The Star-Ledger was the state’s biggest newspaper and it covered Newark. It made sense.
“Okay,” I said, “so you’re back here at your house. What did you guys do next?”
“Ashley needed to hide and figure that out. I told her she could stay here with me.” She saw me opening my mouth, so she held up her hand to stop me. “To answer your next question, my parents are divorced. My mother lives in Florida. My father is on his third trophy wife. They travel a lot.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“One older brother. He’s in college. We do have full-time help, but they only go into the pool house on Thursdays.”
“So you put her up out there?”
“Yes. Ashley worried that the guys who tried to grab her would keep searching. She said they’d be relentless—that they might go after her only friend here.”
“That,” I said, “would be me.”
She nodded. “I went into her locker to get out her notebook and clothes. She’d written your name and number down there. You’d shared notes. If those guys found them, they’d know that you two were close. But even then, she still wasn’t positive that they hadn’t approached you.”
“So that’s why she asked you to keep an eye on me.”
“Yes.”
“Which you did. You even got me to be your history partner.”
Rachel glanced around the ridiculously formal living room as though she had never seen it before. It looked like something out of a European palace. We sat on a couch with very little padding.
“Why?” I asked.
“Why what?”
“You barely knew Ashley. She wasn’t your friend.”
“True.”
“And it was dangerous. They’d seen your face. They could have tracked you down.”
“I guess.”
“So why did you help her?”
Rachel thought about it a minute. “Because she was in trouble. Because I didn’t help her at the cheerleading audition. I don’t know. I wanted to help. It just felt like the right thing to do. I don’t want to make it sound like more than it is, but I get that way. I felt somehow obligated.”
I said nothing. I knew what she meant. My father and mother lived lives of obligation. If you asked them why, they would have given an answer like Rachel’s.
The phone buzzed again. I sighed and grabbed it. No surprise—it was yet another message from Ema: wanted to show you in person but will send image now. it’s been here for months.
There was a photographic attachment. I clicked on it and the photograph came up. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was a close-up of some sort, and blurry. I saw skin. I turned my head a little, focused my eyes, and then I felt my blood run cold.
It was a blue-and-green tattoo. I could see that now. And it was a tattoo of that same emblem—the blurry butterfly with the animal-eye wings.
With shaking hands, I typed: Whose tattoo is that??
There was a delay. Rachel looked over at me. I waited for the next text. It took longer than it should. Finally, a full minute later, almost as though the very letters were hesitating, came Ema’s response: it’s mine.
Chapter 20
WITH MY FAKE DRIVER’S LICENSE in my wallet, I picked up Ema on the outskirts of Kasselton Avenue. She slid into the Ford Taurus with a sheepish look on her face.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I said.
“It was Agent’s idea,” Ema explained, talking fast.
That was where we were headed—to Tattoos While U Wait to confront Agent.
“Over the summer, I went to Agent for a back tattoo. I wanted something big and dramatic. So he drew up this elaborate artwork, with swirls and lettering and then . . .” She stopped. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
She said nothing.
“Of course I’m looking at you funny,” I said, with more snap in my voice than I intended. “That tattoo was in an old photograph in Bat Lady’s house. It was on that tombstone in her backyard. And someone even drew it on a placard marking my father’s grave. Now all of a sudden it’s a tattoo on your back?”
“I know. I don’t understand it either. See, the tattoo is pretty big and the butterfly is just a small part. It wasn’t even in the original plan, but Agent said he was inspired.”
I shook my head. “So why didn’t you tell me about it as soon as you saw it on that tombstone?”
“You ran off, remember? You got arrested.”
“And what about yesterday? At Baumgart’s? Or today at school?”
Ema said nothing.
“Hello?”
“Stop yelling at me,” she said.
“I’m not yelling. It’s just . . . how could you keep that from me?”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me you were secretly meeting with Miss Hot-Bod today? Huh?” She folded her arms. “You don’t tell me everything. I don’t tell you everything.”
“Ema?”
“What?”
“That’s a load of crap and you know it. Why didn’t you tell me about the tattoo?”
Ema looked out the front windshield. We were getting closer to Agent’s place. I let it sit. There was no reason to push, not yet, but I wanted to know what was going on. I switched on the radio, but Ema reached for the knob and turned it off.
She sat back and said, “I was afraid, okay?”
“Afraid of what?”
Ema shook her head and frowned. She wore a silver ring on every finger, giving her a kind of gypsy vibe. “For a bright guy, you can be so dense.”
“Yep. So why don’t you explain it to me?”
“At first, I wasn’t even sure. Like maybe that thing on the tombstone just looked like my tattoo, but it wasn’t the same.”
“At first,” I repeated.
“Right.”
“And then?”
I took a quick glance at her. A tear ran down her cheek. “Do I look like I have a lot of friends to you?”
I said nothing.
Ema’s voice was barely a whisper. “I thought maybe you’d get angry. Or blame me. Or not believe or trust me. I thought”—she turned away now so I couldn’t see her face—“that you wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.”
The hurt in her voice broke my heart. When we came to the next stoplight, I said, “Ema?”
“What?”
“Look at me.”
She did. Her eyes were moist.
“I trust you with my life,” I said. “And like it or not, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
There was nothing more to say after that. We drove the rest of the way to the tattoo parlor in silence.
Tattoos While U Wait was in full swing when we arrived. We hurried to Agent’s chair in the back, but no one was there. I stood at the empty chair as if I could make Agent materialize with just a stare. Nothing happened.
Ema said, “Mickey?”
I looked over at her. She was pointing at a mirror on Agent’s desk. We both moved toward it. We stood there, afraid to move. There, taped to the lower left-hand corner of the mirror, was that same butterfly emblem.
“Hey, Ema. You two like?”
I spun toward the voice. No, it wasn’t Agent. This guy was, I assumed, either another tattoo artist or a frequent client. Every sliver of visible skin had ink on it. I thought about tattoos, about the connection, about the tattoo on Ema’s back, the tattoo on Antoine’s face—and most horrifically, the Auschwitz concentration camp tattoo forced upon a young girl named Elizabeth Sobek.
“Hey, Ian,” Ema said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Do you know where Agent is?”
“He’s not here.” Ian looked at Ema. Then he looked at me.
I gave him flat eyes and said, “Uh, yeah, we can see that.”
“Do you know where he is?” Ema asked. “Or when he’ll be back?”
“He took off,” Ian said. “He won’t be back for a while.”
“What’s a while?” I asked. “Like tonight or . . .”
“Not tonight. Not this week.” Now Ian faced me full on, studying me as though I were a horse he was considering purchasing. “You must be Mickey.”