Burning Blue

He takes a moment to let Mom’s words bleed into him. He studies me, then he really looks at me. “Nicole, I’m honored to be working on you. Your bravery inspires me. It truly does. I’m sorry, I meant I’m grateful to be working with you.”

Mom nods and wipes a tear from her cheek and tries to say thank you but the words are deep in her throat and come in a weak whisper.

The doctor doesn’t need to be grateful. How could one be grateful for having to deal with the Thing that lives on the left side of my face? All of the pretending. It’s dissolving me. Relying on her feels too easy but so good. Dead without her. Deadened without her smile. I’m so grateful. She winks at me. I try to wink back. She nods and mouths “I love you.”

Emma on the mend. Nothing else matters.

TWENTY-FIVE

From the notes of Dr. Julian Nye, Tues 10–26:

Nancy, please transcribe and email the following to Jane Schmidt, Brandywine Hollows High School. Dear Dr. Schmidt, in my session with Nicole Castro tonight, I learned that you are concerned she is overly reliant on her mother. You and I spoke about this prior to your coming on in Nicole’s treatment. As lead therapist in Ms. Castro’s rehabilitation, I ask that you refrain from sabotaging my therapy plan. Your job is a simple one: apprise Nicole’s teachers of her special needs. Sincerely, Julian Nye, MD, PsyD

Dr. Nye, Nicole needs to be getting out and about, not hiding out in her house. In my one conversation with her father, he seemed to be of the same mind. You’re doing the Castros a disservice, particularly Mrs. Castro, who is worrying after her daughter 24-7, in prescribing this under siege, batten down the hatches mentality.

Dr. Schmidt, I am convinced that the patient exhibits a latent interest in self-harm, even if she herself is unaware of her inclination at this time. Until we figure out what this is and how it might manifest, if it hasn’t already, I do think it’s appropriate that the Castros “batten down the hatches,” as you so delicately put it. God help you if, while she’s following your “get out and about” admonition, that girl is attacked again.

TWENTY-SIX

Tuesday night I set out to eliminate the weak maybes from my suspect list, beginning with Mr. Sabbatini, except I couldn’t eliminate him. He went from weak maybe to what’s going on here after I cracked his Gmail Sent folder.

JS contacted me. I have located what you need. Pick it up Wednesday during my office hours, between 3 and 4pm. Be discreet. If anyone finds out about this, considerable trouble will follow for BOTH of us, I am sure I do not have to tell you. Please do not be late, as I must leave promptly at 4. By the way, I am not pleased about this. I think it puts you at an unfair advantage.

JS was Jane Schmidt. The intended message recipient was Nicole.

I triple-checked my online anonymity and took a shot at worming my way into Detective Jessica Barrone’s laptop. I had to see where she was on Sabbatini, if anywhere. At this point I was back to feeling fairly certain Barrone wasn’t onto my hacking. Again, she would have shown up at the apartment door by now with a search warrant if she knew about it. I was less convinced that she didn’t have a car of plainclothes officers tailing Nicole. Maybe they caught me following her into CVS? Why else would she have called my father? While I was poking at Barrone’s drive, her firewall was re-upping with new patches, and I had to get out of there.

I had to overcome my want to trust Nicole blindly. I texted her, Want to hang tomorrow?

Nicole got back to me with, Sounds cool. When where?

4pm BHHS?

4 @ BHHS out front. Jay?

Yes?

‘night.

Wednesday afternoon I was in the media center, reading my favorite book, The Invisible Man, or pretending to. Really I was looking out the window. I’d positioned myself in the front west corner, where I had a view of the parking lot. The buses and most of the cars were gone by 3:15. Nicole pulled into the lot at 3:38, when everybody was at practice or in chess club or whatever and she would have the lowest chance of running into anybody. She pulled right up to the front entrance and did her usual 360-degree scan for that idiot photographer Puglisi, or maybe she was looking out for the Recluse. Except that if Sabbatini or Schmidt was the Recluse, and Nicole knew this, then she was faking fear. Was she just acting scared, putting on a show in case Detective Barrone had eyes on her? Was I any better, spying on her from the library window?

I checked the lot for a tail. A couple of cars could have been unmarked police vehicles, a Ford sedan, a Chevy cruiser, but they were empty. I checked the woods for telephoto lens flare and didn’t see any.

Nicole was wearing a ball cap with the bill pulled low. She adjusted her sunglasses, flipped up her collar, put her head down and marched into the building.

I hustled out of the media center and put myself out in front of the main entrance doors to sneak a peek down the corridor. Sabbatini’s office was at the end of the very long hall, but this vantage point was better than none. I didn’t want to get caught just hanging out in front of the building, staring through the door glass, so I pulled out my skateboard and knife pliers and pretended to tighten my wheel truck.

“Thought you would’ve had that fixed by now,” Mr. Sager said, leaning out from behind the school’s welcome sign. He had steel wool in his heavily gloved hand. He dipped it into that same bucket I’d kicked a few days earlier. He scrubbed a graffiti tag somebody had scribbled onto the sign with indelible marker. “I saw you,” he said. “In the library window. Scanning the lot. Do you really think he’s that stupid to attack her again, what with everybody on guard?” He slopped the acid onto the graffiti. The marker faded as Sager scrubbed it. The paint was coming off the sign too.

“Nail polish remover,” I said.

“Say again?” Sager said.

“The indelible marker. It takes it right off, no scrubbing, just a wipe, without messing up the paint underneath. In other words, you don’t need the muriatic acid.”

Sager stopped scrubbing. He stared at me. “Except I’d need a whole lot of nail polish remover now, wouldn’t I?” He gestured to the side of the building with his chin. I leaned around the corner to see it. The entire three-story brick wall was bombed with graffiti, taunts from our rivals, the Blue Devils.

I felt like a jerk, but at least I could cross Mr. Sager off my suspect list. He would need every can of muriatic acid he had in his shop to scrub that paint out of the brick. He shook his head and then got back to work.

A jacked-up Highlander rolled down the entrance ramp. One of the dudes leaning out the windows was John Kerns, kid brother of Rick, the Volta-Shock billboard I flipped freshman year. John’s locker was a few down from mine. He wasn’t pumped up like his brother. He was actually kind of wimpy. But he was happy to bully you verbally. “Need a little help with your ride there, Spaceman?”

“Now, now, let’s be nice,” this other dude said. “His name’s Sbarro.”

“Tell your mommy I’ll have my eggs over easy tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Dude, you’re like a veritable king of comedy, you know that? Hey, do you wear diapers?” The doors opened, and they started to get out of the car.

“I was having a conversation with my friend here,” Mr. Sager said, stepping toward the Highlander. “And you