You Can't Catch Me(68)
JJ gives her a hard stare.
“More arm twisting, for starters, I’d imagine,” I say. “Unless you start answering some questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like what are you even doing here? Why didn’t you just tell me to go stuff it when I found you with Liam? Or throw me into the Ausable River?”
“I tried.”
“You what?”
“I did try to push you into the river. Then those people came along.”
“She’s shitting you,” JJ says.
“You think?”
“Course. Why would she admit that if she’s trying to live?”
“Good point.” I crouch down in front of Jessie. “So, what are you doing here?”
“Who cares?” JJ says.
“I want to know. Why did you do it? Why play along?”
I hold Jessie’s gaze. She gives a shrug. “Couldn’t pass it up.”
“What’s that?”
She smiles in a way that reminds me of Todd. “The fun. Watching you flail around. Trying these desperate plans. It’s been . . . fun.”
Her words have a ring of truth to them. And so there you have it. We’ve been amusing her. We’ve been sport.
“Tell me something,” Jessie says.
“What?”
“What made you go looking? Why did you go through my bag?”
“Liam was suspicious.”
She makes a face. The face she always makes when Liam comes up.
“Liam.”
“Yeah, Liam. What about it? Why are you always so down on him? He frightens you, right? You knew he didn’t trust you.”
Jessie shakes her head. “He doesn’t love you, you know. You’re just . . . a distraction.”
“You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about.”
“Of course I do. Don’t you get it? I’ve studied you for a long time. And you, too, JJ. That’s what I do. You’re not the first of his little foundlings that he’s been with, did you know that? I bet you didn’t, I bet you—”
“How many times do I have to tell you to shut up!”
She stops talking. Maybe she knows she’s pushed me too far.
“Now, for the last time, tell us how to get the money back.”
“We mean it, Jessie,” JJ says. “Last chance to cooperate.”
She stands there, her eyes roving between us, weighing her options, and I can see her choosing the wrong thing as she does it.
She runs.
Chapter 31
Fugue State
“Everyone dies,” Todd always used to say, “except me.”
It was how he started off his weekly meetings, those interminable Sundays where we had to make extra sure we were sitting the way he wanted and that we kept the younger children away. Once, a boy of about three fell off his chair, and we got half rations for a week. We made sure to pay attention as best we could even though none of it made any sense. Was Todd saying he was immortal? A god? Or was he being more figurative, that he’d be someone remembered by history long after he was gone, but we’d be the dust under his feet that no one remembered? I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it; it made about as much sense as anything Todd ever said. Besides, why couldn’t it be true? He’d convinced all these seemingly rational people to leave their lives and sign over their money and their children to his experiment. Maybe he had found the secret to eternal life?
Only he did die. He did die, and I had questions.
Not right away. Not when I was living with Kiki and acting like I was as wise as Liam. But after I failed, after I was left with my guilt and my regrets, I wanted answers. I wanted answers, finally, to all the questions I’d left behind, what had happened after I left, and what it meant for me and the people in my life who were still being affected by all of it on a daily basis.
I only knew one place to get those kinds of answers.
It was, unfortunately, the last place I wanted to go. But I was so angry that it overcame any rational objections. I was keeping to myself those days. I hadn’t seen Liam or The Twists in months. The guy I was seeing off and on wasn’t someone I could tell any of this to. And my work friends at FeedNews tended to give advice like: You don’t need negativity in your life, Jess. Light a candle and let it go.
Fat fucking chance I was doing that, even if I was able to.
So, I made my plans and took a few days off. I rented a car and navigated cautiously out of the city. Having only learned to drive as an adult—from Liam, of course—I still didn’t feel the confidence that I imagined came with learning at sixteen like a normal kid. It was one more thing that Kiki and I had bonded over. She’d learned to drive during her year in Ohio. She’d called me all excited about it, and the roommate who’d pushed her to do it. “I finally feel free,” she’d said, and I’d felt so fucking smug.
And now she was gone, and my parents—who were not dead, despite what I’d told everyone—had settled on an old horse farm in Connecticut with some of the remnants from the Land of Todd. They didn’t get any money in the settlement, but one of the women had an inheritance she’d kept from Todd, this run-down property in the middle of nowhere. About twenty of them had gathered there after the LOT was closed down. My parents. Kiki’s parents, most of the originals who’d spent too much time living communally to go back out into the regular world.