The Escape. Part 12

Avery pushed the macaroni in wide circles on her plate as she sat at the dinner table. She had every light on in the house, and though the heat was kicked up to nearly eighty, she couldn't shake the chill that had settled in her bones. Her thoughts were on Fletcher and the way he seemed to stare off into nothingness when Adam was mentioned.

Although she tried to drown them out, the words from the barista swirled in her mind: I thought that other kid was weird. He totally could have killed Adam.

She had tried to speak with her father when she got home, but she kept getting his voice mail. Even Connie at the police department, who usually put Avery right through, told her that Chief Templeton was "unreachable." So Avery waited, her pulse a constant thunder.

The sound of her father's GMC pulling into the driveway snapped her back to reality, and she dumped her plate in the sink, quickly shoving her untouched dinner down the drain.

"Hey, sweetie," her father said, peeling off his rain-slicked jacket and shaking a fine mist from his hat. He kissed Avery on the forehead, then gestured toward the refrigerator. "Anything decent in there for dinner?"

"The mac and cheese isn't hairy yet."

The chief retrieved the ca.s.serole dish while Avery handed him a plate. "You eat?" he asked.

Avery nodded, taking a ginger ale from the fridge. She popped the top and took a long swig. The carbonation burned her stomach but calmed the waves of nausea.

Her father put his plate on the table. "Hey, sit with me," he said, his cheek full of macaroni.

"Anything new on Fletcher's case?" she asked carefully.

The chief chewed. "We're working on a few leads."

Avery tapped her fingers. "Is it true that you think Fletcher might be a suspect?"

"Avy, you know we consider every angle."

She glared.

"It's my job to do a thorough investigation."

"Dad," she started.

He cut her off smoothly. "Any gangs at your school?"

Avery nearly shot ginger ale through her nose. "Gangs? What are you talking about?"

Her father chewed slowly, his eyes fixed on her. "So?"

"You're serious? No, Dad, though Dan River is obviously a booming metropolis"-Avery rolled her eyes-"as far as I know, there are no gangs running rampant, running meth through the Applebee's or whatever."

He didn't smile. "I'm serious, Avy. Maybe not full-fledged gangs. What about any kids talking about gangs, gang affiliation, maybe even just off-the-cuff?" He unfolded a white piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it on the table in front of Avery. It was a photocopy of hand-drawn symbols-two sets of dice, some stylized pitchforks, a few numbers in bubbly, funky scroll.

"Have you seen anything like this? Could be on binders, book bags, just around the school or grounds."

Avery pushed the paper back. "What is all this about?"

Chief Templeton cleared his throat. "One of the theories we're working on"-he raised his eyebrows and fixed his gaze on Avery in his this doesn't leave this room stare-"is that Fletcher or another suspect maybe killed Adam to gain entry into a gang or at a gang's behest."

Anger fisted her hands, almost unconsciously. "Are you kidding? First of all, 'at a gang's behest'? You don't talk like that. And you know as well as I do that Fletcher isn't involved with gangs. There are no gangs in this stupid town, and Fletcher didn't do this, Dad. He didn't!"

"Avy-"

"No!" She was breathing hard now, tears burning behind her eyes. "The real killer is out there, probably trying to figure out which one of us is going to be next, and you guys can't see it because you have your noses so far-"

"Avery Elise Templeton, you better think long and hard about how-or if-you want to finish that sentence," her father said. "You should consider that up in your room."

Avery stomped upstairs and slammed her door, hot tears stinging her cheeks. She and her dad had argued before and she had always gotten over his unyielding responses, but this was different. This wasn't a halter top or a later curfew. This was her friend and it was his life. She fired up her computer and started searching anything she could think of: serial killers, spree killers, people who kill in the woods. And then, when the night had gone from dark to an impenetrable, inky black, she searched something else-trauma, memories, blacking out.

Seventeen.

Avery's father knocked and pushed the door open while he slid into his DRFPD Windbreaker. "I got a call; I've got to go in."

"Is it about Adam?"

"No." He shook his head. "I don't know when I'll be back, but the house will be locked up behind me. Stay inside. No funny business. You're still on my list." There may have been an edge to Chief Templeton's voice, but it didn't extend to his eyes. He turned and Avery listened as he clopped down the stairs in his boots and pulled the garage door shut behind him.

The entire house fell into an eerie silence.

Avery crossed her bedroom and peered out the window to watch her father's car pull away.

The streetlight cast a weak shadow on the clutch of trees across the street from their house. Something moved in the shadows. She clicked off the overhead light to get a better look, squinting.

"I'm being stupid," she mumbled.

There was a clap of thunder, and Avery's heart started clanging like a fire bell. She clutched her chest and let it pound, then started to laugh as the sky broke and sheets of rain fell.

"Oh my gosh, I'm the biggest wimp!" she said, laughing to herself. She went back to her computer and clicked a link for something called "dissociative amnesia."

Patients with dissociative amnesia experience disruptions in their memories. They have recurrent episodes in which they forget important information or events, usually connected with severe trauma or stress.

"Okay," she said, biting her lower lip. "That sounds like what Fletch has." She centered her mouse over another link. "Now, what can we do about it?"

Dissociative amnesia patients experience a high susceptibility to hypnosis, which can unlock painful or unwelcome memories.

Avery scrawled the word "hypnosis" with a big question mark on her scratch pad. For a town that had just gotten a Starbucks, having a hypnotist within city limits was more than unlikely. She went back to her Google search, and the links that populated her list gave her a chill.

Mental disorders...blackouts...schizophrenia...

The sky cracked again, and this time Avery went to shut her window. A fork of lightning cast a white glow over the trees, which swayed in the wind. Avery blinked. She swore she saw movement. "There is nothing there, Avery. Stop being a baby."

But she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was out there, watching her. She tried to go back to her computer, but her fingers were trembling. She might be the chief of police's daughter, but even she got the heebie-jeebies. And when she did, they were hard to shake. She grabbed her cell phone.

Fletcher answered on the first ring.

Fletcher didn't know where his mom had gone. She'd said something about a meeting or a session, but he hadn't been paying attention. Her voice had mixed with the cacophony spitting from the television set. Whenever he was home, the TV was on. He didn't have a favorite show or even one he liked very much, but the noise soothed him. Or maybe it just drowned out the buzzing in his mind.

The phone cut through the din, and he smiled when he saw Avery's number on the screen.

"Hey, Avery."

"Hey, Fletch." She was silent for an uncomfortable beat while Fletcher considered what to say. What could he talk about that wasn't stupid? "So I was thinking about your blackouts again," she said.

He deflated, having hoped somehow that she was calling just to say hey, that he could be a normal guy having a conversation with a girl about music or movies or what to do Sat.u.r.day night. "Yeah?"

"You know the book I showed you? Well, I was also reading online that your brain can trap memories and stuff."

He let out a slow sigh. "Repressed memories?"

"Yeah." Avery sounded way too chipper on the other end of the phone. Fletch tried to imagine her sitting at home, her bedspread and walls painted something cheerful and girly like yellow or hot pink. "I read that hypnosis can possibly unlock those memories."

Her voice didn't sound as cheery now, and Fletcher's thoughts about Avery in her bedroom turned dark. "And?"

"I thought maybe you might want to do that. You know, to help Adam."

Without knowing why, Fletcher felt himself bristle. Adam. It was always about Adam.

Adam was your friend.

A sharp pain stabbed behind his eye, and he sucked in a breath.

"Are you okay?"

Fletcher pressed his fingertips against his eyeball. "Yeah. I get headaches now because of the hit to the head."

Avery was silent for a minute and Fletcher almost thought she had hung up.

"I'm really sorry," she said finally.

He shrugged, though she couldn't see it, and looked around his darkened house. The glow from the TV was minimal; whatever show he was watching featured incredibly good-looking people looking pained. There was silence on the phone but he could hear Avery breathing-short, shallow breaths that let him know something was brewing. She was considering something heavy in her head. Fletcher let himself think that maybe she liked him, that maybe she'd called to tell him. His mind raced and he thought he should ask her out, make some sort of plan.

She cleared her throat and thoughts pinged in his brain. A movie? A walk? Just hang out? Then she spoke.

"Don't you want to know what happened that day?"

Avery waited for Fletcher to answer, but his phone began plinging with the cacophony of dying battery sounds and cut out at the same instant that Avery was plunged into darkness. She scuttled to the window. The houses that Avery could see were dark too, windows blank and gaping like open mouths.

Her phone blared through the blackness, the glowing face slightly ominous in the dark.

"Hey, Dad."

"You okay, Avy?"

A lump started to grow in Avery's throat and she wanted to beg him to come home or to hide under the covers until the lights turned back on-or at least until the thunder stopped its ruthless shuddering-but she was sixteen and she wasn't afraid of the dark. At least she shouldn't be. She sniffed and went to her desk drawer, pulling out a heavy Maglite flashlight and clicking it on.

"A-okay."

"You know there's-"

"An emergency flashlight in my desk drawer and two in the linen closet right next to the box of emergency candles, extra batteries, and that hand radio thing."

"It's a ham radio."

"Whatever, Dad. I'm good though."

Avery could hear the smile in her father's voice. "That's my girl. Look, the storm has gotten pretty bad. There are a lot of power outages. We're going to check for flooding. You need to stay put."

Instinctively, Avery glanced toward the clock on her nightstand. "Um, it's midnight. I guess I'll have to cancel the middle-of-the-night shopping trip I have planned, but okay."

"Avery..." A fake warning voice.

"I'm fine, Dad. Go save the world. Be safe."

"And you go to bed."

"Bye, Dad."

The eeriness of the situation was gone. It was just a blackout from a stormy night in Dan River. "No big deal," Avery said to herself as she pulled her laptop into bed with her.

And then something thunked.

It came from downstairs and was half m.u.f.fled by carpet, but it was definitely a thump. Avery sat upright, her palms beginning to sweat despite the chill that cut through her.

"It's nothing," she told herself.

She edged herself back into her bed, pressing her head into her pillow. Avery clenched her eyes shut. There was another crash. This one sounded like the splintering of a piece of furniture getting knocked over.

Avery kicked off her covers, her heart threatening to thunder right out of her chest.

"Dad?" Avery called, her voice sounding tinny and small. "Dad, are you home?"

The noise of someone breaking things came from downstairs. A sob lodged in her throat.

Steeling herself, she gripped the Maglite and breathed deeply, certain her dad-if he were here-would kill her for what she was about to do, but she couldn't ball herself up in her bedroom and wait for whoever was downstairs to find her. She hugged the wall like she had seen in every cop movie. She held the Maglite like a baseball bat and kept it off, concealing her presence with the darkness.