Sixteen

I did want to tell Trick everything that morning, but I knew when he found out about me and Jesse he’d go ballistic. There was no way he’d understand why I’d been sneaking out for weeks to meet a boy at night, or believe that it had been completely innocent. He really would ground me for life, or see to it that I’d never step foot outside the house again without him or Gray hovering over me.

If I told him the truth, I’d never see Jesse again.

For that reason I gave him a severely edited version of the facts. I told him that I’d found Jesse after he’d been thrown from his horse, saw how hurt he was, and thought only of getting him home. There hadn’t been time to ask permission, so I’d taken Gray’s keys and the truck. The only way to get to Jesse’s home was by taking his boat. Everything I’d done, I insisted, had been to help an injured, helpless boy.

Trick paced around the kitchen. “Why didn’t you come and get me when you found him? I could have driven him to the emergency room.”

“There wasn’t time, and he didn’t want to go to the hospital,” I said. “I guess I just reacted.”

He stopped and studied my face. “You’re lying.”

“I didn’t think.” I resisted the urge to hunch my shoulders as I stared at the cracks in the table. “I only wanted to help him. That’s all.”

“So you drove him to town, stole a boat, and took him out to this island. Because you didn’t think.” He dropped down in the chair beside mine. “Who is he?”

“His name is Jesse—”

He slammed his fist on the table. “Who is he to you?”

I looked into his furious eyes. “He’s just a boy. That’s all.”

He sat back. “And you expect me to believe this story.” He got to his feet and started pacing again. “Go get cleaned up. I’m taking you to school.” When I stood he glared at me. “You’re grounded until you tell me the truth. Then I’ll decide what to do with you.”

Arguing was pointless; he was too angry to listen to me. I nodded and went upstairs.

Trick didn’t simply take me to school; he parked and escorted me to the admissions office, where he signed me in. “I’m picking you up today. You wait for me out front.”

“But Gray doesn’t have practice until … ” I trailed off when I saw his expression. “All right.”

After Trick left, I had to wait for a pass, but the secretary was busy with another kid who had to call home. She let him use a phone sitting on small table beside her desk, and when he couldn’t reach his mother she gave him a telephone directory to look up the number for her office.

After the student left the secretary made out my pass and handed it to me. “Here you are, Katie. Thank you for waiting.”

“No problem.” I didn’t bother to correct her on my name. “Ma’am, I forgot some homework, and I have to turn it in today. Could I call my brother real quick?”

She nodded and turned back to her computer, and I went over to the table and opened the telephone directory, flipping through the white pages to the letter R. I didn’t know Jesse’s parents’ first names, but there couldn’t be that many Ravens in Lost Lake.

As it happened I found no listing for anyone named Raven, but there was a number for Raven Island Property Management. Quickly I dialed it and waited for someone to pick up.

“Property management,” a woman answered.

“Hi,” I said in a low voice. “Is … is Jesse Raven there?”

Her voice sharpened at once. “Who is this, please?”

“My name is Catlyn. I’m the one, I mean, I brought Jesse home this morning.” I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the secretary was frowning at me. “Please, can I speak to him?”

“I’m sorry, miss,” she said, her tone a little softer now, “but the family doesn’t accept outside calls.”

I bit my lower lip. “Can you at least tell me if he’s all right?”

“Don’t call this number again, or I’ll have to report you to the police.” She hung up on me.

I put down the receiver, grabbed my backpack and left the admissions office. Jesse’s family probably had a private number; like most rich people they’d only give it out to people they trusted. I couldn’t even call back to try to persuade the lady in property management to give Jesse a message from me; she’d call Sheriff Yamah. Who would be delighted to arrest me for making crank phone calls.

I trudged through my classes, and since I’d forgotten to make my lunch I almost didn’t go to the cafeteria. Then I remembered that Ego’s foster parents worked for the Ravens, and went to find him.

“You can’t call them,” he told me after I asked if he knew the family’s private number. “The only telephone on the island is in my dad’s office.”

“Is his office Raven Island Property Management?” I asked, and he nodded. “Does your mom or dad take messages for the family?”

He thought for a minute. “I don’t think so. My parents usually just talk to vendors to place orders and schedule drop-offs.” He eyed the soda I’d bought for myself. “What are you, dieting?”

“I forgot to pack something this morning. No, that’s okay,” I said when he offered me the bag with his free lunch. “I’m not hungry.”

His expression turned shrewd. “Tell you what. You explain why you’re so interested in the Ravens, and I’ll give you half my PB&J.”

I saw Barb standing in the lunch line. If she heard me talking about this morning, she’d gossip to everyone. “I need to find out how Jesse Raven is. He was hurt this morning.”

“You heard about that?” Ego looked impressed. “My foster mother got a call about it right before I left for school. So who told you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. “Did she tell you what happened to Jesse? Is he all right?”

“Are you kidding? Marcia lectured me about it,” Ego said drily, and then raised his voice to imitate a nagging woman’s tone. “‘Diego, I hope you’re never as inconsiderate or ungrateful as the Ravens’ boy. After sneaking off and staying out all night, he comes home in such bad shape they had to medicate him. This is what happens when you give kids too much. They get spoiled.’” Ego grinned and shifted back into a normal tone. “Anyway, Marcia said Jesse’s going to be fine, although he’s not going anywhere for a while.”

“What do you mean, he’s not going anywhere?”

“His parents didn’t know he’d left the island or was out after curfew, so now he’s in hot water with them. You know what that means among the obscenely wealthy?” He handed me half his sandwich. “No yachting privileges, no caviar snacks before bed, no private screenings of unreleased blockbusters in the family’s private theater.”

“Who has a private theater?” Barb asked as she sat down beside Ego.

“I do.” He bumped her shoulder with his. “Come over sometime and I’ll show you my extensive collection of Three Stooges movies.”

I bit into the half-sandwich Ego had given me, but it tasted like PB&J-flavored cardboard. As I chewed and listened to Barb detailing the latest brouhaha, which had gotten Tiffany Beck and two other cheerleaders lunchtime detentions, I felt someone run a finger along the back collar of my T-shirt, and turned around.

Boone, no longer on crutches, smirked at me as he walked on by.

That afternoon I went out after the dismissal bell to find Trick waiting on his Harley just outside the exit doors. After that, he showed up there every day I got out of school to pick me up.

From that day my big brother kept his word and held me under house arrest, forbidding me from leaving my room except for meals and chores. Indoor chores, of course; I wasn’t allowed to ride Sali, feed or brush her, or even go to the barn. Trick refused to speak to me except once every night after dinner, when he’d ask if I was ready to talk to him.

I knew what I’d done was wrong. I knew my brother was punishing me not because he wanted to see me suffer but because he loved me and he was worried about me. I also knew that telling him what he wanted to know would not make things better.

The first couple of nights when he spoke to me I simply didn’t answer. Trick would try to stare me down for a few minutes (I quickly learned to focus on his earring instead of his eyes so it ended in a draw) and then he would tell me to go back up to my room.

Gray didn’t talk to me or look at me. He did, however, take his spare set of keys off the rack in the kitchen and hid them somewhere else.

I used my domestic imprisonment to study, read, rearrange my closet and write some poetry. I soon got bored of that, especially when all the poems I wrote started sounding the same and only described how sorry my brothers were going to be when I died of loneliness.

After school on Friday Trick (who had been doing all of the cooking since I’d gotten grounded, much to everyone’s despair) set only two places at the table. When Gray didn’t show up I felt like saying something; if I had to eat Trick’s singed sausage and peppers, so did he. Then I remembered he wasn’t coming home because it was game night. Tanglewood would be playing a team everyone had said was their bitterest rival, the Silver Lake Sentinels.

I’d gotten used to going to the games, and I liked them, and the thought of missing this one really bugged me. Trick seemed to pick up on that because he made a point to rub salt in my wounds.

“Kickoff is in an hour,” he said as he carried his plate over to the sink. “Are you ready to talk to me? If you tell me the truth, I’ll let you go to the game tonight.”

I inspected my fingernails. They’d grown a bit because I wasn’t allowed to touch Sali or work in the barn; I’d already filed them into perfect ovals. Maybe I’d borrow some nail polish from Barb and paint them.

“If you can’t go, I can’t go,” my brother continued. “Gray won’t have anyone there to watch him.”

I gave him an ironic look. At the last game dozens of girls had shown up wearing number three jerseys over gray jeans. They all sat together, and when they weren’t shrieking “Go, Gray, Go!” at the top of their lungs they made up their own cheers that rhymed with my brother’s name, even when he wasn’t on the field.

“The paper says the Sentinels are favored to beat the Tigers by three touchdowns,” Trick added. “Be a shame to miss your brother showing them how wrong they are.”

I began softly whistling the POW’s tune from the movie The Bridge Over the River Kwai.

“I know how stubborn you can be, little sister,” my brother told me. “But you’re not only one in this family who inherited that mule-headed gene. And I’m not the one sitting and staring at the same four walls every day.”

True, but I had a lot more to lose than he did, so I was clinging to my silence.

“Have it your way,” he said. “Go back to your room, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

I went upstairs, and flopped on my bed, and wondered if it were possible to die of loneliness. Aside from the general misery of being grounded, I’d been feeling unsettled and depressed, just as I had after finding Jesse’s ring. I’d gotten so used to seeing him every night that even when I fell asleep early, I always woke up just after midnight, my heart racing and my fingers itching for the reins. A few times I opened my window and stared at the pine tree as I imagine climbing down it and sneaking over to the barn. But as much as I loved my midnight rides with Sali, without Jesse it wouldn’t be the same.

The worst part was not knowing what was happening to Jesse. Ego didn’t know anything more than what he’d told me, and I stopped asking him about the Ravens when he started to become suspicious.

“What is it with you and the rich and famous?” he teased. “Are you angling for an invite to the island?”

I knew I wasn’t welcome, but it would be a consolation to know that Jesse was having some visitors. “Do they invite people there?”

He coughed a chuckle into his fist. “No, but they do have anyone who comes within ten feet of the shore arrested.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re rich and they can.”

“What if a friend of Jesse Raven’s came out to the island?” I asked. “What would happen? Hypothetically speaking, I mean.”

Ego considered that for a moment. “Jesse Raven doesn’t have any friends. Not in this town, anyway.”

“Say he makes a new friend in town, and the friend wants to go out to the island to check on him.” I knew I was pushing too much, but I had to know. “How can they make that happen? Without getting arrested.”

“I guess this friend”—he glanced up at the light fixture—“would have to find a way to get to the island first. That means buying a boat, because none of the charter operators will go out there. Yamah would yank their licenses.”

The only way I’d get a boat was to actually steal one. “What about your foster parents? Would they be willing to take a friend of Jesse’s with them when they go to work?”

He pursed his lips. “Larry, he actually likes kids, so he’d just say no. Marcia is more preemptive. She’d say no, smack the kid with her purse, and call the cops.”

I touched my arm where the man on the island had gripped it while marching me down the pier. “Your foster father’s name is Larry.”

He nodded. “My social worker said I didn’t have to call them Mom and Dad because they’re not my birth parents. I do it because it annoys Marcia. But I digress.” He itched his chin. “This friend of Jesse Raven’s can’t get out to the island unless she swims there, so I think you should tell her to forget about the whole idea.”

I saw how he was looking at me. “It’s not me. It’s a hypothetical friend.”

“I know. I have plenty of those.” He looked at his milk carton and my unopened soda can. “Want to trade?”

Barb, who was back to her normal self, tried her best to cheer me up. “I know why you’ve been so blue lately. You’ve been hitting the books too hard.”

I hadn’t told her or Ego that I’d been permanently grounded. “Yeah, that must be it. Educational depression.”

“Tonight will be a lot more fun.” She giggled. “I wonder if any of them, you know, get busy right there with everyone watching.” At my blank look she grinned. “You forgot, didn’t you? Tonight’s the field trip. You know, we’re spending the night with the animals.”

I hadn’t remembered the field trip, and being reminded made me think of the argument I’d had with Jesse. “I don’t think I’m going.”

She frowned. “But you already signed up and paid for your ticket. You’ve got a spot on the bus. You have to go.”

“My brother isn’t too thrilled about me going out at night.” Or anywhere, for that matter. “I’ll ask him, but he’ll probably say no.”

“If you need a ride to the school, call me and I’ll ask my mom if we can pick you up,” Barb said. “And if your brother fusses, remind him: it’s educational.”

Because the bus was leaving at sunset, I had to ask Trick about going on the field trip as soon as we got home from school.

“You signed the permission slip a month ago. Weeks before I committed the crime of the century,” I added. I wanted to go on the trip just so I could get out of the house for a little while, but I wouldn’t admit that to him. “So it’s no big deal. I won’t hold you to it.”

“I think it would do you some good to get out,” he said, astonishing me. “We’ll have an early dinner, and then I’ll take you over to the school.”

“You’re letting me out of solitary?” I didn’t like the smug tone in his voice. “Why? What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” He lifted his brows. “Would you rather I say ‘no’ and ‘go to your room’?”

“That’s okay.” I wasn’t a gift-horse mouth checker.

After dinner I showered and changed before I met my brother downstairs. Instead of taking me to the school on his Harley, he drove me over in Gray’s pickup truck. I found out why as soon as he pulled out of the drive.

Trick wanted to talk.

“I’ve heard this zoo has some nice exhibits,” he said.

I leaned back. “They generally do.”

“You and your friends should have fun.”

I doubted he even knew where the zoo was. “I’ll be sure to report your kindness and generosity to Amnesty International the next time they visit.”

“What if I ask you one question, and you answer it without deliberately trying to tick me off?” he countered. “Do you think you could do that?”

“Depends on the question.” I folded my arms. “Go ahead, give it a shot.”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Did you steal Gray’s truck because you got yourself involved with this boy?”

I frowned. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Allow me to clarify.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles bulged. “That morning, were you two trying to run away together?”

I turned toward him, completely dumbfounded. “You thought I was running away with him?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Of all the—” I stopped myself and covered my eyes with one hand while I took a steadying breath. “No, Patrick. I did not steal Gray’s truck so I could run away from home with a boy. Among the many excellent reasons I would never do that, the boy in question desperately needed medical attention.”

“I want to believe you, little sister,” he said slowly.

I dropped my hand. “So I’ll take a polygraph. And I’ll pass it. Will that satisfy you, or should we discuss more reliable interrogative methods, like injections of sodium pentothal? Or beating the soles of my feet with a cane?”

“Stop being sarcastic,” he snapped.

“Then stop being ridiculous.” I was so angry I could have hit him. “I took Gray’s truck without permission, which was wrong. I drove without a license; also highly illegal. But I did it to help someone who was in trouble, and that, big brother, is the truth. If you want to turn that into a soap opera, be my guest. I don’t have to convince you of anything. I don’t care. I know what I did.”

He didn’t say anything more until he pulled into the school parking lot behind the field trip bus. When I reached for the door handle, he said, “Catlyn.”

“The bus is going to leave,” I said flatly. “Am I going on this field trip or not?”

“You’re fifteen years old,” he said, ignoring my question. “The same age Mom was when she met Dad.”

“Check the dates on the letters,” I advised him. “She was seventeen.”

“Close enough. Have you read all of them yet?”

Thanks to all the turmoil in my life, I realized I hadn’t even thought about them. “I have a couple more to finish.”

“I’m the reason Mom’s family disowned her,” Trick said. “She ran away with Dad because she was pregnant with me.”

I hadn’t known that, and it shocked me until I realized why he was telling me. He thought Jesse and I were …

Through my teeth I said, “I’m not pregnant.”

“Right before all this happened, you were happier than I’ve ever seen you. I may seem ancient to you, but I’m not blind. You were acting like a girl who had fallen in love.” He sighed. “I just don’t want to see you end up like Mom.”

Unbelievable. “I’m not in love.”

“Then why are you shouting at me?” he countered.

I covered my face with my hand and then dropped it. “Because we’re talking about me. Me, Patrick. The girl who has never had a boyfriend or gone on a date.”

His mouth flattened. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Where and when do you think I’d have a chance to conceive this imaginary baby? In the girls’ restroom, in between classes? Under a cafeteria table during lunch period?” He didn’t answer me. “Okay. I really don’t think it’s any of your business, but just to ease your mind, I haven’t even had my first kiss yet. So I think it’ll be a while before I work up to premarital sex. Can I go now?”

He sighed. “Go.”

I didn’t slam the truck door after I’d climbed out, and I made a point to plaster a smile on my face as I walked toward the other kids gathering by the bus.

“Hey, Cat.” On the other side of the crowd, Barb waved. “Over here.”

I glanced back at my brother, who was still parked and watching me. He’d made such a drama out of the whole thing that I wanted to laugh. Stealing a truck to run away with a boy. Getting pregnant. No wonder he’d kept me locked up in the house all this time. He probably thought Jesse and I had been doing it in the woods.

You were acting like a girl who had fallen in love.

I stopped walking, and in that moment, I knew. While I’d been seeing Jesse, I had felt happier and more alive than I’d ever been in my life. Now, without him, I drifted through every day, miserable and hopeless. Trick was right.

I was in love with Jesse.