I scrambled to my feet and looked down at Marcia one last time as the next set of doors shook, louder this time. I had minutes, maybe seconds, before they found another way in. And there was nothing I could do for her. She was gone.
I took a back stairwell to the second floor and hid in a remote girls’ bathroom, retching into the sink. When I was done, I washed my face and wrung out my sleeves, too afraid the automatic dryers would attract attention. I needed to get out of the building without being seen.
Someone had wanted me to be here tonight. Someone wanted me to find Marcia’s body. Maybe even get caught with it.
And he’d marked her. But why? What did it mean? The number looked like it had been written in blue ink, but it wasn’t smudged or faded by the water. Permanent marker.
They drew the number ten in permanent marker on her arm . . .
Like the number ten on Emily’s arm.
Like the blue markings on my chem lab table . . .
DEAD OR ALIVE . . .
I slumped to the floor.
The person who wrote those ads knew me. He knew I read the Missed Connections on Friday mornings. He knew exactly where I would go, leaving the door to my physics class open. He carved the message in my desk, and left the chair down to make sure I saw it. He knew how to communicate with me.
Somehow, this was all about me.
I needed to get out of here. I snuck out of the bathroom and down the stairs, emerging in a corridor near the auditorium. Blue lights flashed through the windows from the parking lot outside and walkie-talkies squawked muffled commands. I backed around the corner and peered around the wall, listening to the chaos on the other side.
Theater students lingered in tight groups as EMTs and police cleared a path. Jeremy stood a head taller than the crowd, watching through his camera and snapping pictures until a uniformed officer put a hand over the lens. Part of me wanted to grab Jeremy’s attention, wanted to pull him behind the wall with me and tell him everything. But a short girl with dark hair stood close to him. He tucked her under his arm, holding her close while she dabbed her cheeks with a tissue. Anh.
My reflection stared back from the darkened courtyard windows where I’d stood only an hour ago. I was too close, too visible here. I backed slowly away from the blue flashing lights. When I rounded the corner, I ran, cutting through dim halls I could navigate blind, stopping at each exit, checking the doors. All locked.
When the front hall came into view, it was silent. Empty. I smacked into the release bar and it yielded easily, sending the metal door flying into the wall outside. I jumped out of my skin at the crash. It was dark. Steam rose off the cooling blacktop. I pulled my hood low over my face, but the police by the auditorium were busy interviewing the students who remained and didn’t look over.
The parking lot was empty except for a handful of cars, including Jeremy’s Civic. I needed to get home. I was sure the police were anxious to speak with me, or at the very least would keep a close eye on me after tonight. I’d reported a crime before it had happened. Nicholson would be an idiot not to suspect me.
I felt eyes on me. A figure stood just beyond a weak halo of light. I sped up as we made eye contact. Lonny’s friend, the guy I’d crashed into, reclined against a motorcycle, silently taking in the scene.
I kept my head low as I veered from the sidewalk and slid into the shadows, avoiding the security lights, cutting through the ball fields, not caring that this route through the backyards of rough neighborhoods might be more dangerous than where I’d just come from. Wanting only to make myself invisible. But I couldn’t.
He’d been watching.
And he’d seen me.
10
The speed limit in Sunny View was a heart-stopping twenty miles an hour, and most people treated the three stop signs as suggestions. From my front steps, I watched the Civic come to a complete stop at each one. I checked my wrist in an aggravated pantomime for Jeremy’s benefit. I didn’t actually own a watch, but I knew we were going to be late and I wanted to get to school early. I needed to know what everyone saw or heard on Friday night and by now, the rumor mill would be churning out the details. Jeremy grinned weakly at me through the windshield as he pulled to a careful stop at my feet.
I threw open the passenger door. The air felt heavy and thick and seemed to press in from all sides. I rolled up my window and Jeremy flicked on the AC without a word, angling his own vent at me.
“I guess you heard about Marcia Steckler?” He looked hard at the road, his hands perfectly positioned at ten and two.
I swallowed before answering. “No, what about her?”
“She never showed up at the after-party on Friday. There was an . . . accident.”
I stared out the window, the world moving too fast, lines blurring. I shut my eyes. “What happened?”
“The police found her . . . in the pool.”
I fought to keep my voice from breaking. Only one person had seen me in school that night, and that was already one too many. If the police asked questions, Jeremy shouldn’t have to lie for me. “Was she hurt?”
“She’s dead, Leigh,” he said gently, as if placing something delicate in my lap. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself except Anh and I watched them carry her out.”
Ahn and I. I bit my lip, letting a penned-up tear spill over. It was partly for Marcia and partly for me. I was in trouble. And Jeremy had been with Anh Friday night. When I’d needed him. When he should have been with me.
“Did you have a date or something?” They hadn’t even asked me if I wanted to go with them. I never had the chance to tell them no. He hadn’t just offered her a ride. He’d taken her to the play. Put his arm around her. And he hadn’t told me because he didn’t want me to know. Because they didn’t want me there.
“A date? With Anh? No.” He scrunched up his nose. His glasses slid down and he pushed the wire rims back in place with his index finger, a nervous habit. “Why?” he asked. “Would it matter to you?”
I didn’t answer, afraid I’d say something I’d regret. Something that might slice too deep to fix.
“Of course not,” he muttered to himself.
The silence was hard to breathe through.
“I was covering Hamlet,” he finally said, sounding tired. “For the school paper. Anh was just . . . there . . . with me.”
Anh was there with me.
And I wasn’t, was implied. I wanted to tell him that I was there. That I saw everything. That I touched Marcia’s blue fingers. That I held her cold hand and screamed at her to wake up while he was comforting Anh. But I couldn’t tell him anything.
He pulled into his assigned space, set the handbrake, and plucked the key from the ignition. We listened to the engine cool, an awkward and terrible tension between us until I couldn’t take it anymore and reached for his hand.
His skin burned, hot and anxious. His anxiety tasted like stomach acid and smelled like sweat. I hadn’t felt Jeremy like this in years. The mood stabilizers his shrink prescribed mellowed the sharp tang I’d come to associate with stress. Usually I could feel the way they cushioned his moods, leaving only mildly astringent aftertastes. Today Jeremy’s anxiety was bitter enough to make me gag. It was pure and unfiltered. “You stopped taking your medication.” It should have been a question, but I knew it with complete certainty.