Don't Turn Around (20 page)

“That sucks,” Peter said sympathetically.

“Yeah.” Absentmindedly she stroked the baby’s bald head with one hand. “Pretty sure Cody’s working today. You wanna come in and wait for him?”

Noa and Peter glanced at each other. “If that’s okay with you,” Peter said. “Sure, sounds great.”

Noa followed him, thinking it was funny that people didn’t hesitate to invite him into their homes. She’d rarely had the welcome mat rolled out for her.

Noa squeezed past a collapsed stroller and line of jackets hanging from pegs in the hall, following Peter into a tiny living room. A profusion of glaringly bright plastic toys in all shapes and sizes contrasted starkly with the navy sofa sagging in the far corner.

“Sorry for the mess,” the woman apologized self-consciously, kicking things aside as she crossed the room.

“Great place,” Peter said, sounding like he meant it.

“Thanks.” The woman paused in the middle of the room and smiled broadly at him. There was a gap between her two front teeth, just a touch too large to be considered charming. “So how do you know Cody?”

“He was friends with my brother,” Peter said.

Noa thought that was an odd way to phrase it. Were they not friends anymore? And if not, why was Peter still friends with the guy?

She regarded Peter closely, noting the sadness in his eyes. Suddenly, it clicked. His brother was dead.

“Cody is friends with everyone,” the woman said, smiling. “He’s such a sweetheart. You should see him with Ethan. Amazing.” She gave the baby a nod.

“He’s cute,” Peter offered.

The woman looked at Noa expectantly. Clearly she was supposed to agree. Babies all looked the same to her: On closer examination, this one was even less appealing. His bald head looked freakishly large and rolls of fat spilled out the arm and leg holes of his onesie. Plus a long line of drool seeped from his mouth. “Yeah, really cute,” she managed with a weak smile.

“I’m Pam, by the way. You kids want something to drink? I got water and Diet Dr Pepper.”

“We’re good,” Peter said. “You wouldn’t happen to know when Cody will be home?”

“The hours that man keeps …” Pam crossed the room to lower the baby into a mesh playpen. “I heard him leave when I was giving Ethan his first bottle. Kid wakes up at the crack of it,” she said, chuffing the baby affectionately under the chin. “Cody doesn’t have class tonight, so he should be home soon. Poor guy.” She shook her head. “But I guess they get paid enough later to make up for it.”

“Cody’s a medical student,” Peter explained to Noa. “He’s working as an EMT to put himself through school.”

“I swear, he’d the hardest working man I know, and that’s saying something.” Pam set her hands on his hips. “You mind keeping an eye on Ethan for a minute? I gotta run to the store for more formula.”

“Uh, sure,” Peter said.

“Great.” Pam went into the hall and yanked a puffy down jacket off a hook. “He starts crying, just shove the binky in his mouth.”

“Okay,” Peter said.

“Back in five.” She tugged on the coat and yanked open the door, letting in a blast of cold air. It slammed shut behind her.

Noa stared at the door, openmouthed. She turned to Peter. “Did she seriously just leave her baby with us?”

“Yeah.” Peter laughed. They both eyed the baby. Ethan was sitting up unsteadily, his torso rocking slightly back and forth as he gazed at them with enormous eyes. His lips gaped slightly open, like he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, either.

“That’s crazy, right?” Noa asked. She didn’t have much experience with good parenting, but assumed this wasn’t the norm.

“Yup, totally insane. What do you think, should we take him? Probably could get some cash that way.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, clearly joking.

Noa looked at the baby with distaste. “God, no.”

“Not a kid person?”

“I never thought about it,” Noa admitted. Few of the foster homes she’d been in had younger kids, and at The Center they were kept separate. She’d had limited exposure to anyone under the age of ten since—well, pretty much since she was that age herself. The subject made her uncomfortable. A lot of Peter’s questions did that; it felt like he was probing her and she wasn’t sure why he wanted to know. She decided to throw him on the defensive by asking, “So what happened to your brother?”

Peter winced, like she’d hit him. “PEMA,” he said after a minute.

“Oh.” Noa fell silent. She’d never actually known anyone who died of PEMA, but it was becoming increasingly common. The disease had come out of nowhere a few years ago. She remembered hearing that it had crossed over from deer or something. It mainly afflicted teenagers. PEMA was a truly awful disease—the kids who got it literally wasted away. So far it had mystified scientists—there was no common thread among the victims, at least not that they’d found yet. Initially they’d thought it had something to do with sexual activity, but that was quickly dismissed. PEMA was always fatal, and there was no cure.

Noa didn’t know what to say or do. Peter seemed to have retreated into himself. She drew her feet up onto the edge of the chair and wrapped her arms around them. A clock ticked in the next room, every beat of it resonating in the stillness.

The baby started crying. Noa sprung to her feet, grateful that the silence had been broken. She dug around the playpen. The baby tilted his face up toward her. He’d rapidly gone almost purple, face contorted, tears streaming down.

“Relax,” she said, finally spying the pacifier under a bear in the corner. “Here.”

She jammed it in his mouth. He reflexively started sucking, and the tears immediately subsided.
Like literally putting a cork in him,
Noa thought, impressed. Shame you couldn’t do that with just anyone. There were times it would come in handy.

The door opened, ushering in a blast of cold air. Pam reappeared, cheeks red and hair mussed. There was a white plastic bag over her arm. The neck of a vodka bottle peeked out the top. “God, it’s freakin’ cold out there!” she exclaimed. “Got you kids some chips, thought you might be hungry.”

“Thanks,” Peter said.

“No problem.” Pam cocked her head to the side. There was a dull thud, then the sound of footsteps mounting wooden stairs. “That’s Cody, then.” A hint of disappointment in her voice.

Peter got to his feet. “Thanks so much for letting us hang here. It was great meeting you and Ethan.”

“Yeah, great,” Noa mumbled, scrambling to her feet.

“Sure, anytime.” Pam appeared crestfallen. “You tell Cody if he wants dinner, it’s pizza night, ’kay?”

“Absolutely. Thanks again.” Peter had plastered his perpetual grin back on. Noa wondered how he managed it. If she smiled that much, her mouth would probably start spasming.

She followed him out. Peter rang the bell for the upstairs apartment. After a minute, a guy in his early twenties opened the door. He was tall, maybe six-two, broad-shouldered, dark hair trimmed close to his scalp. African-American, with pale blue eyes that drooped with dark circles. He was dressed all in navy; a round white patch on the sleeve of his shirt read
EMS/CITY OF BOSTON.
He looked utterly exhausted. “Peter?” he said. “What’s up?”

“Can we come in?” Peter asked.

Cody looked perplexed, but said, “Yeah, sure,” and stepped aside to let them pass.

Noa followed Peter up a creaking flight of wooden stairs: no runner, just a worn tread down the center of each step. Peter seemed to know his way around; at the top of the stairs he turned right along the banister. He went into a tiny living room lined with bay windows. It was identical to downstairs, except that where Pam’s was packed to overflowing, this room was barren. Nothing but a thin throw rug, a futon couch with a plain white mattress, a low table, and some pillows on the floor. Stacks of textbooks balanced along a board straddling two cement blocks. It was only slightly more welcoming than a prison cell, Noa thought as she looked around.

“Sorry, I don’t really have people over much,” Cody said apologetically. “Take the couch, I’m fine with the floor.”

Peter had already plopped down on the futon. It was tiny. Even though Noa sat at the very edge of it, their legs ended up touching. Peter didn’t seem to notice.

“You going to introduce us?” Cody asked, crossing his legs as he settled on a pillow.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. This is Noa.”

“Hi, Noa. Nice to meet you.” Cody smiled at her before turning back to Peter. “I’m so tired I can hardly see straight. Did we have plans tonight?”

“Nope. Sorry, I would have called, but … well, I lost my phone,” Peter said. “And it was kind of an emergency.”

“Yeah? What type of emergency?” Cody said wearily. His tone implied doubt that anything Peter was involved with could achieve emergency status.

“Long story,” Peter said.

Cody held up a hand, stopping him. “For that, I’m going to need a beer. You want one?”

“Yeah, sure,” Peter said.

“How about you, Noa?”

Noa shook her head. She was dying of thirst, but the thought of a beer turned her stomach. She still couldn’t believe she’d managed to eat so much earlier. It was weird. She hadn’t been hungry for days, then suddenly she’d been ravenous for everything in reach.

As quickly as the hunger kicked in, it switched off again, and she couldn’t choke down another bite. The thirst was always there, though. It didn’t seem to matter how much she drank. She swallowed hard against the dryness. “Actually, could I have some water?”

“Sure.” Cody got up and went back down the hall. She heard the sound of a fridge opening and closing, then a tap turning. “I shouldn’t really be offering to corrupt minors, anyway. I grew up in an Irish household where you got one beer with dinner starting when you were sixteen. Hard habit to break.”

“You’re Irish?” Noa asked, puzzled.

In the kitchen, he laughed. “Why, don’t I look it?”

She was embarrassed. Cody came back and stood in the doorway, grinning down at her. “My mom was Irish. Dad was black.”

“Oh.” Noa felt like an idiot. Of course he was part Irish—that explained the eyes.

Cody handed a beer to Peter, who unscrewed the cap and gratefully took a slug. Then he dropped back onto the pillow and said, “So let’s hear this long story.”

Noa let Peter tell it. He glossed over a lot of the tech details, mainly describing the home invasion he’d told her about and some guy named Mason grabbing him at the library. She hadn’t heard the part about his parents being involved, though, and kicking him out. That got her edgy again.

Cody listened silently. He clasped his right wrist with his left hand, the beer hanging down forgotten. When Peter had finished, he took a swig, then turned to Noa and asked, “So how do you figure into all this?”

Noa debated how much to tell them. The fact that he was a med student hadn’t been lost on her. It was almost too much to hope for, when what she needed more than anything was someone knowledgeable who could help her interpret those files. But could she trust him? Really, could she trust either of them?

Peter was watching her, too. The air of expectation was oppressive, like she was supposed to launch into some sort of song-and-dance routine. Noa flushed under the weight of their attention.

“I don’t really know where to start,” she finally said.

“The beginning works for me,” Cody said.

Noa met his eyes. They were warm, compassionate. She realized that she liked him, and she never liked people straight off the bat. Cody just gave off a certain kind of energy, like he truly cared. It would probably make him a great doctor someday.

“All right.” Noa drew a deep breath and started at the beginning. “Two days ago, I woke up on an operating table …”

There was a long silence when she’d finished. She’d told them pretty much everything, even the part about not being able to eat, then suddenly feeling starved. Peter’s eyes had widened at that, and she wondered if he’d actually thought she ate that much all the time.

Noa tugged at her shirtsleeves, wishing they’d say something.

“Wow.” Peter finally spoke. “And I thought I was having a crappy couple of days.”

Cody cast him a reproving look. “Way to be supportive, Pedro.”

“Sorry, I just meant … man.” Peter shook his head. “You’re pretty badass, getting away like that.”

He genuinely sounded awed, which made Noa feel even more uncomfortable.

“And you’re not sure what was done to you?” Cody pressed.

Noa shook her head. “No. I have a scar, but—”

“Where is it?” he asked.

Noa drew a line along the length of her shirt. His eyes followed her hand, but not in a creepy way. He nodded thoughtfully, and said, “Interesting.”

Something about his tone struck her. “You don’t believe me?”

“Honestly?” Cody took another sip of beer. “It’s almost too crazy not to believe. And given what happened to Peter … well, I believe him. And your story isn’t far-off from his. Plus I’m guessing that a lot of this stuff, like the Brookline High thing, I could check on. So, yeah. I guess I believe you.”

“You guess?”

“Easy.” Cody held up a hand. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I believe you,” Peter chimed in.

He was still looking at her with a goofy expression. Noa reached for her wrist to twist her bracelet, remembering a second too late that it was gone.

“Okay.” Cody gulped down the last of his beer and set the bottle on the low table. “So let’s have a look at those files.”

Noa got out her laptop and set it up, turning it around to face him. She went to the other side of the table and perched on a pillow beside him, then opened the folder that held what she figured were medical charts—other kids’, not hers. She wasn’t 100 percent ready to hear about those yet.

Cody leaned in, peering at the first file she opened. “Standard post-op stats,” he said. His eyes ran down the form, and he frowned. “Huh.”

“What?” Noa asked.

“The patient deteriorates. You want to see those numbers improving.” He ran a finger down the screen, showing her what he meant. “And here, well …”

“The patient dies?” Noa filled in for him.

He nodded. “I’m guessing. Let’s see more.”