Hush, Hush

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 matter-of-factly, 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 hands-up. "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 earless."

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 anti-tradition."

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 break-in 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, 1 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 self-defense. 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."

I spun around. "That's it. One more word, and I'll…" We both knew it was an empty threat.

Marcie simpered. "You'll what?"

"Skank," I said.

"Geek."

"Slut."

"Freak."

"Anorexic pig."

"Wow," said Marcie, staggering back melodramatically with a hand pressed to her heart. "Am I supposed to act offended? Try this on for size. Old news. At least I know how to exercise a little self-control."

The security guard standing at the doors cleared his throat. "All right, break it up. Take this outside or I'm going to cart the both of you inside my office and start calling parents."

"Talk to her," Marcie said, pointing a finger at me. "I'm the one who's trying to be nice. She verbally attacked me. I was just offering my condolences to her friend."

"I said outside"

"You look good in uniform," Marcie told him, flashing her trademark toxic smile.

He jerked his head at the doors. "Get out of here." But it didn't sound half so gruff.

Marcie sashayed up to the doors. "Mind getting the door for me? I'm short on hands." She was holding one book. A paperback.

The guard pushed on the handicapped button, and the doors automatically glided open.

"Why, thank you," Marcie said, blowing him a kiss.

I didn't follow her. I wasn't sure what would happen if I did, but I was filled with enough negative emotion that I just might do something I'd regret. Name-calling and fighting were beneath me. Unless I was dealing with Marcie Millar.

I turned around and headed back into the library. At the elevators, I stepped into the metal cage and punched the button for the basement level. I could've waited around a few minutes for Marcie to leave, but I knew another way out and decided to take it. Five years ago the city had approved moving the public library into a historic building smack in the center of Old Town Coldwater. The red brick dated back to the 1850s, and the building was complete with a romantic cupola and a widow's walk to watch for vessels coming in from sea. Unfortunately, the building didn't include a parking lot, so an underground tunnel had been dug to connect the library to the underground parking garage of the courthouse across the street. The garage now served both buildings.

The elevator clanked to a stop and I stepped off. The tunnel was lit with fluorescent lights that flickered pale purple. It took me a moment to force my feet to walk. I was struck by the sudden thought of my dad the night he was killed. I wondered if he'd been on a street as remote and dark as the tunnel ahead.

Pull it together, I told myself. It was a random act of violence. You've spent the last year paranoid about every dark alley, dark room, dark closet. You can t live the rest of your life terrified of having a gun pulled on you.

Determined to prove my fear was all in my head, I headed down the tunnel, hearing the soft tap of my shoes on concrete. Shifting my backpack to my left shoulder, I calculated how long it would take to walk home, and whether or not I was up for taking a shortcut across the railroad tracks now that it was dusk. I hoped that if I kept my thoughts upbeat and busy, I wouldn't have time to concentrate on my growing sense of alarm.

The tunnel ended, and a dark form stood straight ahead.

I stopped midstride, and my heart dropped a few beats. Patch was wearing a black T-shirt, loose jeans, steel-toed boots. His eyes looked like they didn't play by the rules. His smile was a little too cunning for comfort.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, pushing a handful of hair off my face and glancing past him to the car exit leading above ground. I knew it was straight ahead, but several of the overhead fluorescent lights were out of service, making it difficult to see clearly. If rape, murder, or any other miscreant activities were on Patch's mind, he'd cornered me in the perfect place.

As Patch moved toward me, I backed up. I came up short against a car and saw my chance. I scrambled around it, positioning myself opposite Patch, with the car between us.

Patch looked at me over the top of the car. His eyebrows lifted.

"I have questions," I said. "A lot of them."

"About?"

"About everything."

His mouth twitched, and I was pretty sure he was fighting a smile. "And if my answers don't make the cut, you're going to make a break for it?" He gave a nod in the direction of the garage's exit.

That was the plan. More or less. Give or take a few glaring holes, like the fact that Patch was a lot faster than me.

"Let's hear those questions," he said.

"How did you know I'd be at the library tonight?"

"Seemed like a good guess."

I didn't for one moment believe Patch was here on a hunch. There was a side to him that was almost predatory. If the armed forces knew about him, they'd do everything in their power to recruit him.

Patch lunged to his left. I countered his move, scurrying toward the rear of the car. When Patch came up short, I did too. He was at the nose of the car, and I was at the tail.

"Where were you Sunday afternoon?" I asked. "Did you follow me when I went shopping with Vee?" Patch may not have been the guy in the ski mask, but that didn't mean he hadn't been involved in the chain of recent disturbing events. He was keeping something from me. He'd been keeping something from me since the day we met. Was it a coincidence that the last normal day in my life had been right before that fateful day? I didn't think so.

"No. How did that go, by the way? Buy anything?"

"Maybe," I said, thrown off guard.

"Like?"

I thought back. Vee and I had only made it as far as Victoria's Secret. I'd spent thirty dollars on the lacy black bra, but I wasn't about to go there. Instead I related my evening, starting with sensing I was being followed, and ending with finding Vee on the side of the road, the victim of a brutal mugging.

'Well?" I demanded when I finished. "Do you have anything to say?"

"No."

"You have no idea what happened to Vee?"

"Again, no."

"I don't believe you."

"That's because you have trust issues." He splayed both hands on the car, leaning across the hood. "We've been over this."

I felt my temper spark. Patch had flipped the conversation again. Instead of shining on him, the spotlight was directed back on me. I especially didn't like being reminded that he knew all sorts of things about me. Private things. Like my trust issues.

Patch lunged clockwise. I ran away from him, halting when he did. While we were at a standstill again, his eyes locked on mine, almost as if he was trying to glean my next move from them.

"What happened on the Archangel? Did you save me?" I asked.

"If I'd saved you, we wouldn't be standing here having this conversation."

"You mean if you hadn't saved me we wouldn't be here. I'd be dead."

"That's not what I said."

I had no idea what he meant. "Why wouldn't we be standing here?"

"You'd still be here." He paused. "I probably wouldn't."

Before I could figure out what he was talking about, he darted for me again, this time attacking from the right. Momentarily confused, I gave up some of the distance between us. Instead of stopping, Patch skirted around the car. I made a break for it, running down the straightaway of the garage.

I made it three cars before he caught hold of my arm. He spun me around and backed me against a cement beam.

"So much for that plan," he said.

I glared at him. There was a lot of panic behind it, though. He flashed a grin brimming with dark intent, confirming that I had every reason to sweat freely.

"What's going on?" I said, working hard to sound hostile. "How come I swear I can hear your voice in my head? And why did you say you came to school for me?"

"I was tired of admiring your legs from a distance."

"I want the truth." I swallowed hard. "I deserve full disclosure."

"Full disclosure," he repeated with a sly grin. "Does this have anything to do with the promise you made to expose me? What exactly are we talking about here?"

I couldn't remember what we were talking about. All I knew was that Patch's gaze felt especially hot. I had to break eye contact, so I trained my eyes on my hands. They were glistening with sweat, and I slid them behind my back.

"I have to go," I said. "I have homework."

"What happened in there?" He tilted his chin back at the elevators.

"Nothing."

Before I could stop him, he had my palm pressed to his, forming a steeple with our hands. He slid his fingers between mine, locking me to him. "Your knuckles are white," he said, brushing his mouth across them. "And you came out looking worked up."

"Let go. And I'm not worked up. Not really. If you'll excuse me, I have homework-"

"Nora." Patch spoke my name softly, yet with every intention of getting what he wanted.

"I had a fight with Marcie Millar." I had no idea where the confession came from. The last thing I wanted was to give Patch another window inside me. "Okay?" I said, pushing a note of exasperation into my voice. "Satisfied? Will you please let go now?"

"Marcie Millar?"

I tried to unlace my fingers, but Patch had a different idea.

"You don't know Marcie?" I said cynically. "Hard to believe, considering you attend Coldwater High, for one. And you have a Y chromosome, for two."

"Tell me about the fight," he said.

"She called Vee fat."

"And?"

"I called her an anorexic pig."

Patch looked like he was trying not to crack a grin. "That's it? No punches? No biting, clawing, or hair pulling?"

I narrowed a look at him.

"Are we going to have to teach you to fight, Angel?"

"I can fight." I tipped my chin up in spite of the lie.

This time he didn't bother restraining the grin.

"In fact, I've had boxing lessons." Kickboxing. At the gym. Once.

Patch held out his hand as a target. "Give me a shot. Hard as you can."

"I'm-not a fan of senseless violence."

"We're all alone down here." Patch's boots were flush with the toes of my shoes. "A guy like me could take advantage of a girl like you. Better show me what you've got."

I inched backward, and Patch's black motorcycle came into view.

"Let me give you a ride," he offered.

"I'll walk."

"It's late, and dark."

He had a point. Whether or not I liked it.

But inwardly, I was caught in a fierce game of rug-of-war. I'd been idiotic to walk home in the first place, and now I was stuck between two bad decisions: ride with Patch, or risk the chance there was someone worse out there.

"I'm starting to think the only reason you keep offering me a ride is because you know how not fond I am of this thing." I blew out a jittery sigh, scrunched the helmet on, then swung on behind him. It wasn't entirely my fault that I was snuggled up close to him. The seat wasn't exactly spacious.

Patch made a low sound of amusement. "I can think of a couple other reasons."

He sped down the straightaway of the garage, gunning it toward the exit. A red-and-white-striped traffic arm and an automatic ticket machine barred the exit. I was just wondering if Patch would slow long enough to feed money into the machine, when he brought the bike to a smooth stop, jolting me even closer into him. He fed the machine, then floored the bike up onto the street above.

Patch edged his bike up my driveway, and I held on to him to keep my balance while I climbed off. I handed back the helmet.

"Thanks for the ride," I said.

"What are you doing Saturday night?"

A moment's pause. "I have a date with the usual."

This appeared to spark his interest. "The usual?"

"Homework."

"Cancel."

I was feeling a lot more relaxed. Patch was warm and solid, and he smelled fantastic. Like mint and rich, dark earth. Nobody had jumped out at us on the ride home, and all the windows on the lower level of the farmhouse glowed with light. For the first time all day I felt safe.

Except that Patch had cornered me in a dark tunnel and was possibly stalking me. Maybe not so safe.

"I don't go out with strangers," I said.

"Good thing I do. I'll pick you up at five."