They had lost their only son and they didn't even care.
I looked away and my eyes fell on a tall, broad guy, about my age, who was leaning against the wall alone, staring at me. I looked away quickly, thinking maybe we'd just happened to glance at each other at the exact same moment, but when I looked back, he was still staring. He had a thin face, chalk-white skin, and blue eyes rimmed in red. His black hair was slicked back and he wore a black suit. Add some dark lighting and eerie music and he could have been a vampire lying in wait. I waited for him to look away. And waited. Still he stared.
"Who is that?" I asked Noelle finally.
"That? That's Blake."
"Blake who? Why is he staring at me?" I asked, nervous.
"Blake Pearson," Noelle said. "Thomas's brother?"
The entire building might as well have collapsed beneath my feet. I leaned against the wall, feeling for a moment that I might black out. I wasn't sure my body could take another shock.
"Thomas's what?"
9
"He never told you he had an older brother?" Noelle asked. "God, that boy was really down with the secrets."
"Why would Thomas talk about Blake?" Ariana reached up and scratched the back of her neck. "They hated each other."
"They did?" I asked, half out of it. I wanted to know more, but my brain was too frazzled to formulate words. Had he talked to Thomas before he died? What did he know? But when I managed to look up again, Blake was gone. A chill raced down my back.
'"Member that huge brawl they had freshman year?" Kiran drawled. "I really thought they were going to kill each other."
Ariana shot her a silencing glare. Not at all an appropriate comment.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Blake was having an affair with the dean's secretary, and Thomas threatened to tell their parents. Classic I wanna be the favorite son' threat," Noelle said.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I said. "Thomas's brother had an affair with Ms. Lewis-Hanneman? But she's . . . old."
"Yeah, but look at the woman. She's totally hot. And it's not like she's ancient. She was still in her twenties a couple years ago," Kiran said. "Deteriorating, sure, but not quite ready for the junkyard."
"I think we should change the subject now, ladies," Ariana said, noticing that some of the older attendees were beginning to stare.
This was totally insane. Thomas had a brother. An older brother
10
who supposedly couldn't stand him. Why had Blake been staring at me? Did he know who I was? Had Thomas told him about me? I thought I had known Thomas so well and all along he'd had a brother I had never even heard about. Yet another mystery that would never be explained.
"I have to get out of here," I said, pushing myself away from the wall.
I walked right through the crowd and over to the far side of the room where Josh stood chatting with some other guys from school. His curly blond hair had been tamed with some kind of gel and he looked even taller and slightly broader than usual in his blue suit. While the rest of us had been whisked to the city in a limousine commissioned by Dash McCafferty's parents, Josh had driven his own Range Rover down--the one he kept in a garage off campus in case of emergency. He had been prescient enough to realize that either he or someone he cared about might want to bail from this charade early. Boy had a gift.
"Hey," I said, touching his arm.
He took one look at me and his blue eyes widened. "You okay?"
Just being near him made me feel slightly better. Solid, comforting, levelheaded Josh. He would take care of everything.
"Fine," I said flatly. "I just need to go. Can we go?"
'Yeah. Definitely. Let's go," he said.
He placed his water glass on a table nearby, said a few words to the guys, and placed his hand against the small of my back as we