You Don't Want To Know - By Lisa Jackson Page 0,68
number.” She found a pen in her purse and a napkin on the table, then found Trent’s number in her phone and wrote it down. Sliding the napkin across the table, she added, “This is really none of Russ’s business.”
“Tell him that.” Tanya tucked the napkin into a pocket of her jeans. Sighing, she glanced over at the young couple, then at the painting of the leaning tower. “I remember being ‘in lust’ with Russ, but I’m not all that sure we were ever ‘in love.’ Not like you and Wyatt—Oh, here we go!”
The waitress deposited their first course on the table, then added a basket of warm bread wrapped in a napkin. Ava tested her soup and Tanya fished out a bread stick and dunked it into her dressing before twirling it deftly to remove the excess dressing before taking a bite. “Oh my God, this is good.” She washed her bite down with diet soda, then said, “So tell me about the other night. You know, when you took your little dive into the sea.”
“I jumped,” Ava corrected. “And it was off the dock, in the bay, not exactly the ocean.”
“Why did you do it?” Tanya asked, dipping her bread stick in the dressing again.
“I thought I saw Noah again. I know it sounds crazy, and . . . maybe it is, but I know what I saw.” She sighed. “You think I’m ready for the loony bin, too.”
“Of course not. But there are a lot of mental . . . issues in your family. I mean, kind of a crazy streak that goes through the generations? You told me that.”
“I know.”
“Didn’t your great-great-grandmother throw herself off that widow’s walk at Neptune’s Gate?” she asked. “And Trent’s father had some kind of mental blackout while he was driving, right? Killed his wife?”
“Uncle Crispin. His first wife.”
Tanya looked at Ava, and they both knew what the other was thinking: the rumor that the accident wasn’t really an accident at all, that Crispin had already been involved with Piper and a divorce would just be too expensive. Nothing had ever been proven, but the taint still remained.
“We’ve got our crazy stuff,” Ava admitted. “I’m just the craziest right now.”
“You came unhinged when Noah disappeared. You can’t be blamed for that. You freaked. I would, too.”
Ava thought a moment, then said, “Tanya, can I tell you something?”
She leaned forward. “Oh, goody. Some deep dark secret?”
“When Noah went missing, we searched the entire island. I even went down the ridge stairs and spent the rest of the night there.”
She nodded.
“But now, when I see Noah, it’s always at the dock. There’s nothing that connects the boathouse or the dock or anything to his disappearance, but there he is. It just feels so damn real.”
Tanya stared at her friend, and Ava braced herself for another lecture about how she was fantasizing, wishing her boy alive and tricking her mind into creating images of him, creating false hope, but Tanya reached across the table and took Ava’s hands in hers. “Okay, then let’s say he’s alive,” she said, nodding slowly.
Ava could scarcely believe her ears. Someone was actually listening to her. “But he looks the same as he did the last time I saw him, two years ago. He hasn’t changed.”
“You trying to talk me out of this now?”
“No! But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe you just need to figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“Meaning?”
“Either you’re hallucinating or you’re seeing a ghost . . .”
Ava yanked her hands back, not liking where this was going.
“Or someone’s messing with you, yanking your chain.”
Ava thought of the pills she was asked to ingest. “Either way, you’re saying that my visions of Noah are all in my head. That he’s not really there.”
“You said it yourself. He’s not the same age. I’m just saying that whatever happened to Noah, your visions are something else.”
Her insides turned cold. “You mean, someone wants me to believe he’s alive when he’s not?”
“I don’t know about that. I mean, you’re seeing Noah, right? Not purple dragons or palm trees growing out of icebergs or your dead mother or even Kelvin. Just Noah. I’m not sure any drug can induce a specific manifestation. No, you’re putting Noah in there. But the hallucinations might have a cause.” She grabbed her fork again.
“You’re saying someone wants me to see him.”
“No, I’m saying someone wants you to think you’re crazy. And you’re using Noah. Or, more accurately, your