually. Kind of a cool name, right?”

Oh shit.

“Renfield? You okay? For someone who works around dead people, you look a little freaked out.”

Way more than a little. “They have different names.”

“Who?” Liv frowned. “Nick and his dad? Yeah. It's called divorce. Happens a lot these days.”

“Uh-huh,” I said dully. “So what happened?” I knew already, of course, but I let Liv rattle on about the accident, his drug history, and everything else, giving me time to get it together.

At the end of her explanation, I asked what I needed—and dreaded—to know. “How's Nick?”

“A total wreck. How would you be?” Liv shifted her weight, glancing down the hallway. “He was back in school today. I'm not sure I would have been.”

“No,” I said. “Me neither.”

Nick Altos's dad. It could only be worse if it were someone like Liv or Tasha. I wondered how often Nick had seen his father, what they'd done or said to each other the last time.

I had a feeling I'd find out soon enough. I didn't want to do it like this: hear the regrets of someone I knew and ask the questions about how life might have changed if only I'd made a different decision. But I had to, like it or not.