30
It ended the same way it began. With a phone call.
After she’d glued my head onto my new body, we’d talked about the idea of calling Kyle again.
It had been a long conversation, but only because we’d kept cycling through the same points, like a ball in a pinball machine, pinging constantly back and forth, back and forth.
She wanted me to go with her, I didn’t want to go.
She was scared, I was scared. She trusted me, but she still didn’t want to be apart from me, and I trusted her, but I needed to do this.
In the end, that was what it always came back to.
I was a ghost . . . and I wasn’t done haunting Kyle.
Not yet.
And so she’d done what she’d said she would do.
She’d bought me my own phone, and, as promised, it was crummy.
A flip phone with a large, chunky number pad, a square screen, and countable pixels.
But that was OK. Actually, it was great.
It was a relief to know I wouldn’t have to try and work a touch screen with my new metal crab claws.
One eight double oh, I sang to myself as I dialed in the number. That murdering freak has got to go.
“You sure about this?” That had been the last thing Nicola said to me before leaving. She’d been about to go pick up Ginger and drive to Sydney to meet Sandy Brown, a journey that would take hours. “You can still come with, you know.”
Three one six three, I’d replied. I won’t forget what he did to me.
She’d left . . . and I’d waited a full five minutes before wriggling out of the cat flap and making my way here.
The mall construction site.
That was the part I hadn’t told Nicola about. I knew that if I told her I was leaving her house, she’d get anxious and upset all over again. But the more I thought about it, the surer I was that this was where I needed to be.
It was a long walk for someone with eight metal spider legs.
It would’ve been daylight by the time I made it if the time stream hadn’t been so abnormally accommodating.
It stayed gluey and gelatinous as I stumbled from block to block, across roads with cars that moved like glaciers, down footpaths filled with people frozen mid-stride.
Finally, with the moon hanging fat and low overhead, I’d wriggled through the mesh fence into the mall’s construction site.
I felt like I’d been walking for days, the bolts loose from exhaustion, my limbs as heavy as lead.
But according to my phone, cradled in my crab claw, the journey had taken less than a minute.
Four nine double two. I finished the phone number and hit the flashing green call button. Kyle, I’m coming for you.
It started to ring, a digitized warble, harsh and high-pitched, that echoed around the construction site.
The dark, disorganized, dangerous construction site. It was the scariest place I could think of. The one place that had made me, the dead girl, cringe.
The moon had robbed those shadows of their depth and the rain had left muddy puddles, but otherwise, it was unchanged, the ground still pocked with open foundation holes, the equipment still scattered about.
I could see myself, spidery and strange, reflected in one of the puddles, ancient flip phone held in my claw, porcelain face cracked, coy smile bleached of color, but still there, still smiling.
I hoped this would work. It’d worked when I’d sent my message to Krissy.
It’d worked when I’d tested it out with Nicola.
I had no reason to assume it wouldn’t work now.
All I had to do was focus my voice a little louder, push it into the universe a little harder, and demand to be heard.
It wasn’t as easy as talking to Nicola, but I could do it.
The call connected with a pop of static.
“Hello,” a feminine voice answered. “This is Lawson Quarry. Brenda speaking.”
“Good evening, Brenda,” I responded in my best adequately competent business administrator voice. “This is Stacy James from Earnsway Construction Suppliers.” A fake name, a fake company. “I just got a call from one of our drivers. He’s got the shipment at the site now.”
“A . . . shipment?” Brenda repeated uncertainly. “To the quarry?”
“No. Our driver is at the construction site. The Deluxe Shopping Experience Center. Yes. I think that’s the name. Anyway, we’re ready to unload. It’s a thousand dollars an hour to have these materials on the flatbed. We did send notice that we’d be arriving today. Where’s your representative?”
“What materials?” Brenda asked. It was a good question. Ginger had said the mall was waiting for a shipment of something, but she hadn’t specified what. Fortunately, Brenda didn’t give me time to answer. “We’re just a quarry. A small, local quarry. We do rocks and dirt and stuff?”
“I am aware of what you are. I was told one . . .” I paused here and snapped my claws together a couple of times, hoping it sounded like I was clicking through tabs on a computer. “. . . Kyle Lawson would be on-site in lieu of the overseer this week. His name is written down as the contact person.”
“Wait. Is this for the mall?”
“I would highly advise he attend the site immediately. The driver is going to need his signature before he can off-load.”
“But it’s . . . it’s eight o’clock. P.M. Kyle isn’t in the office. He’s—”
“One thousand dollars an hour,” I repeated, keeping my voice crisp and corporate. “I’ve got the driver on the other line. I’ll tell him that Mr. Lawson will be there before nine.”
“B—”
I hung up.
I didn’t think it would work. A call like that would be easy to write off as a mistake, a prank, or a scam. The only thing that made me think there was a chance of Kyle rising to the bait was the way Ginger’s words had run together when she’d sat in Nicola’s car.
“There’s meant to be another shipment of tools or something arriving soon, but it’s late and—”
“You think that’s why he’s been crying?” Nicola had all but snarled. “Over a late shipment?”
Ginger hadn’t thought that, but a part of me did.
A part of me thought Kyle was the exact brand of fucked up to care more about his business, about impressing the big-city businessmen in their big-city businessmen suits, than about a couple of wanted posters with his name on them.
He’d told me he was going to move to Sydney and launch a tech start-up, which was stupid, because the more I thought about it, the surer I was that he knew nothing about computers.
I’d been to Krissy’s house a hundred times as a kid, a thousand, and I’d never once seen Kyle with a screen in front of him.
He didn’t even like to game. So why would he want to start a tech company?
The answer was as obvious as it was pathetic.
Silicon Valley. Forbes 30 Under 30. Rich boys in bad fashion. The image of success, the aura of it, the stink of it. He was drawn to it like a fly to shit. And when that hadn’t worked out, he’d just adopted his dad’s rock and dirt business and pretended that meant he was self-made.
And now he was weaseling his way into helping out with this mall. Why? Because there were American logos on the billboards, American brands, American money.
So. Yeah.
Maybe I was wrong, but maybe I wasn’t.
Maybe Kyle would care about a lost shipment. Maybe that was what was keeping him up at night. And maybe, just maybe, he’d take the chance, drive out, and see for himself if that phone call his office received was bullshit or not.
Or maybe not.
Either way, it was worth a shot.
It’s worth a shot, I told myself as I started to pace. It’s worth a shot. It’s worth a shot. It’s—
I stumbled, almost falling flat on my still very porcelain, still very fragile doll face.
My clanky new metal body was theoretically nimble enough to make a Mars rover weep, but still small, still new, and still hard to wield.
If I didn’t stay focused, it was easy to trip over my new legs.
I’d never had so many before; I didn’t know how Claudia managed it.
I kept pacing, trying as I did to make sure the time stream stayed steady and slow. It seemed strangely pliant just then, almost willing, moving at a pace that felt as close to real life as it could get. Minute for minute, second for second, beat for beat.
It’s worth a shot, I said again to the empty construction site. He might come. He probably won’t. But he might. It’s worth a shot. It’s worth a shot. It’s worth a shot.
Nicola was far away. So was Ginger. If they’d done what I’d asked them to do, they’d be sitting in a restaurant or café with security cameras, phones on, paying by debit card, easily traceable, not that I thought the police would get that far.
I needed them to have a safety net just in case this went south, just in case Kyle thought this was a joke and accused Nicola of harassing him again, just in case Ginger somehow got roped into it all, just in case this went wrong.
It’s worth a shot, I reminded myself. It’s worth a shot. One fucking shot.
Time passed. A lot of time. Too much time. I checked the clock on my phone. It was past nine. He wasn’t coming.
Relief uncurled inside me. He wasn’t coming.
But that was OK. Nicola and Ginger would get back from Sydney in a couple of hours, she’d yell at me for going behind her back, I’d apologize, and then we’d debrief.
I’d tell her nothing happened, that Kyle hadn’t come, and she’d tell me about Sandy Brown. We’d figure out the next phase of the—
“Hello?” A voice echoed off the concrete walls, masculine and slurred. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
My bolts tightened, my porcelain went cold, the globs of glue around my neck felt suddenly hot and choking. I stopped pacing and turned, slowly, phone still clutched in my crab claws.
Walking between the slabs of unused rebar and piles of gravel, beneath the billboard that still had the words Justice 4 Lucy spray-painted across it, was Kyle.