Keep Quiet(58)

“No, no, don’t think that way. She’s not your destiny.” Jake felt his chest seize. “That guy was just making up those texts. He was trying to get to you. Don’t let him get to you.”

“No, but some of the stuff he said, it’s true.” Ryan pulled away, his expression anguished. “Like when he said that you can’t get away from me, I feel like that. I feel like I can’t get away from her.”

Jake felt terrified for him. “No, you just feel guilty. You’re a good person and you feel guilty. But that feeling will diminish in time.”

“No, no, I don’t think it will. It’s only getting worse, Dad.”

“Don’t say that!” Jake said, urgent. “If you keep saying things like that, you’ll make it true, and it doesn’t have to be true, not at all.”

“But I’m obsessed with her, obsessed.” Ryan shook his head in bewilderment. “Like no matter what, I’m thinking about her, and like, we’re studying that if you tell yourself not to think about something, the more it makes you think about it. That’s why I couldn’t go to Western Civ. I was walking to the door and I started to get so freaked, and I saw Caleb, and, he said, ‘What’s the matter with you, dude?’ He knew right away. I mean, I couldn’t get in control.”

“Caleb?” Jake asked, worried. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you? Wasn’t he the guy who sold you the dope?”

“The weed? Yes, right.” Ryan’s expression changed suddenly, as if a mask came over his unguarded features and he seemed to catch himself.

“Ryan? Did you tell him?”

“No, no, no way.” Ryan shook his head in a newly jittery way, and Jake could see he was hiding something.

“What? What happened? You’re a terrible liar, Ryan. I can see it all over your face. Did you tell him something? Anything?” Jake tried to control his fear, but it was impossible. “If you did, tell me now and we can deal with it. Don’t hide it from me. We’re in this together.”

“I didn’t tell him anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I didn’t say anything, not a word!” Ryan raised his voice, but Jake could see that he was protesting too much.

“Then what is it? What’s bothering you?”

“We smoked up, that’s all, Dad. I’m sorry—”

“You got high at school?” Jake asked, appalled.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Ryan raked his hair back with a shaking hand. “Caleb told me it would help me mellow out for practice, and it really did. It did. It got me back in control.”

“No!” Jake practically cried out, feeling suddenly like everything was circling the drain. “Ryan, I did this to help you. It defeats the whole purpose if you start to fall apart. If you start to cut classes. If you start getting high. That’s not you. That never was and never can be—”

“I know, Dad, I know, I’m sorry—”

“You can’t do this to yourself, you can’t.” Jake found himself grabbing the open American Pageant textbook and smacking the page, so loudly that Moose woke up, blinking. “Ryan, this is what you need to think about. This is what you need to focus on. Your schoolwork. Your game. Yourself.” Jake picked up the laptop. “Not this. Not Kathleen Lindstrom. Not her mother. Not how nice they were.” Jake was about to put down the laptop when he glanced at the screen, and did a double-take. The group photo that had been on the screen was larger, because he must have hit a button when he picked up the laptop. The enlargement enabled him to see something in the company photo he hadn’t seen before. He looked closer and couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Dad? What is it?”

“Nothing,” Jake answered, but he was lying through his teeth. He set the laptop on the bed and struggled for emotional control. In the back row of the group photo stood a line of employees, and on the end, half-hidden by the row in front of him, was a face that Jake recognized instantly.

It was Lewis Deaner.





Chapter Twenty-seven


Jake left Ryan in his bedroom, then hurried into his home office and closed the door, stricken. He felt the situation ebbing away from him. He flashed-forward on Ryan’s becoming depressed, obsessed with Kathleen, spiraling downward, letting his grades and the team fall by the wayside. It could end in suicide, as if Ryan was doomed by the very actions set in motion to save him. Jake wasn’t about to let that happen without a fight.

He hustled to his desk, logged onto the Internet, sat down, and typed in the name of the company he had seen on Ryan’s laptop. The company website popped onto the screen, and it read GreenTech Enterprises in kelly-green letters. Directly below that was a candid photo of Kathleen Lindstrom, sitting at a laptop on a desk, evidently at the GreenTech office. The photo was framed by a black memorial border, and next to it was a paragraph:

GreenTech mourns the passing of Kathleen Lindstrom, who was the victim of a hit-and-run accident last Friday on Pike Road in Concord Chase. Kathleen was the beloved daughter of web designer Grace Lindstrom, and Kathleen worked for us part-time, impressing our entire office with her intelligence, charm, and beauty. She even started us running at lunchtime and we lost a total of 76 pounds combined! She will be profoundly missed, most especially by her devoted mother, but by all of us whose lives she touched. GreenTech and its employees are posting a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person responsible for her death, and if you have any such information, please call the authorities …