Poison Ink Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

  COPYRIGHT

  For my nephew, Jack Golden—

  welcome to the world, little man.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Huge thanks are due to my editor, Stephanie Lane, who got it right away and kept me on track. My gratitude always to Connie and the kids for providing love and home. Thanks also to Tom Sniegoski, Tim Lebbon, and Liesa Abrams, for listening, and to the Vicious Circle for much-needed nights out.

  PROLOGUE

  P ieces of her are broken.

  Every bump or crack in the road jostles her, shooting needles of pain into her skull and back and searing her side where some of her ribs have given way. She breathes through her teeth, and her pain turns into a strange whistling.

  A paramedic floats into view above her. With a warm, damp cloth, he wipes some of the blood from her face. Twenty-something, skin like mahogany wood, a ridiculously good-looking guy. She feels almost embarrassed to have him looking at her bloody, swollen face.

  “You’re going to be just fine, honey,” he says.

  His voice sounds tinny, buzzing. Somehow that goes well with the coppery taste of her own blood in her mouth.

  The ambulance hits a pothole. Pain sings through her, and the shadows at the edges of her vision loom up and swallow her, dragging her down into unconsciousness.

  When next she opens her eyes, the paramedic and the ambulance are gone. Her eyelids flutter open, and she sees a woman leaning over her, hair tied back, eyes grim behind wire-rimmed glasses. When the woman notices her patient is awake, she smiles.

  “Hello, Samantha. I’m Dr. Morrissey. You’re pretty banged up, but we’re going to take care of you here. Nothing we can’t fix, okay?”

  Her face hurts so much that she doesn’t even try to speak, only gives the slightest of nods.

  “Great,” Dr. Morrissey says. She turns to someone else, a nurse maybe, and rattles off instructions in a curt voice. Activity buzzes around them. Then the doctor glances back at her. “Oh, cute tattoo by the way.”

  “Tattoo?”

  She recognizes this new voice, though the room has begun to blur around her again, the shadows gathering at the corners of her eyes.

  “Oh my God,” her mother says from somewhere nearby. “Where did she get a tattoo? Sammi?”

  Her mom appears above her, looking down, her face contorted with worry.

  “Who did this to you, honey? Who hurt you?”

  The question hurts more than her broken bones. Her mother keeps talking—to her and to the doctors and nurses—and this time when the darkness creeps up on her, she welcomes it.

  1

  O n the last Friday night of summer, Sammi Holland and the girls went downtown in search of ice cream. They planned to meet at Krueger’s Flatbread for pizza beforehand, a necessary preamble to the main event: an utter debauchery of swirl-ins and sprinkles and fudge sauce at England’s MicroCreamery. Afterward, the five of them would wander Washington Street, peeking in the windows of the candle shop, the art galleries, and the bohemian café on the corner, ending up at Cruel and Unusual Books. No way were they getting out of there without hitting the bookshop. Sammi could be very persuasive.

  Downtown Covington didn’t draw a lot of teenagers. Most of their classmates from Covington High School would be at the mall tonight. But Sammi and the girls just weren’t the sort who hung out at the mall.

  Unless they were going to the movies, Sammi and her friends steered clear of the Merrimack River Walk. The long, outdoor strip mall had been built less than ten years before, complete with movie megaplex, massive bookstore, and tons of chain clothing stores. On Friday and Saturday nights, hordes of high school kids from Haverhill, Methuen, Jameson, and other nearby towns roved the sidewalks along the River Walk in gaggles, half of them talking on their cell phones or texting their friends who hadn’t come along. Like the “main drag” in old movies and TV shows, the River Walk was all about seeing and being seen—half mating ritual and half dance of supremacy.

  Sammi had no interest in that kind of poseur crap, and neither did the girls she hung around with. The five of them had been oddballs and loners all their lives, until they had found each other. Now they were like sisters, and all was right with the world. Or mostly right. So tonight Sammi walked along a stretch of cobblestoned sidewalk on Washington Street with Caryn Adams.

  “Come on,” she said, hooking her arm through Caryn’s and dragging her away from the window of a closed gallery. “We’re late.”

  Caryn fell into step beside her, grinning. “You’re just lucky that place isn’t open. Then we’d be really late.”

  “Aren’t you hungry? I’m starving.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the ‘starving artist’?” Caryn said. “Kind of comes with the territory.”

  “Yeah, right. All those fashionistas who design dresses for the red carpet crowd, they’re starving artists. If they’re only eating carrot sticks, it isn’t because they can’t afford a decent meal.”

  “No argument. But first they had to suffer. They had to get down in the trenches and fight it out with all the other ambitious artists.”

  Sammi laughed. “You make it sound like war.”

  Caryn glanced at her, the fading summer sunshine gleaming on her caramel skin. “There are all kinds of wars.”

  Sammi blinked. She knew Caryn wanted a career in fashion desperately. Of all of her friends—of anyone she knew—Caryn had the most purpose and drive. But sometimes it verged on obsession.

  “You must chill. Seriously. One of these days we’ll watch the Oscars together and they’ll ask, ‘Who are you wearing?’ and the answer will be ‘Caryn Adams.’ I know this. We all know it. But between now and then, you really have to chill. School starts on Tuesday, and tonight’s supposed to be about just being together.”

  Caryn softened. “You’re right. That me, the one who was getting all tense? Just sent her home. Girl is not allowed to come out tonight.”

  Sammi smiled. “Good.”

  Grinning, they turned off of Washington Street into Railroad Square. Sammi and Caryn were roughly the same height—five feet three inches—and close enough in size that they could share clothes. The spaghetti-strap top Caryn had on had come from Sammi’s closet, while Sammi had pulled on a couple of tank tops, going for the layered look. Caryn wore sneakers, but Sammi stuck with the strappy sandals she’d worn most of the summer.

  They walked alongside the concrete wall of the elevated train platform toward the old brick factory building that housed Krueger’s Flatbread. Most of Covington had been mills and factories once upon a time, like so many cities built north of Boston on the Merrimack River. In the past few years, the downtown had undergone serious renovation, the old buildings gutted and reclaimed for apartments, offices, and storefront shops. Much cooler than any mall.

  “My stomach’s growling,” Caryn said.

  “So much for the starving artist.”

  As they entered the parking lot, Sammi saw a trio of people standing at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Krueger’s front door. Behind them, an old, beat-up BMW sat idling. The he
adlights were on. Summer nights had started arriving a little sooner this late in August, and while the sky was still blue, the sun had begun to sink low on the horizon. Between the train platform and the old factory buildings, the shadows were deep.

  “There’s T.Q.,” Caryn said.

  Sammi had already seen her. At five foot nine and with long, red hair, T.Q.—Simone Deveaux—was hard to miss.

  “Who’s with her?” she asked.

  “Looks like Jill Barbieri and that Regan bitch, what’s her name?”

  “Crap. Isn’t this why we didn’t go to the mall?” Sammi said.

  Jill and Regan were seniors at Covington High, both of them on the girls’ basketball team and obsessed with their own wonderfulness. Some girls started out fine and were transformed by high school into divas, so that by the time they became seniors they perceived themselves as the elite. Others arrived fully formed. Born bitchy.

  Without a word to one another, Sammi and Caryn sped up. T.Q. saw them coming, and the relief that swept over her face made Sammi want to throw her arms around her. T.Q. had an ethereal beauty that drew plenty of attention, but she hated every minute of it. A shy, quiet girl, she had shared her thoughts only with her journal until she had made friends with Sammi and the others last year. As a sophomore, she’d practically run the school paper, and this year she’d be editor. At Covington, the people who even knew her name called her Simone, but her friends called her T.Q.—for “tall, quiet one”—and she loved it. No one had ever been interested enough in her to give her a nickname before.

  Jill and Regan could screw with anyone else, but T.Q. was off limits.

  “—want to kiss me, don’t you?” Regan said as Caryn and Sammi hurried over.

  T.Q. ignored the question.

  “What’s going on, Jill?” Caryn said, striding up to the senior girl. “I didn’t think they let the five-dollar hookers work this corner anymore.”

  With the car running and the two girls just standing there, Sammi finally put it together. Their boyfriends must be inside, picking up pizzas to go, and they’d stayed out here to harass T.Q.

  “Oh, look,” Jill said, “your girlfriends are here. It’s a lesbian lovefest tonight.”

  Caryn balled up her fists and started for her. Sammi grabbed her arm and held her back. Jill and Regan both flinched. Caryn had a Jewish mother at home who would have tortured her with guilt for a year if she ever actually hit anybody, but the senior girls didn’t know that. They saw an angry black girl, and their presumptions made them nervous. Jill and Regan were shallow and stupid, but Caryn seemed pleased that they’d lost their cruel grins. Her temper had gotten her into trouble before, but Sammi figured Jill and Regan had earned a tongue-lashing.

  “You want to look for some girl love, check out your own locker room,” Caryn said. “Never know who’s eyeing you in the shower while you’re soaping up.”

  Regan wore a look of horror. T.Q. covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.

  “I guess you’d know, though, wouldn’t you?” Jill retorted with a sneer.

  Sammi shook her head in pity. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to see you naked, Jill, guy or girl. Maybe that’s why you’ve gotta ride Simone, because you know once a guy sees her, he’s not giving you a second look.”

  Jill rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”

  But Sammi could see that she’d hit a nerve. Caryn and Regan were staring at each other as if at any moment they might start rumbling around the parking lot.

  The door at the top of the stairs opened and two decent-looking guys came out, one of them carrying two pizza boxes and the other with a paper bag of Krueger’s takeout. Sammi didn’t know his name, but she recognized the pizza boy as Jill’s boyfriend, a college freshman.

  “Hey,” Sammi said, friendly as could be. “I know you guys.”

  “You do?” Pizza Boy said.

  Sammi smiled. “Totally. You graduated last year. In fact, my friend Simone over here? She had a mad crush on you.”

  Pizza Boy glanced over at T.Q., and a wolfish smile spread across his face. He nodded once. “Really?”

  The fury on Jill Barbieri’s face was glorious to behold. She flushed red, and her lips pulled back like a snarling dog.

  Sammi grinned, took T.Q. by the hand, and led her up the stairs, purposely brushing past the guys as she went.

  “You have a nice night, now,” Caryn said sweetly, and then she followed them.

  As they stepped into Krueger’s and the door swung shut behind them, they could hear Jill yelling at her boyfriend. The three girls turned to look at each other and started laughing.

  “Can I help you?” the fortyish hostess asked with a bemused grin.

  Caryn cleared her throat. “Sorry. We’re meeting some friends here. The reservation’s under my name—Adams.”

  The hostess glanced at the podium where the map of the tables lay, then nodded for them to go in. “They’re in the back, around behind the bar.”

  “Thank you,” Sammi said.

  The fans were spinning lazily on the ceiling and the air conditioner hummed. It felt chilly inside the restaurant, but fortunately Letty and Katsuko were sitting near the blazing brick oven where the flatbread pizza was cooked. Katsuko’s hair shone damply, and Sammi figured she’d just come from swimming, getting ready for competition once the school year started. As they crossed to the table, Letty Alecia smiled and got up to hug each of them. Her milk chocolate eyes were bright and wide, her best feature, and she always dressed conservatively—even more so than Katsuko, whose parents were very careful about what they let her wear. Katsuko came off as arrogant sometimes, mainly because she was. Her parents had raised her with a superior air, and though she could be judgmental at times, ever since Sammi had met her she’d been doing her best to fight her inner snob.

  Jill and Regan teased them all about being lesbians because they hung out with Letty. She had come out the year before. Las Reinas—the name the Puerto Rican girls at Covington High had given themselves—hadn’t exactly ostracized her. They still spoke to her, still looked out for her as a girl from the neighborhood. But they didn’t go out of their way to include her anymore. Letty never showed it, but Sammi felt certain that beneath her smile, she’d been hurt by Las Reinas.

  Sammi had always been a floater. Not a loner; that was something completely different. A loner spent all her time by herself, grew uncomfortable in crowds, and got totally squirmy in the spotlight. Sammi had never been that. She got along with almost everyone, floating from group to group but never quite fitting in. T.Q. had coined the expression “No-Cats” to describe kids like Sammi, impossible to slot into one of the categories everyone seemed to want to put teenagers into. It wasn’t just her classmates at Covington who did it. Everyone did. Teachers, parents, coaches. Everyone.

  Sammi had friends among the jocks, the geeks, the potheads, the skaters, the cheerleaders, the Shop-Boys, and Las Reinas. Maybe “friends” was too strong a word. After elementary school, she had never been tight with anyone, really. It wasn’t something she had become on purpose, it was just a natural evolution that started in kindergarten and steadily grew until it reached full bloom when high school began.

  In her heart, she had wished things could be different but had fully expected to spend her life that way, without any close friendships. And then, during sophomore year, the group had slowly begun to coalesce. Letty had come out and Las Reinas had begun to distance themselves from her. Sammi had always gotten along well with her and had made it a point to sit with her in the cafeteria. T.Q. had done a profile in the school paper on student artists, covering Caryn’s art and designs and Sammi’s music—she had played one afternoon to entertain the shoppers at Cruel and Unusual Books. One day, they had all ended up at a table together for lunch.

  It had just felt right.

  They all had their faults, of course, but who didn’t? Sammi found a kinship with the other girls that she had never realized was possible, and unlike with most groups, it
wasn’t because of what they had in common. They shared little beyond how different they were from most of their classmates. Their common trait was that they had nothing in common with anyone. And then they found many things they shared—thoughts and experiences and emotions, hopes and ambitions—and the bond became unbreakable.

  “Sorry we’re late!” Caryn said, sitting down.

  “We were about to call the police,” Katsuko said.

  “Seriously,” Letty said. “T.Q. went out to look for you, and I thought someone, like, kidnapped all three of you.”

  Sammi slid into a chair across from her. “Nah. Caryn just has to window-shop at the art galleries.”

  Despite the opening Letty had given them, no one brought up the incident in the parking lot. They all loved her too much.

  “So this is it,” Sammi said. “The year we rule the school.”

  Katsuko shot her a dubious look. “What, did we skip a year and nobody told me? We’re juniors.”

  Sammi shrugged. “Yeah, but the seniors are all gonna be totally focused on getting into college or just getting out of high school, they’re not going to be paying attention. Give them a month, maybe, and they’ll abdicate power. Juniors are the top of the food chain.”

  “Maybe some juniors are,” T.Q. said. “Something tells me I’m not ruling anything. I don’t even think I’m part of the food chain.”

  Letty took a sip from her glass. “Nah, Sammi’s right.” She smiled mischievously. “It’s gonna be a hell of a year.”

  Saturday morning, Sammi and her mother packed up the car and drove to Kingston State Park in New Hampshire, only half an hour’s drive from home. The other girls were all headed off with their families for the balance of the weekend, Katsuko all the way down to Cape Cod and the others to various spots along the coast of Maine. Labor Day weekend offered the last taste of summer, and everyone wanted to savor it. But Sammi’s father had to work, so there would be no hotel rooms, no visits to relatives, no bodysurfing for her. Just a few hours at the lake with her mom.

  Sammi didn’t mind. Her mother had mood swings and a strict sense of propriety, and she tended to give even the most casual acquaintances the third degree, making them uneasy. In spite of all that, Linda Holland could be very cool. Sammi’s friends all loved her mother, and Linda made them feel very much at home when they visited.