Hush, Hush #1 (13 page)

flannel pajamas, fifty percent off. I need a pair of flannel pj’s.”

I kept one eye glued to the window. “I think I’m being followed.”

Vee’s head jerked up. “Patch?”

“No. Look across the street.”

Vee squinted. “I don’t see anyone.”

Neither did I anymore. A car had driven past, interrupting my line of vision. “I think they went inside the shop.”

“How do you know they’re following you?”

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“A bad feeling.”

“Did they look like anyone we know? For example … a cross between Pippi Longstocking and the Wicked Witch of the West would obviously give us Marcie Millar.”

“It wasn’t Marcie,” I said, eyes still trained across the street. “When I left the arcade last night to buy cotton candy, I saw someone watching me. I think the same person is here now.”

“Are you serious? Why are you just telling me this now? Who is it?”

I didn’t know. And that scared me more than anything.

I directed my voice at the saleslady. “Is there a back door to the shop?”

She looked up from tidying a drawer. “Employees only.”

“Is the person male or female?” Vee wanted to know.

“I can’t tell.”

“Well, why do you think they’re following you? What do they want?”

“To scare me.” It seemed reasonable enough.

“Why would they want to scare you?”

Again, I didn’t know.

“We need a diversion,” I told Vee.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “And we know I’m really good 132

at diversions. Give me your jean jacket.”

I stared at her. “No way. We know nothing about this person. I’m not letting you go out there dressed like me. What if they’re armed?”

“Sometimes your imagination scares me,” Vee said.

I had to admit, the idea that they were armed and out to kill was a little far-fetched. But with all the creepy things happening lately, I didn’t blame myself for feeling on edge and assuming the worst.

“I’ll go out first,” said Vee. “If they follow me, you follow them. I’ll head up the hill toward the cemetery, and then we’ll bookend them and get some answers.”

A minute later Vee left the store wearing my jean jacket. She picked up my red umbrella, holding it low on her head. Other than the fact that she was a few inches too tall, and a few pounds too voluptuous, she passed as me. From where I crouched behind the rack of nightgowns, I watched the hooded figure step out of the store across the street and follow after Vee. I crept closer to the window. Though the figure’s baggy sweatshirt and jeans were meant to look androgynous, the walk was feminine.

Definitely feminine.

Vee and the girl turned the corner and disappeared, and I jogged to the door. Outside, the rain had turned into a downpour.

Grabbing Vee’s umbrella, I picked up my pace, keeping under the awnings, steering clear of the pelting rain. I could feel the bottoms of my jeans dampening. I wished I’d worn boots.

Behind me the pier extended out to the cement-gray ocean. In front of me, the strip of shops ended at the base of a steep, grassy hill. At the top of the hill, I could just make out the high cast-iron fence of the local 133

cemetery.

I unlocked the Neon, cranked the defroster to high, and set the windshield wipers to full power. I drove out of the lot and turned left, accelerating up the winding hill. The trees of the cemetery loomed ahead, their branches deceptively coming to life through the mad chop of the wipers. The white marble headstones seemed to stab up from the darkness. The gray headstones dissolved into the atmosphere.

Out of nowhere, a red object hurtled into the windshield. It smacked the glass directly in my line of vision, then flew up and over the car. I stomped on the brakes and the Neon skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road.

I opened the door and got out. I jogged to the back of the car, searching for what had hit me.

There was a moment of confusion as my mind processed what I was seeing. My red umbrella was tangled in the weeds. It was broken; one side was collapsed in the exact way I might expect if it had been hurled with force against another, harder object.

Through the onslaught of rain I heard a choked sob.

“Vee?” I said. I jogged across the road, shielding my eyes from the rain as I swept my gaze over the landscape. A body lay crumpled just ahead.

I started running.

“Vee!” I dropped to my knees beside her. She was on her side, her legs drawn up to her chest. She groaned.

“What happened? Are you okay? Can you move?” I threw my head back, blinking rain.
Think!
I told myself. My cell phone. Back in the car.

I had to call 911.

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“I’m going to get help,” I told Vee.

She moaned and clutched my hand.

I lowered myself down on her, holding her tightly. Tears burned behind my eyes. “What happened? Was it the person who followed you? Did they do this to you?
What
did they do?”

Vee murmured something unintelligible that might have been

“handbag.” Sure enough, her handbag was missing.

“You’re going to be all right.” I worked to hold my voice steady. I had a dark feeling stirring inside me, and I was trying to keep it at bay. I was certain the same person who’d watched me at Delphic and followed me shopping today was responsible, but I blamed myself for putting Vee in harm’s way. I ran back to the Neon and punched 911 into my cell.

Trying to keep the hysteria out of my voice, I said, “I need an ambulance. My friend was attacked and robbed.”

MONDAY PASSED IN A DAZE. I WENT FROM CLASS TO class waiting for the final bell of the day. I’d called the hospital before school and was told that Vee was heading into the OR. Her left arm had been broken during the attack, and since the bone wasn’t aligned, she needed 135

surgery. I wanted to see her but couldn’t until later in the afternoon, when the anesthesia wore off and hospital staff moved her to her own room. It was especially important that I hear her version of the attack before she either forgot the details or embellished them. Anything she remembered might fill a hole in the picture and help me figure out who had done this.

As the hours stretched toward afternoon, my focus shifted from Vee to the girl outside Victoria’s Secret. Who was she? What did she want?

Maybe it was a disturbing coincidence that Vee had been attacked minutes after I’d watched the girl follow after her, but my instincts disagreed. I wished I had a better picture of what she looked like. The bulky hoodie and jeans, compounded with the rain, had done a good job of disguising her. For all I knew it
could’ve
been Marcie Millar. But deep inside it didn’t feel like the right match.

I swung by my locker to pick up my biology textbook, then headed to my last class. I walked in to find Patch’s chair empty. Typically, he arrived at the last possible moment, tying with the tardy bell, but the bell rang and Coach took his place at the chalk-board and started lecturing on equilibrium.

I pondered Patch’s empty chair. A tiny voice at the back of my head speculated that his absence might be connected to Vee’s attack. It was a little strange that he was missing on the morning after. And I couldn’t forget the icy chill I’d felt moments before looking outside Victoria’s Secret and realizing I was being watched. Every other time I’d felt that way, it was because Patch was near.

The voice of reason quickly extinguished Patch’s involvement. He could have caught a cold. Or he could have run out of gas on the drive to school and was stranded miles away. Or maybe there was a high-bets pool game going on at Bo’s Arcade and he figured it was more profitable than an afternoon spent learning the intricacies of the human body.

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At the end of class, Coach stopped me on my way out the door.

“Hang on a minute, Nora.”

I turned back and hiked my backpack up my shoulder. “Yes?”

He extended a folded piece of paper. “Miss Greene stopped by before class and asked me to give this to you,” he said.

I accepted the note. “Miss Greene?” I didn’t have any teachers by that name.

“The new school psychologist. She just replaced Dr. Hendrickson.”

I unfolded the note and read the message scrawled inside.

Dear Nora,

I’ll be taking over Dr. Hendrickson’s role as your school psychologist. I
noticed you missed your last two appointments with Dr. H. Please come
in right away so we can get acquainted. I’ve mailed a letter to your
mother to make her aware of the change.

All best,

Miss Greene

“Thanks,” I told Coach, folding the note until it was small enough to tuck inside my pocket.

Out in the hall I merged with the flow of the crowd. No avoiding it now

—I had to go. I steered my way through the halls until I could see the closed door to Dr. Hendrickson’s office. Sure enough, there was a new name plaque on the door. The polished brass gleamed against the drab oak door: MISS D. GREENE, SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST.

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I knocked on the door, and a moment later it opened from within. Miss Greene had flawless pale skin, sea blue eyes, a lush mouth, and fine, straight blond hair that tumbled past her elbows. It was parted at the crown of her oval-shaped face. A pair of turquoise cat’s-eye glasses sat at the tip of her nose, and she was dressed formally in a gray herringbone pencil skirt and a pink silk blouse. Her figure was willowy but feminine. She couldn’t have been more than five years older than me.

“You must be Nora Grey. You look just like the picture in your file,” she said, giving my hand a firm pump. Her voice was abrupt, but not rude.

Businesslike.

Stepping back, she signaled me to enter the office.

“Can I get you juice, water?” she asked.

“What happened to Dr. Hendrickson?”

“He took early retirement. I’ve had my eye on this job for a while, so I jumped on the opening. I went to Florida State, but I grew up in Portland, and my parents still live there. It’s nice to be close to family again.”

I surveyed the small office. It had changed drastically since I’d last been in a few weeks ago. The wall-to-wall bookshelves were now filled with academic but generic-looking hardcovers, all bound in neutral colors with gold lettering. Dr. Hendrickson had used the shelves to display family pictures, but there were no snapshots of Miss Greene’s private life. The same fern hung by the window, but under Dr. Hendrickson’s care, it had been far more brown than green. A few days with Miss Greene and already it looked pert and alive. There was a pink paisley chair opposite the desk, and several moving boxes stacked in the far corner.

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“Friday was my first day,” she explained, seeing my eyes fall on the moving boxes. “I’m still unpacking. Have a seat.”

I lowered my backpack down my arm and sat on the paisley chair.

Nothing in the small room gave me any clues as to Miss Greene’s personality. She had a stack of file folders on her desk— not neat, but not messy, either—and a white mug of what looked like tea. There wasn’t a trace of perfume or air freshener. Her computer monitor was black.

Miss Greene crouched in front of a file cabinet behind her desk, tugged out a clean manila folder, and printed my name on the tab in black Magic Marker. She placed it on her desk next to my old file, which bore a few of Dr. Hendrickson’s coffee-mug stains.

“I spent the whole weekend going through Dr. Hendrickson’s files,” she said. “Just between the two of us, his handwriting gives me a migraine, so I’m copying over all the files. I was amazed to find he didn’t use a computer to type his notes. Who still uses longhand in this day and age?”

She settled back into her swivel chair, crossed her legs, and smiled politely at me. “Well. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about the history of your meetings with Dr. Hendrickson? I could barely decipher his notes. It appeared the two of you were discussing how you feel about your mom’s new job.”

“It’s not all that new. She’s been working for a year.”

“She used to be a stay-at-home mom, correct? And after your dad’s passing, she took on a full-time job.” She squinted at a sheet of paper in my file. “She works for an auction company, correct? It looks like she coordinates estate auctions all down the coast.” She peeked at me over 139

her glasses. “That must require a lot of time away from home.”

“We wanted to stay in our farmhouse,” I said, my tone touching on the defensive. “We couldn’t afford the mortgage if she took a local job.” I hadn’t exactly loved my sessions with Dr. Hendrickson, but I found myself resenting him for retiring and abandoning me to Miss Greene. I was starting to get a feel for her, and she seemed attentive to detail. I sensed her itching to dig into every dark corner of my life.

“Yes, but you must be very lonely all by yourself at the farmhouse.”

“We have a housekeeper who stays with me every afternoon until nine or ten at night.”

“But a housekeeper isn’t the same thing as a mother.”

I eyed the door. I didn’t even try to be discreet.

“Do you have a best friend? A boyfriend? Someone you can talk to when your housekeeper doesn’t quite … fit the bill?” She dunked a tea bag in the mug, then raised it for a sip.

“I have a best friend.” I’d made up my mind to say as little as possible.

The less I said, the shorter the appointment. The shorter the appointment, the sooner I could visit Vee.

Her eyebrows peaked. “Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“You’re an attractive girl. I imagine there must be some interest from the opposite sex.”

“Here’s the thing,” I said as patiently as possible. “I really appreciate 140

that you’re trying to help me, but I had this exact conversation with Dr.

Hendrickson a year ago when my dad died. Rehashing it with you isn’t helping. It’s like going back in time and reliving it all over again. Yes, it was tragic and horrible, and I’m still dealing with it every day, but what I really need is to move on.”

The clock on the wall ticked between us.

“Well,” Miss Greene said at last, plastering on a smile. “It’s very helpful to know your viewpoint, Nora. Which is what I was trying to understand all along. I’ll make a note of your feelings in your file. Anything else you want to talk about?”