Hush, Hush

“Don’t make me regret allowing you to choose your own partners,” Coach told us.

“Don’t make me regret coming to school today,” said Vee sweetly.

Coach shot her a warning look, then picked up my lab sheet, eyes skimming the all­but­blank page.

“The subject equates biology labs with overdosing on prescription­strength sedatives,” Vee said.

Coach chirped his whistle, and all eyes in the class swung our way.

“Patch?” he said. “Mind taking over here? We seem to have run into a partner problem.”

“I was so kidding,” Vee said quickly. “Here—I’ll do the lab.”

“You should have thought of that fifteen minutes ago,” Coach said.

“Please forgive me?” she asked, batting her eyelashes angelically.

Coach tucked her notebook under her good arm. “No.”

Sorry! Vee mouthed over her shoulder at me as she walked reluctantly to the front of the room.

A moment later Patch took a seat on the table beside me. He clasped his hands loosely between his knees and kept a steady gaze on me.

“What?” I said, feeling unnerved by the weight of his stare.

He smiled. “I was remembering the shark shoes. Last night.”

I got the usual Patch­induced flutter in my stomach, and like usual, I couldn’t distinguish if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

“How was your night?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral as I attempted to break the ice. My spying adventures still hung uncomfortably between us.

“Interesting. Yours?”

“Not so much.”

“Homework was brutal, huh?”

He was making fun of me. “I didn’t do homework.”

He had the smile of a fox. “Who did you do?”

I was speechless a moment. I stood there with my mouth slightly open. “Was that an innuendo?”

“Just curious what my competition is.”

“Grow up.”

His smile stretched. “Loosen up.”

“I’m already walking on thin ice with Coach, so do me a favor and let’s concentrate on the lab. I’m not in the mood to play test subject, so if you don’t mind …” I looked pointedly at the table.

“Can’t,” he said. “I don’t have a heart.”

I told myself he wasn’t being literal.

I lowered myself down on the table and stacked my hands on my stomach. “Tell me when five minutes are up.” I shut my eyes, preferring not to watch Patch’s black eyes examine me.

A few minutes later I opened one eye a slit.

“Time’s up,” said Patch.

I held one upturned wrist out so he could take my pulse. Patch took my hand, and a jolt of heat shot up my arm and ended with a squeeze in my stomach.

“The subject’s pulse increased on contact,” he said.

“Don’t write that.” It was supposed to sound indignant. If anything, it sounded like I was repressing a smile.

“Coach wants us to be thorough.”

“What do you want?” I asked him.

Patch’s eyes connected with mine. On the inside, he was grinning. I could tell.

“Except, you know, that,” I said.

After school I swung by Miss Greene’s office for our scheduled appointment. At the end of the school day, Dr. Hendrickson had always kept his door wide open, a nonverbal invitation for students to stop by.

Every time I passed down this stretch of hallway now, Miss Greene had the door closed. All the way.

The Do not disturb was implicit.

“Nora,” she said, opening the door after my knock, “please come in. Have a seat.”

Her office was fully unpacked and decorated today. She’d brought in several more plants, and a panel of framed botanical prints hung in a row on the wall above her desk.

Miss Greene said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said last week. I came to the obvious conclusion that our relationship needs to be built on trust and respect. We won’t discuss your dad again, unless you specify.”

“Okay,” I said warily. What were we going to talk about?

“I heard some rather disappointing news,” she said. Her smile faded and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk. She was holding a pen, and she rolled it between her palms. “I don’t mean to pry into your private life, Nora, but I thought I made myself perfectly clear concerning your involvement with Patch.”

I wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. “I haven’t tutored him.” And, really, was it any of her business?

“Saturday night Patch gave you a ride home from Delphic Seaport. And you invited him inside your house.”

I fought to hold in a choke of protest. “How do you know about that?”

“Part of my job as your school psychologist is to give you guidance,” Miss Greene said. “Please promise me you’ll be very, very careful around Patch.” She looked at me like she was actually waiting for my oath of promise.

“It’s kind of complicated,” I said. “My ride left me stranded at Delphic. I didn’t have a choice. It’s not like I seek out opportunities to spend time with Patch.” Well, except for last night at the Borderline. In my defense, I honestly hadn’t expected to see Patch. He was supposed to have the night off.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” Miss Greene answered, but she didn’t sound fully convinced of my innocence. “With that out of the way, is there anything else you’d like to talk about today? Anything weighing on your mind?”

I wasn’t about to tell her that Elliot broke into my house. I didn’t trust Miss Greene. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about her bothered me. And I didn’t like the way she kept hinting that Patch was dangerous but wouldn’t tell me why. It was almost like she had an agenda.

I hoisted my backpack off the ground and opened the door. “No,” I said.

CHAPTER 16

VEE WAS LEANING AGAINST MY LOCKER, DOODLING on her cast with a purple marker.

“Hi,” she said when there was nothing of the hallway left between us. “Where’ve you been? I checked the eZine lab and the library.”

“I had a meeting with Miss Greene, the new school psych.” I said it very matter­of­factly, but on the inside, I had a hollow, trembly feeling. I couldn’t stop thinking about Elliot breaking into my house.

What was stopping him from doing it again? Or from doing something worse?

“What happened?” Vee asked.

I spun my locker combination and traded out books. “Do you know how much a good alarm system costs?”

“No offense, babe, but nobody’s going to steal your car.”

I pinned Vee with a black look. “For my house. I want to make sure Elliot can’t get inside again.”

Vee glanced around and cleared her throat.

“What?” I said.

Vee did a hands­up. “Nothing. Nothing at all. If you’re still bent on nailing this to Elliot … that’s your prerogative. It’s a crazy prerogative, but hey, it’s yours.”

I shoved my locker door closed, and the rattle echoed down the hall. I bit back an accusatory response that she of all people should believe me and instead said, “I’m on my way to the library, and I’m sort of in a hurry.” We exited the building and crossed the grounds to the parking lot, and I came up short. I looked around for the Fiat, but that’s when I remembered my mom had dropped me off on her way to work this morning. And with Vee’s arm broken, she wasn’t driving.

“Crap,” Vee said, reading my thoughts, “we’re carless.”

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I squinted down the street. “Guess this means we’ll have to walk.”

“Not we. You. I’d come with, but once a week is my library limit.”

“You haven’t been to the library this week,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I might have to go tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Thursday. In all your life, have you ever studied on a Thursday?”

Vee tapped a fingernail to her lip and adopted a thoughtful expression. “Have I ever studied on a Wednesday?”

“Not that I recall.”

“There you have it. I can’t go. It would be anti­tradition.”

Thirty minutes later, I hiked up the steps leading to the library’s main doors. Once inside, I put homework on the back burner and went directly to the media lab, where I combed the Internet trying to find more information on the “Kinghorn Hanging.” I didn’t find much. Originally there had been a lot of hype, but after the suicide note was discovered and Elliot was released, the news moved on.

It was time to take a trip to Portland. I wasn’t going to learn much more sifting through archived news articles, but maybe I’d have better luck doing legwork there.

I logged off and called my mom.

“Do I need to be home by nine tonight?”

“Yes, why?”

“I was thinking of taking a bus out to Portland.”

She gave me one of her You must think I’m crazy laughs.

“I need to interview some students at Kinghorn Prep,” I said. “It’s for a project I’ve been researching.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not really. Of course, it would have been much easier to justify if I weren’t burdened by the guilt of keeping the break­in and ensuing police visit from her. I’d thought about telling her, but every time I opened my mouth to say the words, they slipped away. We were struggling to survive. We needed my mom’s income. If I told her about Elliot, she’d quit immediately.

“You can’t go to the city alone. It’s a school night and it will be dark soon. Besides, by the time you get there, the students will have left.”

I heaved a sigh. “Okay, I’ll be home soon.”

“I know I promised you a ride, but I’m stuck at my office.” I heard her shuffling papers in the background, and I imagined she had the phone cradled under her chin and the phone cord wrapped around her body several times. “Is it too much to ask you to walk?”

The weather was just this side of cool, I had my jean jacket, and I had two legs. I could walk. The plan sounded a lot more reasonable in my head, because the thought of walking home left my insides hollow. But aside from spending the night in the library, I didn’t see any other choice.

I was almost through the library doors when I heard my name called. Turning around, I found Marcie Millar closing the distance between us.

“I heard about Vee,” she said. “It’s really sad. I mean, who would attack her? Unless, you know, they couldn’t help it. Maybe it was self­defense. I heard it was dark and raining. It would be easy to mistake Vee for a moose. Or a bear, or a buffalo. Really, any hulking animal would do.”

“Gosh, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve got a lot of things I’d rather be doing. Like sticking my hand in the garbage disposal.” I continued toward the exit.

“I hope she stayed clear of those hospital meals,” Marcie said, keeping at my heels. “I hear they’re high in fat. She can’t stand to gain a lot of weight.”