“But it could go on hurting people.”
Simon shrugs. “I don’t really care. I just need to clean up after it in order to keep too many people from asking questions.”
I realize then that Simon is more concerned with appearances than about the people this Keres could possibly hurt. Or kill, if it gets strong enough.
Which it will, if it goes unchecked.
“Then I’ll go after it myself,” I say, balling my fists.
“You don’t have time for such distractions,” Simon says. “Leave this to me. This isn’t your concern.”
“But that thing almost hurt my Boon,” I say. “That does concern me. And I’m sure it’s only just started with its attacks. If we don’t stop it now …”
Simon snaps his gaze in my direction. I don’t look away fast enough, and he locks eyes with me. “Drop it,” he says. “This conversation is over. Let me handle this.”
I find myself unable to speak anymore about the topic—but I know this matter is far from being over.
chapter thirty
DAPHNE
I don’t realize that I have been asleep until the sound of a phone ringing wakes me up. In my groggy, disoriented state, I find I am unable to tell if what had happened in the last few hours—the party, Lexie near the grove, strange shadows and lightning, Haden walking me home—had been real, or if I’d merely been having the strangest dream.
I blink several times and my eyes focus on the dirty, torn blue dress that’s draped over the back of my vanity chair.
Nope, definitely not a dream.
The clock on my dresser tells me it’s early Saturday morning. Too early for social calls, I think as I pick up the phone.
It’s my mother.
Her voice is bordering on shrill, and the notes of concern ringing through her words are so strong that I panic, thinking she’s somehow gotten wind of what happened after the party and is about to demand that I pack my bags and come home. Instead, I realize she’s saying something about CeCe.
I sit up in bed with the handset pressed to my ear. “What was that?”
“Have you heard anything from CeCe in the last week?” she asks.
“No. I’ve left her messages, but she hasn’t called back.”
“Nothing? No texts or anything?”
“No,” I say, not admitting that my cell phone is probably in some guy named Haden Lord’s bedroom. Who may happen to be related to a kidnapper, according to my new bestie. “Why?”
“She’s gone,” my mom says.
“What? What do you mean, gone?” I try to keep the panic from rising in my voice, but Tobin’s talk of missing girls is making me as paranoid as he is.
“Demi, you’re being overly dramatic and scaring the girl.” I hear Jonathan’s soothing voice and realize I’m on speakerphone. Probably in the flower shop, the faint buzz of the old cooler in the background. “Hey, honey, how was the fancy party? You took pictures, didn’t you?”
“It was … nice,” I say. “But what’s this about CeCe? I thought she had the flu.”
“She quit,” Jonathan says. “In a note, of all things, and right before we needed to get all the orders in for the Harvest Banquet.”
“Why would she quit?”
“I don’t know,” Mom says.
“When did this happen?”
“I don’t know when she left,” Mom says. “She called in sick the morning after you went to California and didn’t come in for any of her shifts this week. I figured she must have been feeling really poorly, so I went over to her apartment with some of my tummy tea this morning, and, well, she was just gone. Her landlord said she left a check to cover cleaning and a note saying that she quit her job and was leaving town.”
“Why?” I ask.
“No idea. She’s never seemed interested in leaving Ellis.”
“I told you,” I hear Indie’s staccato voice from somewhere in the background. “She must have taken that new job.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Some woman called the shop a few days ago,” Indie says, coming closer to the speakerphone. “She was asking all these employment verification questions. Like how long CeCe had worked here, where she’d worked before, and stuff. I don’t get why everyone is worked up about it. So she quit and took a new job in a town that actually has malls and stuff.”
Honestly, I can’t blame CeCe, considering I’d left Ellis for bigger and better things. It just surprises me that she hadn’t called to tell me her plans.
“We were hoping you’d heard more from her,” Jonathan says. “I can’t get over her not saying good-bye.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Mom says. “She always seemed so happy here. Right up until you …”
“Right up until I left,” I say, finishing the thought for her.
chapter thirty-one
HADEN
“He’s not even singing,” Tobin whispers to Daphne. They sit on the other side of the half circle of chairs in the music room. It’s amusing that he thinks I don’t know what he’s saying. I can’t actually hear their words over the singing, but I have spent the weekend mastering the art of lipreading. What isn’t amusing, however, is that Tobin has caught on to the fact that I’m merely moving my own lips along with the rest of the choir. Daphne looks up at me. I stare down at the songbook in my hands. Maybe I should try singing along, but I don’t know how to make my voice do what hers does, even if I want to. I feel her gaze leave me and I glance back at her.
“Maybe he’s just intimidated,” Daphne says. “It’s his first day in the program.”
My hands grow hot at the idea that she thinks I am afraid. I take a deep breath, tempering myself before I set the songbook on fire.
“Maybe he doesn’t know how to sing.”
“Then he shouldn’t be here at all.” The hard-lined look on Tobin’s face makes me wonder what exactly his problem is.
“Leave him alone,” Daphne whispers to him. “I think I was mistaken about him. He’s not the bad guy I thought he was.”
“I think he’s exactly who you thought he was.”
Mr. Morgan shoots them a cross look for talking while the others are singing. This song is supposed to be for the rock opera that Daphne’s father is writing—or so the teacher had explained at the beginning of the class period. It’s a chorus piece, which apparently means that Daphne is not part of the song. I find myself wishing she were. I want to know if her voice is as enchanting as I remember.
When the song ends, Mr. Morgan addresses the class. “Very good. Very good. But we still have a lot of work. I want this song ready to present to Mr. Vince for his approval by the end of the week. Now for another matter,” he says. “The mayor has asked me to find volunteers to provide entertainment for the Light-up Olympus Festival at the end of November. Does anyone want to sign up to do a musical number as part of a showcase the night of the festival?”
Tobin’s hand shoots up. “I will.”
“Thank you for your enthusiasm, Tobin. I’ll mark you down. Anyone else?”
Tobin’s hand goes up again.
“Yes?” Mr. Morgan asks.
“I think we should hear from the new student,” he says.
I look up at him. I keep my face expressionless, but I can only hope that the glint of panic doesn’t show in my eyes.
“I’d like to hear what he’s got. And where better than in front of the whole town? He must be something pretty special to have earned a spot in the department without auditioning.”
I sit up straighter. My gaze shifts to Mr. Morgan.
Mr. Morgan looks flustered. I wonder what kind of “requests” Simon made of him to get me in the program. “Well, only if he wants to. It’s completely voluntary.”
Tobin sets his glare on me. The rest of the class follows his lead. “What say you? Are you up for the challenge?”
If it is possible for someone’s expression to say, “You’re not fooling me. I know you don’t belong here. Try to prove
me wrong,” all in one narrowed-eyed look, this Tobin guy is pulling it off. It isn’t a physical confrontation, but his challenge is just as serious as any one I’d accepted in the Underrealm.
And, oddly, feels just as dangerous.
Like not accepting will prove to him that I’m not who I claim to be.
“Challenge accepted,” I say.
As other students volunteer to add their names to the performance list, I catch Daphne’s eye for the first time since class started. I want her to see that I am not afraid. Even if, deep down, I really am.
When the bell rings, I pick up my songbook and leave as quickly as I can. I can sense Tobin coming after me, and Daphne only a few steps behind him. I duck around a corner. Leaning against a locker, I listen as Daphne catches up with him.
chapter thirty-two
DAPHNE
“Stop, Tobin,” I say as I catch up to him in the hallway. “What was all that challenge crap back there? You’re not going to try to punch him again, are you? Because you’d probably get kicked out of the play this time if you do.”
“I just wanted to see where he goes next.”
“To class,” I say. “Like everyone else.”
“Or so we think.”
“I told you, I don’t think Haden is a bad guy.”
Tobin takes me by the elbow and leads me into a small alcove in the hallway, like he’s afraid someone might overhear what he has to say next. “You know there was another attack Friday night?” he says. His voice is low and quiet, but I can hear an edge of accusation in his tone. At first, I think he’s referring to what happened to Lexie in the grove and he’s mad at me for not telling him about it—frankly, I didn’t because I haven’t been able to process what happened yet, myself—but then he goes on: “She was a cater waiter at the party. One of the valets found her unconscious near the lake.”
“Oh no.” I clasp a hand to my face. “What happened?”
“They’re saying heart attack again. But I don’t believe it. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Haden was skulking around a party where someone ended up being attacked. I saw him sneaking over my back fence just after we left my mom’s office.”
I shake my head. “Haden didn’t hurt anyone after leaving the party.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he was with me,” I say.
“What?” Tobin’s face goes ashen. “You left the party with him?”
“Not exactly …” I give him a quick overview of what happened to me and Lexie in the grove, even though I know it all sounds insane. But Tobin doesn’t balk at my description of the weird screeching noise, the freaky, swooping shadow thing, and the stormless lightning. In fact, he doesn’t react at all until I get to the part about how Haden showed up just as the weird shadow disappeared. “He helped Lexie and me Friday night. That’s how I know he wasn’t off attacking people.”
“Are you sure?” Tobin asks. “I mean, you said you couldn’t see who, or what, it was that was after Lexie … and then Haden just happened to show up? How do you know he wasn’t the one who was trying to hurt her in the first place?”
I shake my head in frustration. “Because I just do. And I don’t think he had anything to do with what happened to Pear, either. I was mistaken about that. He’s not evil. He’s just different.”
“What, do you like him?” Tobin takes a step back, as if the idea of my liking Haden is repulsive to him. “You have a thing for him even after what I told you about Abbie?”
“No. I definitely don’t have a thing for Haden. Listen, I agree that there’s something weird going on around here. What happened to me and Lexie proves it. But maybe you should stop jumping to all these crazy conclusions about Haden because his last name happens to be Lord. It could be a total coincidence that your sister was friends with someone with that last name before she disappeared. Maybe this guy is related to Haden, but it doesn’t mean anything. I’m friends with you, but that doesn’t mean if I were to go missing, that you’d be suspect number one.” I take Tobin’s hands in mine because I know what I have to say next is going to be hard for him to hear. “Are you even sure this guy looked anything like Haden? Was Lord really his last name? You were only ten years old, Tobin. You may have gotten some of the details wrong.”
I can hear the anger coming off him before I can see it on his face. I know I’ve offended him by questioning his theory about his sister’s disappearance. But someone needed to.
“You think I’d forget the face of the guy who took my sister?”
“You have no proof that he even did.…”
“I do have proof,” Tobin says, pulling his iPhone from his pocket.
The bell rings, indicating that our next classes have started, but neither of us moves. I am sick of our conversations getting interrupted and I’m not going anywhere until I’ve heard everything Tobin has to say. What proof could he possibly have?
“I’m still listening,” I say.
“This is what I wanted to show you at the party.” Tobin hands me his phone. The camera roll is pulled up on the screen. The small thumbnail photos all seem to be pictures of documents. I click on one of them to enlarge it, and then scroll through the others. They all seem to be dossiers—files containing detailed information about certain people. I look more closely at the information. Not just any people. Each dossier, fifteen total, is about a teenage girl, ranging from the ages fifteen to eighteen, and contains details such as name, date of birth, physical description, last known address, date last seen, and reason for leaving Olympus Hills.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Those are all girls who left Olympus Hills High under mysterious circumstances in the last fifty years. The first one dates back to the early 1960s—when the school was founded. The most recent is my sister, Abbie, six years ago.”
“Okay, this is definitely strange, but what does it all mean?”
“It means that in fifty years, fifteen girls have gone missing from this school. That’s just enough to be out of the ordinary, but not enough to draw someone’s attention. Unless you’re someone like me, who’s looking.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘gone missing’?” I ask, pointing to the file that’s pulled up on the phone. “This Kendare Petrovich, it says that she left OHH because she transferred to Juilliard in 2001.” I swipe the screen. “And this Adele Berger got pregnant and moved to San Diego in 1982.” I swipe through more of the files. “None of these reasons for leaving seem all that mysterious to me. Abbie running away from home is the weirdest. I mean, I left Ellis High before graduating, but you can hardly call that circumstances mysterious.” Well, only a little. The mystery being why Joe even wanted me around.
“Yeah, but Juilliard has no record of a student named Kendare Petrovich, and there were no Adele Bergers living in San Diego in 1982. I talked to the aunt she supposedly moved in with, and she hasn’t seen Adele since she was a kid. Yeah, a lot of people have come and gone from Olympus Hills without graduating, but these fifteen people all have stories that don’t check out. Like someone was trying to cover up the reason they went missing.”
“Who even made these files? Where did you get these?”
“I made them,” Tobin says. “It’s something I’ve been working on for a couple of years.”
I look at him, realizing that I don’t really know him at all. Underneath his sweetness and friendly tone lies the heart of a fullblown conspiracy theorist.
“I got all these names from my mother’s files. I was trying to show you the master list when she walked in last night.”
“Have you asked her about this?”
“Yeah, right. And tell my mom I went through her private government files? You have no idea the grounding I would get.” Tobin smirks. “My mom is kind of a scary lady.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, thinking of the icy reception I got from her after we were caught snooping. “I guess it makes sense, though, that, as mayor, she would probably be aware
of people who’ve gone missing in her town. And it makes even more sense that a ritzy place like this would want to keep this sort of thing covered up. Bad PR, you know.”
Tobin nods.
“But this still doesn’t prove that any of these missing people are connected,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “How does this prove anything about the Lord family?”
“Look at the dates,” Tobin says, pointing at the phone. “There’s a pattern. One girl has gone missing every three years. There’s only one deviation. It’s been six years since Abbie disappeared and no others since then.”
“Okay, that’s definitely eerie.” I rub my arms, suddenly feeling cold.
“I thought maybe the pattern had stopped … that maybe whatever was going on had stopped. Until I saw Haden Lord. Which made me remember my sister’s friend. Which got me thinking … I’ve only lived here for six and a half years, so I don’t really know, but what if there were people from the Lord family in Olympus Hills all those other times people went missing?”
“Bridgette said that the Lord family sends kids here from time to time.”
“She did?” Tobin almost sounds giddy at the prospect.
“Yeah, her dad’s on the school board. She said they come every few years.”
“Like, every three years?”
“I don’t know.” There’s a look in his eye that makes me worry he’s drawing way too many conclusions. “Tobin, none of this is proof. This is still just a theory. And it doesn’t mean Haden knows anything about it.”
“That’s why I’m going to get some proof. There has to be a way to figure out if any more Lords were here the same years these girls disappeared.”
“What are you going to do, hack the school server?”
Tobin doesn’t answer.
“Tobin?”
“I bet records aren’t even computerized before the nineties,” he mumbles to himself.
“Tobin! You’re going to get yourself into trouble.”
“I need your help,” he says.
“Excuse me?”