Cat Patrick: Revived

In the morning, we go out for supplies. Residual anger still stuck in my teeth, I don’t speak to Mason unless I absolutely have to. Instead, I check out our temporary hometown.

As it turns out, there’s nothing nice, appealing, or even remotely interesting about Hayes, Texas. Even in November, it’s hot. It’s small. It makes you feel like you sprinkled dirt on your cereal, then ate more for dessert. Women wearing curlers in public look at us funny at the hardware store. They cluck at Cassie because she’s beautiful and they’re in housecoats. The man at the grocery store asks where we’re headed, as if there’s a NO VACANCY sign at the edge of town and he’d like us to move along as soon as possible.

We do our shopping and return to the house, then Mason and Cassie are back to work. I meander from room to room aimlessly. Helpless. In the kitchen, I sit at the Salvation Army table and stare at the wall over the stove. After a while, I notice the grease splatters. I look at the floor and realize that it’s a different color under the table than in the high-traffic area.

I stand abruptly, mission accepted. I may not be able to control much else, but I can clean. And what I figure out after four hours is that scrubbing floors, washing windows, and—vomit—cleaning toilets has a way of working the fury out of me. When they happen to cross my path, Mason and Cassie look at me like I’ve completely lost it. But as I start tidying the final room, I am completely clear. Without emotion or concern, I mentally outline what I’m going to say to Mason about Case 22 when the notes arrive.

I plan how to convince him to go after God.

Later that night, Cassie spends an hour “fixing” my computer. I know she’s trying to be helpful, but really, I just want her to leave me alone. Now that I’m not mad anymore, and with a plan firmly planted in my head, there’s nothing left to think of but Matt. I want to contact him, but Bot Girl’s taken over my mainframe.

“What are you doing to it?” I ask, leaning over her shoulder as she types code faster than I can speak.

“Making it so no one can track your footprints,” Cassie says. The quiet cadence of the keys tapping under her fingertips is surprisingly calming.

“So I can use it when you’re done?” I fidget a little, considering what to say to Matt.

“Yes,” Cassie says, not looking at me. I move around her and sit on the edge of the creaky bed. From across the room, the glare of the screen bounces off Cassie’s glasses, making her look like she doesn’t have eyes.

I’m startled when she pushes back from the desk.

“All done,” she says in her sweetest accent.

“Thanks,” I say to her back as she leaves.

After she’s gone, I force myself to write a blog post and check in with Megan before I can write to Matt.

When finally— finally— I do, the words pour out of me like they’ve been waiting to hop onto the blank page.

Matt,

Even though it feels like we’re on different planets now, I think of you constantly. I can only hope our orbits cross soon. I miss you like I never thought I could miss anyone.

I hit send and wait awhile for a reply that doesn’t come. Then I fall asleep in a bed that’s probably infested with bedbugs, thinking that it would be all right if only Matt was here next to me.

“Who are you talking to?” I ask Mason when I walk into the kitchen the next day. He has his cell pressed to his ear and a coffee mug in his left hand. He scowls at me for the interruption and shakes his head.

“If it’s David, please ask about my backpack,” I whisper. Mason is a killer multitasker: he hears and gives me a thumbs-up. I pop bread in the toaster and wait, then, because there’s no jam, I use a butter-like substance that I hope doesn’t kill me. I sit down and start eating, watching Mason and trying to will him to ask about my backpack with my mind. Right when I think he’s forgotten, he comes through.

“Thanks for the lab inventory,” Mason says. “Can I ask one other small thing?” He pauses to listen. “Great, thanks. Daisy needs her school backpack. It’s red, with a black-and-white patch on the front. I think it’s in her room…. Hang on.”

He looks at me.

“Yes, on the right side of my desk, on the floor,” I say.

Mason repeats the directions and then agrees to hang on while David goes to look for it. “No, the right side.” He pauses again. “Yes, do that,” he says.

I take another bite of toast, waiting for confirmation that the bag is on the way. Instead, Mason looks at me while he speaks to David.

“I can’t believe it,” he says. “Nothing else is missing in the whole house but a teenager’s backpack? Guess that rules out involvement from the program.”

Except that it doesn’t , I think to myself as my stomach sinks. I put down my toast, no longer hungry.

I know it was about Case 22.

And that has everything to do with the program.

In fact, it has everything to do with God himself.

When Mason hangs up, I catch him before he rushes out of the room.

“I need to talk to you,” I say seriously. It gets his attention. “And Cassie, too.”

“Okay,” Mason says, a concerned look on his face. “Is everything okay?”

“Not really,” I say. “Let’s get Cassie, and I’ll tell you what I mean.”

When my guardians are settled at the table across from me, I begin my prepared statement.

“I believe that God killed Nora Fitzgerald,” I say directly, looking Mason, then Cassie, right in the eyes. Mason’s eyebrows scrunch up in confusion; Cassie looks as surprised as she is capable of looking.

“That’s quite an accusation, Daisy,” Mason says. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, a few days after Nora spotted me at the mall, I was on the system and stumbled across a folder for a twenty-second case.” I leave out the part about Matt.

Mason looks at me like I’ve just claimed that the earth is flat.

“But there are only twenty-one cases,” he says.

“I know,” I say. “But this was number twenty-two. I was curious, of course, so I opened it, but the name was confidential. The relocation town was listed as Franklin, Nevada.”

“Okay…” Mason says.

Distracted, Cassie checks her watch and shifts in her seat. I know she’d rather be working.

“I told Megan about it,” I say. Suddenly, Cassie attacks Mason with her eyes, probably annoyed that he’s given me access in the first place.

“Daisy, you need to keep what you see in there to yourself from here on out,” Mason says.

“Fine,” I say. “But Megan’s not the point. Anyway, she and I were messing around online and we found an article from Frozen Hills that said that Nora Fitzgerald had been killed in a car accident. But then we found her alive, on Facebook.” Cassie looks confused this time: I wonder if she’s going to call me on what I’m saying. I’m messing up the timeline and leaving out David’s involvement, but basically, it’s right. I speak quickly so she won’t question me.

“Anyway, I’ve been talking to Nora,” I say. Mason’s jaw drops. Cassie inhales sharply.

“You’ve been talking to a girl who thinks you’re dead?” Mason asks, sitting straighter in his seat.

“See?” Cassie says to him. “You give her too much freedom. Now look at what she’s done.”

“You guys are totally missing the point,” I say forcefully. “The point is that Nora was killed—on purpose—then relocated because she knew about me. Except that she wasn’t told anything real. She thinks that her family’s in the witness protection program.”

Cassie rolls her eyes, then stands abruptly.