Envy

he had a heart attack. Sweat collected above his brows and wicked in his shirt under his armpits.

Val, hurry home. You’ve got to see this.

UPSTAIRS, TAYLOR REREAD HER PAPER for art class. There had been a two-page requirement, and she’d managed to meet that by using a fourteen-point font. She was sure the teacher would call her on that, but she’d done her best. She knew other kids would basically wiki their whole paper, but she’d tried to do them all one better by using web sources from other sites, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The New York City museum was hosting a traveling exhibit from Italy called “Chiaroscuro: Our World in Light and Dark.”

The wiki kids were so lazy. It really didn’t take any more time or effort to actually use a search engine to find something beyond the very obvious.

Taylor popped her head into her sister’s room and told her that her “sympathy” homework could end.

“Good,” Hayley said, “because I’ve been Facebooking for the last hour anyway.”

“Thanks for the support,” Taylor said as she made her way down the hall and downstairs to their dad’s office, where the networked printer commanded a little table next to the door. She noticed the bathroom door was shut and wondered if the dinner she’d made—a kind of beef stroganoff without beef—had made him sick.

Taylor picked up her report and returned to her bedroom to proofread. On her computer screen, she could never find the mistakes that spell-checkers missed. Somehow they just leaped off the page when it was actually a page.

She pulled out a yellow highlighter and positioned it to mark whatever she needed to fix.

First page, perfection. Not a single mistake, grammatically, thematically, or otherwise. The second page, not so much. She’d switched the first name and the surname of the Italian artist. She wasn’t too hard on herself. It could happen to anyone.

Underneath was a third, and ultimately devastating, sheet of paper.

It was an e-mail to her father and she almost didn’t bother reading it. But the subject line caught her attention: Warning!

Before she even finished reading she had it in her sister’s face.

“Holy crap,” Hayley said. “What’s she talking about?”

Taylor shook her head. “Dunno, but let’s ask Dad.”

As they went downstairs, they could hear their mother and father talking by the kitchen sink in slightly hushed tones. Valerie had just gotten home from filling up the car. She hadn’t even removed her coat. Her face was ashen, her eyes pinched together in worry. Kevin, who had his back to his girls, noticed Valerie’s eyes track the twins as they entered the room.

“Hi, girls,” he said, turning to face them. He wasn’t a very good actor, but he tried valiantly just then. He put on a smile. “Great dinner tonight. Mom and I were just talking about how you both are giving her a run for her money when it comes being Top Chef around here.”

Taylor held up the e-mail. “That’s not what you’re talking about, Dad,” she said.

He looked at the paper. “Where did you get that?”

“She picked it up from the printer by mistake,” Hayley said.

Taylor spoke up. “Mom, Dad, what is this woman …” She looked down at the paper. “What is Savannah Osteen talking about?”

Kevin took the paper and pretended to give it a cursory read. Its contents were already burned into his memory. If a radio game show host called just then and asked for a word-for-word recounting of the “worst letter you’ve ever received” for a $10,000 prize, Kevin would be able to start spending the cash right then.

Instead, he lied.

“I don’t know,” he began, clearly struggling before gaining some steam. “Nothing. She’s a nut. I get letters like this every day from people who want to marry me or want to kill me.”

Valerie studied Hayley and Taylor. It was clear that Kevin’s blame on a crazed fan was a complete failure.

“Girls, I think we should all sit down for a moment and talk,” she suggested.

Taylor glanced at their father, who was still muttering about the crazed fan. “I agree, Mom. Let’s talk.”

Hayley joined her sister and peered at their father, who now looked embarrassed and a little irritated.

Valerie led them to the old pine kitchen table, finally peeling off her coat and setting it along with her purse and keys on an empty chair.

“I’ll go first,” she said, while Kevin, paper now folded discreetly in half, slid into a chair next to her. It was happening so fast, he wasn’t exactly sure what his wife was going to say.

Valerie began by reminding the girls of their short stint as subjects for the University of Washington study.

“We’ve mentioned that,” she said, “remember?”

The girls nodded.

“We were exceptional, right?” Taylor said.

“In every way, of course. Just like me,” Kevin said, meaning it, but also trying to lighten the mood in the kitchen a little. “And your mom, yes, let’s not forget her.” Ordinarily, he didn’t mind tension, because it was a great motivator—but not when it came to his family. His attempts to smooth things over fell completely flat.

Valerie went on to talk about the protocol for the study, how excited they’d been to have the university learn more about language development by studying the girls.

Hayley smiled a little. “We did say some crazy stuff, didn’t we?”

Taylor cut in. “Yeah, remember ‘levee split poop’?”

A look of recognition came over Hayley. “I’d forgotten that one. That was one of our classics.”

“So what’s with this Savannah?” Taylor asked, guiding the conversation back to the e-mail she’d accidently retrieved from the printer.

“I didn’t have my training back then,” Valerie went on, “but looking back now, I can clearly see that she had some serious emotional problems.”

“Very unstable,” Kevin added. “She just kind of fell apart on us. She was supposed to come back to do more follow-up sessions and she just vanished. Quit the program. The university. We never heard from her again.”

“As I recall, neither did the university,” Valerie said. “You made multiple calls there, didn’t you?”

Kevin nodded.

“What happened to her?” Taylor asked.

“Who knows? With the kind of work your mom and I do, we probably know better than any family around that the world is full of misfits, tortured souls, and the wholly unbalanced,” Kevin said.

“Why is she talking to Moira Windsor?” Hayley asked, knowing the answer.

Kevin looked away. “Moira’s writing an article and wants info on you two.”

Taylor spoke up. “So, what does that have to do with Savannah?”

Kevin looked at Valerie. She wasn’t answering, so he did. “You know that the ten-year anniversary is coming up,” he said. “We’ve talked about that.”

There was no need to say what anniversary. In the Ryan household there was always … IT.

VALERIE: I have a conference in Port Townsend Thursday and Friday … crossing that bridge only makes me think about IT.

TAYLOR: Tell me about how you and mom stayed by our sides at the hospital after IT happened.

HAYLEY: Even though I have no memory of IT, every time a short bus goes by I wonder about IT.

KEVIN: IT almost cost us everything.

“Someone at the Herald probably tipped off Moira about the anniversary and the tragedy of Katelyn’s death. Linking all of you together, though none of it is related whatsoever,” he said.

“Talk about someone trying to capitalize on a tragedy,” Taylor said, looking at her father. Despite the seriousness of the moment, it was a playful poke at her dad’s true crime writing.

“Thanks for that, Tay,” he said.

“What video is Savannah talking about?”

“She taped you girls,” Kevin said. “You know that. I asked the school for a copy after she quit, but they never