The Watcher rhb-4 Read online

  "Maybe you're right," Ray said gently. He used his sleeve to rub a coffee stain off one of the little alien faces decorating the table. "But just in case you're not, I-"

  Max felt like he was about to lose it. He could already feel a lump growing in his throat, and his eyes were getting so wet that another blink might bring tears.

  He sprang out of his chair so quickly that it toppled. He caught it before it hit the ground and slammed it back in place. Then he took a long breath, pulling it deep into his lungs. "What do you want me to do today?" he asked. "I know you're not paying me to grow my hair."

  Ray gave a small smile-whether because Max had used one of Ray's favorite expressions or because of his amazingly obvious subject change, Max wasn't sure. "Why don't you go into the storage area and see if you can find any more foo fighter stuff for the display?"

  "On it." Max took three steps away from the table, then turned. "Ray, if you're right and I do have to connect to the consciousness, how much time do I have?"

  "It's hard to say exactly," Ray admitted. "Maybe months. Maybe days."

  *** 2 ***

  "Is it closing time?" Maria DeLuca whined. "Please let it be closing time." She slid her left heel out of her new shoe and studied the massive blister growing there.

  "Five minutes," her best friend, Liz Ortecho, told her. "I don't know why you wore those shoes to work, anyway."

  "In these shoes I actually approach tallness," Maria explained. "You just don't know what it's like when you're my height. People act like I'm some kind of mutant-part girl, part puppy. Strangers pat me on the head."

  That was the truth. Kind of. Maria did like being taller. But if she was totally and completely honest, she chose the shoes more because of what they did for her legs than what they did for her height. She'd have to live in the gym to get the killer calves those shoes gave her.

  Liz's dad had broken down and bought new uniforms for the wait staff at the Crashdown Cafe. They were basically Men in Black rip-offs. Except Maria had gone for the black skirt instead of the black pants. And in her new skirt, with the new shoes, well, it's not like she was suddenly as beautiful as Liz or anything. But the combo definitely got her a few more looks, and a few more tips, than usual.

  Unfortunately the guy she most wanted to do the looking, Michael Guerin, hadn't shown up today. He hung out at the cafe a lot. Of course, he never bothered to tell her in advance when he was going to stop by. That would make things way too easy on her. And her feet.

  "People don't pat you on the head because you're short," Liz explained. "It's because your hair looks so springy. People want to touch it to see if it will go boing."

  "Oh, thanks for clarifying that." Maria tried to shoot Liz an annoyed look but ruined it by breaking into giggles.

  "I'll collect the sugar bowls, and you can start filling them," Liz said. "That way you can stay behind the counter… where probably no one will notice that you aren't wearing shoes."

  Maria immediately kicked off the torture devices masquerading as footwear. Aaaah! She gave her toes a happy wiggle, then knelt down to grab the sugar. As she reached for the box, the opening notes of the Close Encounters theme rang out.

  The door chime. Someone was coming in. Was it Michael? Without standing up, Maria grabbed her left shoe and jammed her foot in. She felt an explosion of wetness on her heel as her blister burst. She ignored the pain and shoved on the right shoe, gripping the counter for balance. Then she slowly stood up, trying for a casual, I-have-no-idea-the-door-chime-even-rang coolness.

  Her casual smile faded when she saw Elsevan DuPris standing in front of the cash register. The guy gave her the creeps. It's not that he wasn't friendly. In fact, he was a little too friendly. And his southern accent, it was a little too southern. It just sounded fake. Which brought up the question-why? Why would a person stroll around dressed in a white suit and white shoes, twirling a walking stick and talking in an obviously fake southern accent?

  DuPris was the editor-owner of the Astral Projector, Roswell's all-alien tabloid. So you had to expect the guy to be a little eccentric. But he was even eccentric in his eccentricity.

  "I'm doing a poll for my little paper, and I wondered if you'd be good enough to assist me," DuPris drawled. "I believe there is a connection between a person's ability to roll their tongue and alien inbreeding somewhere in their lineage. I thought it would be interesting to see if we have a greater number of people with this attribute in our fair town, for obvious reasons."

  Liz rushed up to the counter and dropped a load of the flying-saucer-shaped sugar bowls. "Sounds interesting. I'd love to see your data sometime, but we're closed now, so-"

  "So I'll say good night to you young ladies. And I'll be sure to bring these, uh, experimental results by," DuPris said. He tipped his white Panama hat and sauntered out the door. Liz followed him and locked it the second he stepped outside.

  Maria smiled as she kicked off her shoes for the second time. Liz definitely knew how to put people in their place when they needed it. If she hadn't been around, Maria probably would have done the tongue-rolling thing for DuPris, feeling like an idiot the whole time. Then she'd probably have been sucked into a long conversation with him, making feeble comments about needing to get back to work but not actually being able to escape.

  Liz returned with an armful of ketchup bottles and lowered them to the counter. Maria rolled her tongue at her.

  "So you're part alien," Liz teased. "Anything else you've been hiding?"

  "You already know I'm really a man, so I guess not," Maria answered. She picked up the sugar box and started refilling the bowls.

  "Just checking," Liz said. "Keeping secrets from me is a serious violation. I don't want to have to bring you up in front of the best friend review board." She ducked behind the counter and headed into the kitchen.

  Maria shot a glance after her. Liz was doing that kind of joking around that has a little truth lurking somewhere in the background. And the truth was that Maria hadn't been totally up front with her best friend lately.

  Liz returned to the counter with a big plastic jug of ketchup and a funnel. "Okay, okay. I wore these shoes because I was hoping Michael would come by," Maria blurted. "And yes, I have a totally hopeless, pathetic thing for him."

  Liz laughed. "I knew that already. I was actually talking about the whole psychic powers episode. How could you not tell me about something so big?" She unscrewed the top on the closest ketchup bottle and stuck in the funnel.

  Maria felt a blush creeping up her neck. In a second her whole face would be red. "I still feel like such a loser. I can't believe I actually thought I was psychic. You should have seen me. I was so jazzed, thinking I had this amazing gift. It was so incredible to hold something that belonged to a person and then be able to see exactly what they were doing. And healing Sassy. That was awesome."

  "You shouldn't feel like a loser. How could you have known?" Liz asked. "Like you were supposed to think, 'Hey maybe that ring I found at the mall has an alien power stone in it.'"

  Liz pushed the ketchup bottle away and turned to face Maria. "What I want to know is why you didn't tell me what was going on," she said, her dark brown eyes serious and watchful.

  I really hurt her feelings, Maria realized. Duh. Like I wouldn't have been hurt if I found out Liz had been keeping some big secret from me.

  "I wasn't trying to shut you out or anything," Maria explained. "It's just that you weren't doing too well. You were so messed up over the Max sitch. There didn't seem to be a good time to bring it up."

  "Maria, no matter what's going on with me, I still want to know what's going on with you," Liz said. "If you'd told me, maybe I could have-"

  "Stop," Maria interrupted. "You and Max act like you're responsible for everybody else's problems. It's so not true."

  She gave a long sigh. "You know what, if I told you, there is a chance you would have stopped me before…"

  "Before you almost died," Liz filled in.

  "Y
eah. And that's probably why I didn't say anything to you. I didn't want to be stopped. I told myself I wasn't clueing you in to what was going on because you were devastated by the whole Max thing. But that's only partly true. I basically knew I was playing with something dangerous. I kept getting blackouts, even a nasty nosebleed."

  Maria heard Liz give a sharp intake of breath, but she didn't stop talking. She had to get this out. "But I didn't want to stop using the powers-or be stopped by you-until I found out where Michael's parents' ship was being kept."

  "So this was all about Michael," Liz said.

  "I had some stupid idea that if I could do that for him…" Maria shook her head hard. "Forget it. It's too stupid to even say."

  "It's not stupid," Liz told her. "Well, okay, it's stupid. But understandable stupid. Not just stupid stupid."

  "That makes me feel better," Maria mumbled. Then she met Liz's gaze directly. "It does. It feels good to have told you the total truth."

  "So, we're agreed. No more secrets," Liz said.

  "No more secrets," Maria promised. She pushed up the hinged section of the counter and stepped through, then grabbed a couple of the sugar bowls and headed toward the closest row of tables.

  "Maria," Liz called.

  Maria turned to face her. She should have known Liz wouldn't let her off the hook without more of a lecture on putting her life in jeopardy.

  "Why don't you tell Michael how you feel?" Liz asked.

  "Why?" Maria repeated. She blushed, then hugged the sugar bowls more tightly to her chest. "Because if I do that, he might laugh. Or he might start acting all weird around me. Or he might just avoid me." Maria could hear her voice shaking with emotion, but she kept going. "He might stop climbing through my window late at night… and I don't think I could stand that."

  "You know what else might happen?" Liz asked gently. "He might tell you he feels the same way about you."

  *** 3 ***

  "All right, so I'm thinking, for this week's list, 'Bills That I'd Rather Be Than Me.' Number one: Bill Gates. Number two: Billy Baldwin. Number three: Mr. Bill. What do you guys think? Is that stupid?"

  Same spot in the quad as at lunch yesterday. Same people. Practically the same conversation, with Alex going on about ideas for the lists he put on his web site, Liz thought. Then she smiled. She wouldn't want it any other way.

  "How about terms for guys who spend way too much time thinking about their web page?" Michael suggested. "Number one-wedgie boy."

  "Hey, you know how many hits I get? My lists have a following. It's practically a cult thing," Alex protested.

  "Number two-big goober," Maria suggested.

  Liz noticed that Isabel wasn't jumping in to defend her man. She wasn't sure what she thought about the Alex-Isabel hookup. It's not that she didn't like Isabel. Liz was actually feeling closer to her all the time. But she and Alex… they just weren't an obvious couple. They had some of that I'm-a-little-bit-country / I'm-a-little-bit-rock-and-roll deal going on.

  Isabel was the ultimate It girl. The girl who got noticed and envied, lusted after, hated, or some combination thereof by pretty much everyone.

  Alex was, well-

  "Or how about geek child," Maria volunteered, snickering.

  No, Alex wasn't exactly geeky. But he didn't stand out of the crowd the way Isabel did. You had to get to know him before you realized how totally cool he was. He had this great, wacked sense of humor, and when he believed in something, he absolutely would not back down. Plus he had amazing green eyes, rich reddish brown hair, and a lean, muscular body.

  It wasn't hard for Liz to see why a girl would want to be with him. Lots of girls, actually. But Isabel? Liz shook her head. Hey, if it worked, it worked. And it seemed to be working.

  "Come on, Liz, Max. Join the fun. Take your best shot," Alex told her. He slammed his fists into his chest. "I can take it."

  "Uh, cyberweenie?" Liz offered.

  "Does anyone want the rest of this sandwich?" Max asked.

  "I'll take it," Alex and Michael said together.

  Liz shot a sharp look at Max. He'd pretty much fainted last week, out of the blue. Since then she'd asked him a few times if he was feeling okay, and he kept insisting that he was. But she believed in going by the facts-the fact that he seemed lethargic a lot of the time, the fact that he wasn't eating much, the fact that his skin had a slightly grayish tone. And the facts made her doubt him.

  She didn't want a repeat of the Maria situation. If there was something wrong with Max, she needed to know about it.

  The bell rang. Isabel and Maria slowly headed to their English class. Michael and Alex took off in opposite directions. Leaving her alone with Max.

  "Ready for another adventure in the wonderful world of science?" he asked her as he shoved himself to his feet.

  He sounded normal. Except that his voice was a little too bright, like he was straining for his usual tone and overshooting it.

  "Always," Liz answered. She heard that same quality in her voice, that see-there's-really-nothing-wrong sound.

  This was so ridiculous. She loved Max, and she knew he loved her. Yeah, they had agreed-well, Max had insisted, and Liz had agreed-that they would be just friends.

  But did that mean they had to be so phony? Why couldn't he trust her with the truth-whatever it was? Why couldn't she just tell him to cut the bull and tell her what was going on?

  Maybe it's because we're still being careful with each other, Liz thought as they made their way to the main building. We've managed to create this friend facade over the mess of our relationship. But it's not that strong. Maybe we both know it would be very easy to destroy it.

  Liz led the way inside and over to the staircase. She and Max climbed in silence. She could hear his breathing pick up as they got near the top. Another fact to add to the pile. Max was in good shape. A few stairs shouldn't get him breathing hard.

  Liz shortened her stride as they walked down the hall to give Max a chance to catch his breath. "I read over the experiment we're doing today. It sounds pretty interesting," she said as they entered the classroom and took their places in their usual lab station.

  Max didn't answer.

  Liz Ortecho, Queen of Idle Chitchat, she thought.

  "We have another long one today," Ms. Hardy announced. "You can go ahead and get started. I'll work my way to all of you, but flag me down if you have questions."

  "I'll set up the Bunsen burner," Max said.

  "I'll weigh the samples," Liz volunteered.

  At least this was something they didn't have to fake. They both took their lab work seriously. And they were a good team.

  Liz pulled the scale out of the cupboard-pretty grimy. She stepped up to the sink, turned on the water, dampened a long piece of brown paper towel, and scrubbed the scale clean. Don't these amateur scientists know that a dirty scale can corrupt all your data? she thought.

  "Max," Ms. Hardy called from a lab station near the front of the room, "that flame is much too high."

  Liz glanced over. Ms. Hardy was right. The Bunsen burner's flame was inches above where it needed to be. And the tip of Max's finger was right in the middle of the fire!

  The odor of cooking meat hit her nose, and her throat clenched in a dry gag. What was he doing? Couldn't he feel that he was burning himself? Liz shot out her hand and twisted off the gas. The flame disappeared.

  "Max, are you okay?" Liz demanded. "Let me see your finger." She reached for his hand.

  "It's fine," Max snapped. He jerked his hand away.

  "It can't be fine," she shot back. "You were holding it in the fire. And your skin… Max, your skin was bubbling."

  ***

  "I've got to go change for practice," Isabel said, but she didn't pull away from Alex. What he was doing just felt too good. Except that the way he was leaning into her was jamming her lower back against one of the bleacher's metal steps.

  "I could help you," Alex mumbled against her ear, his warm breath sending spikes of ple
asure through her body. He reached between them and started unbuttoning her blouse.

  Isabel grabbed his hand. "Thanks, but I think I can handle it." Their position back alongside the bleachers would prevent most people from seeing them. But still.

  Alex slowly rebuttoned the buttons. Then he smoothed down her collar and brushed a lock of her hair back in place. Sometimes he could be so tender. It made Isabel feel like she was turning all liquid inside.

  "Is-a-bel!" Stacey Scheinin's high, baby-doll voice echoed through the gym. "Get a move on. You can't afford to miss one minute of practice. We're going to watch a video of our last halftime show before we start. You'll see what I mean."

  "Want me to kill her for you?" Alex asked.

  "Maybe for my birthday," Isabel answered. She gave him a quick gotta-go kiss and jumped away before he could get his hands on her again.

  "Remember tonight's the night you're having dinner at my house," Alex said.

  "Like I'd forget," Isabel answered. How could she? She'd been trying to think of a good excuse to get out of it all week. She'd met his mom once for about two seconds, and she seemed nice enough. But his dad sounded obnoxious. And then there were two of his brothers. Alex hardly ever talked about them, so she didn't really know what to expect.

  "I'll see you in a few hours." She turned around and headed to the locker room. She was careful not to hurry. Stacey was holding the door for her, giving her a little frown that was meant to be intimidating. Isabel flashed a quick smile to show that it wasn't.

  "Everyone, Isabel needs our help," Stacey called as she followed Isabel down the row of lockers. "She has a new boy who is in serious need of a makeover. I know you've all seen him. Any suggestions? I was thinking maybe an 'I heart Isabel' tattoo."

  Isabel thought about saying she'd just been doing a little charity work, giving Alex a thrill. It's not like he could hear her or anything. He'd never know.

  But she'd feel like scum. It wasn't worth it.

  "Yeah, a tattoo's a great idea. Isabel could get a matching one," someone called from the next row.