Earthbound e-1 Read online

  “Yeah …”

  “He’s been following me since I left home this morning. Down into the historic district, then to Elizabeth’s office. And now he’s here and he—” I shut my mouth. I’m rambling.

  “Did he see you …” He hesitates and leans forward before finishing in a whisper, “Did he see you do anything?”

  “Make anything? No!” But I remember the locket and add, very quietly, “I don’t think.”

  “Okay. That’s good, right?” he asks, peering out at the library floor over my shoulder.

  “I think maybe Reese and Jay sent him.”

  He looks confused. “Why would they start having you followed?”

  “Why would they decide to fry my brain?” I ask, feeling both questions are equally valid. “Point is, this guy’s been following me, and now he’s here, and you have to help me get away.”

  “Can you point him out?” Benson asks.

  If only it were that simple. “Just in case he doesn’t know I’ve spotted him, I have to keep pretending I don’t see him.”

  “Good point,” Benson says. “Tell me what he looks like.”

  “He’s got dark brown hair, he’s probably about six feet. He was wearing sunglasses and a black pullover.”

  Either of which he may have taken off on entering the library.

  I sift through my recollection. It’s amazingly hard to describe someone when all you have to go on are furtive glances. “Brown shoes. He’s got brown shoes. Lace-ups, like Docs or hiking boots.”

  “Okay,” Benson says, writing something I can’t see on a Post-it note. “I’ll find that for you.” His voice is just a little louder as he rises from his chair.

  I open my mouth to protest and realize he’s pretending to find a book. Perfect. I turn and watch him go—that would be natural, right?—and my eyes instantly find the man, sitting at a corner table, pretending to read.

  My gaze jerks away as if he’ll sense everything if I look too long.

  Benson won’t be able to miss him. Surely.

  I sit at the desk, breathing in and out and forcing myself to calm down. I’m here with Benson; he’s going to help me.

  I’m almost calm when the stress ball I’d nearly forgotten about suddenly disappears. I squeak and shrink away.

  Ten seconds later Benson touches my shoulder and I almost jump out of my skin. “Sorry,” he says, but there’s a question in his voice when he sees my reaction.

  “I’m okay,” I say, trying to whisper. “I promise, I’m good now.”

  After studying me for a moment Benson sits down again and places a large reference book on top of his desk. “I saw him,” he says quietly as he riffles through the pages, pretending to show me something. “I think you should head home.”

  “Home? Why?”

  “It’s close enough to walk and probably safer than here.” He glances back out at the library over the rim of his glasses. “Reese is gone, right? I’ll find a way to distract this guy, then I’ll meet you there. It’ll be just the two of us and we’ll talk about everything we know and figure something out.”

  “What if he’s dangerous? He could hurt you.”

  Benson laughs wryly. “He’s in a government building—trust me, he doesn’t want to cause trouble here. Besides, he already knows how to find you. This is just a temporary fix so we can buy some time.”

  I nod hesitantly. “Okay. But you’ll come after me, right?”

  The only thing more intense than Benson’s whisper is his steady blue-eyed gaze. “I’ll always come for you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I check the gap in the curtains for about the hundredth time—Benson still isn’t here. I collapse against the sofa, pulling the throw blanket off and wrapping it around me as if it might somehow protect me. I’ve stripped off my wet hoodie and toweled my hair, but violent shivers rack my body and I don’t think they have anything to do with the temperature. I close my eyes, wishing things were as simple as when I was a little girl.

  And my parents were alive.

  And I was a promising young artist.

  And there was no one following me.

  And I didn’t have weird powers that I don’t know how to control and strange visions that can’t be unexplained.

  Mostly that.

  A light tapping on the door makes my eyes snap open, and I get tangled in the blanket and slam my knee against the coffee table. Benson slips in the second there’s enough room and pushes the door shut behind him.

  “I’m pretty sure I lost him. You were right, by the way. You left and five seconds later he was up and out of his chair, ready to follow.”

  Then he sees my face, the blanket all crumpled up on the floor, and the crooked table.

  “Oh, Tave, it’ll be okay,” he says, pulling me into his arms. And even though I know he must be able to feel me shaking, I’m too tired to be embarrassed. His face is nuzzled against my neck and it’s the only source of warmth I can detect in my entire body. “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you,” he whispers, his lips brushing my sensitive skin. “It’s more than any one person deserves. Especially you.”

  I let myself stand there for a moment, leaning on him, borrowing his strength until I can find my own again. Just for a second. Two. Three. “How’d you get rid of him?” I finally choke out.

  “Spilled coffee on him, actually,” Benson says. “Marie agreed to help. Fussed over him while I took off.” He looks up and meets my eyes. “I don’t know how much time it will really buy us, but it got me here without him on my trail.”

  “Is your car out front?”

  “I walked—okay, I kinda jogged. It’s not that far.”

  I laugh. Not heartily; it’s a weary laugh. But at least I still can.

  “Okay,” Benson says. “So tell me what happened this morning with Elizabeth.”

  “Nothing,” I say, suppressing the urge to squirm as I completely avoid talking about my run-in with Quinn. “Tell no one” echoes loudly in my head. “I lied, she lied; it was pretty much what I expected.”

  “But when you came out, this guy with the sunglasses was waiting for you?”

  I nod and remember that today also brought with it the tall man who disappeared, but my head starts to ache at the thought and I can’t bring myself to mention him. Not yet. “He’s got to know what I can do—it doesn’t make any sense otherwise.” Out of nowhere, my stomach rumbles. “Are you hungry?” I ask, sliding from Benson’s grasp and heading into the kitchen.

  “No,” Benson says, but he follows me anyway.

  “Well, I’m starving,” I mutter, grabbing at snack food I usually never touch: a carton of Reese’s yogurt, a container of sliced pineapple, a package of Genoa salami. I don’t even know what Genoa salami is, but I’m going to eat it.

  “Do you think this guy is who Reese and Jay are hiding me from?” I ask as I open the various packaging.

  “It’s possible.” He doesn’t meet my eyes, and I think it’s because he doesn’t want me to see the fear in his face.

  “Well, it’s been nice knowing you, Benson.” I say the words mockingly, but there’s an icy edge to them—an unfamiliar bitterness that I don’t like in myself.

  “Hey.” Benson’s soft blue eyes are looking at me again. “Just because you have a tail doesn’t mean you’re about to die. I mean, he hasn’t actually tried to do anything to you yet, right?”

  I shrug noncommittally.

  Benson purses his lips, then leans forward on his elbows. “So let’s assume this guy does know that you can make stuff—and I think you’re right that he does,” he adds, before I can defend my theory. “Do you think Reese and Jay know? Elizabeth? Your doctors? Just how far into The Truman Show do you think this all goes?”

  I stop with a slice of pineapple halfway to my mouth. How far does it go? “Hell if I know. Reese, Jay, and Elizabeth seemed to be focused on Quinn and the triangles. I don’t even know what’s special about them, except that I can see them and Elizab
eth can’t.”

  “And all these things started happening at the same time as you making things, right?”

  I don’t want to even talk about that, but I guess I don’t really have a choice anymore. I have to face it. “It seems like too big a coincidence for them not to be all wrapped up together. I just don’t see the connection.”

  “Reese is out of town and Jay’s working a ton, right?” he says, clearly hinting at something.

  I nod and start on the salami, rolling up one of the slices and taking a tentative bite. Pretty good. “Where are you going with this?” I ask once I swallow.

  “Maybe she wanted some extra security while she’s not around. You know, eyes and ears.” Benson grabs a piece of salami too and puts it in his mouth, but the movement is so instinctual, I’m not sure he’s tasting anything.

  “Like a bodyguard?” I like the sense that makes, even though—if it’s true—it would mean that Reese and Jay are lying to me again.

  Still.

  “Yeah,” he replies, taking another bite.

  “I dunno,” I muse. “My magical power is pretty damn lame. Why would they bother to go through all this trouble for someone who can make stuff that poofs into thin air? There must be more.”

  Benson just stares at me. “Could you do anything … I don’t know, supernatural when you were little?”

  “Yeah, I made the glass on a snake’s cage disappear right before my acceptance letter from Hogwarts arrived.”

  Benson just raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Seriously, I had a totally normal childhood. There’s really nothing stand out about me.”

  His hand intercepts mine as I reach for another slice, tightening around my fingers so quickly it almost hurts. “That’s not true,” he whispers. Then, as though it hadn’t happened at all, he lets go and continues. “Is there any possibility your parents were in some kind of organized crime?”

  A bark of laughter flies out of my mouth before I can clap my hand over it. “Hardly,” I say. “Trust me, not the type. And, uh, we certainly didn’t have enough money for either of my parents to be secretly involved in something that extreme.”

  “What about Reese and Jay?”

  I’m sober again. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all, actually. Reese especially. She’s really closemouthed about her business.” I hesitate, then voice the suspicion that’s been eating me since Jay called Reese Samantha yesterday. “What if … what if they aren’t really my aunt and uncle?”

  Benson’s eyebrows scrunch. “Is that even possible?”

  “Sadly, yes. I didn’t know them before. They could be anyone. And it just seems too big a coincidence for them to be so into whatever is happening to me when they weren’t a part of my life until eight months ago.”

  “How can you not know for sure?” Benson asks. “Didn’t you meet them before the crash?”

  “It’s a little … complicated.” Like everything in my life. “They’re practically shirttail relatives who weren’t even around until the last, I guess ten years, and some of my memories from before the crash are shaky. I do remember Reese, I think, but it’s been long enough that it could be memories of someone who looks a lot like her.”

  “Can’t your, I don’t know, grandparents tell you?”

  “My step-grandma died a couple years ago. Her funeral was actually the last time I saw Reese, but she was all blotchy and had one of those fancy veil things on her hat that covered part of her face. When I think back, the veil is all I remember. It was sheer, I’m sure. But in my memories, it blocks out everything.”

  “Other siblings?” Benson asks, though I suspect he’s expecting my answer.

  “Well, you know I’m an only child. My dad was too, till Grandpa married Reese’s mom. And she mostly lived with her dad.”

  “And you never reached out to anyone, like, back home?”

  My memories of Michigan are the shadiest of them all; names and phone numbers flit away from my consciousness like sand through my fingers. But it’s more than that—and hard to explain to someone who still has a family. “When you lose … everyone … no one looks at you the same. Even the doctors and nurses who didn’t know me gave me these awful looks.”

  “Pity?” Benson whispers.

  “It’s more than pity.” I feel the tears build up in earnest now and shake my head. “My mom and dad—” My voice cracks and I take a breath and try again. If they were alive, none of this would be happening—well, I guess I don’t know that. But even if it was, I’d have them to turn to. “I was still trying to deal with everything, so when Reese and Jay basically offered me total seclusion at their house, I took it.” I realize, as I say it, that I really am a recluse.

  If I disappeared, like that man outside the candy store … no one would know.

  The possibility horrifies me.

  “I just didn’t want to go back,” I finally say, “and be so much less of a person than I was before.”

  Benson’s thumbs rub against the backs of my hands. “You’re not less. Different? Maybe. I didn’t know you before. But you couldn’t be less.”

  I nod glumly. He’s brought me back from the edge of tears, but only just. Because I do feel less. Everything is just … less.

  “So,” Benson says, distracting me again. “Let’s say Reese and Jay aren’t who they say they are—and they might be. How would they have even gotten you? You were still seventeen. Child Services isn’t going to just hand you over to someone claiming to be your next of kin.”

  “They got custody through my parents’ will, I think. Would it be all that hard to make a fake ID?”

  “I think you’d need more than that,” Benson presses.

  “I don’t know. You can pull off just about anything with enough cash. And if they’re involved in some kind of organized crime, I guarantee they have resources.”

  “Okay, let’s say that’s the case.” He spreads his hands to the side. “Where are the real Reese and Jay?”

  I suck in a breath. I hadn’t thought about that. No. I force myself to be honest. I didn’t want to think about that. “Is it all that far-fetched to believe they killed them?”

  “I guess not. Or,” Benson continues before I can go too far down that morbid path, “they might be living on a farm in Kansas with a fake death certificate and no idea you’re alive at all.”

  “How pathetic is it that I find that idea remarkably plausible?”

  “Well, one way or another, we’re going to figure this out. Together,” he adds, his eyes boring deeper into mine. “I’m not backing out now. Whatever you want to do next, I’m right there.”

  “Well,” I say, leaning forward, trying to amp up my bravery. “Maybe we should take advantage of Reese being gone.”

  “How so?”

  I swallow hard, and it’s that moment when I realize how serious this next step is.

  And how committed I am to it.

  “I have an idea.”

  Benson just rolls his eyes. “Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this idea?”

  “Well, that depends,” I say in a faux casual tone. “How do you feel about breaking and entering?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I’ve tried every key twice, and the door to Reese’s office remains stubbornly locked. Filled with frustration, I lean my head against the door, a total failure. Benson stands behind me, his arms crossed over his chest, saying nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, feeling utterly dismal. “I thought for sure one of these keys would do it.”

  “It’s understandable,” Benson says with just a hint of humor. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many keys in one place.”

  “I know, right?” I say wryly, holding up the weighty ring.

  “Maybe you should just make a big hammer? Or, like, a chain saw or something.”

  “And destroy the door?” I sigh. “Talk about massive evidence.”

  “Touché.” Benson glares at the doorknob, his jaw muscles standing out. Then, ma
king some kind of decision, he drops into a crouch and pulls his wallet out of his back pocket. “May I?”

  “May you what?”

  He removes what look like two slim sticks from his wallet and, after a little fiddling, unfolds them and snaps them into place.

  “Are those lock picks?” I ask, completely shocked.

  “Maybe,” he says, inserting one carefully into the doorknob.

  “Wallet-size lock picks?” I press.

  “First rule of Fight Club,” he mutters, focused on his task.

  “Fight Club my ass,” I whisper, watching as he expertly works at the dead bolt.

  After some fiddling, Benson cranks one of his sticks around—and the knob turns with it. The door glides open on well-oiled hinges. “There you go,” he announces, folding his little lock picks back down and dropping them into the bottom of his wallet.

  “Where did you learn that?” I stare at him in shock. And possibly awe.

  But he just shrugs, and I suspect that’s all the answer I’m going to get.

  Reese’s office looks … normal.

  It’s not as though I haven’t been in here before. Reese often leaves her door open while she’s working. I even asked her one day when I first moved in why she kept it locked, and she smiled and patted my shoulder. “I have a lot of trade secrets in there.” Then she sighed, looked away, and said, “But truth be told, it’s mostly just habit.”

  Habit. Right.

  Drawing a deep breath, I cross the threshold into the office. Everything is super-organized, with perfect stacks of papers on the desk, a file cabinet with a potted flower on top in one corner, and a corkboard mounted on the wall, covered with pins and Post-its.

  I reach for the filing cabinet first.

  Locked.

  Of course.

  Benson is bent over, looking under the neat stacks on Reese’s desk. “Maybe a drawer,” he mutters, opening the shallow pencil drawer at the front of the mahogany desk. “Bingo,” he says with a grin as he holds up a small key chain with one key dangling from it.