Watch You Burn Read online

  ALSO BY AMANDA SEARCY

  The Truth Beneath the Lies

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Amanda Searcy

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Steve Gardner

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Searcy, Amanda, author.

  Title: Watch you burn / Amanda Searcy.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2018] | Summary: Jenny, seventeen, moves to small-town New Mexico with her father after police nearly discover she is an arsonist but her urge to start fires persists, and she knows she is being watched.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018012591 | ISBN 978-1-5247-0093-5 (hardback) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0096-6 (trade paperback) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0095-9 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Arson—Fiction. | Fathers and daughters—Fiction. | Moving, Household—Fiction. | Hotels, motels, etc.—Fiction. | New Mexico—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S3369 Wat 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524700959

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Amanda Searcy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To all the new friends I’ve made along this journey

  Twigs pop and crackle under my feet, like I’m walking on a field of old brittle bones. I kneel and scoop up a handful of dry leaves. They turn to dust as I rub them between my fingers.

  One match—one tiny spark—and they’d go up. Fire whooshing through the brush, blackening the trunks of trees, licking up to the tops.

  I shiver and stand. My legs are still stiff from the plane and the drive from the airport. I’ve brought nothing but my coat with me on this walk by the river. A bitter wind blows, shaking the cottonwood trees. Against the darkening sky they look like mourners, faces twisted in agony, arms reaching toward the heavens.

  A snapping sound. I look behind me. A figure stands in the shadows twenty feet away. Hands stuffed in pockets, hood up. I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. They don’t call hello or nod at me in greeting.

  No movement at all. Just staring.

  I’m not near the road. I picked my way through the weeds and leafless trees to get to this spot. This spot away from people. Away from where anyone would see me.

  I turn my back to the figure and start to walk. My heart races, but I keep my movements calm as I listen for the pop of footsteps. I don’t hear any. I hazard a look behind me again and see nothing but trees.

  Maybe it was someone who needed to take a leak and was just as surprised to see me as I was to see them. Maybe it was my imagination.

  When I come out of the trees and onto the dirt access road, I pluck another dry leaf from the ground and crumble it. I let the pieces float away in the wind.

  Everything out here is a fire starter.

  My right hand slaps at the top of my left arm, protecting it. Tears form in my eyes.

  Twenty-four hours ago, I was standing in the snow in Ohio suburbia. A few hours on the plane and the ride from the Albuquerque airport, and now I’m here.

  A dog jangles up to me, mouth open and panting in a smile. I reach down and pat him on the head. His owner pulls him away, apologizing. She gives me and my glassy eyes a long look. She’s going to ask if I’m okay.

  No. I’m not.

  * * *

  —

  The lights are on in the motel’s office. I told Dad that I didn’t want any dinner. He doesn’t know that I went out. He thinks I’ve been tucked away in my room unpacking.

  I dash across the parking lot to the melon-colored door with the shiny brass number 2. It’s unlocked. I didn’t want to risk Dad hearing me fumble with the key. Not that I was doing anything wrong. I just went for a walk. My pockets are empty.

  I close the door gently and flop down on the bed. Despite the room’s fancy amenities, it’s still a motel room. The Los Ranchitos Inn in Las Piedras, New Mexico. A thousand people have occupied this space before. They’ve slept and watched TV. Argued and had sex. Drunk beer and shuffled their kids out to the pool.

  That was fifty years ago. It’s been an empty, falling-down shell since then. Where I’m lying now was shelter for someone with no home, a place for bugs, and a nest for whatever kinds of rodents live in the desert.

  But not anymore. This room is perfect. It has thick, plush carpet; yellow walls with crown molding; a lavender-oil-spritzed down duvet with a million pillows. That’s what the people will come for. The people with money.

  This isn’t Route 66, but they’ll still want the old-timey road trip experience—to drive their cars right up to their rooms, but then stay at a five-star hotel. Or, at least, that’s what the brochure promises.

  The bathroom is amazing. Marble, granite, Jacuzzi tub, glassed-in shower. It’s bigger than my entire bedroom in Ohio.

  Outside, the place looks like a scene from a dystopian movie. Slabs of fallen concrete litter the parking lot; the other rooms are missing ceilings and contain decades of debris, broken bottles, and the remnants of old campsites. The pool was filled in years ago so no one would break their neck stumbling around in the dark.

  Dad’s room—number 1—is on the other side of the office. Our rooms are the m
odels, spaces full of hope, dreams, and possibilities. Enough luxury to bring in the investors. The project is a go. Five months from now, every room in this run-down eyesore will look like mine. The outside will be freshly stuccoed, the parking lot repaved, and the original neon sign illuminated for that extra cheese factor.

  They’ll charge two hundred dollars a night to stay in this desert town. In a motel in the middle of nowhere, half a mile from the interstate, along a drying river.

  I stare at the pristine white ceiling from my giant lavender-scented bed. I should unpack. Release my old life into my new one.

  Most of my old life, that is.

  I unzip my carry-on and pull out a framed photo. Smiling faces gaze at me.

  Some old things need to stay packed away forever.

  FaceTime rings. My chest tightens. I don’t want to answer. They’re calling to make sure I got here okay. To look me up and down. To see if I’m a brand-new girl now that I’m in New Mexico.

  I let it ring a couple more times while I take deep breaths and arrange my face into a calm, happy mask.

  “Hi, Hailey,” I sing when I answer and see the bouncing, smiling face of my seven-year-old half sister appear on the screen. My stepfather, Brian, hovers in the background.

  Hailey wants to hear all about my “adventure.” That’s what Mom told her I was doing—going on an adventure. I walk my phone around the room, giving her a tour. I make up a story about a famous movie star having stayed here. I don’t give her one tiny bit of doubt that this isn’t the coolest place on earth.

  For my grand finale, I pull out the hat she made me and stick it on my head. It’s pink and crudely knitted, with two giant black felt eyes glued to it. Hailey is obsessed with butterflies and how some of them have markings on their wings to make predators think that the butterfly is much larger and scarier. The hat is meant to help me feel brave on my adventure.

  She claps her hands and laughs. Mom appears behind her. Hailey and I wave goodbye, and her father ushers her out of the room. He shuts the door, but he’s still there, standing behind Mom. Her fake smile is replaced by an anxious expression as soon as Hailey’s gone. I know she’s wringing her hands in her lap.

  “How’s your father?” she asks.

  “Everything is great, Mom.” She doesn’t look convinced. “The motel is nice. I got the welcome packet from Riverline Prep, and my uniforms were waiting for me.” Mom arranged everything. She wasn’t going to leave it up to Dad. She barely trusted him to pick me up from the airport.

  Her voice drops to a whisper. “You can come home. Anytime. Just call, and I’ll get you a plane ticket.”

  My eyes flit to Brian and then back to her. “Have you seen where I’m living?” I throw a hand out behind me. “It’s like I’m a princess.” I inwardly cringe. That was a step too far. Brian’s eye’s narrow.

  I yawn dramatically. “I should get ready for bed. It was a long trip, and I’m really tired.”

  Mom nods. “Okay. We’ll talk again soon. Call me if you need anything.”

  My eyes land again on Brian. His face has fallen. He looks older, as if the last few months have taken ten years off his life.

  I smile at Mom. “Night-night.” I hang up and place the phone facedown on my bed.

  I dig through my suitcases until I find some pajamas. I put them on and crawl into bed, hoping sleep will overtake me instantly.

  It doesn’t.

  My heart is still beating too fast. In my mind, I see Hailey’s face over and over again. I see flames surrounding her. Hear her screaming my name.

  And the trees.

  They’re so close to where I lie. The area’s isolated. There’s no one who could get hurt.

  I rub at the puckered, melted skin that runs in a line from my shoulder to elbow. It itches. It’s an itch that my nails can’t scratch, no matter how deeply I drive them into my skin. An itch that starts in my arm, runs down my chest, and plants itself in my heart.

  I force my hand back down to my side and take a deep breath. I can make it through this. I can be a new girl in New Mexico.

  On the nightstand next to my phone is a bottle of magic pills, full of promises of drifting off into sweet blackness. I swore to myself I wouldn’t take one tonight. They’re for emergencies only. For when I really can’t stop the movie that’s projected over and over again on the back wall of my mind.

  I take one anyway.

  Then, like every night, I mentally check the exits—door, window, bathroom—and feel some relief. I settle into my too-soft bed and turn my back to the window and all that’s outside it.

  Ugh. My head feels like it’s full of cotton. This is why I hate those sleeping pills. Even after I wake up, it takes hours for them to clear out of my system. Until then, it’ll feel like I’m walking through six feet of water.

  I uncurl myself from the ball I was sleeping in. I’ve never had anything other than a twin bed, but this king-size bed, with its six pillows and thousand-thread-count sheets, wants to swallow me whole. I can spread out my arms and legs and still not find the edges. Any monster living beneath it could crawl in next to me and I would never even know it was there.

  Dusky light filters in through the curtains. It must be seven or so. School hasn’t started yet, and there’s no reason to get up this early, but even in my semidrugged state, sleep won’t come again. My mind spins through the sludge in my head. The trees are outside. Exactly where they were last night. Still dry and crunchy, still isolated.

  Focus on something else. I crawl out of my massive bed, sink into the carpet, and walk to the bathroom, where I’ve laid down one of the person-sized towels to protect my feet from the cold marble.

  I splash water over my face to wake up my darkly circled eyes. It doesn’t work.

  Coffee. I need coffee.

  I throw my ultradown coat on—overkill for this Southern winter—and slide on my sneakers. The door opens with a swoosh.

  The morning has a bite to it, but there are no clouds in the brightening sky; there’s no snow on the ground, no hint of moisture anywhere. The traffic on the interstate has picked up. The wind blows the noise in my direction. Otherwise, it’s quiet and still.

  I take the three steps to the office that will function as our temporary living room and kitchen.

  “Dad?” I call as I open the door. I jerk back with a start. A woman stands in front of me wearing a navy blue T-shirt that reaches her midthigh—and nothing else. She holds up the coffeepot, frozen. The door shuts behind me.

  “Um, hi. Jenny, right?” Her cheeks flush red. Her blond hair looks like it was smooth and blown out yesterday, but it’s now mussed in the back, as if she had a night of little sleep. My eyes flit down to her T-shirt. It has “Breland Construction” written across the front in green block letters. Dad’s company.

  “Do you want some coffee?” she asks. I nod. She glances up at the mugs on the shelf above her head. If she reaches for one, the shirt is going to ride up, exposing whatever she has or hasn’t got on under it. She chuckles nervously.

  The door slurps open with great force behind me. We both jump.

  Dad takes in the scene. He doesn’t have the decency to look sheepish. “Morning, sweet pea,” he says, and kisses me on the top of the head, the same way he did when I was four—the last time I lived with him.

  “Good. You’ve met Monica.” He takes the coffeepot from the woman. She gives a little wave and then tugs on the bottom of her shirt.

  She nods at the door. “I’m gonna…” She takes off into the cold.

  “Monica’s the architect,” Dad says, and points to the blueprints on the table.

  “That’s nice.” I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. He’s unfazed, as if it’s a normal thing to have your teenage daughter walk in on your half-naked “architect” first thing in the morning.

  I grab
a mug, fill it to the top with coffee, and then open the minifridge, which, paired with a microwave, makes up our “kitchen.” Inside is a bottle of white wine, a block of yellow cheese, and a bunch of grapes—half missing. Great. This just keeps getting better.

  “Is there any milk?” I call over my shoulder. Dad has flopped down on the couch—the “living room”—and is messing with his phone.

  “Huh?” he mutters.

  Dad and I don’t know each other. Other than a few awkward holidays and the week he spent with me when I was in the hospital, we’ve been complete strangers for the last thirteen years.

  I hold my breath and take a long sip of the black, bitter coffee. My face twists of its own accord as I swallow.

  I glance around the office and take a deep breath. My room looks like the brochure, but nothing else does.

  When Dad told Mom it was going to be perfectly safe to live in a run-down old motel in the bad part of town, he also said that there was a full kitchen stocked with healthy food, where we would be eating father-daughter dinners.

  He failed to mention an “architect.”

  A truck rumbles up outside. Dad stuffs his phone into his pocket and stands.

  The door opens. On the other side is a muscular guy—not too much older than me—huddled in a puffy blue ski jacket.

  “Jenny, this is Cam Vargas,” Dad says.

  “Hey,” Cam grunts, and leans into the heat coming from the office.

  “Cam’s learning the business. He’s going to be my assistant. If you have any problems, he’ll take care of them.” Cam’s gel-slicked black hair doesn’t move as he nods. His face is neutral, but his eyes look like this is the last place in the world he wants to be. “He’s got one of the company trucks, too, so he can drive you if you want to go anywhere.”