Read Online The Murmurings by Carly Anne West - Free Book Online

point, Evan’s story about Deb had been the same as mine. But this was new. I might actually start to get answers about what happened to Nell. And even though I know this should make me happy, part of me feels like I’m in a speeding car headed toward a cliff. I’m not sure I want to hear it.
    “What kinds of stuff?” I can’t keep myself from asking.
    He leans in a little closer. “Stuff that makes you think maybe she wasn’t imagining it. Like it wasn’t all in her head.”
    A shudder runs through my body so violently that I nearly tip backward off of the picnic bench.
    “You mean, like what she was seeing and hearing was . . . ?”
    He nods slowly. “Real.”
    “Oh God.” I wrap my arms around myself. No one has put words to what I’ve felt ever since they started calling Nell schizophrenic—that there was too much that didn’t add up. Schizophrenia seemed too easy an explanation.
    “You wouldn’t believe how much is out there. Blogs and databases and websites, all of them saying the same thing. That these people aren’t crazy—that the voices they’re hearing, the things they’re seeing, are real. There are doctors, psychologists who are studying these so-called sick people. And not all of those doctors are good.”
    I’m starting to feel like I might pass out again. All I can hear in my mind is the fake empathy in Dr. Keller’s voice, the unidentifiable threat hiding behind his words.
    “Anyway, one site gets updated pretty frequently. The guy calls himself ‘the Insider.’ A lot of the people behind these sites are total nutcases, but this one seems like he’s been there. It’s just a gut feeling, but I think he knows what’s goingon. Nobody knows where the Insider is hiding out, except—well, I think I figured it out. I think he’s in Jerome. I guess I thought that if I could find him and talk to him, maybe—”
    I stand up so fast that I bang my knees on the underside of the attached table. I start pacing in the clearing.
    Evan’s voice floats to me as if from someplace far away. “What a lame date, right? Here I am, trying to make it sound like I’m taking you someplace original, but I really had this selfish motive. And then it turns out it’s the place where your sister—oh man, I suck.”
    “Evan, stop. Okay? Just—just stop for a second.” My voice sounds low and froglike.
    My head is spinning so fast it blurs my vision. Evan thinks the Insider is in Jerome. The same place Nell died after she ran off with—
    “This guy—the one from the website—doesn’t he have a name?”
    Evan shakes his head slowly, his lips pinched into an upside-down crescent. “The Insider.”
    “Right,” I say. “Well, I think I’ve got a name for you.”
    Evan lifts his chin a little higher.
    “Adam Newfeld.” Now I place my hands squarely on the table and lean toward him, making sure I have his full attention. “Otherwise known as the orderly my sister ran away with.”
    Evan’s mouth drops open as he connects the dots. “Holy shit.”
    “Yeah, holy shit.” I rub my temples against an oncoming headache. “And believe me when I tell you, he might be this ‘Insider’ guy, but there’s no way he’s in Jerome anymore. Not with all those unanswered questions about my sister.”
    Evan and I consider the flood of information that’s just passed between us. I try to slow my thoughts by focusing on the landscape. The spindly paloverde tree in the corner. The cluster of stones at the base of its neon-green trunk. The faded green and yellow awning shading the back window of the tiny restaurant. Evan looks like he’s processing something too, though what that might be I couldn’t even begin to guess.
    “So,” he says, standing slowly and looking wearily at his cooler full of untouched food. “Want some pie?”
    •  •  •
    Exhausted in the way that only a mind full of fresh questions and a stomach full of banana cream pie can make you, Evan and I drive home from Black