Puzzled, Jenna couldn’t help wondering why the boy looked so uneasy, his eyes darting around the room. One quick sweep of his mind gave her the answer. He was carrying a bag of weed.
That was when it hit her. Peter Blake was using residents to get drugs. He was telling them to get their visitors to smuggle the junk into Harmony House. Maybe he was bribing them with extra privileges — like giving Kristy the right to smoke. Or it could be blackmail. He’d discover someone breaking a rule and make a deal — no demerit in return for a favour.
And this would explain why she, Jenna, had no visitors. She leaped up, went out into the hall and down the stairs to the office of Ms Landers.
‘Hey, you can’t just go in there!’ the secretary exclaimed. But Jenna walked right past her and opened the door to the director’s office.
The director wasn’t alone. That cop, Jack Fisher, was sitting on the other side of her desk. Landers looked up with annoyance written all over her face.
‘Young lady, you do not barge into my office like that!’
Jenna ignored that. ‘I want to know why I haven’t had any visitors,’ she demanded.
The woman’s expression didn’t change, but at least she answered her. ‘I explained this when you entered. The accumulation of demerits results in the loss of privileges. Five demerits means no visitors or phone calls for twenty-four hours.’
Jenna’s eyebrows went up. ‘I have five demerits?’
‘Six, I believe. Let’s see. .’ she turned to her computer and hit a couple of keys. ‘Sneaking over to the boys’ dormitory wing. Picking fights. Smoking in your room.’
As she continued with her litany of fabricated violations, Jenna wanted to hit herself on the head for being so incredibly stupid. Peter had asked her if she had friends who would do ‘favours’. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but he’d assumed she was refusing to ask her friends to bring in drugs, or whatever else he asked residents to smuggle in for him. So he’d made up infractions for her and given her demerits. It was a punishment for not cooperating.
She should have figured this out that first day, in the dining hall. But what could she have done about it? There was no way she’d ask her friends to do something like that. Her friends couldn’t do anything about it anyway! She tried to picture Emily looking around a bad neighbourhood for a drug dealer.
‘If you feel these demerits are unwarranted, you may appeal against them,’ the woman said. ‘But not at this moment — I’m busy. You can make an appointment with the secretary.’
Jenna left, and passed the secretary without bothering to make an appointment. What good would it do? She couldn’t tell Landers about Peter Blake. She wouldn’t believe her. And if she directed Landers towards the others who were being threatened or bribed, they’d only deny it. And how would she prove she was telling the truth? Admit to having read their minds?
Outside the office, she paused in the empty corridor and leaned against a wall to catch her emotional breath. She’d been screwed, that’s all there was to it. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
‘Are you OK, Jenna?’
She hadn’t even heard Jack-the-cop come out of the office.
‘I’m fine,’ she said shortly.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of chewing gum. ‘Want some gum?’
‘No.’
She knew how rude she must sound, but what did it matter? He’d heard Landers’s report on her. He knew she was nothing but trouble.
But she could have sworn she saw something else in his eyes. And just out of curiosity, she peeked into his head.
. . surprised. . she doesn’t seem like the type. . is she covering for someone? Wish I could get her to open up to me. .
She must have been staring at him, because he cocked his head to one side and smiled. ‘Want to talk?’
She did — but not to him. Not to a cop. She didn’t care how much sympathy she saw in his eyes or read in his mind, she couldn’t trust him.
‘No,’ she said, and walked away. But just as she was about to turn the corner, she looked back at him. Somehow, she managed to get one more word out.
‘Thanks.’
CHAPTER NINE
IN THE KITCHEN AT home, Tracey sat on the counter — a position that was forbidden in the Devon home. But it didn’t matter, since her mother couldn’t see her.
Her mother stood just a few feet away, with the phone in her hand.
‘Tracey isn’t here, Emily,’ she was saying. She laughed nervously. ‘Actually, she might very well be here, but she’s not available, if you know what I mean. I haven’t seen her since she left for school yesterday.’
There was a pause, which Tracey assumed meant that Emily was responding. Then her mother spoke again.
‘No, I’m not worried. Not yet. I mean, this has happened before. I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually.’
Eventually. That was the key word. Tracey hadn’t gone this long without reappearing since — since the days before Amanda changed her. At least now her parents actually noticed that she wasn’t visible. That was definitely an improvement.
Her problem now was figuring out how to share what she’d learned from Amanda yesterday. The only person she’d be able to communicate with was Ken. But every time she’d tried to defend Amanda, everyone told her she was being silly. They all thought that just because Amanda had inhabited Tracey’s body and improved Tracey’s life, Tracey had some dumb notion that she owed Amanda something.
But there was one other possible connection — Jenna. Could Jenna read the mind of an invisible person? Jenna could read people’s minds when she couldn’t see them, but Tracey couldn’t recall any circumstance when Jenna had read her mind when she was invisible. Maybe if Tracey thought about what she’d learned from Amanda, Jenna would ‘hear’ her. Their gifts were constantly developing, evolving — she’d seen Charles display an aspect to his gift she’d never seen before. It was possible that her own gift, and Jenna’s too, had potential they hadn’t yet discovered.
But only if Jenna knew that Tracey wanted her mind to be read. Tracey had to get close enough to Jenna to give her some kind of signal, to let her know. And how could she get close to her when she wasn’t permitted any visitors?
Tracey had to laugh at herself. What an idiot she was! She was invisible, she didn’t need anyone’s permission to visit Jenna.
She had to take three buses to get to Harmony House, but her biggest problem was not the distance or the time it would take to get there. Her chief concern was getting on and off each bus; if no one else was waiting at the bus stop or getting off there, the bus wouldn’t stop or open its doors. Fortunately, this only happened once, and someone came along, which enabled her to get on the next one. The positive aspect was the fact that she didn’t have to pay for the ride — but being a basically honest person, she didn’t feel very good about this. Riding for free seemed like stealing. But she couldn’t waste energy feeling guilty about it — she had no other option.
Jenna’s residence didn’t look like a prison. The brick building was painted white, and it was set way back on a green lawn. The sign on the lawn read ‘Harmony House,’ not ‘Detention Centre’ or anything like that. There were bars on the windows, but they’d been painted white too and shaped in a design that made them look more like window decorations. Tracey suspected that the two men who were standing on either side of the front door were guards, but at least they weren’t dressed like guards, and she couldn’t see any guns. They could have been doormen at a hotel.