When Elliot finally gets me to calm down, I look around the basement, breathing deeply. The pale figure is gone. There’s no one else here. It’s just Elliot and me. For some reason an image of my mother flashes through my mind, how tired she looked all the time. She was always talking about people that weren’t there. Dread courses through me. I am not her, I think. I am not crazy.

Elliot rubs my back. He cups my face between my hands. It’s a sudden intimate gesture, and it brings me back to reality. He smiles. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says.

3

3

Jackson lets out a yowl as he clinks glasses with me and the gang. We’re seated at a plush booth in the only nightclub in town. It’s so dark I can’t even make out the cigarette stains on the pleather couch. We knock back our shots, and I cringe as the bitter liquid slides down my throat.

“One more! One more!” Jackson says. He refills from a private bottle, sputtering and laughing, and holds his shot in the air.

“Hey. Okay. This one’s to us. We really got it down to a science. Beth, perfectly on cue with the voices. Elliot, your recon was spot-on. I thought that guy was going to weep when you mentioned the basement.”

Elliot does a little bow, ever humble.

Then, surprisingly, Jackson turns to me. “And to little sis. Normally, you phone it in, but tonight? That was a pimp Oscar performance. To us!”

I manage a small smile, still thinking about the bolting mannequin. I’m not sure how they did it. All I can reason is that Jackson and Elliot rigged the mannequin on some sort of pulley system when I wasn’t around. Whatever it is, it’s a new tactic, and I’m not a fan.

We all toss back the shots. Jackson pounds the table excitedly. “See?! And you guys wanted to get real jobs. How else are you going to make this kind of money in one night?”

Jackson pulls Beth closer. She resists at first, but then places her hand on his chest. Even from here, I can tell Jackson’s mind is whirring a mile a minute. He talks in circles and then hits the side of the couch with his fist. “Shit. I forgot. Babe, show El.”

“What?” Beth asks.

“The new site. Pull it up,” Jackson says.

Beth rummages around in her purse as Jackson nudges her. “Hang on, hang on,” she says. “Here.” She hands her phone to Elliot.

“She even put up the Good Morning America clip where Mom faints. Sick, right?” Jackson says.