Secrets (3 page)

That was one of the problems with her dad as an information source-he tended to see her mother like a princess
from one of the stories he taught in his medieval literature classes. He saw Rae’s mother as all good, all loving. Even
after what she’d done. Even after he knew Rae’s mother had shot her best friend in the head at close range. He
wasn’t exactly a reliable witness.

The best place to get facts was from her mother herself. But Rae had touched everything in the box of her mom’s
things-several times and on every inch of their surfaces. She’d gotten every thought it was possible to get. They
hadn’t told her much about the mysterious New Agey group, which Rae thought could be very important. All she’d
managed to get was the name of someone in the group-Amanda Reese.

Rae drew a face almost obscured by shadow. She’d managed to find the phone number ofAmanda Reese and
even talked to her daughter, who was also named Amanda. All she’d found out from Amanda the daughter was that
her mother had been murdered a year before. Dead end. No pun intended.

Rae ground the point of her pencil into the paper until she tore a little hole, then she quickly drew another face
covered in shadow.
Whoever’s been following me could have all the information I need,
she thought.
They knew I

have a power. Who knows what other information they might have?

But I have no clue who they are, so that ’s a dead end, too.
She crossed out the second shadowed face, and her
eyes moved back to the first one. She started to cross it off, too. Amanda Reese couldn’t help her.

Rae hesitated with her pencil hovering over Amanda’s face. One Amanda Reese was dead. But one was still alive.

Could the daughter of the dead woman know anything that could help Rae?

“It’s so gruesome,” Rae mumbled, wincing at the thought of asking Amanda a bunch of questions about her dead
mother.

Then she let her tongue slip to the roof of her mouth, feeling the rough patch there. She was calling the doctor first
thing tomorrow morning. But there was a good chance the doctor wouldn’t have a cluewhat was wrong. And
someone else out there could have the information Rae needed.

Rae shivered. She didn’t want to bring up raw feelings for Amanda Reese. But Amanda might be her best chance at
finding out what she needed to know-Rae’s best chance at saving her life.

Rae shifted slightly. The thin paper under her butt tore a little, letting the cold metal of the examination table touch
her bare thigh. How much longer was she going to have to wait in here? The nurse who’d weighed her and taken
her temperature and blood pressure had said the doctor would be in in a few minutes. That had been at least twenty
minutes ago. She shifted again. The paper tore again.

The fungus is getting bigger,
Rae thought. She could almost feel it growing, almost taste its flavor with every
swallow. She stuck her forefinger in her mouth, fighting her gag reflex, and tried to feel the fungus spot. She needed
to know exactly how big it was now. As she started to trace it, there was a quickknock on the examination-room
door. A second later Dr. Avery stepped into the room. “It’s good to see you, Rae,” she said.

Rae whipped her finger out of her mouth. “You too,” she answered, trying to get over the weird feeling of talking to
someone who was fully clothed while she was half naked.

Dr. Avery flipped open Rae’s chart.
God, it’s thick enough to be an eighty-year-old woman’s,
Rae thought. Thanks
to all the tests they ran on her after her meltdown.

“So you have a growth on your tongue,” Dr. Avery said. “Let’s have a look.” She turned to the counter across from
Rae and pulled a tongue depressor out of a glass jar, then moved up in front of Rae, so close, Rae’s knees were
almost touching the doctor’s stomach. “You know the drill. Say ahhh.”

Rae did, and a second later she felt the dry wood of the depressor against her tongue. She hated that sensation. It
made her teeth feel static-filled.

Dr. Avery moved the tongue depressor slightly, leaning a little closer. Rae could feel the doctor’s breath against her
cheek and even smell the orange Tic-Tacs Dr. Avery had in her mouth.
What do you see?
Rae wanted to shout. It felt
like the doctor had been staring into her mouth for an hour, even though Rae knew it was less than a minute.

Probably lessthan fifteen seconds, really. She gripped the edge of
the table-

/Is it cancer
I
/
kddntkwz/

–so she wouldn’t start squirming. The thoughts she picked up gave her a double dose of anxiety, the last thing
she needed when she was already so freaked. She hadn’t been able to wear wax on her fingers the way she usually
did when she didn’t want to get fingerprint thoughts, because she’d been afraid the doctor would notice and think it
was strange. Strange was the last thing Rae wanted to be in front of any kind of doctor.

Dr. Avery took the tongue depressor out of Rae’s mouth and tossed it in the white metal wastebasket. “I think what
you’ve got is a mild case of strep throat,” Dr. Avery told Rae. “It’s not unusual for the tongue to be affected like this.

I’ll just do a culture to be sure.” She prepared a swab and ran it across the back of Rae’s throat.

“So, I, um, don’t have some weird fungus or mold or anything?” Rae asked, struggling not to sound too worried.

Rae liked Dr. Avery, but the doctor knew Rae’s mental health history, and Rae didn’t want to set off any warning
bells.

Dr. Avery smiled. “Nothing so exotic.” She did a quick check of Rae’s ears and nostrils and massaged the glands
on the sides of her neck. “Everything else looks fine.”

A wave of relief washed through Rae, so strong, it made her dizzy.
Strep throat. I have strep throat.
It was like
hearing she’d just won a trip around the world. Her mother definitely hadn’t died from an extreme case of strep. This
was totally, totally different.

“Anything else going on? Any questions while you’ve got me?” Dr. Avery asked. Rae noticed that she was going
for the casual-voice thing, too.
Probably doesn’t want me to think she’s at all concerned about the possibility that I

could lose it again someday.

“No. I’ve been feeling good,” Rae answered. Then she remembered the numb spots. She’d been so freaked out by
finding the spot on her tongue that she’d forgotten about them.

Dr. Avery picked Rae’s chart up off the counter. “Stop by my office when you’re dressed. I’ll give you a prescription
for some antibiotics.”

“Actually, there is one thing,” Rae blurted out. “It’s probably nothing, but sometimes I get these numb spots.” She
tightened her grip on the edge of the table, the metal pressing into her fingers.

“Numb spots,” Dr. Avery repeated, her gaze sharpening on Rae’s face. “Where?”

“Different places. The back of my neck once. The tip of my finger. Um, on my leg. A spot on my arm.” Rae watched
the doctor’s face tighten slightly.

“How often does this happen?” Dr. Avery asked. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and flipped open Rae’s chart.

“Just, I don’t know, maybe five times,” Rae answered, her body seeming to harden, as if in another few seconds
she’d be incapable of moving.

Dr. Avery made a notation. “And how long does the numbness last?”

“The spots usually fade in less than a day,” Rae told her, managing to get her mouth to open and close.

Dr. Avery nodded as she scribbled another notation.
Guess she’s not going to tell me it’s all part of the strep throat

or some minor skin condition,
Rae thought.

“Have you made any changes in your diet?” Dr. Avery asked, her voice crisp. Rae gave her head a tiny shake.

“You haven’t eaten any seeds or nuts that you don’t usually eat?” Dr. Avery pressed.

“Uh-uh,” Rae forced out.

“Well, I think we should definitely keep tabs on this,” the doctor said. “What I want you to do is keep a written
record of these periods of numbness-are they after exercise, when you wake up, after you eat, that kind of thing.

Make another appointment in two weeks and bring in your notes. We’ll go over them together.”

“Okay,” Rae mumbled.

“Go on and get dressed now.” Dr. Avery glanced at her watch, then hurried out of the room. The second she
closed the door behind her, Rae started to tremble. She wished there was a fingerprint she could touch to know
what Dr. Avery really thought about the numb spots. Unfortunately, the doctor hadn’t touched anything but Rae’s
chart after Rae told her about the numbness, and Dr. Avery had taken the chart with her.

Rae half jumped, half slid off the examination table and grabbed her pants, picking up a few of her old thoughts.

As she dressed, she tried to remember exactly when the numbness spells had happened.

She’d gotten one that day in the pool when Anthony was teaching her to swim. And she’d gotten one the night
Anthony had almost robbed that house with his new buddies. Oh, and one the day she and Yana had gone to see
Big Al to get info about Anthony’s father.

It always happened on days that I made fingertip-to-fingertip contact with someone.
Not just on those days, but
starting after she’d made the contact. The realization was like an explosion in Rae’s mind.

So the numbness was connected to using her power. She’d considered that already, but it was becoming hard to
avoid that it had to be the truth.

Was her mother’s disease connected to using
her
psychic abilities? Rae felt like someone had just dropped an ice
cube down the back of her shirt. Her trembling escalated to shivering. Even without the tongue thing, there was still
too much similarity between her mother’s life and Rae’s.

Rae grabbed her purse and got up. This was pointless-she should never have even mentioned the numb spots to
her doctor. What could Dr. Avery do, especially without knowing the reason they were happening? And it wasn’t like
Rae could tell her
that.
She’d just tell the doctor that the numbness had gone away, and skip that whole follow-up
appointment thing.

She grabbed the knob.

Dr. Avery touched the doorknob after I told her about the numb spots,
Rae realized. And it worried her. Rae could
feel the doctor’s emotion swirling around in the fear already blasting through Rae.

I’ve got to find out the truth about my mother,
Rae thought
. The entire truth. It’s time. It’s way past time.

Anthony hesitated outside the cafeteria. Going into classes as the new guy was one thing. Hitting the caf, that was
something else.

Yeah, because what if no one will let you sit with them,
he taunted himself.
What if somebody ’s mean to you? You

big freakin’ wuss.
He pushed open the double doors and headed to the food line.
Much better selection than at

Fillmore,
he noted as he grabbed a foil-wrapped burger, a bag of chips, and two chocolate milks. After he handed
over his cash, he turned toward the tables. He caught sight of a fro-yo machine out of the corner of his eye.

Unbelievable.

He started a methodical table scan. Open seat at two o’clock, but a couple of the people at the table were actually
playing chess. Pass. There were a bunch of open seats at the table dead center of the room. Suspiciously many.

Pass.

Where does Rae sit?
The thought managed to snake its way into Anthony’s brain, pissing him off. He wasn’t
looking for Rae. He was looking for a place to park his butt.

“Fascinelli,” someone yelled. Anthony turned his head toward the voice and saw Marcus Salkow waving him
toward a table-a table that was clearly
the
table.

Anthony headed over and sat down in the empty seat across from Marcus and next to this blond girl who should
be an ad for blond girls.

“You guys, this is Anthony,” Marcus announced. “He’s the new running back.” Marcus nodded towardthe blond
girl. “That’s Jackie.” He pointed to the dark-haired girl next to him. “That’s Lea. You know Sanders and McHugh from
the team.”

“Hey,” Anthony muttered, wishing they would all stop looking at him and go back to whatever it was they’d been
talking about.

“So where are you from?” Jackie asked. She popped one grape into her mouth, and Anthony had to force his eyes
away from her lips. This girl was so out of his league.

“Uh, I just transferred from Fillmore,” Anthony answered, talking to her forehead. This girl could be one of the Gap
girls he fantasized about. Suddenly he realized he’d just said it out loud-admitted where he came from. He steeled
himself for the obligatory awkward silence or uncomfortable reactions.

“Their loss,” Marcus said without even a brief pause. “With Anthony on the team, we’re gonna kick butt all the way
to the state championships.”

Anthony raised his eyebrows in surprise. Salkow was being decent. More than decent. There wasn’t any reason
for the guy to deal with Anthony off the field, but he was.