The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

  We run through the downpour toward a two-story green house with solar panels on the roof. The house sits silent and dark. Yellow crime scene tape crosses the front door. Three brick steps lead to the porch. On the top one, a pumpkin sits to one side, grinning.

  Wait. That pumpkin. I know there’s a fat white candle inside of it, surrounded by a puddle of blackened wax. Or do I know that? Am I just imagining it? And if there really is a candle, what does that prove? It would be easy enough to guess. We dart around the side of the house, past a white-curtained window, then two panes set higher, as if over a sink, each with a window box full of herbs. The herbs are being bruised by the rain, and their green scent hangs in the air.

  Liz puts her key into the lock of the back door, also crisscrossed by crime scene tape. Ty touches my arm, and I jump. Does anything seem familiar? I feel like I’m seeing double, what’s here now layered over a fainter image of what used to be. Liz pushes the door open, and we duck under the crime scene tape. We’re in the kitchen, but it’s been trashed.

  A piece of pink paper pinned on the refrigerator catches my eye. I know I’ve seen it before. That it was important to me. I walk over to it, my feet crunching over cereal, flour, coffee grounds, and shards of broken glass.

  “Cady?” Ty says. I don’t turn around.

  It’s a poster. In the middle is a photo of a stack of mattresses. Standing next to the stack is a guy dressed like a king, wearing a silver crown and a long robe with black-spotted white fur cuffs and collar. On top of the mattresses sits a girl, cross-legged. She’s leaning over to rest her chin on the top of the king’s head. She’s got a crown, too, but it looks cartoonish, and her hair is divided into two very nonroyal pigtails. Across the top it says, “Wilson High Presents: Once Upon a Mattress.”

  The girl is me.

  I’m an actress.

  Don’t act. Be.

  And now I can put a face with those words that have been echoing in my head for the past two days. In my memory, I see a middle-aged man with a clipboard sitting in an otherwise empty auditorium, looking up at me on a stage. I can’t remember anything else he said, or whether I was alone or not. But I remember how his words resonated.

  My head hurts so much I have to close my left eye. I turn in a circle, looking at the rest of the house without seeing it, not the drawers emptied and thrown on the floor, not the ripped-up carpet, the scattered papers, the sliced upholstery.

  “What is it, Cady?” Liz asks eagerly. “Are you remembering something?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She steps closer and grips my wrist. “What do you think those men wanted? What did they think you knew?”

  I feel like I’m going to fly apart. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think your parents could have hidden the information here in the house? If we can find it, we would have a bargaining chip to get Z-Biotech to leave them alone. There must be something you know. A hiding place where they might keep a safe-deposit box key or a flash drive. I know your parents told you something, Cady, but until you tell me what it was we can’t help them.”

  Without answering Liz, I shake my head and pull my wrist away. It’s all up to me, and I’m failing. My stupid brain won’t cough up part of an answer. Won’t even hint. Where would my parents go? Where would they hide something?

  “Well, where do you think they are?” Liz’s face is only inches from mine. “Did they leave you a phone number? A code word? Is there a friend they might have gone to? We can’t help them if we can’t find them.”

  I press my fingers against my temple so hard I’m sure I’m leaving bruises. In my mind’s eye, I see more flickers of memories. A little boy blowing out birthday candles. The man who is my father pointing at something, his face serious. The woman from the photo in my backpack standing over this very stove, holding out a wooden spoon for me to taste.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Cady,” she urges. “Surely you remember something.”

  I’m so overwhelmed by the mingling of past and present that it takes me a long moment to answer her. “No.” I need to explain that it’s all still like a dream or a nightmare, bits and pieces that don’t make any sense. I’m opening my mouth when her face tightens.

  “All right,” she says firmly, and she steps back and pulls a gun from her purse. Ty lets out a gasp. “If you’re going to be like that.” Not taking her eyes off us, she calls out, “Michael?”

  And Michael Brenner, the man I killed, steps in from the hall.

  I cry out and put my hands over my eyes as my memories come flooding back.

  CHAPTER 33

  EIGHT WEEKS AGO

  I was supposed to be doing homework when my dad knocked on the door of my room. “Okay if I come in?”

  I clicked off the YouTube video I had been watching on my laptop and back onto the screen with my English essay. “Sure.”

  But when he pushed open the door, my mom was standing in the hall behind him. What was up? They seldom came into my room together, unless I was in really big trouble. Last May, when I had skipped school and taken off to the coast for the day with some friends, they had talked to me at the same time. Or talked at me. But what had I done lately that would cause them to look so serious?

  My dad took a deep breath. “Your mother and I have been around and around about this.” They exchanged a glance I couldn’t read. “But we have to tell you at some point, and you’re old enough to know.”

  A door closed in my head. Closed tight. Part of me had been wondering and worrying that this day was coming. Lately, it had been so obvious that something was wrong at our house. The closed doors, the muffled arguments, the conversations that turned into whispers or were dropped altogether when I came into a room. So which one would I end up living with? Would I have to move?

  They still weren’t saying anything. Why couldn’t my parents just do it quick and clean, like pulling off a Band-Aid?

  I decided to do it for them. “You’re getting a divorce.”

  My dad blinked.

  “What? No.” My mom shook her head. “It’s nothing like that.” She laughed a little, but it sounded sad. Her eyes were unfocused. “If only it were that.”

  “Then what is it?” But my mind supplied another answer, even worse. “One of you has cancer?” My veneer of not caring shattered.

  My dad threw up his hands. “Will you just let us talk?” The words exploded out of his mouth.

  I shrank back in my chair. My dad never yelled. Never. Not even when I had been grounded for a month after the whole skipping school to go to the coast thing.

  My mom laid a hand on his arm. “Patrick, you’re scaring her.”

  He turned to her, speaking as if I wasn’t there. “I have to scare her, don’t I? She has to realize how serious this is. If we put one foot wrong, it could be the end for all of us.” He turned back to me. “Do you know what we do at work?”

  “Research. In a lab. Into animal diseases.” I had no idea where this was going. Just that I was starting to shake. Whatever they were going to tell me was worse than divorce. Worse than cancer. “Viruses.” I had visited them once, four years ago, for Take Your Daughter to Work day. I had had to put on vinyl gloves, a paper suit, and a breathing mask, and I had to promise a million times that I wouldn’t touch anything without permission. I had gotten to feed the hamsters and the rats and even the monkeys they kept in the basement. Then a year ago, the company had been bought by another, bigger company. I hadn’t paid that much attention. All I knew was that my parents didn’t like their new bosses.

  “Right.” He nodded. “And in the course of our research, your mother and I made a discovery.” My dad took my mom’s hand and squeezed it, then turned back to me. “We don’t want to tell you too much. It could be dangerous for you if we did. If things go bad, not knowing anything might be the only thing that saves you. At first it was just a promising development. But then we realize
d that the new owners of Z-Biotech are thinking of exploiting it.” His voice shook. “It’s actually worse than that. If what we’re thinking they’re doing is true, then—”

  “Patrick.” My mom touched his arm again. “We said we weren’t going to tell Cady too much.”

  I was frustrated by their unfinished sentences, by their hints. “What? You have to tell me something.”

  My mom took a deep breath. “We need to stop the company before it’s too late. What they’re doing is not just illegal, but it could have devastating consequences for…” Her voice trailed off. “For everything. For thousands of people. Maybe millions. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t understand anything. Only that I wished this was a dream. Even a nightmare because at least then I could wake up. I shook my head.

  “Diseases can be used as weapons,” my dad said. “Remember when we talked about that when you took European history last year?”

  He had tried to get me to see that history was more than a list of dates and battles, dry facts, the boring language of treaties. So he had told me that in the Middle Ages, besiegers had catapulted the corpses of the plague dead over castle walls. During the French and Indian War, Native Americans had deliberately been given blankets from a smallpox hospital. With no natural immunity, about 90 percent of the ones who caught smallpox died.

  I nodded.

  “Z-Biotech wants to use something we discovered in bad ways,” he said. “And we need to find a way to stop them.”

  My mind whirled, not able to come to rest on anything. I wished it were still five minutes ago, and I was watching three high school guys dressed in coconut-shell bras and grass skirts badly lip-syncing to a popular song.

  “So go to the police.” But even I knew that probably wasn’t the answer. The police probably wouldn’t understand. My parents had done post-doctorate work in clinical microbiology and virology. Only a few people in the world really understood what they did. And most of those people worked at Z-Biotech. “Or, I don’t know, go to the government. Aren’t there programs for whistle-blowers?”

  “We don’t know who we can trust.” My dad scraped his hands back through his hair, so that it stuck up in tufts. “Some people in the government might actually support what Z-Biotech is doing, especially if it could be used against America’s enemies. And we need proof. They’ll destroy or hide the evidence long before anyone shows up to inspect things.”

  My mother’s face was like a stone. “And if Z-Biotech ever figures out that we’re collecting information, we could be killed. All of us. Not just your father and me, but you and Max.”

  An icy finger traced my spine. “But Max is just a little kid. What kind of people would murder a child?”

  My mom’s jaw tightened. “The reason we’re talking to you is because of what happened to the Radleys.”

  My eyes went wide. Mrs. Radley—Barbara—had worked at Z-Biotech, too, had been good friends with my mom. Miranda Radley had only been a year younger than me, a pudgy, quiet girl who liked to read books about werewolves and fallen angels. Her brother, Alex, was two years older than me. He had black bangs that fell across his green eyes, somehow managing to draw attention to them instead of hiding them.

  A month earlier, the Radleys—the parents and Miranda and Alex and even their Labradoodle—had all died in a house fire when a pile of rags used to refinish some furniture had caught fire on their deck. An unusually warm night, paint fumes, spontaneous combustion.… It had been a terrible tragedy.

  Hadn’t it?

  We had all attended their funeral, even Max. My mom’s eyes had been swollen from weeping. She kept wiping her cheek on Max’s hair until he squirmed away. Then she pressed her fist to her mouth like a stopper. My dad had been stoic, a muscle flickering in his jaw.

  “Barbara had her doubts,” Mom said now. “She made the mistake of taking them higher up the food chain. The fire did three things: It made sure she never told; it destroyed any evidence she might have collected; and it sent a message to anyone at Z-Biotech who was getting a little too curious.”

  My bones turned to water. “Then quit. Just quit your jobs. You can find something else to do.”

  My dad gave a short, bitter laugh. “It’s not that easy. Six months ago, Derek Chambers died in a diving accident in Hawaii, just ran out of air. Everyone said it was a freak accident. But he had been talking about leaving the company.”

  I was shaking, shaking like I had walked into a deep freeze. “Then don’t say anything. Don’t do anything.”

  “We can’t, Cady.” My mom’s voice was soft and patient. “We thought about that, but we just can’t. We have to do what’s right. Not just for us, but for you, too. What they’re thinking of doing could kill thousands of innocent people. As soon as we have enough information to prove it, we’ll take steps to stop them. But until then, everything has to be normal. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Then why are you telling me now?” Anger swelled in me, and in a strange way I welcomed it. “I can’t do anything about it, I can’t tell anybody, and I might even be killed. Frankly, I’d have preferred not to know.”

  “We’re telling you so that you’ll have a chance to save yourself if something goes wrong,” my dad said. “If anyone ever tells you to go with them, don’t, no matter what they say. Do whatever you have to and get away from them. Go to the police. If we’re missing, they’ll listen to you. And just being with the cops might be enough to discourage these people from coming after you.”

  My mom added, “And if you ever come home and it looks like someone has been going through our stuff, just turn around and leave immediately.”

  My voice was small. “I’m scared.”

  “It won’t be for long,” my dad said. “Maybe only a couple of months. We’re moving very carefully, covering our tracks. And once we have the evidence and have figured out where to go with it, then we’ll take action.”

  “Until then, I’ve signed the three of us up for individual instruction at the Multnomah Academy of Martial Arts.” My mom’s face was determined. “We’re getting an alarm system installed, and your dad is going to buy a gun.”

  A gun! Now I knew something was really wrong. My parents didn’t like guns.

  “If we ever get separated, we’ll figure out a way to reconnect.” Mom moved closer and stroked my hair. “But don’t worry. We won’t let that happen.”

  That memory is awful. But the one that follows is even worse. Because now I know why I forgot.

  The reason my brain shut down?

  It’s because the person I love most in the world is dead.

  CHAPTER 34

  DAY 1, 8:12 A.M.

  Yesterday morning, I had just gotten off the city bus outside of Wilson High when I reached in my jacket pocket for my phone and found only my house key. Crap! My phone was still on the charger on my desk. I hesitated. Should I go back for it and miss first period? Or stay and not have a phone all day?

  My first class was Honors French. Madame Aimée seldom took roll, so even if I didn’t show up, there was a good chance it wouldn’t be reported. And these days, my mom was so anxious. She wanted to know where I was at all times. She’d freak out if she looked at the tracker on my phone and saw I was still at home but wasn’t answering my phone. I crossed the street and waited for the next bus that would take me back.

  By the time I put my key in the lock a half hour later, my mind was somewhere else. Although my parents had warned me, I wasn’t looking for signs that things were terribly wrong. Mentally, I was already back at school, wondering if it would be worthwhile to go to French for just ten minutes.

  I took two steps inside the door. Just as I registered that the alarm wasn’t going off, waiting for me to go to the panel to silence it, something wet and sweet pressed against my face. I took in half a breath and then my world went dark.

  When I woke up, everything was still dark. Only, it was dark green. My head was covered by cloth that was tight around my shoulders.


  I realized that I was tied to one of our dining room chairs. I was afraid to move. It seemed important that whoever had done this to me not know I was awake. Behind me, I heard the noise of people searching and destroying—crashing, cracking, ripping, splintering, slicing. And judging by the swearing, not finding anything. Men’s voices. Two, I thought, or maybe three.

  My mind raced, trying to figure a way out of this. My parents had been paying for private self-defense lessons with an ex-Marine. Kevin had taught me how to defend myself against almost anything, up to and including a man with a gun. But even his instruction hadn’t covered waking up with your hands tied behind your back, your ankles lashed to a chair, and a pillowcase pulled over your head.

  A cloth had been stuffed into my open mouth and now rested against my tongue. But I must have made some soft, small sound because footsteps came up behind me. Suddenly someone slapped my ears with open palms. For a moment, my head was transformed into the inside of a bass drum, hollow and percussive.

  The gag muffled my scream.

  A man’s whisper slid into my ear. “Where are your parents, Cady?”

  I shook my head, the fabric of the pillowcase rubbing my cheeks. I truly didn’t know the answer, but I wouldn’t have given it to him if I did. I remembered the Radleys—Alex and Miranda and their parents.

  “Don’t scream,” he warned, “or I’ll shoot you.” For a moment, he rested something cold and hard between my eyes. The tip of a gun. Then his hand snaked under the pillowcase and slowly tugged the gag from my mouth, like a magician producing a scarf. Enough light came from the bottom of the pillowcase that I could see it was the yellow dishcloth that this morning had been hanging on our refrigerator door. My mouth was dry, my tongue a piece of leather.

  “Where are your parents?” he repeated. His tone was reasonable.