“Stop it!” I shouted again, getting up in his face and grabbing hold of his torn and dirty shirt, then looking back over my shoulder at Jamie, who seemed every bit as angry as Spence. “What the hell’s the matter with you two?!”
Around us there was total silence except for the repeated calls from Mr. Stewart somewhere down the hallway, demanding to be let through.
Stewart was a small, slight man, and mostly a joke. Nobody respected him, and I knew the assembled crowd would be very slow to part for him. If he found Jamie and Spence fighting, he’d suspend both of them, which would threaten their graduation.
Neither of them answered me, and Spence sent one more blistering look at Jamie before he began to turn away. That’s when Jamie lunged forward again, almost pulling free from Bill’s restraining arms.
“You ever come near any of us again, and I’ll fucking kill you, Spence!” he shouted.
With that, Jamie did manage to pry himself free from Bill’s grasp, and stormed off.
I watched him go, and tears filled my eyes. Jamie was Spence’s best friend, the closest person to him besides me. What would the end of their friendship do to Spence, who was already in a very dark place? I didn’t have time to think on it. Mr. Stewart’s shouts were getting closer, and I turned back to my boyfriend.
“You have to go,” I said.
He bent down, picked up my binder, and handed it to me without a word. Then, averting his eyes, he turned and jogged away. I watched him for a long time, well after the crowd began to disperse, his form getting smaller and smaller, as he kept up that steady pace through the parking lot. With every step I knew that, in more than one way, he was getting farther and farther away from me.
WE SAT IN THE PARKING LOT of Mrs. Greeley’s hair salon, trying to work up our nerve.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Cole asked me for the fifth time.
I knew why he was hesitant; it was one thing to confront an old schoolteacher about any misdeeds he’d been involved in thirty years earlier. It was a whole other thing to confront the mother of a dead teen—a girl who was falsely blamed for the murder of her boyfriend.
Plus, I really liked Gina. She’d been so nice to me the other night. I hated to upset her. Not to mention the fact that if I really was the reincarnation of Amber Greeley, in a sense, Gina was my mother, and the last thing I’d want to do was hurt her by bringing up what had to be the worst weeks of her life.
But the only other option besides talking to Gina was to confront my grandmother, and I wasn’t brave enough for that. At least not yet.
“No, I’m not sure,” I said, answering Cole. “But I think we have to try and talk to her. She might know something about Bishop.”
Cole took a deep breath and then nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
We’d already agreed to let me do the talking. After entering the salon, the same girl with blue-tipped hair who’d let me in a few nights before greeted us.
“Hey,” she said, sizing us up. I couldn’t help but notice that her gaze lingered on Cole. “Gina’s just finishing up with a client. She told me to let you guys into the break room.”
We’d called on the way down from Bumpass, and I’d mentioned only that I had something very urgent and personal to talk to Gina about, and that I was bringing a friend. She’d told me she could spare twenty minutes at two, so we’d raced to get to the salon on time. We’d made it with five minutes to spare.
The break room wasn’t much—just a small walled-off room with a soda machine and a mini refrigerator, plus a round table with four seats. I stood near the table, but Cole moved off to buy two Dr Peppers for us.
“Thanks,” I said when he handed me one. The act reminded me of a time when Tanner and I had been waiting to see his aunt, who was sick in the hospital, and he’d bought me a Coke, but only after asking me to pay for it. Tanner had been a tightass even though he had his own trust fund.
I thought about Sophie’s text again, and the urge to reach out to her was pretty strong, but what would I say? What words could mend all the hurt between us?
“Hey there,” I heard as I twirled my phone in my hands. Looking up I saw Gina moving aside the curtain that separated the break room from the rest of the salon.
“Hi, Gina,” I said shyly.
“Hi, Mrs. Greeley,” Cole said.
She paused when she saw him and I swear a little color drained from her face. Walking to him she said, “You must be Cole Drepeau.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking her extended hand when she offered it.
“My Lord…” she said, gazing at him. “You look so much like your uncle. For a second there, it was like seeing a ghost.”
He blushed, which I found adorable, and she motioned for us to sit down. “So!” she said. “What brings you two by?”
Cole looked at me and I cleared my throat nervously. “Gina, I…I want to talk to you about Amber.”
Her eyes narrowed ever so subtly. The mention of her daughter and the appearance of Spence’s nephew was no doubt making her wary.
“What about Amber?” she said.
“Cole and I have been doing some research for a school project, and we think we might have discovered something important.”