Wish You Were Dead

sure who PBleeker was, it was obvious that we knew each other. I wrote back: What about her eyes?

I waited, hoping that PBleeker would be thrilled that I’d finally answered, and eager to reply. But no reply came.

That night there was more news about Lucy. The medical examiner announced that she’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours when she’d been discovered in that wooded grove near the school that morning. The cause of death appeared to be kidney failure due to severe dehydration. There was no mention of anything relating to eyes.

chapter 20

Thursday 6:43 A.M.

NORMALLY WHEN I got up in the morning, Mom was already downstairs with the newspaper. She read the paper daily, not only because she was active in town politics but because she was a news junkie. But the following morning there was no paper spread out on the kitchen table. There was only Mom, wearing her white terry-cloth robe, the ends of her hair still damp from a morning swim. She was gazing out the window. When she heard me come in, she turned and gave me a weak smile. “How’d you sleep?”

“Better than I thought I would,” I said. “I guess massive anxiety can really wear you out.” I sat down and poured myself a mug of tea. “What’s up?”

“Just having my coffee.” That was so un-Mom-like.

“Why aren’t you reading the paper?”

She gave me a completely unconvincing shrug.

“Mom, I already heard.”

She reached across the table and placed her hand on mine. “About how she died?”

I nodded, although trying to make sense of what they’d said was like trudging through heavy snow. Kidney failure … dehydration …

Mom must have seen that I was struggling. “They think … it means that wherever she was she couldn’t get anything to drink.”

“Why not?”

Mom blinked and her eyes got watery. “I don’t think anyone really knows. But if I had to guess, the answer would be that someone didn’t want her to drink.” Tears began to run down her cheeks.

I was usually such a homebody, but for once it was hard to stay inside. Maybe it was the craziness of what was going on. Maybe it was my yearning to sort out things with Tyler. Whatever it was, it was impossible to stay still. There was nothing good on TV and I didn’t want to sit at the computer all day exchanging IMs based on gossip and rumors. I tried to read, but that didn’t work, either. Nothing did.

I was paging through a Seventeen magazine when Mom knocked on my door and came in wearing business clothes. “There’s a board of directors meeting at the hospital. I hate to leave you, but I know you’ll be safe here. Is that okay?”

I didn’t want her to go, but she was right. It was hard to imagine anyplace safer than my own house, in the gated community of Premium Point, in the (formerly) ultra-safe suburb of Soundview. “It’s okay, Mom. How long do you think you’ll be?”

“They usually go for most of the afternoon. Some people just love the sound of their own voices.” She came over and kissed me on the head. “You’ll be okay. I’ll keep my cell phone on.”

“No prob, Mom.”

She left and I wished she hadn’t gone. It wasn’t logical; I just didn’t want to be alone in the house. Not today. Who could I invite over? Tyler was the only one who came to mind, and I didn’t feel comfortable calling him.

I finished looking at the magazine. The house was empty, and my room began to feel claustrophobic in my room. I went downstairs and walked around, making sure all the doors were locked and the windows were shut. I would have turned on the alarm system, but it was wired to first-floor motion detectors and that meant having to stay upstairs to avoid setting them off.

There were coffee-table books in the living room to look at and more magazines in the kitchen to read. And there was always the Sound to gaze at, but I’d done a lot of that lately. I couldn’t sit still. Every time I did, thoughts I didn’t want to have were quick to appear. What did it feel like to die of dehydration? What did someone who’d died from dehydration look like? If Lucy hadn’t been given anything to drink, was the same true of Adam and Courtney?

And of course, there was Tyler. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler, until I felt like I’d go crazy.

I went upstairs and changed into exercise clothes, then jogged on the treadmill while watching Ten Things I Hate About You, one of my favorite movies. That worked for a while, until I got tired and had to slow from a jog to a walk, and then—when my legs really began to ache—to a stop altogether. But at least I knew what I wanted to do next.

The indoor-outdoor pool and hot tub were separated from the house by a long, narrow breezeway lined with sliding-glass doors. In summer we opened the doors and retracted the pool’s roof. In the winter the doors were closed and the roof went back on. I guess the indoor hot tub was what people would call a guilty pleasure. I loved sitting in it after exercising or riding Val, with the bubbling hot water swirling around me and the view of the Sound out back. As I walked along the breezeway, I saw that the blue sky was dotted with high thin clouds as wispy as baby’s hair and the sun sparkled on the water. But in the distance to the west, a thick bank of dark gray clouds was approaching.

The hot tub was in a corner between the pool and the windows. I turned the whirlpool on and waited for the water to heat up. It hardly took any time for the hot tub to get steamy. I took off my white terry-cloth robe and draped it over a pool chair. I was naked. It seemed silly to bother with a bathing suit when there was absolutely no one around. Before I got into the tub, goose bumps ran over my skin, more from the daring thrill of being completely unclothed than any lingering cool air.

I eased myself into the bubbly brew and immediately felt myself start to relax. The windows closest to the hot tub steamed over and I stared at the ceiling, trying to let my mind go anywhere it wanted as long as it had nothing to do with Lucy, Adam, and Courtney. Or Tyler.

There was college to think about. But then I imagined what the first day would be like. I’d meet other students and they’d ask where I was from and as soon as I said Soundview they were sure to press their hands to their mouths and gasp, “Isn’t that where those kids disappeared and that girl was killed?”

The thought made me wince. Would this follow all of us for the rest of our lives? Would we always be the kids from Soundview—like the kids who went to Columbine?

I slid down a little in the hot tub and let the swirling bubbly water cover my shoulders. And thought about Tyler again. Okay, okay, I thought. I give up. As soon as I get out, I’ll call him. Either I’ll make up some excuse, or I’ll just tell him the truth … that I would feel better if he told me more about himself and what was going on.

That’s what I was thinking when I looked back at the window … and felt a jolt of terror. Against the foggy glass was a shadow—a silhouette of someone, almost certainly a man.

My breath grew short and my heart banged in my chest. Who was he and what was he doing there? It could have been a gardener or one of the workmen Mom sometimes hired to do chores around the house. But he wasn’t carrying a rake or any tools. The shadow’s arm rose and a hand pressed against the glass as if he were trying to peer in, but the vapor was on the inside and he couldn’t wipe it away. I stayed in the hot tub, frozen with fear. If I kept perfectly still, maybe he wouldn’t see me.

The man began to walk along the sliding doors. The vapor fogging the windows didn’t extend very far. Soon he’d reach clear glass and be able to see in. I looked at the terry-cloth robe on the pool chair. Did I have time to get