Twisted by Hannah Jayne(48)
“I think I came here hoping that he would be here with you.”
“He’s not.” Bex didn’t mean for it to come out a whisper. “I don’t know where he is either.”
Now Lauren shook her head and used the palms of her hands to wipe at her tears. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I shouldn’t… You don’t…” She paused, and a fresh torrent of tears started. “I guess I thought maybe you owed me something but”—she sniffed—“you’re out a parent too.”
Bex wanted to apologize for her father. She wanted to tell Lauren that even at home he was shy and mostly kept to himself, but she didn’t know the man that Lauren talked about.
? ? ?
Bex spent the rest of her week avoiding Detective Schuster and trying not to think about Lauren, about her wide, flat brown eyes. But by Saturday, the thoughts consumed her as she sat in front of her laptop.
“Hey, Bex. You okay? You’ve been up here all day.”
Bex blinked at Denise as she stood in the doorway. Her head was cocked, her voice soft. “It’s Saturday. I think by law we’re supposed to make sure you get at least one hour of sunlight each day.”
“Yeah,” Michael said, coming up behind Denise. “Don’t let anyone say that we’re raising veal.”
Bex rubbed her eyes. “Um, I was thinking of going to a movie with Laney and Chelsea.”
“Sunlight! Fresh air! Stretch your legs! Stop watching that little screen and go watch the big screen. In the dark. While sitting down.” He looked at Denise. “Pretty sure we’re nailing this parent thing.”
Denise shot him a high five and Bex smiled. “You guys are so weird.”
They left the room and Bex glanced back at her computer, hoping Denise and Michael hadn’t noticed the way she’d blanched when they came in the door. She was still on the Wife Collector fan site, still trying to avoid the photos that popped up. She had already seen most of them, but they never ceased to make Bex’s stomach drop into her shoes. She was going to close the laptop when a chat bubble popped up.
DETECTIVE LT. SCHUSTER is requesting a chat.
Bex clicked Accept and a tiny, smiling picture of the detective appeared in one corner of the gray box, his typing scrolling across the screen.
LT SCHUSTER: How is it going?
B*AND: Not gr8
LT SCHUSTER: Be patient. He’s going to be cautious.
Bex felt slimy talking to Detective Schuster about trying to trick her father.
B*AND: Maybe he’s just not on there.
LT SCHUSTER: What sites have you tried? Our link to your computer isn’t up yet.
B*AND: Tried them all. Nothing. Maybe UR just wrong.
Anger and annoyance simmered low in Bex’s gut. Anger, annoyance, and…joy? If he wasn’t on the site, maybe that proved that he wasn’t guilty…
LT SCHUSTER: Just—
SCREEN NAME B*AND has left this discussion.
She dialed Laney.
“Bex! Still up for a movie?”
Bex rubbed her eyes, yawning. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Is that why you yawned? To demonstrate your interest in the exciting social lives of Kill Devil Hills’ finest?”
“Aren’t a town’s finest supposed to be the police?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, you coming with?”
“You’d better be coming with!” Chelsea chorused in the background. “Unless you’re throwing us off for Trevor, but you’d better not be!”
Bex laughed. “Yeah, I’m coming with, and I would never throw you guys off for a guy.”
“That’s good,” Laney said, “because we’re outside your house.”
“Woooo! The call is coming from outside the house!” Chelsea burst into hysterical laughter. Bex wished all spooky stories could end the same way.
“What were you going to do if I had decided to ditch you guys and go out with Trevor?” she asked, opening the front door.
“We knew you would never do that,” Laney said, following her into the house and hanging up the phone.
“We have intimate faith in you,” Chelsea said.
“Imminent, Chels. The word is imminent.”
“Whatever. Don’t take this the wrong way, Bex, but you look awful.”
Bex was dumbstruck for a half second. Her friends were in her bedroom, less than three feet from her open laptop and the heinous pictures and the throbbing forum of weirdos craving blood. Her two lives were about to crash into each other.
She slammed the laptop shut.
She didn’t hear the ping of a new message alert from the fan site.
She didn’t see the single line in the subject box from GAMECREATOR.
Is it really you, Bethy?
Twenty-Six
“Okay, the movie sucked. Capital S. U. C. K,” Chelsea said as she, Bex, and Laney shuffled out of the Cineplex late that night. “I’m almost sorry I gave you that makeover.”
Bex blinked her heavily made-up eyes and smacked her lips together, tasting the waxy residue Chelsea’s borrowed Bombastic lip color had left. “It may have been a lousy movie, but I looked great watching it.”
“That’s what counts!”
“I bet he liked it.” Laney jutted her chin toward a crowd of kids in front of them, Zach taking up the rear. He turned and looked just as Bex did, their eyes locking, then falling away immediately.