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“That’s one method,” Sava
“True,” I said. “He believes it’s Laina. He’s glad it’s Laina. He’s not going to be turning off any faucets.”
“So is there an alternative?” Megan asked.
“Sure,” Sava
Megan glanced at me. “As in…”
Sava
I’d gotten rid of ghosts. I’d seen death firsthand. But under no circumstances could I bring myself to kill a human. So I would just have to find a way to reason with Jared and get him to change his mind about Laina. There was no answer on his cell phone, so I drove by his house. Megan and I rang the doorbell and waited.
It was five thirty in the morning—someone had to be home.
After a minute, the door opened and Mr. Elkins stood there in a bathrobe, scratching his head.
“Alexis?” he asked. “Jared told me you were…uh…out of town.”
“Is he home?” I asked.
“No. He was working late on a project at a friend’s house, so he just spent the night.”
“Well, I think I left my mom’s computer power cord here. Can I come look for it?”
He glanced at his watchless wrist.
“She has a seven thirty flight to Los Angeles,” I said. “I told her it was too early to disturb you guys, but she insisted.”
“Her mother’s priorities are totally out of whack,” Megan added.
Mr. Elkins waved us inside.
We went into Jared’s bedroom and looked around.
“What are we looking for?” Megan said. “Don’t you think we should focus on finding Jared?”
But I was staring at Jared’s closet door. It was unlocked. I grabbed the handle and pulled it open.
And then I could only stare.
It was plastered with pictures of Laina, newspaper articles about her, photocopied pages from yearbooks…and beneath all that was a small table covered in framed photos and small votive candles.
Hanging above it, suspended from the clothes rod by a long lavender ribbon…was a bouquet of dried yellow roses.
“Oh my God,” Megan whispered. “It’s a shrine.”
I leaned in to look at the framed pictures, feeling like the Jared I thought I knew had just died in front of my eyes.
They were photographs of Laina in her coffin. Her eyes were closed. She wore the purple dress. And in her hands was a small bouquet of yellow roses—the same one that hung inches away.
“The poltergeist wears the purple dress because that’s how he remembers her,” I said, “the last time he ever saw her.”
Jared never cared about me. I was just a substitute, a warm body…a stand-in.
I set the first photo down and glanced over the rest of them. My gaze stopped on one in a shining crystal frame.
It looked like a copy of the one of Laina in her casket. I almost didn’t look closer.
But then I did.
I got a nice long look at it.
The frame slipped out of my hands, hitting the wood floor and shattering.
“What?” Megan swooped over. “What is it?”
I knelt and carefully plucked the photo out from the pile of glass shards.
“That’s…” Megan covered her mouth with her hands. “Alexis…that’s…”
It was me.
Or rather, it was a picture of Laina’s body—with my face. Jared had Photoshopped my face on to her body.
My eyes were closed, like I was asleep—or dead.
When had he taken pictures of me sleeping?
Then it hit me in a flash—the night I’d drunk the wine and passed out.
The wine…
Maybe if you take your wine with a shot of tranquilizers, the nurse at Harmony Valley had said. And I knew—that was exactly what happened.
We thanked Mr. Elkins and left. He said he was going to go back to sleep. But as we pulled out of the driveway, I saw him on the phone, peering out the front window at us.
“Who’s he calling?” Megan asked.
“Probably Agent Hasan,” I said. “He thinks she’s my therapist.”
But I’d been locked up when Kasey went missing. So by now Agent Hasan would have to know I wasn’t the one behind the attacks.
Still, she’d be looking for me.
“I don’t have much time,” I said. “They’ll realize Carter came to get me, and they’ll be looking for his car.”
“Where would Jared be?” Megan asked. She’d taken over the driving, since I was getting a little woozy. “What friend’s house?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I realized that, even though Jared often talked about his friends, he’d never introduced me to a single one. Did they even exist?
“Call him again,” she said. “Maybe his phone just didn’t wake him up before.”
Just as I raised the phone to dial, it rang.
“It’s him,” I said.
“Answer!” Megan said.
Suddenly, my mind went blank. What was I supposed to say? How did I explain what was going on?
Jared didn’t just accept the idea that Laina was a ghost—he thought it was the best-case scenario. So how would he react when I told him she wasn’t even real? And that it was his fault that girls were dying?
“Hello?” I said.
“So you stopped by my house and woke up my father.…”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I think you really belong back at Harmony Valley, Alexis. It’s safer for you there.”
His voice had an odd, paternal quality. Caring, but on the verge of outright ordering me around.
But I had to make him happy. He had to agree to see me.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Can’t we just talk about it?”
He sighed. “I don’t understand what there is to talk about.”
“Jared,” I said, my voice breaking, “my sister is missing. And Laina came after me last night. She almost killed me.”
There was a long pause.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” he said. “But she really should have minded her own business.”
I stared at the phone as if it were emitting poisonous gas.
Don’t scream at him. If you scream at him, he’ll hang up, and Kasey will die.
“Where are you?” I asked. “Please. Let’s talk. Please.”
“Fine. We can talk.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Meet me in twenty minutes. At the overlook at the top of Stewart Canyon.”
He hung up.
The overlook?
“Call Carter,” Megan said.
I looked at her.
“Lex, I can’t get to the overlook.” Her face was white. “My knee—I can’t climb up there. Call Carter and have him meet you.”
I tried Carter’s cell and got his voicemail immediately. “No signal,” I said. “He’s in the canyon.”
“Then call the police,” Megan said. “You can’t go up there alone.”
“What are the police going to do?” I asked. “He hasn’t done anything wrong. I’m the runaway mental patient, remember?”
“But—they can at least keep him from hurting you.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They can’t stop Laina.”
Megan had turned the car back in the direction of the canyon, but her hands tensed on the wheel.
“I have to talk to him,” I said. “I have to get him to understand about Laina. And he’d never do that if anyone else was there. He’s too stubborn. My only chance is to talk to him alone.”
“I hate it,” Megan said. “I hate this idea.”
It wasn’t my favorite idea, either.
But there were no other options.
“Will you wait here?” I asked.
Megan had parked on the side of the road. We had a few minutes to spare.
The lookout at Stewart Canyon wasn’t an official part of the park. In fact, going there was highly discouraged because the trail was rough and steep and there were sections where a careless hiker could slide over the edge and fall a couple hundred feet.
But everyone still went there. It was especially big on summer nights, when groups of kids would meet there for parties. The police knew about it, but they hadn’t done anything yet—because no one had gotten hurt there.