Dead Ringers 1: Illusion Read Free Page A

My head hurts, as though somebody took a sledgehammer and tried to split it in two.
    “You were screaming bloody murder. I thought the Widow decided to start with Lacey.”
    Lacey, Hunter Prescott’s young cousin. Had somebody abducted the girl and tied her to that chair? I grab Becky’s arm. “Please tell me Lacey’s all right.”
    “I think so. She came out the exit a few seconds after you screamed.” Becky stares down at my hand on her arm. “Let go. You’re hurting me.”
    “Sorry.” I release her, my mind crowded with questions.
    How had I gotten into that field? Who had tied me to the chair? Why had it felt as though my mind was splintering? How did the clown fit in? And, most importantly, what did he want from me?
    “So what the hell happened in there?” Becky persists, rubbing her arm. “I’ve never heard you scream like that.”
    I wet my lips, trying to process my thoughts. “I remembered something. From when I vanished.”
    Becky puts a finger to her lips. “Shhh. We agreed you wouldn’t talk about that.”
    “But I remember, Becky. It was night and I was tied to a chair in a field.” I concentrate over the pounding in my head, conjuring a mental snapshot. Lining the edges of the clearing were sprawling live oak trees and tall loblolly pines. “I could smell grass but also something damp. The marsh or a swamp, maybe.”
    “Jade,” Becky says with a warning tone in her voice. She doesn’t want me to continue, but she’s been my best friend since kindergarten. There is nothing about me she doesn’t know.
    “At first I couldn’t see because I was wearing a hood. My head felt like it would explode. While I was thrashing around, the hood came loose. Then there was a needle in my shoulder.” I moisten my lips, knowing how she’ll react to what I’m about to say. “That’s when I saw the clown.”
    “For God’s sake, Jade!” Becky drags a hand through her blond hair, and some strands come loose from her ponytail. “A clown? Are you listening to yourself? You actually believe you were abducted by an evil clown who tied you up and injected you with something?”
    Stated that way, it sounds crazy. Yet I didn’t get to that field by myself. “I think it was a sedative.”
    Becky’s blue eyes turn round and troubled. “You’re freaking me out, Jade.”
    I can hardly wrap my mind around the vision myself, yet the life-sized clown that had sprung from the jack in the box uncovered something in my mind I’ve been trying to reach for months.
    “I’m freaked out, too.” I rub my forehead, intensifying my headache. “But it could explain the gap in my memory. Maybe even where I was for those two days when I vanished.”
    “We already know where you were,” Becky says, her voice gentle. “You were skiing in the Great Smoky Mountains with Roxy.”
    “No.” I shake my head, rejecting the explanation the same way I have since I’d turned up dazed and disoriented at the carnival. It’s no secret that Roxy is passionate about skiing. After three years of working at the carnival, that’s the only personal thing I know about her. But we had most definitely not gone on a ski trip to the Cataloochee Ski Area together. “That’s a lie.”
    “Jade, you sent me a text, remember? I know you were messed up about your dad’s conviction, but I still have it on my phone.”
    “He’s my stepdad .” I never used to make that distinction. He’s the only father I’ve ever known and I call him Dad, but I’m just so damn angry at him.
    “Okay, your stepdad .” She pulls out her cell, navigates to a screen and hands me the phone. “Here, maybe it’ll help if you see the text again.”
    Going skiing for a few days with Roxy, the text reads. Don’t worry.
    Becky hadn’t worried. Neither had Aunt Carol, my mom’s sister. She’d uprooted everything and moved in with my sister, brother and me after my stepdad’s arrest. My aunt received a text from my phone with the same message. Roxy even