The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious, #2)(77)

“So Edward King really did pay for that security system?” Janelle asked. “That’s not a rumor? I thought Vi was wrong.”

“There’s more,” Stevie said. “He brought me back here. That’s how I got back to school. He convinced my parents. He did it because he thought if I came back David would calm down. Now, there’s this.”

She pulled over Janelle’s computer and opened up Hayes’s channel to play them the video of David’s beating. She had seen it with the sound off. It was worse with the soundtrack, with David goading them on. It was painful to see the blows landing on him, the way he smiled up and said something else that begged for more.

There were sixty thousand views now.

“What in the hell is he doing?” Janelle said. “That boy is not okay.”

Nate turned to Stevie slowly.

“What she said,” he added.

“He paid someone to do that,” Stevie said. “And then he told me he wasn’t coming back.”

“Okay.” Janelle’s tone suggested that she didn’t need to see any more. She pushed herself up from the floor and addressed them both from a standing position. “You know I don’t love him, but you need to tell someone what’s going on. Now.”

“Unless he’s bluffing?” Nate said. “Do you think he’s bluffing? Maybe he’s messing with you?”

“I didn’t get the feeling he was,” Stevie said. “He paid someone to beat him up. He put the video up on Hayes’s page, which he hacked into. That’s deliberate, and weird. He’s doing something, but I can’t figure out what.”

“Destroying our lives,” Nate said.

“It does not matter,” Janelle said. “He paid someone to beat him up. That’s not good. Hayes is dead. Ellie is dead. No one else in this house gets hurt. You tell someone. Tell Pix. Do it now.”

Janelle was right, of course. Telling someone was the right thing to do. What David had just done was deeply disturbing. But in his eye there was something solid. He was doing this to an end. He had been hurt, but not so hurt. And putting it on Hayes’s channel was sending some kind of message, if only she could read it.

Janelle was still right.

“I’ll tell Pix,” Stevie said. “About the punching and that he’s not coming back. Not about his dad. But the next thing that happens is that I’m going to get pulled out of school.”

“You don’t know that,” Janelle said.

“I do,” Stevie replied. “David’s not okay, so the deal is off.”

“We’ll fix that,” Janelle said. “That’s not Edward King’s call. We’ll help you. But now, we tell Pix. And the three of us? No secrets anymore.”

“No secrets,” Stevie said.

“One exciting thing,” Nate said. “This is definitely all worse than writing my book.”





22


STEVIE WAS DREAMING. THE CONTENT OF HER DREAM WAS JUMBLED. She was walking the streets of Burlington, down the same path she had been walking with David, and someone was yelling, “They’re pulling people out of the lake!” So Dream Stevie ran down to the waterfront, to where she first met Fenton, and saw dozens of bodies being pulled from the lake. But they weren’t dead. They flopped like fish on the waterside. All of these flopping human bodies. Someone came up behind Stevie, but she did not turn. She heard a voice whispering to her, a girl’s voice, but she could not make out the words. Something in her told her it was Dottie Epstein, and if she turned, Dottie would disappear. So she kept her eyes on the flopping-fish people on the dock, trying to make out Dottie’s words.

Then, the phone.

“Did I wake you?” Edward King said.

Stevie pushed herself up in bed and rubbed at her eyes furiously. Her computer was open on her lap, still on the Websleuths forum page she had been reading when she fell asleep. That was something she did to relax when things got too much. She squinted at it through the sleep in her eyes. It was seven minutes after seven.

“No,” she lied.

“I did. My apologies for calling so early. We have a vote on the floor in two hours and I have several meetings before that.”

The call was destined to come, of course. She had expected it soon after she told Pix, who took the news of David’s beating and escape with a grim resolution. She had lost two students; that another was gone was more weight on an already crushing load. Stevie delivered the news and got into bed with her computer and stayed there.

The strange thing was, she had gotten such a good night’s sleep. For the first time in longer than she could remember, there was no worry of anxiety coming for her in the night.

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, trying to keep the morning croak out of her voice.

“Good. Now, there was a video that posted yesterday evening. I assume you saw it?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not my favorite video, Stevie. We had an agreement. I can’t help but think you aren’t keeping up your end of it.”

“What do you want me to do, exactly?” she said.

“That’s up to you. You were a possible solution to the issue. If this solution isn’t working, I will find another. I suggest you talk to him.”