Bingo.
A shiver passed through me at the sight of the familiar blue ink.
“Aren’t you a little far from home?”
I jumped and switched off the light, dropping it as I spun toward the echoing voice. He stood in silhouette at the bleachers’ opening, arms resting on the risers over his head. I could feel his stare, steady on me, even in the dark. Reece ducked under the tiers and I let out a breath.
“You scared me to death.” I hid my hands in my pocket. “What are you doing here?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I used to go to school here,” he said.
I jumped at a snap-click, like a pocketknife or a switch blade flipping. But it was only a flashlight. My light, that he’d retrieved from the floor.
The beam flashed to my face, obscuring him and blinding me. “What’s your excuse?” he asked.
I averted my eyes and took a step back. “Get that thing out of my eyes.” I shielded my face with both hands and he lowered the light. I blinked, adjusting to the creepy dim shadows it cast over the walls. I was face-to-face with the bleachers, the exact spot where I’d found the message a moment ago. I risked a glance.
A glimpse of blue graffiti. Like the letters on my chem lab table. Like the letters on the dead cat’s box.
Printed. Bold.
Two lines buried in years of old scribble. The cops probably hadn’t even noticed it was there.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
He couldn’t have noticed. It had only been a glance.
Reese stepped toward me, blocking my exit. He braced a hand on the wooden tier over my head and dipped his face low enough for me to feel the heat radiating off his skin. To smell hot leather and sweat. I swallowed, not sure if it was the closeness of his body or the cryptic blue message that sped up my breath. “I should be going.”
He didn’t move. I could have stepped around him, but I didn’t.
“Why do you do that?” His voice drew goose bumps over my skin.
“Do what?”
“Run away. Every time I get close, you run.”
Close. All I could see was his face. Purple shadows, green bruises, and his blue eyes.
“Does it bother you?” he whispered. “Being close to me?”
“No.” I barely shook my head, unable to look away from his lips. “Yes.” They were too close, disorienting. “Maybe.”
He stepped in closer even though there shouldn’t have been any space left between us. “Where did you go on Friday? You took off after the flume ride and I spent hours looking for you. Where were you?”
I looked from his mouth to his eyes. Found all the same questions that had been in Jeremy’s and Rankin’s. Everyone tiptoeing around me while they pointed questions like fingers. Where was I? What was I doing? Why? Why? Why?
“None of your business,” I said, feeling cornered. I took a step back and bumped my head on the bleacher. But he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He stared past me, his eyes flicking side to side. His body, smooth and relaxed a moment ago, stiffened. He took a step back and straightened slowly, focused on something behind me.
I lurched at the slam of a gymnasium door. A sound, like the squeaky wheels of a mop bucket, made its way across the floor.
Reece was the first to speak. He was distant and cold. “It’s getting late. We should get out of here.”
I should have been grateful for his shift in focus, but I wasn’t. I was humiliated for no reason that made any sense at all. I stepped around him, avoiding his arms as I brushed by.
“I was just leaving anyway.” My voice wavered, relief and disappointment warring inside. I focused hard on the white light at the end of the bleachers. But when I got there, he wasn’t behind me. I looked back. Reece stood in profile, flashlight shining against the underside of the bleacher where I’d just stood. He turned toward me, his face unreadable in the dark.
I knew he’d seen the same thing I had. Two lines of blue graffiti that read like all the others.
It’s personal. I’ll put it all on the table for you. Are you clever enough to find me in time?
24
I sat at the kitchen table, scribbling numbers on a sticky note. Ten. Eighteen. Three. I’d gone over them countless times. Rearranging them. Looking for patterns. Nothing made sense.
It’s personal. I’ll put it all on the table for you. Could the numbers have something to do with the messages on my lab tables? There had only been two. A reference to Schr?dinger’s cat written in ink on my chemistry table. And a reference to Archimedes’ Principle carved into my table in physics. But there hadn’t been any equations. No way to plug in the numbers to come up with a solution. I tapped my pen, making a mental note to check all my lab tables again today.