Betrayed (8 page)

"You know, where you go up on the front wheel. Actually, she didn't decide. Danny talked her into it. He's always
talking her into stupid crap. And she chipped a tooth. And so I have to take her to the dentist."

Probably too much information, Anthony thought. But once he'd started telling that story-which had actually
happened, but a few years ago-he couldn't stop. "Ouch. Did it hurt a lot?" Rae asked.

Anthony glanced over at her and felt a little dizzy, like the floor had started slowly spinning under his feet. "What?"

"When she chipped her tooth. Did it hurt?" Listening to her voice was like biting into a lemon. She doesn't believe
me, Anthony thought. Best-case scenario, she's not sure whether to believe me or not.

"It, uh, bled a lot," Anthony said, cursing himself for that uh because it would make him sound even more like the
liar that he was. Okay, just get out of here. The more you say, the more chance you're goingto screw this up even
more. Anthony clicked the lock back into place. "So, I gotta go. I'll… I'll see you."

He bolted. He knew Rae was staring after him, absofreakinlutely knew it. But he didn't turn around.

"So, God, does he think I want to get*married* or what?" Rae typed to the other girls in the Guys Suck chat room.

"It was 1 kiss. 1 kiss, and he's lying to my face, coming up with excuses so he won't have to talk to me."

Rae usually didn't bother with chat rooms. The few times she'd peeked in them, they were just full of people
handing each other imaginary beers and asking a/s/l, which she'd finally figured out was age, sex, and location. But
she'd really needed to vent about Anthony and get some kind of feedback, and since she had no friends-thanks,
Yana-she'd been desperate enough to go looking for a chat. And the girls in the room were definitely talking about
more interesting stuff than Rae expected.

A bunch of sad little bunnies appeared on the screen, followed by a round red face. The face's cheeks puffed up,
its eyes rolled, and then it spewed green puke. They understand, Rae thought. Who needed better friends than
these? Who needed friends you could actually… see, and, like, go shopping with?

"Need more data. Circumstances of kiss, please," dreamgirl said-well, typed.

"There was a fire," Rae typed back. "He carried me out. Then he kissed me." It sounded so dry reduced to those
three little sentences. "The most amazing kiss I've ever had," she added. She wished she knew how to make those
little animated pictures. She'd show the bunnies swooning. She'd show the face smiling so big that the head
cracked in two. "Movie moment. Wow," dreamgirl replied. "Does anyone have a tissue?" grrlygrrl typed. ":handing
gg a tissue:" Elsinor responded.

Rae's eyes were stinging the tiniest bit, but she didn't ask for a tissue. It would make her feel too goofy. And too
pathetic.

"Hate to say it. But life-or-death sitch. Boy can't be held responsible," juliaagogo jumped in. The puking face
reappeared.

"Don't vomit at me," juliaagogo typed. "True. You do stuff in a crisis that you wouldn't usually do."

The puking face-Rae realized it kept coming from someone called ruTHie-appeared again. "No excuse for lying,"

Elsinor answered. "He could be embarrassed," juliaagogo suggested.

Yeah, Rae thought. Maybe he didn't really mean to do it. Maybe he was just so relieved to get me out of the Motel 6

that he… that he… that he kissedme. God, there should be a different word than kiss for what Anthony had done.

Like melted. He melted me. He detonated me. He souled me. Something that sounded much more significant, much
more world reforming than kiss.

"That means what he felt was totally different from what I felt," Rae typed in. "'Cause if he felt what I did, he'd-" Rae
backspaced over the last line without sending it. "It happens," grrlygrrl replied. "Happened to me."

"So what do I do?" Rae asked. "How do I get things back to seminormal between us?" Because if Anthony kept
hiding out and bolting to keep away from her, she wouldn't be able to take it. She hadn't known Anthony for long,
but he'd been there for pretty much all the big events of her life. He'd helped her figure out her power. He was the
first person she'd told that her mother was a murderer. He'd saved her life. "Back off," dreamgirl suggested. "Sucks,
but probably right," Elsinor agreed.

A new name appeared in the list of chatters-TabbyTee. "All the same losers, I see," TabbyTee observed. "Don't any
of you have anything better to do than whine about guys?"

Rae felt like TabbyTee had thrown a glass of cold water in her face. She did have better things to do.

Vital things. Yeah, Anthony was important to her. Yeah, she wanted to get things back to the way they were if that's
all she could have. But what she really needed to do was find a way to make sure she stayed alive. Right this
second she should be digging into the death of Amanda Reese. ruTHie shot out a face that spit fireballs. Elsinor told
TabbyTee she wasn't welcome there. Rae typed in another message: "Thx, everybody. Gotta go." She left the room
without waiting for replies.

Now what? Rae lightly drummed her fingers over her keyboard, then clicked on the link that would take her from
AOL to the Web and found the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site. She did a search for Amanda Reese and carjacking.

The engine found a match in the Metro section's Law Order column, where there was a roundup of local crimes, and
it slowly loaded. When it was done, she printed it out.

"So short," Rae whispered when she pulled the warm sheet of paper out of her printer. There was just a paragraph
for the event that changed Mandy Reese's whole life. Mandy's and her sister's and her dad's. And there were so
many other people affected-friends, people Amanda Reese worked with, relatives. But all the paper gave the story
was one little paragraph stuck in among the other paragraphs about DWIs and bank robberies anddescriptions of
people the FBI was looking for.

Carefully Rae began to read. The paragraph didn't tell her much. Date and time of the carjacking. The name of the
street where the murder happened. What kind of gun was used. The fact that there had been no witnesses. The fact
that there had been a rash of carjackings in the neighborhood. The names of the family members left behind.

It's a newspaper, Rae reminded herself. Facts are all it's supposed to give. But it still felt wrong somehow. Couldn't
there have been something personal about Amanda? Like what her favorite thing in the world was? Or what place
she loved the best? Something that would Rae was pulled away from her thoughts by a light tapping on her door.

"Come in," she called.

"I wanted to check back with you about your birthday," her father said as he stepped inside.

Rae leaned her head back on the cool black leather of her desk chair. "I haven't thought too much about it yet,"

she admitted. She saw a flash of concern in his eyes and knew that if she went fingertip-to-fingertip with him right
this second, she'd find worries about her, worries about whether her lack of interest in her birthday indicated a
deeper problem, a return to the place she'd been in before her breakdown.

"But you know what, Nacoochee is sounding really good. Last night I think I dreamed about their butterscotch
brownie sundaes," Rae told him.

"I'll go make reservations," he answered. He took a step back toward the door, then hesitated, rubbing the bump
on his nose. "Two or…"

"Let's go for two. It'll be fun. Just us," Rae answered. There was no way she was going to ask Anthony. Because
Anthony, being Anthony, would go and be all weird the whole time. And Yana. Forget her. She wasn't crawling after
Yana anymore. If Yana wanted to be her friend again, then Yana could come to Rae.

"Two. You've got it." Her dad left her room, quietly closing the door behind him.

Rae let out a sigh. Back before The Incident, she'd thought her sixteenth birthday would be this incredible night.

She'd spent hours thinking about the place and the guest list and the colors she wanted to use. But now… Her
birthday felt like something to get through, an occasion where she had to be sure she seemed happy enough so her
father wouldn't get all knotted.

She turned her attention back to the computer screen and hit the back button. She scanned the list of articles that
were a partial match to her search. One was an obituary for Amanda Reese. Raedidn't bother to read it. She didn't
want to see Mandy's mother's life reduced to an even smaller paragraph.

Five of the articles were about carjackings that happened in the two months before Mandy's mom was jacked. Rae
printed them out. They were all short. But there was one thing in all of them that got Rae's attention. None of the
other drivers had been killed. One man had been knocked out with the butt of a gun, and guns had been used to
scare the other drivers out of their cars. But no one else had been shot. And no one else ended up dead.

Rae thought she had an idea why. She suspected that the fake meter reader-if she was right about him being
Amanda Reese's killer-had known about the cluster of carjackings and had used them as a cover. He'd probably
hoped the police would lump all the jackings together. And from what she'd read, they had.

So I have a piece of the puzzle. But the puzzle is very big. I have no idea what the picture will turn out to be.

More pieces. More information. That's what she needed. And she needed it fast. Because she could feel danger
closing in. A killer. And very possibly something within her own body. Rae flipped back to the list of articles,
skimmingeach one that could have the slightest connection to Amanda Reese's murder. But she got nothing. Not
even a piece of a piece. What now? she thought. No answer came to her. "Rae, hey, there."

See, this is what happens when you get so caught up in your thoughts that you stop seeing what's in front of you,
Rae thought. "Hi, Mr. Jesperson," she said as she started up the stairs to the school. Maybe I can just walk right
past him. Maybe the hi was enough.

"You look kind of upset," he commented when she reached him.

"No. I'm good," Rae answered. Why had she gotten to school early? It was at least fifteen minutes until the bell.

"You sure?" Mr. Jesperson asked, touching her lightly on the elbow. "Remember, you don't have to keep up a
good front for me. I went through a tough emotional time in college, like I told you."

"I know. And I appreciate your, um, willingness to take the time to check in with me," Rae told him. "But I'm good.

Really good."

"Is it getting easier with friends-the awkwardness fading?" Mr. Jesperson's eyes flicked back and forth across her
face, searching, searching.

God, he looks so eager for some dirt. He'd love it if I broke down and cried right here, Rae realized. Or screamed.

Or had convulsions, even. It'd keep him going for weeks.

Rae shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other, using the maneuver to move a little bit away from Mr.

Jesperson without drawing attention to how uncomfortable he made her. From her new position, she could see
Marcus signaling to her. "Oh, look, there's one of my friends now," Rae said. "I better go see what he wants. See
you in class, Mr. J." "Bye," he called after her.

Rae didn't glance back. She walked straight over to Marcus. "What's up?"

Marcus ran his fingers through his pretty-boy blond hair. "Look, I know I should be giving you time," he started. "I
know that's the smart thing to do. And I will. I am. But I have something I want to give you. It's in my car. Can you-can
we-go out there for a minute? Only a minute."

"This thing you have to give me-is it under ten dollars?" Rae asked, struggling to keep her tone teasing. She really
didn't need to go through another heavy-duty scenario with Marcus right now. She already felt like a sponge that
had been rung out so many times, it was dry as a rock. "It's free," Marcus assured her. "Well, almostfree. How much
do you think three pages of binder paper and some ink cost?"

Rae laughed, and she didn't even have to force it. "I hope you didn't write me a three-page poem. That four-liner
one you did that time was bad enough."

"No, there is no rhyming involved." Marcus crossed his heart like a little boy. An adorable little boy. "Come on. We
have about ten minutes before class."

Rae followed him out to the parking lot and over to his car. She wasn't sure it was the smartest thing to do, but it
was easier than getting out of it. And she had to admit, she was curious. When Marcus climbed into the Range
Rover, she got in beside him.

"Okay, well, here it is. My masterpiece." Marcus reached across her, popped the glove compartment, and pulled
out sheets of paper. "For you." He thrust the pages into her hands. Rae wondered what she would have picked up
if her fingertips weren't coated with wax.

"So, should I read it now?" she asked. She kind of hoped he'd say no. It would probably be easier if she could
read it by herself and then plan out what she wanted to say. Yet she was still curious.