Six Little Secrets(33)

Teddy typed away on his phone, researching each of the Jacobs that they’d retrieved from the yearbooks. A scowl remained on his face the entire time. While Q and Holly had gone to fulfill Q’s task, Teddy had checked his bank account. Jacob or whoever was doing this had left Teddy with zero dollars to his name, other than the nine hundred in cash sitting in his bag.

There was nothing she could say to make him feel better. Instead, Zoe continued on both of their chains, hoping that Mr. Curtis would be satisfied with the work she’d done so he would lock himself in the office again, and they could finish this.

‘Damn it!’ Cece said.

‘What is it now?’ Jackie asked. Since returning from the bathroom, her eyes still squinted as if she were having trouble seeing. Even though Teddy’s money and Cece’s reputation were important, Zoe thought Jacob had gone too far with Jackie. And even more so with Q.

According to Holly, Q falling on the ground had been an accident, so Zoe hoped it hadn’t been Jacob’s intention to burn him. As the missions were handed out, they seemed to get worse. What fate would Zoe and Holly suffer?

‘I can’t remember my mom’s password to her email,’ Cece said. ‘I already got into Dad’s email and deleted it before he read it.’

‘Phones away,’ Zoe hissed as Mr. Curtis’s face appeared through the glass window in the door.

The door opened, and Cece and Teddy resumed working on their chains.

Jackie propped her arm on the table, shielding her face from the teacher.

‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ Mr. Curtis said, passing the table where he had placed a pile of candy and water bottles from his trek to get them food earlier. He’d arrived at the perfect time just as Holly had come for help. ‘I thought you all were hungry.’

Zoe reached for the closest candy bar. She didn’t want him to suspect anything else was off, though she didn’t plan on eating it. Her stomach was in knots thinking about her turn.

‘Q is excused from working on the chain due to his injuries,’ Mr. Curtis said. He waited for a response from them. Maybe a groan or dirty looks directed at Q, but he was left unsatisfied.

They all knew it wasn’t Q’s fault.

Mr. Curtis gave Zoe a funny look, and she shrugged, pressing down on the stapler again, puncturing one more staple into the chain.

He returned to the office and this time he didn’t close the door. They were going to have to be more careful.

‘How are you?’ Jackie asked him.

Q lifted his bandaged hands. ‘How do you think?’

For the first time since Zoe had known Q, his words weren’t laced with harsh sarcasm. He seemed almost playful at the moment, which wasn’t something Zoe expected after what he’d gone through.

Q glanced at Holly. ‘Did you see him?’

‘See who?’ Holly asked.

‘Jacob,’ he said.

‘You saw him?’ Cece asked Q.

‘No,’ Q said. ‘When I was close to getting the cigarette, the spotlight turned on. I assumed Holly would have seen him.’

‘I didn’t,’ Holly said. ‘I was by the door, remember?’

Zoe couldn’t believe Q and Holly had been in Jacob’s presence. He almost seemed like a ghostly figure at that point.

‘We were so close to having him,’ Q said as if reading her thoughts.

‘He’s been a step ahead of us this whole time,’ Teddy said. ‘I doubt he would have let himself get caught.’

‘He has to be somewhere in the building,’ Cece said. ‘Unless he has an accomplice. Do you think he’d give us his name and then come here, risking us getting a look at him?’

‘Someone is here, watching us,’ Q said. ‘If we catch that person then we’re that much closer to Jacob.’

Zoe wasn’t sure if Jacob would let himself or his accomplice get caught. If there even was one. Jacob seemed to have control over the situation—though Zoe couldn’t help but wonder, what if?

‘We can’t leave this room,’ Zoe said. ‘I doubt Mr. Curtis is going to let us out of his sight again.’

‘And none of us should face Jacob alone,’ Teddy said. ‘After Jackie and Q’s tasks, he seems like a deranged person.’

‘He was deranged from the start,’ Cece said.

Zoe nodded. Someone finally agreed with her instead of biting her head off.

‘Is there any way we can get ahead of him?’ Jackie asked.

Teddy tapped his pencil against his lips. Zoe knew that look well. It was something he did during tests in the few classes they had together in the past.

No one else said anything. They were stumped. Zoe sat there, her damp hands clasped in her lap, wondering who was next.

Selfishly, she wanted Holly to go next. Zoe had buried her head in the sand for years, avoiding conflict. She couldn’t have done anything to make Jacob or anyone that angry with her. She was under the radar of everyone in school. She wanted to put off her task until the last possible second.

Based on school rumors, Holly slept her way through the junior and senior classes. She deserved a task before Zoe.

Even though she hated herself for throwing someone under the bus, her survival instincts kicked in, and there was no stopping them now.

Several minutes later, the phone in the librarian’s office rang. One of her responsibilities as a librarian’s assistant was to field the phone calls that came in during her shift. Who called a school library on the weekend? In her weeks at detention, Zoe never heard the phone ring.