I just had so little of her.
According to Linwood Academy High School, when I’d called them pretending to be the parent of a concerned friend, Ford, Nixon, and Carter had transferred to a private school in some small European country. Never to be heard from again, of course. That was the official story for their fate.
I was swimming in official stories these days. Or just plain gaps in information. No one had ever reported the discovery of Carter’s body or Adam’s.
Based on what I’d heard last from Emerson, Adam’s family was still searching for him, and I hated that. But I didn’t know what either of us could do without pulling the entire house of cover-ups down around our ears. Emerson agreed.
So I just kept doing what I could—going to school, sending e-mails, waiting for my freaking moment, whenever or whatever that was.
Quinn dropped me off at school with just minutes before the first bell, which was how I preferred it these days. I didn’t want to be hanging around the parking lot, trying to pretend everything was okay.
My morning classes were, as usual, endless. I lived for the moments between when I could check my e-mail on my phone, even though I knew that odds were against my ever hearing anything useful. I had to keep trying.
Reaching lunch every day felt like an accomplishment. But I wasn’t the only one suffering.
Rachel was sitting alone at the table today. Pretty much every day now.
“Hey,” I said, setting my tray down next to hers.
“Missing your little girlfriend? Looking for an easy substitute?” she asked as I sat down.
I just waited, staring at her. She still snapped at people, but it was more like an automatic defense mechanism. She had no ground to stand on, and she knew it.
“Sorry,” she muttered, dropping her fork in her wilted salad.
If my dad was sort of lost without GTX, Rachel was even worse off. She’d have rather pretended that the last few months hadn’t happened, but that wasn’t an option.
The company still existed, but her grandfather was no longer in charge. Bedridden and partially paralyzed from the bullet that had damaged his spine, he would never be in charge again. Prosecutors were still trying to decide if he was even fit to stand trial on the ethics charges being brought against him, thanks to my mom’s very public allegations.
So, yeah, the shine was definitely off GTX and the entire Jacobs family.
Rachel hunched her shoulders a little tighter. Her sweater, in her characteristic red, looked too thin for the weather. Her tan had faded. No one to take her on expensive vacations to warm places anymore.
“How’s everything going?” I asked.
“I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” she said, but the heat was missing from her tone. “It’s going crappy. How else should it be going? My grandfather”—she said the word like it tasted gross—“is a sicko perv criminal, my father is useless, and my…” She trailed off and shook her head.
For a second, I thought she was going to mention Ariane. Her sister. Or her sisters, if you counted Ford. That, too, had to do a number on her head.
But instead, she said, “My mom is coming home next week.”
I looked up from my pizza, startled. “Really?”
“My grandfather is the one who pulled strings to put her away in the first place, and without him around to keep pulling…” She shrugged. “Besides, my dad has no clue what to do without someone telling him. I think he’s hoping she’ll be able to boss him around.”
I imagined Rachel in that huge, empty house without anyone checking on her now. Her grandfather had been the only relative to visit her fairly regularly. Now that her dad was laid off, another casualty of the fallout from this scandal, he should have been there more often, but somehow I doubted it. They still had the house only because Dr. Jacobs had bought it through an LLC separate from his other enterprises—the one saving grace he’d provided his granddaughter.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t.” Rachel waved her hand, and the bangle bracelets on her arm gave off halfhearted chimes, as if they couldn’t be bothered anymore, either.
She retrieved her fork from her salad and stabbed the lettuce with more force than was necessary.
Guess that conversation was over. It had lasted longer than most of the ones I had with her, or anyone else, these days.
I pulled my phone from my pocket surreptitiously to check e-mail.
“You know that’s never going to work. She’s gone,” Rachel said, gesturing at my phone with her fork.
I ignored her.
“I’m serious, Zane.” She touched my arm, a quick, fleeting brush almost as if she was afraid I’d shove her away.
I looked up to find her frowning at me. Genuine concern looked strange on her face, like she was sitting on something uncomfortable.
“How long are you going to keep that up?” she asked. She knew, if only in general, about what I was doing because I’d been forced to ask if she’d heard anything while I’d been away.