The Secret Runners of New York Read online

  Her gaze wandered over my shoulder, searching for someone more important to talk to.

  I didn’t mind. I took the opportunity to examine her neckpiece up close. It appeared to be exactly the same as Misty’s.

  When she finally turned her full gaze back to me, Mrs Collins caught me looking at her necklace and she smiled knowingly. ‘These two necklaces have been in our family for a very long time. It’s so nice to wear them in public knowing that no-one else knows their secret.’

  ‘I feel privileged to be in on it, ma’am,’ I said.

  She smiled briefly before her searching gaze found someone and she said, ‘Oh, there’s Hilda. Please excuse me.’

  When she was gone, Misty said to me, ‘I asked my mom today if she had ever gone up and out of the well back when she’d done her runs. She said no, back then the well had been covered over with a layer of vines and thornbushes, so they couldn’t even see the sky. My mom and her friends didn’t even try to get out of the tunnel. They knew something weird was going on, though, because the entry cavern was different. With us, it’s all covered in dust in the future; for them it also looked different. But by going out into that other New York, we’re doing something they never did.’

  At that moment, Bo appeared at Misty’s side with a couple of drinks.

  ‘Misty, they’re asking for everybody to be seated. I got us some dri—’ He cut himself off, seeing me. ‘Skye? Hey. What are you doing here . . .?’

  I felt my face go hot as I blushed bright red. ‘Just, you know, working on a Saturday night.’ I flicked a stray strand of hair over my ear self-consciously.

  I felt stupid. Stupid and underdressed in my vest and trousers, while they stood there in their finest formal wear. I may have lived in a wealthy building with a wealthy stepfather and gone to the same wealthy school as they did, but tonight they were in a different league.

  I don’t know if Misty saw something more in my discomfort, but when she hooked her arm in Bo’s, her eyes locked onto mine, flashing with a definite sense of ownership.

  Oh, she saw it, all right.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll see you later,’ she said as she led Bo away to their table. I caught him glancing back at me a little helplessly as they left and I just rolled my eyes in a wry way that said, as best as I could, Never mind, it’s okay.

  All in all, I can’t say the East Side Cotillion really did that much for me.

  It turned out to be just another ball.

  Sure, it had a short half-hour where the debutantes were ‘presented’ to society and that was kind of nice. Misty’s eyes shone as she strode up the aisle, all on her own, while the master of ceremonies announced her name.

  At her family’s table, I saw her sister, Chastity, and her little brother, Oz, clapping. Her parents positively beamed. Her mother actually leapt up from her chair and gave Misty a one-woman standing ovation.

  But after the presentation segment of the evening, well, the guests did what guests do at any other ball, wedding or gala: they got drunk.

  As the well-dressed men began to indulge in shots of whiskey and bourbon, they sloughed off their bow ties and loosened their shirts.

  The dazzlingly-dressed women began to drop their champagne flutes, breaking them. One woman slapped another. I even caught a sixty-something matron—unable or perhaps unwilling to find the distant ladies’ room—hitching up her dress and peeing into a potted tree in a side corridor.

  As Jenny and I bent down with matching dustpans to sweep up two more smashed champagne glasses, Jenny said, ‘Welcome to the world of the rich and well bred.’

  ‘Is it always like this?’ I asked. ‘Or do you think they’re indulging more because of the gamma cloud?’

  Jenny said, ‘No, society functions are always like this. They start off all ceremonial and stately, and then they descend to this. Have you said hello to your buddies on table two?’

  She nodded at Misty’s table.

  ‘I’ve seen you and your brother hanging out with Misty and her people lately,’ Jenny said, a little sadly. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Just be careful. That family is weird. Got a mean streak. Misty, obviously. Her little brother, Oz, is odd. And her sister, Chastity, well. Last year, a lot of people thought Chastity was going to be named Belle of the Ball at the Cotillion. But Becky Taylor got the tiara instead. Chastity was so pissed.’

  ‘Becky Taylor?’ I said, trying to remember where I’d heard that name. Then it clicked. ‘Wasn’t she one of the girls from Monmouth who went missing?’

  ‘She was indeed. Disappeared on this very night last year,’ Jenny said. ‘After the Cotillion finished, she went out into the night in her white debutante’s gown and never came back.’

  ‘You think Chastity had something to do with it?’

  ‘I’m just saying, be careful.’ Jenny headed back to the kitchen, while I continued to brush shards of glass into my dustpan. When I was done, I stood up and found myself standing face-to-face with Bo Bradford.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you here.’

  I did a mock curtsey. ‘Musta left my gown at home.’

  ‘You look great,’ he said with a smile. Then he looked around, as if to check if anyone was nearby. ‘Listen, I’d really like to restart our little study sessions at the Met. I enjoy them a lot. Things have got a little, I don’t know, crazy lately.’

  I smiled. ‘I’d like that, too.’

  ‘Like what?’ a voice said from behind me and I spun to find Misty right in my personal space. She was staring intently from me to Bo and back again, as if she’d caught us in bed together.

  Bo saved me. ‘I was saying that all this talk about the end of the world just gets to you after a while. I said I’d just like it all to stop.’

  Misty seemed to evaluate this explanation for a moment, and then she blinked, accepting it, and smiled tightly.

  ‘That’s my Bo,’ she said. ‘Always seeing the emotional side of things. I’m far more pragmatic. If the world’s gonna end, just end, already.’

  At that moment, Jenny emerged from the kitchen and stopped abruptly, almost bumping into Misty.

  ‘Jenny,’ Misty said slowly. ‘So good to see you. I was just thinking I needed another drink. Can you run along and get me—oh, I don’t know—something bubbly?’

  ‘Get it yourself,’ Jenny said. She held up her watch. ‘It’s eleven o’clock. I just clocked off. I don’t work here anymore.’

  But Misty wasn’t done. ‘That’s okay. I don’t want to be too hard on you, Jenny. I mean, I wouldn’t want you to, you know, harm yourself or anything like that.’

  Jenny froze. I did, too.

  I could see Jenny’s mind working, wondering how Misty could possibly know about her history of self-harm.

  And then, just for a second, Jenny glanced at me and for a horrifying moment I thought she might think I had told Misty about her suicide attempt.

  Then Jenny straightened, maintaining her dignity. ‘Misty, there’s one thing you haven’t figured out about me, something I would’ve thought you’d have got by now. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, you cannot hurt me.’

  And with that mike drop, she strode off.

  I wanted to chase after Jenny, to assure her that it hadn’t been me who had given up her secret, but Misty grabbed my arm. ‘Hey, Skye. The ball is over but the night is still young. Want to go for a little celebratory run?’

  A LATE-NIGHT RUN

  We arranged to meet behind the Met in an hour, so that Misty could go home and get changed. When I arrived at the conservancy garden, I expected to find all the other runners there—Bo, Verity, Hattie, Dane, perhaps Griff—but Misty stood there alone.

  It was just her and me.

  ‘I thought we sho
uld spend some quality time together, just us girls,’ Misty said lightly.

  I nodded even though I was a little unnerved. This had never happened before. Apart from the incident in the locker room with her period, we had never actually done anything on our own before.

  Jenny’s warning echoed in my mind: Be careful.

  Misty’s debutante gown had been a two-piece affair, so she had swapped out the billowing lower half for some jeans and her Golden Goose sneakers. She’d thrown a jacket over the upper half: a white sequinned strapless bodice that actually went quite well with the jacket and blue jeans combo.

  Arriving in the entry cavern, Misty grabbed a small backpack from the corner and slung it over her shoulder. It was the pack containing the grappling hook. After we had gone exploring as a group, it had been decided to leave the pack here for future use.

  Then she placed her gem in the slot in the low pyramid, the rippling curtain of purple light appeared, and in we went.

  MISTY AND ME, ON THE INSIDE

  Misty talked all the way down the tunnel, gossiping about the attendees at the Cotillion, what they’d worn, who they’d gone with, how thrilled she’d been to bump into me there, and Bo.

  ‘I don’t want to sound like some silly love-struck fool, but I just adore him so much,’ she said wistfully. ‘And I know he loves me. It’ll sound weird, but we just have a connection. I’ve known it since I was little. My mom and Bo’s mom talk about it all the time. They’re convinced he and I will be married by the time we’re twenty-three.’

  She said this as we arrived at the trash heap beneath the well, the site of my second—and most amazing—kiss with Bo. Of all the places in the world, this was not the best one for me to contemplate Misty and Bo being together forever. And listening to Misty talk so weirdly about connections and the like, I was very glad she didn’t know about that kiss.

  I peered up the well shaft as Misty hurled the grappling hook up into it. I was thinking about Screaming Bald Guy. This was his time of night.

  After several tries, Misty succeeded in securing the grappling hooked and we scaled the knotted rope.

  We emerged from the well inside the Central Park of the future.

  It was past midnight. The moon was high, bathing the park in dim silver light.

  All was silent.

  A faint wind rustled through the trees.

  No bald man. Thank God.

  ‘This way.’ Misty headed off toward the Swedish Cottage. I hurried after her.

  She pushed westward, striding with purpose, following the Bridle Path for a while before she veered abruptly onto a narrow dirt trail. Clearly, she had a plan, somewhere she was intent on going.

  My mind whirred.

  Why has she brought me here? And not one of her closer friends, like Verity or Hattie? And alone?

  Then we stepped out of the park onto Central Park West and as I beheld Misty’s destination, I finally realised why she had brought me along alone.

  Our destination loomed before us, twin pointed shadows stabbing the night sky, the ghastly gigantic vandalism on them visible in the moonlight: the two towers of the San Remo building.

  ‘After we saw Verity’s place and the school,’ Misty said, ‘I wanted to go to our building to see what happens to our families. I figured we should go together, just the two of us, in case it’s, you know, gruesome. I plan to do the same with Hattie.’

  I couldn’t fault her logic. It was actually quite considerate.

  Like me, she had seen Verity’s shock at seeing her parents’ message on her bedroom wall. And that had just been a message. What if, like at the school, we discovered the long-dead bodies of people we loved in our homes? That was definitely best done with a single companion and not the larger group.

  And so we crossed the grassy field that was Central Park West and stood before the San Remo building, with the two hateful messages scrawled in giant letters on it.

  This time, I was able to look more closely at the figure hanging from the noose on the face of the building.

  It was a man.

  His features had long ago been eroded by the weather and whatever remaining birdlife there was, but his clothes were still intact. Indeed, the rope around his neck had been tied around the collar of his overcoat, which was how he had remained hanging for so long.

  Seeing the figure up close for the first time, I suddenly recognised the overcoat: black with purple sleeves.

  The man hanging in front of my building was Manny Wannemaker, the firebrand radio host.

  ‘They hanged Manny . . .’ I gasped.

  Misty just shook her head and together we entered the San Remo building.

  We went to Misty’s place first.

  Our footsteps echoed as we climbed the internal fire stairs, guided by the flashlights of our smartphones. The stairwell smelled musty: the odour of abandonment.

  We came to the 21st floor and emerged from the stairwell into a dark corridor. The lone window at the end of it had been shattered, allowing rain to enter. The carpet stank of mould and mildew.

  The front door of Misty’s apartment was ajar.

  It squealed as Misty pushed it open.

  Looters had been through here. There were muddy bootprints all over the expensive white carpet.

  But they had been selective. Some drawers had been pulled open, yet the furniture had not been damaged at all. It was the work of treasure hunters not indiscriminate vandals.

  Wind whistled through the broken windows, making the curtains billow.

  The vines of a few potted plants had spent the last twenty years creeping toward the windows, seeking sunlight and rain. They looked like snakes draped over the chairs and couches. They made my skin crawl.

  Walking slowly and warily behind Misty, I scanned the apartment.

  The bookcase in the living room was intact, its neat rows of books untouched for twenty years. Their tops were covered in a layer of moist dust but their spines were visible.

  It was the classic ‘Republican Voter’s Bookshelf’: the entire Tom Wolfe collection, including an original hardback of The Bonfire of the Vanities; everything ever written by Ayn Rand; Free to Choose by Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose; and a bunch of books written by Fox News hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.

  I smiled wryly when I saw one particular book hiding on the bottom shelf: Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

  ‘I’m guessing that was a gift,’ I said to Misty, nodding at it.

  Misty snorted derisively. ‘Yeah. It’s even autographed: “To Starley, from Hillary”. My uncle Morty gave it to my mom for her birthday, just to get a rise out of her. It certainly did that. Uncle Morty’s a left-wing liberal asshole. My mom got the last laugh, though, when Hillary lost the election.’

  Misty’s parents—or at least their bodies—weren’t there.

  ‘Maybe they made it to the Retreat,’ Misty said.

  Moving through the empty apartment, I came to Oz’s bedroom.

  Stepping cautiously through the doorway, I saw all the Rangers paraphernalia on the walls again—the posters, pennants and framed jerseys—only now their vivid red, white and blue colours had been paled by age and dust. And then I noticed.

  The goalie’s mask was gone.

  Oz’s signed Rangers goalie mask, the freaky one that had been decorated with the American flag.

  In the spot where it had stood back in the real world, I now saw a bare circle in the dust—like the pale patch left on a wall after you removed a painting that had hung in the same place for many years.

  I frowned, thinking.

  Someone had been here recently and taken the goalie’s mask.

  Bang! The door behind me slammed shut.

  I whirled, my pulse rate spiking.

  Had it been the wind? Or something else?

  I was
reaching for the doorknob when a faint clinking sound made me spin back to face the bedroom.

  It had come from inside Oz’s closet.

  My eyes went wide. My heart began to—

  Then with a loud crash the door to Oz’s closet burst open from within and three dark figures exploded from it, fists raised and shrieking, the leader clutching a kitchen knife and rushing at me with pure unadulterated rage.

  ATTACKERS

  I screamed as they threw me back onto Oz’s bed.

  The first of the three attackers leapt on top of me. He was a large man and I felt his immense weight as he landed astride me. He shrieked as he raised his knife and then thrust it down at my chest.

  I raised my hands in pathetic defence, squeezed my eyes shut.

  Yet nothing happened.

  No searing pain. No bloody wounds.

  Then, slowly, the man’s shriek became a cackle, then a laugh, a deep wicked laugh that I recognised: Griff O’Dea’s laugh.

  I opened my eyes to see Griff kneeling on top of me. He was dressed in a dark tracksuit and a black ski mask. He yanked off the ski mask, allowing his frizzy orange hair to spring outward and revealing a broad grin on his freckled face. Behind him, Verity and Hattie wore similar tracksuits, beanies and grins.

  ‘Boo!’ Griff said. ‘We got you.’

  A moment later, Misty opened the door (which she had evidently slammed shut) and joined us, smiling apologetically.

  ‘Sorry, Skye. We couldn’t resist the opportunity for such a good prank,’ she said.

  Gradually, my pounding heart slowed and I returned her smile, albeit weakly.

  The fact that I accepted the prank graciously seemed to go down well with the group and they each patted me on the back as they headed out of Oz’s dusty bedroom.

  As she went past me, Hattie took a swig from a little bottle of Moët and burped. She was wearing her black and gold Lululemon tracksuit. I’d been ambushed by a girl in designer athleisure wear.

  I shook my head and followed them.

  Of course, Misty had planned it all.