“That’s what I’m worried about,” she says grimly.
When we get upstairs, I see Jesse’s dad arguing with the officers searching Jesse’s room.
“It’s a penknife,” Mr. Mandal is saying. “He’s a sixteen-year-old boy, and he had it in his dresser drawer.”
“Take it,” Jesse says. “It’s too small to hurt anyone, but go ahead and analyze it.”
“We aren’t looking for evidence that you’ve hurt someone,” the officer who brought him upstairs says. “We’re looking for evidence that you plan to. And with something much more lethal than that knife.” He turns to another officer. “Bag it and have it analyzed for chemicals.”
“Chemicals?” Jesse turns to his parents. “What’s this about?”
“They received a so-called credible tip that you have bomb-making material in your room.”
Jesse gives a choked laugh. “Bomb-making material?”
“I bet it’s those idiots,” I say. “The seniors who attacked you Saturday. This is their revenge.” I look at the officers. “We can provide names. They were giving Jesse – Jasser – a hard time, talking crap about the North Hampton shooting.”
“North Hampton…” One of the younger officers straightens from where he’s been searching under Jesse’s bed. He looks at Jesse’s parents. “Mandal. You’re…”
“Yes,” one of the older officers says. “And while we offer our deepest condolences for that, it has no bearing on what we’re investigating here.”
“It might not be those guys,” Jesse says. “There’s something else. The reason we thought you were here. Skye and I —”
“Son? I really need you to take off your clothing. Now.”
“But we have to report —”
“Clothing, off. Miss? I think it’s time for you to go home. You’ll need to provide your name, in case we have cause to question you.”
“It’s Gilchrist,” I say. “Skye Gilchrist. I’m Luka Gilchrist’s sister.”
That gets their attention, as I hoped it would. But it doesn’t mean they’re going to let me explain about Tiffany. They just want me to go downstairs and stay there.
Before we leave, Jesse taps his upper arm. I mouth “I will,” and follow Dr. Mandal down the stairs.
We’re in the kitchen, and I say, “Jasser and I ran into a problem tonight. When we saw the police were here, we thought that’s what it was for.”
“Skye…?” she interrupts, and I follow her gaze to my arm, where blood has seeped through Jesse’s hoodie.
“Yes,” I say. “That’s part of the problem, but the more important part —”
“Get that sweater off. Now. I’ll decide which part is more important.”
I try telling her about Tiffany as I pull off the hoodie. I get as far as explaining who Tiffany is and that she’d been trying to help and she’d contacted us and…
And that’s when Dr. Mandal unwraps the bandages, and once she sees my arm… Well, she’s not listening to anything I have to say after that.
I’ve been trying to pretend it’s just a little cut on my arm. It’s not. It’s a deep slice through muscle, and it needs attention – immediately. She wants to take me to the hospital, but by then, Jesse’s downstairs, and he brings a bigger first-aid kit, which contains suture tape.
We convince Dr. Mandal to fix me up here. The longer we wait to explain about Tiffany, the worse this is going to get. We try telling her again, but it’s pointless. His mother is focused on my arm and keeps telling us to wait, just wait. The police are upstairs, and it’s clear they aren’t interested in listening either.
Finally, Dr. Mandal starts working on my arm, and we resume explaining. She’s halfway done when we reach the part about Tiffany’s phone. That stops her.
“You found her phone?” she says. “Where was she?”
“That’s what we’ve been trying to explain,” Jesse says. “Tiffany was there. Or we think she was – we tried checking with her family to make sure the phone wasn’t planted. Then we saw the police cars here, and we thought we were being set up for kidnapping Tiffany.”
His mother mouths an oath. Then she looks down at my arm.
“Get your father,” she says to Jesse. “Quickly.”
Skye
It does not go well after that. We tell Mr. Mandal, who tells the police, and it seems to take forever to get their attention, to the point where Mr. Mandal is threatening to just call 911 and report Tiffany’s disappearance, because apparently he can’t report it to the four officers currently in his house.
When the officers do listen, they seem to decide this is some lame story Jesse and I concocted to distract them from their search. Eventually, they realize we’re serious. And it’s all downhill from there.
The officer in charge accuses Jesse and me of failing to report a serious crime. Jesse’s mom accuses the officers of failing to listen when we tried to report it. By that point, one of the officers has called it in, and soon there’s a car at Tiffany’s place, and her dad confirms that she went out earlier. Went out and didn’t return.
The officers then decide that our failure to report it is extremely suspicious. As for the fact that we did report it, well, that’s only because we panicked when we found police in Jesse’s house. We obviously decided the best way to divert attention from ourselves was to be the ones to report the crime.
We’re taken to the station. There’s no getting around that. Jesse’s parents come, and Mae gets called, and that only makes things worse because she never realized I wasn’t home.
Jesse and I are questioned separately, with our guardians. We explain everything. Mr. Vaughn is called, and Mae and I sit in that room for what seems like an hour before the detective returns. He’s had a long conversation with the VP and now believes this is yet another escalation in my fake persecution.
I don’t know what the police think we’ve done with Tiffany. They seem to be leaving their options open. Their questioning suggests we may have kidnapped her and are holding her hostage somewhere. Or worse – that she summoned us to confront me with proof of my complicity, and in the ensuing argument, something terrible happened. There is a third possibility, though, and that’s the one they seem to like the best. That Tiffany is part of this. That the three of us faked the whole thing, and she’s hiding somewhere while we report her disappearance.
Mae has been restrained so far. Listening. Saying little. Not looking my way. The weight of her silence feels like abandonment, as if she’s already put child services on speed dial.
When the detective raises the possibility that Tiffany is involved, Mae says, “And the logic of that?”
“Pardon me?”
“Why would Skye and Jesse collude with Tiffany to fake her disappearance?”
The detective looks at Mae as if she’s been asleep for the last hour. “For the same reason the school believes your niece is responsible for all this. To get attention.”
“To what end?” she says, still carefully, like she’s not challenging him but simply reasoning it through for herself.
“Attention is an end in itself.”
“Maybe with the smaller things Skye has been accused of. Claiming there’s a petition to have her expelled. Claiming someone has been leaving notes in her locker. Even claiming she was trapped in the VP’s office after detention. Skye didn’t want to come back to Riverside. I failed to understand —”
She swallows and straightens, her hands folded on the table. “I failed to understand how difficult it would be for her. Is it possible someone in her position would exaggerate persecution to get out of such a distressing situation? Yes. But to do that, she would have needed to tell me what’s happening to her. She didn’t. And simple attention-seeking makes no sense on this scale. We’re talking kidnapping.”
“We aren’t yet convinced there’s been a kidnapping.”
“There has,” I cut in. “And the longer you ignore it, the more danger —”
“I’m sure that’s what you’d like us to believe,” the detective says.