Accidental Witness (Morelli Family 1)

Like my sanity is about to be, I’m pretty sure.

I try to listen as Lena goes on about her Friday night plans. Any other time I would be excited for her, but I do not have the capacity to be girly right now.

Hours later, I’m still pale and quiet at lunch, still without much to say about Lena’s date, hardly touching the slice of Oreo pie I ordered, dramatically reasoning that if I’m about to be offed by the Morelli family, I should at least have something delicious first.

I can’t stop watching for Vince. I imagine him around every corner, search for him at every table. Following lunch is English, the period we have together, and I debate skipping it, but I’m more afraid of him coming to my house to confront me. What can he actually do to me in a school building with security cameras and faculty members milling through every hall?

“What is your deal?”

I glance up at Lena without much enthusiasm. Her dark eyebrows arch expectantly up toward her dark, springy curls, and exhaustion mingled with defeat suddenly sweeps over me. Maybe it would be better to throw myself at Vince’s mercy and be done with it.

“You know my house nearly burned down a couple days ago, right?” I ask.

Lena rolls her eyes as she dips a fry in Ketchup. “Your house did not almost burn down.”

“It could’ve.”

“No, ‘cause you’re not a dumb shit who left her crack pipe going by the curtains and then nodded off to the point of not waking up when she’s on fire,” she states, without sympathy.

“They were human beings, Lena.”

“They were gross addicts who broke into your house and stole your television over the summer,” she returns.

“She had three kids.”

“All of them in foster care. I’m sorry, I know you’re a drama queen, but I’m not going to cry over the loss of scum of the earth with you.”

I want to tell her, but I can’t. I doubt she would be so glib if she felt responsible for not saving them, even if they were kind of shitty people. I can’t say that, so I keep my mouth shut.

Besides, I don’t need to bring anyone else into my mess. I haven’t told a soul what I saw, but I have an uneasy feeling with Vince lurking around, I’m about to have to tell someone.

—

The sound of a chair skidding across the floor startles the hell out of me. My head jerks up, fully expecting to find Vince Morelli straddling the backwards chair suddenly beside my desk, but instead I see Jace Bradford.

He’s giving me that little smile that made me melty a week ago, but I’m curiously unaffected, looking at it now.

“Hey.” There it is, the gravelly voice I was all hyped about a few days ago.

I can tell he expects to flirt, but I don’t have the energy for it.

Flashing him the least convincing tug of my lips ever, I make a point to look at my desktop, straightening my notebooks. “Hi.”

“Lose my number?” he teases.

“It’s been a rough few days,” I tell him. “There was a fire next door. My neighbors…”

“Oh, shit,” he says, rearing back a little. “Is everyone okay?”

Dread trickles through my veins, pooling in my stomach. Just the thought of the house fire makes me queasy—not to mention the lack of food and sleep.

“Pretty sure that’s my seat, Bradford.”

I’m pretty sure my soul falls out of my body as I look up to see Vince Morelli standing at the desk beside mine.

It’s not Vince’s seat, but Jace doesn’t argue. Standing easily enough, Jace swings the chair back behind its desk so Vince can sit down. “My bad, man.”

Vince leisurely watches me for a moment before he takes his seat, dropping a notebook and pen on the desktop. It’s a perfectly normal thing to do, but somehow it feels menacing.

Jace glances from Vince to me, then skulks away without so much as a goodbye.

My stomach somersaults as I shift in my seat, glancing back at the door. My previous thought about ditching circles back around, but the teacher is already standing at the front of the class. We have a test today, and if she sees me cut out, she may not let me make it up.

Not like I’ll be able to focus with Vince sitting beside me anyway.

He normally doesn’t sit beside me, and we do have assigned seats, so I wait for the guy who normally sits here to show up, or the teacher to say something about it.

Minutes like hours stretch on before the teacher tells everyone to settle down. She brings a stack of stapled papers and begins doing a head count at each row, passing them back. I wait for her to notice Vince next to me and say something, but if she does, she doesn’t seem to care.