“So, why don’t you play?”
“Ugh…football is also guys who are a lot bigger and faster than I am. Besides, the high school team was basically formed before I got here.”
Bex felt her eyebrows go up. “Got where?”
“KDH.”
“I kind of thought you were born here like everyone else.”
Trevor pushed the car into Park. “Thanks…I think. We actually moved here just after eighth grade. From Chicago.”
“Is that where you were born?”
He nodded. “Uh-huh. So I kind of know what you must feel like being the new kid.”
Bex clicked off her seat belt and glanced out the window to where the students seemed to be moving together in one hulking mass. If you only knew…
“Yeah,” she said.
? ? ?
Kill Devil Hills High was ahead by a single field goal, which meant that the stands were thundering. Laney, Chelsea, and the other cheerleaders were stomp-clamping and screaming themselves hoarse, jumping and cheering and urging the Red Devils to Go-Fight-Win. Corolla’s Fighting Mustangs were doing the same—cheerleaders chanting, crowd roaring, team huddling together. It was only a fluke that Bex happened to glance down at her purse and see the blinking light from her ringing cell phone. Caught up in the moment, she grabbed the thing from her purse, slid the answering bar, and said, “Hello?”
She could barely make out the caller’s words. “Hello?” she said again. There was a sound like crinkling paper on the other end, like the caller was hanging his head out the window while he drove on the freeway. If the caller did try to speak, Bex couldn’t hear on her end. The Red Devils were gaining yardage, and the bleachers pulsed with whoops and cheers.
She hung up the phone, then glanced at the readout. The number was from the same Raleigh area code—Detective Schuster.
“Everything okay?” Trevor asked when the crowd roar died down.
“I’m good,” she said, shrugging. She didn’t realize that a thin sheen of sweat was covering her upper lip and brow until a breeze swept over them. Again, Bex glanced at her phone, this time seeing that she had two missed calls from the detective and had three messages. She chewed the inside of her lip and tried to focus on the game. Each play seemed to morph into a swirl of red and black and screaming and stomping, but all she could think about was what the detective might be trying to tell her.
Maybe they had found her father.
Maybe he was headed to prison and the whole mess was over.
“Actually, I’d better get this message.” She paused for a beat. “It’s my mom.”
“You could probably get better service down there.” Trevor pointed to the bottom of the bleachers. “Might be a little quieter back there too. Do you want me to come with? I won’t listen or anything.”
Bex liked the way his cheeks flushed a sweet pink and he barely made eye contact with her, suggesting that he wouldn’t eavesdrop.
“I can manage,” she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and pointing to the field. “You just make sure we win this one.”
Bex took the steps two at a time, the anxiety about Detective Schuster’s message drowned out by the kids she passed who grinned at her and said hello, who called her by name and punched at the air screaming, “Go, Devils!” Bex Andrews was part of something so normal and so real and so far removed from Raleigh and Beth Anne Reimer and the Wife Collector that nothing could reach her, nothing from that old life was big enough or real enough to change who she wanted to be.
When she set foot on the ground, she hit the voice mail button, thumbed in her password, and listened while the automated lady told her about her saved messages, that she had three new messages, and when the first was sent. Bex leaned up against one of the huge pillars that held up the top row of the bleachers and mashed a finger into her free ear, trying to hear the voice on the message. The crowd swelled and screamed right when the caller began speaking, so Bex ducked her head under the bleachers, trying to get some quiet.
The crowd roared again.
Bex hit Replay and breathed in the cool darkness underneath the bleachers, most of the sound of the football game and its revelers blotted out by the thick concrete architecture. Other than some garbage and a littering of cigarette butts, there was nothing under the bleachers but a wide expanse of dark, cavernous nothing. It was vaguely creepy but with an entire town’s worth of people just over her head, Bex stepped in deeper, finally able to hear her phone. The automated lady took an achingly long time to replay the recording.
“You have six saved messages. You have three new messages. To replay messages, press seven. To erase this message, press eight. To hear more options…”
Bex groaned at the annoyance and mashed her finger against the seven button, holding it down.