me!”
She rolled down her window and looked at him with almost predatory interest.
“Hello, Noah. You want to talk about something?”
“I just want you to stop trying to ruin my life!”
“How am I ruining your life?”
“Following me around! Telling people about Baltimore!”
“What does Baltimore have to do with anything?”
He stared at her, suddenly realizing she had no idea what he was talking about.
He backed away. “Forget about it.”
“Noah, I haven’t been following you around.”
“Yes you have. I’ve seen your car. You drove past my house yesterday. And the day before.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You were tailing my mom and me in town!”
“Okay, that time I just happened to be behind you. So what? Do you know how many reporters are in town right now? How many green cars are cruising around?”
He backed away some more. “Just stay away from me.”
“Why don’t we talk? You can tell me what’s really going on in the school. What all the fights are about. Noah? Noah!”
He turned and fled into the building.
Two pit bulls growled and barked at Claire’s car, their claws scraping at her door. She stayed safely shut inside and stared across the front yard, at the ramshackle farmhouse. In the front yard, years of junk had accumulated. She saw a trailer propped up on bricks and three broken-down cars, in various states of being cannibalized. A cat peered fearfully through the open door of a rusting clothes dryer. In the land of Yankee thrift, it was not unusual to find front yards like this. Families who have known poverty hoard their junk like treasure.
She honked, then rolled down her window a few inches and called out through the crack: “Hello? Is anyone home?”
A tattered curtain flicked aside in the window, and a moment later, the door opened and a blond man of about forty stepped out. He crossed the yard and regarded her with unsmiling eyes as the dogs barked and jumped at his feet.
Everything about him seemed thin-his face, his receding hair, his pencil-sketch mustache. Thin and resentful.
“I’m Dr. Elliot,” she said. “Are you Mr. Reid?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to talk to your sons, if I may. It’s about Scotty Braxton.”
“What about him?”
“He’s in the hospital. I’m hoping your sons can tell me what’s wrong with him.”
“You’re the doctor. Don’t you know?”
“I believe it’s a drug psychosis, Mr. Reid. I think he and Taylor Darnell both took the same drug. Mrs. Darnell said Scotty and Taylor spent a lot of time with your sons. If I can talk to them-”
“They can’t help you,” said Jack Reid, and he stepped away from her car.
“They may all have been experimenting with the same drug.”
“My boys know better than that.” He turned back to the house, his contempt for her apparent in the angry set of his shoulders.
“I don’t want to get your sons in trouble, Mr. Reid!” she called out. “I’m just trying to get information!”
A woman stepped out onto the porch. She cast a worried look at Claire, then said something to Reid. In reply, he shoved her back into the house. The dogs trotted away from Claire now, and were watching the porch, attracted by the promise of new conflict.
Claire rolled down her window and stuck her head out. “If I can’t talk to your sons, I’ll call the police to do it for me. Would you prefer to speak to Chief Kelly?”
He turned to look at her, his face tight with anger. Now the woman cautiously poked her head out and stared at Claire as well.
“This will be strictly confidential,” said Claire. “Let me talk to them, and I’ll keep the police out of it.”
The woman said something to Reid-a plea, by the look of her body language. He gave a snort of disgust and stomped into the house.
The woman crossed to Claire’s car. Like Reid she was blond, her face washed-out and colorless, but there was no hostility in her eyes. Rather, there was a disturbing lack of any emotion, as though she had long ago buried her feelings in some deep, safe place.
“The boys just got home from school,” the woman said.
“Are you Mrs. Reid?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Grace.” She looked at the house. “Those boys’ve been in enough trouble. Chief Kelly said if it happened again..
“He doesn’t have to know about this. I’m here only because of my patient, Scotty. I need to know what drug he’s taken, and I think your boys can tell me.”
“They’re Jack’s boys, not mine.” She turned to face Claire, as though it was very important that this fact be understood. “I can’t force them to talk to you.
But you can come inside. First let me tie up these dogs?’
She grabbed both pit bulls by their collars and pulled them over to the maple tree, where she restrained them. They shot to the ends of their chains, barking wildly as Claire stepped out of the car and followed the woman up to the porch.
Stepping into the house was like entering a warren of caves, low-ceilinged and cluttered.
“I’ll get them,” said Grace, and she disappeared up a narrow stairway, leaving Claire alone in the living room. The TV was on, tuned to the shopper’s channel.
On the coffee table, someone had written on a notepad: “Chanel #5, 4 oz., $14.99.” She breathed in the air of that house, with its odors of mildew and cigarettes, and wondered if perfume alone could mask this smell of poverty.
Heavy footsteps thudded on the stairs, and two teenage boys slouched into the room. Matching buzz cuts made their blond heads seem unnaturally small. They said nothing, but stood looking at her with incurious blue eyes. The blandness of teenagers.
“This is Eddie and J.D.,“ said Grace.
“I’m Dr. Elliot,” said Claire. She looked at Grace, who understood the meaning of that glance, and quietly left the room.
The boys plopped down on the couch, their gazes automatically shifting to the TV. Even when Claire reached for the remote and turned it off, their gazes remained fixed on the blank screen, as though by habit.
“Your friend Scotty Braxton’s in the hospital,” she said. “Did you know that?”
There was a long silence. Then Eddie, the younger boy, perhaps fourteen, said:
“We heard he went crazy last night.”
“That’s right. I’m his doctor, Eddie, and I’m trying to find out why. Whatever you tell me, it’s just between us. I need to know what drug he’s taken.”
The boys exchanged a look that Claire didn’t understand.
“I know he took something,” she said. “So did Taylor Darnell. It showed up in both their blood tests.”
“So why’re you asking us?” It was J.D. talking now, his voice deeper than Eddie’s, and vibrating with contempt. “Sounds like you already know”
“I don’t know what the drug is.”
“Is it a pill?” asked Eddie.
“Not necessarily. I believe it’s some kind of hormone. It could be a pill, a shot, or even a plant of some kind. Hormones are chemicals made by living things. Plants and animals, insects. They affect our bodies in a lot of
