The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(75)

A bench swing sounded nice. Being with Hunter was . . . she wasn’t sure. Not terrible. Maybe odd, because he was so friendly. But was that wrong? Was it wrong just to be nice and well-adjusted?

“Sure,” she said. “A swing. I could think of worse things.”

They turned back off Church and headed toward the lake. Stevie pulled out her phone to check the time.

“Wow,” Hunter said. “That guy is getting the shit kicked out of him.”

Stevie looked up. There, down at the end of the street, under the bus shelter by the courthouse, there was a group of skateboarders.

One of them was repeatedly punching David in the face.





21


“OH, HI,” DAVID SAID AS STEVIE APPROACHED. HE SMILED. HIS TEETH were red with blood. Specks of it dotted his white collared dress shirt. He had dressed up again, just like he had on the first night they had both taken the coach to Burlington. On that occasion, David was trying to trick Stevie’s parents into thinking they were dating as a way of convincing them that she should stay at Ellingham after Hayes’s death. This time, there was no such explanation. He was just dressed to the conservative nines, getting his face smashed down the block from the courthouse. He was also wearing the two-thousand-dollar coat, which had grime all over it. There was a gash along his right cheek that was trickling blood. There was another cut above his eye. His shirt had torn down near the hem and some of the buttons were undone, indicating that something had happened in the torso area.

“How’s it going?” he said casually. “Who’s your friend?”

There was a bit of bloody spittle coming out of the side of his mouth.

“Are you okay?” she said. She tried to take him by the arm, but he shrugged it away.

“Fine,” he said. “Just hanging out with some friends.”

He walked unsteadily over to another skateboarder who had been watching the whole thing and recording it with a phone. David reached up and the guy gave him the phone, then the attackers rolled off on their skateboards.

“What just happened?” Stevie said. “Come on. I’m taking you to . . . Is there an urgent care or a hospital or . . .”

This was to Hunter, who was still staring at David.

“Yeah,” he said. “My car is just a few streets over. I’ll get it.”

“I’m not going,” David said, holding up his hands.

“David, stop.”

“I’ll call 911,” Hunter said.

“No, no,” David said. “No cops.”

He sat down on the curb and examined his phone. Stevie turned to look at Hunter, who was watching all of this in total confusion.

“Hunter,” she said. “Can I have a minute?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hunter said, backing away. “I’m going back. I’ll . . .”

“Yeah.”

He headed off the way they had come, looking back once or twice.

“You work fast,” David said, still looking at his phone.

“What?”

“Your new buddy. I’m very happy for you both. When will you be announcing the big day?”

“Would you shut up?” she said. She sat next to him. “Let me see.”

This time, he did not move away. He even stuck out his head to let her get a better look at his cheek.

“How is it?” he said.

“It looks deep. You need to go to the hospital, and then we need to get the police.”

“Why?” David said, rubbing at the blood with his sleeve. “It’s not illegal to get your ass kicked in Vermont, is it?”

“It’s illegal for them to hit you.”

“Not if you pay them. I mean, maybe it is. I’m not a lawyer.”

“What do you mean if you pay them? You paid someone—”

“Hang on,” he said. He did something with his phone, then nodded in satisfaction. “There,” he said, pocketing it. “Uploaded.”

“To what?”

“YouTube. To Hayes’s old channel.”

“What?”

“See, I’m not completely useless,” he said. “I can hack a YouTube channel. Now, this has been fun, but you have somewhere to be, right?”

“I don’t understand,” Stevie said, shaking her head. “Are you doing this because of what I did?”

“You?” He laughed, and a little blood trickled from his mouth. “You? Not everything is about you.”

He spit some blood into the street, which caused a woman nearby to move away with her small child. David smiled his bloody smile at them.

“I’m not leaving you,” she said. “I don’t care if you want me to go. You need to go to the doctor.”

“If you won’t go, I will.”

“I’ll follow you.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re worried that your deal with my dad is off and he’s going to come down in his helicopter and whisk you away.”

“I’m worried that you just got your face beaten in and you seem to like it.”

“I’m touched. Why don’t you go back to whoever your new friend is.”

“Why are you such a dickhead?” she yelled.