Paranoid by Lisa Jackson
PROLOGUE
20 years ago
Midnight
Edgewater, Oregon
Are you out of your frickin’ mind?
The nagging voice in Rachel’s brain chased after her as she ran through the dry weeds that had sprouted through decades-old asphalt. The night was dark, just a sliver of the moon visible, its pale light a dim glow that came and went in the undulating clouds overhead. Soon the clouds would settle and sprawl over the river, fog oozing and crawling through the forgotten piers and pilings to encase this abandoned building and move inland to cover the town. Through the thin mist, only one dim security light offered any sort of illumination, and she tripped twice before reaching the mesh fence surrounding the abandoned fish cannery.
You can’t do this, Rachel. Really. Think about it. Your dad’s a cop. A damned detective. Stop!
She didn’t. Instead she slipped through a hole in the fence, her backpack catching on a jagged piece of wiring and ripping as she pressed forward, following her friend. Well, at least her once-upon-a-time friend. Now Rachel wasn’t so sure. Petite, vibrant Lila was more interested in Rachel’s older brother, Luke, than she was in Rachel.
“Hurry up!” Lila called over her shoulder from twenty yards ahead. Her blond hair reflected the weak light as she ran along the bridge, a narrow, crumbling roadway built on piers over the water.
Rachel sped up, following.
As she had forever, it seemed. Lila always came up with the plans and Rachel went along.
“I don’t know why you do it,” Luke had said about six months ago while driving home from school, Rachel riding shotgun. “It’s like you’re some kind of lap dog, y’know, a puppy following her around.” He’d slid a glance her way, his blue eyes knowing.
“I am not,” she’d argued, glancing out the window at the gray Oregon day, rain drizzling down the glass, but she’d felt the little sting of it, the truth to it. Luke had been right, though she’d hated to admit it.
Now, the tables had turned as he and Lila had become a “thing.” Which was probably worse.
“Rach! Come on!” Lila now called over her shoulder. “We’re already late!”
“Yeah, to our own funeral.”
“Wha–oh, shut up!” Lila waved off Rachel’s reticence and kept moving. According to Rachel’s mother, Lila was a good girl gone bad, one who went through boyfriends faster than most people used up a roll of paper towels. “She’s too smart and pretty for her own good. Always looking for trouble, that one,” Melinda Gaston had warned on more than one occasion. “She’s the kind of girl who sees what she wants and goes for it, no matter who she steps on in the process.”
Most likely true. No, absolutely true.
“Come on!”
Rachel sped up, following the faint light of the reflective strips on the back of Lila’s running shoes. Following. Ever following. A problem. She’d work on that, but not tonight.
The brackish smell of the river was thick as Rachel caught up with her friend at the largest of the buildings, a hulking barn-like structure built on now-rotting pilings. It rose dark and daunting, a huge, decrepit edifice that had been condemned years before.
“Great.” Lila’s tone was one of disgust. “Everyone else is already here.”
“How do you know?” Rachel spoke in hushed tones, afraid that someone might hear her. She glanced around the empty pockmarked lot surrounding the long-vacant buildings, but saw no one. Still the back of her neck prickled in apprehension.
“I just do, okay?” A pause. “Listen. . . . Hear that?”
Sounds emanated through the ancient wooden walls. Muted voices, running footsteps, even a staccato Pop! Pop! Pop! Not like real gunfire. Just loud clicks.
Air guns.
Safe.
Still. It made her nervous. Rachel’s stomach was in knots.
Another burst from an automatic.
Heart pounding, Rachel watched as Lila unzipped her own pack and pulled out a pistol, one that glinted in the bluish glare from the thin light of the single security lamp.
Rachel swallowed hard. Though she knew Lila’s gun was just a replica that shot pellets, not bullets, it looked real. As did her own.
“I don’t know—”
“What? You’re going to wuss out now?” Lila said, unable to hide her disapproval. “After all your talk about wanting to do something ‘outside the box,’ something that would shock your mom and dad?”
“No, but—”
“Sure.” Lila wasn’t buying it. “Fine. Do what you want. You always do anyway. But I need to talk to Luke.”
“Here?”
“Wherever.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
“What the hell is that?” Rachel demanded at the loud, quick-fire reports. “A real gun?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Then what?”
“Shit. It could be Moretti. Nate said he and Max were going to bring firecrackers to, you know, make the game more ‘real.’ Like it’s not scary enough.”
“What?”
“I know. Crazy, right?” Lila seemed undeterred. “Nate’s such a dweeb! Never knows when to dial it back. He even has one of those things that make the gun sound louder and spark, y’know.”