Fractured Read online

  “Look,” she said in a voice like the crackle of dried leaves, then scattered into the cold night air.

  It was the first time any of them had tried to communicate directly with me since Susannah. I stood alone in the vacant park and wondered if these spirits had some kind of afterlife Twitter—like #findJeremyGlass—you can talk to that guy.

  Despite my attempts to brush it off, I was trembling. The woman had been standing on a grate beside the gazebo, Marilyn Monroe style, her flywing skirt whipping up around her. I got to my knees and searched the area. The ground smelled like dog crap.

  Something glinted in a patch of wet leaves. I kneeled and leaned in close, trying not to inhale the rank fumes. A bit of gold was wedged in the clogged-up drainage grate. It took a bit of effort, but I was finally able to pry the thing free.

  It was a gold men’s ring, intricately carved and set with a garnet circled by diamond chips. I rolled the ring around in my hand. It looked expensive. I scrutinized the smooth inside of the band to see if there were any inscriptions. Nothing.

  The wind whipped around me, scattering bits of leaves and dirt. I tucked the ring in my pocket.

  There was only one other person who might be able to figure out the ring’s significance and why the flywing woman wanted me to find it. Agent Reston had hinted that Bobby Pendell was a Tactile, someone who could sense an object’s history by touching it.

  And if I hurried, I could catch him before he left the club. It was better than waiting around for a girlfriend who was too busy studying to bother calling me.

  3

  Bobby

  Saturday: 12:03 AM

  Outside the Smoke and Jazz Lounge a small cluster of hyper-excited people buzzed around us. Occasionally someone slapped me on the back and complimented my playing, but they spoke too fast for me to answer. I kept my eyes fixed on Gabe and on my watch. I knew she was enjoying the attention, but all I could think of was getting her alone and kissing her neck.

  I scanned the crowd, telling myself that the hollow-eyed thing was really gone. Then a taxi pulled up to the curb, and Jeremy Glass popped out. I groaned and tried to duck behind some people. Gabe was too busy talking to the other musicians to notice, but Glass had spotted me and was already limping right toward me.

  “Thank God you’re still here,” he said, breathless and rumpled.

  “Did Agent Reston offer you more to come back?”

  He frowned, but then smiled and nodded. “Quick on your feet, aren’t you, Pendell? That’s not why I came. I’m not in that blind chick’s pocket.” He reached into his jacket and produced a large men’s ring. “But this was in mine.”

  My gaze snagged on the gleaming ring that rested on Glass’s palm. I couldn’t look away.

  “Can you tell me anything about this?”

  “No,” I muttered. The ring seemed illuminated, the only bright thing in my line of sight. I wanted to touch it.

  I was afraid to touch it.

  “Did—did she give this to you as a sort of—as a test?” I stammered, my gaze still fixed on the ring. I was light-headed.

  I felt—no—I smelled Gabe by my side—sweat and lilac and patchouli oil.

  “Who is this guy?” she snapped. Her voice had that New York edge I could never master. I was numb. Floating. I must have looked like I was insane, but I couldn’t look away. I wanted to run screaming down the deserted streets of this city of a million murders. I was crazy to come here. Crazy to think I was safe—it wasn’t Agent Reston I had to fear. It was myself.

  “Just another fan,” said Jeremy Glass. I could hear the social grease slide between them. They came from the same smart world—the one I’d never really be a part of. “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the performance. That’s all.”

  I could tell Gabe was tense, but I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t break my focus on that ring.

  “Take it,” Glass snapped. “You know you want it.”

  “Don’t, Bobby.” Gabe had me by the arm. The street was a swirl of dirty color. I reached for it, but Gabe grabbed it first. “Can’t you see he’s exhausted? We’re both tired.”

  “I understand,” said Glass. “Take my card. Hold onto it. If you get any inspiration, let me know.”

  With the ring safely out of sight, my equilibrium returned. Gabe was looking at me with worried hazel eyes, but she was addressing Glass. “Right,” she said dismissively.

  “You okay?” Gabe asked. “Who was that jerk?”

  I glanced over her shoulder and shuddered as Jeremy Glass shuffled painfully to the curb. I hoped he never came back. But Gabe still had the ring.

  “Never mind him.” Gabe’s lips were nuzzled against my jaw. She murmured in my ear. “You were amazing tonight, baby.”

  “Who, me? You were a blazing comet of amazing yourself.”

  Gabe laughed. “You can’t fool me. You hate this.”

  I pressed my nose to her hair. I still had my eye on Glass as he shuffled back and forth trying unsuccessfully to hail a cab. I wondered if he was drunk. And then he was down, his head slamming against the pavement with a wicked thud, his leg bent at an unnatural angle.

  “Shit,” we both said in unison and ran to help. He was bleeding from a cut on his head, but he’d already pulled himself up to a sitting position.

  “I’m okay. It’s just Veronica acting up again.” Jeremy Glass nodded toward the awkwardly angled leg.

  Then his phone rang. Ignoring us, he spoke into it. “Where’ve you been? What? What happened? Oh God. Shit. Where are you? Okay. Okay. Stay there. I’ll be right there.”

  He tried to stand, but between the cut on his head and the wobbly fake leg, it was clear he wasn’t getting too far.

  “It’s my girlfriend,” he said. Again, he tried to stand. I caught him as he fell. “She’s— Oh shit.”

  Sitting on the pavement, he began to hyperventilate. I wanted get out of this unfolding drama. I wanted to undo the moment I’d ever met Jeremy Glass.

  “What happened to your girlfriend?” Gabe asked softly. “Do you want us to take you to her?”

  Numerous cabs drove past. Figured they’d all show up then. All I wanted was to stuff Jeremy Glass in one of them and be done with him. But I knew Gabe would never go for that. And I wasn’t brought up that way. We couldn’t just leave an injured guy with one leg alone on the streets of Manhattan. As much as I wanted to.

  “Where is she?” Gabe spoke to him gently, as if to a hurt child. I cringed just a little.

  “He seems kind of out of it,” I said. “I think he needs to go to the ER.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Gabe said. “Mr. Medical Precaution himself.”

  “No!” Jeremy wailed. “I’ve got to get to Marisa. She was attacked!”

  “Did she call the police?” I asked.

  “She doesn’t trust them,” Jeremy said.

  “Brilliant,” I muttered, though I’d had my own problems with the cops back home.

  I glanced at Gabe and shook my head. She shrugged.

  ◆

  The dorm-room door opened on a petite dark-haired girl in a yellow sweater. The fragile bruised skin around her right eye was already beginning to swell.

  Propped up between us, Jeremy sagged on one leg, the blood dripping down his face in a steady stream. I held his high-tech contraption of a leg in my free hand. It was surprisingly light. We helped him onto the bed and I set the leg down on the floor. It stood erect on its own like a monument.

  “I’m not drunk, if that’s what you think,” Jeremy mumbled. “Because that’s usually what everyone thinks.”

  “He was with us,” Gabe said helpfully to the girl, “at the club where we performed. He fell trying to hail a cab to see you. We wanted to take him to the hospital, but he insisted on coming here.”

  The girl sat primly on the bed beside Jeremy and pushed the blood-soaked hair away from his eyes. “Poor baby,” she cooed. “I missed you so much. Never a dull moment when you’re around.”

&n
bsp; He looked up at her with a worried gaze. “What happened to you, Marisa? I should have been with you. I should have been there.”

  My dead eye twitched and I had to wonder if it was just nerves or if it was registering something the other eye was missing. I glanced at Gabe. She looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

  My gaze shifted to Marisa. Physically, she looked fine other than the black eye and the torn sweater. A navy coat with silver buttons was thrown over her desk chair. Loose threads dangled where one of the buttons had fallen off. From the ultra-neat room, it was obvious that her messy state wasn’t normal.

  Marisa smiled back at Jeremy. I felt like a peeper. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “Really. Nothing happened. The guy tried to grab me, but I got away.” Somehow, I knew she wasn’t being completely honest with him, but who was I to butt in?

  Gabe cleared her throat. “Um, maybe we should get you both to the ER? Or at least the campus infirmary. Just to be safe?”

  I studied the room. My fingers itched to touch something, but my reaction to that ring had been so intense. This city was too much for me. I balled my hands into fists and stuffed them in my jacket pockets.

  The girl glared at us, one dark eye flashing, the other hidden behind the purpling folds of flesh. “We’re fine. Thanks for helping Jeremy. Can you please leave us now? He needs to rest.”

  Jeremy Glass murmured incoherently, his gaze fixed on Marisa, as if he’d forgotten we were even there. I took Gabe by the arm and spoke under my breath. “If they’re too stubborn to help themselves, it’s really not our business.”

  Gabe sighed and with false brightness said, “Okay, then. We’ll be close by if you need us. Our campus apartment is only a few blocks away. I’ll just jot down my number for you.” She scribbled on a scrap of paper and left it under a pen on Marisa’s tidy desk.

  Too focused on each other, neither Jeremy Glass nor his girlfriend noticed as we slipped out the door into the hallway.

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” I grumbled.

  Gabe cocked an eyebrow and laughed. “I hate to say it—but you sound exactly like your dad.”

  4

  Jeremy

  Saturday: 12:25 AM

  When the room finally stopped spinning, I sat up. Marisa stared back at me, her eye nearly swollen shut in a purple squint.

  “Holy— For the love of God. What the hell happened to you?”

  “Nothing! I told you—a man jumped out at me near the park and grabbed me, but I got away. You’re a mess, Jeremy. Do you think you need stitches?”

  My head pounded, the dark salty liquid running into my mouth. But I was pretty sure it was just a cut and I was only in shock. I knew what real pain felt like and this was just a scrape for me.

  “Not the romantic weekend tryst I was imagining,” I said. “Being you’re the future doctor among us, you should know the scalp bleeds profusely from even the slightest scratch.”

  I heaved myself to a sitting position and wriggled off my jeans. Under its silly little sock, the stump was a bright raw red. And genius that I am, I had left the massage balm that soothed the angry little bugger back in my dorm at Duke.

  Pushing Marisa to talk would just make her clam up even more, so I reached for a tissue on her desk to wipe the blood out of my eyes, and then for another one to wipe down Veronica. She was a little dented from the fall, but basically unharmed.

  I slipped the sock back on the stump, positioned it into Veronica’s waiting embrace, and then, like a metallic praying mantis, limped into the bathroom to get a look at my sorry self.

  Marisa followed, brow furrowed over her bruised eye. “Let me wash it off.”

  I brushed her away. “Talk about starting our weekend on the wrong foot. Just go and relax. I may be a cripple, but I’m not an invalid.” I knew it was harsh, but I wasn’t going to let her nurse me as a way to avoid her own troubles. We’d been down that road already.

  I glimpsed her pouting in the mirror behind me. She stared me down for a moment, then whirled around and stormed out of the bathroom.

  I was pretty certain the cut on my hairline was superficial. I’d live. I rinsed it with hot water until it was clean and the bleeding had stopped.

  It was so silent in the room that I wondered if Marisa had slipped out. I skidded out of the bathroom, and walked right through an icy cloud. Turning back, I caught a quick glance of the flywing woman from the park. Hands fluttering at her side, her blurred mouth opened in a silent howl before she dissipated into nothing.

  I found Marisa curled into a fetal position on the bed, bawling her eyes out.

  “Why are you such a shit, Jeremy?” she whispered.

  “It’s what I do best,” I said softly. I kneaded the clenched muscles of her back, feeling each rib through her fluffy sweater. “Now why don’t you tell me what really happened.”

  She twisted around to look up at me. Her makeup ran down from one reddened eye, the other dark purple, her black hair falling from her usually severe ponytail like spilled ink.

  When I gathered her in my arms, she let out a deep slow moan like I’d hurt her. We lay on the bed huddled together and my own warm tears joined hers. She would tell me when she could.

  Someone had hurt my girl. And I was going to find out what had happened.

  But it was going to have to wait until morning.

  5

  Bobby

  Saturday: 12:28 AM

  Once we were outside in the brisk March night, I pulled Gabe in close to me. “Don’t ever lie to me like that,” I murmured into her hair.

  She pulled back to look up at me and smiled, a challenge on her lips. “Or you’ll what?”

  Bright strands of hair stuck to her forehead like a golden web. My own thoughts were a tangle of confusion as I struggled to make sense of the weird night. “Or I’ll hug you to death.”

  “Not a bad way to go,” she said. We looked at each other for a moment and then kissed as if we both breathed through the same set of lungs.

  Holding hands, we walked in silence the few blocks east to our campus guest apartment. Columbia had put us up in a furnished studio, equipped with Internet, a fully equipped kitchen, and a cheap flatscreen. I was more than eager to get back there. It wasn’t every day we had a place of our own, and I wasn’t about to waste the opportunity.

  “Do you think she’s a liar?” Gabe asked suddenly.

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  She stared at her feet as we continued walking, lost in her own thoughts. I loped beside her, tensely aware of our surroundings, my nerves jangling with the thought of that ring tucked inside her pocket. The empty streets stretched around us in a network of unknown threats. I wanted to time-warp us back to Morton, where the dangers were familiar ones. Where at least there was a chance I could protect her.

  We’d just passed a small patch of park on the corner of 111th Street and Amsterdam when I froze in my tracks. An electric prickle buzzed up from under the sole of my boot straight into my chest. My eyes twitched, the pain behind my sockets kicking from dull to white hot.

  “Ouch, Bobby!” Gabe said, wrenching her hand free of my tightened grip. “Why are we stopping?”

  I closed my eyes and breathed around the pain. “I—I don’t know.” She led me to a bench beside the small park. Shadows and light slithered across my line of sight. My stomach rolled with dread. Not again. Not here. Not now.

  My flickering gaze locked in on a small silver object glinting on the sidewalk where I had just been standing. “What is that?”

  Gabe crouched, picked it up, and plopped Marisa’s silver coat button into my open hand.

  Before I could pull free, my surroundings were blotted out by a ferocious fluorescent glare. I tried to blink it away, but I could see nothing beyond the grainy brightness. Then my eyes—because I was seeing with both eyes, not just the one—adjusted. Rows of churning coin-operated machines stood at attention in an otherwise deserted laundry room.

  Behind the vision, I could h
ear Gabe’s voice, low and distant, talking gibberish to me. I couldn’t answer—I was already sucked into someone else’s reality.

  I floated along, helpless—a disembodied spectator—in my arms a basket of neatly folded laundry.

  Marisa wore the navy coat with the silver buttons. It was hot in the laundry room, but because she was headed out right after to meet Jeremy, she’d worn it to pick up her dry clothes. She balanced the basket on her knee, pulled her phone from her pocket, and glanced at it. Another text from Jeremy.

  These were Marisa’s thoughts—her viewpoint—but I experienced them clearly as if they were piped through a mental intercom. I tried to break the connection, but my fist was clenched around the button. I was powerless to resist the onslaught.

  ◆

  Marisa carries her basket of folded laundry to the hall and waits by the elevator. It’s late—not the best time to be doing laundry, she knows, but she’s been too busy with her studies and now that Jeremy is here she’s totally run out of underwear. He’s waited this long. He can wait some more.

  Meanwhile, the damn elevator was taking forever.

  At first she thinks the figure that rounds the corner is one of the dorm’s maintenance crew. That is, until she notices the black bandana covering his mouth and nose, the black beanie pulled over his hair, and the mirrored sunglasses covering his eyes. Not your standard maintenance man look.

  It all happens so fast. When the elevator doors open, he pushes her in, pulls the emergency brake and throws her to the floor, then reaches up and covers the security camera with something.

  It’s over in just a few moments. He zips up his pants, releases the brake, removes the covering from the camera, and gets off the elevator, which is still in the basement.

  Marisa lets the elevator take her to the twelfth floor, carefully places her folded clothes in the drawer, and calls Jeremy.

  ◆

  At last I felt the hard bench beneath me. The cold silver button in my hand. I could feel Gabe shaking me, hear her muffled speaking. But I couldn’t see past the scene that had frozen and stuck in place.