Hush, Hush #1 (19 page)

“Can’t,” he said. “I don’t have a heart.”

I told myself he wasn’t being literal.

I lowered myself down on the table and stacked my hands on my stomach. “Tell me when five minutes are up.” I shut my eyes, preferring not to watch Patch’s black eyes examine me.

A few minutes later I opened one eye a slit.

“Time’s up,” said Patch.

I held one upturned wrist out so he could take my pulse. Patch took my hand, and a jolt of heat shot up my arm and ended with a squeeze in my stomach.

“The subject’s pulse increased on contact,” he said.

“Don’t write that.” It was supposed to sound indignant. If anything, it sounded like I was repressing a smile.

“Coach wants us to be thorough.”

“What do
you
want?” I asked him.

Patch’s eyes connected with mine. On the inside, he was grinning. I could tell.

“Except, you know,
that
,” I said.

193

After school I swung by Miss Greene’s office for our scheduled appointment. At the end of the school day, Dr. Hendrickson had always kept his door wide open, a nonverbal invitation for students to stop by.

Every time I passed down this stretch of hallway now, Miss Greene had the door closed. All the way. The
Do not disturb
was implicit.

“Nora,” she said, opening the door after my knock, “please come in.

Have a seat.”

Her office was fully unpacked and decorated today. She’d brought in several more plants, and a panel of framed botanical prints hung in a row on the wall above her desk.

Miss Greene said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said last week. I came to the obvious conclusion that our relationship needs to be built on trust and respect. We won’t discuss your dad again, unless you specify.”

“Okay,” I said warily. What
were
we going to talk about?

“I heard some rather disappointing news,” she said. Her smile faded and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. She was holding a pen, and she rolled it between her palms. “I don’t mean to pry into your private life, Nora, but I thought I made myself perfectly clear concerning your involvement with Patch.”

I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. “I haven’t tutored him.” And, really, was it any of her business?

“Saturday night Patch gave you a ride home from Delphic Seaport. And you invited him inside your house.”

I fought to hold in a choke of protest. “How do you know about that?”

194

“Part of my job as your school psychologist is to give you guidance,”

Miss Greene said. “Please promise me you’ll be very, very careful around Patch.” She looked at me like she was actually waiting for my oath of promise.

“It’s kind of complicated,” I said. “My ride left me stranded at Delphic. I didn’t have a choice. It’s not like I seek out opportunities to spend time with Patch.” Well, except for last night at the Borderline. In my defense, I honestly hadn’t expected to see Patch. He was supposed to have the night off.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” Miss Greene answered, but she didn’t sound fully convinced of my innocence. “With that out of the way, is there anything else you’d like to talk about today? Anything weighing on your mind?”

I wasn’t about to tell her that Elliot broke into my house. I didn’t trust Miss Greene. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about her bothered me. And I didn’t like the way she kept hinting that Patch was dangerous but wouldn’t tell me why. It was almost like she had an agenda.

I hoisted my backpack off the ground and opened the door. “No,” I said.

VEE WAS LEANING AGAINST MY LOCKER, DOODLING on her 195

cast with a purple marker.

“Hi,” she said when there was nothing of the hallway left between us.

“Where’ve you been? I checked the eZine lab and the library.”

“I had a meeting with Miss Greene, the new school psych.” I said it very matter-of-factly, but on the inside, I had a hollow, trembly feeling. I couldn’t stop thinking about Elliot breaking into my house. What was stopping him from doing it again? Or from doing something worse?

“What happened?” Vee asked.

I spun my locker combination and traded out books. “Do you know how much a good alarm system costs?”

“No offense, babe, but nobody’s going to steal your car.”

I pinned Vee with a black look. “For my house. I want to make sure Elliot can’t get inside again.”

Vee glanced around and cleared her throat.

“What?” I said.

Vee did a hands-up. “Nothing. Nothing at all. If you’re still bent on nailing this to Elliot … that’s your prerogative. It’s a crazy prerogative, but hey, it’s yours.”

I shoved my locker door closed, and the rattle echoed down the hall. I bit back an accusatory response that she of all people should believe me and instead said, “I’m on my way to the library, and I’m sort of in a hurry.”

We exited the building and crossed the grounds to the parking lot, and I came up short. I looked around for the Fiat, but that’s when I remembered my mom had dropped me off on her way to work this 196

morning. And with Vee’s arm broken, she wasn’t driving.

“Crap,” Vee said, reading my thoughts, “we’re carless.”

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I squinted down the street. “Guess this means we’ll have to walk.”

“Not we. You. I’d come with, but once a week is my library limit.”

“You haven’t been to the library this week,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I might have to go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Thursday. In all your life, have you ever studied on a Thursday?”

Vee tapped a fingernail to her lip and adopted a thoughtful expression.

“Have I ever studied on a Wednesday?”

“Not that I recall.”

“There you have it. I can’t go. It would be anti-tradition.”

Thirty minutes later, I hiked up the steps leading to the library’s main doors. Once inside, I put homework on the back burner and went directly to the media lab, where I combed the Internet trying to find more information on the “Kinghorn Hanging.” I didn’t find much.

Originally there had been a lot of hype, but after the suicide note was discovered and Elliot was released, the news moved on.

It was time to take a trip to Portland. I wasn’t going to learn much more sifting through archived news articles, but maybe I’d have better luck doing legwork there.

197

I logged off and called my mom.

“Do I need to be home by nine tonight?”

“Yes, why?”

“I was thinking of taking a bus out to Portland.”

She gave me one of her
You must think I’m crazy
laughs.

“I need to interview some students at Kinghorn Prep,” I said. “It’s for a project I’ve been researching.” It wasn’t a lie. Not really. Of course, it would have been much easier to justify if I weren’t burdened by the guilt of keeping the break-in and ensuing police visit from her. I’d thought about telling her, but every time I opened my mouth to say the words, they slipped away. We were struggling to survive. We needed my mom’s income. If I told her about Elliot, she’d quit immediately.

“You can’t go to the city alone. It’s a school night and it will be dark soon. Besides, by the time you get there, the students will have left.”

I heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll be home soon.”

“I know I promised you a ride, but I’m stuck at my office.” I heard her shuffling papers in the background, and I imagined she had the phone cradled under her chin and the phone cord wrapped around her body several times. “Is it too much to ask you to walk?”

The weather was just this side of cool, I had my jean jacket, and I had two legs. I could walk. The plan sounded a lot more reasonable in my head, because the thought of walking home left my insides hollow. But aside from spending the night in the library, I didn’t see any other choice.

198

I was almost through the library doors when I heard my name called.

Turning around, I found Marcie Millar closing the distance between us.

“I heard about Vee,” she said. “It’s really sad. I mean, who would attack her? Unless, you know, they couldn’t help it. Maybe it was self-defense.

I heard it was dark and raining. It would be easy to mistake Vee for a moose. Or a bear, or a buffalo. Really, any hulking animal would do.”

“Gosh, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got a lot of things I’d rather be doing. Like sticking my hand in the garbage disposal.” I continued toward the exit.

“I hope she stayed clear of those hospital meals,” Marcie said, keeping at my heels. “I hear they’re high in fat. She can’t stand to gain a lot of weight.”

I spun around. “That’s it. One more word, and I’ll …” We both knew it was an empty threat.

Marcie simpered. “You’ll what?”

“Skank,” I said.

“Geek.”

“Slut.”

“Freak.”

“Anorexic pig.”

“Wow,” said Marcie, staggering back melodramatically with a hand pressed to her heart. “Am I supposed to act offended? Try this on for size. Old news. At least I know how to exercise a little self-control.”

199

The security guard standing at the doors cleared his throat. “All right, break it up. Take this outside or I’m going to cart the both of you inside my office and start calling parents.”

“Talk to her,” Marcie said, pointing a finger at me. “I’m the one who’s trying to be nice. She verbally attacked me. I was just offering my condolences to her friend.”

“I said
outside
.”

“You look good in uniform,” Marcie told him, flashing her trademark toxic smile.

He jerked his head at the doors. “Get out of here.” But it didn’t sound half so gruff.

Marcie sashayed up to the doors. “Mind getting the door for me? I’m short on hands.” She was holding one book. A paperback.

The guard pushed on the handicapped button, and the doors automatically glided open.

“Why, thank you,” Marcie said, blowing him a kiss.

I didn’t follow her. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I did, but I was filled with enough negative emotion that I just might do something I’d regret. Name-calling and fighting were beneath me. Unless I was dealing with Marcie Millar.

I turned around and headed back into the library. At the elevators, I stepped into the metal cage and punched the button for the basement level. I could’ve waited around a few minutes for Marcie to leave, but I knew another way out and decided to take it. Five years ago the city had 200

approved moving the public library into a historic building smack in the center of Old Town Coldwater. The red brick dated back to the 1850s, and the building was complete with a romantic cupola and a widow’s walk to watch for vessels coming in from sea. Unfortunately, the building didn’t include a parking lot, so an underground tunnel had been dug to connect the library to the underground parking garage of the courthouse across the street. The garage now served both buildings.

The elevator clanked to a stop and I stepped off. The tunnel was lit with fluorescent lights that flickered pale purple. It took me a moment to force my feet to walk. I was struck by the sudden thought of my dad the night he was killed. I wondered if he’d been on a street as remote and dark as the tunnel ahead.

Pull it together,
I told myself.
It was a random act of violence. You’ve
spent the last year paranoid about every dark alley, dark room, dark
closet. You can’t live the rest of your life terrified of having a gun pulled
on you.

Determined to prove my fear was all in my head, I headed down the tunnel, hearing the soft tap of my shoes on concrete. Shifting my backpack to my left shoulder, I calculated how long it would take to walk home, and whether or not I was up for taking a shortcut across the railroad tracks now that it was dusk. I hoped that if I kept my thoughts upbeat and busy, I wouldn’t have time to concentrate on my growing sense of alarm.

The tunnel ended, and a dark form stood straight ahead.

I stopped midstride, and my heart dropped a few beats. Patch was wearing a black T-shirt, loose jeans, steel-toed boots. His eyes looked like they didn’t play by the rules. His smile was a little too cunning for comfort.

201

“What are you doing here?” I asked, pushing a handful of hair off my face and glancing past him to the car exit leading above ground. I knew it was straight ahead, but several of the overhead fluorescent lights were out of service, making it difficult to see clearly. If rape, murder, or any other miscreant activities were on Patch’s mind, he’d cornered me in the perfect place.

As Patch moved toward me, I backed up. I came up short against a car and saw my chance. I scrambled around it, positioning myself opposite Patch, with the car between us.

Patch looked at me over the top of the car. His eyebrows lifted.

“I have questions,” I said. “A lot of them.”

“About?”

“About everything.”

His mouth twitched, and I was pretty sure he was fighting a smile. “And if my answers don’t make the cut, you’re going to make a break for it?”

He gave a nod in the direction of the garage’s exit.

That was the plan. More or less. Give or take a few glaring holes, like the fact that Patch was a lot faster than me.

“Let’s hear those questions,” he said.

“How did you know I’d be at the library tonight?”

“Seemed like a good guess.”

I didn’t for one moment believe Patch was here on a hunch. There was a side to him that was almost predatory. If the armed forces knew about 202

him, they’d do everything in their power to recruit him.

Patch lunged to his left. I countered his move, scurrying toward the rear of the car. When Patch came up short, I did too. He was at the nose of the car, and I was at the tail.

“Where were you Sunday afternoon?” I asked. “Did you follow me when I went shopping with Vee?” Patch may not have been the guy in the ski mask, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been involved in the chain of recent disturbing events. He was keeping something from me. He’d been keeping something from me since the day we met. Was it a coincidence that the last normal day in my life had been right before that fateful day? I didn’t think so.