Invitation Only

  91

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “Won­der what Thomas would say if he knew about this.”

  I swal­lowed against a dry throat. Peo­ple around here re­al­ly did know how to hit a girl where it hurt.

  “Noth­ing. He would say noth­ing be­cause it's noth­ing.” I took a deep breath as Con­stance stared res­olute­ly at the black­board. Around us our class­mates steadi­ly filled in the emp­ty seats. “Look, Whit may have a tiny crush on me, but that's it. And he's gonna get over it re­al­ly fast be­cause I swear I have no feel­ings for him.”

  How could I when this thing with Thomas was still so un­re­solved? I thought of Josh's ac­cu­sa­tion in the cafe­te­ria and my in­sides squirmed.

  But then I re­al­ized how all this looked. They had no idea that all I want­ed was to see Thomas again so that I could make sure he was all right, so that I could get a lit­tle clo­sure. How could I blame them for think­ing the worst of me?

  Con­stance sighed and glanced at me out of the cor­ner of her eye. 'You swear?"

  “I swear,” I said.

  The ram­rod-​straight pos­ture she'd been work­ing since be­gin­ning her tirade re­laxed slight­ly and she leaned back in her seat. Out­side the door I saw our trig pro­fes­sor, Mr. Cran­dle, chat­ting with an­oth­er teach­er.

  “Lis­ten, if you like him so much, you should talk to him,” I whis­pered. “Maybe you guys can get to­geth­er.”

  Con­stance's cheeks turned pink and she looked down at her

  92

  pol­ished nails. Un­der her desk, she crossed her legs de­mure­ly at the an­kles.

  “He doesn't even know I ex­ist,” she said.

  “I doubt that's true. Whit doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd for­get an old fam­ily friend,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Con­stance said, bit­ing her lip. “I don't know. But what if he doesn't re­mem­ber me? I'd feel like such a mo­ron.” Sud­den­ly her en­tire face lit up and she lift­ed her head. “Wait! Maybe you could talk to him for me. Men­tion me and see what he says?”

  She was too cute. Re­al­ly. So cute it al­most made me want to wrap her up in a pink bow and stick her in a cat car­ri­er.

  “Sure,” I told her. “I can do that.”

  “Re­al­ly?” she squealed, reach­ing over to grab my hand. “That would be so amaz­ing.”

  Not re­al­ly. Be­cause if I talked up Con­stance to Whit­tak­er and he end­ed up go­ing for her then it would ex­po­nen­tial­ly ben­efit me. The Billings Girls might be dis­ap­point­ed that I didn't land the guy who could “give me things,” but they couldn't fault me if he fell for some­one else. Plus Whit would be hap­py, and then I wouldn't have to hang out with him so much and con­stant­ly be re­mind­ed of those dis­gust­ing pic­tures. I would be able to con­cen­trate on what re­al­ly mat­tered--name­ly, fig­ur­ing out what to do about Natasha, keep­ing my ass in school, and find­ing out how to get to this Lega­cy thing so I could see Thomas. It was win, win, win, re­al­ly. For me, Whit­tak­er, and Con­stance.

  “It's not a prob­lem,” I told her, adopt­ing a benev­olent smile.

  93

  “Thank you so much.”

  Just then Mr. Cran­dle walked in, the oth­er teach­er trail­ing be­hind him. I hadn't seen this guy around be­fore and as whis­pers start­ed to run ram­pant around the room, my heart start­ed to pound with fear.

  This was no teach­er.

  “Miss Bren­nan, this is De­tec­tive Hauer,” Mr. Cran­dle said. “He'd like to speak to you. Please gath­er your things and go with him.”

  Ev­ery­one turned to gape at me as if we hadn't all known this was com­ing. My hands trem­bled as I reached for my books. I glanced at De­tec­tive Hauer, a short, stocky man in a wrin­kled shirt and cot­ton tie who stood at the front of the room with his hands be­hind his back, his ra­zor-​sharp brown eyes watch­ing my ev­ery move.

  Guilty. That was how I felt un­der his gaze. Guilty. But of what? Of find­ing a note from my ex-​boyfriend? Smack on the shack­les and take me to the guil­lo­tine.

  I man­aged to rise out of my seat with­out my knees knock­ing to­geth­er too much and joined the de­tec­tive.

  “Hel­lo, Reed,” he said. His voice was so deep it made my bones rum­ble.

  “Hel­lo.”

  I even sound­ed guilty.

  He raised a hand to ush­er me out of the room ahead of him.

  “You can make up the quiz to­mor­row, Miss Bren­nan,” Mr. Cran­dle said help­ful­ly as I reached the door.

  Right. Be­cause that was what I was re­al­ly con­cerned about.

  94

  * * *

  Just tell them.

  No, don't. Thomas will be so mad.

  So what? You're al­ready mad at him. Be­sides, it's the law. Can they ar­rest me for not telling?

  Don't do it. His par­ents will be on him like peanut but­ter on jel­ly. It's a be­tray­al.

  But didn't he be­tray me by break­ing up with me in a note?

  Just do it.

  Don't.

  Come on.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  “You know, there's noth­ing to be ner­vous about, Reed,” De­tec­tive Hauer said.

  I stopped chew­ing on the end of the hood string on my sweat­shirt and sat up. “I'm not ner­vous.”

  Yeah. That was very con­vinc­ing. The high oc­tave and the spit­tle were es­pe­cial­ly com­pelling.

  95

  “Would you like some­thing to drink?” he asked.

  “No, thanks. I'm fine.”

  I smiled at the de­tec­tive, who sat be­hind Dean Mar­cus's wide desk. Then I flashed the same grin at Chief Sheri­dan, who hov­ered in the cor­ner near one of the sky-​high book­shelves. Be­hind me, in a cushy chair, was my ad­vi­sor, Ms. Nay­lor. Ap­par­ent­ly she was there to act as a stu­dent ad­vo­cate, which meant, I sup­posed, that if they tried to beat me with a tele­phone book, she was re­quired to ask them po­lite­ly to stop.

  Whether or not she would ac­tu­al­ly do that was an­oth­er sto­ry. I nev­er got the im­pres­sion that Ms. Nay­lor rel­ished my pres­ence at Eas­ton that much or her in­volve­ment in my life.

  “So, we un­der­stand you and Mr. Pear­son have been dat­ing,” the de­tec­tive said, glanc­ing at a piece of pa­per in front of him.

  'Yes." I sat up a lit­tle straighter, try­ing to see what the pa­per had to say.

  “For how long?” the de­tec­tive asked. He pulled the page clos­er to him. The chief shift­ed, bring­ing one arm across his stom­ach and rest­ing his oth­er el­bow on it, hand un­der chin.

  “Since the third week of school,” I said, en­deav­or­ing to swal­low. “So not long at all.”

  “I see,” the de­tec­tive said. “Is it se­ri­ous?”

  I cleared my throat. “De­pends on your def­ini­tion of se­ri­ous.”

  The de­tec­tive smiled in­dul­gent­ly. “How well do you know him?”

  “Pret­ty well, I guess,” I said. “But then, ev­ery­body has se­crets, right?”

  His eye­brows popped up. “Do they?”

  96

  Oh, God. Why did I say that? Why, why, why?

  “Did Thomas share any se­crets with you, Miss Bren­nan?” he asked. “Where he might be go­ing, for ex­am­ple?”

  Yes. Yes, he did. He did, did, did.

  “No,” I said. “No, he didn't.”

  The de­tec­tive eyed me as if he was try­ing to see in­side my brain. It made me feel all hot and prick­ly. He looked down again.

  “Is it true that last week the two of you fought out­side the cafe­te­ria?”

  My face heat­ed up like a black slate in the sun. “How did you--”

  “Sev­er­al wit­ness­es have men­tioned it,” the de­tec­tive said.

  Nice. Re­al nice. Had ev­ery­one in school come in here and point­ed their fin­gers di­rect­ly at me?
/>
  'Yes, we fought," I said.

  “About what?”

  About the fact that he's a drug deal­er and he sup­plies the whole school.

  “Uh ... I'd rather not say,” I replied.

  Both the chief and De­tec­tive Hauer blinked in the ex­act same in­cred­ulous way. So they'd nev­er heard of an eva­sive teenag­er be­fore?

  “We'd rather you did, Miss Bren­nan,” the chief said, speak­ing for the first time. “All we're try­ing to do here is find out where Thomas might have gone. Some­times peo­ple miss the sig­nif­icance of small things. We're just try­ing to dis­cern whether you hap­pen to know some­thing that might help us. That's all.”

  97

  “Oh. Okay. Well, I... I found out he was ly­ing to me,” I said.

  “About what?”

  “He told me that he'd told his par­ents about me, but I found out that he hadn't,” I said. Not a to­tal fab­ri­ca­tion. I had found that out as well, just days lat­er. “So I was an­gry. We broke up.”

  “You did?” the de­tec­tive said, rais­ing his eye­brows.

  'Yes. But then we got back to­geth­er,“ I said. 'You know how it is.”

  I gig­gled. The de­tec­tive rubbed his tem­ples and blew out a sigh. I sound­ed flighty. Flighty and stupid and ner­vous.

  “When did you get back to­geth­er?” the de­tec­tive asked fi­nal­ly, mak­ing a note on his pa­per.

  “Fri­day morn­ing,” I said defini­tive­ly.

  Con­fi­dence, Reed. This wasn't so bad. I could an­swer their ques­tions. I had noth­ing to hide.

  “Fri­day morn­ing?”

  They seemed very in­trigued by this fact.

  'Yes."

  “So the morn­ing of the day that Thomas dis­ap­peared,” the de­tec­tive said.

  I cleared my throat. Why did I clear my throat? “Sor­ry,” I said, cough­ing. “Yes.”

  “When did you last see Mr. Pear­son?” the de­tec­tive asked.

  “Then. I mean, that morn­ing. In my--”

  No. Can't say that. Can't have boys in the dorm room, stupid. Say that and you get thrown out of school be­fore you can say, “Natasha Cren­shaw.” Ms. Nay­lor's eyes gouged cav­erns in the back of my skull.

  “That is, be­hind my dorm. Brad­well,” I told them. "Be­fore

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  break­fast. But I don't live there any­more. In Brad­well, I mean. I live in Billings now. In case you need to know for your... what­ev­er."

  Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!

  “And you didn't see him for the rest of the day,” they said.

  I cleared my throat again. Ap­par­ent­ly I was be­com­ing my grand­fa­ther. “No. I tried to call him a few times, but I kept get­ting his voice mail.”

  “Miss Bren­nan, has Thomas Pear­son con­tact­ed you in any way since you last saw him?” the de­tec­tive asked.

  Well. There it was. He'd fi­nal­ly got­ten to it.

  “Miss Bren­nan? Has Thomas Pear­son con­tact­ed you?”

  Yes, he has.

  No, he hasn't.

  Yes. He has.

  “No,” I replied.

  “You haven't heard from him at all.”

  Well, not tech­ni­cal­ly. You haven't heard any­thing. You've read some­thing, but you haven't heard any­thing.

  “Reed?”

  “No. I haven't,” I said.

  Could they get a search war­rant for a mi­nor's dorm room? Maybe they didn't even need one. Maybe they were search­ing it right now. Maybe they were just keep­ing me here while their goon squad tossed my stuff. I had to burn the note. I had to get back and burn the note now.

  “I haven't.”

  99

  The de­tec­tive and the chief stared at me for a long, long mo­ment. Long enough for me to re­mem­ber Ar­iana's ad­vice that I should be pre­pared for this, that I should know what I was go­ing to say. Long enough for me to start to sweat. Long enough to imag­ine what it might feel like to be load­ed in­to the back of a po­lice cruis­er and tak­en down­town for fur­ther ques­tion­ing.

  Was this the rea­son for her warn­ing? Was she just try­ing to make this ex­pe­ri­ence eas­ier on me? Maybe she didn't sus­pect me of any­thing. Maybe she was just try­ing to be nice.

  Damn. Why didn't I lis­ten to her?

  “You're sure.”

  “I haven't.”

  They were the on­ly two words I could think or say.

  I haven't. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't. If I made my­self be­lieve it, maybe they would too.

  “Okay, then, Miss Bren­nan,” the chief said fi­nal­ly. “Thank you for your time.”

  100

  MOD­EL FRIEND

  When I walked out of the of­fice I felt hol­low. I felt like I had been used up, wrung dry, and tossed aside. I felt like I need­ed a nap. I shut the door be­hind me, leaned back against the cool brick wall, and let out a breath. I looked up at the ceil­ing, where a frost­ed- glass light fix­ture hummed.

  Dear God, please let Thomas come back soon. Or call some­one. Any­thing. I just want this to be over.

  'You okay?"

  Ki­ran stood up from the wood­en bench di­rect­ly across the hall, un­fold­ing her long legs and snap­ping her com­pact closed. Her make­up was fresh­ly ap­plied, with a new coat of shim­mer­ing lip balm and ten miles of length­en­ing mas­cara. As al­ways, she looked as if she'd just stepped off a run­way in Mi­lan, where­as I prob­ably looked like I'd just been run over by a jum­bo jet on a whole dif­fer­ent kind of run­way. In De­troit.

  “What are you do­ing here?” I asked, my heart in my throat. I had thought I was alone.

  101

  She looked at me as if I had just sug­gest­ed she switch to Cov­er Girl. “I want­ed to see if you were okay. God. Sor­ry for the in­tru­sion.”

  “You want­ed to see if I was okay?” I asked, stu­pe­fied.

  'Yes. I heard you were next up on the list and I thought, you know, that this might be . . . dif­fi­cult for you,“ she said, al­most re­luc­tant­ly. ”But if you want to be alone ..."

  She flicked her bangs away from her eyes and turned down the hall. I stopped her with a hand on her arm. The vel­vet of her jack­et was so soft I in­stant­ly with­drew, afraid I might dam­age it.

  “No. That's okay,” I said. “Thanks for com­ing.”

  Of all the Billings Girls, I would have thought Ki­ran would be the last one to pub­licly dis­play any kind of af­fec­tion. For me, any­way.

  She looked me up and down and flashed a hint of a smile. “No prob­lem. Come on. Be­fore Nay­lor catch­es me out­side of class. Wom­an has been try­ing to snag me all year.”

  To­geth­er we speed-​walked down the hall and in­to the back stair­well. The very same stair­well I had raced through on the night she and her friends had or­dered me to steal them a physics test from one of the down­stairs of­fices.

  The good old days. I had been so stressed out about that par­tic­ular task I had al­most lost it. Now I would have stolen a test ev­ery night if all this oth­er crap would have just gone away.

  Ki­ran led me down to the ground floor and pushed open the ex­it doors to the back of the build­ing.

  “Do you have to go back to class?” she asked me, slip­ping on her Guc­ci shades.

  102

  “No, they said I could spend the rest of the day in the li­brary,” I said, tak­ing out my yel­low pass.

  “Good,” Ki­ran said with a nod.

  She start­ed off along the wind­ing path that led to the li­brary. I had about a dozen ques­tions for her. Like how she had found out my name was up and how she had got­ten out of class. What she meant when she'd said Nay­lor had been try­ing to snag her all year. But I didn't ask any of them.

  “So, how did it go?” Ki­ran asked, look­ing straight ahead. She crossed her arms over her chest and held her­self tight­ly as she walked. Her high-​heeled boots click-​clack
ed against the flag­stone path.

  “It was okay. Nerve-​wrack­ing,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I don't know. You did it al­ready, right?” I said.

  She nod­ded.

  “Don't you hate the way they look at you? Like you're guilty of some­thing?”

  “They didn't look at me that way,” Ki­ran said.

  Oh. That made me feel so much bet­ter.

  “Be­sides, it's not like it was the first time I've ev­er been in­ter­viewed by po­lice,” she said in a bored tone.

  “Re­al­ly?”

  “I've had stalk­ers,” she told me mat­ter-​of-​fact­ly. "They're al­ways ask­ing me ques­tions, as if I did some­thing to pro­voke it.

  103

  As if it's my fault these psy­chos spend hours in front of their com­put­ers vi­olat­ing them­selves to my pic­ture."

  All right then.

  “What did they ask you?” she said.

  I took a deep breath and tried to erase the men­tal im­age of some fat, bald­ing guy in a wife-​beat­er sit­ting in front of a glow­ing screen....

  Ugh. Men­tal note: Nev­er be fa­mous.

  “Prob­ably the same stuff they asked you and ev­ery­one else,” I replied.

  “I doubt it,” Ki­ran said with a laugh. Then, notic­ing my sur­prised glance, she added, “You're the girl­friend.”

  “I guess. I don't know,” I said, trudg­ing along, kick­ing at fall­en leaves. “They asked me what my re­la­tion­ship sta­tus with Thomas was, when was the last time I saw him ...”

  “And what did you say?”

  “The truth,” I told her. “That I saw him on Fri­day morn­ing.”

  “And that's it?” she asked. “I mean, I'm just cu­ri­ous.”

  “Well, they al­so asked if I'd heard from him, of course,” I said, want­ing to flinch even now.

  “Right. ..,” she said.

  “And I told them I haven't,” I said. She glanced at me out of the cor­ner of her eye, like, Yeah, right. “Well, I haven't!” I said. “Why is that so hard for ev­ery­one to be­lieve?”

  Are you all psy­chic?

  104

  “Prob­ably be­cause if he'd got­ten in touch with any­one, it would have been you,” Ki­ran said flat­ly. “Thomas is no­to­ri­ous for mak­ing his girl­friends the pri­ma­ry re­la­tion­ships in his life. He's a to­tal­ly whipped boy. Like, with any­one and ev­ery­one he de­cides to date.”