Page 35 of The Lair

After a couple screaming matches, I’d finally convinced my mother to let me ride the school bus with Marie. I was old enough, and all the cool kids in my grade were doing it. We’d agreed I’d carry a cell phone with me at all times in case something happened, and that I wouldn’t use it for anything else in case the battery ran out. I was only too eager to agree.

That’s why I was surprised to hear a feminine voice calling my name when Marie and I stepped out of the front gate of the school.

“Allison! Sweetie, wait.”

My steps came to a halt. With a frown, I stared at the blonde woman rushing out of a modern black car. Her smile was a mix of worried and awkward. I didn’t recognize her.

“Do I know you?” I asked her.

Her hair looked too shiny and yellow, almost fake. She wore office clothes—nothing that would make her stand out from other businesswomen in the city or give me any clues about her identity.

“I’m Claudia, one of your mom’s friends,” she explained.

Does Mom know a Claudia?I wasn’t sure.

“So sorry to bother you, sweetie.” Claudia took a step closer. “Your mom sent me to pick you up and drive you to the hospital. Your brother was in an accident, and he’s in the ER. I’m so sorry, but we have to hurry up.”

My mouth turned dry. Johnny had been in an accident?

“Um, I need to take the bus,” Marie quipped awkwardly, walking backward in the opposite direction. “Bye.”

I couldn’t pay attention to her.

“How do you know that?” I asked Claudia, my voice laced with skepticism and fear while my mind raced with worried thoughts about my brother.

Johnny has been in an accident. Johnny is in the ER.

“She knows I work a couple blocks away, so she sent me to pick you up. She and your dad had to rush to the ER with Johnny. He hit his head and was bleeding a lot, from what she told me.”

Despite Johnny being only five years younger than me, we weren’t super close, but I still loved him. Of course I did. The ER always meant bad news, and I didn’t want him to die.

But my feet wouldn’t move. Something in my stomach turned with an emotion I couldn’t put a name to. Terror, yes, but also something else.

Among the fog in my brain, I scrambled for any reminders of Claudia and found none. My mother had many friends, and my twelve years were long enough to meet them all. Or at least to have heard of them.

“I-I don’t know you,” I stammered, holding on to my backpack straps a little tighter.

Her chuckle took me aback. “Don’t be silly, Allison. I was at your house just last week. I helped your mom replace those black shelves in her dressing room.”

That made me pause. My motherhadreplaced some dark shelves for white ones in her massive dressing room after complaining that it altered the feng shui of the room. Whatever that meant.

There was no way for Claudia to know that unless she’d been there.

“Come on, sweetie,” she urged me, putting a cold hand on my arm to walk me to her car. “Your parents are waiting. They want you to be there for Johnny.”

I took a step forward, then another. The closer I got to the car, the more my stomach clamped, and the more nauseous I felt.

Something wasn’t right.

“Wait.” I stopped again. It earned me a frown from the woman, but I pressed on. “If you’re really my mother’s friend, when’s her birthday?”

“August 12,” she replied easily, as if the answer was foolishly obvious.

“What food does she hate the most?”

She answered with no hesitation. “Bananas. She likes the flavor—vegan banana bread is one of her favorite sweet treats—but she can’t stand how soft the flesh is. Makes her gag.”

“What’s her favorite color?”

---