We stared at each other across the room. Mom went to the curtains and peeked through without pulling them apart. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s Reid.”
I strode to the door, and as I pulled it open I realized that I knew, with every ounce of my being, what Reid meant when he always said, “I know you.” He was right. He knew me. I knew him.
I opened the door all the way, like I should’ve done the day before. Reid stood back, barely on the walkway, almost in the parking lot. And in front of him was Colleen. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes were bloodshot, and she had a bag slung over her shoulder. She punched me in the arm. “You are such an asshole.” Then she flung herself at me and I barely caught her, and I laughed so hard I was almost crying.
“What are you—” I said.
Reid sounded far away when he said, without really looking at me, “She was wandering around campus asking for you. She was talking to Bree when I found her.”
“That was Bree?” Colleen asked. “Not. Impressed.” She disentangled herself from my hold. “You know what else I’m not impressed by? A scary text message.” She punched me in the arm again. “Not hearing from you for days. Calling your house and getting no one. Calling the dorm number and some chick telling me you were gone.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing at my arm. She actually hit me pretty hard. “I couldn’t, um . . .” I glanced behind me at my mother, who was still in the same place, watching Reid very carefully.
“Yeah,” Colleen said. “What the hell are you guys doing in this dump, anyway?”
Reid had his heels on the blacktop, his toes on the sidewalk. “Reid,” I said, as I willed him to take a step forward.
“What?” he said.
But I didn’t know what else to say—he was just waiting for me to ask him to stay. With Colleen watching. With my mom watching. “Thanks,” I said, hoping that would be enough.
He closed his eyes for a second, turned before I could see his face. Then he walked away.
Mom said, “Colleen Dabner, does your mother know where you are?”
And Colleen said, “Um, I was gonna call her when I got here. But there’s no service or anything.”
Mom sighed and said, “I’ll call her.”
“What happened to no calls?”
“Her mother will be worried sick,” she said, sounding so much like her old self that I truly believed we’d all be okay. She disappeared into her room.
“What?” Colleen asked. “You’re looking at me like you want to kiss me or something.” Which I probably was, because I was grinning ear to ear. “I mean, I get it. Everyone wants to kiss me. But I really didn’t think I was your type.”
“You’re totally my type,” I said.
She grinned at me. “Missed you too.” Then she pushed her way farther into the hotel room, dropped her bag, and plopped on the couch. “Now talk.”
So I did. I sat next to her and told her in a whisper about that night—about waking up to Jason’s body on the floor. And about halfway through the story, Colleen reached out and grabbed onto my hand, but she didn’t say anything. So I told her the rest. About the knife and the sleeping pills and Bree lying, and Taryn’s history with Jason, and Krista, who I thought was related to Jason, but wasn’t. I told her as much as I could about Krista, which, admittedly, was not very much. And at a school like Monroe, that’s really saying something.
“Well,” Colleen said, clearing her throat and easing back onto the cushions. “Reid’s kind of hot.”
“And I kind of messed that up too.”
She raised an eyebrow at me.
“Later,” I said, cutting my eyes to the thin wall that separated us from my mother.
“All right. So are we on lockdown here? Are we free to roam?”
Colleen bounced up and paced the room, and it seemed like this motel room couldn’t really contain her. Like she was about to bust out of the walls.
“There’s not really anything we can walk to.”
“How do you think I got here? I have my car.”
I ran to the window and looked out, and, sure enough, parked next to the empty spot where Reid’s car had been, Colleen’s beat-up purple hatchback sat waiting.
“Mom!” I called. “We’re going for a drive.”
She came back out of her room. “I’m not so sure—”
“Please,” I said. “I can’t sit here just . . . waiting for something to happen.”
“Colleen,” Mom said, “I need you to understand that Mallory is in serious trouble here. We’re not allowed to leave the county. So please, please, do not get her into any more trouble than she’s already in. Please use common sense.”
“I promise, Mrs. Murphy,” she said.
“Your mother isn’t amused, by the way,” Mom said. “You’re going home first thing tomorrow.”
“My mother is never amused,” Colleen said.
“Be back for lunch. And stay in the car.”
When we got outside, Colleen said, “Stay in the car?”
“Oh, yeah, we almost caused a riot at the diner yesterday.”
Her hand froze with the car key halfway to the door. “A riot?”
“Mmm,” I said. “Pretty sure the mob wanted to stone me.”
“Huh,” she said, but I couldn’t see her face since she was letting the curls fall forward as she unlocked the car door. “Kind of a sucky way to go.”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” She backed out of her spot, shifted the gears too hard, and paused at the entrance to the road. “Show me this place.”
First we drove by the diner, now empty, which looked not at all menacing without the people all scowling at me. We passed that gas station with the single pump that Taryn had warned me about the first night I arrived at Monroe. And we drove by the woods. The forest. Stretching up into hills and plateaus and down into valleys, and, in the distance, mountains. We drove down the street in front of Monroe, where I’d first seen Dylan driving by, watching me. Waiting for me.
The street was bare now. I wondered if he was back in Massachusetts with his dad. If he’d gotten what he’d come for. If he’d gotten too much or not enough. If I’d ever see him again, other than in my memories.
I told Colleen about Reid—or enough about him—how I knew him from before, how our fathers were old friends, old roommates, how he almost kissed me then and did kiss me now. She didn’t say anything at all. She gripped the steering wheel with two hands and paid extra close attention to the traffic signs.
Colleen paused in front of the gate with the scarlet M and said, “This is where I ran into that Bree chick. She was sitting on that bench, just staring. And when I asked for you, she looked sick. I seriously thought she was gonna hurl all over my shoes or something.”
“I don’t get it, Colleen. It had to be Krista. She had to be the one. There’s some secret that only Jason knew, because he could get Krista to do anything for him. It was her. I can feel it. But I can’t figure out why Bree and Taryn are letting her get away with it.”
“Didn’t you say Bree was the one who knew about the knife and the sleeping pills? Maybe she’s scared Krista can frame her instead.”
“And Taryn?”
“It doesn’t have to be complicated, Mallory. I’d lie for you.”
She was looking at me, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. I knew she would. She had. But I couldn’t explain the difference. “They’re not me and you, Coll.”
“Yeah, well, most people aren’t.”
The car started moving again, toward the woods.
“Back that way is the old student center,” I said. “We’re not supposed to go out there, though. Years ago, some kid wandered off into the woods and never came back.”
“Creepy.”
“Yeah. There’s this sign, like a memorial to him or something, except it’s all overgrown now and totally forgotten. Kinda sad, really.”
Colleen turned off the engine. “Let’s see it,” she said.
“We’re not supposed to—”