For a moment I felt a pang of envy. Not about them being together, but because Kate hadn’t felt like she could tell me.
I would make amends for that later. If I lived.
“You’re stalling,” Langley said. “Talk about me. You and me.”
“I ran down the street away from the house. And—” As I paused, a smile played over Langley’s lips. Clearly I’d reached the part she wanted to hear. I said, “You. You called me on Ollie’s phone. And then you made him pretend that it had been him with the police. That’s why he got the details wrong. He was covering for you. That’s why he sent the flowers too, to make the story of him trying to kiss me, like me, seem more credible. He thought he was doing you a favor.”
“I wonder where he got that idea,” she said with a happy smile.
Ruben poked his head in at that moment and asked, “Is everything okay in here, ladies?”
This was my chance, I thought. Then I felt the tip of the hypodermic press harder against my arm. Or not. “Yes,” I said, my heart racing at panic level. Think, I told myself. Be smart. “Everything is fine.”
“What happened to that boy they took out of here?” Langley asked, wide eyed.
“They were going to have him arrested for assault, but he passed out. So now he’s in triage under restraint until the police get here. You’re a lucky girl, princess,” Ruben said to me. “Your friend here saved your life.”
“Yes, she did.” I gave Langley a big grin.
She smoothed her hand over my hair and jabbed my arm harder. “I don’t know what I’d do without Jane.”
“Yes, I’m a regular conversational hit man.”
“What does that mean?” Ruben asked.
“Ask Pete, he’ll explain it.”
Ruben smiled. “Seeing you two together makes my heart swell. All girls should be so lucky.”
He left and Langley said, “You’d have to be crazy not to agree with him.” She laughed. “Of course, by all accounts you are.”
“That was masterfully done. Convincing everyone I was insane.”
“It was so fun. Especially coming up with the secret-admirer gifts. Admit it, I had you believing it too.”
“Until I realized how easy it would be for anyone who had a bug in the room.” I looked at the Get Well Beary Soon bear. “It took me a while to figure out where it was.”
“It’s not just a bug, it’s video, too. It connects to my iPhone. Although I have to say, a lot of the time you were really boring. But it was fun freaking you out with things you thought were only in your head. Want to see how it works?”
“No.”
She got the bear anyway and started moving it around while she talked, holding it at different angles and checking them on her iPhone. “My original plan wasn’t to kill you. I just wanted to teach you a lesson about friendship. One for all and all for one. You’d started being so disloyal, jelly bean. Keeping secrets. Making friends with undesirables. Scott and Elsa and then, the worst, Nicky. I really couldn’t have you wasting your time on her. Plus I wanted David single.”
“You started the Licky Nicky rumors.” I remembered how Nicky had attacked Ollie at the party. “No, you made Ollie start them.”
“I didn’t make him do anything. He wanted to. I just gave him direction. That boy was in such need of a maternal influence all I had to do was offer it to him and he was mine. I’ve been incredibly good for him. Now smile for the camera, jelly bean.”
“The LAW cuff links he was wearing yesterday. I thought the other was ORDER. But it wasn’t. They were your grandfather’s. You must have given them to him. And that’s why he has a collection of Agent Provocateur underwear. It’s yours.”
“We have a look-but-don’t-touch policy.”
“But what about Alex?” I started to say, then it hit me. I laughed. “There is no Alex, is there? There never has been.”
“His photo came in the frames they sold at this one stationery store in London. The first time I saw him, I knew he’d be the perfect boyfriend. Handsome, invisible, and useful to make Ollie jealous and to make you and Kate sympathetic. So much more effective than a real boyfriend and without all that mess. But I was worried if you looked too closely, you’d see the picture was a fake.”
That was it. The explanation. Ollie and I weren’t any different. “You preyed on both Ollie’s and my fear of being alone. It worked in different ways—he spied on people, I took pictures, but we were both outsiders. Like line drawings that you could fill in.” And then I realized. “Only I started filling in myself. The tragic thing is, I was able to do that, to become a better person, because of you. Because of your friendship.”
For a split second I could have sworn that a spark of confusion, maybe of fear, flickered in her eyes. But it was tamped out, like the last dying embers of a campfire, and her eyes were back to glossy and dark as she said, “Now you’re pandering. See, you’re not the only one who can use big words. And you’re not so special just because your dad was a poet. My father was—anyway, as smart as yours.”
“Your father was president of New Jersey Steel and Gas.”
Her mouth fell open. “You don’t know that.”
I remembered the day of the equestrian meet, when she’d said, “He’s more than a grandfather to me.” There had been something speculative, amused in her tone that struck me. “Actually,” I told her now, “I do.”
“Well, it wasn’t Popo’s fault. My mother was a whore.”
“Does your grandmother know?”
“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Popo knows and I know. And since he had his little accident six months ago, Popo knows the consequences of being unpleasant.” She was moving the bear around. “Oh, that’s a good shot.”
“You did that? You pushed your grandfather down the stairs?”
“He wouldn’t buy me a new car!”
I gasped in disbelief. “What about your mother? Why did you kill her?”
Langley’s expression went blank, like a shutter coming down. She kept her eyes on something just above my shoulder and her voice was strange and flat. “Don’t be silly. I was trying to help her. It was time for her to stop messing around and get back to her parents. It was simply irresponsible of her to raise a child the way she was. There was liquor. And parties. And I had to wear clothes from the thrift store. All for no reason. She refused to go back, just because she felt dirty or something. Pure selfishness. Her parents were millionaires. So I did what had to be done to take care of myself. Just like she taught me. I set the trailer on fire.” She shrugged one shoulder. “How was I supposed to know she’d be passed out inside?”
I stared at her in horror, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I saw her get up from the bed and stagger forward. She tried to get the door open, but it was stuck and she was trapped. I watched. I saw her face through the window.” Now she looked me right in the eye. “You understand how it is when a person you love dies by accident, don’t you, Jane? But even though it’s an accident, someone has to pay.”
I started to shiver. More terrifying than what she was saying was the cool calculation with which she said it. It was as though something had snapped inside of her. “You’re nuts.”
“Which of us is in the locked ward and which of us isn’t?” she observed pleasantly. She put the bear down and heaved her shoulders up in a big sigh. “When I think of the wonderful obit you’re going to get, I’m almost jealous. What I’ve done for you, raising your profile like this, is a gift. Freals, I’ve made your biography about a thousand times more interesting than it was when you were just Plain Jane. Or what is that your little friend Scott calls you? Just Jane? Well, you’re not Just Jane anymore. When I think about what you did, I’m really not sure you deserve this kind of send-off.”
“What do you mean, what I did?”
“You know.”
“Let me see if I understand. You attacked your grandfather in order to get him to buy you a new car.”
“To teach him a lesson,” she corrected. “He needs to learn discipline.”
“And you tried to kill me to get my boyfriend and because I use big words.”
“No, no, no.” She shook her head in a big arc from side to side. “That’s not it at all. It wasn’t until I saw you kneeling in the middle of the street, as if you were begging for forgiveness, that I knew what I had to do. It was all so clear. If I didn’t stop you, you’d keep hurting people. And I knew you wouldn’t want that. There you were, wearing my Prada platform shoes in the rain after I’d specifically asked you not to get them wet, it was like you were waiting for me to do it. So I stepped on the gas and off you went. At the last minute you decided to move, but I compensated. BAM!” She smiled.
“You tried to kill me because I ruined your shoes?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them and spoke, her voice was the voice of a disappointed parent. “You still don’t understand. Those were just little things. Someone has to pay when a person they love gets hurt. You understand that now, right?”
Her pupils had been getting bigger and bigger as she talked, and now her normally light blue eyes were nearly black. “That’s not true,” I said, one last effort to calm her. “I didn’t want to die. And no one has to pay for anything. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But you did.” Her words sent a massive chill down my spine. “Leaving poor Bonnie like that. Never telling anyone what happened, keeping secrets. Pay pay pay. You watched her face through the window and didn’t do a thing.”
For a second it looked like Langley might cry. She was looking not at me but at the door. I wondered what she was seeing. I wondered if she was watching her own mother die, all over again.
“That’s not true,” I started to say. “That’s you, not me. And it’s not your fau—”
“Blah blah blah.” She shook her head as though to clear it and moved her fingers at me to make it look like they were quacking like a duck. “We should probably wrap things up. You were a lot of work, you know. And know what was annoying? Somehow you managed to look so perfect even when you were supposed to be dead. Landing like a goddamned fairy-tale heroine in that rosebush. I would have taken you out and made you look more mangled if I could, but there wasn’t time. David would notice his car was missing eventually.”
She shook herself out of her reverie and smiled. It was the only moment I’d ever seen her look anything but beautiful. It was terrifying.
“This time, it’s going to hurt a bit, so maybe you’ll look ugly. You certainly did during the rehearsal.”
“Rehearsal?”
She leaned in, animated, like she was describing a new dress. “You start to hallucinate again, and you think I’m Bonnie, trying to pull you down, and you struggle against your restraints trying to reach me. Or strangle me. I haven’t decided. In the tussle your IV comes out, your blood pressure skyrockets, and you have trouble breathing.”
“But that will bring all the nurses in. The way it did the other day.” I understood it. “At the rehearsal.” I felt like I was being smothered, pulled down by panic. Fight it, I told myself. You have to stay focused.
“Exactly. And they’ll do what they did the other day, give you a shot of this.” She nodded toward a syringe on the table. “Only this time you’ll go into cardiac arrest and die.”
“That’s not what happened the other day.”
“I made a few modifications.”
“You tampered with the syringe.”
She smiled. Elsa was right. There wasn’t anything behind Langley’s eyes. She was cold and conniving. And terrifying. A clammy sweat crept over my body.
“The beauty of this plan is that once it’s set in motion, it can’t be stopped and it looks like it’s all the hospital’s fault. I just stand back and let it tick away like clockwork.” She tapped me on the nose. “If you do it right, I might consider telling them you were trying to save Bonnie in your hallucination. To make it that much more tragic for everyone.”
“Don’t,” I pleaded, putting every ounce of emotion I had into it. “Please don’t put my mother through that.”
“You’re going to beg for your mother but not for your life?”
“Yes.”
For a second that spark reappeared in her eyes, the spark of something confused and almost pitiable. But again it was extinguished. “You can imagine how traumatic this is going to be for me. I think Popo will finally have to let me spend a year traveling around Europe to recover. He’s been so stingy about that.” It was getting harder to hear her over the sound of my panicked heart pounding in my ears. “And I anticipate David coming to visit for a month this summer. Maybe in Monaco. I think he’d look good there.” She nodded to herself. “So, are you ready? I’m really excited. Any last words? No? Not even how sorry you are for killing your best friend?”
“I didn’t.” My voice came out rough but insistent.
“You did too. You did and now you’re going to pay for it.”
My throat was sandpaper, my breathing shallow, but I tried to keep my voice calm. “Bonnie’s death wasn’t my fault,” I said. “And your mother’s death wasn’t yours.”
Her eyes stared at me fixed and unblinking. “Don’t you dare talk about my mother.”
“Langley, it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes. I. Do.” Her eyes sparkled and her fingers reached for my IV.
Suddenly a silver object flew through the air and hit her on the head, sending her reeling backward, taking my IV with it.
A wave of pain crashed over me and I felt something jab my arm and then it went black.
Chapter 34
I stood on the tip of the dock, marveling at the stillness. It was just after dawn, the moment when the trees around the lake looked like a silent purple wall against a sky streaked with pink and blue and lilac. The water was smooth and flat like a mirror.
There were weeds below it, long curling whips with a will of their own, I knew from my best friend Bonnie, but I thought I could deal with them.
A white bird flew across the sky, its wings pumping, and I dove into the lake, slicing through the silvery surface, delighted by the prickling of the cool water on my skin. The weeds below reached for me, some grabbing, some caressing, but I swam through them, powerful, sure strokes. I swam down, not up, down toward the bottom, down toward the face of a girl I recognized.
She smiled as she saw me and held out her hand. I reached to take it, but she shook her head. No, she seemed to be saying. Look. And I realized there was something in her palm, a silver chain with an object—a medallion? A coin? A key?—on it. Take it, she seemed to say.
I tried. I extended my hands toward her as far as they would go, but I couldn’t quite reach. Each time I swam closer, she seemed to recede. I pursued her as far as I could, but my lungs began to strain, then to ache.
“I’ll be back,” I tried to say to her. “Wait for me.”
I turned and began to make for the light above. Bubbles escaped my lips as I rose, sure and sleek, from the bottom. I was short on air, but I was strong, I could do this. I could see the top of the lake. I could make it.
With my last remaining breath I exploded through the surface of the water. I gulped air and felt the warmth of the sun on my skin and pushed the water from my face and saw eyes hovering over me.
Eyes full of love. Five sets of them. My mother, Joe, Annie, Loretta. And Pete.
“Welcome back, Jane,” my mom said.
“You really did play on the pro-Frisbee circuit,” I said to Pete a little later, still surprised at this revelation. “I thought you made that up.”
“You need to learn to trust me,” Pete said. We were back in room 403, only now there was a huge security detail outside to keep the press away. Apparently two suburban teen girls trying to kill each other is big news.
But not news my mother was part of. She’d forgotten to put on lipstick and her hair was slightly tous
led and she looked, in my opinion, completely gorgeous and about fifteen years younger. She was in my room, alternating coming over and hugging me and smiling and saying how much she loved me and collapsing into chairs and bursting into sobs.
“I’m so sorry I let them keep you in that locked ward,” she said, holding on to me as though for dear life. “I—I was just so afraid I wasn’t thinking straight. They said it was the best thing and even though I didn’t agree, I thought, who am I to argue? But I know better now. I know my daughter better than any doctor. I should have listened to you.”
“We can unknot anything if we work together,” I said. There was a flash of recognition in her eyes.
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything, Mommy.”
We hugged for a long time after that.
But when the heaviest of the emotional baggage had been unpacked, she was left without anything to run, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. Finally, after she’d tried to reorganize the nursing station for the third time and Loretta had sent her back into my room with orders to keep her there Or Else, I gave up.
“Look, Mom, you have to stop pacing around like this. You’re going to drive me crazy.”
“At least this time we’ll know it’s genuine,” she said. And started giggling.
Joe turned to me. “I think your mom just made a joke.”
“I think you might be right.”
“She might need a little practice, huh?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.
“She might need a remedial course.”
“I thought it was good,” Annie said.
The two largest members of the security detail were sitting outside my room now, one of them drinking Gatorade and the other Tab. Apparently Joe had decided to get some of his guys to watch my room even though my mother didn’t take the threats seriously because, as he put it, “I love your mother, I do, but she was so scared of losing you, she wasn’t thinking right. I saw everything she saw and I had to say, you didn’t seem nuts to me.”