She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,170

around in my pack and took out the copy of Great Expectations and the Penn State yearbook and handed both to her.

When I handed her the Dickens book, her face lit up. “This is just like mine!”

She found her copy and laid the two side by side. Although my copy appeared new, her copy was clearly worn. Her cover was faded and lined with white, torn in a number of spots. Many of the book’s pages were dog-eared. She kept a highlighter clipped to the cover and made a habit of highlighting her favorite passages. After all these years, I couldn’t imagine she still found new passages to highlight. Every page of her book was probably a solid block of yellow by now.

I flipped through the yearbook and showed her the various circled photographs and explained what I learned about each of the people identified.

“All the ones you’ve found are dead?”

I kept the list I made back at Penn State folded inside the front of the yearbook. I took it out and smoothed the wrinkled paper. “Aside from your parents and mine, Perla Beyham, Garret Dotts, Penelope Maudlin, and Lester Woolford all killed themselves. My neighbor, Elfrieda Leech, she shot herself right in front of me. I haven’t been able to find Cammie Brotherton, Jaquelyn Breece, Jeffery Dalton, or Keith Pickford.”

Stella pursed her lips, her finger hovering over the names. “Do you remember David? He came to the cemetery with me once when we were kids.”

I nodded. “He was there when my neighbor died. I was in her apartment when she shot herself, and somehow he was across the hall in mine. He left a note for me. The note said, ‘Welcome to the party, Jack. He signed it.’” David left a bottle of Jameson too, but I didn’t tell her about that.

“My God, that must have been awful for you.”

Three.

Three what?

Bang!

I shivered.

Stella tapped at the paper. “David told me once his parents names were Jackie and Keith. This must be them.”

“Jaquelyn Breece and Keith Pickford? Do you know what happened to them?”

She fell silent.

“Stella?”

“He said they both died. A murder suicide. His father shot his mother, then turned the gun on himself. It was a long time ago, I think he was around five or six, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Did David live with you?”

She shook her head. “He visited a couple of times when we were young. Later, they took me to see him, mostly. This godawful place.”

Stella’s hand began shaking. I reached for it, and she yanked away. “You can’t.”

She held her hand with her other, held it still.

“What is it? Are you okay?”

Her voice dropped low, I could barely hear her. “I didn’t finish…I didn’t get enough.”

“With Leo?”

She nodded. When she released her hand, the shaking had stopped. “I just need to rest. I’ll be okay.”

I glanced at the digital clock beside the bed—nearly four in the morning. It would be light in a few hours. We both needed to sleep. I wanted to ask her who they were, these people in white. Latrese Oliver, David, the man in the GTO. We had so much to talk about, but it could wait. It would have to. Her eyes had grown heavy in just the past few minutes, and I felt everything catching up with me, too. The adrenaline was wearing off. My body needed to rest, shut down. “You take the bed,” I told her. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Stella looked down at the green shag carpet. “I feel dirty just walking on this carpet. You can’t sleep down there. We can share the bed.”

I looked at her hand. “What about…what if we touch, by accident, I mean…because I wouldn’t…? What will happen?”

Stella chewed on her lip for a second, thinking. Then she stood, went to the head of the bed, and pulled back the quilt. “We’ll use the sheet. You lay under it, and I’ll lay above it. This way, it will stay between us. That will be okay.”

“You’re sure?”

She climbed in. “I’m sure.”

I switched off the light and took one more look out the window. Another white car had joined the others, a Saturn four-door. Five cars now. There was somebody sitting in this one, but I couldn’t see their face. “We have another white car out there,” I said.

Stella didn’t answer, though, already lost to sleep.

My hand was shaking too, but not from nerves or because of Leo. I had problems of my own. I went to the dresser beside the bed