De­tec­ti­ve Hols­ti­j­ic bro­ke the ten­se si­len­ce by sa­ying, "When will yo­ur pa­rents be ho­me?"

  "I li­ve with my mom. She had to ma­ke a qu­ick trip to the of­fi­ce."

  "We ne­ed to ask you both a few qu­es­ti­ons," he con­ti­nu­ed. He po­in­ted for me to ta­ke a se­at on my bed, but I sho­ok my he­ad numbly. "Ha­ve you re­cently bro­ken up with a boyf­ri­end?"

  "No."

  "How abo­ut drugs? Ha­ve you had a prob­lem, now or in the past?"

  "No."

  "You men­ti­oned that you li­ve with yo­ur mom. How abo­ut Dad? Whe­re's he?"

  "This was a mis­ta­ke," I sa­id. "I'm sorry. I sho­uldn't ha­ve cal­led."

  The two of­fi­cers exc­han­ged lo­oks. De­tec­ti­ve Hols­ti­j­ic shut his eyes and mas­sa­ged the in­ner cor­ners. De­tec­ti­ve Bas­so lo­oked li­ke he'd was­ted eno­ugh ti­me and was re­ady to blow it off.

  "We've got things to do," he sa­id. "Are you go­ing to be all right he­re alo­ne un­til yo­ur mom gets back?"

  I hardly he­ard him; I co­uldn't pull my eyes off the win­dow. How was he do­ing it? Fif­te­en mi­nu­tes. He had fif­te­en mi­nu­tes to find a way back in­si­de and put the ro­om in or­der be­fo­re the po­li­ce ar­ri­ved. And with me downs­ta­irs the who­le ti­me. At the re­ali­za­ti­on that we'd be­en alo­ne in the ho­use to­get­her, I shud­de­red.

  De­tec­ti­ve Hols­ti­j­ic ex­ten­ded his bu­si­ness card. "Co­uld you ha­ve yo­ur mom call us when she gets in?"

  "We'll see our­sel­ves out," De­tec­ti­ve Bas­so sa­id. He was al­re­ady half­way down the hall.

  CHAPTER 15

  "YOU THINK ELLIOT MURDERED SOMEONE?"

  "Shh!" I his­sed at Vee, glan­cing ac­ross the rows of lab tab­les to ma­ke su­re no one had over­he­ard.

  "No of­fen­se, ba­be, but this is star­ting to get ri­di­cu­lo­us. First he at­tac­ked me. Now he's a kil­ler. I'm sorry, but El­li­ot? A mur­de­rer? He's, li­ke, the ni­cest guy I've ever met. When was the last ti­me he for­got to hold open a do­or for you? Oh, ye­ah, that's right… ne­ver"

  Vee and I we­re in bi­ology, and Vee was lying fa­ce­up on a tab­le. We we­re run­ning a lab on blo­od pres­su­re, and Vee was sup­po­sed to be res­ting si­lently for fi­ve mi­nu­tes. Nor­mal­ly I wo­uld ha­ve wor­ked with Patch, but Co­ach had gi­ven us a free day, which me­ant we we­re free to cho­ose our own part­ners. Vee and I we­re at the back of the ro­om; Patch was wor­king with a jock na­med Tho­mas Ro­okery at the front of the ro­om.

  "He was qu­es­ti­oned as a sus­pect in a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on," I whis­pe­red, fe­eling Co­ach's eyes gra­vi­ta­te to­ward us. I scrib­bled a few no­tes on my lab she­et. Su­bj­ect is calm and re­la­xed. Su­bj­ect has ref­ra­ined from spe­aking for three and a half mi­nu­tes. "The po­li­ce ob­vi­o­usly tho­ught he had mo­ti­ve and me­ans."

  "Are you su­re it's the sa­me El­li­ot?"

  "How many El­li­ot Sa­un­der­ses do you think the­re we­re at King­horn in Feb­ru­ary?"

  Vee strum­med her fin­gers on her sto­mach. "It just se­ems re­al­ly, re­al­ly hard to be­li­eve. And any­way, so what if he was qu­es­ti­oned? The im­por­tant thing is, he was re­le­ased. They didn't find him gu­ilty."

  "Be­ca­use po­li­ce fo­und a su­ici­de no­te writ­ten by Hal­ver­son."

  "Who's Hal­ver­son aga­in?"

  "Kj­irs­ten Hal­ver­son," I sa­id im­pa­ti­ently. "The girl who sup­po­sedly han­ged her­self."

  "May­be she did hang her­self. I me­an, what if one day she sa­id, 'Hey, li­fe sucks,' and strung her­self to a tree? It has hap­pe­ned."

  "You don't find it a lit­tle too co­in­ci­den­tal that her apart­ment sho­wed evi­den­ce of a bre­ak-in when they dis­co­ve­red the su­ici­de no­te?"

  "She li­ved in Port­land. Bre­ak-ins hap­pen."

  "I think so­me­one pla­ced the no­te. So­me­one who wan­ted El­li­ot off the ho­ok."

  "Who wo­uld want El­li­ot off the ho­ok?" Vee as­ked.

  I ga­ve her my best duh lo­ok.

  Vee prop­ped her­self up with her go­od el­bow. "So you're sa­ying El­li­ot ha­uled Kj­irs­ten up a tree, ti­ed a ro­pe aro­und her neck, pus­hed her off the limb, then did a bre­aking-and-ente­ring job on her apart­ment and plan­ted evi­den­ce po­in­ting to a su­ici­de."

  "Why not?"

  Vee re­tur­ned the duh lo­ok. "Be­ca­use the cops al­re­ady analy­zed everyt­hing. If they're ru­ling it a su­ici­de, so am I."

  "How abo­ut this," I sa­id. "Just we­eks af­ter El­li­ot was re­le­ased from qu­es­ti­oning, he trans­fer­red scho­ols. Why wo­uld so­me­one le­ave King­horn Prep to co­me to CHS?"

  "You've got a po­int the­re."

  "I think he's trying to es­ca­pe his past. I think it be­ca­me too un­com­for­tab­le at­ten­ding scho­ol on the sa­me cam­pus whe­re he kil­led Kj­irs­ten. He has a gu­ilty cons­ci­en­ce." I tap­ped my pen­cil aga­inst my lip. "I ne­ed to dri­ve out to King­horn and ask qu­es­ti­ons. She just di­ed two months ago; ever­yo­ne will still be buz­zing abo­ut it."

  "I don't know, No­ra. I'm get­ting bad vi­bes abo­ut ini­ti­ating a spy ope­ra­ti­on at King­horn. I me­an, are you go­ing to ask abo­ut El­li­ot spe­ci­fi­cal­ly? What if he finds out? What's he go­ing to think?"

  I lo­oked down at her. "He only has so­met­hing to worry abo­ut if he's gu­ilty."

  "And then he'll kill you to si­len­ce you." Vee grin­ned li­ke the Ches­hi­re cat. I didn't. "I want to find out who at­tac­ked me just as much as you do," she con­ti­nu­ed on a mo­re se­ri­o­us no­te, "but I swe­ar on my li­fe it wasn't El­li­ot. I've rep­la­yed the me­mory, li­ke, a hund­red ti­mes. It's not a match. Not even clo­se. Trust me."

  "Okay, may­be El­li­ot didn't at­tack you," I sa­id, trying to ap­pe­ase Vee but not abo­ut to cle­ar El­li­ot's na­me. "He still has a lot go­ing aga­inst him. He was in­vol­ved in a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on, for one. And he's al­most too ni­ce, for two. It's cre­epy. And he's fri­ends with Jules, for three."

  Vee frow­ned. "Jules? What's wrong with Jules?"

  "Don't you think it's odd that every ti­me we're with them, Jules ba­ils?"

  "What's that sup­po­sed to me­an?"

  "The night we went to Delp­hic, Jules left al­most im­me­di­ately to use the bath­ro­om. Did he ever co­me back? Af­ter I left to buy cot­ton candy, did El­li­ot find him?"

  "No, but I chal­ked it up to in­ter­nal plum­bing is­su­es."

  "Then, last night, he myste­ri­o­usly cal­led in sick." I scrub­bed my pen­cil's era­ser down the length of my no­se, thin­king. "He se­ems to get sick a lot."

  "I think you're ove­ra­naly­zing this. May­be… may­be he has IBS."

  "IBS?"

  "Irri­tab­le bo­wel syndro­me."

  I dis­car­ded Vee's sug­ges­ti­on in fa­vor of men­tal­ly stretc­hing for an idea that flo­ated just out of re­ach. King­horn Prep was easily an ho­ur away by car. If the scho­ol was as aca­de­mi­cal­ly ri­go­ro­us as El­li­ot cla­imed, how did Jules con­ti­nu­al­ly ha­ve ti­me to ma­ke the dri­ve to Cold­wa­ter to vi­sit? I saw him ne­arly every mor­ning on my way to scho­ol at En­zo's Bist­ro with El­li­ot. Plus, he ga­ve El­li­ot a ri­de ho­me af­ter scho­ol. It was al­most li­ke El­li­ot had Jules in the palm of his hand.

  But that wasn't all of it. I scrub­bed the era­ser mo­re fu­ri­o­usly aga­inst my no­se. What was I mis­sing?

  "Why wo­uld El­li­ot kill Kj­irs­ten?" I won­de­red out lo­ud. "May­be she saw him do so­met­hing il­le­gal, and he kil­led her to si­len­ce her."

  Vee let go of a sigh. "This is star­ting to drift in­to the land of This Ma­kes Ab­so­lu­tely No Sen­se."

  "The­re's so­met­hing el­se. So­met­hing we're not se­e­ing."

  Vee lo­oked at me li­ke my lo­gic was va­ca­ti­oning in outer spa­ce. "Per­so­nal­ly, I think you're se­e­ing too much. This fe­els a lot li­ke a witch hunt."

  And then all of a sud­den I knew what I was mis­sing. It had be­en nag­ging me all day, cal­ling to me from the back of my mind, but I'd be­en too overw­hel­med with everyt­hing el­se to pay at­ten­ti­on. De­tec­ti­ve Bas­so had as­ked me if anyt­hing was mis­sing. It just now hit me that so­met­hing was. I'd set the ar­tic­le abo­ut El­li­ot on top of my dres­ser last night. But this mor­ning-I con­sul­ted my me­mory to be su­re-it was go­ne. De­fi­ni­tely go­ne.

  "Omi­gosh," I sa­id. "Elli­ot bro­ke in­to my ho­use last night. It was him! He sto­le the ar­tic­le." Sin­ce the ar­tic­le was in pla­in sight, it was ob­vi­o­us El­li­ot had torn apart my ro­om to ter­ro­ri­ze me-pos­sibly as pu­nish­ment for fin­ding the ar­tic­le in the first pla­ce.

  "Whoa, what?" Vee sa­id.

  "What's wrong?" as­ked Co­ach, co­ming to a stop be­si­de me.

  "Ye­ah, what's wrong?" Vee chi­med in. She po­in­ted and la­ug­hed at me from be­hind Co­ach's back.

  "Urn-the su­bj­ect do­esn't ap­pe­ar to ha­ve a pul­se," I sa­id, gi­ving Vee's wrist a hard pinch.

  Whi­le Co­ach pro­bed for Vee's pul­se, she ma­de swo­oning mo­ti­ons and fan­ned her­self. Co­ach flic­ked his eyes to mi­ne, lo­oking at me over the top of his glas­ses. "Right he­re, No­ra. Be­ating lo­ud and strong. Are you su­re the su­bj­ect ref­ra­ined from ac­ti­vity, inc­lu­ding tal­king, for the full fi­ve mi­nu­tes? This pul­se isn't as slow as I wo­uld ha­ve ex­pec­ted."

  "The su­bj­ect strug­gled with the no-tal­king step," Vee in­te­rj­ec­ted. "And the su­bj­ect has a hard ti­me re­la­xing on a rock-hard bi­ology tab­le. The su­bj­ect wo­uld li­ke to pro­po­se switc­hing pla­ces so No­ra can be the new su­bj­ect." Vee used her right hand to grab me and pull her­self up­right.

  "Don't ma­ke me reg­ret al­lo­wing you to cho­ose yo­ur own part­ners," Co­ach told us.

  "Don't ma­ke me reg­ret co­ming to scho­ol to­day," sa­id Vee swe­etly.

  Co­ach shot her a war­ning lo­ok, then pic­ked up my lab she­et, eyes skim­ming the all-but-blank pa­ge.

  "The su­bj­ect equ­ates bi­ology labs with over­do­sing on presc­rip­ti­on-strength se­da­ti­ves," Vee sa­id.

  Co­ach chir­ped his whist­le, and all eyes in the class swung our way.

  "Patch?" he sa­id. "Mind ta­king over he­re? We se­em to ha­ve run in­to a part­ner prob­lem."

  "I was so kid­ding," Vee sa­id qu­ickly. "He­re-I'll do the lab."

  "You sho­uld ha­ve tho­ught of that fif­te­en mi­nu­tes ago," Co­ach sa­id.

  "Ple­ase for­gi­ve me?" she as­ked, bat­ting her eye­las­hes an­ge­li­cal­ly. Co­ach tuc­ked her no­te­bo­ok un­der her go­od arm. "No."

  Sorry! Vee mo­ut­hed over her sho­ul­der at me as she wal­ked re­luc­tantly to the front of the ro­om.

  A mo­ment la­ter Patch to­ok a se­at on the tab­le be­si­de me. He clas­ped his hands lo­osely bet­we­en his kne­es and kept a ste­ady ga­ze on me.

  "What?" I sa­id, fe­eling un­ner­ved by the we­ight of his sta­re.

  He smi­led. "I was re­mem­be­ring the shark sho­es. Last night."

  I got the usu­al Patch-indu­ced flut­ter in my sto­mach, and li­ke usu­al, I co­uldn't dis­tin­gu­ish if it was a go­od thing or a bad thing.

  "How was yo­ur night?" I as­ked, my vo­ice ca­re­ful­ly ne­ut­ral as I at­temp­ted to bre­ak the ice. My spying ad­ven­tu­res still hung un­com­for­tably bet­we­en us.

  "Inte­res­ting. Yo­urs?"

  "Not so much."

  "Ho­me­work was bru­tal, huh?"

  He was ma­king fun of me. "I didn't do ho­me­work."

  He had the smi­le of a fox. "Who did you do?"

  I was spe­ech­less a mo­ment. I sto­od the­re with my mo­uth slightly open. "Was that an in­nu­en­do?"

  "Just cu­ri­o­us what my com­pe­ti­ti­on is."

  "Grow up."

  His smi­le stretc­hed. "Lo­osen up."

  "I'm al­re­ady wal­king on thin ice with Co­ach, so do me a fa­vor and let's con­cent­ra­te on the lab. I'm not in the mo­od to play test su­bj­ect, so if you don't mind…" I lo­oked po­in­tedly at the tab­le.

  "Can't," he sa­id. "I don't ha­ve a he­art."

  I told myself he wasn't be­ing li­te­ral.

  I lo­we­red myself down on the tab­le and stac­ked my hands on my sto­mach. "Tell me when fi­ve mi­nu­tes are up." I shut my eyes, pre­fer­ring not to watch Patch's black eyes exa­mi­ne me.

  A few mi­nu­tes la­ter I ope­ned one eye a slit.

  "Ti­me's up," sa­id Patch.

  I held one up­tur­ned wrist out so he co­uld ta­ke my pul­se. Patch to­ok my hand, and a jolt of he­at shot up my arm and en­ded with a squ­e­eze in my sto­mach.

  "The su­bj­ect's pul­se inc­re­ased on con­tact," he sa­id.

  "Don't wri­te that." It was sup­po­sed to so­und in­dig­nant. If anyt­hing, it so­un­ded li­ke I was rep­res­sing a smi­le.

  "Co­ach wants us to be tho­ro­ugh."

  "What do you want?" I as­ked him.

  Patch's eyes con­nec­ted with mi­ne. On the in­si­de, he was grin­ning. I co­uld tell.

  "Except, you know, that," I sa­id.

  After scho­ol I swung by Miss Gre­ene's of­fi­ce for our sche­du­led ap­po­int­ment. At the end of the scho­ol day, Dr. Hend­rick­son had al­ways kept his do­or wi­de open, a non­ver­bal in­vi­ta­ti­on for stu­dents to stop by. Every ti­me I pas­sed down this stretch of hal­lway now, Miss Gre­ene had the do­or clo­sed. All the way. The Do not dis­turb was imp­li­cit.

  "No­ra," she sa­id, ope­ning the do­or af­ter my knock, "ple­ase co­me in. Ha­ve a se­at."

  Her of­fi­ce was fully un­pac­ked and de­co­ra­ted to­day. She'd bro­ught in se­ve­ral mo­re plants, and a pa­nel of fra­med bo­ta­ni­cal prints hung in a row on the wall abo­ve her desk.

  Miss Gre­ene sa­id, "I've be­en thin­king a lot abo­ut what you sa­id last we­ek. I ca­me to the ob­vi­o­us conc­lu­si­on that our re­la­ti­ons­hip ne­eds to be bu­ilt on trust and res­pect. We won't dis­cuss yo­ur dad aga­in, un­less you spe­cify."

  "Okay," I sa­id wa­rily. What we­re we go­ing to talk abo­ut?

  "I he­ard so­me rat­her di­sap­po­in­ting news," she sa­id. Her smi­le fa­ded and she le­aned for­ward, res­ting her el­bows on the desk. She was hol­ding a pen, and she rol­led it bet­we­en her palms. "I don't me­an to pry in­to yo­ur pri­va­te li­fe, No­ra, but I tho­ught I ma­de myself per­fectly cle­ar con­cer­ning yo­ur in­vol­ve­ment with Patch."

  I wasn't qu­ite su­re whe­re she was go­ing with this. "I ha­ven't tu­to­red him." And, re­al­ly, was it any of her bu­si­ness?

  "Sa­tur­day night Patch ga­ve you a ri­de ho­me from Delp­hic Se­aport. And you in­vi­ted him in­si­de yo­ur ho­use."

  I fo­ught to hold in a cho­ke of pro­test. "How do you know abo­ut that?"

  "Part of my job as yo­ur scho­ol psycho­lo­gist is to gi­ve you gu­idan­ce," Miss Gre­ene sa­id. "Ple­ase pro­mi­se me you'll be very, very ca­re­ful aro­und Patch." She lo­oked at me li­ke she was ac­tu­al­ly wa­iting for my oath of pro­mi­se.

  "It's kind of comp­li­ca­ted," I sa­id. "My ri­de left me stran­ded at Delp­hic. I didn't ha­ve a cho­ice. It's not li­ke I se­ek out op­por­tu­ni­ti­es to spend ti­me with Patch." Well, ex­cept for last night at the Bor­der­li­ne. In my de­fen­se, I ho­nestly hadn't ex­pec­ted to see Patch. He was sup­po­sed to ha­ve the night off.

  "I'm very glad to he­ar it," Miss Gre­ene ans­we­red, but she didn't so­und fully con­vin­ced of my in­no­cen­ce. "With that out of the way, is the­re anyt­hing el­se you'd li­ke to talk abo­ut to­day? Anyt­hing we­ig­hing on yo­ur mind?"

  I wasn't abo­ut to tell her that El­li­ot bro­ke in­to my ho­use. I didn't trust Miss Gre­ene. I co­uldn't put my fin­ger on it, but so­met­hing abo­ut her bot­he­red me. And I didn't li­ke the way she kept hin­ting that Patch was dan­ge­ro­us but wo­uldn't tell me why. It was al­most li­ke she had an agen­da.

  I ho­is­ted my back­pack off the gro­und and ope­ned the do­or. "No," I sa­id.

  CHAPTER 16

  VEE WAS LE­ANING AGA­INST MY LOC­KER, DO­OD­LING on her cast with a purp­le mar­ker.

  "Hi," she sa­id when the­re was not­hing of the hal­lway left bet­we­en us. "Whe­re've you be­en? I chec­ked the eZi­ne lab and the lib­rary."

  "I had a me­eting with Miss Gre­ene, the new scho­ol psych." I sa­id it very mat­ter-of-factly, but on the in­si­de, I had a hol­low, trembly fe­eling. I co­uldn't stop thin­king abo­ut El­li­ot bre­aking in­to my ho­use. What was stop­ping him from do­ing it aga­in? Or from do­ing so­met­hing wor­se?

  "What hap­pe­ned?" Vee as­ked.

  I spun my loc­ker com­bi­na­ti­on and tra­ded out bo­oks. "Do you know how much a go­od alarm system costs?"

  "No of­fen­se, ba­be, but no­body's go­ing to ste­al yo­ur car."

  I pin­ned Vee with a black lo­ok. "For my ho­use. I want to ma­ke su­re El­li­ot can't get in­si­de aga­in."

  Vee glan­ced aro­und and cle­ared her thro­at.

  "What?" I sa­id.

  Vee did a hands-up. "Not­hing. Not­hing at all. If you're still bent on na­iling this to El­li­ot… that's yo­ur pre­ro­ga­ti­ve. It's a crazy pre­ro­ga­ti­ve, but hey. It's yo­urs."

  I sho­ved my loc­ker do­or clo­sed, and the rat­tle ec­ho­ed down the hall. I bit back an ac­cu­sa­tory res­pon­se that she of all pe­op­le sho­uld be­li­eve me and ins­te­ad sa­id, "I'm on my way to the lib­rary, and I'm sort of in a hurry." We exi­ted the bu­il­ding and cros­sed the gro­unds to the par­king lot, and I ca­me up short. I lo­oked aro­und for the Fi­at, but that's when I re­mem­be­red my mom had drop­ped me off on her way to work this mor­ning. And with Vee's arm bro­ken, she wasn't dri­ving.