Sadie felt lucky to witness it, and a little jealous. She loved being an only child, but a part of her couldn’t help wondering how different her life would have been if she’d had a little sister like Lulu.
They were four stops from home when Lulu turned to Ford and blurted, “Do you miss him? Every day?”
A hundred jagged shards of grief sliced ribbons in him, and he fell into an abyss of pure pain. He wanted to cry out, crawl from his skin, and beg for mercy until the pain was gone.
Why didn’t it get any easier? she heard him think, aching for him, with him. This grief was as potent as the grief after he left Plum’s, only now there was Lulu watching him. Needing him.
His eyes locked on her, and Sadie heard him say to himself, You must not let her see this. By sheer force of will he yanked all the threads and shards and sinews together, gathering them up into an untidy ball and pushing them deep into his mind to be sorted later. He was left with the smooth everyday grief.
“I do,” he said.
“How come we don’t talk about him?”
“It’s hard to know what to say.”
“You could say, ‘Remember the time we went bowling?’ or ‘Remember the time we made cookies?’ See? It’s easy. You do one.”
Sadie saw Ford’s effort, but his mind was a frozen block of stone, unyielding. “Um, remember—”
“Forget it!” Lulu stomped her foot against the rubber floor of the bus. “I knew it. I knew it!” Her voice rose, and people began to turn and stare. Sadie felt mortified for Ford, felt his own mortification, and saw him ignore it to listen to Lulu. “You’re trying to erase him. You want to make it like he was never there. You wear his clothes. You’ve even tried to steal his girlfriend—yes, I heard you talking to Mom, saying you were going to see her. But you can never be him. Never.”
“I know, and I don’t want to be.” Sadie knew that might not always have been true, but it was true now. And it felt good to Ford. “I don’t want to be,” he repeated.
Lulu glared at him defiantly then burst into tears, burrowing into his chest, crumpling handfuls of his shirt against her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
Ford held her. “It’s okay even if you did.”
“It just hurts so much sometimes.”
“I know.”
Her cheek was against his chest. “He wasn’t supposed to die,” she said, her lip trembling, and Ford hugged her even tighter. “We were going to have adventures and be rich.” She started to cry again, but softer, not hysterical.
“We still can be,” Ford said, and Sadie felt how heavy the lie sat on his chest.
They were quiet as they got off the bus and walked home, but by the time their building was in sight Lulu was back to her regular self, declaring, “We’ll be rich when I marry Mason. In ten years.”
“Does he know about that?” Ford asked.
Lulu stood in the middle of their front walk in her khaki flight suit and spun around, fluffing up her hair. “Really, darling, who’s going to say no to me?”
“Who indeed,” Linc said, stepping out of the shadows around the door and catching Lulu in his arms. Lulu shrieked and giggled, but the gaze Linc leveled on Ford was steely cold.
“Linc. Please put my sister down,” Ford said. His mind was focused on Linc with such intensity that it was like being pulled by centripetal force.
Linc put Lulu down. “You messed up my hair, you big lug,” she told him, and he gave her a smile, letting it dissolve slowly as his eyes held Ford’s.
“Lulu, go upstairs and wait for me, please,” Ford said.
Lulu frowned. “Isn’t Uncle Linc coming up?”
“No,” Ford said, speaking to her but watching Linc, as if daring him to disagree. “Not tonight.”
When she was gone Linc said, “I hear you’ve been trying to get my attention.”
Ford’s mind hummed with nervous anticipation. “Not that I know—” The words stopped in Ford’s throat as Linc held up a photo of Ford standing just down the block from 345 EvergreenLawn, then another of him taking off after Linc.
“Talk. How did you end up here?” Linc rattled the paper.
“I followed you.”
“Not possible.” Linc’s hand snapped out, and he grabbed Ford around the neck. “Tell me how you found me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Ford squeezed out. Sadie’s vision went spotty as he gasped for air. “I followed a pizza delivery truck, and it went to your house.”
“Why weren’t you at work?”
“We got out early… storm.”
Linc’s eyes flickered with something that looked like surprise, and he let go of Ford’s throat. “You have either the worst luck or the best of anyone I’ve ever met.”
Somehow those words, coming from Linc, weren’t heartening, Sadie thought.
Ford massaged his neck. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to tell you one last time to stay away from me and anything concerning me and beat you senseless to make sure you get the message.”
“Is that the good luck or the bad luck?”
Linc said, “That depends on your perspective. I came here today to kill you.”
It would have been funny in its baldness, Sadie thought, if Linc hadn’t been so very cold and serious.
“Did you kill James?” Ford asked.
Linc’s eyes hardened. “You need to stop asking questions like that. Soon I won’t have any control over my actions. Don’t do it again.”
“Or else?”
“You’ve used up your or elses,” Linc said. “How many choices do you think you have right now? Your choices are: one, do what I say and stay away from me, or two, pay with your life.” He held up two fingers. “And when you’re gone, who’s going to take care of your mother?” He folded the two fingers down into a fist. “Your sister?”
Ford’s astonishment made his mind buck like a room in an earthquake, overriding his anger. “Did you just—are you threatening my little sister?”
“I’m educating you about your choices.” Linc’s eyes burned into Ford’s with the intensity of the insane. “What would you do for Little Lu’s well-being? What kind of choices do you have with that in the balance?”
Plants were falling off shelves in Ford’s mind, pictures skewed, the floor still rolling, and he was speechless. “At least tell me who ordered you to do this. Was it the Pharmacist?”
Linc looked angry. “If I tell you the Pharmacist is responsible will you listen and take it seriously? Then yes. The Pharmacist sent me.”
“Who is it? The Pharmacist?”
“The Pharmacist has many forms, almost all of them too good to be true, at least at the beginning.”
“That’s not an answer. Why won’t you just tell me?”
“You know why no one answers that question?” Linc asked. “Because the only people who know wind up dead.”
“You’re not dead.”
Linc’s face twisted into a sardonic smile. “Something to think about.” He pointed a finger at Ford’s chest. “I tried to keep you out of this. I figured I owed James that. But no matter how clear I make myself, you still keep turning up. So this is your last warning. Take it. I won’t enjoy killing you.”
Sadie watched Ford prepare to fight in his mind, but he said, “It doesn’t have to be this way, Linc,”