“Huh?” I drink my water, stalling for time.
“Your friend. The one who works there.” Mateo’s tone sharpens when my glass is half empty and I’m still chugging away, studiously avoiding his gaze. “Was that by any chance her studio we were standing in?”
“Yeah.” The word slips out before I can stop it. Damn it. I can’t run my mouth here. I need to think. And I need to talk to Lara. I pull out my phone as I add, “But she wasn’t there.”
“Just because we didn’t see her doesn’t mean she wasn’t there,” Mateo points out, and I wish he’d stop being so reasonable for once in his life. “You said she’s there every Tuesday, right?”
“Usually.” My fingers fly across my phone as I fire off a text to Lara. Are you at the studio?
“So why wouldn’t she have been there today?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I’m staring at my phone, willing her to respond as fast as humanly possible, and my heart takes a giant leap when gray dots appear.
No, couldn’t make it today.
I exhale a long breath. I’m beyond glad to hear that, but…Why not? I text back.
Decided to take a ceramics class! More gray dots, and then a picture of a glazed green bowl sitting beside a kiln appears.
Relief floods through me for a few blissful seconds, then recedes almost as quickly as it came. Because that still doesn’t explain why Boney…or whoever that was…was there.
But I can’t ask that via text. I need to talk to you, I write back. Now. In person. She doesn’t respond right away, and I add, It’s urgent.
“Cal,” Mateo says. When I look up, he’s still wearing that I’m going to x-ray your brain look. “Are you texting her?”
“Yeah. She says she wasn’t there.” I know that’s not enough to stop further questions I can’t answer yet, so I stare around the bar for some kind of distraction. There’s a large, wall-mounted television to our left, and I point to it. “Hey, can we turn that on?” I ask. “Maybe whatever happened back there made the news.”
Mateo gives me a look that says This discussion isn’t over—also inherited from his mother—but gets to his feet. “Yeah, I guess. Check your phone, too.” He crosses over to the bar, reaching into the wooden cubby behind it to pull out a remote. I’m too nervous to navigate to Boston.com while he fires up the television, though. Somehow, it feels better to wait for information to hit me than to go looking for it.
The screen bursts to life with the volume way too loud, and we both wince until Mateo lowers it. It’s on the local sports channel, so Mateo clicks until he lands on a guy in a shirt and tie with the words Breaking News scrolling beneath him in red. “He’s in front of the art studios,” Mateo says, returning to our table with his eyes glued to the screen.
My heart plummets. Somehow, seeing the building on television makes this nightmare scenario much more real. “Shit. Do you think—”
“Shhh,” Mateo says, raising the volume back up a notch.
“…police are actively looking for information related to a tip that both they, and producers here at The Hawkins Report, received shortly before the body of an unidentified young man was discovered in this very building,” the reporter says.
Oh God. The body.
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Ever since we left Lara’s studio, I’ve been telling myself that we can’t be sure what we saw. Maybe that guy was just passed out, or sleeping. Playing a joke. None of those possibilities made much sense, but I clung to them anyway. “So that means…if we saw…if the body was…” My throat closes on Boney’s name, refusing to give it up.
“Unidentified,” Mateo says quickly. But not like the word brings him any real comfort.
The reporter levels his gaze at the camera. “This anonymous source stated that they became concerned after seeing a young, blond woman inject the man with a syringe, after which he immediately became unresponsive,” he continues. “The building, which is not currently occupied, does not have security cameras enabled, so the public is being asked to call with any information related to a blond woman, described as attractive and possibly in her early twenties, who may have been in the area during this time.”
Two things happen at once. Mateo pauses the television, freezing the reporter’s face on-screen, and there’s a sudden gasp to my right. When I turn, Ivy is sitting straight up, her hand on her chest and her pale ponytail spilling over one shoulder. She stares at me, then at Mateo, then down at the booth she’s been passed out in since we got here.
“What. Is. Happening?” she demands.
IVY
At first, I have no idea where we are. I don’t remember anything, except leaving school this morning with Cal and Mateo. Both of them are staring at me like I just sprouted a second head—which would be unfortunate, since the first one is pounding painfully.