B00B9FX0F2 EBOK (11 page)

H
is hands were still trembling when he plugged the USB into his laptop. He’d been so numb on the ride home he hadn’t even realized he was shivering. He’d wanted to believe it was Lacey in the car at the bridge, just like he’d wanted to believe it was Lacey in his room the other night. But the threatening messages and the appearance of his flashlight in the car parked at her parents’ house, a place she couldn’t possibly risk being seen, were making it seem less and less plausible. And if it was Lacey, maybe her intentions weren’t as pure as Jason had hoped.

He rubbed his palms together and waited for the drive to appear on his desktop. A video file called “Summer” popped up, and Jason clicked play, terrified of what might appear on-screen. He was sweating again, the cold perspiration coating his body like ice.

The picture was blurry — it looked like nighttime. He turned up the audio as high as it would go as some figures sharpened into focus. The dark sky was illuminated by lanterns and tiki torches. He was looking at a backyard. People were laughing and talking, and Jason could only hear male voices, but at the center of the frame was a girl, her neck down so that her blonde hair covered her face. Her narrow shoulders were shaking and Jason thought she might be crying until she tossed her glossy mane back to reveal a big smile. A familiar smile.
Lacey’s smile. Jason gasped, feeling foolish as he heard himself. There was something about seeing her in motion that unsettled him, as if a cartoon ghost had come in through the window and taken the seat next to him. But he was alone in the room and the on-screen Lacey was still making a big show of cracking up. The frame grew wider so that Jason could see Lacey facing someone much taller, stooped over her. He squinted. It was Max. It must have been the party at her house he’d mentioned at Michael’s.

“Is that Max Anderson?” The male voice was off camera and Jason didn’t recognize it.

“Yup.” Another guy. He sounded like he was holding back laughter, and Jason got the sense this was the cameraman.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno, but he’s been talking to Lacey
alllllll
night.”

“Has Luke seen this guy?”

“My guess would be no. Oh
man
, I hope I can be there when he does.”

Lacey was bubbly, swatting at Max playfully. The camera captured her as she raised her thin wrists to his chest and pushed him gently. He was more awkward, unaccustomed to the attention. The happy expression on his face didn’t look like it got much regular use.

The strange out-of-body feeling Jason had experienced at Michael’s came over him again. He was seeing Lacey — his Lacey — for what felt like the first time. How she moved, the way the skin around her eyes crinkled. She was exactly like he’d pictured her. He wanted to protect her, to reach into the screen and into the past and warn her that something terrible was waiting for her on Roxy Choi’s balcony. It was agonizing to
observe her like this, but he had no choice but to continue watching helplessly.

The Lacey on the screen beamed up at Max, and Jason felt that same knot of jealousy tighten in his stomach. The first boy, the one who sounded angry, muttered something Jason couldn’t quite make out as the camera swung around to show a group of athletic guys draped on a cluster of Adirondack chairs on the other side of the yard. Lacrosse players.
They look the same at every school
, he marveled. He could hear strains of Kanye West in the background — their parties were the same, too. As the camera moved, he realized he’d seen this landscape earlier in the night out of the corner of his eye. It was definitely the Grays’ house. After a minute, the picture went blank, but there were still seven more minutes left according to the progress bar at the bottom of the player.

When the video resumed, it was quieter, and the lights were much brighter. They were inside, walking down a hallway. There was no one in sight until the camera paused in front of an open door. Through it, he could see Lacey from the side. Freckles dotted her bare arms and the rich cobalt of her top seemed even more saturated against the bright white of her jeans. She was gesturing wildly, and Jason could only pick out snippets of what she was saying. “I can’t … secrets … Luke … just a friend.” The camera angle shifted slightly and now Jason could see all the way into the room. Troy was standing opposite Lacey with his fists clenched, seething. When he opened his mouth, Jason realized he was the angry spectator from the backyard. “Did you bring him here to make me jealous?”

“Oh, please, as if you’re even paying attention.” They were both getting louder as they grew angrier, and there was
something ugly and hard in Lacey’s manner that turned Jason’s stomach.

“Shh, do you want people to hear you?”

“I’m starting to think I might. I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”

“Lacey, think about your brother.”

“We could make him understand. Besides, why do you care more about what he thinks than me?” She turned toward the door, and the camera swerved wildly around as Jason realized the cameraman was trying to conceal himself. Whoever was shooting the video sped back down the hallway, taking Jason’s view of the unhappy couple along with them. At his computer, Jason threw up his hands in frustration. The scene went black.

When the picture started back up, they were outside once again. The music had gotten louder and the boys were rowdier. There were two circles. In one, Jason recognized Luke, and watched his eyes lock on Max, who was shifting his weight from leg to leg at the edge of the other circle. Luke charged over. He and Max were the same height, but Luke was wider and bulkier by half. He shoved his chest against Max’s, and Max stumbled backward but stayed on his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Luke growled.

Max had seemed uncomfortable before, but now he looked utterly panicked. A confrontation with a lacrosse player was more than he’d bargained for. He stepped back and stuttered an apology. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to the budding conflict.

“Seriously, you’re not welcome here,” Luke spat. At that moment, Troy stepped into the frame, backing Luke up. Luke was obviously enraged, but the fury Jason had seen in Troy’s
face just a few moments before had disappeared everywhere but his eyes, which flashed with anger. In calm, measured tones he told Max to leave.

Max flushed and started to walk away when Lacey, fists flying, sped across the yard to her brother. Max looked on as they started shouting at each other.

“
I
invited him. He’s my friend!”

“He’s not your
friend
.”

Plenty of people were overprotective of their sisters, but Luke’s obsession with Lacey’s social circle seemed like a whole other ball game.
Seriously, he will KILL you if he catches you
. Could Luke’s lacrosse-fueled rage at the world have crossed over into violence? Was he the reason Lacey had disappeared?

“I’m so sick of you telling me what to do!” Lacey was shouting on-screen.

“You can go,” Troy said coldly to Max. “This is a family matter.”

“Forget it,” Max said quietly, and turned to leave. Instead of stopping him, Lacey swiveled toward Troy and really lost her temper.

“And you! You’re not my father, you’re not my brother, and you’re
not
my boyfriend!”

“Oh snap,” came the cameraman’s giggle from off screen.

Troy’s voice was choked with quiet fury when he answered. “Good. You’re a mess, Lacey. I wouldn’t date you if you paid me. You deserve to be with someone like Josh Groban over there.” He cocked his head and sneered at Max, who paused on his way out of the yard.

Jason wished he could see his face, but all the camera captured was the slightest tensing of his shoulders as he registered
the insult. In the background, he could see one of the onlookers’ eyes widen. Luke blinked but he didn’t avert his gaze from Max as he shook off the Josh Groban comment and then stalked out of the yard. Troy realized he was being filmed and the expression on his face changed from disgust to obvious frustration. “Come on, Sully, turn that off.” The picture went dark again, and then ended.

So Troy was the secret boyfriend, and his romance with Lacey wasn’t exactly the stuff of fairy tales. But was that enough to make Lacey disappear? Jason dug around his bag for the photo of Troy he’d found on his desk and examined it again. The way they were avoiding eye contact, the secretive meeting, it made more sense now. Troy would have lost his best friend if the news of his and Lacey’s relationship had gotten out. Maybe Lacey was right when she’d accused him of caring more about her brother’s feelings than her own. Even so, Jason had recovered the video from Luke’s possession, so Troy and Lacey’s relationship couldn’t be a secret to him anymore — and Jason wasn’t sure it ever had been.

There were still so many questions. Lacey had said they needed this video, but Jason still didn’t understand for what.
I hope when this is all over you’ll forgive me
. For having another boyfriend? For following him and threatening him? His patience was beginning to wear thin. He logged in to Facebook, on the off chance she was online, but of course she wasn’t.

Instead he reread Lacey’s last message to him, and then, before he could change his mind, he opened a new e-mail to Jenna. Lacey had said he couldn’t tell Jenna he was going, but now that it was done, he needed help. And after almost getting
caught at her house tonight, he wasn’t so keen on blindly following Lacey’s instructions anymore anyway.

Before he pressed
SEND
he changed “tomorrow” to “today.” It was past three thirty in the morning, and it would be getting light soon. Maybe things would be clearer then.

J
ason would have preferred to go alone. Rakesh had a tendency to steal the spotlight — Jason didn’t want the attention for himself, but he had been hoping he and Jenna could focus on Lacey and piecing together what had happened to her. When Rakesh had heard about the video — and everything Jason had gone through to get it — he insisted on tagging along to Brighton. “Maybe I wasn’t clear about this,” he’d said at lunch, “but when I told you I wanted in on the action, I meant the part where you snuck out of your house and broke into the Brighton lacrosse captain’s car.” Jason had tried to explain that Lacey had insisted on secrecy, but Rakesh took that as license to question Lacey and her motives further, and the next thing Jason knew, he was inviting Rakesh to join him on the excursion to Brighton that afternoon. “You said Jenna’s cute, right?” he asked as they were climbing into the Subaru, and Jason almost kicked him out of the car. But now, as they were sitting in traffic, he wasn’t unhappy to have company, even if his company was bouncing along to pop hits on the radio and describing in graphic terms how he’d convince Katy Perry to run away with him if he ever got the chance to meet her.

“She’d never go for it,” Jason said when Rakesh had finished.

“Why, because I’m Indian?”

“Yes, Rock,” he deadpanned. “Your race is definitely the only reason you could not get a girl.”

“Says the white man.”

Jason checked his phone. It was fifteen minutes later than he’d told Jenna he’d get to her house, and they were still ten minutes away. He tossed it into Rakesh’s lap.

“Can you text Jenna and tell her we’re running late. Say ‘
I’m
running late,’ though; she doesn’t know you’re coming.”

“Then she has no idea how happy she’ll be when she sees me.”

“Seriously, I could make you get out of the car right now and walk all the way home.”

“Great, let me just text Jenna that you’re in love with her and that you made up a bunch of stuff about Lacey to get close to her before I go.” Jason swiped for the phone, but Rakesh pulled it out of reach. “Dude, calm down, I’m telling her we’ll be there soon. Why are you getting so worked up about it anyway? You don’t like her, do you?”

“No, it’s just that I’m thinking about Lacey.”

“Ha!”

“Shut up. I know what you’re going to say.”

“That you should forget about her? That a girl that has a meathead boyfriend already is not worth your time? That she’s been totally shady with you? That it’s weird that she won’t tell you where she is?”

“Yes, that.”

“Jason, for real, it’s not healthy.”

“Look, no one told you to come along, okay?”

“If you can give me one good reason why you care about this person who you never met except on Facebook, or why you trust her even though you know she has been straight up
lying
to you, I’ll shut up about it.”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“One good reason. You can’t even give me that.”

“It’s complicated.”

“You’re going to have to do a little better than giving me your Facebook relationship status.”

“She didn’t lie to me because she wanted to. Someone made her disappear and now she has to protect herself, and I have to protect her, too. And that involves figuring out what happened, even if I have to deal with some ugly stuff from her past. Or get followed in the woods. Or threatened by who knows who. Someone did this to her, and I promised to help.” He left out the way Jenna had looked at him with her saucer eyes; he felt disloyal enough to Lacey for spilling the beans about the contents of Luke’s glove compartment as it was.

The only sound in the car was “Tik Tok” blasting from the radio. Normally, Jason would consider the music an affront to his speakers, but he wasn’t in the mood to pick that particular battle at the moment. Finally, Rakesh broke the silence. “Ke$ha would definitely go for me.”

Jason laughed. “But then you would have to date Ke$ha.”

“Who said anything about dating? But now that you mention it, it might be worth it just to piss you off.”

“I would literally never talk to you again.”

“Like I said: Worth. It.”

They pulled up outside the address Jenna had sent them. It was a brick colonial house with green shutters, modest compared to some of the palatial residences on the street, but still significantly nicer than the homes either Jason or Rakesh lived in.

“You didn’t tell me she was rich,” Rakesh said.

Jason shot him a warning glass. “I didn’t know. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

When they rang the bell, they could hear the loud old-fashioned chime in the house. Jason half expected a maid in uniform to answer the door. Instead, Jenna greeted them barefoot in black leggings and a gray V-neck T-shirt. A long chain with a purple pendant hung gracefully from her neck.

“This is my friend Rakesh,” he explained, after they’d said hello.

Rakesh lifted Jenna’s hands to his lips. “My lady,” he said formally. “What an impressive abode you have.”

Jason glared at him. “Ignore him, please,” he said to Jenna, though she was obviously amused.

“Why thank you, good sir,” she replied with a curtsy.

“Are your parents here?” asked Jason, eager to put an end to whatever was happening between them.

“My dad’s working late,” she answered in her normal voice. “And my mom has her book club. So we have my impressive abode all to ourselves. C’mon upstairs. Max is here, too.”

The wooden staircase was lined with painted landscapes in ornate frames. “It’s like a museum,” Jason observed. He thought he heard Rakesh snicker, but he didn’t dare look behind him.

“My mom is a lover of culture.” Jenna’s tone was derisive. “Except when it comes to my iTunes library.”

“When did you invite Max?” Jason asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the disappointment in his voice. He should be glad — Max had been there when the video was filmed, surely he’d know something about it — but his vision of hunching
over the computer with Jenna looking for clues was rapidly turning into a reality featuring a whole Scooby-Doo gang.

“I ran into him in school today, and he asked if you heard from Lacey, so I told him to come over. I hope that’s okay.”

They were inside her bedroom before he could answer. There was thick beige carpeting and eggshell-colored walls with framed black-and-white photography. Butting out from the opposite side of the generous space sat a double bed with a wildly colorful comforter that stood out against the neutral tones of the rest of the room. Jason had a feeling her mother had “helped” with the decorations, but he got the sense Jenna had chosen the bright centerpiece on her own.

“Have a seat.” She swept her hand around the room, and Max looked over his shoulder from her desk. He was scrolling through the aforementioned iTunes library. Jason wondered if The XX playing over the clear computer speakers was his choice or Jenna’s.

“I’m Rakesh.” He stuck his hand confidently in Max’s direction. “Any Rihanna on there?”

Max shook his hand. “Did you know Lacey?” he asked coldly. Jason felt a defensive pang for Rakesh, even though he knew he couldn’t care less what Max thought of him or his musical taste.

“Nah, but any girl that gets Jason to commit burglary is a friend of mine.”

There was an awkward silence. Jason had told Jenna he had something to show her, but he hadn’t explained what or how he’d gotten in. “So I heard from Lacey again last night. She asked me to do something. It’s kind of a long story, but it involved taking this.” He held up the drive.

“From where?” Jenna asked uneasily.

“Luke’s glove compartment.” He didn’t wait for her to react, pressing on and addressing himself to Max. “It was from the night at her house this summer that you told us about. I mean, at least I think that’s what it is. But there’s something you didn’t see. Do you mind?” He gestured to the computer, and Max stood up.

Jenna and Max and Rakesh gathered around the computer, peering over his shoulder.

“So, um, can we go back to the part where you broke into Luke Gray’s car?” Jenna asked, and Rakesh started to tell her about Jason’s adventure the night before, but Jason silenced him by playing the video, and he stood up so as not to obscure their view.

Jenna gasped audibly when Lacey threw her hair back. Without thinking, Jason lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, realizing a second too late that he had not escaped Rakesh’s hawkish gaze. “Is this the night?” she asked when Max appeared in the frame.

“Yeah.” He colored when he heard the partygoers say his name. He muttered something Jason couldn’t hear, his eyes trained on the picture. After that, Jason noticed, no one looked away, not even Rakesh. As they watched Lacey’s hands settle on Max’s chest, Jason felt envy twisting in his gut. He tried to put himself in Troy’s shoes. The idea of Lacey with someone else made him feel lonely and empty. And angry, too, if he was being honest with himself. If watching Lacey flirting with Max had sent Troy into a jealous rage, how much further would he need to be pushed to hurt her?

“Holy shnikes,” Jenna whispered when Lacey and Troy began fighting.

Realizing they were talking about him, Max’s face darkened. “That guy’s always been such an ass to me — if this is the reason why, I mean, if it had something to do with what happened to her …” he didn’t finish the thought, and Jenna glanced over at him sympathetically.

When the camera shifted, Jason asked if they had any idea who was shooting.

“It sounded like John Sullivan at the beginning,” Jenna said. “He’s on the lacrosse team and he’s always got his camera out. It’s so annoying …” She trailed off as Luke began attacking Max. They watched through the end in silence, and Jenna turned to Max. “God, I’m so sorry.”

He looked surprised. “It’s not you.”

“No, but, like, Luke is my friend. And my other guy friends are always doing stuff like this. I never say anything. It’s just that while it’s happening it never looks this messed up.”

Max shrugged. “Trust me, I’m used to it. And anyway, I’m not the one you need to be worried about. If Troy has it out for Lacey, how long until he figures out she’s alive? What if he finds her before we do?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Jason said. “But also” — he looked nervously at Jenna — “I don’t know if we can rule out Luke in all of this. I mean, I got this from his car. So he definitely knew about them. And I am trying not to think about what’s gonna happen when Luke figures out this video is gone.”

Jenna didn’t say anything, but an expression of guilt passed over her face.

“I know he’s your friend, but he’s been hiding this,” Jason added.

“Guys, Luke wouldn’t hurt anyone.” She didn’t sound so convinced. Jason didn’t press the matter, but he wasn’t, either. He thought back to his Facebook profile. He’d looked mean, pure and simple. Like a bully.

“So what do we do next?” Rakesh asked.

“We?” Max said sharply.

Rakesh didn’t bat an eye. “Usually, when someone is missing, you’re supposed to report it to the police.”

“Lacey told Jason not to do that. But she also told him not to tell you about stealing this video, so I guess all bets are off.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Jason said, doing his best to ignore Max’s sour look. “I don’t think we should tell anyone yet. If we go to the police, they’ll say we’re just kids who’ve made up a story. Even if they take us seriously, the first people they’d turn to would be Lacey’s family. And Luke would probably go straight to Troy, and if he’s kept his relationship with Lacey hidden this long, he’ll probably figure out a way to keep it hidden longer. We have to keep this to ourselves until we know more about what happened.”

“So you think we should just wait until Lacey sends you on another errand?”

“I think we have to do some digging on our own. See if there’s anything we can learn about Troy, more about his relationship with Lacey or what he was doing the night she died. Jenna, can you talk to him without giving anything away?”

“I don’t know, Luke and I are friends ’cause of Lacey, but I barely know Troy.”

“Besides,” Max added, “if he’s the reason Lacey had to disappear, is sending Jenna to talk to him a good idea? She said so herself, he’s dangerous.”

Jason felt a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “It was a bad idea.”

“No, you’re right, we need him. We just have to figure out another way in. Maybe I can ask around.”

Rakesh threaded his hands together behind his head and leaned back against his seat. “Come on, guys. Have we learned nothing from Sherlock Holmes? Encyclopedia Brown? Nancy Drew? What ever happened to good old-fashioned detective work?”

“You think we should follow him?”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Jason said. “If we know where he goes, who he sees, what he does, maybe it’ll give us some clue about what happened.” No one disagreed.

They decided to start the next day. Jenna would do a little stealth research and see if she could learn anything about his schedule, and then Jason would pick her up after school and they would follow him. At first, Rakesh protested that he had a squash meet and they should wait until he was free. But when Max noted he would also have to skip the stakeout due to a rehearsal, Rakesh’s complaints suddenly stopped. “Looks like it’ll be just the two of you, then,” he said suggestively, looking back and forth between Jenna and Jason.

But Jason was thinking about Lacey. Was this what she wanted? He still felt like a blind man feeling around in the dark, but they had all listened to him as if he was carrying a map and a flashlight. All he wanted was to help her, but what if he was only making things worse?