

### DEAD RINGERS

### BOXED SET

### Volumes One, Two and Three

### Darlene Gardner

Dead Ringers Serial

All nine volumes now available

The complete collection: 1-9 boxed set

Volumes 1-3 boxed set

Volume. 1: Illusion

Volume. 2: Invertigo

Volume 3: The Spider

Volumes 4-6 boxed set

Volume 4: Shell Game

Volume 5: Pitfall

Volume 6: Tilt-A-Whirl

Volumes 7-9 boxed set

Volume 7: The Mentalist

Volume 8: Freak Show

Volume 9: Hall of Mirrors

Other books by Darlene Gardner

Romantic Comedies

Three's Comedy (boxed set)

The Misconception

Bait & Switch

Snoops in the City

Three For All (boxed set)

Clash of Hearts

Baby It's You

Her Very Merry Mistake

Forget Me? Not

Once Smitten & Twice Shy

Contemporary Romance

The Christmas Cupid

Winter Heat

To The Max

Romantic Mysteries

Sound of Secrets (A Saltwater Romance)

Lowcountry Lies (A Saltwater Romance)

Copyright 2013 Darlene Gardner

Cover by P.K. Gardner

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Except for the use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means is forbidden without permission in writing from Darlene Gardner.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To my multi-talented daughter P.K. Gardner, who listened to the germ of an idea for this serial and helped make it a reality. I couldn't have done it without you. You're not only well loved, you're amazing.

### ILLUSION

Volume One of the Dead Ringers serial

Do you know where your time went?

Jade's memories of the two days she went missing are slowly returning, but they involve a blinding headache and an evil clown with a syringe. Not exactly the stuff of sanity.

### INVERTIGO

Volume Two of the Dead Ringers serial

Do you know who you can trust?

Max insists Jade's best chance to find out why she remembers so little of her abduction is to team up with him. But can she trust him?

### THE SPIDER

Volume Three of the Dead Ringers serial

Do you know where the Black Widow is?

Someone in Midway Beach isn't who they seem and unless Jade and Max can figure out what's going on, they could become the next victims.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ILLUSION

INVERTIGO

THE SPIDER

Afterward

More Dead Ringers

Other eBooks by Darlene Gardner

About the Author

ILLUSION

Volume One of the Dead Ringers serial

CHAPTER ONE

Four months ago

When the police find me, I'm stumbling out of a deserted carnival. The place is boarded up for the season, awaiting the fresh swarms of tourists who descend on Midway Beach every summer like Alfred Hitchcock's birds.

I trip on a crack in the pavement and pitch forward onto my knees. The sound of laughter resonates in my ears and the back of my head throbs. I reach up to touch my skull, half-expecting my hand to come away bloody, but the wound's nothing more than a bump.

The dizzying spin of police lights and the accompanying thud of footsteps against the frosty ground intensify my headache. I wrap my arms around myself to try to stop my shivers. It may be North Carolina, but even southern beach towns feel the chill in February.

"You're not supposed to be here." A flashlight shines in my eyes before angling back to the ground as the cop bends down to put a hand on my shoulder. The voice is much softer as he takes in my state. "Are you all right?"

It's a fight to force the words past my chattering teeth. "H-h-how did I get here?"

Another beam of light hits me in the face as a second, shorter cop jogs up behind the first. "Hey, Wainwright? Isn't that the Greene girl?"

Why would a Midway Beach cop know who I am? The answer slowly penetrates my fuzzy brain. My stepfather's a felon now, and these must be the two cops who came to the house asking questions about him. The surge of anger is preferable to the headache, but only barely.

"Yeah, it is," Wainwright says. He's so ripped he looks like he's wearing a muscle suit. He loops a strong arm under my shoulder and helps me to my feet. The ground spins, but he doesn't let me fall. "Your name's Jade, right? What are you doing here, Jade?"

"I was walking to Becky's house." I'd set out for my best friend's house at dusk, but judging by the darkness shrouding our surroundings it seems much later than that now. "And then I was here."

A terrible realization sweeps over me. I'm missing time. It's the sort of thing that happens in movies like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers._ For all I know, there's a pod Jade hiding in the carnival, waiting to invade our peaceful little town.

"What happened to me? Where have I been?" I ask the cops.

Wainwright peers over my head at his partner. "We better take her to the hospital. Looks like she has a whopper of a concussion."

At the hospital, I discover things are worse than I thought. Much worse.

I haven't just lost hours. I've been gone for _days._
CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

Until I vanished into thin, sea-scented air, I considered myself an average eighteen-year-old. Sure, the funky atmosphere in the beach town where I live is in danger of obliteration, the stepfather who raised me is in prison and my mom's massively screwed up. But everybody has issues.

Hardly anybody gets selective amnesia, though.

That's pretty much what happened to me on the wintry night I set out for my best friend Becky's house after my stepdad pled guilty to holding up a liquor store with a gun that wasn't even loaded. How's that for dumb and dumber? Mom wasn't even around to lie and say everything would be all right. She'd taken off a few months earlier.

I remember the wind whipping at my face and turning the tears that dripped down my cheeks to ice as I hurried down the dark sidewalk and then... nothing. Until forty-eight hours later when I turned up confused and disoriented at the carnival on the beach.

The carnival was closed for the season, not teeming with people and noise and music like it is now. Just about every teenager in Midway Beach, including me, works summers either at the carnival or one of the other businesses along the boardwalk. Think Coney Island on a smaller, shabbier scale. We have an arcade, tacky souvenir shops, greasy pizza joints and a wooden pier with an open-air bar that hosts some epically terrible music.

This is my third straight year working as a ride operator although I wasn't supposed to be at the carnival this summer. My plan was to line up a job at a daycare center. But that was before my life went off track, back when I thought I'd be heading to the University of North Carolina on a full academic scholarship and majoring in elementary education.

I couldn't swing the UNC tuition after my grades tanked and I lost the scholarship. But as much as that hurts, the scholarship isn't what I want back most.

What I want back are those two lost days.

"Hey, Jade," Roxy Cooper, my boss, bellows at me as she approaches the Wild Mouse roller coaster. She's a powerfully built platinum blonde somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. The line of teenagers part like the Red Sea to let her through. "How many times you gonna let those cars go 'round?"

I'm supposed to keep it to a three-lap limit. Some of the riders look green from all the tight, flat turns and switchbacks so I'm probably over that. The controls aren't automated but antiquated, like everything else at the carnival. I yank up the long lever that operates the skid brakes, and the coaster groans like it's dying.

"You okay?" Roxy asks me that question at least once a day, like she's really concerned. I know better. After the cops figured out I was missing time, they'd investigated where I'd been for the previous two days.

According to Roxy, the spineless liar, I'd been with her. She claimed to have dropped me off at my house shortly before the cops found me. Of course she insisted she had no idea how I ended up at the carnival.

"I'm just peachy."

Her jaw works as she chomps down on her gum. Wintergreen, from the smell of it. The orange _Midway Beach Carnival_ T-shirt all the employees wear is too tight for her, the material straining against her Double D's. "You know, I'm real glad to have you back this summer."

Would she say that if she knew my ulterior motive was to figure out how she was involved in what the hell happened to me last February? Maybe. Roxy and the truth aren't exactly on good terms.

She's waiting for me to respond so I dredge up my inner Valley Girl. "It's, like, so awesome to be here."

The kids on the previous ride have disembarked and new riders are taking their places, laughing and shouting and trying to claim the best cars. I always head for the last car myself. Roxy's smile goes only as far as her lips. "I need you to head over to the funhouse and relieve Becky. I want her at the bumper cars."

The funhouse. I try to hide my shudder.

Roxy likes to rotate the ride operators to keep everybody fresh, but three weeks into the season I've managed to avoid manning the funhouse. Not for the world will I tell Roxy that, ever since my _incident_ , the funhouse creeps me out big time.

"Sure thing, boss."

I salute her and start the trek across the carnival. Along the way I pass the Hurricane, the iconic wooden roller coaster that is the carnival's centerpiece. Workmen are finishing up an extensive renovation project to update the aging structure with new wooden planks and beams. Any day now, it'll be back in operation.

The childish screams and shouts from the midway drown out the sound of waves pummeling the shore, but I can see the wide expanse of ocean and smell the salt on the breeze. When I was growing up, our family spent lots of lazy hours at the beach. My stepdad used to build amazing sand castles with spires and moats and fortress walls. I can't think about what used to be, though, not when my reality is so starkly different.

Besides, those aren't the memories I'm worried about.

To delay my arrival at the funhouse, I detour through Kiddie Land, where bells ring, horns blow and little kids rush from one of the dozen or so rides to the other. Merry-go-round music blares while parents wave to boys and girls riding up and down on the carved horses.

My twelve-year-old brother, Julian, and two of his friends are buying fried dough and cotton candy at one of the food booths outside Kiddie Land. Julian has such dark hair and eyes that he'll be a looker when he grows into his big feet. He doesn't resemble me at all. How could he when Mom and Dad adopted him from Colombia? He's wearing a T-shirt I bought for him imprinted with _Bring Back the Land Shark_. The slogan's in protest of the town council's decision to replace the ceramic statue of the Great White Shark that used to greet visitors to the boardwalk with a grinning dolphin.

Maniacal laughter that sounds like it's coming from crazed clowns drifts on the sea breeze. The funhouse is in sight.

"Jade! Jade!" Becky Littleton calls from her post in front of the attraction, waving her right arm madly. No one is waiting in line. No surprise there. "You heard what happened, right? Because you're not gonna believe it. You're just gonna die."

Becky is beautiful, with hair that is naturally blonde and straight instead of reddish-brown and unruly like mine. She has it pulled back from her face, calling attention to her sky-high cheekbones. Modeling might have been her calling if she'd grown past five feet and one hundred pounds. I'm five feet five and what I like to think of as athletically built. Next to Becky, I look like an Amazon.

"I might die," I say with a grimace. "The thing laughing in the funhouse is the top suspect."

Becky's mouth gapes open. Before she gets any words out, I know she doesn't think I'm nearly as funny as I find myself. "You can't say things like that! Someone's gonna hear you. They won't know you're kidding."

I'm not kidding. Becky must know it, too, even though she doesn't understand about the funhouse. Even if I was as easy to read as she is, my intense dread of the place makes no sense to me, either.

"What won't I believe?"

"The Black Widow is out on bail!" Becky leans forward, her eyes bright. "I give it a week before someone turns up dead!"

See, things can always be worse. At least my stepdad hasn't killed anybody like Constance Hightower, aka The Black Widow.

Constance is accused of whacking her rich husband, Boris. The murder took place sixty miles south of Midway Beach in Wilmington. The details are all over TV, the newspaper and the Internet. The former Miss North Carolina and the tobacco magnate fascinated the gossip-hungry even before the ugly accusations surfaced. Constance is thirty-one. At the time of his death, Boris was seventy-nine.

The story goes that Constance discovered Boris was cheating on her and sprinkled his food with a slow-acting poison until death did them part. Since the symptoms mirrored a heart attack, she would have gotten away with it if the children from Boris's first marriage hadn't pressed for an autopsy.

"You gotta wonder why Constance did it," I say. "Boris dumped his first wife for her. She had to know he was a cheater."

"She did it for the money, silly," Becky says breathlessly. "I think she was planning to murder him all along. If the poison didn't work, she would have smothered him in his sleep."

"That got dark really fast."

"Hey, we're talking about a murderer here. And I bet I know something about her you don't."

"She's childless because she ate her young?"

"No." Becky's so far from smiling, her teeth don't show. "Right before he died, Boris bought a beachfront place at Ocean Breeze. The Black Widow has made it her lair."

The proper name of the exclusive residential community that has invaded the outskirts of Midway Beach is The Estates at Ocean Breeze. The Lair at Ocean Breeze has a better ring to it.

"Wonder if she'll show her face in town," Becky says. "I want to get a good look at her eyes. I hear they're empty. No remorse."

As much as I dread my new assignment, I'm tired of talking about the Black Widow. "Roxy says it's my turn at the funhouse. You're supposed to head over to the bumper cars."

Becky grimaces and chews on her bottom lip. "You didn't tell her the funhouse creeps you out?"

"Nope."

"Well, maybe it's a good thing you're working the funhouse," Becky says. "You know, face your fears."

The creepy, canned laughter drifting out of the makeshift building makes me want to cover my ears. Amid the laughter, I pick out another sound. "Is someone crying?"

Becky cocks an ear, her expression growing serious. "Oh, damn. It is crying. Lacey's probably lost in the mirror maze."

"Lacey Prescott? Hunter's cousin?" Just saying his name sends a thrill through me. My hormones don't seem to care that Hunter's going out with my arch-rival.

"Yeah. I let her go in there alone."

Hunter lives with his aunt and uncle. Lacey's their only child. She's a couple years behind my brother Julian in school, a sweet-faced girl who hardly says a word to anyone. "Is she even old enough?"

"She's ten. Her friends are over there on the tilt-a-wheel. She said that was too scary but she was all gung-ho about the funhouse."

Last weekend, I went to a matinee showing of the new Batman movie after my mother showed up at our house and moved back in, like she had the right after being gone for almost six months without a word. Lacey was at the movie, too. The death and destruction had barely begun when she practically ran out of the theater. The body count was at two or three. Tops.

"I guess I have to go in there after her," Becky says.

"Let me," I say, shocking myself.

"Really? You?" Becky makes a face. "Girl, please tell me you're not still stuck on Hunter?"

I can't tell her that.

"Forget him," Becky says. "If he was interested, he had his chance. He's not good enough for you."

Loyalty sometimes makes you delusional. Hunter is a rarity, a talented actor who gives off vibes that are one hundred percent heterosexual. He's been accepted into the same prestigious drama school in New York City where M. Night Shyamalan studied. I'm headed nowhere at the speed of light. I walk toward the funhouse without responding.

"Remember, everything in there is just pretend," Becky calls.

The way my legs are trembling, she just as easily could have shouted for me to watch out for the guy with the chainsaw. I climb the rickety stairs and step into a dark corridor. Lights flash on and off while aggressively cheerful music blares, punctuated by that clownish laughter. The floor dips in places, adding to the disorientation.

Becky's not entirely correct about my motives. Sure, I'd like word to get back to Hunter that I rescued his young cousin. But I'd have gone into the funhouse after Lacey even if she didn't have a hot relative. She has a little-girl-lost quality that gets to me.

The sobs tear at my heart until I feel physical pain. My pulse trips. What if my aversion to the funhouse has something to do with those days I disappeared? My brain's blurry on the details of where exactly at the carnival I reappeared, but why couldn't it have been the funhouse?

What if Lacey is in real danger, the kind that greeted me back in February? Will she be the next to vanish?

I try to shut out the music and laughter and focus on the crying. It sounds animalistic, a cross between a cry and a scream. Shivers rack my body. But, wait. The feral noises are part of the soundtrack. The human whimpering seems to be coming from the right and the hall of mirrors.

Gathering my resolve, I forge on toward the distortion mirrors. A screeching cry reverberates through me. The animal in distress on the soundtrack? It's getting harder to partition Lacey's weeping from the manufactured noises.

There's another sound, too: Ragged gasps that pass for my breathing. While I'm trying to get myself under control, I reach the first mirror. Staring back at me from two sets of eyes is a short, squatty young woman with a pencil neck and an extra mouth. It's me. So is the spindly figure in the second mirror who is taller than Shaquille O'Neal.

Turning a corner, I nearly slam into another illusion of myself. I jump back. So does my double image.

The crying is more faint now.

"Lacey." My shaking voice competes with the music, the animal cries and the never-ending laughter. "Lacey, where are you?"

No answer. I speed up, past mirrors where I look demented and mirrors that give the illusion that my body has been sliced in half. While I'm deciding which way to go, colored lights flicker on and something jumps out of an oversized box.

It's a life-sized clown, its red lips pulled back in an unnatural grin.

A memory flashes through my brain. I'm sitting in a hard-backed chair with rope cutting into my bound hands and feet. A hood covers my head, effectively blinding me. I feel groggy but know I'm outside, because I can hear the crescendo of cicadas and the nearby wail of some sort of animal, maybe a fox.

Sharp pain explodes inside my head. Bile rises in my throat, and I fight nausea. The pain is relentless, like something is assaulting my brain. My head jerks back and forward, back and forward, sending fresh waves of agony through me. If it goes on much longer, that will be the end. I can't survive this. No one could.

And then, suddenly, it's over. I slump forward, my head falling below my knees, the loosened hood coming free and dropping to the ground. Fresh air reaches my nostrils. I lift my throbbing head at the same time something sharp stabs me in the right shoulder. The groggy feeling immediately intensifies.

With every ounce of willpower I possess, I fight the wooziness, managing with great difficulty to turn my head. Through lids growing heavier by the second, I get a glimpse of whatever's doing this to me.

Holding an empty syringe is a clown, its face cloaked in white makeup and its oversized nose and mouth painted blood-red.
CHAPTER THREE

My eyes drift closed, but I can still see the clown's taunting grin. Something is shaking me. From a distance, I hear a familiar voice I can't quite place. The shaking gets harder. My teeth rattle like they sometimes do during the scariest parts of a horror movie.

"Jade!" says a loud voice near my ear. "Jade! Snap out of it!"

I blink and the image of the evil clown fades to black. One more blink and the interior of the funhouse comes into intermittent focus, depending on whether the lights are flashing on or off. I'm on the floor, slumped against the cool glass of one of the mirrors.

Becky leans over me. In the artificial funhouse lights, her face appears as chalk-white as the clown's. "Are you all right?"

I can't make myself nod. I'm not all right. I haven't been since last summer, when something so terrible happened to me that I buried the memories. Until now.

Because deep in my gut I know that what I just had was a memory. Even now, I can almost feel the ropes cutting into my wrists, smell the earthy richness of the outdoors and taste the acid rising in my throat along with the dread.

Becky sticks out a hand to help me up. She's so small and my legs are so rubbery that I have to anchor my free hand against the mirror so I don't fall.

"Come on," she says when I'm upright, keeping hold of my hand and winding through the maze of mirrors like she's navigated it dozens of times. Without her guidance, I'd never find my way outside where the ocean air sweeps away some of the cobwebs in my mind. Darkness is encroaching and the lights of the midway are on, the Ferris wheel outlined in a circle of white.

White. Like the clown's face paint.

"I thought someone was dying in there!" Becky hasn't let go of my hand. Nobody is within ten yards of us besides the guy working the ticket booth while listening to his iPod. "Why were you screaming like that?"

"I was screaming?" My head hurts, as though somebody took a sledgehammer and tried to split it in two.

"You were screaming bloody murder. I thought the Widow decided to start with Lacey."

Lacey, Hunter Prescott's young cousin. Had somebody abducted the girl and tied her to that chair? I grab Becky's arm. "Please tell me Lacey's all right."

"I think so. She came out the exit a few seconds after you screamed." Becky stares down at my hand on her arm. "Let go. You're hurting me."

"Sorry." I release her, my mind crowded with questions.

How had I gotten into that field? Who had tied me to the chair? Why had it felt as though my mind was splintering? How did the clown fit in? And, most importantly, what did he want from me?

"So what the hell happened in there?" Becky persists, rubbing her arm. "I've never heard you scream like that."

I wet my lips, trying to process my thoughts. "I remembered something. From when I vanished."

Becky puts a finger to her lips. "Shhh. We agreed you wouldn't talk about that."

"But I remember, Becky. It was night and I was tied to a chair in a field." I concentrate over the pounding in my head, conjuring a mental snapshot. Lining the edges of the clearing were sprawling live oak trees and tall loblolly pines. "I could smell grass but also something damp. The marsh or a swamp, maybe."

"Jade," Becky says with a warning tone in her voice. She doesn't want me to continue, but she's been my best friend since kindergarten. There is nothing about me she doesn't know.

"At first I couldn't see because I was wearing a hood. My head felt like it would explode. While I was thrashing around, the hood came loose. Then there was a needle in my shoulder." I moisten my lips, knowing how she'll react to what I'm about to say. "That's when I saw the clown."

"For God's sake, Jade!" Becky drags a hand through her blond hair, and some strands come loose from her ponytail. "A clown? Are you listening to yourself? You actually believe you were abducted by an evil clown who tied you up and injected you with something?"

Stated that way, it sounds crazy. Yet I didn't get to that field by myself. "I think it was a sedative."

Becky's blue eyes turn round and troubled. "You're freaking me out, Jade."

I can hardly wrap my mind around the vision myself, yet the life-sized clown that had sprung from the jack in the box uncovered something in my mind I've been trying to reach for months.

"I'm freaked out, too." I rub my forehead, intensifying my headache. "But it could explain the gap in my memory. Maybe even where I was for those two days when I vanished."

"We already know where you were," Becky says, her voice gentle. "You were skiing in the Great Smoky Mountains with Roxy."

"No." I shake my head, rejecting the explanation the same way I have since I'd turned up dazed and disoriented at the carnival. It's no secret that Roxy is passionate about skiing. After three years of working at the carnival, that's the only personal thing I know about her. But we had most definitely not gone on a ski trip to the Cataloochee Ski Area together. "That's a lie."

"Jade, you sent me a text, remember? I know you were messed up about your dad's conviction, but I still have it on my phone."

"He's my _stepdad_." I never used to make that distinction. He's the only father I've ever known and I call him Dad, but I'm just so damn angry at him.

"Okay, your _stepdad_." She pulls out her cell, navigates to a screen and hands me the phone. "Here, maybe it'll help if you see the text again."

Going skiing for a few days with Roxy, the text reads. Don't worry.

Becky hadn't worried. Neither had Aunt Carol, my mom's sister. She'd uprooted everything and moved in with my sister, brother and me after my stepdad's arrest. My aunt received a text from my phone with the same message. Roxy even had an explanation for my temporary amnesia. She said I'd fallen on the slopes. The bump on the back of my head seemed to back up her lie, but I think someone knocked me out when I was walking to Becky's.

Even if the blow resulted in a concussion, though, it doesn't explain my memory gap. It's typical not to remember the accident. Not so typical to have no recollection of the following forty-eight hours.

"I didn't write that text. Someone must have gotten hold of my phone and sent it."

"Why would anyone do that?"

"So nobody would realize I was missing and come looking for me." I can tell Becky doesn't buy that explanation. "C'mon, Becky. Why would I ever go skiing with Roxy?"

"Her father went to prison when she was a kid, too." Becky repeated the story that Roxy had told everybody. "She thought it would be good for you to get away for a few days."

"Roxy's lying."

"We've been over this already, Jade. Why would she lie?"

_Maybe Roxy was disguised as the clown._ Except that doesn't sound right. What possible motive could she have? She was involved, though. Somehow.

"I don't know why Roxy's lying."

"Do me a favor, okay?" Becky rubs her hand up and down my arm. "Don't mention the evil clown to anybody. People are already talking. You can't give them more ammo."

I shrug her hand off my arm. "About me being crazy? You think I'm crazy, too, don't you, Becky?"

"No! Of course not. I just think..." She pauses and the corners of her mouth turn down. "I just think you've been under a lot of stress."

"Hey, is everything all right over here?"

My head whips around at the voice of Maia Shelton, who's closing the distance between us. Like Becky, Maia has been my friend forever. Unlike Becky, she can't keep a secret. She spends all her waking hours on the strip, either at her job at the arcade or hanging out at the carnival, collecting the news of the day and then freely sharing it.

"I heard something about a bloodcurdling scream." Maia tosses her beautiful black hair, which cascades down her back almost to her waist and is adorned with one of the chrysanthemums she's taken to wearing. Today's flower is purple.

Becky sends me a warning look, then says, "People scream all the time at a carnival."

"The funhouse is too lame for screams," Maia declares, waving a dismissive hand. "So, spill. What's going on?"

It's time I entered the conversation with the truth. Seems to me I heard somewhere it was the best defense. "It's nothing. I just got spooked by the clown in the funhouse."

Maia balances her hands on her curvy hips and tosses her hair again. "Oh, come on. You're not afraid of clowns. Last year for Halloween you dressed up as that killer clown from the Stephen King miniseries. I can't think of the name, but you know the one."

_It_. I'd read the book, too. Not his best work.

"I saw the two of you huddled over here," Maia continues. "You were talking about something important. I can tell."

Becky telegraphs me another silent message to keep my mouth shut.

"We were talking about the clown," I say.

Maia blows air out her nose. "Bullshit! You think I can't tell when you two are hiding something from me?"

"What would we be hiding?" I ask.

"How should I know? You won't tell me." Maia huffs out another breath. "Fine. See if I care."

She spins on her heel and stalks away, flipping us the bird as she goes.

Becky waits until Maia is out of earshot before she turns troubled eyes to me. "I'm serious, Jade. You can't say anything about an evil clown to anyone, not just Maia. If you do, people are gonna think you're like..."

Becky's voice trails off, but I know what she means.

I can't afford to let people think I'm like my mother.
CHAPTER FOUR

When Becky pulls her little red Honda Fit into my driveway three hours later, my head hurts from trying to figure out the mystery of what happened to me. Not as much as it hurt that night in the forest, though. That pain was extraordinary.

"You're like a million miles away," Becky says.

"I've got a lot of things on my mind."

"Things you should never, ever tell anyone," Becky says. "We're clear on that, right?"

"Crystal."

She doesn't need to worry about me spreading tales tonight. My two siblings are too young to understand what I can't grasp myself, and no way would I tell dear old mom anything.

I thank Becky for the ride, get out of the car and shut the door. The porch light is on, shining on the hanging baskets of geraniums that make the ranch house appear a little less modest. I use my key and slip inside before the flying bugs surrounding the porch light can follow me. Quickly I punch in the security code on the alarm system my mother had installed before she abandoned us.

Tonight the bowels of the house are dark. Good. Everybody's asleep.

Something brushes against my leg. I cry out and jump back. Yellow eyes peer at me in the darkened foyer. Our black cat Beelzebub and not Jack Nicholson wielding a bloody knife like he did in _The Shining_.

"Jesus, Bee. I had a rough enough night without you trying to give me a heart attack. Don't you know an evil clown could be after me?"

I strain my ears for the sound of stirring but hear only silence. Slipping off my shoes, I pad barefoot into the kitchen and open the refrigerator without bothering to turn on an overhead light. The cold air feels good on my clammy skin.

Yogurt or leftover pizza?

"Like I really have a choice if I don't want to weigh two hundred pounds," I mutter.

But if I gained a lot of weight, it might be tougher for somebody to snatch me off the street a second time. I grab the pizza, head for the family room and turn on a lamp. Light bathes the room, illuminating the empty sofa, the coffee table my stepdad found at a flea market and refinished and the woman in the recliner.

Her eyes are open and staring directly at me.

I swallow the scream before it starts. The woman in the recliner is my mother.

She'd walked into the house without even knocking about a week ago. She didn't apologize or explain why she hadn't once in twenty-five weeks given us a call to say where she was. She acted like she'd never been gone, taking my little sister Suri shopping, making Julian whatever he wanted for dinner. After a few days, Aunt Carol returned home to South Carolina.

"Why are you sitting in the dark?" I demand.

"I was waiting for you," she says.

Her speech is slow and measured, without inflection. It's impossible to tell if I woke her. She always sounds like that, which I figure is a side effect of her meds. I might feel sorry for her if she hadn't stopped taking them last year and wrecked our lives.

"No need for that. I can take care of myself."

She says nothing but continues to stare at me. She's in a long-sleeved flannel nightgown much too warm for a summer night. Her shoulder-length hair is brown with no trace of red, her green eyes are wide set and her lips plump. Supposedly we look alike, but I don't see it.

I pick up the remote, switch on the television and sink into the sofa. On screen Drew Barrymore is sobbing into the phone. I instantly recognize the movie _Scream_. I've seen it a half-dozen times, but anything is better than having a conversation with my mother.

Long minutes pass. The pizza is cold, but I can barely taste it. The girl on TV is screaming because—surprise—no one ever survives the first five minutes of a slasher flick. I try to ignore my mother, who hasn't even shifted in her seat. Why won't she go to bed and leave me alone?

"Your father left a message on the answering machine," she announces.

"Stepfather," I correct for like the millionth time. My real father took off before I was born. My mom claims she doesn't even know where he is.

"He'd like for you to visit him."

She makes it sound like they're divorced and he's inviting me to spend time with him. Like Maia's father, who has a multi-million-dollar home with a tropical waterfall pool at the Estates at Ocean Breeze.

"Have _you_ visited him?"

"Not yet."

"I'll leave the visiting to you then."

On television, Drew Barrymore grasps for her killer's mask. It's already too late.

"I talked to your Aunt Carol on the phone tonight. She said you haven't seen your father since he was arrested."

Not quite true. I'd gone to an arraignment where I've since found out hardly anybody pleads guilty. Leave it up to my stepdad to dare to be different. It is true, however, that I've never been to the maximum-security prison where the judge sent my stepdad at the sentencing hearing. I haven't read the letters he writes me, either. They end up in the trash.

"What's your point?" I ask.

"Five months is a long time for a father and daughter to go without seeing each other."

My mother was gone for longer than that. My palms hurt, and I realize I'm clenching my hands and the nails are digging into my skin. "Yeah, well, he should have thought of that before he got himself arrested and landed us here with you."

Silence. Utter and complete except for the gasps from poor, dying Drew on TV. Definitely not a bloodcurdling scream. Hard to pull that off with a few dozen stab wounds. The knife comes up again. The television screen goes dark before the killing blow. My mother has the remote in her hand.

"Hey! I was watching that. What gives?"

"You obviously have something you want to say to me."

"Nope."

"I think you do."

Why is she making an issue of this now? Since she moved back to Midway Beach, I've made no secret of the way I feel about her. If she's in one room, I'm in the other. I speak to her as little as possible.

"Trust me," I say under my breath, "you don't want to hear what I have to say."

"Try me."

I let out a noise that sounds like a laugh but isn't. Far from it. I sit up straighter, rising to the challenge. I've been holding in the anger for so long that maybe it is time I had my say.

"Since you asked for it, I'll give it to you straight. I wish you hadn't come back. I know somebody has to take care of Julian and Suri, but it shouldn't ever be you."

She looks wounded, but I harden myself against her, thinking of all the nights I cried myself to sleep after she left, thinking of how hard it was on my stepfather without her around. All because she'd refused to accept help for her problem.

"You sound angry with me," she says.

"Ya think?" I know blood doesn't really boil, but it feels like a hot rush through my veins. "Now why would I be angry at a mother who didn't care what happened to her family? You must have known money would be tight."

My stepfather worked as an MRI tech at the hospital, a decent job for a single man but not so much for a family man supporting three children.

"I didn't think your dad would try to rob a liquor store."

"That's on you." My voice is rising and I can't control it. "It never would have happened if you hadn't abandoned us!"

"You make it sound like I wanted to go." Mom sounds impassioned, nothing like the woman who's been on such an even keel since she returned. She leans forward in the chair, her eyes bright. "But I had to leave. It was the only way to protect all of you."

"From what? Your _enemies_?"

Mom had her condition well under control until last year when she crashed her car and insisted she was speeding because _they_ had been chasing her. After the accident, she had the security system installed. She used to stand at the window for hours, peeking through the curtains into the street to make sure her enemies weren't out there.

One night, I'd heard my parents arguing about her meds through the thin walls of the house. I'd prayed she would get back on her regimen. Instead she'd packed up and left when nobody was home.

I can never forgive her for that.

"You never had any enemies, Mom," I continue. "You would have known that if you hadn't gone off your meds."

Wrinkles form between Mom's brows. "I never went off my meds."

"Yeah, right." I am sick of people lying to me. "I heard you two arguing. You wouldn't listen to him."

"That's not the way it was."

"So you didn't leave because you thought someone was after you?" My eyes are trained on her, looking for I don't know what. Foam frothing from her mouth, perhaps?

"Well, yes, but—"

"So there's nothing left to talk about."

"You're wrong. I already mentioned I spoke to your Aunt Carol tonight."

"So?"

"She told me more about what happened to you in February." Mom wrings her hands the way she used to when she was standing at the window keeping guard. "I'm afraid, Jade."

"Of what? Your enemies coming after me?"

She shakes her head, the movement almost frantic. "No, Jade. I'm afraid you're a paranoid schizophrenic. Like me."
CHAPTER FIVE

With the bright morning sunlight streaming through my bedroom window, it seems ridiculous to believe an evil clown snatched me off the street, injected me with a syringe full of sedative and tied me to a chair.

And yet as I get out of bed, that's pretty much where my head is.

Do I get any sanity points because I realize the scenario sounds nuts? Or does that make it more likely that I'm a paranoid schizophrenic?

Like my mother.

Voices drift down the hall from the kitchen. My bedside clock reads a little before nine a.m. Oh, crap. I'd meant to wake up earlier to make sure Suri and Julian weren't alone with her.

I hurry down the narrow hallway, forgetting the bulge in the carpet where it isn't pulled tight enough. I stumble, putting out a hand to steady myself on the wall. A framed photograph of our family of five before Mom left us crashes to the floor. I leave it behind.

Suri and Julian are sitting at the butcher block kitchen table, plates and silverware already laid out in front of them. Our mother is at the stove, flipping a pancake in the frying pan. Her dark hair is up in a flattering style and her short-sleeved pale pink blouse is paired with a navy skirt and high-heeled sandals. The sun shines through a kitchen window onto her unlined face. There aren't even circles under her eyes.

"Good morning, sweetheart." She smiles at me while the pancake sizzles in butter, as though our bizarre conversation last night didn't happen. "Would you like me to make you some, too?"

In the months my mother was gone, before my stepdad turned into a sort-of-armed robber, it was up to me to make sure Suri and Julian ate breakfast. Sometimes I'd pop frozen waffles into the microwave and drizzle maple syrup over them, but most of the time all three of us ate cold cereal.

"No, thanks."

"Good." Julian holds his fork upright like a pitchfork. "More for me."

"I want two." Suri gets up from the table and prances over to the stove with her plate. Like Julian, she's adopted. She, too, has black hair and eyes. Suri, though, is Asian. Since our mother signed her up for ballet lessons, Suri walks everywhere on tiptoes. My eight-year-old sister's hair is done up in a pretty French braid, the kind Mom is always offering to do for me.

"There's enough for everybody," Mom says with a chuckle.

I've been up half the night trying to figure out whether I need to protect Julian and Suri from her. Grabbing my brother and sister by the hand and making a mad dash for the family car suddenly doesn't seem like such a brilliant idea.

"Mom's taking me with her to work today!" Suri announces. "We're gonna go through houses built on special."

Mom's a real estate agent out to make a buck on the new face of Midway Beach, yet another thing to hold against her.

"On spec," Mom corrects. "That means the houses were built with no specific buyer in mind but the builder is pretty sure they'll sell."

She deposits a pancake onto Suri's plate like she's Martha frigging Stewart. Anybody on the outside looking in would be fooled into thinking life was grand with the Greenes. Suri and Julian seem fine, though.

Making a snap decision to get the hell out of there, I grab a cinnamon apple fruit bar from the pantry closet and head for the back door. "Later."

"Wait a minute, Jade." My mom's voice stops me, but I don't turn around. "Today's your day off, right? What are your plans?"

For lack of another idea, I thought I'd go down to the strip, walk around and see if I can spot any wicked clowns. If I told her that, though, she'd probably offer to come along and help.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I was hoping you'd do me a favor." She's acting like we have a normal mother-daughter relationship where it's possible I'll say yes. "Julian's having friends over to play video games. Can you keep an eye on them until I get home?"

The favor, then, isn't for her. It's for Julian. Since she's been back, Mom's been real strict about having friends over without supervision. If I say no, she'll tell Julian to uninvite them. My brother's been through a lot, too. I can't do that to him, no matter how much I want to defy her.

"I'll do it for Julian." I reverse directions, stepping over the photo on the hallway carpet and retreating to my bedroom. I eat my fruit bar in my bedroom behind a closed door that doesn't block the delicious smell of the pancakes.

Julian's friends are running late. They arrive after lunch and park themselves in front of the X-Box in the family room, giving me plenty of time to research schizophrenia on my laptop. Since Mom was diagnosed when Suri was a toddler, I know a little about it already. It's a chronic condition that requires lifelong treatment. Patients are supposed to be on medication even when they feel like they've got the condition beat.

The new bit of information is that the condition has a strong genetic link.

The symptoms, though, aren't what I expect. I can't ever remember my mother being angry, violent or argumentative. It wouldn't surprise me if she hears voices, but the only other symptom that truly fits is she's delusional. I mean, enemies? C'mon.

I'm the one who has enemies, Roxy Cooper among them.

"Oh, shit," I say aloud, remembering the genetic link. "Paranoid much?"

I clamp a hand over my mouth. Now I'm talking to myself.

By the time Mom and Suri get home, though, I still can't make myself accept that the incident in the forest with the clown didn't happen. Sick of my own company, I head for the door. My mother follows me into the driveway, hovering nearby while I yank on my bicycle helmet and check the pressure of my bicycle tires.

"Why don't you stick around for dinner?" she asks. "I'm making lasagna with some of that crusty bread you like."

She's trying to bribe me with my favorite meal, like I'm Julian or something.

"No thanks."

"Where are you going?"

"Out. Don't wait up."

She tilts her head. "But it'll be dark soon, sweetheart."

"What? Are you afraid I think that evil thrives in the darkness? That my enemies are out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for their moment?"

"Do you?" Empathy shines out of her eyes, the way it had last night when she theorized how alike we were. "Should I make an appointment for you to talk to someone?"

"No."

Priority number one is getting the hell away from her. Hopping on my bicycle, I coast down the driveway and turn toward town.

"Be careful out there," my mother calls after me.

I pedal faster, putting distance between us before I retort something like _Nobody with pasty skin is getting near my neck!_

Halfway to town, a car horn blares. An expensive-looking red convertible zips by me, close enough to touch. I jerk my bike wheel to the right so I'm riding nearer to the shoulder of the road. The car takes the turnoff to the Estates at Ocean Breeze.

"Go back to where you came from!"

The driver can't hear me, but I feel a little better.

Midway Beach is small enough that there's nowhere else to go except the boardwalk, a half-mile stretch of mostly restaurants and souvenir shops. I'm way more likely to find answers there than I am sitting in the house. If only I can figure out how to ask my friends if they'd seen any suspicious-looking clowns lately.

I chain up my bike and start walking. The tourists are out, like an invasion of ants. Most of the faces I pass are unfamiliar. None are slathered with white makeup. People my age hang out either at the arcade or the carnival. I reach the arcade first.

It's at least as old as I am. The majority of the video games are throwbacks, like Midway Beach itself. Pacman, Frogger, Galaga. When I was a kid, my dad used to challenge me to a game of Skeeball every Sunday. I thrust aside the memory, shove through the doors and hit something solid.

"Ow!" someone yells. Not just anyone. Hunter Prescott. He hops back on one foot with his hand covering one of the most perfect noses God ever gave out.

"Your poor nose! I'm so sorry!"

"Ish okay." He speaks through a long-fingered hand as flawless as the rest of him. He's six feet two of perfection, all lean muscle, golden-brown hair and striking blue eyes that at the moment are narrowed and crinkled at the corners.

In the hand not covering his nose are a couple of wedges used to prop open the doors and let in the ocean air once the heat of the day has passed.

"It's not okay," I say above the mechanical noises, music and hum of conversation that fill the arcade. Later tonight when it gets crowded, it'll be almost impossible to hear.

"I'm fine. Look." He drops his hand. His nose is red but as long and straight as before, thank God. He looks even hotter than he did the night we took in one of the _Paranormal Activity_ movies, then walked along the beach. At night. In early February. I was so nervous wondering if he'd kiss me that I planted one on him first.

That kiss is the best thing that's happened to me all year.

"You sure you're okay?" I touch his arm. God, he smells good. Like a strong, masculine soap. "Can I get you something? An ice pack maybe?"

He lowers his right leg so both his feet are on the ground and winces. It's still possible I've broken his toe.

"I could kick myself for not paying attention to where I was going," I say.

"Don't do that. Wouldn't want to bruish those pretty legsh."

Hunter's noticed my legs? They're strong and toned, a soccer player's legs. He's smiling and looking into my eyes, the way he did on the beach after we kissed. I've been waiting since our date for him to look at me like that again.

"I wouldn't really kick myself. I mean, that would be pretty stupid."

Kind of like that comment.

"Good," he says, still smiling.

"I'm not usually such a klutz."

"You've got a lot of things on your mind."

"Come again?"

"Yesterday." He cocks an eyebrow. "The funhouse. I heard about the bloodcurdling scream."

My face burns like I've spent hours too long in the sun. "I guess Lacey told you."

"Lacey?" Hunter's perfectly shaped eyebrows shoot up. "What would she know about it?"

No point in explaining I was trying to rescue his cousin when he didn't even know she'd needed rescuing. "How'd you hear, then?"

A couple arcade employees are across the aisle, beside the row of pinball machines. One of them is Porter McRoy, a guy so clueless he doesn't seem to realize Becky is nuts about him. Or maybe he's shy. He graduated with us but I've hardly ever heard his voice. The other employee has arms covered with tattoos. He says something to Porter and nods at me. They both stare. Then I get it. The Mouth of Midway Beach has struck again.

"I'm gonna let Maia have it."

"Don't be too hard on her. She's worried about you. We all are." Hunter is no longer smiling. "How ya doin'? You know, since that thing last winter."

It's the first time he's brought up the forty-eight hours I lost. Not surprising. I can count on one hand the number of times Hunter's said anything at all to me since February.

"I'm fine." I'm not sure if I'm trying to reassure Hunter or myself, maybe a little of both.

"I hope you are." He lowers his head. "Hey, if you need someone to talk to, call my aunt. I should have told you about her before. She's in practice with two other women. Their website is psychthree.com."

The aunt he lives with is a psychiatrist. The only way this could get worse is if my mother made an appointment for me with her. I shift my weight from one _pretty_ leg to the other. Hunter's gaze doesn't dip.

Maia comes toward us, long black hair swinging behind her with a yellow chrysanthemum tucked behind her right ear. The yellow T-shirt the arcade employees wear is even uglier than the orange carnival T-shirt. Her skin looks sallow in the artificial arcade lighting. "Oh, hey, Jade."

She sounds irritated. It takes me a moment to remember her outburst. Did that really happen only yesterday?

Maia turns to Hunter, her face a cool mask. She's always annoyed at him. She and Hunter were an item back in the eleventh grade when he first moved to town. Their relationship only lasted a few months before she dumped him for reasons unknown. Since then, she barely speaks to him, except, it seems, to spread gossip about me. "Adair's almost an hour late. Is she still sick?"

My onetime friend Adair Adams is Hunter's current girlfriend. They've been dating since shortly after I gushed to her about that kiss on the beach.

"No clue," Hunter says.

"Her home phone went to voicemail."

"Yeah, she never answers that one. And her parents are vacationing in Europe."

"I couldn't get her on her cell, either."

"She might have it turned off," Hunter says. "She does that sometimes."

"I'll cover for her this time but she's on her own if it happens again. Tell her that, okay?" Maia stomps away without waiting for a response.

Hunter finishes propping open the doors, securing them with the wedges.

The breeze from the ocean seems to blow right through me. It's not cold, but I shiver. "When was the last time anyone saw Adair?"

His shoulders move up and down. "I don't know."

"When was the last time _you_ saw her?"

"About noon yesterday, I guess. We both had the day shift. She went home sick after a couple hours."

"So she's missing?"

Like I was for those forty-eight hours.

"Whoa." Hunter puts up a hand. "I wouldn't go that far."

"But if she's feeling crappy, shouldn't she be at home? How do you know if she even got there?" I pull my cell from the pocket of my shorts. "Someone needs to track her down and make sure she's safe. I think I've still got her number in here."

"She won't answer," he says. "Like I said, I think she turned off her cell. She does that when she's playing hard to get. She was never sick, okay? She left work because we had a fight."

That puts a different spin on things but only slightly. The fact remains that nobody has seen Adair in more than twenty-four hours. "Where is she then?"

"She texted me yesterday that she was going to her dad's cabin."

A chill rattles through me. I know of the cabin. When Adair and I were friends, we'd gone there together once when her father asked her to bring him the bowhunting gear he'd forgotten. It was about thirty miles northwest of Midway Beach in a coastal forest called Wilder Woods.

The memory of the wet, earthy smell that filled my nostrils when the hood slipped off comes back to me. The smell could have been drifting from a swamp, like the ones that populate Wilder Woods.

"Why would she go there?" I ask. "It's in the middle of nowhere."

"I don't know why Adair does what Adair does."

"Did you check to make sure she was there?"

"Nope. I'm not going to, either."

"But..." I stop myself before I ask what if someone besides Adair sent the text. "What if she's not at the cabin?"

"Then she's not at the cabin."

The entire scenario doesn't sit right. When I was gone for those forty-eight hours, my friends and family weren't out looking for me either because of texts I hadn't sent.

"Adair's not missing, Jade." Hunter's voice cuts into my thoughts. His eyes bore into mine. "You understand that, right?"

If I argue, he'll join the legions of other people in town who think I'm crazy. That is, if he doesn't think so already.

"Of course I do." I hope my smile hides what I'm really thinking. "It's just Adair being Adair."

"Exactly." The tension seems to drain out of him.

That's because he doesn't know I'm heading to Wilder Woods as soon as we're through talking. I owe it to myself to find out if the clown has struck again.
CHAPTER SIX

Guilt has something to do with Becky surrendering the keys to her Honda Fit without a fight. She's working the carnival tonight so I make the argument that she doesn't need it. The real clincher is that her parents presented her with the cute, pint-sized car for high school graduation while I got only enough money to buy bicycle brake pads.

I feel guilty, too. To convince Becky to let me borrow the Fit, I told her a movie theater thirty miles away is hosting a Horror Spectacular. That's actually true. I'm just not going.

The road narrows to two lanes when I get to the Midway Beach suburbs. A car that looks suspiciously like my mother's blue Chevy pops up in my rearview mirror.

"You've got to be kidding me," I say aloud.

Mom could be headed to a real estate listing, but I don't buy that for a second. I thought I'd seen her lurking around the carnival shortly before we closed. Now I'm sure of it.

I press my foot down on the accelerator, jerk the Fit over the double yellow line and pass two cars. One of the drivers shoots me the bird. The other lays on his horn. When I've covered enough distance that I'm fairly certain I'm out of mom's sight line, I pull into a gas station and circle around back of the building that houses a convenience store.

Minutes later, the car that looked familiar whizzes by. My mother isn't driving.

"Oh, great." I shut my eyes tight and knead my forehead. "Now I'm the one imagining people are following me."

I gather myself, pull out of the gas station parking lot and put on my favorite indie rock radio station to soothe myself. A half-hour later I'm at the edge of the coastal forest. Wilder Woods consists of more than one hundred acres of spindly pine trees, saltwater estuaries and raised swamps. My memory's fuzzy on the exact location of the cabin so I drive blind, taking a few wrong turns before spotting a dirt service road that looks familiar.

A sign reads: No Trespassing. Private Hunting Land.

I take the turnoff, and the tires of the Fit start a bumpy ride over a pitted dirt road flanked by thick vegetation. Dusk has fallen, covering everything in gloom. Even if it hadn't been for the overhanging branches, it's overcast and there's no natural light from the stars or the moon. The car's headlights are the only thing preventing total darkness.

I remember Adair saying her father used the cabin almost every weekend during hunting season, which I'm pretty sure is in the fall and the spring depending on what game you're hunting. In the summer and winter, there isn't much reason to come to Wilder Woods, although some troubled people make a one-way trip. About ten years ago a country singer with a cult following shot himself in the head near Heron Lake. Since Cam Stokes died, a half-dozen people have committed suicide the same way.

The cabin sits on a crest at the end of the road. I've already decided to make a U-turn if it's abandoned, but a pickup truck like the one Adair's dad drives is parked out front. Adair probably borrowed the pickup because it's easier going on the bumpy dirt road.

No lights shine inside the cabin, but this isn't the big city. Power lines don't run through the forest. Outdoorsmen have all kinds of ways to light a room. At least, I think they do. Adair could have picked up a few tricks.

I pull the Honda Fit to a stop beside the pickup, leaving the headlights shining on the cabin flanked by tall trees. It reminds me of the cabin in _Evil Dead_. Great. An irrational fear of trees would really add to my life.

It's so dark that without the headlights I might not even see an evil thing if Adair was stupid enough to summon monsters. Flashlight. I need a flashlight.

"No shit, Sherlock," I mutter. "So why didn't I think of it before now?"

Maybe Becky keeps one in the glove box, though. With the car still running, I lean over, open Becky's glove box and rummage through it. My fingers close around something smooth and cylindrical. A pocket-size flashlight. I flick the switch to turn it on. Nothing happens.

Great. Now what?

Should I lay on the horn until Adair comes out to check who her visitor is? Tempting, but she might stay in the house out of spite if she figures out it's me. If, that is, she's in the house and not tied up in a field.

I need to make sure she's okay, flashlight or no flashlight. It's not fully dark yet, and I've got twenty-twenty vision. Surely I can see well enough to reach the front door. Turning the headlights off, I get out of the car and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. After a few moments, I can sort of see.

Fine gravel is sprinkled over the makeshift dirt driveway. My tennis shoes make crunching noises, disrupting silence so absolute it seems as though even the insects have stopped buzzing. The air has that musty smell that signals a swamp is nearby.

My knock echoes in the forest on the solid front door of the cabin. Ten seconds pass without an answer. Twenty. Thirty. I knock again. Still no one comes.

A window a few feet from the door is at about waist level high. A gap in the curtain allows me to see part of the front room. Adair isn't lying on the floor in a pool of blood, not that I expect her to be. Well, not really.

Now what? I hadn't thought about what I'd do if Adair wasn't in the cabin. Traipsing around the woods in the gathering dark to make sure she isn't tied up somewhere doesn't seem terribly bright.

What's Adair doing out here in the first place? Doesn't she know it's dangerous for a young woman to go off by herself? It's the premise of about a million horror movies. If somebody managed to grab me in the two blocks between Becky's house and mine, they'd have no problem snatching a female by herself in a dark forest.

Oh, shit.

Something cries out in the darkness. Not a person. Maybe an owl. Or a hawk before it strikes its prey. I wrap my arms around myself. Did hawks announce their deadly intentions or did they launch sneak attacks, like a person up to no good?

A crunching noise. Like twigs snapping and leaves rustling. Something is walking through the thick underbrush. Foxes and wild turkeys live in the forest but this sounds like something bigger. It could be a bear or a deer, both of which will be fair game come fall hunting season.

Or it could be a person.

My gasp catches in my throat as I struggle not to be paranoid. My mother's the one who's paranoid. The most logical explanation is that it's Adair, returning from a walk.

Cupping my hands over my mouth, I turn in the direction of the crunching sounds and yell, "Adair? Is that you?"

Silence. Whatever was moving through the forest is still now, perhaps waiting to strike. Like the Deadites lying in wait until one of the teens ventured into the night.

I need to stop watching so many horror movies.

I also need to get out of here.

Becky's Fit is parked closer to the cabin than the pickup. Whatever is in the forest is farther away. My heart pumps and adrenalin rushes through my veins. I go from a standstill to all out running in seconds, turning the corner to get to the driver's door of the Fit.

The soles of my tennis shoes slip and slide on the gravel. Desperately trying to catch my balance, I slam into the pickup's passenger door.

My face comes up flush against the window. Inside, on the front seat, is a burnt orange backpack. A rifle leans against the seat.

Adair's father hunts, I think, with a gun as well as a bow and arrow. I've heard Adair go on and on, though, about how she could never shoot a defenseless animal. She wouldn't drive around with a rifle even if she was using her father's pickup. But what's to say this is her father's pickup?

My breathing comes in short, audible gasps. There's another sound, too. The footsteps have started up again.

I right myself and stumble toward the Fit. Something's missing. The keys. I've dropped the keys.

I bend over and squint, trying to pick out the metallic glint of the keys. It's darker now than when I arrived. The loblolly pines surrounding the clearing cast long shadows that make it seem more like night than dusk.

The crunching noise is getting louder.

I crouch down so whoever's coming can't see me. The darkness seems more absolute at ground level. I feel around for the keys, the palms of my hand scraping over the fine gravel. Something jangles, and I close my fingers over the keys.

The footsteps get louder, then stop. My relief gives way to panic. Whatever was in the woods is on the other side of the pickup. I don't have a prayer of getting inside the Fit and starting the engine before it's on me.

But I won't go meekly into the night. Not this time.

After my reappearance, Becky signed both of us up for a self-defense class for women, thinking it would make me feel safer. It seems to me the instructor said something about using keys as a weapon. Yes. You hold them between your fingers so one of the keys protrudes.

The footsteps start again. I pray they're not being made by giant clown shoes, get the keys ready and leap to my feet. Instead of the clown, a man comes around the car.

"Stop right there! I have a weapon."

He freezes. Both of his hands raise in the accepted gesture of surrender. "Don't shoot!" His head cocks to the side. "Wait a minute. Are those keys?"

"So what if they are?" If I wasn't under stress, I'd have a better comeback than that.

He drops his hands. "Keys aren't a weapon."

"They will be if you get any closer." I wave the keys like I'm wielding a sword. "I'll gouge you."

"Why would you do that?"

He doesn't sound dangerous. Now that I can make out his features in the darkness, he doesn't look it, either. He's about my age, on the tall side with a lean build that reminds me of the guys in high school who ran track. His hair is so dark it blends into the night but his face is pale. Maybe I'm wrong about him not being dangerous. Maybe he's a vampire.

There is no maybe about me watching too many horror movies.

"What have you done with Adair?" I demand.

"I don't know anybody by that name."

"Her father owns this cabin. You're trespassing on his property."

"Are you trespassing?"

"What?"

"Were you invited?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Then we're even."

"No. We're not even. I'm up here to check on Adair and you're not."

"You a friend of hers?"

I can't make myself nod. "I wouldn't go that far."

"Sounds like trespassing to me."

"You're twisting things around. I'm here to make sure Adair's okay."

"Your _non-friend_ Adair?"

"That's right."

"Why wouldn't she be okay?"

I'm definitely not telling him about clowns snatching people off the street. "You ask a lot of questions. My turn. What are you doing here?"

He hesitates. "Scouting. Deer season starts in a few months. It was on my way so I figured why not?"

"On your way where?"

"Could you stop waving those keys at me like I'm a serial killer?"

His words, not mine. I hadn't even considered that possibility. I back toward the Honda Fit, keys still set to gash him. I keep my eyes glued to him and feel around with my free hand for the door handle. When the door's open, I repeat my question. "On your way where?"

Again, he hesitates. "On my way to the beach."

I don't believe him. I don't believe anything he's said. If I could make out his features in the darkness, he'd probably be smirking.

No matter how long I stand out here, though, he won't tell me the truth of why he's here.

"Yeah, right," I say so he knows I'm not stupid.

I slip inside the car, lock the doors and turn the key in the ignition. The car engine turns over and I back up, making sure my headlights shine on the back of the truck.

It has a North Carolina license plate. I repeat the series of letters and numbers out loud, committing them to memory. If something's happened to Adair, I can direct the police to a suspect.

The stranger steps into the artificial light where his dark hair and pale skin look even more dramatic.

He blows me a kiss.
CHAPTER SEVEN

The next morning, I pad down the hall barefoot to the bathroom after rousting myself from a restless sleep. I dreamed the clown was chasing me with a syringe. The guy from the coastal forest stood by, arms folded over his chest, waiting to see if I could get away. The prize for escaping was his kiss.

Voices drift from the kitchen. One of them belongs to my mother. The other is as sweet as corn syrup and as high-pitched as a little girl's. Except it doesn't belong to a child.

It belongs to Adair.

My blood pumps so hard I won't even need my morning caffeine fix. Ducking into the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and run a brush across my teeth. Then I practically sprint toward the kitchen.

"You look great, Mrs. G," Adair's voice drifts down the hall. "That suit is like so pretty. When did you say you came back to Midway Beach?"

"A few weeks ago."

"I can't believe I didn't know you were back."

"I can't believe how grown-up you are. You're stunning."

I reach the archway to the kitchen and pause. My mother sits catty-corner from a too-familiar blonde at the kitchen table, each of them with their hands wrapped around a mug of coffee.

Yep, it's Adair all right. Guess I won't be calling the cops to report her missing.

Mom's head swivels in my direction. "There you are, Jade. I was about to wake you. Adair stopped by to see you. Isn't that nice?"

"Hey, Jade." Adair gives me a sunny smile. She's nearly six feet tall with high cheekbones, a wide mouth and short, dyed blond hair she gels into tufts. In the last year, she's probably dropped about twenty pounds, making her model thin. Her look is unusual enough that heads turn when she walks by. This morning she wears short shorts and a cute white top.

I wish I'd taken the time to change from the oversized T-shirt I sleep in. "What the hell are you doing here, Adair?"

"Ja-ade!" My mother makes it sound like my name has two syllables. "There's no need to be rude."

My mom doesn't know about Adair's betrayal, but it still ticks me off that she's leaping to her defense. "Adair and I aren't friends anymore."

"That's what I came over to talk about." Adair sounds sweet and innocent, the way she always does. Not once, in the months since she betrayed me, has she changed her tune.

"In that case, I'll leave you two girls alone." Mom stands up. Her suit is an unusual color. Turquoise, I think you'd call it. Adair's right. It does flatter her. "Landon should be here any minute to pick me up."

"Uncle Landon? You're shitting me."

Landon Guerard isn't really my uncle, but I was probably in grade school before I realized that. He and my stepdad are as close as brothers. Correction. They used to be close.

"Jade, watch your language," Mom warns, waving a finger. "I took my car in yesterday to have some work done, and Landon's giving me a ride to the shop."

"Yeah. But why him?"

Late last year my stepfather and Uncle Landon had a falling-out around the time Uncle Landon's wife lost her battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. Still, with all that history between them, I expected Uncle Landon to represent Dad when he got in trouble. He didn't do a damn thing even though he was a criminal defense attorney before he retired early to buy a surf shop.

"It's time bygones were bygones," she says.

The doorbell rings and there's the sound of the creaky front door opening before a slightly nasal voice calls, "Hello. The cavalry's arrived."

"In the kitchen, Landon," my mom replies.

Uncle Landon strides into the room, acting perfectly at home, the way he used to back when he and my stepdad were still friends. He's maybe five feet seven on a good day. I used to think his addiction to keeping in shape had something to do with his lack of height, but he's developed a paunch since I'd last seen him many months ago.

"Hey, there, Lizzie." He rubs my mother's shoulder as he passes her and stops in front of me. "Jade, honey! You look more and more like your beautiful mother every day." He smiles at Adair. "Speaking of beauty, I'm surrounded by it."

Adair giggles. "Hey, Mr. Guerard. You're a charmer."

"I try to be." Uncle Landon focuses on me. "How have you been, Jade?"

"Where have _you_ been?" I'm not about to forgive him for abandoning my stepdad as easily as my mother has.

"We should get going, Landon," my mother says before he can answer. "Jade, Julian's in his room and Suri spent last night with a friend. She'll be with her all day. You're working tonight, right?"

I'm so miffed at her for interrupting that I don't answer.

"Jade?" she persists. "I asked you a question."

"Yeah, I'll be at the carnival if you want to stop by and lurk in the shadows."

"Good to know." She picks up her purse, her expression innocent.

Uncle Landon crosses to her side, like they're a damn couple. "Catch you later, girls."

"Have a great day, sweetheart," Mom addresses me before beaming at Adair. "Nice seeing you again, Adair."

"You too, Mrs. G." Adair gives my mother a jaunty wave.

The comment my mom made a few minutes ago about bygones could apply to what Adair did to me, but the hell with that. As soon as I hear the door open and close, I say, "You can fool my mom with your Miss Innocent act but not me."

"And here I thought both of you were bat-shit crazy," Adair spits out, her perpetual sunny smile gone.

"Don't talk about my mother that way."

"Why not? Everybody knows she's nuts. The same way they know you're nuts."

"That's funny." I tap a finger against my mouth. " _Some people_ only believe I'm nuts because of what _you_ told them."

After I lost those forty-eight hours, multiple friends let me know they heard Adair warn Hunter that I was having a breakdown. Supposedly she'd convinced him there was a danger that I'd become violent. Within a week, Adair was going out with him herself.

Adair's stare is cold. "I only told the truth."

"What are you doing here, Adair?" I demand.

"I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday."

"What I said to Hunter? Is that a joke?"

"Listen to me, bitch. I won't let you steal my boyfriend."

I take a few steps toward her. "You mean the boyfriend you stole from me?"

"Hunter was never your boyfriend. You went out with him _once_."

"You were my friend, Adair." My hands clench at my sides. "You knew how I felt about him. You slept with him, anyway."

"I won't apologize because Hunter likes me better."

"You threw yourself at him." I'd heard from a half dozen people who'd been at the party where they hooked up that Adair was on Hunter like a tick on a deer. "What guy turns down sex?"

"What guy wants to go out with a nut job?" she shoots back.

_Nut job, nut job, nut job_.

I open my mouth to refute her but the denial dies on my lips. "Get out of here, Adair."

"I'm not finished." Her face is pinched and hateful. "I want to know what you said to Hunter yesterday at the arcade."

I shake my head and mutter, "I can't believe I went out to your dad's cabin to check on you."

"Is that why Hunter didn't come to the cabin? Because you went instead?"

"You were there?"

"Of course I was. It's where Hunter and I..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but it's easy enough to fill in the blanks. The cabin is where she and Hunter get it on.

"Nobody was there at eight o'clock."

Nobody, that is, except the guy with the black hair and the suspicious story.

"I left before then."

Hunter worked the early shift at the arcade yesterday. Adair must have stuck around only until she figured Hunter wasn't coming.

"So what did you say to Hunter?" Her glare is as hot as the Carolina sun.

"Why don't you already know? Doesn't Hunter share things with you?"

"What did you say to him?" she demands.

"I said I can't believe he's going out with such a slut."

She jumps up from the kitchen chair, her hand inadvertently hitting the coffee cup and knocking it over. She closes the distance and looms over me, shaking her finger in my face. "This isn't over, bitch. If you cross me again, it'll be the last thing you do."

"Are you threatening me?"

She shoves a finger into my breastbone, and I bat it away.

"What do you think?" I can smell the coffee on her breath. "Even somebody as crazy as you should be able to figure that one out."

She storms out of the kitchen and through the house, slamming the front door behind her. Brakes screech as Adair pulls her car out of the driveway and speeds off down the street. Strange. Adair's older sister was speeding last year when she lost control and hit a tree. She'd been lucky to escape with her life. Back when we hung out, Adair was always lecturing whoever was driving about going too fast.

The entire scene had been out of character. Even when Adair said something mean, it was in that molasses-sweet voice. But then, I've known for a while now that Adair is hiding her true nature.

To think I was actually worried that whoever took me to that forest had gotten Adair, too. I mean, really. That's the definition of a nut job.
CHAPTER EIGHT

When I report for work the next afternoon, it's all over the carnival that Adair and Hunter are taking a break.

"It was totally his idea," Maia tells me.

She's the reason the news has spread. Maia's working at the arcade tonight, but the two venues are close enough that she can dash back and forth when she's on break. The gossip is so juicy that she seems to have forgotten she was angry with me.

"He's tired of her shit," Maia is whispering, but the carnival hasn't gotten cranked up yet so I can hear her fine.

I'm using sanitizing wipes on the Kiddie Land motorcycle ride, my first assignment of the day. I pause and give Maia my full attention. I had the pretty strong impression she only talked to Hunter on an as-needed basis. "Hunter told you this?"

"Adair did."

"Adair used those words? That Hunter was tired of her shit?"

"She should have. She texted him that she was at her dad's cabin. When he didn't come out to be with her, she let him have it. I guess usually he takes it. This time he didn't."

"I'm surprised she told you that."

Maia adjusts the yellow chrysanthemum in her hair. "Why's that?"

"She's usually pretty secretive."

Maia shrugs. "I guess she needed somebody to talk to."

So she picked the biggest gossip in Midway Beach?

"Did Adair seem... different to you?" I ask.

"Hell, yeah. I've never seen her so mad in my life."

Not counting this morning in my kitchen, I'd never heard her raise her voice.

"But then, she's never been dumped before," Maia adds.

"I thought you said Hunter and Adair were taking a break."

"Taking a break is what guys say when they don't want their girlfriend to go ballistic because they're dumping her." Maia wrinkles her nose. "Why are you so interested in Adair anyway? Are you still hung up on Hunter?"

Like I'm going to admit that to the Mouth of Midway Beach.

"Of course not." Time to switch subjects. "How long is your break, anyway? Don't you need to be getting back?"

She pulls out her cell phone and checks the time. "Shit! I'm outta here."

She takes off running in the direction of the arcade, weaving her way through the sparse crowd. At this time of the late afternoon, people are still enjoying the sun and the sand and the ocean. Business won't pick up until after dinner time.

I wipe down another miniature motorcycle, spending extra time on the rubber horn. When I straighten, I glimpse a flash of turquoise through the Fun Slide and the Dragon Wagon.

The same shade as my mother's suit.

"Son of a bitch." I jog toward the entrance to Kiddie Land and spot the woman in turquoise walking briskly away from the carnival. This time I'm not imagining things. Even from behind, I can tell it's my mother.

If she truly believes I might be schizophrenic, why is she keeping tabs on me? Could it be that I was right in the first place? That she thinks her enemies might now be mine? Of course, Mom never had any enemies. I'm the only one who does.

The blood rushes from my head when I realize how irrational that sounds. I walk over to the motorcycle ride on wobbly legs, sink into the stool beside it and lower my head beneath my heart. Mom isn't the only one who thinks something is wrong with me. After I lost the forty-eight hours, Aunt Carol made an appointment for me to see a psychiatrist but I refused to go.

_There's nothing wrong with me_ , I insisted. The same thing I said to my mother when she advanced the theory that I could be taking after her.

"Hey, Jade," Becky calls. "Are you okay?"

I make my lips curve upward and lift my head, intending to tell her I'm fine. The words never make it past my lips. Walking alongside Becky is a guy with black hair and pale skin who's wearing the orange T-shirt of a carnival worker.

Not just any guy. The guy from the coastal forest.

"You don't look so great," Becky says. "Want me to get you some water or something?"

It's too much of a coincidence that the dark-haired stranger who was skulking around the coastal forest one day turns up at the Midway Beach carnival the next. From the half-grin on his face, he knows that.

"No, I'm good." I struggle to appear normal. "Just resting up before the rush."

"Okay." Becky isn't convinced, but she won't call me out in front of a stranger. "Jade, this is Max Harper. He's gonna be on rides. I'm showing him the ropes. Max, this is Jade."

In the daylight, he looks even better than he did last night in the gloom. His body is lean but surprisingly muscular. His black hair is thick, his cheekbones sharp and his eyes a clear blue. His nose isn't quite as perfect as Hunter Prescott's but his mouth would be better if not for his smirk.

Max Harper's blue, blue eyes meet mine and dance. "Nice to meet you, Jade."

So that's how we're going to play this. "I'm surprised I haven't seen you before. Are you from around here?"

"Nope. Came here for the job."

A job that pays minimum wage. Like that makes sense. "Where are you staying?"

"I got me a place."

Not many people our age have enough money to rent something while making so little. "With a roommate or by yourself?"

"By myself."

"Where is it?'

Becky laughs uncomfortably. "What is this, Jade? Twenty questions. Give the guy a break."

Max winks at me, the same way he'd winked when I drove away from the cabin in the forest before he'd blown me that kiss. "If you'd like, you can come over sometime and see it yourself."

I meet his gaze. "I would like."

"Great." His smile, not a half-grin this time, lights up his face. "I'll get back to you on that."

"You be sure to do that."

Behind Max's back, Becky lifts her hands and raises her eyebrows in the time-old gesture to indicate she doesn't know what's going on.

Neither do I, but I intend to find out.
CHAPTER NINE

By the next night, I'm sick of hearing about how hot the new guy is. It'd be different if somebody had the scoop on him. His eyes resembling the color of the Caribbean doesn't count.

"Can we talk about something besides Max Harper, Becks?"

The carnival's closed for the night, and we're walking along the boardwalk headed for a party taking place under the pier. Once or twice a week, word spreads like a zombie infestation that the gang is gathering. Maia's usually the one announcing the news. Today, I heard it from everybody except Maia, but that could be because she remembered she was mad at me.

"How about that Black Widow?" Becky asks.

Constance Hightower didn't show up for a court appearance this morning in Wilmington. Speculation is rampant that she's run off with what money of Boris's she can get her hands on. The media is reporting the children of the late, lamented Boris Hightower are furious that Constance was let out on bail. They're afraid she'll get away with murder.

"I'm sick of hearing about her, too."

"Okay, then let's go back to Max. I'm still trying to figure out why you invited yourself over to his place when you'd barely met the guy?"

"I already told you, I want to see what he can afford on our measly salary."

"Because you're thinking of moving out of your house?"

"That's right."

"I don't buy it." She has to take three steps to my two to keep up with me. "Living with your mom sucks but you won't have the money to move out while you're going to community college."

"Who says I'm going?"

"You've gotta go," Becky wails. "If your grades are good enough, after two years you can transfer to UNC and we can still be roommates."

Becky had been accepted to UNC less than a week after I'd been offered the scholarship. We'd sent in our applications for housing at the same time, requesting each other as roommates. For a solid week, we'd planned how to decorate our dorm room, right down to the horror movie posters on the wall.

All our plans had blown up when senior year grades came out and UNC took back my scholarship and with it my future.

"Let's not talk about college," I say.

"Okay. We'll discuss college later. After we finish talking about Max."

"We weren't talking about Max. _You_ were. I think we should talk about Porter McRoy. Any progress on that front?"

"None. Talk about shy. I can barely get a word out of him. No wonder I didn't notice how cute he was until senior year."

"Maybe he'll be at the party."

She noisily blows out a stream of air. "And maybe one of the helicopters on that ride in Kiddie Land will take off and fly."

"You might have to ask him out."

"Possibly. But it would mean so much more if he asked me." Becky bumps my shoulder playfully. "Isn't that what you're hoping will happen tonight with Max?"

Since Becky introduced us yesterday, our paths haven't intersected. Somehow Becky's figured out the main reason I suggested going to the party under the pier is that I heard Max would be there. It's not exactly a lie to confirm I'd like some one-on-one time with him.

"Okay. Yeah."

"I knew it!" Becky exclaims. "Was it really so hard to admit you're hot for him?"

Becky almost never tries to pry things out of me. Because I tell her everything, there's no need. I'd like to spill about Max lurking in the forest, but something holds me back.

"This is so great." Becky claps. "So you're over Hunter?"

This, I couldn't mislead her about. "I wouldn't go that far."

"Max is just as good-looking as Hunter, and he's never gone out with Adair," she points out.

Max is talking to Adair when we arrive, though. It's low tide and the two of them are standing in the sand beside a pillar amid a dozen or so teenagers, her blonde head cocked toward his dark one. In the forest, Max claimed he didn't know Adair. Yet it doesn't look as though they're strangers.

Some of our friends are drinking beer, but I'm not even tempted. Why waste calories on something that's both illegal and bitter tasting? Becky's driving. She snags us a couple Diet Cokes.

"Let's make sure Adair doesn't get your man before you do." She grabs me by the hand and heads straight for Adair and Max. I hear pieces of conversations as we weave through the crowd, most of them about the missing Black Widow. Becky turns back to me when we're halfway there with a mischievous smile on her face. "Watch this."

Her meaning becomes clear pretty quick.

"Hey, Max, Adair." Becky doesn't let go of my hand until we're standing in front of them. "I've been looking all over for Hunter. Have either of you seen him?"

"I don't even know who Hunter is," Max says, answering Becky but keeping his eyes glued on me. A corner of his mouth elevates.

"Adair's boyfriend," Becky says. "Do you know where he is, Adair?"

Adair's smile looks frozen. "No clue."

"So it's true you two are taking a break?" Becky asks. "I'd heard that but I didn't know whether to believe it."

"It's true," Adair says, still in a voice that sounds dipped in sugar.

"What kind of a break?" Becky asks. "I mean, are you seeing other people?"

"Why do you need to know that?" Finally. The sugar's dissolving.

" _I_ don't need to know, but Max might."

He laughs, a rich sound that rumbles like the ocean waves. "Nothing's going on between Adair and me. Right, Adair?"

"Right," Adair says. What other response can she give? "Jade, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Before I can say anything, Adair grabs me by the upper arm and guides me away from Max and Becky. She gives me the evil eye from her lofty height.

"You're not fooling me, bitch," she bites out. "I know you put your little friend Becky up to that."

"Up to what?"

"Don't play dumb with me. You must have your eye on Max yourself." She laughs. "Poor pathetic Jade. Go for it. But know this. If I want Max, I can have him. Just like I have Hunter."

"Had." I can't keep quiet when she gave me an opening a giant mutant bug could walk through. "You _had_ Hunter."

"We'll see about that." She spins away from me and stalks off, sand kicking up behind her.

Nothing is left for me to do but return to Max and Becky. As soon as I join them, Becky looks pointedly around. "I see someone I need to talk to. Catch you later."

She leaves us alone in what has to count as one of the most manufactured exits of all time.

"What was that about?" Max asks.

"She thinks I've got a thing for you."

The second corner of his mouth lifts to join the first in a full-fledged smile. "I like the sound of that."

"Don't get excited. It's not true. I only wanted to get you alone."

He sidles closer to me. "You can have me anywhere you want me."

I move back. "To talk. About what a coincidence it is that you turn up in Midway Beach a day after we run into each other in the coastal forest."

"I told you I was on the way to my summer job."

"Next you'll say you just happened to run into Adair, the very girl whose father owns the property where you were trespassing."

"That is a coincidence." His expression doesn't change.

"What were you doing out there, Max? If Max is your real name."

He, too, is drinking Coke. But full-flavored, not diet. He takes a long swallow before he answers. "I don't get why you're so suspicious." He pauses. "Unless it has something to do with what happened to you last winter."

"How do you know about that?" My tone is sharp.

"I've been working the carnival for two days. People talk."

"Don't believe everything you hear."

"I don't," he says. "So why don't you tell me yourself what happened?"

I look around. More people are arriving by the moment. Many of them are within hearing range. Across the party, Becky catches my eye and gives me two thumbs up.

"Not here," he says. "Let's walk on the beach."

I should know better than to go off with a stranger I don't trust. This is the part of the movie where I'm declaring the heroine too stupid to live and throwing popcorn at the screen.

"C'mon." He cocks his head toward the ocean. "You tell me your story, I'll tell you mine."

It's too tempting to resist. "Let me tell Becky where I'm going."

"Tell her I'll drive you home."

"I'll tell her to wait for me."

He salutes me. "You're the boss."

The temperature of the ocean water is nearly as warm as the night air. The surf teases my bare feet, the water advancing and retreating as we walk alongside each other. The clouds that had delivered some early morning showers had lingered all day and into the night. The moon isn't visible and neither are the stars.

I'm carrying my flip-flops. If he tries anything, they're my only weapon.

"Any time you're ready to start," Max says, "I'm listening."

"What did you hear?"

He scratches the side of his nose. "I heard about your dad. That's a bum deal. I'm sorry."

Unexpected tears prick the backs of my eyes. I blink them back. " _Stepdad_. No reason to be sorry. He was guilty."

"I didn't mean sorry for him," Max says. "I meant sorry for you. It can't be easy having him in prison."

I blink again, not trusting myself to respond to that. "What else did you hear?"

"That after he pleaded guilty, you don't remember anything that happened for two days."

I kick at the water and it sprays in an arc. "Not bad for gossip."

"So those days you don't remember," he says. "Where do you think you were?"

"Roxy Cooper says I was with her on a ski trip."

"Yeah, I heard she said you don't remember going with her because you hit your head. Kind of hard to buy." He pauses, and the roar of the ocean fills my ears. "She's a strange lady. Why would you go anywhere with her?"

He actually gets it. "Exactly."

"What do you think really happened?"

The question seems innocent, but I've lived near the ocean long enough to know that unseen currents lurk beneath the surface. He could be trying to lull me into trusting him with my secrets.

"Do you think someone abducted you and held you against your will?" he prods.

"Something like that."

"Who?"

"Beats me. For all I know, it could have been an evil clown." I'm not sure why I recklessly throw that out there. Maybe to see his reaction. There is none. Sighing, I say, "You got any ideas?"

"What would I know about it?"

"You seem awfully interested for a guy who doesn't know anything."

A wave larger than the others pounds the shore and splashes salty water into the air, soaking the bottoms of our shorts. Max doesn't flinch. "It's an interesting story."

I've held the stage long enough. "What's your story? You promised to tell me."

He stops, turns to me and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. The sensation of his fingertips grazing the skin at my temple feels sensuous. For one pulse-skittering moment I think he's going to kiss me, but then his hand drops away from my face. "It's not as interesting as yours."

I'm disappointed, both because he didn't kiss me and because I would have let him. My words come out harsh. "Let me be the judge of that."

The next batch of waves is gentler, the roaring not quite as loud so I can hear every word.

"My dad used to take me to the carnival when I was a kid. Happiest times of my life. He died when I was ten years old. So when I saw on Craigslist that the Midway Beach Carnival was hiring, I applied."

"That's it?" I harden my heart against the boy who lost his father at such a young age. It's probably not even true. "That's your whole story?"

"My mom's not real happy I'm here. She raised me by herself. She works all the time, though, so she'll hardly notice I'm gone."

"I don't believe this. I thought you were going to tell me what you were doing in the forest."

"I already told you. I was scouting hunting locations."

This is a waste of my time. I feel my feet sink into the sand. We've walked far enough that the lights are visible from one of the beachfront mansions at the Estates at Ocean Breeze. But we are utterly alone. If Max had something to do with my abduction, it's dark enough that he could easily orchestrate another disappearance.

"I want to turn back," I declare.

His attention, for once, isn't on me. His focal point is somewhere in the distance. "There's something up ahead on the beach. It looks like it might be a person."

I squint and pick out an elongated lump. If the lump's human, there has to be some reason it's horizontal. "Sometimes we get homeless people sleeping on the beach."

"I don't think so. It's too near the shoreline."

The beauty of the ocean can hypnotize the unsuspecting into taking dangerous chances. Just last summer, Hunter got caught in an undertow and barely made it back to shore alive. If he hadn't been such a strong swimmer, he would have been a goner. Like others over the years who haven't been so lucky.

"Oh, my God. You don't think it's a body, do you?"

Even before I finish the question, Max sprints toward the dark shape. I start running, too, my feet sinking into the sand as water sprays in every direction.

A cloud drifts from in front of the moon, lighting our path. Max comes to an abrupt stop. He's silhouetted against the moon, hand rising to his mouth. He turns to me, shielding me with his body from whatever's on the beach.

"Don't come closer," he says. "It's a dead woman."

He can't be certain she's dead. In the movies, heroes are always administering CPR and breathing life into people supposedly thought drowned. Adrenaline propels me forward, and I side step him to reach the woman.

The woman is lying on her back unquestionably dead, her eyes wide open and staring. It's not just any dead woman. So many photographs of her have appeared in the media that I instantly recognize the notorious Constance Hightower.

If the Black Widow was on the run, she didn't run far.

"I don't understand," I murmur, staring down at the body. "Why isn't her hair wet?"

"Because she didn't drown." Max's arm comes around me, taking away some of the chill of the discovery. "Even at high tide, the surf doesn't come up this far."

"Then how?"

"Her wrists," comes Max's soft reply. "They're slit."
CHAPTER TEN

The cop taping my formal statement is the same one who responded to the 911 call the night before. He's also the muscle-bound cop who found me wandering around the carnival in February. He's maybe five or six years older than me, his skin is the color of coffee diluted with cream, and he has a beautifully shaped scalp. If mine was that perfect, I might shave my head, too.

"That'll do it." Officer Wainwright switches off the recorder. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

We're at the police station in what appears to be an interrogation room, although there is no mirror, two-way or otherwise. The floor's linoleum, the table's formica and my chair is plastic. There's a strong scent of stale coffee although neither of us have a drink.

"I still don't understand why I had to come to the station," I say. "I told you all this last night."

"I know you did." Wainwright's voice is surprisingly high-pitched. "Just between you and me, it's a waste of time. But the media's breathing down our necks, and the chief says we've got to cross all our t's and dot all our i's. That includes audio taping you and your boyfriend."

Max Harper is in a separate room with a different police officer. We haven't spoken since the cavalry arrived on the death scene last night. The first thing the cops did was separate us so we couldn't compare notes.

"Max isn't my boyfriend."

"Whatever you say." He clearly doesn't believe me. Before I can make another denial, he taps the back of his head. "How you doin', anyway? The head okay? You were pretty confused last winter."

"I'm fine."

"Good, good." He nods in rhythm with his comment. "Can't be easy with your dad in prison."

" _Step_ dad." I didn't really expect to get out of the police station without someone mentioning my felon of a stepfather.

"I saw your mom out there waiting for you."

Even though at eighteen I'm a legal adult, Mom insisted on accompanying me to the police station. She probably expected to be present during my statement but the desk officer said it was my choice. I didn't choose my mother.

"Lucky me," I mutter under my breath.

"How is she?" He leans back in his chair, totally at ease. Unlike mine, his chair isn't plastic. "I tell you, she's one lucky lady. Not many people who ram their cars into trees live to tell about it."

I'd overheard her tell my stepfather she'd lost control because of the enemies on her tail. No way am I bringing up my mother's crazy history to Muscle Cop, although I do need to make something clear. "She didn't crash on purpose."

"Then why did she jump off the bridge after she survived the crash?"

My heart stutters and my breath lodges in my windpipe. I can barely choke out my question. "What bridge?"

"The one near where she crashed." He peers at me and runs a big paw over his mouth. "Aw, hell. You didn't know your mom tried to kill herself?"

Forget the Black Widow. I've got my own problems. As crazy as Mom is, she's never seemed suicidal. Think, Jade. I know that bridge. It spans a marsh and connects Midway Beach to the mainland. At its highest, it's only about twenty feet.

"That bridge is pretty low," I say. "She might have jumped for another reason."

Yeah, maybe she just wanted a nice swim in the marsh. Crazy people probably get urges like that all the time.

"I shouldn't have said anything." Officer Wainwright is squirming now despite his more comfortable chair. Baby fat pads his cheeks. He might be even younger than I thought. "You should talk to your mom. She looks like she's doing okay."

"Don't you think I should know the details?"

"I think you should talk to your mom," he repeats. He gets up and sweeps a hand toward the door. "You're free to go. Thanks for coming in."

"But you haven't answered—"

"I said _thanks for coming in_." He walks to the door and pulls it open. "If I need anything else, I'll be in touch."

My only choice is to nod and leave the room. I'm forming the questions I'll ask Mom on the drive home when I come across another fresh hell in the waiting area. Max Harper and my mother are sitting side by side, their bodies angled toward each other, their expressions serious. I nearly break Usain Bolt's record in the hundred meters to reach them.

Mom looks up, her brow creased as deeply as Yoda's. "How did it go, sweetheart?"

"Fine. It was a formality."

"That's exactly what Max said." Mom nods at him, like he's her new best friend. "He told me he was with you last night. I'm so grateful for that."

My mother showed up at the beach last night to drive me home after someone—I'm still not sure who—called and told her what was going on. From me, she got next to no information.

"Have you two been talking about me?" The only worse topic would be my mother's suspicion that I'm schizophrenic.

"Guilty as charged." Max is wearing that half-grin. His khakis and cream-colored short-sleeved shirt call attention to how pale he is. Either he uses sunscreen with vampire-level protection or he doesn't spend much time outdoors.

"Do I want to know what you've been saying about me?"

"Heavens, yes." Mom puts her hand to her breast, exactly like a TV sitcom mom from thirty years ago. "Max has your best interests at heart. He thinks you're terrific."

Neither of those statements would score very high on a truth meter. "He does?"

"I do," Max jumps into the conversation. "I mean, we came across a dead body and you didn't even scream. How cool is that?"

His eyes are laughing, and I wonder if he knows about the _bloodcurdling_ scream I let loose in the funhouse. With any luck, that's old news by now. Then again, with Maia on the case, I doubt it.

The text tone on Mom's cell phone goes off. She pulls the phone from her purse and makes a face while she checks the message. "My clients are waiting. They got to the house early. Jade, I'm afraid you'll have to come with me."

"That's okay, I'll—"

"I'm happy to drive Jade home, Mrs. Greene," Max interrupts.

"That would be wonderful." My mother accepts his offer before I can reject it. She lays a hand on his arm. "I'm trusting you to keep an eye on my girl. See you later, Jade."

The high heels of her sandals click on the linoleum floor, and she wastes no time in getting out the door.

"What was that all about?" I ask.

He shrugs. "You heard her. She trusts me to get you home safely."

"I was about to say I can walk home."

"In this heat? In those shoes?" He points to the flip-flops I'm wearing with my sundress. "It's gotta be two miles to your house."

"I'm young and healthy. I can walk two miles." Something occurs to me. "Hey, how do you know where I live?"

"I know a lot of things about you." He winks and starts walking for the exit.

I hurry after him. "Like what?"

"Like you're really tuned in to the Midway Beach scene."

"Duh. I have lived here all my life."

He pulls open the door and indicates I should precede him into the sunshine. "Then you must know where you can get the best pizza in town."

"Mario's," I tell him when we're outside.

He descends the steps that lead to the sidewalk before he says, "Sounds good. That's where we'll go for lunch."

I keep pace, looking at him instead of where I'm headed. "I'm not going to lunch with you!"

"Hey, careful!" someone says.

I barely avoid running straight into a short, rumpled-looking guy who's wearing glasses and a _Wilmington News_ ball cap. A guy I've seen before. He was at the beach last night, notebook in hand.

He points a finger at us. "Aren't you the two who found the Black Widow?"

Max moves close to me like we're a team. "We are."

"I'm Stuart Bigelow from the _Wilmington News_. Mind if I ask a few questions?"

Being interviewed for the newspaper isn't on my top ten list of things to do today. "I don't think—"

"Not at all," Max interrupts. "Fire away."

The reporter flips open his notebook and takes a pen from his shirt pocket. "First tell me what happened."

Max gives a semi-detailed account of how we found the Black Widow, sounding smooth and confident, like he's used to talking to the press.

"Did you know the dead woman was Constance Hightower?" Bigelow asks.

"I recognized her from photos in the media." It's the first question I've answered.

"Did either of you notice anyone else in the vicinity?"

I shake my head.

"No one," Max confirms.

After two or three more questions, including how we spell our names, Bigelow says, "That'll about do it. Unless there's anything else you can add."

I'm ready to part ways, but Max takes a step closer to the reporter and lowers his voice. "Actually, there is."

There is?

"But in return I want to know what you know," Max says. "For starters, who was the last person to see Constance Hightower alive?"

The reporter lets out a laugh. "Are you really holding information hostage?"

"I really am. I'm sure you're familiar with exchanging information." Max sounds completely in command of the situation, like he knows exactly what can make a journalist salivate.

"Okay, I'll bite. Her sister was staying with Constance at the manse. She's pretty shaken up. Said Constance went for a walk on the beach a couple days ago and never came back."

"Did Constance leave a suicide note?" Max asks.

"Yeah. Said death trumped prison. It's consistent with what the sister said about Constance showering four or five times a day to get rid of the stink of jail."

"Who benefits from her death?" Max sounds like he's the reporter instead of Bigelow. "Her sister?"

Bigelow scratches his chin. "Why do you want to know all this?"

"We found her," Max says. "We're part of the story now."

Max's answer should make sense but it rings false. I'm curious about the details, too, but not in the same intense way as Max.

"Fair enough. Except I can't answer your question. Constance wasn't charged with her husband's death until after she inherited. His children managed to freeze the assets but by then she could have stashed money anywhere. With her dead, it'll probably take the courts years to sort things out."

"Because she was never convicted," Max finishes.

"Bingo. Your turn. What you got for me?"

"A couple questions."

Bigelow's eyebrows lift like the Golden Arches.

"The police didn't let you near the body, right?"

"Right. They had the area partitioned off."

"So you didn't ask why there wasn't any blood on the scene?"

Neither had I. And, unlike Bigelow, I'd been gaping down at the body.

"Well, I'll be damned." The reporter points a finger at Max and says, "Thanks a lot."

Bigelow hustles away, taking the steps to the police station two at a time. As soon as he's gone, I circle around Max to stand in front of him. "Why didn't you point out the no-blood thing to me last night?"

"You had enough to deal with last night."

I don't need him protecting me, but there are more pressing issues on my mind. "So you think someone killed the Black Widow and moved her body?"

"Either that or she killed herself and someone moved the body." He looks more serious than at any time since I've met him.

"Did you tell the police?"

"I'm sure they figured it out." He starts walking down the sidewalk.

I catch up to him and match my shorter strides to his longer ones. "How did you know to hold back information so that reporter would spill?"

"Common sense."

It seems like there was more to it than that, like he had experience dealing with the media. "But why did you do it? Why did you want to know the details?"

"Didn't you?"

His two-word answers aren't doing the trick. Too many things about Max Harper aren't adding up. The more time I spend around him, the more chance I have of deciphering the mystery. He takes the remote from the pocket of his khakis and unlocks the white pickup I'd seen in front of Adair's cabin.

I head for the passenger door, pull it open and hop in. The rifle I spotted through the window the other night is gone.

His key is in his hand but not in the ignition. "I thought you were walking home."

I lift one of my feet and point to a flip-flop. "Wrong shoes. Besides, I've got a craving for good pizza."
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mario's Pizzeria has a prime location directly on the boardwalk. The interior, though, isn't worth raving about. Only one table has an ocean view. The others are arranged in a single row that stretches about eight deep to the back of the store. Opposite the tables is the counter, behind which Shep Arnett, a rising senior at Midway Beach High who looks bored enough to fall asleep, flips pizza dough.

"This pizza is awesome." Max holds up a slice of half-eaten pie. He ordered it New York style, the correct way. "Asking you out to lunch, definitely the right move."

His blue eyes are sparkling, a vivid contrast to his black hair. I might have a good view after all, not that I'd admit that out loud.

"You could have just asked where to go for good pizza.'

"And miss out on your company? Where's the fun in that?" He holds my gaze, the smile on his lips matching the one in his eyes. He always gives me his complete attention, like nobody else in the vicinity matters.

"Are you trying to distract me?"

"Now why would I do that?" Before I can answer, he indicates the uneaten slice of pizza on my plate. "Aren't you gonna eat that?"

He takes another bite of pizza and chews enthusiastically. The tangy scent of tomato sauce drifts up from my plate. My stomach growls.

"You're doing it again," I accuse.

He finishes chewing and swallows. "Doing what again?"

"Distracting me."

"Because I like the way you look when you wear your hair down?" He reaches across the table with his left hand and slides a piece of my hair between his thumb and index finger. "It's very pretty."

My hair isn't even close to pretty. In some lights it looks red, and it's so hard to keep out of my face that I usually wear it back. I lean back so his hand drops away. "You know I'm only here because I want to find out why you're so interested in the Black Widow."

He frowns. "I thought it was because you were hot for me."

"In your dreams."

"Oh, you have a starring role." He does this quivering thing with his eyebrows.

I'm rolling my eyes when the door swings open and Hunter Prescott walks into the restaurant. "Oh, damn."

The teasing light goes out of Max's eyes. "Something wrong?"

"No, nothing."

The concern's still there. "It must be something."

"Hunter Prescott just walked in."

Max is sitting with his back to the door. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would turn around and take a look for themselves. Max keeps his attention riveted on me. "So?"

So now that Hunter's without a girlfriend, I don't want him to think I have a boyfriend.

"Oh, I get it," Max says, although I don't know how he could possibly get anything at all from my silence. "This Hunter guy's my competition."

He finally turns to take a look at Hunter, and I hear his breath catch. For once, it's not me claiming his rapt attention. "What did you say Hunter's last name is?"

"Prescott. Why? Do you know him?"

He turns back to me, his expression blank. "Never seen him before."

Over Max's shoulder, Hunter spots me and lifts a hand. He looks perfect, as usual. Lean and muscular with dark sunglasses tucked into the neckline of a sleeveless T-shirt that calls attention to the muscular definition in his arms. I wave back and think that'll be the end of it.

"Hey, Jade," he calls, arrowing straight for us. My heartbeat gets faster with every step nearer he takes. "I heard you found the Black Widow dead on the beach."

That explains what he's doing at the table.

"We both found her." Max's hand is wrapped around his Coke. He doesn't offer to shake Hunter's hand. "I'm Max Harper."

"Oh, yeah. I heard about you. The new guy at the carnival." Hunter points to his chest. "Hunter Prescott. I work at the arcade."

"Join us," Max offers.

My mouth actually drops open.

"Sure." Hunter indicates the counter where you can buy pizza by the slice. "Let me order something from Shep first. Then I want to hear all about the Widow."

Max leans back in his seat, hyperfocused on me once again. "You're surprised I invited the competition to eat with us. I can see it all over your face."

I can't speak until I clear the disbelief from my throat. "You're not competing with Hunter. If you were, you'd so lose."

"Ouch." He covers his heart. "And here I thought I was winning points for believing you weren't on that ski trip with Roxy."

It's as though he knows Hunter lost interest in me when I had my crisis. Either somebody's feeding Max information about me or he's a mind reader. With all the other weird shit going on, I can't discount anything.

"You'd win more points if you level with me," I say.

Hunter's return interrupts whatever Max might have said. Two giant pizza slices with pepperoni almost slide off Hunter's plate as he sits down next to me. His arm brushes mine, and I barely resist leaning into the contact.

"What's the deal?" Hunter asks. "How'd you happen to find the Widow?"

"Jade and I wanted to be alone so we left the party to take a walk on the beach," Max says, which is totally misleading.

Hunter looks back and forth between Max and me as though he expects our mouths to meet over the table for an open-mouthed kiss.

"Then we found the corpse," Max continues. "Not a lot to the story."

If, that is, you leave out Max's contention that Constance Hightower's body was moved after she died.

"I heard she killed herself," Hunter says.

"That would explain why she wasn't moving," Max says.

"What did she look like?" The way Hunter chomps down on his pizza reminds me of the kids who stuff their faces with popcorn at the movie theater while they wait to be entertained.

"She looked..." Max pauses and leans forward, giving his next word more weight. "...dead."

Hunter doesn't smile. "You're a smart-ass, aren't you?"

"You been checking out my ass?" Max asks. "With Jade sitting right here?"

The testosterone is so thick in the air it might soon have a sharper scent than the tomato-rich pizza. Considering these two just met, I'm not sure what's going on. What we need is a neutral subject.

"Max came to Midway Beach to work at the carnival." That sounds non-inflammatory enough. "He's from upstate."

"How long have you lived here, Hunter?" Max asks.

Hunter takes his time chewing before he answers. "A couple years."

"Did you move here with your folks?"

"I'm staying with my aunt and uncle until August." That must be when he'll leave for New York City and drama school, possibly for good. My heart contracts. The silence stretches for a moment before Hunter adds, "Martha and George Prescott."

"Is George your dad's brother?"

"No. Martha's my mom's sister."

"Really?" Max sounds like that's the most interesting thing he's heard all day. "You go by your uncle's last name?"

Hunter picks up his bottled water and drains half of it. "It's a coincidence. Both sisters married guys named Prescott."

Max leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. "Interesting."

It takes Hunter about two more minutes to scarf down his pizza while I ramble on about nothing in particular. Neither Max nor Hunter does more than grunt a time or two in bare acknowledgement of my blather.

As soon as Hunter's finished eating, he leaps to his feet. "See you around, Jade."

Hunter doesn't say a word to Max.

"What was that all about?" I ask the instant Hunter's gone. "What was the deal with those questions about his last name?"

"They were just questions."

No matter how many different ways I ask, Max won't elaborate. By the time he drives me home, I've stopped trying. We cover the distance in silence with the wind blowing through the open windows of his truck. He pulls into the driveway. I yank open the door, get out and slam it behind me.

"Hey, Jade." His voice stops me before I reach the sidewalk, but I don't turn. "Hunter Prescott is trouble."

I whirl to find him leaning partially out the window. "How would you know? Do you have some sort of secret history with him?"

The problem with that theory is Hunter showed no sign of a previous acquaintance with Max. Then again, Hunter is a skilled actor.

"I know lots of guys like him," Max says through the open window. "Do yourself a favor and stay away from him, okay?"

I let out a surprised laugh. "I'm supposed to listen to you?"

"Yeah, you are."

"Why's that?"

He puts the car in reverse before he calls out an answer. "Because I might be the only one in town who doesn't think you're crazy."
CHAPTER TWELVE

When I was a kid, the Midway Beach carnival seemed like it stretched for miles. Everything was magnified. The loud music. The crowds. The wooden posts with the height limit for the rides set at what seemed like impossibly tall levels.

In reality, a full-sized person can walk from one end of the carnival to the other in about five minutes, less when it's not as crowded as it is tonight.

So how come I still can't find Max Harper? Since he drove away from my house this afternoon after his cryptic comment, one question's been flashing in my brain like a neon light.

Why does he believe I'm not crazy?

It couldn't have been anything my mom told him. She's leaning toward sending me to a psychiatrist. Pretty wild considering she's the one with a suicide attempt in her past, although I haven't had a chance to ask her about that yet.

I'm spending my second break of the night the same way I did my first, going from ride to ride searching for Max. Still no luck. It's not like I can ask one of my gossipy co-workers where he is, either. The Black Widow talk is dying down but will get a new injection tomorrow when Stuart Bigelow publishes his newspaper story about the body being moved. In the meantime, I don't want to get anybody wondering whether Max and I have the hots for each other.

"Jade!" Roxy Cooper's voice booms above the carnival noise. She's beside the balloon dart game, gesturing for me to join her. She could tell me where Max is, but I can't risk her figuring out I'm suspicious of him. Not when I'm still trying to work out what role she had in my disappearance.

The closer I get to her, the more she towers over me. Roxy is one large woman. If she'd snuck up behind me and hit me over the head the night I disappeared, she could have picked me up and carted me off like a really big bag of potatoes.

Comforting thought.

"I'm on break," I tell her. "I'm not slacking off."

"I know that!" She beams the smile that's never seemed genuine. "You're one of my best employees."

Yeah, right. Roxy's emphasis this year is putting on a happy face for the customers. She's ripped into just about everybody for not smiling enough except melancholy me. The grin on the girl running the balloon toss game looks pained. Not surprising. The darts are dull, the balloons are underinflated and the customers get angry when they don't win a cheap stuffed animal.

"That must have been tough last night, coming across that body like you did." She waits as though she expects me to confide in her, seeing as we're such good friends and all.

"Yeah, it was. Can I go now?"

"That's not why I called you over here." Her smile doesn't waver. "Did you lose a copy of _I Am Legend_?"

It's my favorite book in the world with an ending way cooler than in the Will Smith movie. For Christmas last year, Aunt Carol gave me a paperback copy autographed by Richard Matheson. The cover's torn and the pages are dogeared, cutting down on the book's value, but I treasured it.

Until I lost it.

"Is it a paperback? Kind of beat-up?" I almost trip over my words in my eagerness to get my questions answered.

"That's the book."

Joy bubbles in my chest. I'd spent untold hours looking for the book, trying to remember where I left it. "Where did you find it?"

"Under the passenger seat of my car. You must have had it with you when we took the ski trip."

Impossible. Not only have I never been skiing with Roxy, I've never been inside her car. But if the book had been in my backpack the night I'd vanished, that would explain how Roxy had come up with it. Wouldn't it?

"Still don't remember the ski trip?" Roxy's eyebrows pull downward. "I hoped things were getting clearer."

"Oh, they are." It's time to make her squirm. "Every day I get closer to putting the pieces together."

Roxy doesn't even blink. "Good to hear. Your book's on my desk in the trailer. Stop by for it any time."

"Why won't these balloons pop?" A sunburned tourist in Bermuda shorts bellows at the still-smiling girl operating the balloon dart game. "Is the game fixed?"

"I better handle this." Roxy turns away from me and takes one giant stride in the direction of the tourist. He backs up two steps. "Of course the game's not fixed," she tells him.

All the games are fixed. Carnival games are designed to separate the gullible from their money.

One of these days, the lies will catch up with Roxy and I plan to be there when they do.

The scent of hot dogs and French fries carries on the ocean breeze, and my stomach noisily lets me know it's past dinner. So much for looking for Max. My break's almost over. If I don't get something to eat now, I'll go hungry for the rest of the night.

The nearest concession stand is in the shadow of the Hurricane, the roller coaster undergoing renovations. Painted a bright yellow, the concession stand is a junk food addict's dream. Besides dogs and fries, unhealthy eaters can buy pizza, ice cream, popcorn, snow cones, cotton candy and a bunch of other empty calories. The food booth is also the only one large enough to be staffed by two employees. One is Adair. The other is Max.

Max, who was hired to be on rides. What's up with that?

Three people are in front of me in line. Adair and Max alternate waiting on customers, rushing about filling cups with soda, stuffing hot dogs into buns and taking pizza slices out of the oven. When I'm second in line, Max's gaze zeroes in on me. His grin is instantaneous.

"Hey, gorgeous," he calls over the head of the chubby kid in front of me.

"Hey, bullshitter."

He throws back his head and laughs, showing off perfect white teeth that call attention to the black of his hair.

"Why aren't you on rides?" I ask.

"J-Rod quit." He's referring to Jorge Rodriguez, who has been telling anyone within earshot how much he hates working at the food booth. "Concessions was short-handed so I volunteered to change jobs."

Nobody does that. Rides are the way better gig.

"Can I order?" The chubby kid proceeds to do exactly that: Two hot dogs, one piece of pizza, a large soda, fries and a plate of churros.

The kid pays Max, then steps aside while Max goes to fill his order. Adair appears at the window. Lucky me.

"A hot dog and fries, please."

Adair leans forward until her head's halfway out of the booth and bares her teeth—not in a smile. She looks maniacal, like the clown who was holding the syringe in the forest. "Sure thing, skank."

"Really? You can't think up a better insult than skank?"

"You better be careful," she hisses. "Didn't you think I'd find out you were out to lunch with Hunter today?"

She doesn't seem to know Max was also present at lunch. I'm not about to tell her.

"I'm not afraid of you." My voice is as low as hers, although not as menacing. That would be hard to pull off.

She clenches her jaw, and a vein throbs in her temple. "If you don't stay away from my boyfriend," she whispers, "I'll give you reason to be afraid."

"If he's _your_ boyfriend, why was he having lunch with _me_?"

"Excuse me, Adair." Max appears at the window with a cardboard tray filled to overflowing with the chubby kid's order. Before Adair leaves to get my food, she gives me the death glare.

"Are you gonna eat all that, bud?" Max asks the kid.

"I like food," the kid mumbles before he takes the tray and shuffles away.

Nobody is behind me. The time's not right to quiz Max about what he said in my driveway, though, not with Adair in hearing range. "Can we get together tonight after closing?"

I'm expecting Max to make a quip like _depends on what you have in mind_. Instead Adair appears at the window with my order and stands close enough to Max that their shoulders touch. "He can't. Max already asked _me_ to hang out."

Adair slaps the plate with the hot dog and fries on the counter, a smirk on her face. It's obvious she's trying to make me jealous, silently threatening to steal my boyfriend because she thinks I have designs on Hunter. Never mind for a minute that Max isn't my boyfriend.

There has to be more to the reason they're spending time together than that. It's too much of a stretch that Max just happened to make Adair's acquaintance mere days after trespassing on her dad's private property.

"Okay, then. I guess I'll see what Hunter's up to tonight." I'm not sure who I'm trying to rattle more, Adair or Max. Neither of them look happy when I take my leave.

I'm not really planning to seek out Hunter, but then suddenly there he is about ten yards away heading for the concession stand. The yellow arcade T-shirt highlights the blond in his brown hair and shows off the muscle tone in his chest and arms. He looks about as far from bad news as you can get.

He's almost past me before I unstick the heart that's in my throat and find my voice. "Hey, Hunter."

He stops walking, his head swiveling as though he doesn't know where the voice is coming from. Finally, he focuses on me. "Jade. I didn't see you."

Story of my life.

"What's up?" he asks.

My tongue's in danger of knotting. But now that I got him to stop, I realize I do have something to ask him. "I got the impression at lunch that you and Max knew each other."

His eyes narrow and glisten. "Nope. That guy's an asshole."

"I wouldn't go that far." My defense of Max is automatic. When did _that_ happen? "Besides, you gotta admit the thing with your last name is strange."

Too strange, maybe. I've been so preoccupied with what Max might be up to that I haven't given much thought to Hunter's claim that both his father and uncle are Prescotts. It's either that or Hunter Prescott isn't his real name.

"Not as strange as the rumor that you and me are seeing each other," Hunter says. "Did you know about that?"

He could be changing the subject because he doesn't want to answer any more questions about his name. Or he could be trying to figure out how I feel about the rumor. This could be my chance to hint at how I feel about him.

"It's one of the nicer rumors I've heard all summer." Groan. Did I really say that?

"So you've heard it, too?"

"Just now from Adair." And now I've gone and brought up my arch rival. Double groan.

"Is that right?" Hunter doesn't seem at all upset that Adair has gotten the wrong idea. "Maybe one of these days we'll have to make good on that gossip."

The hope inside me rises like a helium balloon.

"Catch you later, Jade." Hunter points a finger at me and heads for the concession stand.

I'm not sure what sort of overture I expected Hunter to make, but it wasn't to leave me and seek out Adair. Although maybe Hunter's just hungry. In case there's more to it than that, I consider calling him back to tell him my theory that Adair is undergoing a personality change.

"Yeah, right," I mutter to myself. "Like that would win points with the nephew of a psychiatrist."

I take a bite of hot dog and discover it's cold. Not a little cold. Freezing cold. So are the fries, courtesy of my not-so-friendly neighborhood concession worker. I pitch everything into a nearby waste basket and tell myself Adair considers me to be the competition. That makes me feel a little better.

The rest of the never-ending night, I try to figure out how to convince Hunter I'd make a way better girlfriend than the bitchy Adair. By closing time, I've got nothing. The only way to end the evening on a high note is to retrieve my autographed copy of _I Am Legend_.

After texting Becky I'll meet her in fifteen minutes, I head to the steel-framed trailer that houses the administrative office. It's on the far side of the carnival nearest the arcade, and it's locked because everybody stores their stuff there. All the employees have the combination for the lock on the door. Once the trailer is open, I step inside onto the commercial tile floor. The lights are on, but the small office is empty aside from the calico cat rushing toward me and panting. She jumps, her paws on my leg, like she wants to be petted.

"Hey, girl." I reach down to stroke the unfamiliar animal, which has to weigh at least twenty pounds. "You know you're not a dog, right?"

The monstrous cat wags its tail. Weird, but our cat Beelzebub went through an identity crisis, too. And he got over it.

The cat follows me to the desk where I find the book exactly where Roxy said it would be. The rip on the upper right side of the cover verifies it's my copy. I clutch the book to my chest. Any employee could have come in here and walked off with it. Well, maybe they wouldn't have recognized the book's value. But it doesn't seem smart for Roxy to give absolutely everybody access to the trailer.

Why, if she had anything to hide, somebody might find it.

The desktop computer is off, but the desk has drawers. With the gigantic cat panting at my heels, I yank open the top drawer. It's filled with paper. I'm about to start rummaging through them when I notice a burnt orange backpack against the far wall with the rest of the employee belongings. It looks exactly like the backpack I'd seen in Max's pickup at Wilder Woods.

I'd bet my copy of _I Am Legend_ that Max also has something to hide.

The office is deathly quiet but from somewhere I hear the wail of an ambulance siren. Quickly I cross the trailer to the backpacks and kneel down. The cat makes a noise that sounds more like a bark than a meow and licks me on the arm with its scratchy tongue.

"Down, girl," I command. The cat obeys and sits at my side.

I unzip the backpack and pull out some papers. The first one is a copy of the form Roxy insists all the employees fill out. Max's home address is listed as Midway Beach instead of upstate North Carolina. Disappointing. In the section about who to notify in case of emergency, a telephone number is listed but no accompanying name. A bookmark juts out from my prized possession. I snag a pen from the bottom of the backpack and jot down the number.

I flip to the second piece of paper and suck in a breath. Staring back at me is a black and white image of Max Harper with one word emblazoned above his face: _MISSING_. Spots swim before my eyes, and I blink to clear my vision.

The cat makes its strange woofing noise and bounds over to the door as I hear the heavy fall of footsteps on the steel-framed steps. I fold the flyer and stuff it in the back pocket of my shorts before I jam the other papers in the backpack and rezip it. I stand up and whirl to face forward as the door opens and the cat greets Roxy.

Roxy laughs and bends down to pet the animal before lifting her gaze to me. "I see you found your book."

From the corner of my eye, I notice the desk drawer standing open. Damn. Roxy follows the flick of my gaze. Double damn.

In three strides she's across the office and looming over me. "Were you looking through my desk drawer?"

An ambulance siren drifts through the open door, sounding like it's getting closer by the second. I hold up my copy of _I Am Legend_ and pray my voice won't shake. "Of course not. I was getting my book."

"I think you—"

The siren blares, drowning out the rest of her sentence. It sounds as though the ambulance is directly outside the trailer. A revolving red light flashes through the window.

"Something's happening." Grateful for any excuse to escape, I rush by Roxy into the night, intending to find a quiet spot to sort out what my discovery means.

Outside there's commotion. The ambulance, its lights still whirling, is parked on the narrow side street between the edge of the carnival and the arcade. The cop who took my statement is at the entrance, keeping the gathering crowd from entering. A guy who works at the arcade emerges, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed. It's the same guy with the tattoos who was gossiping about me to Porter McRoy a few days ago.

I reach out and grab his arm before he can pass me. "What's going on?"

"Bad stuff, man." He shakes his head as though he's in a daze. "Convulsions, vomiting, groaning. It's like he's dying."

"Like who's dying?"

"Hunter Prescott. I think the dude's toast."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The paramedics rush out of the arcade rolling a stretcher carrying Hunter as Officer Wainwright helps clear a path to the ambulance. Hunter is hooked up to an IV. He's pale, gaunt and as still as death.

A murmur travels through the crowd like a shiver. The revolving light on top of the ambulance sweeps over the boardwalk. Most everybody is a teenager. The Drama Queen Twins, our nickname for two former cheerleaders who make everything about them, cling to each other and sob. Maia is at the entrance to the arcade with some other employees, talking among themselves. Becky stands off by herself, shaking like a leaf caught in a sandstorm.

I weave through the mass of humanity to my friend's side. "Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." Her hand covers her mouth. "I saw it all, Jade. The arcade wasn't closed yet so I went in to check if Porter was working while I waited for you. It was bad. I've never seen anyone suffer that much."

The ambulance siren pierces the night, sending a fresh stab of fear for Hunter through me. Disbelief, too. I'd seen him only a few hours ago, and he was perfectly fine.

"Let's get out of here." I take an unresisting Becky gently by the arm and guide her through the crowd to the parking lot behind the carnival. The siren grows fainter and fainter and fades to nothing before we reach the car. Becky is still trembling.

"You better let me drive." I put out my hand for the keys and unlock the passenger door. By the time I settle behind the wheel and turn the key in the ignition, Becky's hugging herself and rocking.

"It'll be okay, Becks. The doctors will figure out what's wrong." I'm trying to convince myself of that as much as her.

"It was awful. Like he'd been poisoned or something."

In my mind's eye, I see Hunter hurrying toward the concession stand. He'd said he needed to talk to Adair, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that he'd ordered something to eat while he was there.

Becky shakes her head. "But of course I know that's ridiculous."

Is it? If Adair was that angry at me for hanging around her boyfriend, she could have been livid at Hunter. During lunch, Max's dislike for Hunter had rumbled like the waves that roll into Midway Beach. Either one of them could have sprinkled his food with something.

"What is it, Jade? You look like you thought of something."

The beginning strains of a _Murder by Death_ song ring out. Becky's ring tone. The song usually reminds me of how Becky and I share a love of indie rock. Tonight the band's name conjures up other images. Becky clicks on the phone.

"Hey, Mom." Becky makes an effort not to sound freaked out. She listens for a while, then says, "Don't worry. I'm getting ready to leave now. I'll be home as soon as I drop off Jade."

I put the car in reverse and back out of the parking spot. As Becky finishes the call, I'm navigating the dark streets of Midway Beach.

"Don't ask me how, buy my mom knows what happened at the arcade," Becky says. "She wants me home. She kind of skipped worry and went straight to panic."

I've got a different worry. It involves whether Max and Adair are at his place right now plotting to wreak more havoc on Midway Beach. Since I'd committed the address I found on his employment papers to memory, there's one way to find out

Making my voice as casual as possible, I say, "How about I let you off at your house and get the car back to you tomorrow morning?"

"No, no. That's okay. I'm fine to drive now. And I have a dentist appointment at nine a.m. tomorrow." Becky, in fact, sounds stronger by the moment.

"I'll get the car back to you in plenty of time."

"It would be easier for me just to drop you."

Max's place is three or four miles from where I live, too far to travel by bike so late at night. There must be something I can say to convince her to let me have the car. "I insist."

"You never insist on anything. What's with you, Jade? You aren't telling me something."

I'm not telling her a whole hell of a lot. I'm tempted to blurt out everything, but Becky reacts poorly whenever I mention anything to do with my lost forty-eight hours.

"I'll make you a deal," I say slowly. "If you let me take the car, I'll explain everything in the morning."

"Everything? Even what's going on between you and Max Harper?"

Something makes me take my left hand off the wheel and covertly cross my fingers before I answer. "Even that."

"Don't make me regret this, Jade."

She does, though. After I drop her off, Becky walks up the sidewalk to her house, repeatedly casting worried glances over her shoulder.

The address listed on Max's employment form is in a section of town where tourists rent houses and condos by the week. The closer they are to the ocean, the more the vacation rentals cost. The place Max is renting is in a duplex about a mile from the beach. One of the units is dark while the other has a porch light shining.

I circle the block slowly, searching for Max's white pickup truck or the blue Mazda Miata that Adair drives. I can't spot either vehicle. To be on the safe side, I park three blocks from the duplex and skulk through the night, sticking to the shadows.

Clouds obscure the moon, blacking out the stars the same way they did on the night I disappeared. The street is eerily quiet with no traffic or signs of life from the neighborhood houses. If a black cat slinked into sight, the scene would be set for horror.

Thick bushes line the sidewalk, the perfect place for someone—or something—to hide. I brace myself for the unknown to jump out at me, like the clown did at the funhouse.

"Stop it!" I chastise myself. "There's nothing to fear but fear itself."

I grimace. Did I really quote FDR? Mr. Tannehill, who taught me A.P. history senior year, really should have graded me higher than a D.

A faint rustling disrupts the quiet.

Nothing is behind me except a plastic bag blowing end over end down the street with the wind. Was that the cause of the noise? Or was it a nocturnal animal moving through the night? No, wait. A street light casts a glow over a tree-lined yard. At the edge of the light is the shadow of a person, perhaps lurking behind a tree.

Telling myself it's someone out for a walk or possibly even my mother making sure I'm okay, I pick up my pace. After a few moments, I look back over my shoulder to make sure I'm not being followed. The shadowy form moves quickly through the yards, staying just out of the light, closing the distance between us. No way could Mom move that fast.

_Run!_ my mind screams. I pump my arms and churn my legs. My heartbeat reverberates in my ears. How could I have put myself in a position for history to repeat itself? I'm worse than the brain-dead girls in the horror movies.

I really am Too Stupid To Live. But I want to live. Desperately.

I was never the fastest girl on my high school soccer team, but I have decent speed. I risk another glance over my shoulder to see if I'm gaining ground. While I'm directly under a street light, whoever chases me is doing a great job of staying out of sight. I can barely make out the dark shape of—

Bam! I collide with something solid. Not something. Someone. The air whooshes out of my lungs. I gasp for breath as I look up into the shadowy face of a human barricade.

It's the guy calling himself Max Harper.

A terrible theory grips me. It was impossible to tell if the person chasing me is male or female, but it must be Adair. She and Max are in this together, plotting to recapture me and take me back to that clown.

My heart squeezes with panic.

"It's okay, Jade." His hands are still wrapped around my upper arms. "It's me. Max."

I wrench away from him, stumbling and almost falling to the sidewalk. I need something—anything—to defend myself. I reach into my shorts pocket and pull out my only weapon.

"Really?" Max balances his hands on his lean hips. "The keys again?"

I need to buy a pocket knife, at the very least.

"C'mon, Jade. I thought we were past this. Put the keys down."

"Not on your life," I choke out past my clogged windpipe. I'm not sure of my next move. Becky's car is behind me, but so is Adair. If I don't do something fast, though, Max and Adair will have me cornered. "I won't let you and Adair get away with this."

"Adair? What are you talking about?"

"She's chasing me." I check the dark expanse of sidewalk and street behind us. There's no sign of Adair, no sign of a shadowy figure, no sign of life.

"She can't be. I dropped her off at her house five minutes ago, and that's miles from here." He sounds like the epitome of reason. Like Becky. And Roxy. And everybody else who doesn't believe I vanished back in February.

"If you're trying to make me think I'm crazy, it won't work." My breaths are ragged. "Somebody was chasing me!"

"Calm down." Max waves the air with his palm. "I believe you."

He's trying to win my trust by agreeing with me. But I can't trust him. I can't trust anybody. My heart feels like it's going to pound through my rib cage. "Don't pretend you're my friend."

"Friendship has never been what I want from you." He quirks an eyebrow and takes a step forward.

Really? He's flirting with me _now_? I back up as heat that I want to attribute to anger flashes through me. "Stay away from me."

"Relax. I'm on your side."

"You're a liar." It's probably not the smartest thing to say, considering the street remains dark and empty of life, but I won't continue playing this game with him. If he tries anything, I'll put my keys through his eyes. Reaching into the back pocket of my shorts with my left hand, I take out the missing person flyer, unfold it and extend it to him. "Here. Explain this."

He takes the paper and gazes down at it, lines creasing his forehead. I can't tell for sure under the artificial light, but it seems like his face turns even paler than usual.

"So you're the one who was snooping through my backpack," he says.

"It doesn't matter where I got the flyer. What matters is you've been lying to me."

The moon peeks out from behind a cloud. Max looks almost inhuman with his midnight black hair and alabaster skin, like one of those impossibly good-looking mannequins in a clothing store. He indicates the duplex with a nod. "I'm renting a place right over there. There are some things I should tell you, and I'd rather not do it in the middle of the street."

"You're crazy if you think I'm going anywhere with you."

"Suit yourself." Max walks toward his duplex, taking the flyer with him. The message is clear that I need to follow if I want answers. I hesitate for the space of a few second before I head after him, clutching the keys tightly in my hand. The right side of the dwelling has a porch light on. Max heads for the left unit, which is mostly in darkness. He lowers himself onto a bench spacious enough for two.

The duplex isn't spooky at all, unlike the funhouse or the cabin in the woods. But there are no homey touches. No doormat imprinted with the word _Welcome_. No flowers in a hanging basket. No sun catchers on the windows. No nefarious clown lurking in the darkness.

I join him on the bench, careful that our bodies don't touch. "What do you need to tell me?"

"I didn't decide to try to get a job in Midway Beach until I'd played tourist for a few days." His gaze zeroes in on me with that narrow focus. "Until I heard about what happened to you."

"Why would anybody in town tell you about me?"

He stretches his long legs in front of him, as though we're discussing nothing more serious than the weather. "I talked to people, asked questions. You of all people should know how gossip spreads in Midway Beach. When I found out about you, I started to think I was on the right track."

My head was starting to hurt. "You're not making sense."

My heart beats three times before he answers.

"You're not the only one who went missing and lost hours." He pauses for long moments before he continues. "I think what happened to you happened to me, too."

###

INVERTIGO

Volume Two of the Dead Ringers serial

CHAPTER ONE

It's after midnight on a night so dark the stars have disappeared, and I'm alone with a guy about as trustworthy as a crossroads demon who doesn't reveal the wish he's granting is in exchange for my soul.

Smart, Jade. Real smart.

Outside the duplex apartment Max Harper is renting in my hometown of Midway Beach, North Carolina, the quiet is so absolute it seems only the two of us are awake. I've been trying without success to figure out what Max is up to since I met him almost a week ago.

All he had to say to lure me to his dark porch is that he has a gap in his memory from when he was a missing person. Exactly like mine.

"Oh, come on." It's time to let him know I'm not a complete idiot. "You really expect me to believe you lost hours, too?"

"I believed _you_ , Jade." He draws out the first vowel in Jade, like I'm some sort of super model instead of an ordinary eighteen-year-old horror-movie addict who only turns heads when she's shrieking at blood and gore.

"That's different."

"How so?" Max shifts on the bench until we're almost touching. I know it's my imagination, but the temperature skyrockets. "You haven't shown me a missing person flyer with _your_ face on it."

"You didn't show me yours, either! I had to find it."

"So you did go through my backpack!"

"Only because you're keeping secrets!"

"I just told you about missing time." Max's face is in shadows since the only light is from the other side of the duplex, but he gives off the vibe that nothing's more important than me believing him. "Will you at least hear me out?"

It's either that or run screaming into the night like I'm pretty sure my mother would. But Mom's the paranoid schizophrenic, not me. No matter what my summer carnival co-workers claim.

"I'm listening," I say.

The porch light at the other apartment flickers, then goes out, plunging the bench into blackness. As though the night's not dark and creepy enough already. When Max stands up, I can barely make out his shape. "Come on. We can talk inside."

I don't think so. I've seen that movie where the sister of the Olsen twins trusts the wrong person and ends up trapped in a house with all the exits blocked.

"Why don't you turn on the porch light instead?"

"Can't," Max says. "It's burned out, too."

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness well enough to see the hand he's extending, as though I need his help getting up from the bench. I get ready to stand up on my own.

He keeps his hand outstretched. "Afraid to touch me?"

"Like hell!" I place my hand in his, and his fingers wrap securely around it so we're palm to palm. His skin's warm enough that I can cross vampire off my list. The tingling where we're connected is my new worry.

He pulls me to my feet and over to the unlocked door. And then we're inside, with me wondering whether I changed my mind about coming in or whether he changed it for me. He flips a switch that turns on a lamp. This close, he seems taller, his shoulders broader, his build not so slender. He smells good, too. Like fresh air. The regular rise and fall of his breathing is the only sound in the duplex.

I'm heading for serious trouble—even if Max isn't a homicidal maniac or a shapeshifter.

"You can let go of my hand now." My lungs aren't working nearly as well as his. My breath sounds short and my words shake.

"I like holding your hand." His thumb draws a lazy circle on the soft underside of my wrist. His eyes are blue yet look dark in the dim light of his apartment. "I like just about everything about you."

About the only useful thing my mom taught me is to beware of strangers. Max still qualifies even if together we did stumble across the corpse of the Black Widow who poisoned her rich, elderly husband. Not exactly a get-to-know-you moment.

I yank my hand from his. "I already said I'd hear you out."

"You sound like you don't believe I'm into you." He dips his head closer to mine, and his warm breath caresses my face. "Want me to prove it?"

My heart's beating so frantically, I can hardly get my head to shake. Pathetic. Especially since I'm also having trouble putting space between us. I've got to get a grip.

"I want you to tell me," I say, pronouncing each syllable clearly, "what happened to you when you were missing."

He straightens to his full height, which means he's not actually going to kiss me. I am not disappointed. It's so not cool to lust after somebody who reminds me of a crossroads demon.

"That's a little harder," he says. "Like I told you, I don't remember much."

"What _do_ you remember?"

He nods toward another part of the duplex. "You want anything? A drink of water, maybe?"

For the first time, I look around. The heart of the duplex is one long, narrow room with no division between the kitchen and living room. An open door off the living area leads to what must be a bedroom, but I won't let my mind go there. If the bedroom's as modest as the rest of the apartment, I've got my answer to what kind of a rental place a carnival worker can afford. Because, of course, that's the only reason I'd be interested in Max's bedroom. Groan.

"The only thing I want is for you to stop messing with me."

He plops down on a well-worn sofa, leans back and crosses his outstretched ankles. The flowered pattern of the fabric and the poor lighting make him look shrouded in darkness. It feels safer to remain standing.

"There's not much to tell," Max finally says. "I remember pretty much what you do. I was walking home at night, and somebody hit me from behind. I must have blacked out, because from there the details are foggy."

Since Max already knows that's what happened to me, his story could be complete horseshit. He could be trying to trick me into giving him details about my abduction, although I'm not sure what his ulterior motive would be.

"And?"

"And two nights later I somehow ended up at the same spot where I disappeared."

"This was in Greensboro?"

"Yep."

"Did the police investigate?"

"They did. My mother made sure of that. That flyer you found in my backpack, she plastered them all over town. She managed to get on just about every local TV news show, too, pleading for information."

"Did anything come of it?"

"Nothing."

"What about the cops? What do they think happened to you?"

"They pretty much lost interest when I reappeared," he says. "I couldn't tell them where I'd been or who'd taken me. They thought I was out on a bender. You know, drugs, booze and rock and roll."

While I'm letting that sink in, he asks, "Aren't you gonna sit down?"

The furnishings in the duplex are so sparse the only places to sit are at the table in the shadowy kitchen or next to him on the sofa. Like I want his nearness clouding my brain.

"No, thank you." I want to groan at how prim and proper I sound, but I need to put my embarrassment on hold. Getting his story is too important. "If everything was foggy, does that mean you didn't have a complete blackout?"

He nods. "I remember pieces, but they won't come into focus. I remember pain in my head. Excruciating pain. A field with tall trees. A swampy smell."

Ditto. I've been vague with Max about my missing forty-eight hours, but I'm positive I didn't mention either the terrible headache or the field.

"Were you tied to a chair?"

He stops slouching and sits up straight. "Were _you_?"

I clamp my teeth together, which I should have done before I blurted out the bit about the chair. I hadn't meant to reveal anything more until I was sure his experience mirrored mine. "This is _your_ story time."

"C'mon, Jade. We're comparing notes here. You can't drop a bomb like that and not give up the details."

"You'll get the details later," I say. " _If_ I think you're not holding back."

"Okay, fine," he says. "I don't remember a chair, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one. When you ran into me in Wilder Woods, I was playing a hunch. Coastal forests have swamps. I thought the field might be there."

"So you weren't scouting hunting locations?" I actually sound hurt. Sometimes I really can't stand myself.

He shrugs. "I wasn't getting into the whole missing person business with a stranger."

"What about the rifle?"

"It used to be my Dad's. Seemed like a good idea to have it along."

Something about his story doesn't compute. It nags at the back of my brain, but I can't push forward whatever's bothering me. "Wilder Woods is vast. Why pick that spot?"

"The cabin," he says. "Seems to me I was inside one at some point."

Although I remember nothing about a cabin, I hadn't hung out in an open field for the entire forty-eight hours I was gone. Not when the low temperatures in February dip into the thirties. "Did you recognize that cabin?"

"I thought so," he says. "But you know what they say, all cabins in the woods look alike."

"Nobody says that."

"Most people remember where they've been," he says. "If I can get inside that cabin, something might ring a bell. I'm hoping your buddy Adair will invite me out there."

Adair Adams is my _former_ buddy, but I don't bother telling Max that. Not again. And not while I'm sidetracked thinking about the invitations Adair extends to Hunter Prescott. The kind involving a bed and total disregard for my crush on him.

At the thought of Hunter, I can almost hear the sirens on the ambulance that sped away with him tonight. What could have caused his violent convulsions just hours after he'd sort of flirted with me at the carnival? _Please let him live_ , I silently pray. _Even if he changes his mind and decides to never talk to me again._

The text tone on Max's cell phone goes off. He checks the message and lifts his eyebrows. "Hope you're through interrogating me. Your mom wants you home."

"My mom's texting _you_?"

"She gave me her cell number at the police station," Max says. "I texted her a while ago to let her know you were with me."

"Why?

"Because you didn't."

"That's not what I meant." My mom met Max a few hours ago. Even medicated, like my mother claims she is, she should find it hard to trust a stranger. "Why did she give you her number?"

"She's worried about you."

"She's delusional. She thinks I'm schizophrenic because she's schizophrenic."

"She told me." He sounds like we're discussing nothing more important than when it will be high tide. "Why does she think that?'

"I don't know. I mean, she doesn't even know about the clow—" I catch my slip in time to cut off the word.

"The clown?" Max jumps on my mistake and leans forward on the sofa. "That's the second time you've mentioned one. Did you see a clown in the forest?"

"Did you?"

"No clown. Other people. But I can't remember their faces. I keep thinking I'll run into someone in Midway Beach who looks familiar, but that's not happening." It's the straightest answer he's given me yet. He closes his hand around mine and that warm tingling spreads through me. I hadn't even realized I'd moved within touching distance. "Now tell me about the clown." He gently squeezes my hand. "Please."

It suddenly seems silly not to confide in him. Maybe something I say will shake loose another piece of his memory. I moisten my lips. "I was tied to a chair with a hood over my head. An animal was crying. Not a dog. Maybe a big cat. Or a fox."

I tell him the rest of it. The pressure making my head feel like it would burst. My thrashing to get loose. The hood coming off. The needle entering my shoulder. The clown holding the empty syringe before I blacked out.

Max says nothing for long moments.

Regret rises inside me like the crest of an ocean wave.

"You think I'm crazy." I try to pull my hand free, but he holds tight. One tug from him, and I'm on the sofa plastered against him.

"You are not crazy." He enunciates each word clearly.

Tears spring to my eyes. I blink them back. "C'mon. An evil clown sounds crazy even to me."

"Clowns are people wearing funny clothes and makeup, and people can be evil," he says. "I think somebody was in disguise so you wouldn't recognize him."

A shudder racks through me, at odds with the warmth coming off his body. "Then you believe me? About the clown?"

"Hell, yeah, I believe you." He stares straight into my eyes. "Something's happening here. Something bad. We need to figure out what it is. And then we need to stop it."
CHAPTER TWO

It's nearly one a.m. when I pull Becky's car into my driveway and slip into the house. Nobody greets me this time, not even our cat Beelzebub. The living room where my mother waited up for me a few days ago is still and silent.

My mind's buzzing like a locust horde.

I agree with Max that something bad is happening in Midway Beach. Home's no sanctuary, though. Not with my mother back on the scene. It's weird that she's asleep if she's so worried about me. Weirder that she asked Max to watch over me.

But then she's not exactly level-headed. I mean, she did try to off herself last fall for reasons unknown.

The hell with it. I don't care how late it is. It's time I knew why.

I slip off my shoes, pad down the hall and push open the door to the bedroom she used to share with my stepfather. The sheets on the queen-sized bed rustle. Mom sits up, pushing the hair back from her slack face. The room smells faintly of the floral-scented perfume she sometimes wears. "Jade? Is something wrong?"

"Yes."

She fumbles for the switch on the bedside lamp. She finally finds it and turns it on. The bed sheet drops to her waist. Her nightgown is cotton, not flannel like the other night. Much more sane clothing for a warm, summer evening.

"What is it, honey?" Her words are slow and slurred, but she seems concerned, like any other mother would be if one of their offspring crashed their bedroom during snooze time. But how many other moms would fall asleep before their teenage daughter arrived home safely?

"Didn't you even wonder when I'd get home?"

"Not really." She seems confused by the question. "Max said it wouldn't be long."

"And you took his word for it and hit the sack?"

The house is quiet enough that the pause before she answers seems to stretch forever. "Well, yes. But I wasn't asleep. I was listening for you."

I'm not sure I buy that. But then, it could be true. She never seems wide awake, not even in the middle of the day.

"Why would you believe anything Max says?" I try to keep my voice down because Suri and Julian, my sister and brother, are asleep a few feet down the hall. "You just met him."

This time she answers immediately. "His eyes. They're kind."

"What?"

"The eyes are the window to the soul." She acts like the eye-soul thing is an accepted truth.

"But you're paranoid! Why would you trust his eyes?"

"We've already gone over this, Jade." She speaks in her usual monotone. "I'm on medication."

"That doesn't mean you're cured. It's crazy that you trust a complete stranger enough to ask him to watch out for me."

Mom moves over and pats the empty space she's created on the bed. "It's late. If you really want to talk about this now, might as well get comfortable."

I hate it when she sounds like the more rational one. I sit stiffly on the very edge of the bed and wait.

"Max likes you." She doesn't seem worried that Max and I might have been doing something other than talking tonight. Not that we were. Max didn't even make a move on me during the walk to Becky's car. He's a big tease. All talk, no action. "And he works at the carnival. He seemed like the perfect person to ask."

"Why ask anybody?"

The bedside clock ticks three times before she answers. "You know why."

"Would you stop saying I'm like you?" I lower my voice to a loud whisper. "No way would I ever try to kill _my_ self."

Mom shakes her head, her face scrunching up. "I never tried to kill myself."

"The cop who took my statement said you did."

"Officer Wainwright? He shouldn't have been talking about me."

"Well, he was. He told me you jumped off the bridge, the one over the marsh." My words hang in the still, silent air.

"He's right, but he's wrong, too." My mother also whispers. It could be because she doesn't want to risk waking Julian and Suri. Or she could be ashamed. "You know about the car crash."

"Yeah." It's about the only thing I do know for sure happened in the weeks before Mom split. I could only learn so much from eavesdropping on my mother and stepfather arguing. "Wainwright said you jumped off the bridge because you survived the crash."

"I jumped because somebody was chasing me." Mom hugs herself and rubs her hands up and down her arms. "Or at least I thought somebody was chasing me."

Earlier tonight, after I parked down the street from Max's duplex and got out of the car, I could have sworn somebody was following me. I'd started to run, with my heart pounding so heavily I almost became a rare teenage heart attack victim.

"I should explain." Mom rubs the back of her neck and shifts her position on the bed. I'm sitting less than a foot away, but I've never felt so distant. "Everywhere I went last fall, I saw a black car. At the post office. The gas station. When I was showing houses."

On my way to Wilder Woods, I'd been sure Mom was tailing me in her blue Chevy. I'd ignored the double yellow line and passed two cars in an attempt to ditch her. Only it wasn't her.

"Did you get a look at the driver?" I ask.

"Not then. But wherever I went, I felt eyes on me. Not kind eyes, like Max's. They were evil eyes."

The clown holding the empty syringe in the forest had evil eyes.

"I know that sounds paranoid." Mom rubs her forehead, like she's trying to erase the thought. "My psychiatrist thought so, too, and changed my medication. And for a while, everything was okay." She pauses. "Then it got worse. Much, much worse."

"You started imagining the black car was following you again?"

She nods, and her hair falls in her face. She doesn't bother to brush it back. "One night, I stopped at the grocery store for milk. It was late, and the parking lot was almost empty. I was getting in the car when I heard footsteps behind me."

In the coastal forest, I'd wielded my car keys like a weapon when I heard Max walking through the underbrush.

"A man was coming toward me. A big man dressed all in black." She's describing the prototypical bad guy in a horror movie. "He could have wanted to ask me something, like for directions, but I didn't think so. I got in the car and I drove away like a bat out of hell." She takes a breath, as though the story's taking a toll. "In my rearview mirror, I saw a black car. So I stomped on the gas."

"And then you crashed," I finish when her voice trails off. "On purpose."

"No. Not on purpose." She shakes her head so hard, her hair swings into her face. "I lost control. The car, it swerved off the road. And then the tree... the tree was in front of me. I thought I was dead, but the air bag saved me." She's talking faster than usual, as though the memory is pummeling her. "I sat there, stunned, the wind knocked out of me. A car pulled up. Him. Somehow I got out of the car. Then I was running toward the bridge. The man, he chased me, shouting for me to stop."

She pauses, as if the story is draining her energy. I don't know how much of what she's telling actually happened. She seems sincere, though, like she believes every word. No harm in going along with her.

"Was it the man from the parking lot?"

"I thought so." Her voice rises and keeps rising. "He was getting closer and closer. I couldn't get away. I couldn't outrun him. So I jumped." Her entire body shudders, and she hugs herself and rocks back and forth. "It was high tide. Otherwise, I'd be dead."

"What about the man? Did he jump in after you?"

"No." She stops rocking and takes a few deep breaths. "I never did find out who it was. By the time the cops came, he was gone. "

"Who called the cops?"

"An anonymous good Samaritan, they said."

"But you didn't believe that?"

"Not then. But I didn't know why anyone would be after me." She kneads her forehead like she's still trying to come up with a reason. "I knew I wasn't well. It felt like there was so much pressure on my brain that my mind might collapse."

She could be describing my headache when I was tied to the chair in the coastal forest.

"Then why didn't you listen to Dad and get on stronger meds?" I immediately regret the slip. Even though I have his last name, Zach Greene is my stepfather and not my actual father.

"What are you talking about?"

"I heard you arguing." I couldn't make out everything, but I'd heard enough to know the argument was about her medication.

"He was against me going on anything stronger," she says, her eyes large in her pale face. "He said the side effects were too risky. That if I gave it time, things would get better."

No. That's not right. It sounds like she's trying to lay the blame on someone who isn't around to defend himself.

"But things didn't get better," she continues. "Zach tried to be supportive. He even pretended to believe the man had been after me."

Like Max claims to believe I'd been abducted, taken to a field, tied to a chair and injected by an evil clown.

"I couldn't stand it, though." Mom rocks back and forth again. "If something like that could happen once, it could happen again. And if it happened again, what if you or Suri or Julian were with me? I couldn't bear that. So I left."

There it was. Finally. In stark language. The reason she'd abandoned us.

She's trying to excuse herself, but there is no excuse for what she did. She quit. On her family. Something dark and angry rises inside me. "And I'm supposed to be okay with that?"

She reaches across the bed to touch my arm. I jerk back and jump to my feet. She looks very small sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped around herself.

"It's true," she says, her voice trembling. "I left to keep you safe."

Yet, since she's been back, I've felt anything but safe.

"So why didn't you stay away?" I choke out.

"Because the danger, it was in my imagination."

I can't listen to any more of this. Without another word, I pivot and leave the room. My mother's voice trails after me, sounding shrill and a little bit desperate. "I mean it, Jade. The meds are working again. I'm back in control."

I keep walking. _In control_ doesn't come close to describing how I feel. Especially because too many parts of my mother's story parallel what's happening to me.
CHAPTER THREE

The hospital where Hunter is a patient is the same one where my stepfather worked as an MRI technician for fifteen years. Happier days. Now he probably hammers out license plates while wearing an orange jumpsuit. At least the hospital layout is familiar.

I hurry through the main lobby past the check-in desk and push through double doors leading to the elevators. When I called earlier this Saturday morning, the receptionist told me Hunter's condition had been upgraded from critical to serious and that only family members could visit.

If the hospital is that uptight about visitation, makes you wonder why a patient's phone extension is the same as his room number.

I summon the elevator, my gaze darting up and down the hall to make sure security's not poised to descend. My cell vibrates. It's Becky. Again. Still annoyed I didn't return her car in time for her dentist appointment. Still making sure I'm picking her up.

Heels click on the tile floor while I'm firing back a text. I lower my head and angle my body toward the wall, the better to hide my lack of a visitor pass. A short, dark-haired woman in a white lab coat starts to breeze past, then stops.

"Jade, honey! Is that you?" It's Cora Barnes, who used to work with my stepfather. Since I last saw her, she's regained every pound she lost. She hugs me like we're best buds, squeezing tight. She smells like pancakes and maple syrup. "What are you doing here? Please tell me nobody in your family is sick."

"My family's fine. It's a friend of mine." I don't plan to give details, but she's looking at me expectantly. "They rushed him here last night. He was having convulsions."

"Oh, dear. That doesn't sound good. Is this a close friend?"

"Yeah, it is."

Can't blame a girl for being optimistic.

"I hope he recovers." Cora rubs one of my shoulders, compassion oozing from her. Her gaze zeroes in on my face. "How are _you_?"

"Fair to partly cloudy." I bite my lip, but it's too late to take back the words.

Cora blinks rapidly. "Your father used to say that all the time."

" _Step_ father," I correct. I wonder what's worse, a stepfather who's a convicted felon or a biological father who split rather than take any responsibility for me?

Cora wipes tears from under her eyes. The blinking didn't work. "How is he, Jade?"

_I don't know_ , I think. "He's doing his time," I say.

"I keep meaning to get out there and visit him, but I couldn't stand seeing that dear man in a jail cell." Tears actually well in her eyes. "Such a gentle soul he has."

The owner of the liquor store might have a different take on that.

"The whole thing is so out of character," Cora continues. "I still can't believe he's guilty."

"There was a camera." My voice is flat. "The police have video."

"Video of your stepfather with an unloaded gun," Cora points out.

"Doesn't matter if the gun's loaded. It's still a felony." I repeat some legalese I wish I didn't know.

"It proves he never intended to hurt anybody," Cora says. "I keep thinking there must be a good reason he did it. Money problems, maybe."

A week before my stepfather robbed the liquor store, he'd found a wallet stuffed with five hundred in cash in a store parking lot. He'd turned over the wallet and all the money to the store's customer service department.

"Maybe his reason is that he's a selfish asshole."

Cora gasps. "Jade! You shouldn't say such things. No matter what your father did, at heart he's a good man. And he needs his family now more than ever."

The elevator arrives, saving me from making more sarcastic remarks. Like how my _step_ father's family needs him at home instead of behind bars.

"I'll catch you later," I tell Cora before the elevator door slides closed and shuts out her disappointed face.

At the fourth floor nurses' station, a middle-aged woman in royal blue scrubs takes notes with a phone cradled to her ear. I hurry past her down the hall toward Hunter's room. A tall, balding man in a white lab coat raps sharply on one of the doors and disappears inside. It's Hunter's room.

Loitering in the hall is out, but there must be somewhere I can wait. I walk until I reach the open door to a lounge. I'm about to enter when a female voice says, "I can't imagine who would do such a thing to Hunter."

Stopping short, I peek around the door frame. A man and a woman in their forties, likely Hunter's aunt and uncle, sit next to each other. She's dressed in a suit that was probably designed by someone like Oscar de la Renta. He's in jeans and a casual shirt.

I pull my head back before they spot me, leaving a dilemma. Announce myself or eavesdrop?

"Your sister warned us livin' with Hunter would be rough goin'," the man says with a broad southern accent.

Eavesdrop, I decide.

"Jackie certainly had that right, but things have been going so well lately." The woman sounds vaguely British, as though she sticks out her pinkie while she's drinking tea. No online dating site would match up this pair. "I thought the trouble was behind us."

"You're forgettin' the boy has a talent for actin'. Yeah, he seems like the perfect nephew. But he's mixed up in somethin' real bad if somebody's poisonin' him."

My initial hunch was right. Hunter was poisoned!

From TV cop shows, I know the best suspects have both motive and opportunity. If Hunter bought something at the concession stand after he talked to me, Adair and Max have both. Adair, because she's steamed that Hunter might be into me. Max, because he's no fan of Hunter's.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The loud, shrill voice belongs to Adair. Her clunky sandals make thudding noises on the tile floor as she hurries toward me down the hall as fast as her short, tight skirt will let her.

I straighten to my full height, but it's still five or six inches short of hers, more if you count the heels on her sandals. "I came to see how Hunter's doing."

"You have no right to be here." Adair's face is red and not because she spends too much time in the sun. " _I'm_ Hunter's girlfriend."

"So you've said. Over and over." My next words will probably set her off, but I can't help myself. "Doesn't make it true."

"You little bitch."

"I thought I was a skank."

"You're brain dead if you think I'll let you take Hunter from me."

I'm not positive I want Hunter anymore, but Adair doesn't need to know that. "Try to stop me."

The slap catches me flush against the right side of my face. My head whips at a ninety-degree angle. Stinging pain blurs my vision. Shock rockets through me. Adair slowly comes into focus, wearing a hateful, self-satisfied smirk.

"What's the matter, Jade?" she asks in a singsong voice. "Slap got your tongue?"

I hurl myself at her, flattening her against the wall. Adrenaline courses through me in a white, hot rush.

"Let me go, you nutjob!" she shrieks.

"Not until you get what's coming to you." I hardly recognize the snarling voice as my own. My hand rears back to throw either a punch or a slap, I'm not sure which.

And then strong hands grip me just below my shoulders and yank me backward, away from Adair. I struggle to break free, but whoever has me won't let go.

"Get control of yourself, Jade! We're in a hospital, for God's sake." It's Max. The realization hits me like a blast of icy air. I stop resisting and twist around. His lips are tight, and his gaze is narrowed. Disappointment fairly drips off him.

"She started it," I mutter, as though that's a valid excuse.

Adair straightens from the wall, smoothing down her micro miniskirt and clinging top. She bares her straight white teeth. "This is your fault, you little psycho."

If Max didn't still have hold of me, I'd go after her again, hospital or not.

"Everythin' all right out here?" The male half of the couple from the lounge steps into the hall. He's prematurely gray and has an unhurried, easygoing way about him.

The woman follows close behind. Her blond hair is pulled tightly back from a serious face. "Oh, my! Adair! What's going on? Were you girls fighting?"

"Hello, Mrs. Prescott, Mr. Prescott." Adair transforms into the perfect teenage girl. I'm right about the couple. They're Hunter's uncle and his psychiatrist aunt. Adair points at me. "She—"

"It was a misunderstanding," Max interrupts. "Both Jade and Adair are upset about what happened to your nephew."

"We're all upset," Hunter's aunt says. "But it sounded like more than that."

"Nope." Max is completely in control, like he was when he traded information with the newspaper reporter. "Jade and I came by to see how Hunter's doing. Is there any news?"

Mr. Prescott nods down the hall. "News is comin'."

The doctor who entered Hunter's hospital room approaches holding a clipboard. He's maybe thirty years old with wire-rimmed glasses that make his eyes look owlish. "Mr. and Mrs. Prescott, good to see you again. I've got an update on your nephew." His gaze takes in our large group. "Would you like to go into a private room to talk?"

Mrs. Prescott gasps, and her hand covers her mouth. "Is the news that bad?"

Her husband puts his arm around her and gathers her close.

"On the contrary, it's very good. But there are privacy laws." The doctor pauses and looks pointedly at me, Max and Adair. "Is everybody here family?"

Technically, Max and I are hospital crashers.

"They're not," Adair announces, pointing at us, "but I'm Hunter's girlfriend."

"Jade and I are leaving." Max's hand at the small of my back propels me forward. If I don't move and keep on moving, I'll fall.

"Mr. and Mrs. Prescott," Adair continues, "tell the doctor it's okay to talk in front of me."

Max and I are too far from the group gathered in the hall to hear more of the conversation. Going back isn't an option. I speed up so Max no longer touches me and reach the elevator before he does.

"What are you doing here, Max?" I demand in a tight voice when he catches up.

He presses the down button with a hard stab of his finger. "Saving you from getting thrown out of the hospital."

"I didn't need your help." The doors slide open to an empty car. I wait for Max to do the southern gentleman thing, the way he usually does, but he enters the car ahead of me. I follow and depress the button for the lobby. "I was doing fine on my own."

"You were about to start a fight." His lips are as straight as the horizon at sunset.

"Adair slapped me!"

"Why would she do that?"

"Why do you think? She doesn't want me visiting Hunter."

Max leans across me, his forearm brushing lightly against my breast. I jump back as he hits the stop button on the control panel. The elevator jars to a halt, throwing me against him. His hands encircle my upper arms. "I don't want you visiting Hunter, either.'

I wrench away from him and retreat until my back is against the elevator wall. "You can't tell me what to do."

"Somebody needs to. You're making stupid decisions."

"I am not!" For example, I'm not telling Max that Hunter was poisoned. Not until I'm absolutely sure Max isn't to blame.

"You've got an imprint of a hand on your face, Jade." His words are clipped.

"That's what happens when a crazy girl slaps you."

He makes a derisive noise and shakes his head. "You didn't pick a fight with Adair over Hunter Prescott?"

"You sound jealous."

He steps toward me and places one hand to the right of my head and the other to the left, effectively boxing me in. His warm breath tickles my face. "Maybe I am jealous."

My heart beats way too fast. Not a-monster's-about-to-slash-the-heroine-to-death fast. He's-about-to-kiss-me fast.

"Suppose you tell me what Hunter's got that I don't." His blue eyes bore into mine. I can't look anywhere but at him. Heat radiates through me.

"He has..." I struggle to come up with something, anything. "Manners. He'd never back me up against a wall."

"You have no idea what that guy's capable of."

I raise my chin. If only it wasn't quivering. "I could say the same thing about you."

"There's a difference." He closes the gap even farther until our bodies touch. Lowering his head, he brushes his lips over mine before he straightens inch by inch, keeping his eyes glued to mine. "You can trust me."

One of his hands lifts from the elevator wall to brush a piece of hair from my face. I should slide sideways to get away from him, but it's like the floor of the elevator is coated with super glue. My voice, I can unstick. "Trust you? I don't even know what you're doing here. For all I know, you came with Adair."

"Now who's jealous?" he asks softly.

If I _am_ jealous, it's only because Adair keeps one-upping me. Not because I hate, hate, hate the thought of Max with Adair. "Did you come with Adair?" I demand.

He laughs shortly and straightens, breaking his invisible hold on me. He steps past me to the control panel and puts the elevator car in motion before he answers, "Nope. I followed you."

"What?"

"I went over to your house this morning and saw you getting into Becky's car." He says this matter of factly, like stalking doesn't start ninety percent of slasher flicks. "So I followed you."

The elevator reaches the lobby floor and thuds to a stop. A man and a woman with two young boys are waiting to get on. The youngest is about five years old with a buzz cut. He starts to step inside before we can disembark.

"Mind your manners, son," the woman calls, gently pulling him back.

This time, Max lets me precede him. I wait until we're out of the elevator and the family is gone before I say, "I am _not_ on board with you following me."

Max strides through the hospital. I have to take two steps to his every one to keep up. When we're side by side, he asks, "Aren't you curious why I came over to your house this morning?"

I'd say no, but that would be out of spite. We're supposed to be figuring out the bad thing that's happening in Midway Beach and coming up with a way to stop it. "Why?"

We're passing through the main lobby. He pauses and picks up a newspaper from an empty chair. The masthead identifies it as the _Wilmington News_. He flips it over to the bottom of the section front and hands it to me.

Black Widow mystery deepens, the headline reads.

"I was coming to tell you about Stuart Bigelow's story," Max explains. "He quotes a source who saw somebody dump Constance Hightower's body on the beach."

Max is a lot more interested in the story than I am. So is everybody else in town. I'm curious, but with all the drama in my own life the mystery of the Black Widow takes a back seat. A girl can only focus on one bad thing at a time. "Who's the source?"

"Read the story." He walks away as I'm staring down at the newspaper, calling over his shoulder. "And put some ice on that cheek. Or it's gonna bruise."
CHAPTER FOUR

The waiting room at the dentist's office is quiet even with the TV on. A perky talk show host flaps her lips and waves her hands in high definition, but no sound escapes.

The only person present, a girl with a chrysanthemum in her long black hair, is more interested in her magazine. Odd. Not because the girl is Maia, but because the magazine is _National Geographic_ and not the _Globe_ or the _National Examiner._ But that's unfair. Maia's a gossip. She's not stupid.

Maia's so engrossed in the article, she marks her place with a forefinger before looking up to check who's come into the room.

"Girl," she says, gazing up at me over the pages of the magazine, "where the hell have you been?"

Becky must have called Maia for a ride when I failed to return the Honda Fit. I sink into the seat beside her. "How mad is she?"

"Forget about that." Maia smells like lavender. I was with her at the mall when she bought the lotion and after-shower spray at the bath and body store. She bought chrysanthemum pins during the same trip to alternate with the real flowers she almost always wears in her hair. She shuts her magazine and puts it down on a side table. "Tell me about this."

She taps the side of my face with her index finger. My cheek stings where she touches.

"Oh, this." I lay my hand over the mark, trying for out of sight, out of mind. "This is nothing."

"It looks like you got bitch-slapped."

"Who would do that?"

"Let's see." Maia taps the side of her mouth with a finger. Star decals decorate her nails. "My guess is you were at the hospital. Am I right?"

"Right." Maybe I can get her off topic. "Hunter's going to be fine. Good news, right?"

She gives me a close-lipped smile and nods. "It's wonderful. But then Hunter's like a lizard. Pull off his leg, and he'll grow another one."

It sounds like something Max might say about Hunter. Unlike what I suspect of Max, though, Maia doesn't have a secret history with Hunter. They went out. She dumped him. End of story.

"Did the doctors figure out what was wrong with him?" Maia asks.

Sooner or later, Maia will find out Hunter was poisoned. I won't tell her. Not when the cops could be holding back the information from the general public. A disadvantage to eavesdropping is you never know what's supposed to be a secret.

"I don't know," I lie.

"Would you tell me if you did?"

"Why wouldn't I tell you?"

"You haven't told me Adair slapped you."

"How do you know it was Adair?"

"Process of elimination. I crossed off Hunter's nurses and doctors. Jealous girlfriend seemed a better bet. Adair was at the hospital, right?"

No use continuing to deny it. "Right. But Adair is Hunter's _ex_ -girlfriend."

"You sure about that?"

"You're the one who told me they were taking a break."

"Guess Adair decided break time's over." Maia tilts her head to the side. "Did you at least get in a slap or two? Maybe some hair pulling?"

"Someone held me back." Not for anything will I tell her it was Max. "Hospitals aren't big on fights."

"Too bad. She probably had it coming." Maia stands up, slinging her hobo-style bag across her body. "I've got to get going."

From experience, I know the damage has already been done. By this time tomorrow, everybody on the strip will know Adair and I got into a cat fight over Hunter. Swell.

Before Maia can leave, a plump, gray-haired woman comes out from behind the reception desk and points a remote at the TV. The volume steadily increases while Constance Hightower's beautiful face fills the screen. She looks a lot better than she did a few nights ago on the beach.

"... special report," a voice says. "The _Wilmington News_ is reporting that Constance Hightower, who was found dead on Midway Beach two nights ago in an apparent suicide, may have been murdered."

I already know this from reading the newspaper story, but the receptionist gasps. "Lord, have mercy!" she says, drowning out the voiceover.

"Shhh." Maia steps past the receptionist closer to the TV. Yep. Everybody in town is more interested in the infamous Black Widow than I am.

"...story in today's edition claims Hightower's body was moved after she died. Police declined comment about the lack of blood at the scene, but the newspaper quotes an anonymous source who saw somebody carrying what appeared to be a body."

Maia whirls away from the TV, pinning me with her gaze. "Are you the source?"

"Me? No. Why would you think that?"

She gets up close and personal. "You found the body, didn't you?"

"You're the one who found the body?" The receptionist joins the conversation, her eyes going round.

The conversation drowns out the voiceover on TV. The picture switches to a video of Constance at the beauty pageant she won. She's dressed in a slinky gold evening gown and holding the hand of another impossibly gorgeous young woman. The emcee opens the envelope and announces the winner. Constance beams, drops the other woman's hand like she's the bearer of an alien plague and steps forward to accept her crown.

"If somebody dumped the body," I say, "they did it before we got there."

"Is that the truth?" Maia demands. "Or is this something else you'll only tell Becky?"

"It's the truth. I swear it."

It's not the first time I've sworn to Maia that I wasn't lying. When Maia gets a lead on a piece of gossip, she's relentless. Sort of like the bad guys in horror movies who resurrect in time for sequels. Well, not really. But it's the same idea.

"I've gotta go," Maia repeats. She hurries away like I've seen her do a hundred other times when she has news to spread. If I'm lucky, she'll be so busy talking about the Black Widow she'll forget Adair slapped me.

Except I'm never that lucky.

The receptionist turns the volume of the TV all the way down before addressing me. "Who do you think killed Constance?"

It's a stretch to believe that one of Boris's children slit the Black Widow's wrists, waited for her to bleed out and then dumped her on the beach. "Hannibal Lecter?"

"I don't know Hannibal Lecter."

Seriously? People like her take all the fun out of sarcasm.

While I wait for Becky, I turn my attention to my own problems. It had taken me a long time last night to fall asleep after talking to my mom. Weird stuff has happened to both of us, forcing me to consider whether I'm letting paranoia overtake me like she did. But, no. If I was never missing, like Roxy claims, then how to explain Max? Like me, Max can't account for the hours he was gone. If, that is, he's telling the truth.

Before I can reach any conclusions, Becky comes into the waiting room. I stand up, ready to grovel. She rushes toward me and throws her arms around me in a tight hug.

"Wait a minute," I say while she's squeezing. "You're not mad?"

"I was too worried to be mad." She draws back. "Why didn't you call me back this morning?"

"I texted."

"Then you do know you sent the text?" She peers up at me with anxious eyes. One side of her face sags from Novocain. "It's not like before with, um, well, you know."

Yeah, I do. But I haven't been able to prove yet that Roxy—or perhaps the evil clown—used my phone to text Becky when I'd lost those forty-eight hours. Because, damn it, that did happen. Unlike my mom, I can recognize the truth.

"I know I sent the text this morning," I say.

Becky draws back and punches me in the arm.

"Hey, what was that for?" I ask, rubbing the spot.

"For letting me worry."

"Nothing to worry about."

"Then why is your face bruised?"

Oops. I should have taken Max's suggestion about the ice. The Hannibal Lecter-challenged receptionist is openly listening. I grab Becky's arm and usher her toward the exit. "Let's get out of here."

When we're outside, Becky plants her feet and crosses her arms over her chest. "Spill."

I did promise her last night when I talked her into letting me borrow her car that I'd tell all, even about Max.

"This might take a while." I point to an empty playground across the street. "Some swings over there are calling our names."

When we're sitting side by side and I've sworn her to secrecy, I start talking. I'm not sure why, but I don't start with what I learned during my visit to Max's duplex. Instead I tell Becky about visiting the hospital. About Adair walloping me. About Max stepping in. Even about overhearing Hunter had been poisoned.

"Oh, my God. Poisoned?" She's a gasper, the same as the dentist office receptionist. "Are you sure you heard that right?"

"Positive."

"But who poisons somebody?" She scrunches up her nose. Not a good look with her lopsided mouth. "Besides the Black Widow. And she kind of had reason, with Boris cheating and all. But, I mean, this isn't _Arsenic and Old Ladies_."

" _Arsenic and Old Lace_ ," When I was on my old movie kick, I'd made Becky sit through about a dozen of them. That one's about a pair of insane maiden aunts who cheerfully off old men with poisonous elderberry wine. "And I can think of somebody who'd poison Hunter."

"Who?"

Something stops me from sharing my suspicion of Max. "Adair was working the concession stand last night when Hunter stopped by."

"Adair? That's completely nuts." The Novocain is affecting her speech, making it slow and slurred, sort of the way my Mom sounds sometimes. "You can't suspect somebody of attempted murder because you're jealous."

"I am not jealous!"

"She's skinny, six feet tall and Hunter's into her."

"Okay, you've got a point."

"I've got another one." She pushes off the ground with one of her feet. The swing barely moves. Becky's tiny, but these swings are made for kids. My butt's starting to hurt from being squeezed by the chains holding them up. "Max is into _you_. That should make you forget all about Hunter."

I'd promised when I borrowed her car to tell her what was going on with Max. Time to make good on that. As soon as she stops swinging. That takes about ten seconds. Here goes. "Max is only into me because he was a missing person, too."

"Get out of here!" Her response reminds me that she doesn't buy _my_ story.

"It's true. I saw his missing person flier." For someone who hasn't made up her mind about Max, I sound pretty defensive. Stay cool, Jade. I fill her in on the details.

"That's all you know?" Becky asks when I finish. "Did you even call the police to check if he's telling the truth?"

"Well, no."

"Anybody with Photoshop can make a missing person flier. Why are you taking Max's word as gospel? He could have made up the story after he heard about you."

It's the same thought that ran through my mind, but I want to discount it. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know. But I'd damn sure find out if he was on the level."

"What's with the about-face, Becks? I thought you liked Max."

"I like _you_ , Jade. I'm on _your_ side. And you're not..." she hesitates. "...thinking real clearly lately."

"I'm thinking just fine!" I snap.

"Down, girl." Becky holds up a hand. "All I'm saying is that you need to start separating fact from fiction."
CHAPTER FIVE

Contacting the Greensboro police about Max will have to wait. While Becky's driving me home, I get a text from my mom asking me to pick up Suri at Uncle Landon's surf shop.

"Why would she leave Suri with _him_?" I haven't said much to Becky since she implied I was having problems with my sanity, but a girl can only hold a grudge against her best friend for so long.

Becky pulls up to a red light and turns to me. "She must have had some work thing and couldn't reach you."

I hold up my cell phone.

"Reception around here can be spotty," Becky says. "When did your mom send the text?"

I check the time on top of the message. "More than an hour ago."

"You've got your answer, then."

No, I don't. Uncle Landon let down my stepfather when he needed him the most. A few months ago, before Uncle Landon retired and opened his shop, he was one of the top defense attorneys in the state. He's represented murderers and rapists, yet he turned his back on his best friend. But Becky knows all this. I'm not up to explaining for a second time why it's possible to hold grudges against both my stepfather for committing armed robbery and Uncle Landon for not defending him in court.

"So can I borrow the car?" I ask.

"How about I drive?" Becky isn't about to let me take the Fit again now that she has it back. "If we can't find a parking spot, I'll wait in the car.'

The beach is crowded, like it is on every sunny day during the summer. Becky double-parks beside a Lamborghini that probably costs more than my house and lets me out. Damn Ocean Breeze. Before the fancy resort was built, Midway Beach wasn't on the radar of the rich.

"Be back in a flash." I hop out of the car and hurry down the boardwalk toward Uncle Landon's shop. Most everyone is on the beach soaking up the rays except for the odd person here and there.

Oddest of all is a tall, square-shouldered figure I can only tell is female because I recognize Roxy. Then again, she is wearing a tent-like sundress. She's a few storefronts past the surf shop, walking away from me and holding the hand of a small dark-haired girl.

It feels like Edward slashed my chest with one of his scissor hands. The girl is Suri!

I take off running, my flip-flops flapping against the planks on the boardwalk. The girl isn't skipping, the way my little sister usually does when traveling from point A to B, but her hair is up in another of those French braids she likes so much.

I'm not wrong. It's Suri.

And Roxy has her.

"Let go of her!" I yell as I close in on them. No way will I let Suri wind up in that forest with the evil clown. "Let go of my little sister!"

Roxy keeps up her lumbering gait.

"I said, 'Let go!'" I scream and grab Roxy by the arm. She shakes me off like I'm a sand flea, but she stops. I struggle to keep my balance. Next to Roxy, Suri looks very small.

"What's all this?" Roxy bellows. She looks surprised to see me.

"Get away from that woman, Suri!" I hurry to my sister's side. I'm about to rip Suri away from Roxy and clear of danger when Suri's lips tremble.

"Jade?" Suri is barely audible. "What's wrong?"

Keeping myself from clawing at Roxy's eyes is harder than going cold turkey on horror movies. "Nothing's wrong, small stuff." I use my stepdad's pet name and put my hand on her shoulder, glaring over her head at Roxy. "Mom asked me to come get you, is all."

"But Roxy and me are going for ice cream," Suri complains.

Of course. Lure the eight-year-old away with the promise of a treat.

"I'll get you ice cream after lunch." I grab Suri's hand. Trying not to snarl at Roxy, only because it would further freak out Suri, I demand, "What are you doing with my sister?"

"You heard her." Roxy's eyes are like slits. She isn't wearing sunglasses, but I don't think the sun is what's narrowing her eyes. I think it's disdain. "We were going for ice cream."

"Why is that, Roxy?" I put my body between Suri and Roxy, shielding my sister from her. "You don't know my sister."

"I was in the surf shop." Roxy clearly doesn't like explaining herself. "Suri was asking the owner—Larry, I think his name is—to take her for ice cream. He was busy. So I offered."

"And he just let you take her?"

"The beach community is like a family," Roxy says.

"Family knows each other's names." I'm keeping myself under control, but just barely. "His is Landon."

"Isn't that what I said?" Most people look better when they smile. Roxy looks demonic. "If you don't need me to watch Suri, I'm gonna get going."

"You're right," I say tightly. "You're not needed. Suri's never going to need you."

"Oh, I almost forgot." Roxy's smile grows even scarier. "You won't be able to get into the trailer at the carnival tonight."

No surprise. She'd caught me going through her desk drawer.

"Where am I supposed to keep my backpack?"

"Same place you always keep it. See me when you get to the carnival, and I'll give you the new combination for the lock."

"You're serious?"

"Deadly serious. I don't appreciate snoops, but I've got nothing to hide." Roxy peeks around me to get a view of Suri. "Bye, short stuff."

"Bye, Roxy," Suri says. The most frightening thing of all is that Suri doesn't seem the least bit afraid of her.

As soon as Roxy walks away, I stoop down, grab my sister's narrow shoulders and look her straight in the eyes. "This is important. Suri. You can't go anywhere with Roxy ever again."

She looks at me blankly, causing me to tighten my grip. "Do you understand?"

Tears fill Suri's big, brown eyes. "You're scaring me, Jade."

I'm about to repeat my warning when one of the tears drips down Suri's cheek. My heart constricts. I hug her, holding tight. After a moment, she hugs me back.

"Is something wrong?" It's Becky. Over Suri's shoulder, I can see her rushing toward us.

"No, everything's fine." I stand up, take my little sister's hand and try to act normal. "What happened to waiting in the car?"

Becky knows I'm not telling her everything, but she won't quiz me in front of Suri. "I found a parking spot."

"Do me a favor, Becks?" I walk over to her, still holding Suri's hand. "Would you take Suri to that playground by the parking lot? I need to tell Uncle Landon something."

"We can come with—" She doesn't finish the sentence when I raise my eyebrows and give her a pointed look. She nods. "Sure. We'll be at the playground."

Becky holds out a hand to Suri, who goes willingly. As they're walking back to the parking lot, Becky casts a worried glance over her shoulder. She's been doing that a lot lately. I march into Uncle Landon's surf shop. Ocean waves are painted on walls that are lined with the usual assortment of surfboards, body boards, skim boards and wetsuits. Signs advertise lessons and the cost of rental equipment.

Despite what Roxy said about Uncle Landon being busy, he's sitting behind the cash register in an empty store. He's dressed in a garish Hawaiian shirt. Back when he was a defense attorney, I never saw him in anything less formal than a dress shirt and tie without a jacket.

"Hey, doll."

Doll? Okay, I can roll with that. Uncle Landon has lived in the south for a long time, but he grew up in Brooklyn and went to college and law school up north. He gestures at me with his half-eaten burger. "You just missed your kid sister. She'll be back in ten or fifteen minutes."

Lashing out at him isn't the way to go. It's smarter to see if his story meshes with Roxy's. "Where is Suri?"

"With that big gal from the carnival. They went for ice cream."

Now I can let it rip.

"I can't believe you thought it was okay to send Suri off with her!" The words erupt from me like the green projectile vomit from Regan in _The Exorcist_.

His face scrunches up like he truly doesn't get it. "Why not? She's your boss, right? And you went on that ski trip with her."

"I never went skiing with her!"

"Calm down, honey." His voice is slow and measured. "I'm pretty sure I know which ice cream place. Watch my shop, and I'll get Suri and bring her back."

I pace from one side of the store to the other, almost knocking over a stand-up paddle board. Uncle Landon is being so reasonable, it doesn't make sense to keep yelling at him. "I already got her. She's with Becky."

"Then no harm done, right?"

"I guess so," I say grudgingly. "But I don't want Suri or Julian anywhere near Roxy."

"Okay." He bites into his burger and chews before he continues. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I see why your mom's worried about you."

"You mean, because she won't believe Roxy's a liar?"

"That and some other things."

"What other things?"

"Maybe that you won't have anything to do with Zach."

Mom told him about my refusal to visit my convict stepfather. Unbelievable that she's confiding in him. It's like she doesn't care that Uncle Landon turned his back when her husband was in trouble.

"I'm not going to see him. Don't waste your breath trying to change my mind."

Uncle Landon takes a noisy sip of what smells like a chocolate milkshake. "I won't. I don't think you should visit him."

"What?"

"Zach let your whole family down. Why have anything to do with him?"

That's not what I expected him to say. Uncle Landon and my stepfather used to be so close that for years I thought they were brothers. "What happened between you two?"

He shrugs. "We grew apart."

"Why's that?" The timing has never made sense. The two men were close until Uncle Landon's wife lost her battle with Lou Gehrig's disease. And then, when it seemed like Uncle Landon would need a good friend more than ever, they stopped speaking to each other.

"Nothing to concern yourself about," Uncle Landon says.

"This growing apart, is that the reason you didn't represent him on the armed robbery charge?"

Uncle Landon puts the remains of his burger down and spreads his hands. "Look around. I'm not in the criminal defense business any more. I'm a surf shop owner."

"A dog never forgets his tricks."

Uncle Landon laughs. "I don't know about that. You see Bubba over there?"

Bubba's his dog, a Doberman so excitable he used to take Uncle Landon for walks rather than the reverse. Bubba is curled up in a corner of the shop, his eyes closed.

"Bubba!" Uncle Landon calls. The dog opens one eye. Uncle Landon picks up a pencil and flicks it across the office. "Fetch, Bubba!"

The dog yawns and shuts its single open eye.

Uncle Landon laughs. "See? Bubba's forgotten his trick."

The phone rings. Uncle Landon turns to me. "We're done here, right? Nothing else you want to ask me?"

Nothing that will get me a straight answer, except maybe if I asked when he stopped being a vegetarian and started eating burgers.

"See you around, honey." He winks at me and answers the phone like everything's settled. Except I've never felt so unsettled in my life.
CHAPTER SIX

Later that afternoon, I call the Greensboro police. My call's transferred from cop to cop until I get someone on the line who deals with missing persons. The cop's female and speaks in a high-pitched voice, sort of like Jason's homicidal mom in the Friday the 13th movies.

"You need to come into the office," she squeaks before I can tell her what I'm after.

"But I'm in Midway Beach. That's hours away." Inside my bedroom behind a closed door with my retro posters of _The Bride of Frankenstein_ and _The Creature from the Black Lagoon_ , to be exact. Mom's not home, but I'm not taking any chances that Julian or Suri are listening.

"Midway Beach is out of our jurisdiction, ma'am. I can direct you to another department and transfer your call."

"No! No! No more transfers." I've got to talk fast. The cops on her force have itchy transfer fingers. "The person I'm calling about isn't missing anymore. He's been found."

There's a pause at the other end of the line. "I don't understand."

"I'm calling about an old case from back in January. A teenage boy by the name of Max Harper."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

It couldn't be harder to draw a breath if my lungs filled with ice. Frankenstein's bride seems to be staring at me out of the poster, silently warning me about the danger of getting too close to the wrong guy. "So your department never handled a case involving Max Harper?"

"I didn't say that. I said I didn't remember. Can you tell me anything the case?'

"Max was walking home when somebody came up from behind and clocked him." I repeat the tale Max spun for me. "Two days later, he was found in the same spot where he disappeared."

"Oh, yeah. How could I forget? His mom was very insistent that we find him."

The ice coating my lungs starts to thaw. The bride of Frankenstein no longer seems to be shooting warning looks at me. "Then Max was missing?"

"Depends on what you mean by missing. I'll say this. His mother didn't know where he was for a couple of days."

"Do _you_ know where he was?"

"I can't say any more, ma'am, but there are other ways to get information."

"Do you mean a P.I.? Because I don't have the money for that."

She clears her throat. Even that noise is high-pitched. "I was talking about Google."

Two minutes after I hang up, I'm on the Internet with my cyber tail between my legs. I'm a product of the digital age. How could I not have thought to research Max's story online?

Nothing comes up when I type _Max Harper_ into the search engine. I change the first name to Maxwell and search again.

The first result is a newspaper story accompanied by a school photo of Max. At the time the story was published, Max was two days gone. The facts match what I've been told with only one new detail. When he disappeared, Max was returning home from canvassing for a longtime North Carolina congresswoman running for Senate.

The name of the congresswoman seems familiar. I call up another browser and do a search for _Savannah Shepherd_. This time, the screen fills with results, most of them about the congresswoman's son. I click through to the first story, a news brief.

The teenage son of U.S. Rep. Savannah Shepherd (R-N.C.) is missing and presumed dead after his twenty-foot sailboat was found drifting empty off the coast of Corolla, N.C.

Adam Shepherd, 19, was out on bail awaiting trial on a charge of vehicular homicide. Last fall, the car Shepherd was driving T-boned a pickup truck. Several witnesses said Shepherd was traveling at a high rate of speed and ran a red light. His passenger, Madison Everett, 18, died at the scene.

Madison was the daughter of Edmund Everett, founder of the Ever Fresh grocery store chain. Sources said that Adam Shepherd was despondent over the accident.

Adam Shepherd was staying at his family's vacation home in Corolla, N.C., when he set sail. Savannah Shepherd said her son left behind a suicide note but declined to reveal the content.

Intriguing. I scroll down to the next result on the page, click through to another newspaper story about the congresswoman's son and read it through to the end. The last paragraph mentions that after the empty sailboat was found, the Coast Guard conducted a search for Adam Shepherd's body that lasted several days before it was called off.

But none of this is about Max. I flip back to the other browser.

Max wasn't exaggerating about his mother. She's quoted extensively, insisting her son would never take off without telling her and begging the public for information. The only mention of Max's return is a single paragraph in a news roundup that doesn't mention where he was for two days.

If it's like Max said and the police figured he was off on a bender, he ran into the same skepticism as I did.

I'm still puzzling over how our cases are connected when I report to work. I catch a break and run into a co-worker with the new combination lock to the trailer, so there's no need to track down Roxy. After I dump my backpack, I check the night's assignment sheet. First up for me are the swings.

Halfway to the ride, I spot Lacey Prescott leaving one of the concession booths. She's with her mother, Hunter's aunt. Lacey tears off a generous piece of blue and pink swirled cotton candy and stuffs it into her mouth. I nearly go into second-hand sugar shock.

"Hey, Jade," Lacey calls through lips stained blue. "Do you know when the Hurricane's opening?"

The ten-year-old who freaked in the funhouse is really asking when the carnival's wooden roller coaster will be ready for business? "Hey, Lacey. In five or six days, I think. Why? You gonna take a spin?"

"Lacey's too young for the Hurricane." Her mother is dressed in the same designer suit she wore this morning at the hospital. "You shouldn't encourage her."

It takes all my will to keep smiling. "Hello, Mrs. Prescott. Good to see you again."

"Again? Have we met?"

And people wonder why I have an insecurity problem.

"I'm Jade Greene, a friend of Hunter's."

"Now I remember you!" She points at my cheek, which I assume still carries Adair's handprint. "The girl who was fighting with Adair."

"Adair was fighting with _me_." Time to change the subject. "How's Hunter?"

"Coming along nicely." She digs some cash from her purse and turns to her daughter. "Honey, why don't you play the ring toss game while I have a chat with Jade?"

Mrs. Prescott wants to talk to me?

"Sure, Mom." Lacey takes the money and heads for the game. I'm betting she won't win a prize, not when she's busy juggling the cotton candy.

Mrs. Prescott steps out of the way of the stream of people deciding whether to blow their money on games, concessions or rides. I've got no choice but to join her.

"You're probably wondering why I'm at the carnival with Lacey while Hunter's in the hospital," Mrs. Prescott says.

Actually, I was trying to figure out if she practiced her snotty voice in front of a mirror.

"I didn't have the heart to tell Lacey no when she asked to come," she continues. "It is Saturday night. And it's been hard on her with what's going on with Hunter. Speaking of Hunter, do you know what's going on with him?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, come now, Jade. No need to play the innocent. Adair told me you were eavesdropping on my husband and I."

"I wasn't eavesdropping, exactly." How to phrase this? "I was in the hall and overheard you talking."

Her features turn even more pinched than usual. "How much did you _overhear_?"

Opportunities present themselves when you least expect them. No use letting this one pass by. "I know Hunter was poisoned."

"That information is _confidential_." She emphasizes the word. "Who let you on the floor this morning, anyway? Only family can visit Hunter."

Maybe she won't notice if I don't give her a direct answer. "Adair's not family."

"No, but Hunter and Adair are very close. Getting back to what we were discussing—"

"So they're back together, Hunter and Adair?"

The question seems to throw her. "Did they break up?"

"A few days ago. Adair was angry with him." Someone needs to put a bug in her ear about Adair. Who better than the girl Adair bitch-slapped? "Have the police questioned her?"

"Why would the police question her?"

Time to try out my acting skills, although I don't have half the talent of her nephew. Hunter blew everybody away senior year when he played the lead in _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_. I cover my mouth and make my eyes go wide. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, tell me."

"I'm sure it's nothing." To make myself sound more authentic, I suck in a breath through my teeth before continuing. "It's just that I ran into Hunter last night at the carnival."

"What does that have to do with Adair?'

"He was on his way to the concession stand to talk to her. It's just that, well, if he ordered anything..." I let the words hang.

Her eyes narrow and her brow creases. "Wait a minute. Is your last name Greene?"

"Yeah." Her question brings up one of my own. "Is yours Prescott? Your maiden name, I mean."

"Prescott's my married name." Her statement proves Hunter lied to me and Max about why he was going by the Prescott last name. I have no clue why he isn't using his real last name, but Max might. "Hunter's mentioned you, by the way."

The way she says it, I can tell Hunter hasn't said anything good. "Is that right?"

"Did Hunter tell you I'm a psychiatrist?"

My throat gets so tight, all I can do is nod.

She digs in her purse, pulls out a business card and hands it to me. "In case you need it."

That's her exit line. My tongue feels thick and useless as she walks away. It's not like she'll believe me if I call after her insisting I'm sane, anyway. Adair probably told her the fight at the hospital was my fault. As though I'm in danger of erupting at the slightest provocation.

"Jade! Jade!" My brother Julian holds a stuffed teddy bear almost as big as he is. He leaves his friend Tommy, who's a couple grades ahead of him in school, in the ticket booth line and waddles toward me. "Look what I won!"

The bear is the top prize at the carnival. The games are so stacked against the players that in my three summer I've seen maybe two leave the carnival. "Wow! How'd you do that?"

"The color wheel! I won three times in a row!" Julian's a typical twelve-year-old who likes sports and video games. The giant teddy bear doesn't seem like his thing. "Do you think Mom will like it?"

Now I get it. If I wasn't so down on Mom, I'd think it was sweet that Julian wanted to please her. "Sure. What was your strategy? Did you pick your favorite colors?"

"No, I..." He points toward the ticket booth, losing his train of thought. Another of his friends has joined Tommy in line. "Look, it's Brandon! I'm gonna show him big teddy!"

Julian walks awkwardly away, one arm wrapped around the stuffed bear's thick neck.

"Later," I call after him, but he's already done with me. I need to get to the swings and start my shift, anyway. If I don't hurry, I'll be late and incur the wrath of Roxy. I take a shortcut between the Tilt-a-Wheel and the fresh lemonade stand, darting in front of the Drama Queen Twins, who are giggling rather than watching where they're going.

The look-alike former cheerleaders stop so suddenly, they almost fall off their wedged sandals.

"Hey, watch it!" the taller, more dramatic one yells. Her name's either Heather or Ashley. I never can keep the two of them straight.

"Sorry." I don't slow down.

"Did you hear the latest about her?" The shorter girl's voice carries. "She's trying to steal Hunter from Adair."

Really? That's what Maia came up with after our conversation at the dentist's office? Maia's supposed to be my friend. I don't get a little positive spin on the gossip?

My route takes me past the concession stand where Max and Adair work. I'm not up to analyzing whether my subconscious has anything to do with that.

"Hey, Jade," Max calls from the window.

I pretend not to hear him and speed up. I don't need another lecture about how I should stay away from Hunter.

"Hey, Jade." Max's voice again, behind me and getting closer. "Would you stop, please?'

If I don't, he'll keep on following me. I whirl. The wind rustles his dark hair, making him look... touchable. Groan. He's wearing that ugly orange T-shirt. He shouldn't look so good. "What?"

"Whoa. What's with the evil eye? We're supposed to be working together."

So he didn't stop me to belabor that embarrassing cat fight at the hospital. "Sorry. It's been one of those days."

"I hear you. But I'm on your side. Have been since Wilder Woods."

Except that's not true. Max lied about why he was lurking around Adair's cabin. He said because I was a stranger. It finally dawns on me what was off about his story: The timetable. By the time we'd met, he'd already been to Midway Beach and heard all about me.

"Why did you pretend not to know who I was in Wilder Woods?" I shoot the question at him, like bullets from a gun.

"Because I didn't."

"You knew I'd gone missing."

"I knew _Jade Greene_ had gone missing. You didn't exactly introduce yourself. You were too busy threatening to gouge out my eyes with your car keys."

He's got a point, but how much do I really know about him? The cops could be right about him having a drug problem. He could be high right now. Except the eyes of people on drugs aren't so clear and pretty.

Pretty? I hate myself sometimes.

"You're still on board with helping me figure out this thing, right?' He takes my hand, and I feel myself weakening.

"Oh, my gawd! Look who she's hitting on now." It's the shorter of the DQ Twins, the one with the loud voice.

I try to slip my hand from Max's, but he holds tight and pulls me toward him. I open my mouth to protest. He dips his head, shutting out my words with a kiss. His lips are soft and coaxing. I know there's something I want to tell him, but I can't dredge it up. Not when his hair smells of the candy apples from the concession stand, both sweet and addictive.

He raises his head and smiles at me. My lips curve upward. A burst of gunfire fills the air, the toy guns with the fake ammunition from the shooting gallery. It jars me into remembering where we are. The DQ Twins are well past us, but both of their heads are swiveled so far over their shoulders they're in danger of doing a 360. Because demonic possessions would really complete my day.

"What did you do that for?" I'm not doing a very good job of sounding annoyed. "Those girls are almost as bad as Maia. They'll tell everybody about that kiss."

"Good."

"Good?" That gets my temper rolling. "You don't think there's enough gossip about me? Not only am I crazy, I'm trying to steal Hunter from Adair."

"You don't want that getting around."

"No joke."

"Nobody will think you're after Hunter if you hang out with me." He still has hold of my hand. "Think of it as a perk of us working together."

A few days ago, I worried Hunter wouldn't pay attention to me if he thought I had something going with another guy. That doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I'm much more interested in saving face. If Max can help me do that, why not take him up on it?

"I'm all about the perks," I say.

"Good." His grin grows wider. "Let's meet tomorrow on the beach. One p.m."

Did he really intend to treat me like a girlfriend?

"To hang out?" I ask.

"To compare notes." He brushes a kiss over my lips before I can figure out whether I'm disappointed in his answer. Then he straightens and winks at me. "And to give me an excuse to see you in a bathing suit."
CHAPTER SEVEN

The sun blazes from a sky free of clouds early Sunday afternoon. The glare off the sand is so blinding, I wouldn't be able to tell that Becky is making her incredulous face without my sunglasses. I take off the glasses. It doesn't help. I can still read Becky's mind.

"You're in way over your head with Max," Becky says.

Yep, I'm right about what she's thinking.

Becky and I sit side by side on black beach blankets. Mine feature zombies, hers vampires. I rearrange myself, covering some rotting flesh. I should have bummed a ride from Max instead of calling Becky.

This lack of wheels thing is getting me down.

In the surf, Julian runs through ankle-deep water toward his friend Tommy. Mom ambushed me on the way out the door and practically ordered me to take Julian to the beach with us. Tommy's mom sets up her beach chair nearby facing where the boys are playing.

"I thought I needed somebody to take my mind off Hunter," I say.

"You do! But not somebody with baggage."

"My baggage is as heavy as Max's baggage." I'll have to break the news to Becky about me and Max sometime. Might as well do it now. "We're going out."

She thumps me on the arm. Hard. "Get outta here!"

"It's true." Well, sort of true. But if I can get Becky to believe it, everybody else will. I shove aside the guilt that I'm not being completely honest with my best friend. "Adair's back with Hunter, so why not?"

"That's not a good reason."

"How about this one?" I cast around for something Becky will buy. "Max is hot."

"Again, not a good reason."

"Isn't that why you're into Porter?"

"Maybe I'm into Porter because he's the strong, silent type."

I whistle softly. "He also looks damn good without his shirt."

"Porter's here?" She practically shrieks.

"Over there." I nod to the emptiest part of the beach, which is still pretty full.

Becky's head whips around so fast her ponytail flies. "Wow! He looks great."

"So do you."

She's wearing a canary yellow two-piece that highlights her tan and blond hair.

"Go over there and get him. This is your chance, Becks."

Her muscles bunch like she's about to spring to her feet, but she doesn't move. "You already know I'm holding out until Porter puts the moves on me."

"Because of the you chase him until he catches you thing? Where'd you hear that?" There's only one logical answer. "Your mom, right?"

"She knows what she's talking about. That's how she got Dad to fall for her."

"Back in the nineties," I point out.

"It's worth a try," Becky argues. "Porter's not just any guy. He's _the_ guy."

"So make him notice you. Strut your stuff. If he doesn't look up from his book, kick some sand his way by accident."

"That's not a bad idea."

"It's a great idea."

"Okay." Becky leaps to her feet. "Wish me luck."

"Always."

Becky's not bad at strutting her stuff. If the strip of sand between me and Porter was a runway, people would applaud. Porter doesn't even glance up. He must be reading one damn good book. Like _The Haunting of Hill House_. Or _The Amityville Horror_.

Now _I_ can appreciate good scenery, like the tall guy in sunglasses walking past Hunter's blanket. His chest is impressive for someone so thin, all lean muscle and not too much hair. He's got a good walk, too. Confident but not cocky. Sort of like Max's walk. I slip my sunglasses back on to get a better look.

It _is_ Max. My heart rate speeds up.

"Hey, gorgeous," Max calls from a few steps away.

I like the sound of that _gorgeous_ too much to let it go. "You don't have to say stuff like that. I'm already on board with your plan."

He drops a rolled-up beach towel on the sand and sits down next to me on one of the zombies. "Still need to sell it."

His lips close over mine in a soft, sweet kiss. Before I can summon the will to draw away, he does. His smile is as bright as the blast of sunlight that spells doom for vampires in the movies.

"What's with the grin?"

"I thought you'd stand me up."

"We're putting our heads together, remember?"

He leans closer to me, like he's coming in for another kiss. This time I do muster the will to draw back. "Not _that_ close together."

He laughs. "I should have offered to pick you up. How'd you get here?"

"Becky." I nod toward her. She's flirting like mad, but with a boy I've never seen before, probably a tourist. Becky smiles, laughs and peeks at Porter. He keeps on turning the pages.

"Did you tell Becky about me?" Max asks.

"Well, yeah. She's my best friend."

"Then she knows I lost time, too?"

"She knows you were a missing person."

"You didn't tell her the rest." It's a statement, not a question. "Why not?"

"Becky doesn't even believe I was missing, okay? And she doesn't trust you."

"Neither do you." He stretches his long legs in front of him. His skin isn't quite as pale as when I first met him, but he could still use a few days in the sun. "You called the Greensboro police."

"How do you know that?"

"My mom. She's always phoning the police about their progress on the case, not that there ever is any. She called yesterday right after you did."

While I think of how much to admit, I search the beach for Julian. He's not around, but neither is Tommy. Tommy's mom lounges in her chair, reading a magazine. If she's that chill, the boys are probably under the pier. It's a gathering spot for Julian's crowd during the day.

"If you thought I'd take your word that you were a missing person," I finally tell Max, "you're crazy."

"Neither of us is crazy, but we're wasting time checking up on each other. We're not the bad guys."

The woman closest to us, who's either pregnant or suffering from excess belly fat, is listening to an iPod. I lower my voice to a whisper, anyway. "Who is?"

"Maybe whoever dumped Constance Hightower's body."

"Seriously?" This preoccupation with the Black Widow is becoming a problem. "I get that it's an interesting case. It'll probably wind up in those supermarket tabloids. But what does Constance Hightower have to do with us?"

"Maybe nothing, maybe everything," he says. "There's not a lot of crime in Midway Beach. The same people who killed her could have abducted us."

"Midway Beach isn't Gotham City. How big and bad do you think these people are? By your logic, they poisoned Hunter, too."

"Hunter was poisoned?" Max seems genuinely surprised. "Where did you hear that?"

"At the hospital yesterday."

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I was too busy defending myself."

He reaches out and trails a finger over the faint bruise on my cheek. "You didn't do a very good job of that."

The warm shiver his touch produces annoys me. Ditto for his deliberate misunderstanding of my meaning. "I wasn't talking about defending myself against Adair. I meant the argument I had with you in the elevator."

"That Hunter was poisoned proves I'm right," he says. "I told you he was bad news."

"Hold up." I'm not in the mood to inform Max he was also right about Hunter using a bogus last name. "You think Hunter brought this on himself?"

"Yeah, I do," he says. "This thing with Hunter, it's got nothing to do with the other stuff going on in Midway Beach. The guy's unpredictable. Maybe he even swallowed something on purpose."

"Really? _That's_ your theory?"

"Got a better one?"

"Depends. Did Hunter buy anything at the concession stand?"

Max takes off his sunglasses and gives me a hard look. "I don't like the guy, Jade, but I didn't poison him."

If I wasn't so mixed up about the truth, I'd think Max was telling it. Except I can't shake the feeling that Max's dislike of Hunter has roots in a shared past he won't admit they have. "Then maybe Adair poisoned him. Hunter ordered some food, right?"

"I honestly don't know. When I noticed how steamed she was, I gave them some space. But I can't see Adair poisoning anyone." He shakes his head. "We're getting off track. We're supposed to be solving our own problems."

He's right. Getting abducted and losing time trumps getting poisoned when we're the ones who experienced the abduction and time loss.

"Okay, then. Seems to me our next move is getting inside that cabin in Wilder Woods." Now that I've brought up the subject, I've got to ask him the next question even though it pains me. "Did you get that invite from Adair yet?"

"What invite?" Maia is suddenly standing over us in a teeny two-piece that barely covers her. "Is Adair having a party she didn't tell me about?"

"Like Adair would tell _me_ if she was having a party," I say.

"Then what were you two talking about?" Maia sits down on the blanket beside us, acting unaware that she's intruding. "It looked like pretty heavy stuff."

"You know what they say about looks." Max smiles at her. "They can be deceiving."

Maia scowls. "Yeah, but—"

Screams interrupt her. They're coming from near the pier, down at the surf line. I stand up, shielding my eyes from the sunlight slipping through the top of my sunglasses. At least a half dozen people are gathered, pointing at something in the water.

Max and Maia stand, too.

"I think someone's caught in the current," Max says.

Julian. Where is he? Lots of boys Julian's age are playing in the surf. None of them are Julian. My heart compresses like it's caught in a vice. But Julian knows not to swim near the pier, where the currents are unpredictable. Doesn't he?

"What is it?" Max touches my shoulder.

"My brother, I don't see him." I take off toward the ocean, ignoring the hot sand burning my bare feet.

Please, God, I pray. Please let Julian be okay.

Max passes me, his arms pumping, his feet digging into the sand. Beyond where the people are gathered, a head surfaces from the deep water. Whoever is struggling to keep alive out there has dark hair. Like Julian. I spot his friend Tommy in the crowd. Tommy's pointing and screaming.

Julian isn't with him.

It feels like something exploded in my chest. My heartbeat thrashes in my ear. I drive myself forward on legs that suddenly feel weak, refusing to stop or even slow down. I'm getting closer, but I'm still too far away.

_Please, please, please. Don't let it be my brother_.

The dark head disappears, then reappears again. Is that two times? Or three? Is it true that a drowning person resurfaces only three times before hope is lost? My lungs burn, but I try to pick up speed.

Please, someone help whoever it is.

But none of the gawkers venture from shore. Their feet seem to be stuck in the sand. It's well known the currents near the pier are treacherous. Only a true hero would risk himself to save someone else, and in my life heroes have been in short supply.

But, wait! Somebody _is_ in the ocean, cutting through the water with powerful strokes.

Max reaches the crowd of onlookers before I do. He pushes his way through the mass of humanity, high steps through the shallow water and dives into a wave. In the deeper water, the hero draws closer to the drowning person. I reach Tommy and put my hand on his shoulder, whirling him around.

"Where's Julian?" My voice sounds shrill and unnatural.

Tears fill Tommy's eyes. Wordlessly, he points toward the deadly water.

A new wave of horror washes over me at the confirmation. The ocean roars in my ears, angry and merciless. I run through the deepening water, frustrated at my slow progress. I'm knee-deep when a wave knocks me over. Saltwater rushes over my head. I swallow some and come up coughing, pushing the wet hair back from my face.

The first swimmer is beyond where the waves break, at about the place where I spotted Julian. I don't see my brother. The swimmer's head disappears beneath the water. And then I don't see anything at all but the sun shimmering on the water and sea gulls circling overhead.

"No!" I cry.

I'm about to start swimming when a head surfaces from the deep water. No, not one head. Two! The swimmer gets Julian in a cross-chest carry, like a lifeguard, and sidestrokes toward the shore. A third person reaches them—Max—and there are three heads above the water, moving as one.

Another wave rolls toward me and breaks. I struggle to stay upright, straining to see if my brother is moving through the salt spray. I'm too far away, and the waves are too numerous. I wade back toward the shore at an angle, stopping every few seconds to check the state of the rescue, until I reach the gathered crowd. Progress is slow, but the trio draws closer and closer to the shore. And, then, finally they're standing in the surf. Max and the other person—the hero—support Julian between them.

I run toward them, the weight of the water around my ankles slowing me down. Over the sound of the surf, I hear my brother cough. My knees nearly buckle.

Thank you, God.

I don't only owe God thanks. I owe the hero a debt of gratitude my family will never be able to repay. Max is on one side of Julian. On the other is a man in a woman's bathing suit. No, not a man. A tall woman with broad shoulders and a hulking walk.

It's Roxy.
CHAPTER EIGHT

The next twenty-four hours are a new sort of torture. I wish Mom would yell at me for losing track of Julian, but she doesn't. She does go on and on about Saint Roxy, disregarding all the lies Roxy's told about me.

It's no better at the carnival. Maia gives the already-hot story her special treatment, spreading it all over Midway Beach until everybody is praising Roxy for saving my brother's life. I'm grateful, too. Except nobody else seems to realize Roxy's like Batman's nemesis Two Face, half-good and half-evil.

My shift drags, without a single sighting of Max. Our make-believe romance must be on hold while he angles for an invite to Adair's cabin.

I'm totally cool with that.

My insomnia has nothing to do with visions of Max and Adair getting naked. Neither does my lack of appetite.

"You gonna eat that?" Julian's eyeing the pepperoni and sausage pizza on my plate like a vulture about to swoop in for road kill. Mom stopped home for lunch, surprising us with an extra-large pie from Mario's.

I push my plate toward him. "Have at it."

He bites into the pizza like it's his first piece instead of his fourth.

Mom's at the sink rinsing her plate, watching him chew. Since yesterday's near drowning, she's been watching him a lot.

Suri prances into the kitchen on her tiptoes, ballerina style. "Someone's here for Jade."

The doorbell's broken. Since I didn't hear anyone knock, I assume she means someone's waiting on the front porch. Until Max follows her into the kitchen. He wears shorts, sandals and a blue T-shirt that matches his eyes. The ones my mother thinks are kind.

"I hope it's okay that Suri let me in," he says, the comment directed at the paranoid woman he won over even before he attempted to rescue Julian.

"Of course." My mother's voice softens. "You're always welcome here, Max."

"Thanks, Mrs. G." He grins at my mother, then ruffles Julian's hair. "Hey, bud."

Julian's mouth is stuffed with pizza. He waves.

Max laughs and crosses over to where I sit at the kitchen table. Bending at the waist, he touches his lips to mine before straightening. "Hey, gorgeous."

Goose bumps raise on my skin. My tongue feels thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. What is it about him that renders me speechless?

"Well, well, well." My mother abandons her usual monotone, putting a wealth of meaning into the words. "You two seem to be getting along."

My face couldn't feel any hotter if I were a victim of the Salem witch trials.

"Getting along great." Max rubs a shoulder left bare by my sleeveless top. My goose bumps multiply. "We've both got Monday off so I came over to see if Jade wanted to hang."

He couldn't have texted?

"I can't." I shrug off his hand. "Babysitting duty."

"Not anymore," Mom says. "My clients cancelled."

"Then Jade is off the hook." Max's warm hand squeezes my shoulder, doing nothing to rid it of the goose bumps. "Fantastic."

"I do need you to be available tomorrow, Jade," Mom says in a conversational style, turning on the faucet in the sink and rinsing her plate before glancing up at me. "I made arrangements for all four of us to visit your father tomorrow."

Like hell! Choking back a spate of angry words, I spring up from the table so fast I get lightheaded. I steady myself, grab Max's hand and practically drag him out of the kitchen. Normally I'd take the time to change clothes, maybe brush my hair, change my shoes. But today I've got to get out of there.

"Bye, Mrs. G. We'll see you later, kids," Max calls, like he's speaking for both of us. When we're out of the house and moving down the sidewalk, he asks, "What was all that about?"

Like I'm gonna share my family's ugly little secrets with him. I drop his hand, head to the pickup, yank open the door and snap, "I don't want to talk about it."

Max moves unhurriedly to the other side of the pickup and takes his time settling behind the wheel and starting the truck. While Max pulls into the street, I stare out the passenger-side window.

Two doors down from our house, the three Carmichael girls, none of them older than twelve, pile into the red convertible their dad drives. Since he bought the car, the girls are always running out of the house after him, begging him to take them along.

"I take it you refuse to visit your father in prison," Max says after a few moments.

" _Step_ father." I turn away from the idyllic scene at the neighbors' house to glare at Max. "What part of 'I don't want to talk about it' don't you understand?"

"Okay, okay." He lifts one hand off the steering wheel in a gesture of surrender. "We've got plenty of other things to talk about."

"Yeah." My deep breath feels ragged, like I swallowed a knife with serrated edges. "You haven't told me what happened at Adair's cabin."

His head swivels toward me, an indentation appearing between his eyebrows. "I'm not psychic, you know."

"What does being psychic have to do with it?"

"We didn't get to the cabin yet," he says.

"That's where we're headed?"

"Well, yeah. I told you I want to get inside and have a look around."

"But you said..." What exactly had Max said? We'd been strategizing yesterday when we realized Julian was drowning. In all the commotion, we'd never picked up the conversation. Max had worked last night even though it was my day off. When I didn't hear from him at closing time, I assumed he went to the cabin with Adair. "You were working on getting an invitation from Adair."

"Not anymore." The traffic light we're approaching turns yellow. Instead of stomping on the gas to beat the light, like a normal teenager, Max slows down. "Not when I'm _your_ boyfriend."

I'm not about to analyze why relief hits me. " _Fake_ boyfriend."

"If I have to be a fake boyfriend," he says with gusto, "I'm gonna be the best fake boyfriend I can be."

I giggle. I can't help it. He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It's crazy. Even though he's not as good-looking as Hunter, when his eyes sparkle like they are now, resisting him is almost impossible. At the moment, there's no reason to try.

"So, fake boyfriend, how do we get inside the cabin?"

The light turns green. Max looks both ways before gradually pressing the gas pedal and pulling into the intersection. "You'll see."

Thirty minutes later, Max drives down the now-familiar bumpy dirt road that cuts through the tangle of trees leading to the cabin in Wilder Woods. The road should seem less spooky in the daylight, yet only slivers of the sun shine through the leaves and branches. We finally reach the cabin in the clearing. The light does it no favors, exposing the weathered wood and making it appear almost shabby. We get out of the truck to silence broken only by the faint calls of some songbirds.

"I don't suppose you know how to pick a lock?" Max sounds hopeful.

"That's your plan? To break in?"

"You got a problem with that?"

I've seen _The People Under the Stairs_ , so I've got a bit of an issue with home invasion. "Nope," I lie. "No problem. But I can't pick locks."

"Me, neither."

I follow him to the front of the house, hoping there aren't any mutated cannibals on the other side of the door. It's hot and humid. Whatever animals rustle through Wilder Woods when the sun goes down are quiet. The only signs of life are the mosquitoes buzzing around us. I swat at one on my arm. "Then how do we get in?"

Max scratches his head. "We can always throw a rock through the window."

Vandalism on top of breaking and entering? Doesn't he watch any horror movies at all? The worse the offense, the harsher the karmic punishment. We're entering monsters peeling off our skin territory. "There must be another way."

"Maybe there's a key around here someplace." Max runs his fingertips over the top of the door frame but comes up empty. Bending over, he lifts the rubber doormat to reveal nothing but dirt. He pauses, an odd expression on his face, then rummages under a bush and picks up a rock.

I jump back, out of the way of glass I expect to shatter.

Instead of throwing the rock, he twists and it comes apart. Inside one half is a key. I should have guessed it was a hide-a-key rock. I've seen them before, but this one wasn't visible from where we're standing. "How did you know to look under that bush?"

"I'm not sure." He turns the key over. "A memory, maybe."

He unlocks the door and pushes it open. Hot air engulfs us, along with the stale smell of a place that's been sitting vacant. There's no light switch, but enough natural light streams through the door and a back window that it's possible to see.

Max does a slow three hundred sixty degree turn. The inside of the cabin is rustic and furnished with heavy wooden pieces, the focal point a brick fireplace. Max moves toward it, and I follow close behind, keeping an ear cocked for imprisoned children living in the walls. I hate Wes Craven. Mounted on one side of the fireplace is the head of an eight-point buck. On the other is a coyote, its sharp teeth bared in a snarl.

My quick intake of breath comes out as a loud gasp.

"What is it?" Max asks.

"The coyote." I back away from it. The taxidermist has done such a good job that it seems alive. "I've seen it before."

"Have you ever been inside the cabin with Adair?"

I shake my head. "I came here once with Adair, but I stayed in the car."

"Could you have been here those days you were missing?"

"I think so." The cabin feels familiar in a way I can't pinpoint. Familiar and confining. My chest tightens. "I've got to get out of here."

I stumble toward the door, the toe of my tennis shoe catching on the rug. Before I can go sprawling, Max grabs me and sets me upright. Together, we walk outside into the light. Despite the heat, I'm shaking.

"Are you all right?" He rubs my shoulder, concern coming off him in waves. "Did you remember something else?"

I struggle to get my lungs working again. Now that we're outside, the panic that gripped me inside the cabin is fading. "I remembered wanting to get out of the cabin. But I couldn't leave."

"Like someone held you against your will?"

"That sounds right." I've never been close to claustrophobic before today. "But what does that mean? That Adair or somebody in her family is involved?"

"Not necessarily," he says. "You saw how easily we got inside the cabin. Anybody could have found the key."

Since the hide-a-key was under the bush, I wouldn't bet on that. But who's to say the rock is always as well hidden as it was today? An out-of-the-way cabin certainly seems like a good place to stash someone, especially in the winter when this section of Wilder Woods would have been deserted.

"What about you?" I ask. "Was there anything inside the cabin that looked familiar?"

"No, but that doesn't mean I wasn't here."

I knead the space between my eyebrows, trying to rub away the headache that's blossoming. "Why can't we remember?"

"We were both knocked out. We know you were injected with something. I probably was, too. Some kinds of narcotics can mess with memory."

"We both have a memory of a field. While we're out here, we should have a look around. It can't be far from the cabin."

"Except I already searched the woods around the cabin," Max says. "I'm not sure where else it makes sense to look. And who knows if we'd even recognize the place."

He makes some good points. Traipsing through the coastal forest without a clear plan wouldn't be productive, especially since it's unfamiliar territory. The only place I've heard of besides this cabin is Heron Lake and only because of Cam Stokes, the country singer whose suicide started a really creepy fad.

"You look like you've thought of something," Max says.

"Some _where_ ," I correct. "But it's a long shot."

"What do we have to lose but some ammunition?"

"Problem is I'm not exactly sure how to find it."

"I've got a map of Wilder Woods in the truck," he says. "I picked one up at the visitor's center the last time I was out here."

While I'm poring over the map and plotting a route to Heron Lake, Max asks, "Gonna tell me what this is all about?"

"Just playing a hunch," I say.

He accepts my answer and silently follows my directions until we reach a parking lot on the edge of Heron Lake that's mainly used by fishermen. "What now?"

"Now," I say, "we search."

Only one direction makes sense. A path of trampled leaves and twigs cuts through the woods, almost like the beginning of a trail. It's not, though. A couple hundred feet in, the path narrows and winds through spindly pines. The shade feels refreshing, although the humidity is still thick. Mosquitoes buzz around us. I assassinate one with the palm of my hand and pick up the pace. Max walks silently beside me.

The farther we go, the brighter it becomes. And then, suddenly, we're in a clearing. A trickle of sweat drips down my face, but I don't bother to wipe it away. I'm paralyzed by the feeling—no, the certainty—that I've been here before. The configuration of the trees, the rectangular shape of the field, even the feel of the ground beneath my feet is familiar.

This is where somebody tied me to a chair and blindfolded me, where I suffered that blinding headache that still hurts to think about. The country singer who committed suicide here must be significant, but I can't make the connection.

"I've been here before." My words are soft, almost as though I'm talking to myself. That could be why Max doesn't answer. I turn to explain myself.

He's on his knees, his face contorted as though he's suffering a terrible agony.

"Max," I call, my heart jumping in my chest. "What's wrong?"

He doesn't answer. He probably can't hear me. Over and over, he repeats the same word. The word is _no_.
CHAPTER NINE

Max's eyes are unfocused when I stoop down to knee level, his face bathed in sweat, his head shaking back and forth. Nothing around us could have caused his reaction. No stick figures suspended from trees. No ominous piles of rock. No kid so scared he can't operate a camcorder without shaking.

"No! No! No!" Max is definitely seeing something, though, even if it isn't in front of his eyes. "No! No! No!"

I grab his upper arms and shake him. His muscles are tense, his body rigid. I shake harder. "Max, it's okay. C'mon, Max. Look at me."

He blinks a few times, his eyes finally meeting mine. He looks confused, as though he doesn't know who I am. But then, slowly, the fog seems to clear. The panic doesn't entirely leave him, but he falls silent.

"You're doing good." I rub his still-tense shoulder. "You were having some sort of episode."

He nods. I'm not sure he understands, though. Not yet. When I had a similar experience inside the funhouse, the past merged with the present. I could have sworn the evil clown was actually standing over me with the syringe.

"You're safe, Max. Nobody's going to hurt you." I speak slowly, gazing directly into his eyes. "Whatever you saw, it's not happening now."

Any trace of vulnerability vanishes. He nods again. "Okay. I'm okay now."

Shaking off my wordless offer to help him up, he ignores my hand and stands on his own power. "We're getting out of here."

He heads for the path before I can agree, walking so quickly I need to jog to keep up. We reach the end of the path in half the time it took us to get to the field. His pickup is in sight. So is Heron Lake, its blue water glimmering in the sunlight.

"Max!

He keeps walking.

"Stop! Please." I'm sure he'll continue to ignore me, but then he comes to an abrupt halt. I circle in front of him. His face is impassive. "We shouldn't leave just yet. I know whatever happened back there was traumatic, but we came here for answers."

He doesn't respond. A muscle works in his jaw.

"You remembered something, right?" I feel like I'm talking to a stone. "You can tell me."

Just when I think he'll continue to ignore me, he says, "Yeah. I remembered something."

"More details, Max."

His chest expands and contracts. Even though his skin has started to bronze since he came to Midway Beach, the color hasn't returned to his face. He starts to shake his head.

"Please," I beg. "Don't shut me out, Max. We're in this together, remember?"

A warm wind kicks up and sweeps over us. Like an omen. Another few beats of silence pass.

"I remembered being tied to a chair and that splitting headache," Max finally says.

"What else?"

He gazes out at Heron Lake, as though he can find the answer there. The wind is blowing harder now, rustling the material of his T-shirt. "That's all."

He's lying. I'm certain of it. His reaction was too extreme if all he remembered was the chair and the headache. That's old news. "No clown?"

"No."

"No syringe?"

"I told you what I remembered." Max isn't acting like himself. He's less animated, more guarded. I don't have a clue how to get him to open up.

"But you recognized the field, didn't you? I did. I know I've been there before."

"It's the right field." He rubs his forehead like he's still suffering from the headache. "How did you know to come here?"

Maybe if I open up to him, he'll do likewise. Besides, there's no reason not to tell him. "Have you heard of Cam Stokes? He was a country singer who was big about ten years ago."

"Yeah, I've heard of him," Max says. "Didn't he commit suicide?"

"Right here in Wilder Woods. A field near Heron Lake. It started a trend, which I'm guessing is why that path wasn't marked."

Max says nothing. The wind seems unnaturally loud, like a storm's brewing.

"What do you think it means that both of us were taken to the same field where Cam Stokes killed himself?"

"I don't know." His answer is too quick.

The text tone on my phone goes off. I pull my cell out of my shorts pocket and check the message. It's from Hunter.

Home from hospital, it reads. Stop by l8r?

Maybe I wasn't wrong about Hunter dropping hints at the carnival on the night he was poisoned. Maybe he really does want to spend time with me. I wait for the leap of excitement, but it doesn't come.

"Excuse me," I tell Max. I put some distance between us and type a reply to Hunter: _U bet. Will text when I'm on way._

"Something important?" Max asks.

If he's holding back from me, no way am I sharing everything with him. "It's my mom. She needs me home."

He sweeps a hand toward the parking lot like he's grateful for any reason to leave. "Let's go, then."

Nobody's home when Max drops me off after a trip notable only for the rainstorm that kicks up and the silence between us. The driveway's empty, but Max doesn't ask why my mother summoned me when the house is empty. Turns out Mom took Julian and Suri to the aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores a short drive up the coast. Her note says they won't be back until after dinner.

The rain doesn't let up. Instead of riding my bike through puddles to Hunter's house, I go online to research Cam Stokes, who it turns out had an uncanny resemblance to the iconic actor James Dean. Stokes played up the likeness, slicking back his hair and wearing jeans and a tight white T-shirt topped by a leather jacket.

The Wilmington-born Stokes got his big break when he appeared on a country music reality show as an aspiring singer/songwriter. The TV show only lasted six episodes, but Stokes' songs about heartache and despair caught on. He was signed to a major record deal and went on tour to packed houses. Nobody guessed the brooding quality that made Stokes and his songs so popular would lead to his death.

People speculated that Stokes killed himself because of his breakup with another young country singer. I'm more interested in why Stokes committed suicide in Wilder Woods, although I can't find a reason anywhere. Only one of the stories mentions the location prominently. To my surprise, I recognize the byline. Stuart Bigelow must have been fresh on the job when he covered the singer's death for the _Wilmington News_.

Maybe if I can get Bigelow to tell me all he knows about Cam Stokes, including the stuff he didn't report, I can figure out why Max and I were taken to the same field where Stokes committed suicide.

Bigelow's cell phone number and email address are listed on the _Wilmington News_ website. He doesn't answer his cell so I leave a message. While I'm emailing Bigelow, I get a text. It's from Hunter, asking if I can drop by tomorrow morning instead of tonight. I can hear the rain still pounding the roof of the house.

_Works 4 me_ , I text back.

I'm casting about for something to do tonight when Suri, Julian and my mom get back with the DVD _Gremlins_. I shelve plans to go out. Who can resist a kid-friendly horror movie on a rainy night?

I curl up on the sofa between Julian and Suri and across from the armchair occupied by the teddy bear Julian won for our mother. Both my brother and sister laugh more than they gasp, and I go to bed way earlier than usual. Good thing, because I'm out of the house the next morning before anyone is awake. I leave a note on the kitchen table that I'm a no-go for visiting day, hop on my bike and head for the beach.

Loving the way the surf smells after the rain, I take a long, barefoot walk on the wet sand. Then I read a hundred pages of the old Dean Koontz book about the vanishing ski villagers. When it's late enough in the morning for a visit, I bike to Hunter's house. A blue car that looks like Adair's Miata turns off his street. It's too far away to see the driver, but it can't be Adair. Hunter wouldn't arrange for both of us to visit on one morning, would he?

The house where the Prescotts live is located in what was the most expensive area of Midway Beach in pre-Ocean Breeze days. It's immaculate, with summer flowers lining the walkways and hanging from baskets flanking the front door. The glass in the windows looks spotless even in the sunshine. I'm almost afraid I'll leave a fingerprint smudge on the doorbell. After a few moments, the door opens.

"Jade." It's Hunter's aunt. At least she remembers me this time. She purses her lips. "If you wanted to see me, you should have called and made an appointment."

Swell. She remembers me, because she thinks I want her to fix the screws I have loose. "I'm here to see Hunter."

"Oh, dear." She blocks the entranceway with her body. She's dressed in a tailored navy blue business suit and carries a handbag, like she's heading off to work. I've got seriously bad timing. A couple minutes later and I might have missed her altogether. "I'm afraid that won't be possible. My nephew is still recovering. I can't let people pop in and out willy-nilly."

"How about if I promise not to be _willy-nilly_?" I get the blank look of a person who has no sense of humor. "Okay, scratch that. But if Hunter didn't want me here, he wouldn't have texted and asked me to come."

"Hunter did that?" Mrs. Prescott pauses, clearly surprised and conflicted. Of the various emotions that flit across the face, the only one I recognize is disapproval. "Well, then, I guess you should come in."

She finally admits me to the Promised Land. Inside the house, the tile floors gleam and the ceiling soars. The walls are decorated with modern art, and the color scheme of the furniture is a dramatic red, black and white. Hunter is in a spacious family room, propped up by red pillows on a black chaise. He wears a T-shirt and shorts, with his legs stretched in front of him and his feet bare. A flat-screen TV that's at least sixty inches is tuned to a sports highlight show.

"Hunter, you have a visitor," Mrs. Prescott announces.

Hunter glances my way and gives me that heart-fluttering smile. "Hey, Jade."

"Hey, yourself." I shift from foot to foot and nervously smooth the skirt of my cute sundress that doubles as a beach cover-up. Not the best choice for bike riding, but I always get compliments when I wear it.

He picks up the remote, muting the sound but keeping on the TV. It's some kind of countdown of bad plays. A baseball player backs up to the warning track to catch a ball. It bounces off his head and over the wall for a home run. Hunter laughs.

I'm not a big sports fan, but I understand the appeal. Like life, sports are unpredictable.

"I'll leave you two to it." Mrs. Prescott hovers for a moment, like her feet are glued to the floor. She finally unsticks them, casting a worried glance over her shoulder as she walks away.

"You look good, Hunter." An understatement. He looks great, perhaps paler than usual but still better than ninety-nine percent of guys his age. His golden-brown hair falls over his forehead, and his body is lean and muscled. If he concentrated on athletics instead of acting, he'd probably star at that, too. "How do you feel?"

He pulls his gaze from the television. "Lucky."

I sit down in the circular black chair across from Hunter, sinking into the cushions. "We were all worried about you."

"By _we_ ," he asks with a laugh in his voice, "do you mean _you_?"

"No. Yes. I mean, of course I was worried. Everybody was." I feel my face flush. "So why did you ask me to come over?"

"To talk," he says. "I'm sure you're curious about what happened or you wouldn't have eavesdropped on my aunt and uncle at the hospital."

If the circular chair didn't have such deep cushions, I'd squirm. This isn't the way I expected the conversation to go. "I wouldn't say I was eavesdropping, exactly. I _overheard_ a couple of things."

"Then you know it was rat poison."

"No, I didn't. Rat poison, huh? Wow. That's awful."

"Rat poison's not that different from arsenic," he says matter of factly. "I got a pretty good dose. Any more and I'd have been a goner."

Arsenic is what the Black Widow used to poison her husband, except Constance Hightower did Boris in with small doses over a lengthy period of time.

"How did the rat poison get in your system?" I ask Hunter.

"How do you think it got there?"

"How would I know?"

"You've got an opinion, don't you?"

I'm not sure what he's driving at, but I don't like his tone. "The rat poison must have been in something you ate or drank."

"That's the going theory." He follows his comment with silence.

"So what did you eat or drink that night?'

He crosses his arms over his chest like his aunt did at the door. "Nothing from the carnival concession stand." He waits a moment for that to sink in. "You were wondering about that, weren't you?"

Hunter's aunt must have told him I asked if the police had questioned Adair. "Of course I was wondering. Most people order something at the concession stand."

"Not when they go to the concession stand to talk to someone who works there."

"Even then." We seem to be doing a verbal dance. "Who can resist candy apples?"

"I can, and I did," Hunter says. "I stopped by to talk to Adair. That's it."

"I heard you got a coke."

He sits up straighter on the chaise. "Who told you that? Max Harper?"

"No." That's the truth. Nobody told me. I'm throwing a dart to see if he flinches.

A vein in Hunter's neck bulges. His lips curl. "Because he's lying."

I'm not up to defending Max after the way he clammed up in Wilder Woods, but I can't let hypocrisy go. "The way you lied about your last name being Prescott?"

He glares. He doesn't look nearly as hot as he did when I walked into the room. "I don't owe you an explanation for anything."

"You won't tell me if you ate or drank anything that night?"

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" He shrugs. "I had a coke at the arcade. A fountain drink."

The same kind of drink available at the carnival concession stand.

"I was working the counter where kids redeem tickets for prizes. When I went to the restroom, I left the drink behind," he continues with what sounds like a rehearsed speech. "Anybody could have spiked it."

"Anybody who has a problem with you." Like Adair, who was pissed about Hunter showing interest in me.

"Or somebody who's nuts."

The implication hangs in the air, but I don't think Hunter truly believes I tried to poison him. I think he's trying to rattle me. I'm not sure why it doesn't work. I've spent the past six months hoping he didn't believe the things Adair told him about me.

"Even crazy people need a motive." I stand up. I've had enough of Hunter's insinuations. "I need to be going."

"Later." He picks up the remote and turns the volume back up on the TV.

I don't ask if he and Adair are back together. It's pretty clear he asked me to stop by in order to deflect suspicion from her. But if Hunter's right and Adair didn't poison him, who did?
CHAPTER TEN

Motel Midway has been around as long as the town it's named after. Located a block from the beach in a faded pink one-story building, the motel has fifteen rooms, all with doors opening to the parking lot. The owner lives next door. Very Norman Bates.

A few cars and bicycles pass by on Highway A1A, but the motel is quiet even though the parking lot is nearly full. No surprise. Most people who stay in budget hotels such as this walk to the beach and spend most of the day there.

It's obvious right away why the owner didn't answer the phone. The office is empty and locked. For all I know, the owner could be at his house having a chat with his mummified mum. I'm here to talk to Stuart Bigelow, the _Wilmington News_ reporter, about the country singer who committed suicide.

When Bigelow didn't return either my voicemail or email, I called his newspaper and found out he's staying in Midway Beach while he covers the Black Widow story. In one of Motel Midway's fifteen rooms, to be exact. But which one?

I lean my bike against the building and get ready to knock on doors.

Before I can lift my knuckles, I notice one of the doors in the middle of the building is ajar. Almost immediately, a dark-haired guy backs out of the room toward the parking lot, his hand covering his mouth. It's Max, who I haven't seen since yesterday when he drove me home in secretive silence from the coastal forest.

"Hey," I call as I walk toward him, dimly noticing his white pickup isn't in the lot. I don't even try to keep my irritation under wraps. "Thanks for telling me you were coming to see Bigelow, too."

Max is still moving backward. _Staggering_ backward. Like an actor in a horror movie who's seen something he really wished he hadn't. Like maybe a girl in the shower who's been slashed to death by a man dressed like a woman.

"What is it?" I rush toward Max, stopping just shy of him. "What's wrong?"

"It's Stuart Bigelow," he chokes out.

I run toward the open motel room door.

"Don't go in there!" Max shouts.

It's too late. The room is utilitarian with plain brown furniture arranged on a worn tile floor. Cold air blows from a noisy window air conditioning unit that's steps away from a double bed soaked in blood.

Lying on top of the mattress is a man with a hole in his jugular. His head is turned to the side with his tongue hanging from one side of his open mouth. His eyes are frozen open in what looks like terror.

His face is waxy in death, but the man is Stuart Bigelow.

Stopping myself from fleeing, I take one step, two, three toward the bed. I step in something wet. Not blood, but spilled coffee from an overturned mug. Bigelow's hand is wrapped around something. It's a bloody ballpoint pen.

My stomach heaves. If I'd eaten anything this morning, it would be all over the floor. Before I can move, strong hands close over my shoulders and turn me away from the bed.

"I told you not to come in here," Max says near my ear.

I let Max lead me into the parking lot where I suck in the warm outdoor air, welcome after the chill of the room.

"Let's get out of here." Max retrieves my bicycle and wheels it toward me before it dawns on me what he's suggesting.

"We can't leave. We need to call 9-1-1!"

"Not a good idea." He walks past me with the bicycle toward the sidewalk.

I hurry to catch up. "A man is dead, Max. We can't do nothing."

When he ignores me, I get out my cell phone. He snatches it before I can punch in a single number. "Hey, what gives?"

"Nothing we do will bring Bigelow back to life."

"I know that, but we might be able to help the police figure out what happened to him."

"They'll figure out on their own that somebody stabbed him in the jugular with a pen," he says. "We don't know anything else."

"We can at least make sure nobody else stumbles across the body." My voice rises and trembles. "Do you want a maid to see that?"

Max's jaw tenses, like he's gritting his teeth. "Okay, we'll call. But not from your cell or mine. I think I saw a pay phone in the next block."

He's right even though, like Midway Beach, the pay phone is in danger of extinction. After reporting a body at the Midway Motel, Max hangs up and starts down the sidewalk toward where his pickup is parked, still rolling my bike. I'm torn between following him and returning to the motel to wait for the authorities. I still haven't decided what to do once he'd done loading my bike into the bed of his pickup.

"Are you coming?" Max calls. "Or are you gonna stand there and let your name wind up in the newspaper where the killer can see it? Bigelow didn't stab himself."

"How do you know that?"

"Did you see the blood at his temple and the laptop on the floor? I think someone hit him with the laptop before they stabbed him."

"That doesn't sound premeditated."

"You're willing to take a chance the killer didn't really mean it?"

Max's suggestion to flee the scene of the crime sounds like the way to go. Although talk about paranoid. This goes way beyond most of my mom's delusions.

"Do you honestly believe the killer would come after us?" I ask when the pickup is in motion. "That seems crazy."

Max keeps his eyes straight ahead on the road while he drives under the speed limit. "Crazy stuff is happening in Midway Beach, and we're in the middle of it."

"But it doesn't make sense." I try to concentrate over the scream of an approaching police siren and the residual horror of finding the body. "Bigelow was covering the Black Widow story. We having nothing to do with that."

"We found Constance Hightower's body," Max counters.

"By chance. Anybody walking on the beach that night could have found the body."

"Then why did you come to the hotel to see Bigelow?"

"A lark." A squad car speeds by traveling in the opposite direction, toward the motel. You've gotta hand it to the Midway Beach police. Their response time is excellent. "I was going to ask Bigelow about Cam Stokes."

"Why?"

"To try to figure out why we were taken to the same field where Stokes committed suicide." Briefly I share what I learned about the late country singer. "Your turn. Why were you at the motel?"

"Same as you. To find out what Bigelow knew about Cam Stokes." Max doesn't meet my eyes.

"Nice try, but I don't buy it. You didn't know Bigelow covered the suicide until I told you just now."

Max keeps one hand on the steering wheel and rubs the back of his neck with the other. "Okay, you got me. The real reason was to check out a rumor that nobody saw the Black Widow's body being moved."

"Sure they did. Bigelow's source witnessed it."

"I heard he made up the source, that he wasn't above stretching the truth if it resulted in a better story."

"You mean, a more dishonest story."

"Not really. _Somebody_ moved the body after she died." Max sounds matter of fact, like we're discussing the weather. "Bigelow just didn't know who it was. Until maybe today."

"Whoa. Are you saying the Black Widow's killer stabbed Bigelow with that pen?"

"Hear me out," he says slowly. "Let's say the killer didn't think anybody saw him dump the body until he read that newspaper story. He could have tried to get the name of the witness out of Bigelow. Except if Bigelow made up the witness, he didn't have a name to give. It makes sense, doesn't it?"

None of this makes sense, including the way Max seems more interested in what happened to the Black Widow than in what happened to us. Every time we make progress on our own cases, it seems we get sidetracked by some new, unrelated drama.

"Not really. How could the killer convince Bigelow to give up the name of the witness if he didn't have a weapon? The pen and the laptop don't count. They were probably already in the room."

Max doesn't have an explanation for that, but with work starting in thirty minutes, neither of us has time to come up with one. Tuesday's usually my day off, but I offered to work an extra shift to avoid an evening of hearing how I should have visited my stepfather. At the carnival, Stuart Bigelow's murder is all anyone can talk about.

"Maia told me Bigelow was strangled with a black bra," Becky says breathlessly while we're both on break. We're sitting on a bench holding giant cups of melting, flavored ice chips while tourists stream by. "Do you think the Black Widow came back from the dead for revenge? Like Freddy Krueger?"

"Yeah, Becks. I think the Black Widow's just like Freddy Krueger."

"Really?"

"No, not really." If I tell Becky there was no black bra, she'll ask how I know that. I sip some brain-freezing strawberry slush through my straw while I think about how to respond. "Why would Constance want to get revenge on Stuart Bigelow?"

"Hello? She's evil."

"It's more likely the killer came to the hotel to try to get Bigelow to give up the name of his source and things went south from there."

"What source?"

"The one who saw the Black Widow's body being moved."

"Oooo," Becky says. "Even Maia didn't think of that. Good theory."

"Max's theory."

"That sounds like you're still seeing him." Becky is instantly concerned. "Did you at least check out Max's story about being missing?"

"Yeah, I did." There's an edge to my voice. "What are you going to ask me next? Whether Max could have killed Bigelow?"

"Of course not," Becky says. "But why bring that up? _Do_ you think Max could have killed Bigelow?"

I think I've got to stop getting so defensive whenever Becky brings up Max's name. "No, I don't. I didn't tell you the rest of Max's theory. He thinks Bigelow invented the witness. You know, to make the story sound better."

"Why would Max think that?" Becky asks.

Good question, one I didn't ask. Max said a rumor, but what if Max went to see Bigelow to get the reporter to reveal his source and got angry when he wouldn't? My mind rewinds to Max emerging from Bigelow's motel room with his hand covering his mouth. In horror of what he'd discovered?

Or in horror of what he'd done?

Why didn't it occur to me before now that Max could be the killer, especially with how adamant Max was that we split before the cops came?

"Jade, did you hear me? I asked why Max would think Bigelow invented the witness."

"Apparently Bigelow had that kind of reputation." I sound like I'm trying to deflect suspicion from Max. That's exactly why I'm doing. Just don't ask me why.

"Hey, isn't that your mom over there with Roxy?" Becky points to a spot near the colorful sign marking the entrance to Kiddie Land. My mom holds Roxy's hands in both of hers, gazing up at the carnival boss like she's into devil worship.

I'm off the bench in a flash, not taking the time to explain anything to Becky. I stop shy of the two women, itching to rip my mother away from Roxy. "Hey! What's going on?"

"There you are, Jade." Roxy speaks in singsong, a strange combination with her deep, masculine voice. Under her orange T-shirt, she wears skintight black shorts that extend almost to her knees. Her legs are as muscular and powerful looking as any man's. "Lizzie and I were about to come looking for you."

Lizzie?

"You can call my mother Mrs. Greene."

"I told Roxy to call me Lizzie." My mother's speech is too fast, like she's amped up on Red Bull. Mom's khaki capris and short-sleeved yellow shirt are rumpled and her hair's a mess, like she didn't bother to run a brush through it. "I asked her to dinner."

"The day after tomorrow," Roxy says. "I'll even let you be a little late to work so you can come. Isn't that great?"

It's like inviting a vampire into the house. Except how can I object when this particular vampire saved my brother's life?

"It's swell." I barely rein in the sarcasm.

"We've got to go," my mom tells Roxy. "I need to talk to Jade."

Mom speaks two or three times as fast as usual. She grabs my arm and practically drags me away from Roxy and the children streaming into Kiddie Land.

"Hey, you're squeezing too hard."

Mom doesn't lessen her grip. "We need to go somewhere people can't hear us."

"What? Why?"

"I can't tell you until we get there." Her eyes look wild, the way they did before she cut out on the family.

My stomach cramps. "Did you stop taking your meds?"

"Ofcoursenot." She says the words so fast, they run into each other. "Wherecanwego?"

She keeps walking, her head swiveling back and forth. She's acting way different than last night when she, Julian and Suri came home from the trip to the aquarium with tales of sharks and stingrays and the _Gremlins_ DVD.

Oh, no. My brother and sister. I plant my feet hard, and she has to stop. My arm feels like it's going to wrench out of the socket, but that's not important now. "Where are Julian and Suri?"

Her forehead scrunches like she doesn't understand the question.

"Where?" I demand.

"At home. Withyouruncle."

Okay, I tell myself. Breathe. I'm no fan of Uncle Landon's, at least not lately, but he loves Julian and Suri. It's not my brother and sister I need to worry about. It's my mother.

"You went to the prison today, right? Did it go okay?"

"No. Yes." Mom shakes her head up and down, then back and forth. Her eyes dart around. Several people cast curious glances at us, then go back to enjoying themselves. Some little kids skip alongside their parents, so excited their young voices carry above the music from the midway. "Can'ttalkaboutithere."

"If you try to calm down, I'll take you somewhere that's not so crowded." I peer into her eyes. They're slightly bloodshot, which can't be a good sign. "Can you do that?"

After a moment, Mom nods.

Just as I suspect, there aren't many people near the funhouse. The chilling, hair-raising laughter has freaked out everyone. Okay, not really. The reason the funhouse is unpopular is because it's lame. Getting the creeps from it puts me in the minority.

"Now tell me what happened today at the prison." I clear my throat and voice the fear that's been building since I noticed her strange behavior. "Is my stepfather okay?"

"Nothing to do with him." Mom still speaks fast but not in double time like before. "Has to do with enemies."

Not this again.

"You don't have enemies, Mom. Remember? It was all in your head."

"Not _my_ enemies." She grips my hand hard, sending pain shooting up my arm. " _Yours_."

It's still almost eighty degrees, but the wind feels like an icy blast cutting through me.

"People in this town," my mother says, "they're not who you think they are. Be careful who you trust. Very, very careful."

I'd like to shrug off her warning as the ravings of a lunatic, but too much has happened. Her advice actually sounds logical. "Where's this coming from, Mom? Who told you to warn me?"

She checks the vicinity. Two young girls with their elbows linked pass a few feet from us, laughing uncontrollably about something or other. Their laughter mixes with the canned guffaws from the funhouse. Mom waits until the girls are gone, then leans toward me.

"The voices," she says in a hoarse whisper. "They're back."
CHAPTER ELEVEN

The multilane, multicolored plastic slide that sits at the edge of the carnival is called the Monster. Whoever named the giant slide doesn't have a clue what a real monster is. I've got a terrible feeling I'm about to find out if the voices in Mom's head are any indication.

How insane is it that I'm taking their advice?

"Can I get one of those?" A boy with close-cropped dark hair points at the stack of burlap bags behind me. Riders sit on them with the goal of keeping all their skin. The boy's approximately Julian's age like just about everybody who takes a turn on the Monster.

"Sure thing." I give him the burlap in exchange for his ticket. "Bring it back when you're done. And don't slide until the coast is clear."

The boy is so eager to reach the top of the ride, I'm not sure he heard me. A half-dozen kids, all boys, are in line behind him. They scamper up the slide one after another until only one boy is left. It's Julian's friend Tommy. He hands me his ticket without meeting my eyes, but I don't turn over the burlap.

"Tommy Donatelli. Just the boy I've been wanting to talk to."

Tommy's short for his age, about the same height as Julian, which means he's five or six inches shorter than me. His dark eyes don't lift. "What did I do?"

"It's not what you did. It's what you didn't do."

"Huh?"

I should have this conversation with Julian. And I will, as soon as I can get up the anger to yell at him. The last few days, I've been too absurdly glad he's alive to scold him for the incredibly stupid thing he did.

"You know what you did, Tommy. You didn't stop Julian from swimming beside that pier."

"Hey, it wasn't my fault." His dark eyes finally meet mine.

"You're two years older than Julian, Tommy. You should have looked out for him. Everybody in town knows those currents are deadly."

He shakes his head. "That's not what the lady told us."

A premonition of what he's about to say hits me like a slap to the face, but I still ask the question. "What lady?"

"The big lady, the one who saved Julian. She told us it was safe to swim there now."

If Roxy were in sight right now, I'd tackle her. Okay, maybe not. But I might manage to claw her eyes out. "When was this?"

"The day Julian won that teddy bear. The big lady, she was spinning the color wheel."

My brother said he'd won three games in a row. I should have known few people win that many times straight at a carnival game without help. Roxy either told Julian which color squares to place his quarters on or she rigged the wheel.

"What exactly did she say about swimming near the pier, Tommy?"

"She said it was fun, that she swims there all the time. She told us the same thing Sunday right before Julian went in."

I don't believe for a second that Roxy is dumb enough to swim there, yet she must be familiar enough with the currents to know she could pull Julian to safety. Because she'd set up the entire Roxy-to-the-rescue operation. I'm sure of it. I even know why: To ingratiate herself with my family. If the dinner invitation is any indication, it's working.

"Can I have one of those burlap things now?" Tommy asks.

"Nope." I pick up one end of the heavy chain we use to block the entrance to the stairs and secure it. "Ride's closed."

"The carnival's still open," Tommy wails in protest. "You can't do that."

"I just did."

I take off at a jog. I've got some pretty good ideas of where to look for Roxy, but before I run a dozen steps my cell phone rings. I slow down enough to check the display. Max. I click on the phone. "Yeah?"

"Can you meet me in front of the pier? I need your help."

I knew it as soon as the phone rang. The police are on to him. I stop moving entirely and give the conversation my full attention. "I won't be your alibi, if that's the kind of help you need."

"Alibi for what?"

"For what happened to Stuart Bigelow."

Silence. It lasts so long, I think he might have hung up. "I don't need an alibi, Jade," he says after long moments. "Now can you meet me or not?"

"Why should I?"

"It's important. I'll explain when you get here."

The line goes dead. Great. He hung up, expecting me to do as he says. I'm tempted to stand him up while I deal with Roxy. But now that I've had a chance to calm down, I realize I can confront Roxy later. The bigger mystery is waiting for me.

Max stands at the entrance to the pier where I can't miss him, not that I would. At his height and with those dark good looks, he stands out in a crowd. He waits, unsmiling, as I approach. Closer to the ocean, the wind is more of a factor. It whips at our clothes and hair and smells of salt and sea.

"So I'm a murderer, huh?" Max speaks barely loud enough to be heard over the wind's whistle, but I can pick out what sounds like hurt in his voice.

I lift my chin. "I'm not ruling out anything."

He takes a step toward me. I hold my ground, staring up at him. It seems like I can feel the heat of his body, the warmth of his breath, but maybe that's just the wind. "If I'm a murderer," he whispers, his face close to mine, "why aren't you afraid of me?"

The feeling coursing through me isn't fear. Otherwise, dealing with him would be easier.

"And if I'm a murderer," Max continues whispering, "why didn't you stick around the motel this afternoon and rat me out to the cops?"

I wouldn't admit it didn't occur to me that he could have murdered Bigelow even if a Nazi dentist had me strapped to a chair.

"I'm not here to talk about me." It's impossible to stick my chin any higher in the air. "You promised to explain why you want help."

If he doesn't need me to get his alibi straight, I don't have a clue what he wants.

He straightens until there's enough distance between us that I can breathe without smelling his clean scent. "I found Leanne Livingston."

"Who?"

"The Black Widow's sister. She was staying with Constance at Ocean Breeze until recently."

"Was she missing?"

"By choice," Max says. "She cleared out of the mansion after her sister died, probably because of all the press."

"And you've been looking for her?" I know the answer. Max has been more obsessed with the Black Widow case than he is the mystery of his own disappearance.

"Me and everybody else. The money was on her hometown in South Carolina, but she didn't go back there." He doesn't give me a chance to ask how he knows that. "She stayed in Midway Beach."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I tracked down Leanne Livingston's cell phone number and got her to agree to meet me. She's waiting at the White Pelican." He names the indoor/outdoor restaurant halfway down the pier. "If there's a connection between us and her sister, Leanne might help us figure it out."

"You already know I don't think there is a connection. So why call me? Why not talk to her by yourself?"

"I started to." Max pauses and bites his lower lip. "But she's sitting at a table by herself. Crying."

"So?"

"So that kind of stuff makes me uncomfortable." He shuffles his feet. "I thought she'd be more likely to open up if I was with somebody female."

"Are you for real?"

"Hey, I don't have sisters." He'd already told me he was an only child. "Are you in?"

I hesitate, eager to go back to figuring out what Roxy is up to.

"Please," he adds.

The wind blows away my sigh, but not my nod.

The only woman sitting alone at the White Pelican wears a floppy hat and oversized sunglasses. Not the most popular look after the sun goes down. The band that plays every night at the restaurant must be on break, because a sappy old song drifts from the interior of the restaurant.

"That's her." Max nods toward the table. "That's Leanne Livingston."

The wind is blowing harder now, chasing most people inside so that only a few outdoor tables are occupied. The woman with the floppy hat focuses on her amber-colored drink. Whiskey, if I had to guess.

"Leanne Livingston?" Max ventures when we're standing beside her table. Her head snaps up. All I can see of her face is her mouth, nose, cheeks and chin. "I'm Max Harper, and this is Jade Greene."

"You're the one who called." The corners of her mouth turn down and tremble. "The one who said you found my sister's body on the beach."

"That's right. Mind if we join you?" Max doesn't wait for her agreement, pulling out a chair for me and then settling beside me. "We've got some questions we'd like to ask you."

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," Leanne mumbles. She wags a finger, her words slightly slurred. "Are you gonna tell Boris's son and daughter where I am? Those horrible Hightowers are looking for me, you know."

"We don't know Boris's children," Max says. "We won't tell anybody anything."

"Still not supposed to talk to you," she mutters, the slurring more pronounced. She leans forward suddenly, sticking out her neck like she's trying to get a good look at us. "Is it dark out here? I can't see real good."

"It might help to take off your sunglasses," I suggest.

Leanne reaches up, feeling her sunglasses like she's a blind person. She whips them off, giving me my first good look at her beautiful face.

If I was being choked to death, I'd have an easier time breathing. Because the woman's high cheekbones and delicate features are unmistakable.

It's Constance Hightower.

"I don't understand." I can hardly get the words out. "I thought you were dead."

She covers her pretty mouth with a hand and laughs until the tears spilling out of her eyes seem to have nothing to do with mirth. Max isn't laughing, but he doesn't stare at her like she's risen from the dead, either.

"I'm sorry." Max's apology and guilty look make no sense. "I should have told you Leanne is Constance's identical twin."

"You looked like you saw a ghost." Leanne gulps and wipes at her tears. "But I understand. It's not easy having this face. I can't stand to look in a mirror."

Of course. She'd be reminded her sister was dead every time she saw her own image. It seems like I should say something to let her know I feel for her. "I'm sorry for your loss, Leanne."

She hiccups and blinks the moisture from her eyes. "Thank you."

"We won't take up much of your time," Max says. "We just have a few questions."

"Hey," she says before Max can ask any of them, "do you know if there's anything new with that reporter? Do the police know who killed him?"

"I don't think so," Max says.

"Because it wasn't my sister." Leanne wags her finger. "She doesn't stab people with pens."

"Your sister's dead," Max says gently.

"Connie wouldn't kill herself." Leanne's voice is stronger and clearer now, almost as if she's willing herself not to be drunk. Or maybe the monsoon-like wind is reviving her. "She always said she'd die before she went to jail, but she didn't really mean it. The part about dying, I mean. Not the part about going to jail. I always knew Connie would find a way to beat the system. And she did."

"I don't understand," I say.

"It's a twin thing. A connection that can't be broken." She stares across the table at us, more lucid by the second. "I'd know if Connie was dead."

"But your sister _is_ dead," Max says again.

Leanne shakes her head and lowers her voice. "I'll tell you a secret if you promise not to repeat it."

We both nod our assent.

"Connie's alive," Leanne says.

Wow. This lady might have even more problems than my mom.

"She's not alive," I say as gently as I can. "Your twin's body was found on the beach. Missing a whole lot of blood."

Leanne shakes her head emphatically. "That wasn't Connie. It only looked like Connie."

Because identical triplets happen all the time.

"Then where is she?" Max goes along with the craziness.

"I don't know," Leanne whispers back. "But yesterday, she called me. She said she couldn't stand the thought of me crying over her and that we could be together when all the publicity died down. A little while ago, she called again. I told her I was meeting you, and she said not to tell you anything." She covers her mouth. "Oops."

"It's okay, Leanne," Max says. "It's not like we're the police."

"That's true." Leanne sounds unsure of herself. She chews her lower lip.

"Did your sister say where she was?" Max could have accepted that Leanne was done talking. He knows as well as I do the only place the Black Widow could be is the morgue.

Leanne keeps gnawing on her lip. Her eyebrows scrunch together. I'm sure she's about to refuse to answer, but then she nods.

"Yes, she did." Leanne speaks in a hushed whisper. "She said she was in somebody else's body."

###

THE SPIDER

Volume Three of the Dead Ringers serial

CHAPTER ONE

I'm really good at suspending disbelief while I'm watching a movie. Show me aliens erupting from stomach cavities or serial killers who only strike inside dreams, and I'm totally with you.

In real life, I'm not so ready to swallow the split-pea soup when it's likely to turn into projectile vomit.

I can buy that somebody murdered the Black Widow, aka the greedy young woman who poisoned her rich old husband. The evidence supports it. Constance Hightower was found on the beach with her wrists gouged to the bone and no blood anywhere.

But it's pretty hard to wrap even my horror-movie-loving mind around the Black Widow getting in touch with her sister from beyond the grave. Not through a séance or a ghostly visit or anything semi-logical.

Through a phone call.

"Did you hear me?" Leanne Livingston's whispers compete with the wind that whistles through the outdoor patio of the White Pelican, the restaurant on the pier at Midway Beach, my North Carolina hometown. "Constance said she was in somebody else's body. Said she was a dead ringer for her."

I catch Max's eye and try to convey that losing her identical twin sister has made this woman looney tunes. Understandable. She probably had to identify Constance's body. Imagine looking down at a corpse that looks exactly like you.

That happened in one of the Halloween sequels. I confess I didn't know Jamie Lee Curtis was dreaming, but, like I said, real life needs skeptics.

Max puts his forearms on the table and leans closer to Leanne, his expression grave. "Did your sister say whose body she was in?"

Seriously?

Max Harper is supposed to be working with me to solve the mystery of what happened to us when we went missing. Both of us lost time, although bits and pieces are coming back. I figured he was open-minded when he didn't balk at my memory of being tied to a chair while an evil clown injected me with something.

But this Ringer thing is even crazier than that.

Worse, Max's fascination with the Black Widow is taking time away from our real problem. Yeah, we found Constance Hightower's bloodless body on the beach. And, yes, we were also first and second on the scene after somebody stabbed the newspaper reporter covering the story in the jugular with a ballpoint pen.

Finding out who murdered them, though, is a job for the cops.

"I don't know whose body," Leanne the Looney Tunes says. "I asked but she said it was better I didn't know too much."

Time to inject some sanity into the conversation, ironic coming from a girl who everybody in town thinks is nuts. "You mean the prank caller pretending to be your dead sister didn't say?"

Leanne takes another swallow of her drink as ice cubes rattle. She almost misses the table when she sets the glass back down. "Your girlfriend doesn't believe me," she tells Max.

I raise my hand. "Hello. Sitting right here."

I'm about to let Leanne know Max isn't my boyfriend when I remember we're pretending to be into each other. Our joint investigation is on the down low. We can't let the bad guys know we're teaming up and comparing notes.

"I believe you, Leanne," Max says. If I wasn't suspicious of everything he said, I'd think he's sincere. "If you give me your cell, we can figure out what number she called from and get it traced."

"Bomb!" someone screams from inside the restaurant.

Huh? Looney Livingston isn't the only one making no sense.

The people chased inside the restaurant by the wind start pouring out of the plastic-covered doors, bumping into each other in their haste.

Max cranes his neck toward the commotion. "Did I really just hear that?"

"Run!" It's one half of the pair of former cheerleaders that in high school we called the Drama Queens Twins—DQ Twins, for short. Her name's either Ashley or Heather. She's wearing the skimpy black shorts and tight red top identifying her as a White Pelican waitress. Ashley/Heather rushes by, shrieking to the customers on the patio, "There's a bomb on the pier. It's gonna blow!"

A loud crack splits the air. My heart jumps. I brace myself, expecting the pier to splinter beneath my feet and debris to rain down on our heads.

Leanne Livingston screams.

The three of us at our table leap to our feet. The pier's jammed with people, as it is every night during tourist season. Hundreds gather farther down the pier to listen to whatever C-list singer got booked for the night. All of those people stream toward us.

Leanne joins the stampede, moving fast enough to make me think I could be wrong about her being drunk.

People shout and scream. The only word I can make out is Bomb! The pier isn't wide enough to accommodate the thick crowd. Stragglers knock over tables and chairs on the outdoor patio as they run by. God forbid anybody should fall. The question of whether it's better to be trampled to death or blown to bits sends me into paralysis.

Max grabs my hand, his eyes steady on mine. "Let's get out of here."

A fresh boom drowns out his last few words. The pier seems to shake beneath my feet. My heart pounds so hard the beats echo in my ears. I hold tight to his hand as we move toward the people streaming by in a panic while hard truths slam into my brain.

Max and I will never piece together the rest of our memories. We'll never know why we were each taken separately to the same field and tied to a chair. We'll never share another kiss.

Because we're going to die.

Right here.

Right now.

Except we're both still in one piece and so is the pier. But how can that be?

"Wait!" Max stops beside a fallen table a few feet from the mass of running humanity. He pulls me close and bends down until his mouth is near my ear. "That wasn't a bomb. Those were firecrackers. You know, the ones that make a single loud bang."

Firecrackers are illegal in North Carolina, but that doesn't mean much. Lots of beachgoers are ignorant of the law. Others don't care. Growing up in Midway Beach, I've seen and heard just about every kind of firework there is. Max is right. Those two blasts sounded like they came from a cherry bomb or an M-80.

"Come on." Max tugs on my hand and reverses direction, away from the crowd and back to where we were sitting with Leanne Livingston. The table we vacated is nearest to the edge of the pier, overlooking the beach.

"Look!" Max points below to three boys emerging from under the pier and running through wisps of smoke down the beach. "They must be the ones who set them off."

The boys couldn't have been on the pier when the stampede started. They have too much of a head start.

Their backs are to us and they're getting farther away by the second. One of the boys is considerably taller than the other. The loping way he runs seems familiar. But when would I have seen a tall boy run? And then I've got it. The tall boy plays for the high school basketball team. His nickname is even Loper.

"We need to find Leanne before she disappears again," Max says before I can figure it out. It's not tops on my list of things to do, but I go along. By the time we get to the boardwalk, the screaming's stopped and it's pretty clear the pier won't blow up. People mill about, their conversation buzzing over us like a swarm of locusts.

"Leanne was wearing a hat. That might make her easier to spot." Max makes a three hundred sixty degree turn, his head swiveling in all directions.

I stand on my tiptoes, trying to see over and through the crowd. Some familiar faces pop out. Becky and Maia and Porter McRoy and the long-haired, tattooed boy who works at the arcade, all far enough away that I don't feel like I have to speak to them. Hunter Prescott, too, with Adair holding on tight to his hand. Cops in uniform stride through the crowd, pulling some people aside.

"Leanne was moving pretty fast," I say. "If she kept going, she might already be gone."

Max swears under his breath.

"Let's find out what happened." He grabs my hand and edges through the mass of people to where Officer Wainwright is talking to Ashley/Heather. She gestures expansively with her hands and covers her mouth. Her chest heaves up and down. Before we reach them, Wainwright hands her his business card and turns away. Ashley/Heather starts walking away.

"Hey, Ashley," I call.

No response.

"Heather?"

She turns, looks around and finally figures out who addressed her. Before I vanished and lost time, the popular crowd in high school didn't pay much attention to me. It was better than being looked at like I belong in a psych ward, but it wasn't exactly a confidence boost.

"What do you want?" Heather's face is flushed and her eyes are watery. There are tear tracks down her face. "I just survived a crisis, you know. I almost died!"

"You didn't almost—" I begin.

"You were great back there," Max interrupts. "If there had been a bomb, you would saved lives."

"I know," Heather says, her blue eyes wide. "Some people are just really good in a crisis."

Gag.

Max takes a step toward her and gives her all his attention like she's the most interesting thing he's ever come across instead of the biggest airhead alive. He's long since dropped my hand. Even though I know he's fishing for information, I'm still annoyed.

"What made you think a bomb was about to go off?" Max asks.

"I got a phone call."

"On your cell phone?"

"No. The restaurant phone. It was a bomb threat. She said people would die if I didn't get them off the pier."

"She?" Max exchanges a look with me before turning back to Heather. "Are you sure the caller was female?"

"Positive." She looks at him from under her lashes. "Your name's Max, right? If you want to hear more about it, give me your phone. I'll put in my number."

"He's heard enough." I move closer to him. "Right, Max?"

He sends me a cocky grin before turning back to Heather. "You heard my girlfriend. She won't hear of me hearing any more from you."

Groan. Even though it's true, it makes me sound bad.

The other DQ Twin, Ashley by process of elimination, rushes up to Heather and embraces her. "I about died when I heard what was happening on the pier. I'm so glad you're alive!"

"Yeah," Heather says, fresh tears running down her face. "It was so scary!"

A matter of opinion. There are way scarier things than bomb threats that turn out to be false alarms. But maybe Heather and Ashley have never seen Paranormal Activity.

Heather pulls back from Ashley's embrace and smiles at Max. "If you change your mind, Max, you can find me at the restaurant."

"He won't." The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

The DQ Twins walk away, arm in arm. Max doesn't watch them go. He's too busy smiling at me. "I like it when you're jealous."

"It was pretend jealousy, Max. Other people are supposed to think we're a couple."

He tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear and traces my jaw line with a gentle finger. "I only flirted with her to get information."

Why can't I move away? "We already knew somebody called in a bomb threat."

"We didn't know it was a female. That means somebody besides the three who set off the firecrackers was involved."

"What makes you sure the firecrackers had anything to do with the bomb threat?"

"A hunch," he says. "But I could be wrong."

"Loper would know."

"Who's that?"

"The tallest of the three perps. His name is Jeremy Gavin, but everyone calls him Loper because of the way he runs. He was on the high school basketball team."

Max's face splits into a grin, and he leans down and kisses me. Back there on the pier, I thought he might never kiss me again. That's why I don't stop it. Life experience and all that.

"What does Loper look like?" he asks when he raises his head.

"Dark hair. Long sideburns. Kind of skinny. About six-five."

Max gestures to our right. "Is that him?"

I start to say nobody who pulled off a hoax like that would be stupid enough to double back. But there's Loper, walking right past us.

"He better get a basketball scholarship," I say, "because he's not getting into college on brains."

"Hey, Loper." Max heads straight for the taller boy and grabs his arm. "Got a minute to talk about those firecrackers you set off?"

"Get off me, man." Loper shrugs Max off, sticking his chin in the air. The tough-guy jock effect is ruined by the bleary look in his eyes and the sickly sweet smell of marijuana. "I'm not talking to you."

"It's me or the cops," Max says in a low voice. "Because I saw you running away."

Loper's lower lip quivers. "You're bluffing, man. You didn't see nothin'. You don't know me."

"My girlfriend knows you." Max jerks a thumb at me. "She recognized you from the basketball team."

Loper blinks a few times before he can focus on me. "Her? She's nuts."

I underestimated my own notoriety. I graduated in May. Jeremy Gavin is a rising high school sophomore. We've never once spoken.

"Take that back." Max is a good four inches shorter than Loper but gets right in his face. The veins in Max's neck bulge. I can almost see the testosterone coming off him. It's been so long since someone stuck up for me that I can't even get annoyed.

"I didn't mean nothin' by it." Loper backs up, holding up his hands.

I step between Max and Loper. For added effect, I lower my chin, look at him from under my lashes and try to sound insane. "You better tell us how it went down."

"Okay. okay." Loper actually looks freaked out. "But I didn't know what was gonna happen. I just did it for the money."

"The money?" Max asks.

"Me and a friend were hanging out under the pier." From the smell of him, I can figure out what they were doing under there. "Some tourist kid—maybe fifteen, sixteen—said he'd split a hundred bucks with us if we helped him set off some cherry bombs."

"Come on," Max says. "You expect us to believe that?"

"It's the truth. The kid, he didn't know how to set them off. And it wasn't his money. He got it from some woman."

"What woman?"

"I never saw her, man."

"Where's the kid?"

"He took off. I don't even know if I could recognize him." Loper's flying so high, I believe that. "Can I go now?"

"Go," Max says. "If we need you again, we'll find you."

It seems pretty certain the woman who paid the boy to set off the firecrackers called in the bomb threat, but why? "I don't get it," I say when Loper's out of earshot. "Why would someone want to create mass panic?"

"Not someone," he says. "Constance Hightower. She didn't want her sister telling us she's a Ringer."
CHAPTER TWO

During all the commotion over the bomb threat, it slipped my mind that Max seems to believe the Black Widow is hanging out in someone else's body. The boardwalk's still packed since the cops closed the pier while they make absolutely sure there is no danger.

"Let me get this straight." I lean toward Max so nobody passing by can hear me. People already think I'm crazy enough. "By a Ringer, you mean body-stealer."

"Something like that."

"Before the whole switcheroo could happen," I say slowly, "do you think they grew the host in a spare pod?"

Max wrinkles his nose. "I don't know what you mean."

If he's so culturally illiterate he hasn't seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I'm not about to enlighten him.

"Or maybe this is more of a doppelganger thing." I scratch my chin like I'm deep in thought. "Except since the Black Widow's already a twin, how do we know she wasn't already Looney Leanne's doppelganger? Before she was murdered and managed not to die, I mean."

"I get the feeling you're not on board with the body-switching," Max says.

Rolling my eyes would be too obvious so I give him the blank stare. "That's because I'm actually sane."

"I need to show you something." He grabs my hand. If we hadn't agreed to fake a romance, I'd at least think about snatching it back. But I don't even know where we're going.

Some of the tourists head for the arcade while others fill the outdoor tables at the pizza and sandwich shops that populate the boardwalk. Most people, including Max and me, stream into the carnival.

"You're working tonight, right?" Max asks above the chatter of voices and noise from the midway.

"Right." I'm supposed to be taking tickets at the Monster Slide and handing out burlap bags for the riders to sit on.

"We can do this later if you need to get back to it. I don't want to get you into trouble with Roxy."

"Don't worry about Roxy." The lying, conniving carnival boss is in trouble with me. I still plan to hunt her down and confront her about what I learned earlier tonight. Later, though. "I'm dying to see what you have to show me."

Okay, considering the two recent murders in Midway Beach, that's not the best choice of words.

Max walks straight to the trailer that serves as the administrative hub for the carnival. Since Roxy's a hands-on boss who spends most of her time walking the grounds, it's vacant for most of the night. Employees store their stuff in the trailer, so all of us have the combination for the lock on the metal door. Max punches in the numbers while my brain whirs.

"This something you need to show me, is it in your backpack?" If it's another missing person flier, that won't make me a believer. But, then, nothing will.

"Nope."

"Then why are we going in the trailer?"

"Patience, Jade," Max says and pushes open the door.

The overhead lights are on, shining on an office that looks the same as it always does: sterile and empty with backpacks piled against one of the walls. There's also a fairly large desk, a desktop computer and a gray file cabinet. The only other thing of interest is the bulletin board where Roxy posts the night's work schedule.

Max bends over, balancing his hands on the fronts of his thighs.

"Here, Punch," he calls. "Here, boy."

Nothing happens. Surprising. Roxy sometimes brings her oversized, calico cat—is its name really Punch?—to work. The last few times the cat was around, it practically accosted me, jumping at my legs and wagging its tail so hard I could feel a breeze.

"Are you sure Punch is here today?" I hadn't come across him, but then I'd arrived for work tonight before Roxy.

"Oh, yeah. I saw him earlier."

"I thought Roxy's cat was a girl."

"Judy is a girl, but she's not here today." Max knows way more about the boss's pets than I do. "Punch is her dog. "

"Weird names."

"Roxy told me they're from some old-timey carnival sideshow, I think with puppets."

For a dog, Punch is awfully quiet. The trailer's completely silent.

"Punch," Max calls again, using a coaxing voice.

"This is a waste of time, Max. I don't think—"

"Patience," he repeats, taking a step deeper into the trailer. "Pu-unch." His voice is a singsong now. "Where are you, boy?"

A muscular black dog with brown markings, probably a Doberman mix, slinks from behind the desk. It's a good size, maybe sixty pounds. With lithe, silent movements, the dog pads across the office to Max and rubs against his leg.

"Good boy." Max runs his hand down the dog's back, from its head to its tail. The dog arches its back, sticking its backside in the air.

Then it makes a strange guttural noise that sounds almost like a purr.

"Well, that's weird," I say.

The dog's tail sticks straight up, not quite wagging but quivering. Max looks straight at the animal, but the dog won't meet his eyes. Suddenly the dog retreats, moving with feline grace across the office and leaping onto an armchair in one fluid movement. Without paying us any more attention, it starts licking its coat.

"That's weirder," I say. "Do you think he was raised by a family of cats?"

Max tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, looking thoroughly confused. Come on! You mean he hasn't seen Jungle Book or Tarzan, either?

"That's not what's going on here." Max gives me a measured look, like he expects me to figure it out myself.

But the conclusion he wants me to reach? Well, it's impossible.

"You need more convincing." Max crosses the room to the file cabinet with me following. On top of the cabinet is a small silver tin can with one of those easy-open lids. Max pops the tab, and I smell tuna.

Punch makes the strange noise again. It's not a bark or a yap or anything normal like that. More like a rasping... meow.

Max empties the open can of tuna into a bowl, carries it to the armchair and sets it down on the floor. "Here, boy."

Punch leaps down from the chair with an easy grace and delicately laps at the tuna with his tongue.

"Well?" Max looks at me with raised eyebrows.

What I'm thinking is too fantastic for words.

"Have you noticed how odd Roxy's cat acts?" Max asks. "The other day, she chewed up some backpacks. Guess that's why Roxy started bringing her dog to work instead."

Except that's backward logic. Cats are typically the pets that can be left alone indoors for hours on end. Yeah, some of them get bored and tear up things. But with their claws, not their teeth.

Max gazes at me expectantly. We'll be here all night if I don't say it aloud.

"You think Roxy's dog and cat switched bodies."

It sounds even nuttier when spoken aloud.

"No," Max says. "I think someone—or something—caused them to switch bodies."

I shake my head back and forth. "There must be another explanation."

He crosses his arms over his chest. "I'm listening."

I close my eyes and concentrate but nothing comes to me.

"Okay, I can't come up with one right now. But even if Punch and Judy switched bodies, and I'm not saying they did, it doesn't follow the Black Widow did the same thing."

"Why not?"

"Because if she was part of a body switch, the other person would be inside her body." I feel proud of myself for making such a logical point. "Like Punch and Judy."

"Not if someone made it seem like Constance committed suicide after the switch was made."

"What would be the point of that?" I ask.

"She can't risk being exposed. If everybody thinks the Black Widow is dead, she doesn't go to trial. She gets away with her husband's murder."

It's preposterous, yet it makes a creepy sort of sense. Constance Hightower wasn't charged with her husband's murder until months after he died, which gave her plenty of time to stash his money where only she could access it. "She'd be rich, too."

"Now you're catching on," Max says.

If not for Punch freaking me out by the way he's lapping up tuna beside the armchair, I'd give in to my weakening knees and sit down. I still can't entirely buy the switcheroo, but at this point I can't afford to discount anything. Besides, it it's not true, it means Max is up to something and I'll be in position to figure out what.

"There's something else I didn't tell you," Max says. "Something that might help to convince you."

I brace myself. Whatever it is, I have a feeling I don't want to hear it.

"You were right yesterday at the field. I did get another memory back. A strong one. Another person was there with me."

"Who?"

"I only heard him." Max maintains that, like me, his face was covered by a hood when he was tied to the chair. "He was moaning about how his head hurt. I think he was supposed to switch bodies with me."

"But how is something like body switching even possible?" I speak my doubt aloud. "How would it work?"

"I don't know," Max says. "But when it's happening, I think it hurts. That's why both of us had such crushing headaches."

"Hold on. If somebody abducted me to do a..." I can hardly get the words out. "...body switch, why don't I remember another person moaning?"

"You remember an animal crying." He's right. It was a plaintive, pitiful noise that I thought was coming from a fox. "Think about it, Jade. Before experimenting on humans, it's common to have animal trials."

In The Fly, the eccentric scientist turned a baboon inside out while teleporting it from one pod to another. Too bad for him the experiment worked on the second baboon, because we all know what happened to the housefly. Except maybe movie-illiterate Max.

"Then why aren't I inside a fox's body and running through the woods right now?"

"Not every trial is successful," he says.

"How do I know you're not someone else?"

"You get my point. You can't tell."

"You can't even tell if there's been a body switch if there's not a dead body," I say, going with the far-fetched flow.

"Exactly. But sometimes a dead body is just a dead body. How many people committed suicide in the field at Wilder Woods after that singer killed himself?"

"Six or seven."

"If either of us had turned up dead, the police would have written it off as a suicide," Max says. "I think that's why we were taken to that particular field."

"But who took us there? What we're talking about is impossible. People can't just do something like that." My mind buzzes with supernatural possibilities: Aliens, demons, magic amulets.

"I don't pretend to have all the answers," Max says. "But just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it's not happening."

"If you're right," I say slowly, "how do I know the body switch wasn't successful on you?"

"Check the dates. There won't be a suicide in that field."

I'm not willing to take his word for it. Too bad my phone's a dinosaur. "Does your phone have Internet?"

He nods and hands his phone to me. Moments later, I confirm that no one died in Wilder Woods or anywhere close on the dates he was missing. The most recent suicide in the coastal forest was last November.

"Let's assume you're on the mark about all this," I say slowly. "You were taken about a month before me. Why try a human-to-human switch before an animal-to-human switch?"

"We don't know when Punch and Judy were switched, but it was probably before I was abducted. Maybe I was part of the first human-to-human try. Since that didn't work, it makes sense to go back to animal trials."

"Animal-human trials, you mean."

"Yeah," he says.

"But if the Black Widow is in somebody else's body, that means a human-to-human switch succeeded." And somebody, likely one of my friends, is dead. I can't help but shiver. If there's even a chance this is true, we need to do the responsible thing. "We should go to the cops."

"The cops already think we're unreliable. They won't change their minds if we come into the police station with a dog that acts like a cat."

"But we can't let this go on!" I cover my mouth as something occurs to me. "Oh, God. Julian and Suri. What if one of them are next?'

I'm taking no chances with the safety of my brother and sister. I whirl and head for the door. Max gets there before me, blocking the exit. "Hold on. Where are you going?"

"To confront Roxy."

He can't say the carnival boss isn't involved. We suspected Roxy of something even before her dog and cat started acting strangely. She's the one who lied about me being on a ski trip with her when it turns out I could actually have been an unwilling participant in an unconscionable experiment.

"Are your brother and sister at the carnival tonight?" Max asks.

When I'd run into Mom earlier, she said Uncle Landon was baby-sitting, just like he and his wife used to when I was a kid. "They're at home."

"Then they're safe. Now slow down and tell me why you think they're in danger."

Max knows Roxy rescued Julian from drowning. I'd discovered earlier tonight that Roxy told Julian and his friend Tommy that swimming near the pier was fun, that the currents were no longer treacherous. I air my suspicion that Roxy orchestrated the rescue to ingratiate herself with my family. My mom even invited her to dinner.

"Can you get me invited to dinner?"

"Probably." My mom likes Max. She even asked him to watch over me. "It might be tough for you to get the time off, though. Roxy's already letting me come in late."

"I can ask," Max says. "We need to figure out what Roxy's up to before she guesses we're on to her. In the meantime, you can't go after her. We can't afford to tip our hand."

I chew my bottom lip, digesting that. "I hate it when you're right."

Across the trailer, Punch has finished his tuna. The big dog practically prances over to the litter box and does his business. Yep. I need to seriously consider the notion that Midway Beach is becoming the body-switching capital of the world.

"Dinner's not until the day after tomorrow," I say. "What do we do until then?"

"We make our best guess about whose body the Black Widow took," he says. "How early can I pick you up tomorrow morning for surveillance work?"
CHAPTER THREE

The house is dark and quiet when I get home from the carnival, with only a single light shining in the living room. I'm about to shut off the lamp when I notice another, fainter light through the sliding glass doors leading to the back patio. Like the glow of a cigarette.

From down the hall, gentle snores come from Julian's room. He really needs to get his sinuses checked. My mom, who's usually asleep well before now, doesn't smoke. Even if Suri's awake, no way is my eight-year-old sister out there sucking in nicotine.

The security bar isn't latched. If I make a break for the door, I could probably jam the bar in place before the smoker can get inside. By the time I get through to 911, though, he'd be long gone. And Max and I would be no closer to solving the many mysteries of Midway Beach.

Something long and thin leaning against one of the walls catches my attention. A bat! Saying silent thanks that Julian leaves his toys everywhere, I reach for it. The bat has no heft. It's made not of wood but of hollow plastic. If I'm going to confront the smoker, though, the wiffle bat is the best thing I've got. In the dark, it might pass for the real thing.

Adrenaline rushes through me as I close the distance to the sliding door. Without giving myself time to reconsider, I slide open the door and lift the bat above my head.

There isn't only one person on the deck. There are two. The second is my mother.

The smoker's hands raise, the tip of the cigarette still glowing in the dark. It's Uncle Landon. "Whoa! Don't swing!"

"Put that bat down, Jade." Mom sounds lethargic but more with it than when her words ran together at the carnival earlier tonight. "What's wrong with you?"

She asking that of me? After she tracked me down to say the voices in her head warned that I should be careful of who I trusted, that the people in this town aren't who I think they are. I actually believe that last part, but still.

The wiffle bat is poised above my head. I lower my arms and let the bat drop to the floor of the deck. "What are you two doing out here in the dark?"

"Talking," Uncle Landon says. "I baby-sat tonight."

Mom had told me that. Uncle Landon's car is probably parked out front, but I didn't notice when Max dropped me off. Some detective I am. If I'm going to figure out how the Black Widow switched bodies, I need to step it up.

I still can't believe I'm going along with this body-swap theory.

Uncle Landon grinds out his cigarette in the ashtray on the patio table. Beside the ashtray is an empty beer can. Until tonight, I've never seen Uncle Landon smoke or drink. With the light shining from the living room, my eyes quickly adjust to the darkness. Mom looks like she hasn't run a brush through her hair in days. Uncle Landon's wearing another Hawaiian shirt that does little to hide his beer gut. His hair needs attention, too. It's long enough to be approaching ponytail territory.

"We should probably tell her, Lizzie," he says.

"Tell me what?"

"We have some good news." Mom draws out the five words like it's difficult for her to string them together. "Your uncle's moving in tomorrow."

My stomach rolls and in the back of my throat I get the sour taste of the lemonade I drank earlier tonight. Even though we call him Uncle Landon, he's a family friend who isn't related to any of us. The reason they were sitting close together in the dark slaps me in the face even harder than Adair did.

Ick. No, make that double ick.

"I'm gonna help out with Julian and Suri," Uncle Landon says like that excuses things.

"I'm really tired." Mom gets up without warning, slowly unfolding herself from the chair. She bends down and kisses Uncle Landon on the cheek. "You're a dear friend, Landon."

If this is her definition of a friend, she's even worse off than I think. It's torture to wait until she's inside the house and out of earshot, especially because she shuffles more than walks, but I don't want her to hear what I have to say to my not-uncle.

"You're not moving in with us." With my voice lowered, it sounds like I'm hissing. My hands fold into fists. "I won't let you take advantage of my mother."

"Hold up. You got the wrong—"

"You were my stepfather's best friend! How can you live with yourself?"

"I said hold up." His voice carries through the quiet night. "You got it all wrong."

"Don't you dare say you and my mom are consenting adults! She's married."

Uncle Landon raises his left hand and points to the silver band on his ring finger. "Hey, I was married, too. For twelve years. To the love of my life."

I loved his wife, too. Aunt Jayne couldn't have children of her own so she became our honorary aunt, cheering us on at every athletic event and school function. She was pretty and chatty and always on the go—until Lou Gehrig's disease got her in its grip. Five years after she was diagnosed, she was gone.

"I miss her every single day. I don't want any other woman." Uncle Landon sounds dispassionate, like he's afraid he'll lose it if he lets out his grief.

Now that I think about it, Uncle Landon's appearance has gone to hell since Aunt Jayne's death. His health has, too. Why didn't I put cause and effect together before now? Guilt creeps up on me. I make an effort to moderate my voice. "My mom said you were moving in."

"To help out. She's going through a tough time."

I should apologize except I can't make myself.

When I say nothing, Uncle Landon adds, "You know your mom's a schizo, right?"

Duh. She used her disease to justify disappearing when Julian, Suri and I needed her most. She was gone when I went missing, when my stepfather flashed his unloaded gun at the liquor store clerk and when he waived his right to a trial.

"Mom says her meds are working again," I say. "She said she has the schizophrenia under control."

"Maybe for a while. But you must have noticed she's not doing so great."

If I mention the voices in my mother's head, Uncle Landon might get her committed. My mom and I have our problems, but I don't need another parent locked up. "I've seen her worse."

"I've seen her better. It was either move in or call Social Services. With any luck, I won't stay long, just till your mom gets it back together." He inclines his head. "So are we okay now?"

I wouldn't go that far, but having Uncle Landon around will take some of the baby-sitting heat off me. He'll not only make sure my mother keeps custody of Suri and Julian, he'll keep them safe.

"As long as you're not sleeping with my mother," I say.

"Hey, I wouldn't do something like that. I'm not like your..." His voice trails off.

"Not like my what?"

"Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything."

"I don't want to forget it."

Uncle Landon rubs a hand across his mouth and kneads the back of his neck. "Maybe I should tell you. Then you'd understand why your father and I aren't friends any more."

My throat's clogged or I'd point out that he's my stepfather. The anger's almost too much to bear, and it's not directed at only one person. Since my stepdad held up that liquor store, I've been almost as furious at Uncle Landon. He didn't offer legal help, although at one time he'd been a top defense attorney. Maybe if he had, my stepfather would have fought the charge.

"I'm not sure how to say this so I'll just come out with it." Uncle Landon peers out into the black night instead of at me. "Zach and Jayne slept together."

No, it can't be. My stepfather wouldn't have cheated on my mom. He was always holding her hand, sneaking a kiss and telling her she was beautiful. When my friends were over, it was almost embarrassing. "I don't believe that."

"I had a hard time with it, too." His delivery is matter of fact. "But Jayne and me, we talked about all kinds of things at the end."

"Maybe you misunderstood."

"No. She told me everything."

"What do you mean by everything?" I demand.

"It happened right after Jayne found out she was sick. I was working late. See, she wanted to keep things as normal as possible." He shakes his head. "Except she was feeling low and opened a bottle of wine. Zach came by and she invited him to help finish it off. Then he took advantage of her."

"You're saying he forced himself on her!"

"As drunk as she was, it wouldn't have taken much force."

"But if it happened five years ago, why didn't she say something then?"

"Zach warned her nobody would believe her and I'd never forgive her." Uncle Landon stands up, picks up the empty beer can and crushes it. "He was wrong about that. Zach's the one I'll never forgive."

He ruffles the top of my head on his way past, the way he used to when I was much younger. It doesn't take away the sting of what he just told me.

"See you tomorrow, kid," he says. "And thanks for letting Suri bunk with you so I can have her room."

Groan. On top of everything else, now I have an eight-year-old roommate.
CHAPTER FOUR

"You gonna tell me what's wrong?" Max's question jars me out of my surveillance stupor. It's past ten on Wednesday morning, and we've been sitting in the front seat of Max's pickup outside Adair's house for at least an hour. Even with the windows rolled down, the truck is heating up.

I'm not keen on telling him my stepfather is guilty of more than armed robbery.

"Gee, that's a tough one." I pretend to think. "Let's see, we think a woman who murdered her husband might be a Ringer inhabiting somebody else's body. Oh, and it could be one of our friends."

"Since when are you and Adair friends?"

Adair is our number one suspect. No surprise there. The Adair I've known since grade school wasn't always sweet, but she didn't used to go around calling other girls names and slapping their faces. Okay, as far as I know she's only done that to me, but it's still out of character. And she did disappear for a few days last week. I'd even gone hunting for her to make sure she was okay.

"We're not friends, but I'd still be bummed if Constance Hightower stole Adair's body. That would mean Adair is dead, right?"

"Somebody's dead," he says. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have found that body on the beach."

With the sun shining out of a cloudless sky, it seems like the events of last night didn't happen. That's wishful thinking. The Black Widow's sister did tell us her twin was inside someone else's body moments before a false bomb threat conveniently separated us. And then there's the matter of Roxy's dog and cat.

But still...

"We should be trying to figure out how something like this is possible." Max doesn't seem to have any of my lingering doubts. He probably wasn't awake half the night, either. His eyes are clear, his shorts and T-shirt look crisp and his dark hair is thick and shiny.

"Maybe the Black Widow is an alien using Adair's body as her host," I say. "You know, as a fertile breeding ground."

He looks so confused I'm sure he's never seen Alien vs. Predator. I don't even know why I keep trying.

"That's not what's going on. I doubt the Black Widow is the brains of the operation. She wasn't in the country when you and I went missing."

"And you know this how?"

"Last night I read everything I could find about her. One of the stories mentioned she spent the entire winter at a resort in Bali."

"Must be nice to have that kind of money."

He wets his lips. "Let me run a theory by you. It's no secret Constance was living it up on her dead husband's dime. But the consensus was that she couldn't beat that murder charge, that it was a miracle she even got bail. What if somebody recognized how desperate her situation was and offered her a way out?"

"I'm not following."

"Think about it. If the Black Widow is a Ringer, she can hide in plain sight. She won't have to go to trial. Or back to jail."

"That would mean whoever's behind this is in it for the money." World domination and pure evil seem like better motives to me.

"Greed explains a lot of things."

"Not everything. Who has the capability to pull off something like that?"

"It's not as far-fetched as it seems," Max says. "Have you heard of mind uploading?"

He's not the only one who can research on the Internet. I read just last night that mind uploading is the hypothetical process of scanning and mapping a brain in detail and then copying it into a computer. Very cyber punk. "Yeah, but it's a lot different than body switching."

"My point is technology's constantly changing," Max says. "Until Dolly the Sheep, we didn't think cloning was possible. Why couldn't someone have figured out how to transplant a mind into another body?"

"Let's say you're right. How does a carny like Roxy fit in? And what about the clown with the syringe?" I can picture the clown's white face with the grinning red lips and feel the evil emanating from him.

"I don't know." Max nods at Adair's house where she emerges from the front door dressed in gym shorts and a T-shirt too big for her. Her short, blond hair lies against her scalp, for once not gelled and sculpted into stylish tufts. "But maybe we're about to find out."

Adair doesn't drive to the carnival, like I expect her to. She heads straight to Hunter's house, gets out of the car and marches up the sidewalk like she's on a mission. Coming in the opposite direction is Porter McRoy, the shy boy who's the object of Becky's crush. Adair brushes by Porter, barely acknowledging him.

"Wonder what Porter's doing at Hunter's house," I say.

"And what Becky's doing with him."

"What? Becky's here? Where?"

Max indicates the beat-up blue Civic in the Prescott driveway. Sure enough, Becky's in the passenger seat. Max parked his pickup a half-block down the street to lessen the possibility we'd be spotted. I don't have to worry that Becky will see us. Her eyes are only for Porter. When he gets in the car, she leans toward him for a kiss. When did that happen? A few days ago, she could hardly get Porter to talk to her. Porter backs the Civic out of the driveway. I'm pretty sure the car has bucket seats, but Becky's head is close to his.

"How could you do this to me, Hunter?" Adair's shrill voice penetrates the quiet of the neighborhood. While I was watching Becky and Porter, she reached the house. She stands outside the open front door, waving her arms. "I'll never forgive you!"

Hunter steps out of the house, both hands upraised. He's obviously offering a rebuttal, but we can't hear from this far away. Unlike Adair, he must not be yelling.

"You think I believe that?" Adair shouts. "I'm not an idiot!"

Hunter takes another step toward Adair. She rears back and shoves him with two hands. He stumbles backward, his back slamming against the edge of the door.

"I won't take the fall for this," Adair says. "You better make it right. Or you'll be sorry."

She stalks off as Hunter rights himself. He doesn't attempt to stop her. Adair doesn't turn around. She yanks open the car door, slams it and pulls away from the curb, tires screeching. After a moment, Max puts the pickup in gear and follows.

"What do you think that was all about?" I ask Max as he tails her through the neighborhood. Adair drives too fast, barely slowing for stop signs. Max does a good job of keeping her car in sight while not going over the speed limit. "Do you think Hunter's involved in this body-switching thing, too?"

"That's not Hunter's style." His reply is quick.

"How do you know what Hunter's style is?" I can't shake the feeling that Max knows more about Hunter than he's telling. "I thought you two were strangers."

"I know guys just like him. Hunter's not that hard to figure out," he says. "Did you see which way she went? Right or left?"

"Left." I abandon the conversation thread to help him tail Adair to a four-story chrome and glass office building on the edge of town. Adair is entering the glass double doors as we pull into the parking lot. Doubtless there's an elevator in the lobby.

"Maybe we can figure out which floor she went to." I'm out of the pickup the moment he parks. When we get inside the building, however, none of the numbers above the elevator are illuminated. She must have taken the stairs.

"Let's see what kinds of businesses have offices here," Max suggests.

The directory on the wall lists a dentist, a general practitioner, an optometrist, a dermatologist, a realtor and an insurance agent. There's no way to tell which one Adair is visiting. Our only option is to wait.

It's too hot inside the truck. We find a spot in the shade under a tree behind the parked cars. We've got a sight line to the front door, but I'm pretty sure Adair won't be able to spot us when she comes out of the building. The heat is stifling. After about thirty minutes, sweat trickles down the side of my face.

"You look like you could use something cold to drink." Max stands up and tosses me his car keys. "Just in case Adair goes on the move."

Since there's a convenience store next door, Max won't be long. I doubt I'll have to drive off without him. I lean back against a tree, crossing my feet at the ankles, wondering how private eyes can do this kind of work for a living without falling asleep.

The double doors burst open, and Adair rushes out, her expression maniacal. I duck down and move farther out of her sight line. She still runs directly for me.

"Did you think I wouldn't see you, bitch?" She's out of breath, and her chest heaves up and down. "Don't you know about windows?"

Too late I realize several of the upper-floor offices have windows facing the parking lot. Getting to my feet, I put the width of a car between us.

"That's right," Adair all but shrieks. "You should be afraid of me."

She's acting like a crazy person. Like somebody whose cover is being threatened after she paid a fortune to get away with murder. Could we really be on the right track?

"Why are you so angry?" I ask, fishing for information. "What did I ever do to you?"

"You're following me!"

Well, yeah, but I'm not about to admit that. "Why would I follow you?"

"Because you're a crazy bitch, and I'm gonna make you sorry you were ever born." She darts around the car, her nails exposed like claws. I barely move away in time to avoid getting nails raked down my face.

"Adair Marie Adams!" The voice is shrill and authoritative. It belongs to Mrs. Adams, Adair's mother. She stalks across the parking lot, her lips set in a horizontal line. "Get away from Jade this instant!"

Adair stops advancing on me and looks at her mother. "But, Mom. She—"

"You heard me," Mrs. Adams interrupts, pointing a finger at her daughter. She takes her car keys out of her purse and remotely unlocks a sleek silver sedan. "Wait in my car. I don't want you driving when you're like this."

"But—"

"No more buts. Get in the car, Adair."

With a last, hate-filled glare at me, Adair obeys. Mrs. Adams crosses to where I lean against Max's pickup for support. My stomach is turning somersaults.

"Are you okay, Jade?" Her voice is gentle. "She didn't hurt you, did she?"

I've still got the faint bruise on my cheek from when Adair slapped me in the hospital, but that's not what she means. "No, she didn't hurt me. I'm fine."

Mrs. Adams sighs and runs a trembling hand over her face. "Allow me to apologize for my daughter. You must have noticed she hasn't been herself lately."

Does Mrs. Adams know about the Ringers? Is she considering the possibility that Adair isn't really Adair, too?

"I have noticed," I say carefully. "You're not alone in this, Mrs. Adams. I'll do what I can to help."

Mrs. Adams lays a hand on my arm. "You're such a sweet girl, Jade. I was afraid Adair's friends wouldn't understand."

Could we be talking about the same thing? "Understand what?"

"Her personality change and mood swings. I didn't get it myself until today when we got the diagnosis. That's why I met her here at the doctor's office."

"What diagnosis?"

"Adair won't be happy with me for telling you, but you deserve to know why she's been different," Mrs. Adams says in a quiet voice. "She has hyperthyroidism."

"Say what?"

"She has a severely overactive thyroid. I should have figured it out when she started losing weight, because thyroid disease runs in my family. But I didn't think to get her tested until a few days ago. We only now got the results."

"You mean hyperthyroidism is the reason she's acting so erratic?"

"Definitely. The doctor said it explains the anxiety, the irritability, the restlessness."

The explanation seems too pat. "Yeah, but could something like that really explain everything? Like the way she shouted at Hunter this morning?"

Mrs. Adams brings her hands to her flushed cheeks. "Oh, dear. She said she wanted to give him a piece of her mind, but I hoped she wouldn't act of it."

"A piece of her mind about what?"

"She was upset that the police questioned her about Hunter's poisoning. I tried to tell her it's routine for them to talk to a victim's friends, but she wouldn't listen." She pats my hand. "I've got to get to the drugstore to fill her prescription. Thank you for understanding and being such a good friend."

I wouldn't go that far. Hyperthyroidism doesn't explain why Adair went after the guy she knew I liked.

Mrs. Adams gives me a final smile and heads for her silver sedan. Adair sits in the passenger seat with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes straight ahead. She looks a lot more like a rebellious teen than a conniving killer.

Not even a minute after the sedan leaves the parking lot, Max returns carrying two cold drinks. He hands me one. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"Oh, yeah." I pop the top on the soda can and take a cold sip for fortification. "We can cross Adair off our list of possible Ringers."
CHAPTER FIVE

The small house on the western edge of the Wilmington suburbs looks abandoned. Its siding needs to be power washed, its shutters painted and its lawn mowed. Like the cabin in Wilder Woods, the house could easily be the setting for a horror movie.

I grab Max's arm, stopping him before he steps onto the cracked sidewalk. "Convince me why this is a good idea."

"I've been convincing you for the past hour." That's how long it took us to drive to Wilmington from Midway Beach after determining the Black Widow wasn't hiding out in Adair's body. "We need to find out if Stuart Bigelow's widow knows anything."

The idea hasn't caught on with me. The Wilmington News reporter died about twenty-four hours ago, not even long enough for his widow to get past the denial stage.

"Are you sure this is the right address? It doesn't look like anyone lives here."

"One way to find out." Max takes a step toward the house, but I grab his arm again before he can take another.

He turns back to me, appearing more puzzled than annoyed, the way he had in the car during the drive over. "What now?"

I don't suppose he wants to hear that if we get inside the house, I half-expect we'll run into an axe-wielding psychopath or the ghost of a wife-killing samurai. We've got enough weird stuff to consider.

"Do you really think Bigelow could be a Ringer?" I ask.

"We went over this in the car," he says, sounding a smidge less patient. "If the Black Widow isn't really dead, maybe Bigelow's alive too."

"Doesn't it make more sense that someone killed him to get him to reveal his source?"

"Yes." Max came up with that theory after Bigelow wrote a story quoting an anonymous source who saw somebody moving the Black Widow's body to the beach. "But we're exploring all the options, remember? One is talking to Jennifer Bigelow."

I hold tight to his arm. "Even if Mrs. Bigelow is here, why would she talk to us?"

He leans down and kisses me, just plants one on me in broad daylight, never mind that none of the friends we're trying to fool are looking on. The kiss is slow and undemanding, coaxing a response from me. He hooks his hands at my waist. I lift mine to loop around his neck. Only then does he raise his head and step back. The sun's rays behind him create a halo effect, but that doesn't fool me. I drop my hands.

"You did that to get me to let go of your arm," I accuse.

He grins and strides toward the house before I can stop him. Damn.

"Can I help you with something?" The woman coming around the side of the house through the ankle-deep grass carries an axe. I'm about to run for my life when it occurs to me that it's an oddly shaped axe, probably because it's actually a hoe.

Max walks toward her, not the least bit afraid of the hoe. He turns on the full-wattage smile. "Are you Jennifer Bigelow?"

"Who's asking?" She's a small, round woman in her forties who doesn't look like a Jennifer. Her face is marred by acne scars. Her hair's tied back in a bandana, and she's dressed in ratty jeans and a dirt-streaked T-shirt.

"I'm Max Harper, and this is my girlfriend Jade Greene." His girlfriend? "You might recognize our names. We found the body."

The woman stiffens, her hands tightening on the hoe. It has a wooden handle and a silver, triangular head. "The police found my husband's body."

"They did," Max says, which is technically a lie since we were first on the scene, not that I'm about to point that out to scowling Jennifer Bigelow. "I meant Jade and I found Constance Hightower's body. Your husband mentioned us in one of the stories he wrote about her."

"What are you doing here?" she demands. "As you can see, I'm busy."

"We can see that," Max says. "Looks like you're doing a little yard work."

"A little?" Her mouth flat lines. "Are you blind? This is a hell of a lot more than a little yard work. Stu was always telling me he'd get around to it. Took me till today to figure that was never gonna happen."

"He seemed really dedicated to newspaper work." Max is trying to be cool, but it's clear to me he's desperately searching for a conversation ice breaker.

"I asked what you were doing here." Jennifer Bigelow must think she can intimidate us with her bellow. That's not happening. Roxy's voice is much more thunderous.

"We were in Wilmington anyway," Max says. "It seemed a good opportunity to tell you how sorry we are."

That's the cover story he came up with? Like it's believable the two of us make condolence calls to strangers when someone we barely know dies?

"Who told you where we live?" Mrs. Bigelow asks.

"Stuart did." Max reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. "Your husband gave this to me when he interviewed us. It has your home address."

"Of all the stupid..." Jennifer catches herself before she finishes the thought. She clears her throat. "Where's the food?"

"What food?" Max asks.

She thumps the head of the hoe on the ground. "Most people bring food when they drop by to say they're sorry."

"We can get you a cheeseburger from McDonald's," Max offers.

"Not fast food," she retorts. "Comfort food that'll last me the next couple days when I'm too broken up to cook."

She's broken up? Whatever her mood, Max is getting nowhere tiptoeing around her. She seems like the kind of person who would appreciate the direct approach.

"Do the police know what happened?" It's the first thing I've said since we got here.

"Somebody came into my husband's hotel room and stabbed him with a ballpoint pen after they hit him upside the head," she barks. "They don't know if the blow or the pen killed him. But that hardly matters."

Mrs. Bigelow flicks away a strand of hair that has come loose from her bandana. Her upper arms are well-defined, like she'd bat cleanup if she played for a softball team.

"I meant do the police have any suspects?" I refuse to back down, like I'm sure she wants us to.

She peers hard at me. "Let me see your driver's license."

"Why?"

"Let me see it!" She turns to Max. "Yours, too."

No way am I giving in to this rude woman, new widow or not. "You don't need—"

"Sure, you can see our driver's licenses," Max interrupts, sending me a look that telegraphs he wants me to be quiet. I'm reminded that he's good at extracting information. He gets his out of his wallet, flips it open and extends it to Mrs. Bigelow. "Show her yours, Jade."

I do as he asks, keeping a tight grip on the piece of plastic so she can't snatch it from me. She examines both licenses, looking up to compare our faces to the photos. "Lucky for you that you are who you say you are."

"Who else would we be?" I ask.

"She thought we might be undercover cops," Max says. "Isn't that right, Mrs. Bigelow?"

She says nothing, but I can tell by her glare that Max got it right. We're on the young side to be police, but it's been the premise of about a dozen movies, many with actors no older than we are.

"You're a suspect, aren't you?" Max asks.

"Who do you think you are? Coming here and making insinuations like that?" Her eyes bug out almost like the ravenous insect-like beast's in the movie with all the disemboweled victims. The volume of her voice approaches Roxy territory.

"We didn't mean anything by it," Max begins. "We—"

"Get off my property!" She picks up the hoe and lifts it over her head, taking a few menacing steps toward us. "And don't come back here bothering me again."

Max seems like he's about to say something else, but I grab his hand and pull him toward the pickup. He might not be able to tell when an angry woman is serious, but I can.

Neither of us say anything until we're a mile down the road, and I finally break the silence. "Well, what did you think?"

"I think I'd want to switch bodies too if I was married to her," Max says.

"Bigelow might not have had the chance."

"You think Jennifer Bigelow killed her husband?"

"I can see her getting mad enough to attack him, maybe because he was spending too much time away from his chores. She seemed angrier about doing yard work than losing her husband."

"We can't rule her out," Max says.

"Since we're operating on the theory that the Black Widow is still alive," I say slowly, "we can't rule out anything."
CHAPTER SIX

Few things would entice me to the carnival before my shift begins. A test run on the revamped wooden roller coaster is one of them.

A girl's gotta have her fun.

The Hurricane's a bigger deal at the Midway Beach carnival than the Wild Mouse, but it's pretty lame as far as coasters go. No cobra rolls or diving loops or inline twists. It's not the biggest, tallest or fastest coaster around. But it is a relic, one of only twenty or so original wooden coasters still operating in the country.

And any coaster is better than every other carnival ride.

"Wait up, Jade!" Becky hurries to catch up to me. The carnival's not open yet so there's no music or crowd noise, only the sound of her tennis shoes slapping on the cement. She reaches me between the Bottle Ring Toss and the Tip the Cat game.

I shove aside a memory of Roxy's cat wagging its tail and jumping up to lick me. "Hey, Becks. What's up?

"I was hoping to see you." Becky smiles so widely, I'm reminded of the clown's painted lips. I thrust that memory aside, too. "I was pretty sure you volunteered for the test run."

"Wouldn't miss it. Especially since I'm gonna beat you out for the last car."

"Don't be so sure about that." Becky grins wider. "I'm little, but I'm quick."

For as long as the two of us have been riding coasters together, we've competed for the honor of bringing up the rear. We could double up—and we have, when the coaster's crowded—but it's more fun to try to beat each other out. Especially since I win almost all the time.

Becky may be quick, but coasters are more my thing than hers.

"I've got something to tell you." The words burst from Becky. "Something exciting."

"What is it?" I'm a little hurt that she didn't at least text me with the big news. What's the use of technology if not to spread news as it's happening?

"You've gotta guess." She giggles and tosses her long, blond hair. "Except you'll never guess. Not in a million, trillion years."

"You hooked up with Porter McRoy."

She thrusts out her lower lip. If she wanted to break the news, she shouldn't have asked me to guess. "What gave it away?"

Really? We've known each other since kindergarten, and she still hasn't figured out I can always tell what she's thinking? "You mean, besides your extreme giddiness?"

Her smile turns sheepish. "Yeah, besides that."

"I saw you kissing him."

Becky makes a sound of pleasure and runs her fingers over her lips. "Oh, my gosh, Jade. He is such a good kisser. I mean, he's so good he should give other guys lessons. Wait. That came out wrong. I don't want Porter kissing other guys, not that there's anything wrong with that. Although I guess I'd rather have him kiss a guy than another girl. Unless, of course—"

Time to interrupt before she twists herself into an even bigger verbal knot. "So why did you change your mind about making the first move?"

"I didn't make the first move!" Becky protests.

Yeah, right. Since she set her sights on Porter a few weeks ago, she's been obsessed with getting him to notice her. "Then how did it happen?"

"We bumped into each other after the bomb threat." Her face glows even though the sun has disappeared behind some clouds. "Literally. Porter was all apologetic, grabbing me so I wouldn't fall and saying how sorry he was."

"And you took him making sure you didn't wipe out as showing an interest." It's not a question.

"Can you blame me? I've only got till the end of August before I head off to college. Sure, I asked if he wanted to get together sometime."

"Who suggested this morning? You or him?"

"I did." Becky's blue eyes narrow. "Hey, how did you know that? And, what did you mean, you saw me kiss him? Where did you see me kiss him?"

Not my smartest comment of the morning. I avoid her eyes. "Around."

"We only kissed the one time. I mean, it's not exactly prime kissing time when the sun's up. We haven't spent any time together at night yet."

"I can understand that." I walk faster, unwilling to get into this with her. She's so small she's taking three steps to my every two.

"Will you stop, Jade?" Becky implores. "Please."

I stop. We're beside the game where customers shoot a water gun into the mouth of a fish to win a cheap stuffed animal. I brace myself for the question I know is coming.

"Were you at Hunter Prescott's house this morning?" Becky demands.

"Maybe." Brilliant comeback. Do I know how to deflect suspicion or what?

"If you saw me there, why didn't I see you?"

I'm even less sure how to answer that one so go with defiance. "Maybe we didn't want to be seen."

"We? Who were you with? Please tell me it wasn't Max Harper." Becky covers her mouth with one hand. Really? Does she have to be so dramatic? She's not a DQ Twin. "It was, wasn't it?"

I blow air out through my nose. "I don't understand what you have against Max."

"He's a stranger who told you a bunch of crazy stuff! How can you trust him? If he said you'd get a million dollars if you pressed a button on a box, would you do it?"

I can't even bother to roll my eyes. "Not if it meant someone I didn't know would die. We saw that movie together, remember? Besides, Max doesn't have a box."

"He has a wild story. Did you even check him out?"

She's the one who suggested I call the North Carolina police to make sure Max was telling the truth about going missing earlier this year. "Yeah, I did. Turns out he's a giant alien cockroach, like Vincent D'Onofrio."

Becky has such excellent taste in film, I don't have to explain. She scowls. "Not funny, Jade. You know I'm worried about you."

"Don't be. Max checks out. That's more than I can say for some other people in town."

"Who are you talking about? Hunter?" I can almost hear the wheels turning in her mind. "Were you and Max watching Hunter's house?"

"Forget I said anything."

"Why would you do that? Because somebody poisoned him? What's going on, Jade? Don't tell me you think the poisoning is connected to those missing memories of yours."

"I said to forget it." I resume walking toward the coaster with Becky almost stepping on my heels.

"Why should I forget it? I'm your best friend, Jade. Who else will tell you that you haven't been thinking straight since February?"

"Seems to me my best friend should have believed me when I told her what happened."

"You don't know what happened," Becky counters. "You can't remember."

I speed up, easily putting distance between us. The Hurricane is in sight, its half-mile of wooden track winding and bending. Since the wooden coaster is by far the most popular ride at the carnival, workmen have spent the last three or four off-seasons updating it one section at a time, replacing the deteriorating wood with new planks and beams.

In past years, the renovation work was suspended once the season began. This summer, though, the workers were so close to finishing the entire project they kept at it while the rest of the carnival rides opened. The new and improved Hurricane is supposed to debut tomorrow.

About a dozen people, most dressed in the orange T-shirts that mark them as carnival workers, are in the loading area. One of them is Max. No surprise there. During the drive back from Jennifer Bigelow's house, we'd discovered we were both participating in the test run. He'd offered to take me to work. I'd passed so I could ride my bike and clear the head Becky thinks is massively screwed up. Where does she get off telling me that, anyway? I speed up, increasing the distance between us as I hurry up the ramp.

Roxy is in front of the group, gesturing with her beefy arms. Two of my co-workers catch my attention and flap their fingers on the down low, the traditional yak-yak-yak gesture. I approach from the side closest to the passenger train, getting inside position in order to claim the last car before anyone else.

"You're late," Roxy barks at me.

"Sorry," I mumble.

"As I was saying," she continues, once again addressing the group, "this year we replaced all three of our sixteen-passenger trains."

Max edges away from the group to stand next to me, thankfully on the side opposite the train in the loading area. I'd elbow him aside in a heartbeat to get that last car. He smells great, like warm sunshine and fresh shampoo. He winks at me.

"We'll run two of the trains empty and man the third," Roxy says.

Becky, her breath coming in huffs and puffs, finally reaches us. She stands on my other side, nearer our prized last car. Roxy doesn't scold her, but says something or other about the rehab work resulting in faster trains.

"I'm sorry," Becky whispers.

I keep my eyes straight ahead, but the last car is in my peripheral vision. I'm even more determined to beat Becky out now.

"Did you hear me?" Becky whispers.

"Yeah," I reply in a soft voice, still not looking at her. "I heard you."

"That's all you need to know about the new Hurricane," Roxy hollers. "Pick a car and have fun."

Before I can sprint for my prize, Becky steps in front of me, getting inside position. No way can I reach the last car before her without knocking her down. I'm angry, but not that angry. Just before getting in, Becky turns to face me. "You really won't accept my apology?"

I shake my head. The more I think about it, the more it bugs me that Becky accepts Roxy's story over mine.

Becky steps back. "Go ahead. Take the last car. I'll sit with Lori."

Lori's a rising high school sophomore, one of the youngest and meekest employees at the carnival. A quick glance reveals she's in the middle of the passenger train, boring territory.

"Say what?"

"Maybe that'll convince you how sorry I am," Becky says.

Before I can think of what to say, Becky abandons her position. "Hey, Lori," she calls. "Move over."

If I don't grab the last car, someone else will. I slide inside the new and freshly painted car, and guilt immediately descends on me. Becky had the last car fair and square yet I'm sitting in it.

"What was that all about?" Max stands next to the car, his brown hair blowing in the ocean breeze, his eyes shaded by dark sunglasses.

I'm not up for explaining how I'm too petty to accept that my friend's worried about me. "Getting the last car."

"Don't ask me to share it with you."

That hadn't occurred to me. "Why not?"

He settles in the next-to-last car and slips his sunglasses in the neck of his T-shirt before turning to face me. "It's too scary."

"You're joking."

"Wish I was." Max shrugs, a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth. "Did you hear the dummies they used to test ride a coaster in Germany came back with missing arms and legs?"

"Now you're trying to scare me!"

"It's the truth," he says. "Knowing that, any self-respecting girlfriend would sit next to her boyfriend. You know, so they could get decapitated together."

"You said the dummies were missing arms and legs, not heads!"

"There's a first time for everything." He slides over, then lowers his voice. "What do you say?"

A few of our co-workers are turned around, watching us. Yeah, that's right. The gossip should be all over the carnival by now that Max and I are into each other. People will expect us to act that way. Besides, why should I get to ride in the last car instead of Becky?

"Everybody, lock your lap bars." Roxy is at the controls, her hands poised on the starting mechanism. "Then we'll take off."

"Wait, Max!" I tell him as he's about to follow her directions.

As everyone besides Max pulls down their lap bars, I unbuckle my seat beat and get out of the last car. Max moves over in his car to make room for me, and I slide in beside him. The entire left side of my body instantly warms as I fasten my seatbelt and he pulls down the bar.

"Now we're ready," I call to Roxy.

Max puts his arm around me, drawing me closer. "That's more like it."

The coaster starts moving. Max's breathing is normal. He's not trembling. He seems completely at ease. I narrow my eyes. "You're not really afraid of coasters, are you?"

"No," he says, squeezing my shoulder. "But saying so got you where I want you."

I should be annoyed with him for lying to me, but it feels so good sitting next to him that I can't drum up any anger. Even Roxy's scowl as we pass her at the controls can't put a dent in my good mood. Once I make up with Becky, everything will be fine.

Okay, maybe not.

Since striking out with Adair, Max and I haven't made any headway on figuring out who else's body the Black Widow might be inhabiting. Max hasn't been able to find Leanne Livingston for a second time, either.

I won't let that ruin the roller coaster ride, though. Not when I've been looking forward to it for days.

The first half of the track has plenty of twists and turns but not much difference in elevation between peaks and valleys. The cars used to rattle back and forth on the tracks, the fit on the steel rails worsening with each passing year.

"The ride's smoother." I raise my voice so Max can hear above the wind rushing in our ears. Exhilaration rockets through me. We're starting the ascent leading to the steepest drop.

"Here we go!" I yell, grinning at Max. "You better hold on!"

He takes his arm from around me and fastens his hands securely around the bar. Although the coaster's track doesn't reach anywhere near the height of its all-steel counterparts, my guess is the peak is at about fifty-five or sixty feet. The drop is straight down.

We get closer and closer to the top. My pulse quickens. It feels like liquid excitement slides through my veins. The front car is almost at the peak when the air fills with a loud, groaning sound.

Something mechanical.

Something wrong.

The front car is at the precipice, but the noise is louder now, like machinery screaming in protest. I think about the crash-test dummies Max told me about, the ones without arms and legs. I edge closer to him, trying to take reassurance from his nearness.

Nothing happens for a sliver of a second. Then there's a snap so loud my ears ring. I wait for our car to detach from the rest of the train. Instead the last car plunges backward, down the steep length of track.

Max and I turn to look over our shoulders at the runaway car. It veers crazily off course and jumps the track, crashing into a heap of splintered wood a second before our car rounds the top of the hill and plunges after the others.

Some of the other girls, and at least one of the guys, are screaming.

I'm too numb to do more than whimper.
CHAPTER SEVEN

By the next morning, I've seen the last car on the passenger train crash at least a half-dozen times. Not on the news or a YouTube video. In my dreams. Each time the car plunged backward down the tracks and into oblivion, the horror of what could have happened jarred me awake.

An accident, Roxy called it before she went about carnival business as usual.

I don't believe that.

I think Roxy figured out I'd be in the last car and tried to kill me.

It's a miracle Suri slept through my gasps. She moved into my bedroom yesterday to make way for Uncle Landon.

"Ja-ade." Suri sits up in the other twin bed. She wears pink shorty pajamas decorated with red hearts. "Are you awake?"

I flop from one side to the other to face her. "I am now."

"Then I can do this!" Suri hops out of bed on her tiny bare feet and spreads her arms wide. "Good morning, world."

She skips over to the window and pulls up the blind. "Good morning, sky. Good morning, birds. Good morning, sun."

Our mother used to wake us that way when we were younger.

My head hurts. If Suri acts this perky every day, she might have more to fear from me than Roxy. But it's not my sister's fault she's happy. I want her to be happy. "You're in a good mood this morning."

"Uncle Landon's taking me and Julian to the water park today!" She rushes out of the room like it's time to go right this minute. I check the alarm clock. It's only nine o'clock.

I lie in bed for another five minutes until I summon the energy to roust myself and pull on shorts and a T-shirt. I emerge from my bedroom rubbing grit from my eyes.

"Jade, I'm glad I caught you." Mom heads down the hall in a pale pink blouse that's partially untucked and a gray suit that washes out her skin. She sounds okay, though, her speech neither too fast nor too slow. "I've got something for you."

A purse is slung over her shoulder. She slides it down her arm, opens it and withdraws a sealed envelope with my name scrawled on it. She holds it out to me. "It's from your father."

"He's not my father." I don't know who that is, thanks to her. Every time I've brought up the subject, she changes it. The last time I asked about my biological dad, she told me I was better off not knowing. As though he was the worst kind of monster. Like Hannibal Lecter bad.

"Take the letter, Jade." Her hand shakes the slightest bit.

I grab the letter and shove it in the pocket of my shorts. Going along with her makes more sense than refusing and risking another of her meltdowns. Nothing says I have to read the letter. I haven't read any of the others he's sent.

"He was disappointed you didn't visit with us." Over Mom's right shoulder is the family picture where the five of us are smiling stupidly, with no idea of what's coming. "He wants to talk to you next time he calls."

In his dreams.

Which probably don't involve roller coaster car crashes.

I won't tell my mother about that, either. Who knows what kind of dark tunnel that would lead her down? She already thinks people are out to get me.

"Are you actually going to work?" I change the subject mostly to get her to stop talking about my stepfather, but I really do want to know.

"Why wouldn't I go to work?'

I look up and down the hall to double-check that Suri or Julian aren't around and whisper. "Because of the voices."

She leans so close that I can see she hasn't plucked her eyebrows in a while. "They went quiet, but you still need to be careful." Her eyes bore into mine. "Are you being careful?"

"Sure."

She touches my cheek and then she's gone, her heels clicking on the laminate floor as she leaves the house.

Uncle Landon's in the kitchen wearing a Hawaiian shirt with flowered swim trunks and reading the Wilmington News. My stepfather started getting the newspaper delivered to the house shortly before he held up the liquor store. Suri's at the dishwasher cleaning up after herself.

"Morning, Jade." He looks at me over the newspaper. I wonder if there's anything in there about the roller coaster car leaving the tracks. Even though Wilmington's an hour away, the paper has some stories out of Midway Beach. I don't read the print copy, but I have looked up some stuff online.

"Morning."

"It's nine-fifteen!" Suri announces before she whizzes by me, her bare feet slapping on the floor.

"I told her she had to wait till nine-fifteen to wake up your brother," Uncle Landon explains. "We want to get to the water park when it opens at ten. Want to come with us?"

"No thanks." I cross to the refrigerator and take out Greek yogurt and a carton of OJ.

"You dropped something." Uncle Landon puts down the newspaper and bends over, straightening with the white envelope clasped between his fingers. "What's this?"

"Nothing." I get a glass out of the cabinet and pour myself some OJ.

"You sure about that? It looks like Zach's writing."

"It's a letter from him, okay?" I snatch it out of his hands, crumble it up and toss it in the trash. "It's not like I'm gonna read it."

"Probably wise," he says.

"Mom wouldn't think so. But then she doesn't know what kind of person he really is." It occurs to me that Uncle Landon never verified that. "Does she know?"

"I didn't tell her," he says. "But I've got a good idea of what's inside that letter."

If he thinks I'll ask him to explain, he's even nuttier than my mother.

"Zach's worried that you haven't enrolled in community college yet," Uncle Landon says. "That's what your mother said."

Good thing I didn't read the letter, then. "Save it. I don't need another lecture."

He puts up a hand. "Hey, I wasn't about to give you one."

The text tone on my cell goes off. It's in my shorts pocket 'cause you can never be too far away from your phone. It's from Max.

Any ideas?

The message doesn't need to be longer for me to figure out what he means. He wants to know whether I've come up with any other Ringer candidates or if I've thought of someone else we can quiz about the runaway roller coaster car. The coaster repairman we tracked down yesterday wouldn't talk to anyone on advice of the construction company's lawyer.

"Who's that from?" Uncle Landon asks.

I give him the raised eyebrow. "A friend."

_Still thinking_ , I text back.

The next message comes almost instantaneously, but it's from Maia.

Guilt $$ from Dad. Up for the mall?

Yet another text tone. This time it is from Max. _Pick u up so we can think together?_

As tempting as that is, I've got to give it a pass. I send a few more texts, scarf down my breakfast, change my clothes and tell Uncle Landon I'm going to the mall with Maia.

If somebody knows something, it should be the biggest gossip in Midway Beach.

An hour later, though, I get the impression Maia invited me to the mall to pump me for information.

"So the last car just broke off?" She's wearing one of her cutest outfits, a short white skirt with a turquoise tee and matching canvas flats. Her long, silky black hair—for once, without a chrysanthemum—cascades down her back and swings while she walks over the mall's gleaming tile floor.

"Yep. It made a groaning noise and then it was gone."

The mall's almost empty. The building was renovated a few years ago, with skylights and lots of greenery. Not such a great idea. When the weather's nice, the temptation is to leave your shopping dollars behind to spend time in the sun.

"I heard you switched seats at the last second," Maia says.

No use denying the truth when a dozen other people can verify it. "You heard right."

"Good thing you switched." She nudges me, shoulder to shoulder. "I like my friends in one piece."

That's it? She's not gonna come up with a conspiracy theory?

"Lots of people know I make a dash for the last car," I say to give her ammunition.

"Bet you won't do that any more." Maia's head swings sharply to the right. She points to a little black dress in a window display. "Not bad, but I've seen cuter."

I'm not interested in the dress. "You don't have a theory about why it happened?"

She gives me a blank look. "On why what happened?"

"The coaster crash."

"Oh, that. It was because the attachment mechanism was defective," Maia says. "That's what the Wilmington News said."

I should have checked for myself what the media had to say. Uncle Landon was hogging the newspaper this morning, but it's easy enough to look online. Of course, you can't believe everything you read. The late Stuart Bigelow might still be alive if he didn't have a habit of making up stuff to improve his stories. Or if his wife wasn't so nasty.

"You were playing musical chairs to sit by Max." It's not a question. Maia really is plugged in. "Max saved your life."

I hadn't thought of it that way.

"Now that's a dress!" Maia veers away from me, heading straight for a store too rich for my bank account. She stops in front of a headless mannequin wearing a clingy red number. "I've got to have it!"

The price tag hangs in full view, the number high enough to make me do a double take. "Can you afford it?"

"My dad can."

"He didn't give you a limit on how much you can spend?"

"Are you kidding me?" She hunts through the rack of dresses for her size. "The more I spend, the less guilty he'll feel about blowing me off to take his new girlfriend to the Bahamas."

Maia doesn't sound hurt, but then she never does. Since her parents divorced a few years back, her dad has been dating non-stop. He'd never make time for her if her mom didn't go out of town on business every few weeks, Maia says. She must be used to it by now.

She holds the red dress against her body and examines herself in a store mirror. "If this fits, I'll need new shoes and a new purse."

A couple hours later, Maia's dad is almost a thousand bucks poorer. Not that poor applies to anyone who lives at Ocean Breeze. Otherwise, they wouldn't market the houses there as estates.

"Did you hear about Heather?" Maia says as we walk through the mall laden with packages. I'm carrying half of her purchases. All I bought was a sundress on sale that Maia said made me look like I have more up top than I actually do.

Heather is the waitress who got the call about the bomb threat. I went through high school with Heather and her silly friend Ashley, and after graduation I'm just now getting them straight. "What about Heather?"

"She quit her job at the White Pelican. She says she'd rather travel."

Who wouldn't?

"I hear she's booking a cruise to Alaska and a twelve-city tour of Europe," Maia says. "If I could stand her, I'd think about ditching the arcade and joining her. I'm sure I could get my dad to pay."

But who's paying for Heather's trip? I seem to remember that Heather is headed for community college. That could be because she didn't make the grades to get accepted elsewhere, but it could also be because her family can't afford four years of traditional college. Wonder how I can find out whether her parents are well-off. In the meantime, Heather zooms to the top of my list of Ringer candidates. It's not a perfect fit because of her hysterical reaction to the bomb threat, but she could have been putting on an act.

"Let's do lunch." Maia suggests.

"Sounds good." It's half past twelve, and the food court is in sight. Unlike the rest of the mall, it's busy, even quasi-crowded. "I like that Chinese place where you order by the numbers."

"Forget it. We're not eating at the food court when my dad's treating. Let's go to that seafood restaurant near the bridge." Maia starts to breeze by the food court, then comes to a full stop. "Oh, my God. Is that Becky with Porter McRoy?"

Becky and Porter sit on the same side of a table for four, close enough that their chairs are touching. Plates of food are in front of them, but they're too busy staring at each other to eat.

"When did that happen?" Maia asks.

I'm surprised she doesn't already know. "The night of the bomb threat."

"And you didn't tell me?" She seems offended.

"That was only the night before last."

"Whatever." Maia shrugs and resumes walking, juggling her packages from arm to arm. "If Becky wants to get mixed up with someone like Porter, it's her business."

I have to hurry to catch up to her. She's better at being a shopping beast of burden than I am. "What do you mean someone like Porter?"

"Oh, nothing."

"You really won't tell me?"

"It's just gossip."

"You thrive on gossip, Maia. You once told me it's what makes life worth living."

"Rather dramatic of me, don't you think?" She giggles.

"I'm waiting."

"Oh, okay." She keeps on walking but lowers her voice. "Ever wonder why Porter's so quiet?"

"Just tell me, Maia."

"Word is it's because he's always stoned out of his mind."

As much as I want Maia to be wrong for Becky's sake, the gossip is probably true. Maia has a perfect pipeline of information. She works with Porter at the arcade.

"Of course, knowing who we know, it's pretty easy to get hooked up with some stuff," Maia says.

No joke. One of their co-workers at the arcade is the tattooed kid who talks and acts like he's on a perpetual high. It's no surprise he's dealing, too.

"One of these days, though, Hunter will get caught," Maia declares. "It would serve him right for breaking up with me."

"Hunter?" I'm so surprised she brought up his name, I don't point out that she's been telling people since junior year that she broke up with him. "What does Hunter have to do with it?"

Maia puffs out a breath. "Honestly, Jade. Haven't you been listening? Hunter's the dealer."
CHAPTER EIGHT

Thoughts about Porter and Hunter and Heather swirl through my head, making it impossible to focus on anything. After the gossip session and late lunch with Maia, I'm so not in the mood for an early dinner with Roxy. But I'd feel the same even coming off a hunger strike.

Nothing will kill an appetite faster than the prospect of sitting across a table with the carny who wants you dead.

"Thanks for eating at five." Roxy isn't that grateful. Otherwise, she'd have dressed for dinner in something besides her too-tight orange T-shirt. "We get really busy at the carnival starting around seven."

It's quarter to five now. Mom is at the stove stirring store-bought tomato sauce while on another burner a pot of water starts to bubble. Uncle Landon's making a salad, and I'm sitting on a tall stool beside Roxy. I expect hot demon breath to blast me whenever she talks.

"No problem." Uncle Landon speaks for my mother. She's a lot more subdued than she was this morning, like she might have increased the dosage of her medicine. "We're real glad you're letting Jade here start her shift late."

Roxy offered before I could ask, adding some nonsense about looking forward to enjoying my company at dinner. She wouldn't let Max start work late so he could be here, though.

"Jade deserves some slack." Roxy's smile is cold, her lips curling like a reptile's. "She's a smart girl."

"Very smart." Mom stirs in a circular motion, staring down into the pot. "She got a scholarship to UNC."

My stomach clenches. Surely Mom hasn't forgotten the scholarship was taken away when my GPA plummeted after my disappearance.

"Is that where you're headed in the fall?" Roxy pivots toward me. Her hot breath smells like wintergreen gum.

"No."

"Where are you going to college?" Roxy asks.

"I'm not." It's not hard to take Max's advice to offer as little information as possible when she's asking questions like that.

Mom looks up from her monotonous stirring. "When did you decide this, Jade?"

"Nothing's been decided yet," Uncle Landon says. "Jade has until thirty days before class starts to enroll at community college."

He probably looked up the deadline this morning after I threw away that letter from my stepfather. I'd be miffed about that if I wasn't grateful that he was taking the heat off me. The future is not something I want to think about.

"College is important," Roxy announces. Like I need a lecture on higher education from her.

"Did you go to college?" I try for sweet, but the question has a sour edge.

"I got pregnant right out of high school and got married."

She was married?

"So you got a kid?" Uncle Landon focuses on her other startling revelation.

A demon spawn, he means.

"I had a miscarriage," Roxy says.

Mom has gone back to stirring the sauce. I'm not sure she even heard Roxy. Her expression is blank, like she checked out of the conversation. Uncle Landon looks uncomfortable. He breaks dry spaghetti noodles in half and adds them to the boiling water.

I don't want to feel sympathy for Roxy but can't help it. Somebody has to say something. I guess it has to be me. "I'm sorry."

"My husband wasn't," Roxy says. "I lost the baby after he beat me up."

The shock of her statement closes off my airways. Out of curiosity, I'd Googled the Punch and Judy puppet sideshow and discovered the violent Punch liked to beat up his wife. Why would Roxy, herself a victim of domestic violence, give her dog and cat their names?

"What a bastard." Uncle Landon breaks the spaghetti more vigorously, although I think you're supposed to boil them whole. One piece comes loose and lands on the counter. "You're not still married to him, are you?"

"He's dead going on three years." Roxy pauses. "Happiest time of my life."

So Roxy has layers. Firing questions at her so I can unpeel them wouldn't be cool. Turns out I don't have to. Uncle Landon gets Roxy to open up about herself while he and my mom finish making dinner.

Roxy grew up an only child in Kingstree, South Carolina, and lost her parents in a house fire the summer after she graduated high school. When a traveling carnival came to town, she applied for a job. She met her future husband when she was assigned to work the roller coaster with him.

"So you've been around coasters for a long time," I say with as much nonchalance as I can muster. "Ever have one come apart like it did yesterday?"

Mom's head comes up. "There was a coaster accident yesterday?"

I forgot I hadn't told her what happened. She apparently hadn't read the newspaper, either. "Nobody was hurt, Mom. It was during a test run."

"Was the coaster empty?" Mom asks.

"I read something in the paper about that," Uncle Landon says. "The story said employees were taking the test run."

"Were you on the coaster when it crashed, Jade?" Mom asks.

"The coaster didn't crash," Roxy cuts in. "The last car detached."

"The last car is where Jade likes to sit!" Mom drops the wooden stirring spoon and wrings her hands.

"I didn't sit there yesterday," I say. "Nobody did."

"Your enemies didn't know you wouldn't sit there!" Mom cries.

"What enemies?" Roxy asks.

"The ones the voices told me about." Mom's eyes bug out as she leans toward Roxy. "Did you see them tampering with the car?"

"Nobody tampered with the car," Roxy says. "It was an accident."

Yeah, right.

"Like Julian almost drowning was an accident?" I blurt out, totally disregarding Max's advice not to be confrontational. "I heard somebody told Julian it was no longer dangerous to swim by the pier."

"Who would do a thing like that?" Roxy asks.

"Oh, come on!" I whirl to where my brother sits in the living room playing his Gameboy. "Julian!"

He looks up.

"Who told you it was okay to swim by the pier?" I ask.

"Was it the enemies?" my mother asks.

Julian shrinks back against the sofa. "Nobody told me anything."

"Because if it was the enemies," Mom continues as if he hadn't spoken, "I told you to stay away from them."

"Dinner's about ready," Uncle Landon announces in a loud voice. "Jade, could you get your sister?"

I consider ignoring him, but I'm not accomplishing anything except agitating my mother and letting Roxy know I don't trust her. Without a word, I get up and head toward the back of the house and my sister's bedroom.

"Suri's not in the house," Roxy says. "When I got here, she was playing hopscotch in the driveway."

The other day, our next-door neighbor Mrs. Smith noticed Suri and some of her friends playing with sidewalk chalk and showed them how to draw a new variation on the traditional hopscotch pattern.

"With her friends?" I ask.

"No," Roxy answers. "Alone."

My heart feels like it stopped pumping. "Who let Suri go outside alone?"

"She's allowed as long as she stays in the yard," Julian says helpfully.

I run for the front door and yank it open. The driveway where Suri has drawn an intricate hopscotch pattern with sidewalk chalk is empty. A chill settles over me. I sprint into the yard and spin left, then right. I don't see her. "Suri!"

No answer.

I take off running, circling the house, calling her name over and over.

Still no answer.

How could I have let this happen again? Roxy tried to make off with Suri once before, at the boardwalk when she was purportedly taking her out for ice cream. That hadn't worked, so she's gone to plan B. And this time, Roxy has an accomplice. It's the only thing that makes sense.

I'm back in the same place where I started, having made a full rotation of the house. I dash back inside directly for where Roxy still sits at the kitchen counter. "Where's Suri?"

Her eyes are flat. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can't be alone in this. Who has her?"

"I don't—" Roxy begins.

"Who has her?" I scream in her face

"What's happening?" Mom's voice is shrill. "Do the enemies have Suri?"

"Nobody has Suri," Uncle Landon says. "She's outside playing."

I swivel to face him. "She's not. I looked all over. She's gone!"

"Did you look in the tree house?" The question comes from Julian. "She hides in there sometimes."

Almost before he finishes speaking, I race for the back door and yank it open, letting it bang shut behind me. The tree house is in the farthest corner of the yard. My stepfather built it for Suri and Julian late last summer after Suri read a book about a girl who could travel through time from a portal in her tree house.

How could I have forgotten the tree house was there?

I clamber up the dozen steps on the ladder, hardly daring to hope. And then there Suri is, huddled in one corner, hugging her knees.

"Is she in there?" It's Uncle Landon's voice. He must have followed me outside.

"She's here," I shout back without turning from my sister.

"You better get in the house with Suri pronto, Jade," Uncle Landon says. "You've got some apologizing to do."

I don't think so. Yes, Suri's safe. She's also spooked. My heart still hammers so hard I can hardly think, but I've got to be careful not to make things worse. I suck in a deep breath and slowly exhale.

"What are you doing up here, Suri?" The deep breathing is working. I sound almost normal. "Didn't you hear me calling you?"

She nods, staring up at me with huge, dark eyes. "I'm hiding."

Of course she's hiding. She must have come up here as soon as she spotted the Amazon who tried to abduct her lumbering up the front walk.

I sink down beside Suri and put my arm around her. "I know Roxy is scary, honey, but I won't let her hurt you."

"Roxy?" She chews on her bottom lip and shakes her head. "I'm not hiding from Roxy."

"What?" Even if Suri and Roxy hadn't had the previous encounter, the carnival boss is frightening enough to send little kids running. Like Frankenstein or Count Dracula. "Then who are you hiding from?"

"The enemies," Suri whispers. "The ones Mommy told me about."

There haven't been many times in my life I'm speechless. This is one of them. Before I can figure out what to say, my phone rings. Out of habit, I check who's calling. Max. Otherwise, I'd let the call go to voicemail.

"Sorry, honey, I've got to take this," I tell Suri and answer the phone. "Hey. Everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Max says. "I'm calling to remind you to be careful around Roxy. We don't want her to know we suspect her."

I lean my head back against the wall of the tree house and consider how to break the news. "It might be a little late for that."
CHAPTER NINE

The blue and pink cotton candy wraps around and around the paper cone, hypnotizing me into believing that ingesting pure sugar is a good idea.

Junk food hunger pains are what I get for skipping out on dinner, although no way could I have sat across the table from Roxy. Accusing her once of trying to abduct Suri wasn't so bad. Twice, though, could be trouble.

I'm supposed to report to Max as soon as I get to the carnival to give him a detailed report on the dinner fiasco, but Becky's working the concession stand instead of him. That's okay. I need to talk to Becky before I start my last day of work. I figure I've got about an hour before Roxy arrives and fires me.

"I don't know what I did to deserve this!" a blond girl wails. It's Ashley, the DQ Twin who doesn't work at the White Pelican. Although, from what Maia said, Heather's no longer a waitress there either. "How could Heather do this to me?"

Ashley's talking to Rachel Drayton, another girl who cheered in high school. Unlike Ashley and her counterpart Heather, though, Rachel has a functioning brain.

I'm the sixth and last person waiting at the concession stand. I step out of line, intent on gathering intel that will help me figure out if a Ringer could be using Heather's body.

"Hey, Rachel." I smile like we're friends instead of acquaintances. "Hey, Ashley."

"Can't you see we're having a conversation here?" Ashley snaps at me, eyes glistening with unshed tears. If her mascara isn't waterproof, she's in for a bad case of raccoon eyes. A girl can only hope.

Rachel pats her friend's arm. "Don't be that way, Ash. I know you're upset, but Jade's smart. She might have good advice."

"What's the problem, Ashley?" I can sound like I care if I try really hard.

For about ten seconds it seems like Ashley won't deign to answer, but then tears trickle down her cheeks. "Heather doesn't want me to go to Europe with her," Ashley wails.

"Heather's leaving next week on this amazing trip," Rachel explains while Ashley cries. "She's going to Paris, Rome, Venice and a bunch of other great cities. Ashley's parents—"

"Are Heather's parents paying for the trip?" I interrupt, seizing the chance to gain insight into her family's financial situation.

Rachel blinks. "I don't know. Maybe. Probably. Although her dad did just get laid off."

Another clue that the Black Widow could have taken over Heather's body. Constance Hightower, who stashed the bulk of her late husband's fortune somewhere, wouldn't have any difficulty paying for a European tour.

"As I was saying," Rachel continues, "Ashley's parents said they'd pay for Ash to go on the trip with Heather, but Heather wasn't up for it."

Ashley hiccups. Her rapid blinking doesn't entirely slow her tears. Yes! The mascara isn't waterproof. "We've been besties since first grade. I don't understand why Heather doesn't want me along."

The whining? The crying? The hysteria? If I were inhabiting Heather's body, I'd flee from Ashley, too.

"Sounds like Heather's not acting like herself," I remark.

"Ya think?" Ashley grasps hands full of hair as though she's considering tearing it out. "It's like I don't know her anymore."

Rachel keeps patting Ashley's arm. They both look at me expectantly.

"What do you think Ashley should do?" Rachel asks.

Stay away. Stay far, far away. I search for a less incendiary way to phrase my answer. "Let Heather go to Europe alone."

"That's it? That's your advice?" Ashley retorts. She puffs out a breath. "We never should have asked you. C'mon, Rach. Let's go."

Ashley grabs Rachel's hand. Before Ashley drags her away, Rachel meets my eye and shrugs.

The line at the concession stand has dwindled to nothing. I hurry forward, cutting in front of the same chubby kid who was in line with me a few days ago.

"Cutting's not cool, man," the kid says.

"Sorry. I'll only be a minute."

Becky's still by herself behind the counter. The air smells of hot dogs, pizza and sugary snacks.

"What are you doing back there all alone, Becks?" I ask.

"Max found me at the funhouse and asked me to cover for him," she says. "He was pretty desperate. Adair's sick so he was going it alone. And I mean, it's not like shutting down the funhouse is a big deal. Hardly anybody goes in there. That maniacal clown laughter is really—"

"Did Max say why he needed you to cover?" Interrupting seems to be my thing today.

"Nope."

"Hey, cutter! Are you gonna order something or what?" The chubby kid behind me can glare with the best of them. But then so can I.

"I said give me a minute. I need to talk to my friend about something." I turn my back on him, blocking his view of Becky. "So, Becks, Maia and I saw you and you-know-who at the food court today."

Becky grins. "I do know who."

"Maia says you-know-who is into you-know-what." I tilt my head. "You do know, don't you?"

Becky's grin fades. It's all over her face that she's aware of Porter's drug problem. "I only found out yesterday."

Probably when Porter swung by the Prescott house to buy drugs from Hunter while Becky was in the car.

"He's only into the mild stuff, and he's trying to stop." Becky crosses her arms in front of her. She knows how I feel about drugs. My mom's pills are by prescription, but I've seen the effect they have on her. "I swear, Jade, if you're here to lecture me on—"

"I'm starving back here." The voice of the kid behind me wobbles, like he's suffering from low blood sugar.

Ignoring him is a better option than snapping at him, especially because I'm in the wrong. And I really need to find out if the second part of Maia's gossip is true. "I'm here to check out a rumor about the, um, seller. Did you stop by his aunt and uncle's house yesterday morning?"

Becky nods, and I can no longer pretend that Hunter's not dealing. In fact, everything Maia told me checks out. The lecture Becky doesn't want me to give her about Porter being a bad bet for a boyfriend taps at the backs of my lips.

"Just be careful. Okay, Becks?"

"She'll be careful." It's the kid again. "What's the big deal? You're only talking pot, right?"

After I leave the concession stand, I vow to be more circumspect. Like Max. Not that I approve of how secretive he is. I talked to him a half-hour ago, and he didn't mention needing someone to cover for him at the concession stand.

I scour the carnival until I finally spot Max near a ride called the Whip talking to—no, arguing with—a middle-aged woman dressed in a gray tailored pantsuit. Everything about her screams classy from her upswept hairdo to her upright posture. Something else about her is familiar, too, but I can't put my finger on it. Especially since I'm too far away to clearly see her face.

She throws up her hands, shakes her head and gestures at Max with her index finger. Like maybe she's telling him he hasn't seen the last of her. She strides away from him, disappearing into a knot of carnival-goers. Max watches her go, an inscrutable expression on his face. After he spots me coming toward him, a full second passes before he smiles.

I don't return the smile. "Hey, Max. I've been looking everywhere for you."

"I'm right here." His reply is partially drowned out by screaming laughter that erupts from the people in the cars being whipped around the oval track.

"Who was that woman?" I ask.

"Nobody important." His answer is quick.

"She sure looked important when she was wagging a finger in your face."

"You know how it is when you're wearing the orange T-shirt." Max gives a small tug to the material covering his chest. "Someone's always coming up to you complaining about something."

That almost never happens. Tourists at a carnival by the beach are generally pretty happy.

"What's up?" Max continues. "Why aren't you still at dinner?"

I must not have been clear in our brief phone conversation when I was in the tree house with Suri. "Don't you want to know what I found out about Heather first?"

"Heather? The waitress at the White Pelican?"

"Not any longer. Heather quit and booked a multi-city tour of Europe. Kind of extravagant when your dad's laid off unless you've got your own money stashed somewhere, right? And you know her friend Ashley? The other DQ Twin? Well, Heather told Ashley she wasn't welcome to go along."

"You think the Ringer's in Heather's body?" Max scrunches up his nose. "I don't know. She seemed pretty shaken up about the bomb threat."

"That could have been an act." I haven't figured out if I believe that, but then I'm still not totally onboard with the body switching. "What will really tip it off is if Heather suddenly starts hanging out with Roxy."

"Getting back to Roxy, why aren't you at dinner with her?"

I've got to confess sooner or later. "I blew off dinner after I kinda accused Roxy of being evil."

"Please tell me you're not serious."

"Hey, it wasn't without cause." I quickly explain how I panicked when I couldn't find Suri. "Maybe Roxy wasn't guilty today, but she's no innocent."

"Something's been bothering me about that," Max says in a too-loud voice. The Whip has stopped, and the riders are disembarking. He leans his head closer to mine and modulates his tone. "If Roxy's involved in all this, why did she hire me to work at the carnival?"

It's a good point, one I hadn't considered. Why would Roxy risk exposure by someone who'd been part of a Ringer experiment? "There has to be an explanation. Did you interview for the job in person?"

"I didn't even meet Roxy until my first day of work," Max says. "Let's say she didn't realize who I was before she hired me. Wouldn't she have told me when I got here there'd been a mistake and there was no job?"

I've got an answer for that, too. "You know what they say about keeping your enemies in plain sight?"

Enemies? Now I sound like my mother. It's probably not even the right word for how Roxy thinks of us. That word is prey.

"We can talk about Roxy later," Max says. "Right now we need to figure out what to do about Heather. I think..."

Something catches his attention over my shoulder, and his voice trails off. I turn to see Officer Wainwright and his partner walking directly for us. I've dealt with the police enough lately to know the second cop's name is Officer Smalley. Since he isn't even as tall as me, I won't forget that any time soon.

"Hey, Max, Jade." Officer Wainwright's greeting contains no warmth. Neither cop smiles.

"What can we do for you, officers?" Max asks.

"It's what you can do for us, Max." Wainwright looks like he's about to burst out of his short-sleeved uniform, like the Incredible Hulk. "We need to ask you some questions about Stuart Bigelow."

Max's expression doesn't change. "Sure. Go ahead."

"Not here," Smalley says. "Down at the station."

That doesn't sound right to me. "Is that standard procedure?"

"It is in this case," Wainwright says.

It sounds like the police suspect Max. Ridiculous. Except for the fact that Max was at the hotel around the time Bigelow died. I saw him myself. I'd been pretty sure nobody else did, though. The weather that day had been perfect for the beach. None of the other hotel guests were around. When we left the hotel, even the street had been quiet.

"I'll come, too," I say.

"That's not possible." Smalley steps between me and Max. "C'mon, Max. This will go easier if you cooperate."

"I am cooperating," Max says with no trace of the anxiety that's gripping me. "I've got nothing to hide."

I watch the three of them walk away, with Max between the two cops like they're being careful he doesn't make a run for it. _Nothing to hide_. Even I don't believe that.
CHAPTER TEN

There's nothing like Gulliver striding through the land of the Lilliputians to get a girl to start worrying about herself. Roxy's invasion of Kiddie Land isn't at the level of the cops taking Max in for questioning on a murder case.

But nobody likes to be fired.

Tonight I'm assigned to the kiddie version of the Hurricane. It's actually pretty lame, unless you're thirty-six inches tall, the minimum height requirement. The ride ended a minute or so ago and everybody cleared out except for the little guy in the lead car.

"C'mon, Johnny." A skinny girl about ten years old stands beside the car, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Time to get out."

Johnny sits tight. He's a tow-headed kid with chubby cheeks and big eyes. He can't be more than four or five. "No! Want to go again."

This is the least favorite part of my job. With Roxy approaching to sack me, though, the upside is I won't have to deal with difficult kids much longer.

"People are waiting, bud," I tell Johnny. "If you want to ride again, you have to go to the back of the line."

Fat tears roll down his cheeks. I wonder if he's related to one of the DQ Twins.

"Tell you what. You can wear my Kiddie Land hat while you wait." The ball cap is orange and ugly. Roxy dictated that every Kiddie Land ride operator must have one on at all times. "Sound good?"

Johnny thrusts out his lower lip, thinks a moment, then takes a hat. He looks better in it than I do, even though the hat is about two sizes too big. He's heading for the back of the line when Roxy reaches me.

"I saw you give that kid your hat." Roxy will probably use a pattern of insubordination as grounds for firing me. I brace myself. She gives a short nod. "Well done."

"What?"

"You handled that exactly right, Jade. I'm glad you're part of the Midway Beach Carnival family."

She doesn't care that I think she's an evil, lying bitch? Well, if she's not going to get into what happened at my house, neither am I. "Gee, thanks."

She flashes her teeth in what could pass for either a smile or a snarl. "Everything going okay tonight?"

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"I heard some cops were around earlier. Know what they were doing here?"

The theme song from Halloween, with its repetitive single notes, sounds on my phone. At my most suspicious, I downloaded the snippet of music and set it as a text tone for Max. Relief hits me hard. If Max is texting, he's not under arrest.

"I have no idea," I lie.

"Having cops around makes people nervous." Roxy chomps down on her gum. I'm starting to hate the smell of wintergreen. "Like the carnival isn't a safe place to be."

"Some people feel safer when the police are around."

"Naive people." Roxy stares at me hard, her eyes like twin black beads. "Keep up the good work, Jade."

When she's gone, I make sure all the riders are strapped in and start the roller coaster. As soon as the ride's under way, I get out my phone, much more interested in finding out what Max has to say than in analyzing why Roxy didn't fire me.

_Not enough evidence to hold me_ , his text reads. _Turning in early. Talk tomorrow_.

Is this some kind of joke? It's so early that Kiddie Land's still packed with children who probably go to bed at eight o'clock. I text Max back with a reminder there could be a Ringer out there that we need to find. There's no reply.

After the carnival shuts down for the night, I talk Becky into driving past Max's place. His white pickup is in front of the duplex and the place is dark, as though he really is asleep. Pounding on his door needs to wait until the next morning.

At a little past nine a.m., after sneaking out of the house to avoid my mom and Uncle Landon, I rap my fists against the cheap wood. When there's no answer, I pummel the door harder.

"I'm coming already," Max calls in a loud, agitated voice. He pulls open the door and scowls at me. "What?"

His brown hair is mussed, locks of it falling across his forehead. He wears a rumpled T-shirt and boxer shorts, and his skin has that rosy quality like he just got out of bed. My irritation at him fades. He must have been exhausted if he slept for twelve straight hours.

"What kind of way is that to treat your girlfriend?" I put a hand on my hip. "Don't I get a good morning kiss?"

I'm teasing. Sort of.

He rubs at his bleary eyes. "As much as I'd like that, trust me, you don't want one until I brush my teeth."

He opens the door wide to admit me into the duplex and then disappears into the bathroom to take care of his morning breath. The living area is spotless aside from a crumpled fast food bag on the kitchen table. I hardly have time to snoop around before Max emerges from the bathroom. His hair's combed, but he's still in his boxers. I feel myself blush even as my eyes dip. His leanly muscled legs look good. Really good.

"How 'bout that kiss?" he asks with a typical Max grin.

Heat floods my face. "First we've got things to talk about."

He laughs softly. "Okay, talk first, kiss later."

That's not what I meant. Precisely. It's an effort to get my mind back on track. Oh, yes. The cops. The insinuation. The interrogation. "What happened at the police station last night?"

Max leans back against a wall and crosses his feet at the ankles. His dark coloring is in stark contrast to the white wall. "I told you in my text. The cops didn't have enough evidence to hold me."

"Why did they pick you up in the first place?"

"They say they have an eyewitness who saw me leave the hotel room." He sounds matter of fact. "They leaned on me hard, but I didn't admit to being there."

"I didn't tell them!"

"I never said you did."

"We need to find out who it was." I have a half-formed plan to pump Officer Wainwright for information. He's already proven he has a big mouth.

"I already know," Max says. "One of the cops had some paperwork in front of him when he was questioning me. Turns out I'm pretty good at reading upside down."

"Who was it?"

"Maia Shelton."

"Maia? Are you sure she's the eyewitness?" It seems like she would have mentioned something about that when we were at the mall. "You know what a big gossip she is. Could she have reported something somebody told her?"

"Could be."

"We need to talk to her. Right now." I flick my eyes over him. "As soon as you get dressed."

A soft growling noise comes from Max's stomach. "I need some cereal first."

"You get dressed," I tell him. "I'll pour."

The cereal box is on the kitchen counter, and the milk is in the refrigerator. I find a bowl in the cupboard and cart everything to the kitchen table. The crumpled bag I noticed earlier is from a fast-food restaurant that's open until two a.m. during the summer months for those midnight cheeseburger cravings. Beside the bag is a receipt. I pick up the receipt, check out the time and date stamp and curse myself for being so trusting.

"Did you find the cereal?" Max comes out of the bedroom in shorts and a T-shirt, his step faltering when he notices me standing stiffly beside the table. "What's wrong?"

"What did you do last night after the cops let you go?" I demand.

"I already told you. I came home and crashed." He's an adept liar. He even looks me in the eyes while he spins his tale.

I hold up the receipt. "It's got a time stamp, Max. You picked up food right before midnight last night."

He winces and rubs the side of his nose. "It's not the way it looks."

"If it looks like you lied to me, then it's exactly how it looks."

Max says nothing.

"Aren't you going to explain?"

"I want to, but I can't." He comes across the room and reaches out, touching my cheek. "Just trust me, okay?"

I knock his hand away. "How do you expect me to trust you when you lie to me? How can I even be sure you didn't kill Bigelow?"

"Because you know me, Jade." He gazes deep into my eyes, as though he's willing me to believe in him. "You know what kind of person I am deep inside."

"How would I know that?"

"You just do," he says.

My chest feels tight, and it's suddenly hard to draw in breath. The walls of the duplex seem like they're closing in on me. I've got to get out of here and away from Max. "I changed my mind. I'm going to Maia's alone."

I bang out the door, surprised that he doesn't follow me and spew more lies. I hop on my bike and pedal furiously for the two miles to Maia's house, thinking that Max is wrong. All I know about him for sure is that his story about being a missing person checks out with the Greensboro police. He could have made up everything else.

It irks me that, despite everything, I do trust Max about one thing. Not for a second do I believe he had anything to do with Stuart Bigelow's death.

Mrs. Shelton answers the door when I reach Maia's house. In a short white tennis skirt and a sleeveless hot-pink razorback shirt, she looks tan and fit. She gives me a bland smile. "Can I help you with something?"

"Hey, Mrs. Shelton. It's me, Jade."

Her delicate brows knit together.

"Jade," I repeat. "You know, Maia's friend since the first grade."

"Oh, Jade. Yes, of course. You kids grow so fast, it's hard to keep up." She acts like she hasn't seen me in years instead of a few weeks ago. "You must be here to visit Maia."

"That's right. Can you get her for me?"

"I would, dear. But I think she's still sleeping."

It's past ten o'clock. Maia, though, is one of those rare teenagers who never stays in bed past eight a.m. Becky and I got so annoyed at being awakened by texts last summer that we staged an intervention. Maia had the perfect solution: Put your phone on vibrate at bedtime.

"Can you check for me? I really need to talk to her."

Mrs. Shelton glances at her watch. It's not a Rolex but it looks sleek, silver and expensive. On her other wrist is a diamond tennis bracelet. "I'm running late or I would. How about you check for yourself?" She steps back to let me inside the house, then picks up her paisley tennis bag and water bottle. "Hope you girls have a nice visit."

Mrs. Shelton hurries down the sidewalk on her cute white and pink tennis shoes. From the back, she looks more like a teenager than a woman who's at least forty. Maia says her mom spends all her time working out, shopping and going out with friends. Mrs. Shelton did so well in the divorce settlement she'll never have to work another day in her life.

The inside of the house smells like furniture polish and air freshener. It's quiet, like nobody's home. My sandals make soft thudding noises on the tiled floor as I cross the foyer to the carpeted stairs. On impulse, I turn my cell phone to vibrate in case I get an unexpected call. It belatedly occurs to me that's illogical. If Maia's asleep, I intend to wake her. What difference would it make if a ringing phone did it for me?

Maia's bedroom is on the second level. The carpet looks so pristine that I take off my shoes before I start the climb. When I reach the top step, so as not to freak her out, I call, "Maia. It's Jade."

She doesn't respond. The door to her bedroom is closed like she really might be asleep. Tough. I need answers more than she needs sleep. I rap on her door three times. "Maia? Are you in there, Maia?"

The answering silence is absolute. Cracking open the door, I peek inside the bedroom.

My retinas feel like they've caught fire. I've told Maia this before, but I'd never be able to sleep in a room with a red accent wall. She laughed and said the red wall goes great with her black furniture. The bedspread she ordered online is shot through with both colors. Her bed is neatly made, matching black and red pillows leaning against the headboard. There's a sickly sweet smell that could be from the dying chrysanthemums on her black lacquer dresser.

"Maia?"

The bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. The door's open. Like the bedroom, it's empty. Had Maia taken off this morning before her mother was up and around? Had she even slept in her bed last night? But surely her mother would notice if Maia hadn't come home. Wouldn't she?

I'm about to leave the room when I remember Maia's walk-in closet. I can't think of a single reason she'd hide in there but open the door anyway. The closet, of course, is empty. I'm about to turn away when something catches my eye at the back of the closet between a gap in the clothes. Something on the wall. Frowning, I switch on the closet light, venture forward and push back the hangars for a better look.

It's a photo collage of Hunter. Most of the pictures appear to be a few years old, as though they were taken around the time Maia and Hunter were dating. In every photo, Hunter's face is crossed out in black magic marker with an X.

At the mall, Maia let it slip that Hunter broke up with her instead of the other way around. That would explain the chill coming off her whenever Hunter's in the vicinity. It doesn't begin to explain the disturbing collage.

I rearrange the clothes the way I found them, and my fingers come away marred by white powder. Frowning, I notice some of Maia's clothes have a sprinkling of the same powder. My mind connects the dots between the photos of Hunter and the white powder and reach an inescapable conclusion.

It's cocaine.

I'm about to taste some like they do in the movies, but I have no idea what cocaine actually tastes like. I raise my eyes to the shelf above the clothes, expecting to see a plastic bag of cocaine, perhaps with a hole. There is no bag, but there's a black plastic jar with white powder dusting its sides. The printing on the jar is front and center: eRATicate.

Rat poison.

"Oh, no, Maia," I whisper. "You didn't."

It sure looks like she did, though. Max theorized that the Black Widow had poisoned Hunter. The theory made sense only up to a point. The Black Widow doesn't have a motive.

It turns out Maia does.

Loyalty holds me back from calling the police and telling them of my discovery. I've known Maia forever. She should at least have the chance to explain before the heat comes down on her.

I back out of the closet, eager to get away from the ugly proof hiding there. Before I can talk to Maia, I've got to find her. I search the house for clues and find a note on the kitchen table that Mrs. Shelton must have overlooked.

_Moving in with Dad. I'll pick up the rest of my things later_.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

By the time I bike the five miles to the Estates at Ocean Breeze, I'm hot and sweaty. The guard at the gatehouse has his cell phone to his ear and his feet up. I keep pedaling, navigating my bike through a narrow opening in the gate.

"Hey!" The guard leaps to his feet and shouts after me, "Stop!"

I wave and call out, "You have a nice day, too."

He takes a step toward me, like he's thinking about giving chase. Then he puts the phone to his ear again and sits back down. I've almost got enough money saved up for a used car, but I won't get rid of my bike. Sometimes, two wheels are better than four.

A slight wind rustles the newly planted palm trees that line the pristine road. Along with the occasional bursts of red and yellow flowers, the palms lend the community a tropical feel. Each estate is sprawling, probably in the vicinity of six thousand square feet. Maia's father lives at the end of a cul-de-sac in a house with a pillared entranceway. Two marble lion heads glare down at visitors. Pretty creepy but at least they're not yard gnomes.

It makes no sense to ring the doorbell when there's a to-die-for pool in the backyard. On a beautiful day like today, that's the place to be.

The pool area is a showpiece, with a waterfall cascading into a curvaceous pool and a gleaming patio area studded with palm trees and adorned with fragrant tropical flowers. Maia lazes on a poolside recliner in a black two-piece bathing suit tinier than anything I've seen her wear in the past. Oversized black sunglasses cover her eyes, and I get a whiff of coconut-scented suntan lotion. She sips from a cocktail glass with one of those little umbrellas sticking from it.

"Hey, Maia," I say to announce my presence.

She looks up from her drink. "Jade! What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

"You could have called." She glances toward the French doors that lead into the house. "I'm afraid this isn't a good time."

"You're lounging by the pool!"

"I was about to go inside." She sets her now-empty glass on the patio table next to her and swings her legs to the side of the recliner.

"It's important, Maia."

"So is my appointment."

"What appointment?"

She hesitates too long.

"You don't have an appointment," I accuse. "You just don't want to talk to me."

"Do you blame me? When someone says they need to talk to you about something, it's hardly ever good." She leans back against her chair and settles in once again. "Well, you can't say I didn't try."

"Didn't try what?"

"It's not important." She has to raise her voice slightly to be heard above the water cascading into the pool. "How did you know where to find me, anyway?"

"I stopped by your house and talked to your mom."

"She noticed I left?" Maia's eyebrows make an appearance above her sunglasses. "Well, what are you waiting for? Tell me why you're here."

If I start with the rat poison in her closet, it'll sound like an accusation. Better to lead with the reason I initially sought her out. "To find out why you told the cops Max was at Stuart Bigelow's hotel when he was killed."

"You know about that? You've got to be kidding me." She makes a disgusted noise. "Wainwright promised not to reveal his source."

"Wainwright didn't say anything. You just did."

"Very clever, Jade. I won't ask how you figured it out, because it doesn't matter." She pauses and taps her fingers against her bare legs. "Well, I'm waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"For you to thank me for not telling the cops you were at the hotel, too." Maia laughs. "Don't look so worried, Jade. I saw Max arrive at the hotel before you. Bigelow was already dead when you got there."

"How do you know that?"

She laughs again, although nothing about this conversation strikes me as funny. "Because your boyfriend Max killed him."

"He did not."

The sun disappears behind a cloud. Maia takes off her sunglasses and examines perfectly shaped fingernails painted the same shade of blood-red as her toenails. Since we were together yesterday at the mall, she's had a mani-pedi. "You sure about that?"

"Yes," I declare. No matter how many things about him don't add up, Max is no murderer.

"Party time!" A woman with an infamous face comes through the French doors carrying two glasses filled to the brim with red liquid slush. She closes the door behind her with a hip bump. "Sorry it took me so long to make the strawberry daiquiris, but I couldn't find the blender and then—"

"Ahem," Maia interrupts. "We have a visitor."

Leanne Livingston raises her head, and her eyes meet mine. She stops abruptly, red liquid sloshing out of the glasses. Her face blanches to a ghoulish hue, appropriate since I thought she was a ghost the first time I saw her.

My heart jumps into my throat. My brain screams at me to run. Because I can come up with only one reason the Black Widow's identical twin would be living it up at Ocean Breeze with Maia.

She's not Maia. She's Constance Hightower, the Black Widow. The Ringer.

My stomach pitches and rolls. I've got no choice but to accept that Max was right all along. Body switching is not only possible, it's already happened.

"Leanne, this is Jade Greene." Maia—no, the Black Widow—says. "Jade, this is Leanne, my father's girlfriend."

Nice try, but I don't think so. She told me yesterday that Maia's father took his girlfriend to the Bahamas. My stay-and-fight instinct wars with the one that yells at me to take flight. If I run now, though, I'll be doing Maia a disservice. I might never figure out what happened to her.

But if I don't run, who knows what will happen to me?

The cell phone I keep inside my shorts pocket vibrates. It's a lucky break that I forgot to turn the ringer back on after I switched it off at Maia's house. My idea's a long shot, but it just might work. As unobtrusively as I can, I fiddle with the phone and pray I got the right setting.

"Leanne and I met the night of the bomb scare, Maia." I speak as loudly as I dare. "I'm surprised she's here at your father's house."

"Like I said, Leanne's my father's girlfriend," the Black Widow says tartly, "I know I told you they were in the Bahamas, Jade, but they came back early. The vacation wasn't—"

"There's something you need to know." It's Leanne's turn to interrupt. She puts the strawberry daiquiris down and turns to the Black Widow. Her hands flutter. Her lips tremble. "I wasn't honest with you about what happened on the pier." She worries her bottom lip. "I told Jade and that guy she was with about the body switch."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the Black Widow says.

"The body switch, Connie. She knows."

"Well, she does now, Leanne. Honestly. You are terrible at keeping a secret." The Black Widow's sigh turns to a laugh when she shifts her attention to me. "What's the matter, Jade? Cat got your tongue?"

The random thought pops into my mind that Roxy's cat isn't really a cat. Just like Maia is no longer Maia.

"You can't be that surprised," she continues. "You and Max figured out most of it. Otherwise, that roller coaster accident, well, it wouldn't have been necessary."

Think, Jade.

"We need to get the cops out here to sort this out," I declare. "Right now."

"Oh, come on, Jade." The Black Widow doesn't even sound like Maia anymore. Her voice is harsher, less melodic. "You really think that's going to happen?"

"You just told me you tried to kill me!"

"I did not. Someone tried to kill you, but it wasn't me." She fluffs the back of her hair. "I don't do the dirty work. Well, not usually. I'm a paying customer, after all."

"You paid for a new body?"

"Exactly. My lawyer told me there was no way I'd beat the rap for killing my husband in court so I found another way to go free."

"Who's behind this?" I fire the question at her. "It can't only be Roxy."

"Roxy?" The Black Widow smiles, like that strikes her as funny.

"You should stop talking, Connie," Leanne cuts in. It looks like there are drops of blood on her white one-piece bathing suit, but I realize it's actually spilled liquid from the daiquiris. "What if she tells someone?"

"Relax, Leanne. I've got no intention of telling her how the switch is done. And it's not like anyone will believe her if she blabs. Everybody thinks she's nuts, her and her mother." The Black Widow gestures to the table. "Can you hand me one of those daiquiris, Leanne?"

Leanne obliges, and the Black Widow delicately licks the rim of the glass. "Ah, this is the life. Your late friend Maia should have appreciated it more."

Maia's dead. The truth slams into me like a brick to the head. She had faults, like her love of gossip. But she was basically a good person. And this woman is responsible for her death.

"You think you're so smart, but you overlooked something," I say slowly and clearly. "I found the rat poison in Maia's closet next to the photo collage of Hunter. You know, the one with the black marker crossing out his face."

"What is she talking about, Connie?" Leanne asks. "Who is Hunter?"

"Hunter's the guy who jilted Maia," I answer. "Before your sister stole Maia's body, Maia tried to poison him."

"You really don't get it, do you? I gave you too much credit for being bright." The Black Widow wears a self-satisfied smirk. "I poisoned Hunter. Your cowardly little friend Maia would never have had the courage."

"I don't understand." I'm still afraid, but I'm also curious. "Maia had a motive. You don't."

"You need to understand I'm not a monster." The Black Widow takes another sip of her strawberry daiquiri. "I'm... grateful to your friend for the use of her body. The least I could do is punish the guy who did her wrong."

I'd never heard that version of the story from Maia. "But Maia told everybody she broke up with Hunter."

"She lied about who dumped who to save face," the Black Widow says. "Hunter was just like my late husband, running around with other girls, not a faithful bone in his body. Maia should have given him the axe first, but she didn't."

"How do you know all that?"

"Come on, Jade. You're not that stupid. Surely you can figure it out."

"You have Maia's diary?"

She makes a scoffing noise. "I have her residual memories. Body switching probably isn't the best description of the, uh, procedure I had done. Mind switching is more accurate."

"Connie," Leanne says, her voice cracking. "I really don't think you should be telling her any of this."

"It's sweet of you to worry about me, Leanne. But it's not like the cops will come after me. Hunter's just fine."

"Stuart Bigelow isn't fine." I know I don't imagine the sudden tension in her body. I'm not sure how, but suddenly I can picture what happened. "You tried to poison him, too."

It's not such a wild guess. The Black Widow had to be in the vicinity of the hotel when Bigelow died. Otherwise, she wouldn't know Max and I had been there. The memory of all the blood in that room assaults me. I'd even thought I stepped in some, but it hadn't been blood on the carpet. It had been coffee.

"You put the poison in his coffee, didn't you?" I guess. "Did he taste it? Smell it? Figure out what you were trying to do?"

She glares at me with a hateful expression unlike any I'd seen from Maia.

"Explain something to me." I continue talking. "If you're not a monster, why is Bigelow dead?"

"I didn't put enough poison in his drink to kill him," the Black Widow scoffs. "I was only trying to get him to back off from his threats to expose me. But when he came after me, of course I defended myself."

"Expose you? Bigelow knew you took over Maia's body?"

"Oh, come on. He wasn't Woodward or Bernstein. But he did figure out I poisoned Hunter." She's revealing so much that beads of sweat trickle down my face. My stomach rolls. The Black Widow is already responsible for the deaths of two men. Would she really hesitate to get rid of me?

She drains her drink, stands up and slips an expensive-looking silk cover-up over her bathing suit. Then she picks up the bag at her feet and reaches into it. I've seen so many slasher movies I expect her to pull out a knife. Instead, she produces a small, black gun.

"Too many bodies are piling up in Midway Beach." I will my voice not to shake. Showing fear would not be good. "If you kill me, the cops will find you."

"Connie, put down the gun!" Leanne wails. "Don't shoot her!"

"Would you stop that, Leanne," the Black Widow says on a sigh. "I only took out the gun so she'd give me her phone."

I've been surrounded by so much lying, I don't quite believe her. The estates are far enough apart that she just might risk firing a shot. I gulp back the panic in my throat and play dumb. "What phone?"

"The phone in your pocket you've been using to record our conversation." The Black Widow aims the gun at my forehead. "Hand it over this instant. Unless you want to find out how far I'll go to protect what I've got going here."

Anyone who would pursue a body switch doesn't have limits. Wordlessly I reach into my pocket and hand over the phone.

She grabs it and tosses it into the pool. The phone breaks the pristine surface of the water with a soft splash and disappears into the blue depths. The Black Widow puts the gun back in her bag. She doesn't seem to notice that her sister is hyperventilating.

"There goes your proof," the Black Widow says. "If you repeat anything I said, Jade, I'll deny it."

Finally, coming around the side of the house, I see evidence that my gamble has paid off. Officer Wainwright, for once without his partner, strides toward us with ground-eating steps. Maia's back is to him. Because of the waterfall in the pool, she doesn't hear him coming.

"You can't keep me here!" I'm impressed with the volume of my shout. "I don't care how much you threaten me."

"Threaten you?" the Black Widow asks. "Who's threatening you?"

"What's going on here?" Officer Wainwright demands. Both the Black Widow and her sister Leanne turn toward him with twin looks of surprise that are almost comical. "I got a call that Jade was being held against her will."

"Well, you can see that's ridiculous, Officer." The Black Widow is suddenly cool and poised, qualities she probably perfected on the beauty pageant circuit. "Who would say such a thing?"

"Max Harper." I'd been pretty sure when my cell phone rang that Max was on the other end since he'd been calling non-stop all day. "You were wrong. I wasn't recording us. But I did have an open line to Max."

I'd worked into the conversation where I was, who was with me and what was going on. When I declared that we needed the cops to sort things out, I'd been hoping Max would get the message to call them. Thankfully, he had.

"It doesn't look like you're being held against your will, Jade," Wainwright said.

"Check her bag. There's a gun in there. She said she'd kill me if I told anybody what I found in her closet."

"I did not!" the Black Widow retorts, her poise cracking. "Leanne, tell the officer I did no such thing!"

"She didn't threaten anyone, Officer," Leanne says dutifully.

Wainwright picks up the Black Widow's bag.

"Wait!" she protests. "You don't have permission to search my bag."

"With reasonable suspicion, I don't need permission." Wainwright rustles through her bag and lifts out the gun, his expression turning dark. His gaze zeroes in on me. "What did you find in her closet, Jade?"

"Rat poison. And photos of Hunter Prescott with his face crossed out."

"She's lying!" The Black Widow shouts. "Everybody knows she's crazy!"

"There's an easy way to find out if I'm telling the truth," I tell Wainwright. "Get a search warrant and look in her closet."

"No!" The Black Widow launches herself at me, her nails poised to rake my face.

Wainwright intercepts her before she can do damage, hooking her around the waist with one muscled arm.

"Let me go!" she screams, struggling wildly. She's no match for Wainwright. He pulls out a pair of handcuffs and cuffs her hands behind her back.

"You'll want to get a toxicology report on Stuart Bigelow." I'm careful to stay out of kicking range of the Black Widow. "That rat poison in her closet, she used it on him before she killed him."

"You bitch!"

"And here I thought that was you," I say.

She ignores me and addresses Wainwright. "This is all a big mistake! If there's anything in my closet, Jade planted it there."

"We can sort it out down at the station," Wainwright says. "If Jade's lying, we'll find out soon enough when we search that closet and process the fingerprints."

"Leanne! Do something! Convince him to let me go."

"Hey, wait a minute," Wainwright says before Leanne can say anything. "Aren't you Constance Hightower's twin?"

"She sure is," I answer for Leanne. "Why don't you ask her why she's hanging out with Maia?"

"Don't tell him anything, Leanne," the Black Widow orders. She turns to me, fierce hatred shining from her eyes. "I'm not telling you a damn thing, either. You'll never figure out how we did it."

I get as close to her as I dare. "Why not tell me? Once the cops find that rat poison, it's all over for you anyway."

"If you think you'll be safer with me behind bars," she hisses, "you couldn't be more wrong."

"Enough with the threats," Wainwright says and starts to lead her to his squad car.

"Watch your back, Jade," the Black Widow yells over her shoulder. "I'm not your only enemy. The others are still out there."
CHAPTER TWELVE

Red, purple and yellow chrysanthemums float on top of the salty ocean water as dawn breaks, the current gradually taking the petals out to sea. I'd kept my composure as I scattered them, but now tears stream silently down my cheeks.

Max puts his arm around me and gently rubs my shoulder. "I'm sorry about Maia."

"Me, too." My lip quivers. "You know why Maia started wearing chrysanthemums in her hair? She read somewhere they'd bring her love and happiness for years to come."

A sob rises in my throat for the girl who was shuttled back and forth between parents more interested in themselves than in her. Gossiping was Maia's way of getting the attention she craved. A full minute passes before I can say anything else. "The good things about Maia outweighed the bad. It's not right that we're the only ones who know she's gone."

It's been two days since I discovered the Black Widow was hiding out in Maia's body. Since then, the police searched the Shelton house and found the evidence in her closet linking her to both Hunter Prescott's poisoning and Stuart Bigelow's murder.

"The Black Widow knows Maia is gone," Max says. "She's probably cursing Maia right now for leaving those photos of Hunter in her closet. You'd never have put it together without them."

"That's something, I guess. But there is one thing I still don't understand. Why was the Black Widow at that hotel with Bigelow in the first place?" I make a face. "You don't think...?" I can't bring myself to finish the thought.

"No, I don't think they were getting it on," Max says. "I think she was the anonymous source who told him she saw somebody move Constance Hightower's body."

"I don't get why she'd do that. It was her body."

"What better way to throw Bigelow off track? The Black Widow couldn't let him figure out that she was inside Maia's body."

"I guess not. But nobody would have believed Bigelow if he'd reported that, anyway." My sigh is heavy. "I didn't even fully believe it until the evidence was right in front of me."

Unlike Max, who came up with the impossible theory that turned out to be true.

"I keep thinking about what Constance said about watching my back." I'd already told him everything that went down at the Estates at Ocean Breeze. "There's so much we don't know. I mean, how is this mind switching even possible?"

Max doesn't have an answer, of course.

This early in the morning, the beach is nearly deserted. In the distance is an elderly man with a metal detector who's been combing the sand of Midway Beach for years. A few weeks ago I asked what sort of things he comes across. Mostly loose change, he answered, but he hasn't given up on finding treasure.

"We have to keep trying to figure out who's behind this," Max says. "Not only for our sake, but for Maia's, too."

"Agreed. But if we're going to keep working together, that means no more secrets."

He nods but says nothing. Since the Black Widow's arrest, we haven't discussed his lying.

"I'm serious, Max. No more telling me one thing and doing another. Like the other night when you said you were turning in and stayed out past midnight."

"I get it." He looks out at the water rather than at me. "We need to trust each other."

"Then tell me what you were doing the other night."

"Driving around thinking."

I want to believe him, just like I wanted to believe he didn't know anything about Hunter when they met.

But I can't.

Becky's right. I don't know enough about Max. A single call to the Greensboro police to check out his story about being a missing person isn't enough.

After Max drops me off at my house, I get on my laptop and look up the name of the single mother who raised Max. If anybody can get rid of my doubts, she can. Before I can change my mind about calling her, I punch the number into my new cell phone. While I listen to the rings on the other end, my palms start to sweat.

If she answers, I have no idea what I'll say. As the phone rings and rings, it seems like I won't get the chance to say anything at all.

I'm about to hang up when a harried-sounding woman picks up. "Hello?"

"Oh, hello. Mrs. Harper?"

A pause, and then, "Who's asking?"

"I'm sorry. This is Jade Greene calling from Midway Beach."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"Sorry." I realize I'm repeating myself. "I guess I thought you'd know of Midway Beach because of the carnival."

"Why would you think that?"

"Max works at the carnival with me," I say to complete silence. The quiet stretches for so long that I add, "Max Harper, your son."

"My son is gone."

"Well, yes. But just for the summer. Like I said, your son and I are coworkers at the Midway Beach Carnival."

"I don't know who you're working with at that carnival, young lady," Mrs. Harper says in a harsh, pained voice, "but I assure you it's not my son."

She disconnects the phone, and a dial tone rings in my ear. My chest feels so tight, I can barely breathe. Because the Black Widow was right when she said my enemies are still out there.

I just never truly believed Max was one of them.

###

Afterward

Thank you for reading the first three volumes of the Dead Ringers serial, which has been a wild ride for me. The idea of a young woman missing memories of her abduction gripped me and wouldn't let go. All nine 25,000-word volumes are now available individually and in boxed sets.

If you enjoyed this boxed set, please consider writing a review or just rating the book. Just go back to the book's page and leave your opinion. Thanks for letting my world be part of yours.

Complete List of Dead Ringers Books

_For more information on the books and where to find them, click_ here _._

### Boxed Sets

Volumes 1-3

Volumes 4-6

Volumes 7-9

Complete Collection

Other eBooks by Darlene Gardner

_For more information about the books and where to find them, click_ here _._

### Romantic Comedies

The Misconception

Bait & Switch

Snoops in the City

Three's Comedy

Baby It's You

Clash of Hearts

Her Very Merry Mistake

Three For All

Forget Me? Not

Once Smitten & Twice Shy

### Contemporary Romance

The Christmas Cupid

Winter Heat

To The Max

### Romantic Mysteries

Sound of Secrets

Lowcountry Lies

About the Author

Darlene Gardner left her life as a newspaper sportswriter behind for love, romance and mystery. She has written more than 35 books, from this serial for the indie market to single-title romantic comedies and emotionally charged family dramas for traditional publishing. Her books have sold 1.9 million copies. Visit Darlene on the web at www.darlenegardner.com
