Shock Point (5 page)

“But what’s the incentive for him to enroll kids? Does he get paid?”

“Everybody gets paid,” Cassie said. “My mom explained it to me. That’s how those studies work. Kids who enroll get a hundred bucks. Rick makes a lot more.”

“Wouldn’t they tell their parents about the money?”

“It’s cash in an envelope. I have a feeling most kids just turn around and spend it.”

“But if you tell people what you found, then it might change everything.” Thatcher hesitated for a moment, and then added, “Maybe you’d better act innocent. After all, you don’t know anything for sure.”

“Yeah,” Cassie countered, “but what about all the people he’s got on Socom? What if someone else starts having delusions? Or kills themselves?” She had an even worse thought. “Or what if they start hallucinating about other people? What if some kid taking Socom decides that everyone at school is an evil demon or something? It could be like Columbine. A lot of people have access to guns. Even Rick has a gun.”

“Can I get a look at these files, maybe come by at a time when your parents aren’t home?” He must have seen the look on Cassie’s face. “Sorry—I mean your mom and stepdad.”

“I can do better than that. I took pictures of the files with my digital camera.”

Thatcher cuffed her lightly on the shoulder. “Get out! You didn’t! That was smart!”

Cassie felt warmed by his admiration. “I didn’t get everything. They came home in the middle and I had to put the files back in a hurry. But this morning I put my camera and all the cords in my backpack—but I don’t know if you can download it to a Mac.”

“Anything you can do on a PC, you can do on a Mac, only twice as good. Go get it.”

Thatcher was right. It didn’t take long before Cassie was looking over his shoulder at the photos she had taken of the records. A few seconds later he clicked the magnifying tool again and again on a permission form from Darren’s file, then paged forward to look at Carmen’s and Ben’s. He turned in his chair, and his gaze locked with Cassie’s. “Do you see what I see?”

All three of the parental consent forms had been signed with different names. But all three looked oddly the same. The same loops, the same slant, the same way of crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. And what they looked like was Rick’s handwriting.

Slowly, Cassie nodded. Thatcher was grinning with excitement at his discovery, but when she looked at the screen, all she felt was fear.

The engine whined as it went into a lower gear. They were off the freeway, Cassie realized. It was nearly time to put her plan into action. Her breath was coming shorter. Even though it wasn’t warm, sweat trickled between her shoulder blades.

The van went in a large circle, and she tipped to the side. They bumped to a stop. When Cassie tried to swallow, her mouth was dry.

“We’re out in the middle of nowhere, so don’t even try anything,” Marty said. “There’s no one to see you and nowhere to run to.”

Marty and JJ climbed out of van. Their doors slammed. Footsteps crunched on the gravel and then the rear door squealed open.

Marty found the handcuff key on his overstuffed ring. Cassie stiffened when his belly pressed against her as he leaned over and opened one of the cuffs. She was in the dark, alone, with a strange man who knew he controlled her. She couldn’t stop the fine tremble that washed over her, but if Marty noticed, he didn’t say. She looked out past his shoulder, at the dim shape of JJ. Any thought of waving down a passing car was gone. The stars were like holes punched in black paper. They were way out in the country someplace.

Marty pushed her shoulder. “I thought you were all eager to pee, but now you’re not even moving.”

“I can’t feel my hands.” Without asking permission, she swiveled so her legs hung over the bumper, then stood up. Her arms dangled at her sides like two pieces of wood. Marty had left the cuff around her left wrist, and the other handcuff brushed against her thigh.

“Hey, hey, little girl, where you going?” JJ asked. He stepped in front of her.

“Nowhere. Just trying to get some feeling back in my arms.” She didn’t want to waste any of her precious private time fumbling with the phone, unable to feel the buttons.

Marty made an impatient noise. “Let’s get this show on the road. You wanted to pee, so pee.”

“I gotta take a leak myself,” JJ said, and walked off the side of the road and into some high bushes. Cassie hoped they were poison ivy.

Marty put a meaty hand on Cassie’s back. “Get in, get in. And hurry up. I’ll give you two minutes to get your business taken care of, and then we’re getting out of here.”

She scrambled inside, her hand going to her pants pocket as soon as she heard the door slam closed. A precious few seconds ticked by while she tried to pull the phone from her pocket, but with her legs bent she couldn’t tug it free. She rolled on her back, the corner of the suitcase digging painfully into her shoulder, straightened her knees, and pulled out the phone. In the dark, her still-numb finger found what she prayed was the phone’s power button, then pressed it. Trying to muffle the chirp of it powering up, she pushed it hard against her abdomen and coughed.

Cassie held the phone up to her face. The power light glowed green. With clumsy fingers, she punched in 9-1-1.

“Police, fire, or medical?” a tired voice said in her ear.

“Police,” Cassie whispered. The hiss of the “S” seemed to fill up the entire van.

“You’ll need to speak up. I can’t hear you.”

She made her voice a little louder. “I’m being kidnapped. I need the police.”

The woman started to answer, but her voice was drowned out by a door squealing open and then a roar of anger. Marty grabbed Cassie and yanked her forward.

Cassie looked at the little clock in the corner of Thatcher’s computer screen. “Uh-oh, I’d better get home.” It was nearly 5:00. If she were any later, her mom would start asking questions about why the yearbook meeting had taken so long.

“I’ll walk you home,” Thatcher said quickly. “Wouldn’t want you to get lost since you normally take the bus.”

“Don’t you have to do the wash?”

He shrugged. “I can start it when I get back.”

“It’s at least a mile. Maybe two.”

“I can take my skateboard and ride back—and if you live up above the school, then it will be all downhill.”

Cassie was secretly pleased. “Okay. My stepdad won’t be home, thank God—but you can meet my mom if you want. Only you have to say we had a yearbook meeting.”

Together, they walked out into the living room. Thatcher stuck his key ring in his pocket and tucked his skateboard under his arm while Cassie put her camera in her backpack.

“I’ll say we stayed late so I could teach you how to do collages in Photoshop,” Thatcher offered.

“Do you really know how to do that?”

“I can make Mrs. Husbands look like she has a duck’s beak or Marilyn Monroe’s body. If nothing else, I’ve got a future at the
Weekly World News
, altering pictures to make ‘World’s Largest Baby Tips Scales at Four Hundred Pounds.’ ”

“Or ‘Fisherman Catches Six-Inch-Long Mermaid,’ ” Cassie offered. “I love
Weekly World News
. My favorite is ‘I Was Bigfoot’s Love Slave,’ written by a logger. A male logger.” They turned onto Beaverton-Hillsdale, and Cassie pointed up the street. “We have to go back to the school, and then turn on Sunset. We live near Stroheckers.”

Thatcher raised his pierced eyebrow. “You sure you want to be hanging around with the likes of me? My mom spends all day sorting through the castoffs of people who live in your neighborhood.”

“Hey, we never had any money until she married Rick. Besides, you’re about the only person I know at school.”

“It’s tough to meet people in the middle of the school year. Why didn’t they just wait till summer to move?”

Cassie paused as she realized something. “Maybe those kids dying had a lot to do with the timing. Maybe Rick wanted to get out of town before anyone figured out he was their doctor.”

They turned onto Sunset and began walking up the narrow, winding hill. There were no sidewalks, so they walked facing traffic. Whenever a car passed, Thatcher took Cassie’s elbow.

“So what do we do now, Thatcher?”

“Maybe we should show an adult—somebody who can do something about it.”

If people found out the truth, Rick would get in trouble. Big trouble. Trouble enough that Cassie’s mom might finally see Rick for what he was and get a divorce. Cassie and her mom’s old duplex was rented out now, but maybe in six months Cassie would be right back where she started. With her old friends in her old town, living with her mom. The only thing that would be different would be that she would have a new baby brother.

“But who would we show it to?”

Thatcher kicked a stone into the street. “I don’t know. The cops?”

“But what if the police don’t believe me, or don’t understand what they’re looking at? They’ll just think I’m some kid who doesn’t get along with their mom’s new husband.”

Thatcher was quiet for a couple of blocks, then said, “How about a reporter? Like one of those consumer-alert people on TV.”

“A reporter might be good. But maybe it’s too complicated for TV. How about someone at the
Oregonian
? Papers like it when they get to break a big story.”

“We’ll have to be careful, though. You don’t want your stepdad finding out it was you who told.” He looked over at her. “What do you think he would do if he
did
find out?”

Wanting to impress Thatcher, Cassie affected a bravery she didn’t feel. “What could he do? I’m his stepdaughter now. Besides, my mom would never let him do anything bad to me. She won’t even let him put me on Socom.”

A Honda Element went by, and Thatcher stared after it with longing. “I wish I had a car. Have you got your driver’s license yet?”

“I turn sixteen in a few weeks.”

“Sixteen? Sweet sixteen and never been . . .”

Kissed.
Cassie completed the phrase in her head. The unspoken word hung between them. Thatcher put his skateboard down and rapidly skated away from her. He tried to execute a fancy turn, but the skateboard spurted away from him. He ran after it, grabbing the waistband of his baggy pants to hold them aloft. Panting, he loped back to her. “So when you go to take your test, don’t go to Powell. If you go up there, you have to drive on I-205
and
I-84, and they make you parallel park. Go to Sellwood instead. The lady there doesn’t make you do any of that.”

“I’ll remember that.” Cassie gestured up the hill to a two-story white house with huge white pillars in front. “That’s where we’re going.”

“That’s your house?” Thatcher’s tone was incredulous. “Every time we see it, my mom goes”—he made his voice high-pitched and Southern—“ ‘I’ve come home to Tara.’ ”

“Don’t blame me. I didn’t pick it. Our old house was a duplex.” As they walked up the driveway, Cassie moved slower and slower. When she spoke, she kept her voice low. “If we go to the
Oregonian,
they might lose this house. I’m not sure they can really afford it anyway.” Thatcher started to open his mouth, but she hurriedly added, “I know, I know. I’m the one who said it. If we don’t say anything, more kids might die. I just wish it wasn’t so hard to do the right thing.”

Her mother must have been watching for her, because she opened the door just as Cassie was reaching for it.

“So you decided to bring your friend home.” Jackie gave Thatcher a friendly smile and reached out to shake his hand as he introduced himself. Cassie saw him noticing her mom’s belly and felt herself flush.

“After the meeting ended, we were still talking about what we can do with Photoshop in the yearbook,” Thatcher told her. Despite his eyebrow ring, he was the picture of innocence. “So I offered to walk Cassie home.”

“Would you like to come in for some milk and cookies?”

Cassie felt herself flush. “Mom! It’s not like we were having a play date or something.”

Her mom cringed, and Cassie immediately felt guilty. The three of them then tried to talk at once, but Thatcher’s voice came out on top. “Thanks—but I have to get home.”

As they were talking, Rick pulled his silver-blue BMW convertible into the driveway and Cassie made introductions. She watched Rick’s eyes take note of Thatcher’s long black hair, the ring in the eyebrow, the skateboard under the arm, and the sagging pants.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Thatcher said. To Cassie’s ears, the word “sir” had a sarcastic spin. “Well, I’ve got to get back home. It was nice meeting you guys.” He put down his skateboard. “Cassie, I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

“Cassie,” Rick began when Thatcher was barely out of earshot, “is that really the kind of young man you want to be associating with? Research shows that a child’s friends can have a significant impact on academic standing and social labeling. You talk about wanting to fit in at school—so is that the kind of boy you really want to be associating with?”

Anything Cassie could say would just get her in trouble. She turned without speaking, walked inside, and went straight upstairs to her room. Behind her, she could hear her mom talking with Rick. She couldn’t make out the words, but she recognized the tone. They were arguing—about her.

Cassie managed to scrabble back against the bars, but Marty grabbed her by the ankle and yanked. Her shirt rode up and the ribbed rubber mat caught the bumps of her spine as he pulled her forward.

Trying to keep the phone from Marty as long as possible, she stretched her arm over her head. Figuring she was already dead, Cassie screamed, “I’m in a white van on I-5 South with—”

Her feet were on the ground now, her back still on the floor of the van, and Marty was on top of her, his soft gut against her belly, his breath sour and hot. His fingers encircled her wrist, shaking her hand like a terrier snapping a rat back and forth. She managed to hold on to the phone, gripping it so hard that it cut into her fingers. Then he slammed the back of her hand against the metal wall of the van, two times, three, until her fingers finally loosened. He snatched the phone up, turned it off, then pushed himself off Cassie and threw the phone down. Raising one of his heavy boots, he stomped and stomped until she knew the phone was nothing but a million pieces of black and silver plastic. JJ had run back and now stood behind Marty. His fly and his mouth both gaped open.