The Burning Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

a sobbing heap while Olivia packed up the rest of her sister’s things. Olivia’s own meager possessions were already neatly organized and stowed inside a single rolling suitcase, but Rachel had been unable to handle packing. As if leaving her shoes and CDs strewn around the room would prevent them from having to leave their familiar home.
    No such luck.
    A Child Welfare agent named Leona Byers had just arrived and was standing in the doorway, waiting impatiently for Olivia to finish. She was in her late forties, short and round with razor-thin eyebrows and a fussy little mouth. Her bushy black hair was cut into a weirdly mannish style that clashed with her tight floral dress, chandelier earrings, and garish make up.
    “Look,” Olivia said, “I don’t understand why we can’t just stay here. I can quit school and get a job. I’ve been taking care of all the bills and things since mom got sick, so I know what to do. We don’t need foster care.”
    “I’m sorry, honey,” Leona said, her smarmy, insincere tone making it clear that she was anything but sorry. “That’s just not how it works.”
    “But we’ll get to stay together though, right?” Rachel asked, suddenly panicky. “They’re not gonna separate us are they?”
    Leona smiled, flashing her disturbingly perfect little doll teeth.
    “You’d better hurry up and finish packing,” she said.
    “They can’t separate us!” Rachel cried, clutching Olivia’s arm. “You won’t let them, will you?”
    “Here,” Olivia said, handing Rachel their mother’s favorite teddy bear, a panda holding a heart that read GET WELL SOON! A gift from Olivia and Rachel during the first few days of her first hospital stay, back when getting well soon still seemed like a possibility. Rachel clung to the panda like a life preserver while Olivia put her arm around her little sister and spoke close to her ear.
    “If they try to separate us,” she whispered, “I’ll run away and come find you. I swear. Okay?”
    Rachel hugged the panda even tighter and nodded.
    Outside the open door, the mailman was whistling an upbeat salsa tune as he shoved letters and magazines through the mail slot of each apartment. When he reached the Dunham apartment, he raised a hand and called inside.
    “Here you go,” he said, holding a single envelope out to Olivia.
    She turned it over in her hands. The paper was a creamy off-white, thick and expensive. In the place where a return address would be, there was just a corporate logo, a graphic three-dimensional letter M.
    She opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of equally expensive letterhead with the same M logo.
Dear Olivia and Rachel Dunham,
    We are pleased to offer you both full academic scholarships at The Deerborn Academy in Westley, Massachusetts. Room and board are included, plus a monthly stipend to cover your basic living expenses until graduation. Enclosed are two airline tickets from Jacksonville to Boston, where you will be met by a school official who will transport you to the campus.
    Please note that although the date on the tickets is open ended, it would be in your best interest to leave immediately, so you may start the semester at the same time as all the other students in your respective grades.
    The letter wasn’t signed. As indicated, the envelope did contain a pair of airline tickets, as well as a glossy brochure extolling the virtues of the school. It looked perfect—a dream come true. Only Olivia didn’t remember applying for a scholarship to any Deerborn Academy.
    On the other hand, she had applied for dozens of grants and scholarships in the last desperate months of her mother’s life, including several national programs that offered to find placement on behalf of gifted students experiencing personal hardships. She didn’t specifically remember any of those programs having a three-dimensional M logo, but she was under such immense pressure and stress that it wasn’t out of the question that she