Wait. No. He hadn’t been the one who’d encouraged me to dig deeper. That was Chris.
Owen only wanted me gone. Wanted me gone so I wouldn’t dig?
Could he have only been faking outrage over having me in Riverside to get Vicki’s help?
When I close my eyes, I keep seeing Owen’s house. The broken glass. The kitchen sink.
Why am I thinking of broken glass and a pile of dishes?
I shake it off and focus on Chris and the file. That police report. Why would Harley tell a lie that could be so easily disproven? Where he’d been at the time of the lockdown would be a matter of record. He could not have been in English class —
I bolt upright.
I sit there a moment as I work it all through. Then I grab my phone and text Jesse.
Jesse
Jesse wakes, gulping breath, heart pounding so hard he winces as his bruised ribs ache. He wipes sweat from his eyes and checks the clock on his phone. Three a.m. He groans. Barely an hour of sleep, and he’s already had three nightmares.
He’s just about to close his eyes when his mother raps at the door.
“My name is Jasser Devesh Mandal,” he calls. “I’m sixteen. I live at 324 Spruce Grove Lane. And you’re holding up three fingers.”
“Two,” she says through the closed door.
“Well, that’s good. Otherwise, the fall might have given me x-ray vision. Which would be weird. Cool, but weird.”
She chuckles, and he says, “Open the door. Make sure I’m okay.”
She opens it but stays in the hall. “How’s your head?”
“Fine. Ribs hurt, but otherwise, apparently, I land like a cat.”
“Cats land on their feet.”
“I don’t have to. I’m bionic. All those steroids.”
She makes a face, like she doesn’t appreciate the joke, but she finds a smile for him.
“I’m okay, Mom. I’ll be okay.”
She leans against the doorjamb. “You seem happy.”
“For a guy who tried rescuing a kidnapped girl and got knocked through a railing for his trouble? Sure, all things considered, I’m pretty happy.”
“Is it Skye?”
He groans and thumps back on his pillow.
“I have to ask,” she says.
Yes, she does and that’s a discussion they’ll need to have, but he really doesn’t want to deal with it now. He props himself up again. “I’m happy because I came clean about the dope. I’m happy because I’ve resolved to get my act together in school. I’m very happy because Skye’s back, and she’s made me see where I’d gone wrong and realize I want to fix it. Now, good night, Mom.”
She leaves, closing the door, and Jesse lies on his back and thinks of Skye. The problem is how he’s thinking of her. He wants to pull up memories of her being here, of her kissing him, the look in her eyes, the feel of her lips on his. Instead, he keeps thinking of the nightmares. First, he dreamed of Owen attacking Mae and Skye in the parking lot. He double-checked his phone, reminding himself that she’d texted to say good night once she was in the condo. Safely in the condo. In the second nightmare, she got inside and texted him… and then was attacked by Owen. Check the phone again. Confirm that she texted a final good night from bed. And that brought nightmare number three: Owen attacking Skye in her room.
Jesse picks up his phone. Definitely no messages after that one.
Uh, yeah. Because she went to sleep. Like she said.
His stomach still twists as he stares at the message. Maybe he should — Wake her up to see if she’s safely asleep? Here, you want to focus on something? Check out that kiss emoji she sent with her last message. There? You like that?
He smiles. Then he reads his own last message to her.
Jesse: Sleep tight.
Sleep tight? What was he, her grandfather?
He thumbs through his emojis. Yeah, no. He’s going to need more. He flips over to the browser, and as he does, a text pops up.
Skye: Jesse?
He fumbles to send back: here
Skye: Can we switch to laptops?
Him: Right. That’s safer.
As soon as his is open, she’s calling, and he hits Connect, and there she is. She’s in bed, on her stomach, laptop in front of her. She’s wearing a T-shirt with her hair tumbling down around her face. She’s looking intently at the screen, frowning slightly. Then he must appear on her screen, because she grins, and it lights up her face, like he’s just pulled a Hershey bar from behind his back, and that grin makes him feel…
Lucky. It makes him feel lucky. As if everything he’s screwed up in the last three years has been wiped away, the universe presenting him with this reward for getting through it, a reward he isn’t sure he deserves, but he’ll take it anyway. He’ll definitely take it.
Skye presses her thumb to the screen, and he presses his to it, and she grins again, and he thinks I want to see you. Right now. I’m freaking out over Owen, and yeah, maybe that just makes a good excuse, but I really want to see you.
“You weren’t sleeping, were you?” she asks.
“Nah. Mom just did her first concussion check. Then I was looking up emojis.”
Her brows arch.
“You sent me an emoji in your text,” he says, “and I realized my phone doesn’t have enough, so I was looking for one to send you.”
She laughs softly, and her head bends over her keyboard, hair falling forward as she types. The text bar appears with the smiling-pile-of-poo emoji.
He chokes on a laugh. “Not exactly.”
Her lips part, eyes dancing, like she’s ready to continue the conversation, but then she hesitates and straightens, her expression sobering. “I was actually calling because I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure.”
“It’s —” She stops short and looks over her shoulder, and every muscle in his body tenses.
He’s there. Owen is there.
“What’d you hear?” he asks as casually as he can.
She shakes her head. “Just paranoid. I think I’ve figured out something. A connection I missed before. If I’m right…” She nibbles her lip.
“I’ll come over. You can tell me in person.”
Another head shake, her hair swaying. “Mae would freak. And you shouldn’t be driving in your condition.”
“I don’t have a condition. I cracked a couple of ribs. My head’s fine; Mom’s just being careful.”
“For good reason. It can wait until morning.” Her gaze moves up, as if to the top of the screen. “It’ll be daylight in a few hours. I’ll grab a taxi, pick up breakfast and come to your place. We can talk then. Okay?”
No, it’s not. He’s worried, and he wants to see her. Now. But that’s his problem.
“I’ll text you at seven,” she says. “You can ask your parents if it’s okay for me to come over that early.”
“It will be.”
Skye
I told Mae earlier that I’ve been smart about this so far. I have to continue being smart – smarter, if possible, more cautious, more careful. Also more respectful. I don’t want to encourage Jesse to sneak over when he’s been hurt. And I don’t want Mae waking up and finding me gone. That’d be a slap in the face after what I said earlier about wishing I didn’t need to sneak out.
I do want a better relationship with Mae. I also want to maintain my good relationship with the Mandals. And, let’s be honest, even without those things, if I did let Jesse drive over, I’d panic, worrying he’d pass out from an undetected concussion.
I’ll see him in a few hours. What I have to say will wait.
That does not, however, mean I can sleep. My theory keeps swirling in my brain. I try making notes to get it out of my head. That doesn’t help. I decide to email those notes to my own account, and I tell myself that’s just for backup, but I’ll admit, part of it is so there will be a record, in case anything happens to me before I can tell Jesse. Clearly I’ve watched too many movies.
When I try to send the email, though, it doesn’t go through. The Wi-Fi is down. Middle-of-the-night service work, I guess. I save it as a draft and resume staring at the ceiling.
A floorboard creaks, and I jump up… only to hear the soft click of Mae’s bedroom door, as she goes back to bed after a bathroom visit. I did the same thing when Jesse was on the phone, jumping at some random noise.