Right as I was about to open my mouth and spill it all, my cell phone let out a loud beep. Instantly all my blood rushed into my face. What was I thinking? I couldn’t tell anyone anything. Noelle’s life hung in the balance. After everything I’d been through here at Easton, I knew all too well how fragile life was. How easy it was for some people to take it from others. I couldn’t risk losing Noelle.
If I lost her, I had no idea what I would do. And besides, I didn’t entirely trust Mr. Hathawa
y. Who knew if he would actually do the right thing?
“I’m fine,” I told him, my voice thick. “Really. I just … needed to vent.”
Headmaster Hathaway blew out a sigh and hung his head. He made a temple of his forefingers and held them over his mouth as he looked up at me again.
“I’m sorry that you choose not to trust me, Reed,” he said slowly, his eyes like two rounds of coal. “But if you won’t tell me what’s going on, I’m just going to have to find out for myself.”
“Get off your butt, Reed. We’re kidnapping you!”
Under the current circumstances, hearing such a thing might have scared me, but it was coming from Tiffany and she had a big, fat smile on her face as she walked into my room. I sat up on my bed, dropping the history book I was trying to concentrate on. My extra-credit assignment was due on Tuesday and I had barely made a dent. Letting my friends kidnap me right now would not be the most responsible choice.
But who could worry about being responsible at a time like this?
“Who’s we?” I asked, leaning to the side to try to see around her. Rose waved at me from the doorway.
“Rose and I are taking you to the Botanical for a little Saturday morning R and R,” Tiffany said, grabbing me by the wrists and hauling me up. She clapped her hands together. “Let’s go. Coat, hat, bag. Go, go, go!”
“Okay, if your intention is to relax me, you’re not off to a great start,” I said with a laugh.
“She has a point, Tiff,” Rose said. “Dial it down a notch.”
“Sorry,” Tiffany said. “Spa days excite me.” She looked me up and down, her brow creased with consternation. “Why are you not moving?”
I glanced at my iPhone, sitting silent and lifeless on my desk. What if the kidnappers texted while I was in the middle of a massage? What if I had to do something on campus right away? Maybe being away from here for too long would be a big mistake.
But then, none of the kidnapper’s assignments had been immediate. And besides, it was Valentine’s Day, and I hadn’t spoken to Josh in almost forty-eight hours. I had no idea if he still intended to take me to the dance tonight as we’d planned, or if he was going to call me and cancel, or if he was just going to stand me up completely. My shoulder muscles coiled tightly, sending a twinge of pain all the way up my neck. Yeah. I could use a little pampering on a day like this.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m definitely not moving fast enough.”
I grabbed my phone and shoved it in my bag.
“That’s my girl,” Tiffany said with a grin.
“When did you guys come up with this plan?” I asked. I slid my arms into the sleeves of my coat and lifted my hair out from under the collar, letting it fall loose down my back.
“Roughly five minutes after your minor breakdown in chapel the other day,” Tiffany said matter-of-factly.
My face burned at the memory as I strode out the door. A couple of people had asked me what the snake thing was all about and I’d told them that I didn’t want to talk about it. Meanwhile, those who didn’t know me well, or who were already wary about me thanks to my close association with the last two murders and murder victims at Easton, had been giving me a wide-berth on campus, taking out-of-the-way routes across the quad just to avoid passing me directly. It was kind of amusing, actually, but sooner or later, I was going to have to come up with some kind of explanation for my actual friends. I just hoped it would be later, because my tired brain was not functioning at high levels these days.
“Five minutes? Try five seconds,” Rose said with a laugh. She fell into step behind me as I led the way down the carpeted hallway to the stairs. “She was on her phone making a reservation before the applause had even died down.”
I shook my head and jogged down the stairs, shoving open the door and taking a deep breath of the crisp, cold air. Waiting for us at the curb in front of the huge, stone fountain, was a sleek, black town car.
“What would I do without you guys?” I asked as Tiffany slung her arm over my shoulders.
“You’d definitely be in a straitjacket by now,” she joked. “Let’s roll.”
“For a young girl, you certainly hold a lot of tension in your shoulders,” my masseuse, Kristianne, told me as she finished up my deep tissue massage.
“She has more stress than the usual sixteen-year-old,” Rose said, her voice muffled since her face, like mine, was mashed into a donut pillow.
They had no idea how much more stress. Even though the masseuses had told us to leave all electronic devices in the lockers with the rest of our clothes and personal items, I had managed to sneak my iPhone in and half-camouflage it under a towel on the chair in the corner. Every chance I got, I glanced casually in that direction to check if it had lit up with a text while I wasn’t paying attention. So far, it had been dormant.
“Okay, Reed,” Kristianne said in her quiet, soothing voice. “You can roll over.”