Rosebush

  “They’re not from my boyfriend,” I said.

  “Whoo-hoo, then you’re doing something right. What about this guy?” He picked up the teddy bear wearing a muscle shirt. “Not sure if that’s from a friend or an enemy.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  The harder something is for you to handle, the more deeply it will be buried, Dr. Tan had told me. Looking at the photo, I felt like I was on the verge of it. The final secret.

  Now Ruben was standing in front of the double-heart-shaped wreath. The doll Annie called Robert was propped against it and the ceramic figurine of the bunny stood to one side. Ruben squinted at the card next to the bunny. “‘From your secret admirer,’” he read aloud. “So let me see—you’ve got a boyfriend, a not boyfriend, and a secret admirer.” He shook his head at me. “Girl, no wonder someone tried to run you down.” The harder something is for you to handle…

  I stared at the face of the girl in the photo and thought about the mirror in the bathroom downstairs. The way it had steamed up, leaving only the blank outline between my palms where my face should have been. And the truth came rushing into my brain with the force of a rain-swollen river, inevitable, painful, leaving me gasping.

  At once I knew everything. I knew how an invisible hand could write. How someone could call but never be heard. How a ring could vanish and reappear in the wrong place. I knew about the phone call. The drink. The car.

  I knew I wasn’t crazy and never had been.

  “I’ll be back to check on you in a tic, princess,” Ruben said, but I barely heard.

  I knew who my killer was. I’d known all along, but every part of my brain had sought another solution, another explanation. A way out.

  There wasn’t one. The last pieces of that night clicked into place.

  I’m alone in the middle of the street. It’s slick and shiny with rain.

  Don’t stop, I tell myself. You have to keep running. Someone I trust wants to hurt me.

  My heels clatter down the middle of the street, my ankle twists, and I fall.

  Get up! Don’t stop!

  I want my mom, I think as I struggle back to my feet, want her with a longing so deep it resonates like a symphony through me. I want to be curled up next to her in the ratty old hammock under the elm tree in our backyard in Naperville, watching lazy bees flit from one flower to another and listening to Annie and my father’s voices twining together into one of their made-up stories of princes and queens and hippos. I want to be back in our old station wagon making bets on how much longer it will be until the light turns green and marveling at my mother’s ability to almost always get it just right. I want to be back in the kitchen with the yellow tile they never got around to renovating, eating blueberry pancakes with my father while Annie sings “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” in her high chair. I want to be in the new stone kitchen with my mother and Joe and Annie doing anything.

  I want to be back before I knew so much, before I hurt so much. I want the pain to stop. What am I doing here, at another party, in another costume? Why didn’t I stay home? Why didn’t I always stay home? I’d been playing dress up for too long.

  Move. Keep going.

  Rivulets of water gush down the sides of the street, forcing me to walk toward the middle. It’s deserted, with only the occasional discrete streetlight, like any fancy area. My ankle hurts and I’m limping and it’s cold, but the rain is letting up.

  My cell phone rings. I looked down at the caller ID and hesitate. Do I want to talk to Ollie? I need a ride.

  I’m soaked and it takes me three attempts to get my trembling fingers to open the phone. A voice, not Ollie’s, says, “Where are you? Let me come and get you.”

  “I’m at Peregrine Road.”

  “Turn right at the next corner and I’ll be there.”

  “Okay, see you soon.”

  I turn and continue up the middle of the street, moving from darkness into pools of streetlight back into darkness. My phone vibrates and I fumble trying to answer it. It slides out of my wet hand onto the wet ground. My knees give out as I stoop to get it and I lie sprawled beneath a streetlight.

  Up! You have to get up!

  I’ve just gotten to my knees when I hear the sound of a car coming slowly up from the end of the block, but all I can see is darkness. Squinting, I make out the outline of a sedan with its headlights off coming toward me. It’s David’s car.

  On my knees I wave.

  It starts to accelerate.

  It can’t see me without headlights on, I realize.

  “Stop!” I yell, trying to get upright. My feet slip wildly in the borrowed shoes and I flounder. It’s nearly on me now, coming up fast. At the last possible moment the headlights flash on, pinning me in their glare. Now he’ll stop, now—

  The car speeds up. I make a final desperate lunge on my knees for the side of the road.

  The car swerves toward me, hitting me head-on.

  The impact lifts me off the ground. As I fly into the air, time stands still and I can see everything. I watch raindrops hang like shimmering diamonds in the air, power lines quiver with their current, the movement of the rubber on the car’s windshield wipers. Then there is a horrible sound like bone being chewed and I am soaring, arching, spinning around. I land with a crunching thud, my body exploding in a world of agony, sound and shape all combining into a cacophony of pain. Thousands of sharp points pierce my skin, grabbing my arms and legs and hair, holding me in their grip. I taste salt on my tongue.

  In the split second after the car hits me, in that moment of clarity, I see who is in the driver’s seat. See the hands at ten and two, see the seat belt appropriately fastened, see the familiar face. The familiar smile.

  “Bye, Jane,” my killer says.

  I looked up from the crime-scene photo, aware of footsteps in the corridor outside my room, aware that the last act of this play was about to start. A key turned and my door opened.

  “Hi, Jane,” Ollie said.

  Chapter 33

  I should have known about Ollie all along. He was the obvious choice.

  “I didn’t want to have to do this,” he said. He kept the hypodermic needle by his side and his face looked genuinely conflicted. “You know, this wasn’t anything I wanted. I tried to warn you. I tried to tell you to stop asking questions. Repeatedly. But you wouldn’t listen.”

  “I know.”

  “And now—”

  “You don’t have to go through with it, Ollie,” I said. “You can stop.”

  “I can’t. I made a promise. I have to man up.”

  “You don’t owe anyone anything. You’re being used.”

  “No one uses me. I know exactly what I’m doing. This is my choice.”

  “Was it your idea to send the flowers? Really? Think back and tell me that someone else didn’t suggest it. Your idea to lie about trying to kiss me? We both know you have no romantic interest in me.”

  “It was my idea. All of it. I did it to protect—”

  A scream followed by the pounding of footsteps pierced the atmosphere of the room. The door exploded open and four burly security guards with guns and walkie-talkies came rushing in, followed by Langley screaming, “Stop him, you have to stop him. I told you he said he was coming here to kill her. Stop him!”

  The lead security officer said, “Put the syringe down.”

  Ollie looked at it like he didn’t know what it was. “This is just saline. It’s not even anything.”

  “Put it down.”

  “I just wanted to scare Jane, not hurt her. Just get her to—”

  The security guards surrounded Ollie, whose eyes bugged out. His whole body was vibrating, but he didn’t seem to be seeing the men around him. He turned around and said, “Langley? What are you doing here?”

  Langley ignored him, rushing over to me and cradling my head in her arms. “I told you. I told you he wanted to hurt her.” She kissed me on the forehead. “Are you okay, jelly bean?”

  “Yes,” I said.


  “Thank God we got here in time.” She was weeping.

  “Yes, thank God,” I echoed.

  Ollie was gazing around at the security guards now with his lips pulled back in a growl. “You all stay away from me.” He got into a fighter’s crouch but with his arm straight out holding the hypodermic needle. His breathing seemed labored.

  The security detail was moving around him slowly. “Put the needle down,” the lead officer said.

  “Make me.” Ollie lunged at him and missed. “I know how to fight. My father taught me before he died.”

  “Sir, please put the needle on the floor.”

  “You don’t think I’m man enough to do this? No? Watch me,” Ollie commanded. He was sweating and rubbing his free hand against the leg of his scrubs, but he seemed to be losing his focus, swaying back and forth. “I can—”

  “He’s got a knife!” Langley shrieked, and one of the security officers went in low and knocked Ollie off his feet to the floor.

  Ollie tried to get to his hands and knees. “Stop it,” he was saying, his eyes locked on Langley. “I—”

  One of the security guards put a knee in his back and held him down. “Stay still,” he said.

  “But—” Ollie’s voice was weak now, like the will had gone out of him.

  “Shut up!”

  The security team got busy on radios and cuffing Ollie and moving him out of my room. Before they could hustle him out the door, he turned to where Langley and I were and slurred, “I never had a knife. You know that. I hate knives. Knives…for cowards.” And, eyes only half open, staggering over his own feet, he was gone.

  “We have some routine questions for the two of you,” the head of security said, coming over to stand by my bed. “Most of them can wait, but you, miss—” he looked at Langley, “—how did you get wind that Mr. Montero was going to assault your friend?”

  “He came to my house today and he was acting—really strange. Finally he said he was going to protect me, that he loved me and he would take care of Jane. I had no idea what he meant, but apparently he’d formed some kind of delusion that I was responsible for Jane’s accident.” She shook her head ruefully and smiled down at me. “Can you believe that?”

  The security guard couldn’t.

  “Anyway, I came straight here and tried to get in to warn Jane, but of course the ward is locked, so I just went up and down shouting at anyone I could find. Thank God it worked.”

  “Do you know how he got the uniform? Or the drugs in the syringe?”

  Langley pressed her lips together. “I’m afraid those might be my fault. My grandfather is…not well and he has a private nursing staff. Ollie has been over helping my grandmother install a surveillance system in the sickroom and I suspect that it wouldn’t have been hard for him to slip a few things away.”

  The officer nodded. “Thank you.” He looked at me. “You’re a very lucky girl to have such a resourceful friend.”

  “That she is,” I said.

  “Officer?” He paused and Langley threw herself at him, hugging him. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my friend.”

  He looked surprised and delighted. “You’re welcome, miss.” He went out blushing.

  I looked at Langley, who was smiling down at me.

  I said, “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Keep Ollie from killing me when you’re planning to do it yourself? It would have been so much cleaner.”

  Her smile vanished and a crease appeared between her brows. “What are you talking about, jelly bean? I love you. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Her voice sounded so sincere that for a moment I doubted everything. But then I looked in her eyes and I saw—nothing. Blankness.

  I wasn’t wrong. “I know all about it,” I said. “I know it was you all along.”

  Her frown got deeper and she pursed her lips with confusion. “Me all along…?”

  “Writing on the mirror. Calling. The secret-admirer gifts. Behind the wheel of the car. All you.”

  “How did I manage to pull all that off? I must be very clever.”

  I nodded. “You are.”

  There was a beat of silence. And then, as though she was unable to stop herself, she smiled. A smile so sunny that it made what came next more awful. “I am, aren’t I?” She sighed complacently, then went on, musing aloud. “Wasn’t Ollie so cute? Amazing how loyal people become when you figure out the right way to ride them. They’re just like horses.” Her tone was so casual she could have been chatting about the weather.

  “But you couldn’t let someone else have all the fun.”

  “No. I just needed a way to get through the battery of guards out front and dispose of all the security people. I wanted to be able to talk to my best friend for the last time in private.” Her perfectly glossed lips were still curved into a smile. With one hand she tenderly brushed a lock of hair from my forehead. I didn’t know then what she was doing with the other. “You understand, don’t you, jelly bean?” Before I could answer—and what would I have said?—the furrow between her brows reappeared. She asked, “But if you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”

  I had an answer for that. “Because I wanted to find out how you did everything,” I told her, but that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that this was the only way it could end. If I’d accused her of trying to murder me, everyone would have assumed it just was me being insane. One of us was insane, but it wasn’t me. This way, somehow, there would be proof.

  “That’s so flattering. But just in case you change your mind, I’ve taken precautions.” I felt something sharp on my upper arm and looked down to see it was a syringe. I gasped. “I really want us to have a nice chat first, but if you start making things hard, I’ll have to push this button and it will be bye-bye for you. So you’ll be a good girl, right?”

  My stomach lurched. Stay calm, I told myself. “Y-yes,” I stammered.

  Langley nodded to herself, her blonde hair falling forward to frame her angelic face, and reached out with the hand not holding the deadly syringe to touch my cheek. “You have such lovely skin, Jane. Did you know that’s the first thing I noticed about you the day we met? Your skin. And the haunted look in your eyes. We were so much alike. We both had such heavy secrets. You needed me, I could tell. And I could help you. I did, didn’t I?”

  She leaned forward and her eyes glittered with anticipation like she was waiting on my answer.

  I nodded.

  She sighed and shook her head sadly. “It’s really too bad it’s come to this. But, you know, someone has to pay.”

  That was confusing. “What do you mean?”

  She waved my question away, as though I’d insisted on covering half a lunch check and she wanted to treat. “Tell me from the beginning. How did you know it was me?”

  “Lots of little things.” I tried to sound confident, though my voice kept catching and the needle tip hurt my skin. Maybe if I could hold her attention, someone would come by and notice…something. It was the only chance I had.

  “When I figured out how the writing on the mirror was done, that it didn’t have to be someone in there while I was in the shower but could have been written by anyone previously when the mirror wasn’t steamed up, the field narrowed,” I explained. “And then I remembered the only thing Nicky, Sloan, and I had in common.”

  “Which was?”

  “Lip gloss.” At last I had a complete picture of what had happened. “The night of the party you drugged me with the lip gloss, but it wasn’t acting fast enough—”

  “I know! That bitch Nicky took it off when she kissed you. Freals, I could have killed that silly cow.” Her voice was pleasant, happy, like this was just regular gossip.

  “—so you summoned me upstairs to reapply it. After that I passed out somewhere and when I woke up, Kate dragged me to the room where David and Sloan were, to show me. I took my friendship ring off and threw it at her. I staggered out and ran into Elsa, who pus
hed me away.”

  Into someone. Into—

  I’m in the hallway, desperate, and I see Langley. “Thank God. It’s David. He was—”

  “Come here, jelly bean,” she says, pulling me into the bathroom.

  I start telling Langley what happened. I say, “I can’t take it anymore. It’s over. I’m done, it’s done. I just want to end it.”

  Langley examined her nails. “You went on and on and on and you were so boring, until finally you said, ‘He’s such an excrescence.’ And that did it.”

  I’m sobbing with my head in my hands. I see something flash in the mirror in front of me and I look up. Langley is there, above me, her face pulled back into a terrifying grin. “Goodbye, Jane,” she says, and smashes the cherub soap dish down on my head.

  I wake up on the floor of the bathroom. It’s dark and my eyes won’t focus. I pull myself up to the counter and all I can see, reflected in the mirror, are eyes. Eyes filled with hate and disgust. My eyes. Glaring at myself for having been such a misguided fool.

  I have to get out of there.

  “Excrescence. I don’t even think you used it right. So annoying.”

  “You knocked me over the head with a soap dish because I used a word you didn’t like?”

  “No no no. It was just so—so unsuitable. When you showed off that way, it wasn’t who you really are. Who you should have been. I just wanted you to stop doing it.” Something must have shown on my face because she said, “Stop looking at me like that,” and jabbed the needle into my arm a little harder. “You weren’t behaving nicely. But that has nothing to do with me. How did you know it was me?”

  I racked my mind, fitting pieces together frantically like someone at a puzzle convention. “Elsa took a picture of me in the bathroom as I was waking up. After that I ran outside. Kate found me again to apologize, but I—I was horrible to her.”

  You’re not the only one who got hurt tonight, she’d said. Now I understood. Sloan’s um, people was Kate. Kate had been upset that David had hurt Sloan because she liked Sloan. Sloan and Kate were a couple. What I’d overheard her saying to David wasn’t about me, wasn’t just stay away…alone, she’d been talking about Sloan.