The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1)(3)

I pushed myself up. The silent nurses stiffened. They were acting more like guards.

My joints protested as I craned my head over the bed rails to see. My mother looked in the mirror with me. She was right; a bluish shadow blossomed over my right cheekbone. I pushed my dark hair back to see the extent of it, but that was it. Otherwise I looked—normal. Normal for me, and normal, period. My gaze shifted to my mother. We were so different. I had none of her exquisite Indian features; not her perfect oval face or her lacquer-black hair. Instead, my father’s patrician nose and jaw were reflected in my own. And except for the one bruise, I did not look like a building had collapsed on me at all. I narrowed my eyes at my reflection, then leaned back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling.

“The doctors said you’re going to be fine.” My mother smiled faintly. “You can come home tonight, even, if you feel well enough.”

I lowered my gaze to the nurses. “Why are they here?” I asked my mother, staring straight at them. They were creeping me out.

“They’ve been taking care of you since Wednesday,” she said. She nodded at the nurse with the welt on her cheek. “This is Carmella,” she said, then indicated the other nurse. “And this is Linda.”

Carmella, the nurse with the welt on her cheek, smiled, but it wasn’t warm. “You have some right hook.”

My forehead crumpled. I looked at my mother.

“You panicked when you woke up before, and they had to be here when you woke up just in case you were…still disoriented.”

“Happens all the time,” Carmella said. “And if you’re feeling like yourself now, we can go.”

I nodded, my throat dry. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“No problem, sweetie,” she said. Her words sounded fake. Linda hadn’t said a word the whole time.

“Let us know if you need anything.” They turned and walked synchronously out of the room, leaving me and my family alone.

I was glad they were gone. And then I realized that my reaction to them was probably not normal. I needed to focus on something else. My eyes swept the room, and finally landed on the bedside table, on the roses. They were fresh, unwilted. I wondered when Rachel brought them.

“Did she visit?”

My mother’s face darkened. “Who?”

“Rachel.”

My father made a strange noise and even my mother, my practiced, perfect mother, looked uncomfortable.

“No,” my mother said. “Those are from her parents.”

Something about the way she said it made me shiver. “So she didn’t visit,” I said softly.

“No.”

I was cold, so cold, but I had started to sweat. “Did she call?”

“No, Mara.”

Her answer made me want to scream. I held out my arm instead. “Give me your phone. I want to call her.”

My mother tried to smile and failed miserably. “Let’s talk about this later, okay? You need to rest.”

“I want to call her now.” My voice was close to cracking. I was close to cracking.

My father could tell. “She was with you, Mara. Claire and Jude, too,” he said.

No.

Something tightened around my chest and I could barely find the breath to speak. “Are they in the hospital?” I asked, because I had to, even though I knew the answer just looking at my parents’ faces.

“They didn’t make it,” my mother said slowly.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Something slimy and horrible began to rise in my throat.

“How? How did they die?” I managed to ask.

“The building collapsed,” my mother said calmly.

“How?”

“It was an old building, Mara. You know that.”

I couldn’t speak. Of course I knew. When my father moved home to Rhode Island after law school, he’d represented the family of a boy who had been trapped inside the building. A boy who died. Daniel was forbidden from going there, not that my perfect older brother ever would. Not that I ever would.

But for some reason, I had. With Rachel, Claire, and Jude.

With Rachel. Rachel.

I had a sudden image of Rachel walking boldly into kindergarten, holding my hand. Of Rachel turning out the lights in her bedroom and telling me her secrets, after she had listened to mine. There was no time to even process the words “Claire and Jude, too,” because the word “Rachel” filled my mind. I felt a hot tear slide down my cheek.

“What if—what if she was just trapped, too?” I asked.

“Honey, no. They searched. They found—” My mother stopped.

“What?” I demanded, my voice shrill. “What did they find?”

She considered me. Studied me. She said nothing.

“Tell me,” I said, a knife’s edge in my voice. “I want to know.”

“They found…remains,” she said vaguely. “They’re gone, Mara. They didn’t make it.”

Remains. Pieces, she meant. A wave of nausea rocked my stomach. I wanted to gag. I stared hard at the yellow roses from Rachel’s mother instead, then squeezed my eyes shut and searched for a memory, any memory, of that night. Why we went. What we were doing there. What killed them.

“I want to know everything that happened.”