Crescendo (22 page)

“One of her ex-boyfriends sits behind me in Spanish. He told me every night at ten sharp Marcie undresses with the lights on. Sometimes when he and his friends are bored, they drive over to watch the show. He said Marcie never rushes, and by the time she finishes, he has a cramp in his neck from staring up. He also said there was this one time—”

I clapped my hands over my ears. “Stop!”

“Hey, if my brain has to be polluted with these kind of details, I figure yours should too. The whole reason I know all this vomit-inducing information is because I was trying to help you.”

I flicked my eyes toward the stairs. My stomach seemed to weigh twice as much as it had three minutes ago. I hadn’t done anything, and I was already sick with guilt. When had I become low enough to snoop in Marcie’s bedroom? When had I let Patch twist and tangle me up this way? “I guess I’m going up,” I said unconvincingly. “You’ve got my back?”

“Roger that.”

I climbed the stairs. There was a bathroom with tile floors and crown molding at the top. I moved down the hall to my left, passing what looked to be a guest bedroom, and an exercise room equipped with a treadmill and elliptical. I backtracked, this time taking the hall to the right. The first door was cracked, and I peeked inside. The room’s color scheme was a frothy pink—pink walls, pink drapes, and a pink duvet with pink throw pillows. The closet had spewed itself onto the bed, floor, and other furniture
surfaces. Several photographs, blown to poster size, were tacked to the walls, and all were of Marcie posing seductively in her Razorbills cheerleading uniform. I experienced a mild rush of nausea, then saw Patch’s ball cap on the dresser. Shutting myself in the room, I rolled the bill of the cap into a narrow cone and crammed it into my back pocket. Beneath the ball cap, lying on the dresser, was a single car key. It was a spare, but it had a Jeep tag. Patch had given Marcie a spare to his Jeep.

Swiping the key off the dresser, I shoved it deep into my other back pocket. While I was at it, I figured I might as well look for anything else belonging to him.

I opened and closed a few dresser drawers. I looked under the bed, in the hope chest, and on the top shelf of Marcie’s closet. Finally I slipped my hand between the mattress and box spring. I pulled out the diary. Marcie’s small blue diary, rumored to contain more scandal than a tabloid. Holding it between my hands, I felt the overwhelming temptation to open it. What had she written about Patch? What secret things were hiding in the pages?

My walkie-talkie crackled.

“Oh, crap,” Vee said through it.

I fumbled it out of my waistband and pushed the talk button. “What’s the matter?”

“Dog. Big dog. It just lumbered into the living room, or whatever you call this humongous open space. It’s staring at me. Like, staring right at me.”

“What kind of dog?”

“I’m not up-to-date on my dog species, but I think it’s a Doberman pinscher. Pointed, snarling face. It resembles Marcie a little too much, if that helps. Uh-oh. Its ears just went up. It’s coming toward me. I think it’s one of those psychic dogs. It knows I’m not just sitting here minding my own business.”

“Stay calm—”

“Shoo, dog, I said
shoo!
”

The unmistakable growl of a big dog came through the walkie-talkie.

“Um, Nora? We have a problem,” Vee said a moment later.

“The dog didn’t leave?”

“Worse. It just bounded upstairs.”

Just then there was a snapping bark at the door. The barking didn’t stop—it grew louder and more snarling.

“Vee!” I hissed into the walkie-talkie. “Get rid of the dog!”

She said something in response, but I couldn’t hear over the dog’s growls. I flattened my hand to my ear. “What?”

“Marcie’s coming! Get out of there!”

I started to shove the diary back under the mattress, but fumbled it. Handfuls of notes and pictures spilled from the pages. In a panic, I raked the notes and pictures into a pile and tossed them back inside the diary. Then I rammed the diary, which was quite small considering how many secrets it was rumored to hold, and my walkie-talkie into the waistband of my pants and flipped the
light switch off. I’d deal with putting the diary back later. Right now, I had to get out.

I raised the window, expecting to have to remove the screen, but it was already done for me. Probably Marcie had removed it long ago to avoid the nuisance when she was sneaking out. That thought gave me a small measure of hope. If Marcie had climbed out before, I could too. It wasn’t like I was going to fall and kill myself. Of course, Marcie was a cheerleader and a lot more flexible and coordinated.

Poking my head out the open window, I looked down. The front door was directly below, under a portico supported by four pillars. Swinging one leg out, I found traction on the shingles. After I was sure I wasn’t going to slide off the sloped portico, I brought my other leg out. Balancing my weight, I lowered the window back in place. I’d just ducked below the window line when the glass filled with light. The dog’s nails clicked against the glass, and it uttered a round of furious barks. Dropping to my stomach, I squeezed as close to the house as I could and prayed Marcie didn’t open the window and look down.

“What is it?” Marcie’s muffled voice carried through the window-pane. “What’s the matter, Boomer?”

A trickle of sweat fell down my spine. Marcie was going to look down, and she was going to see me. I shut my eyes and tried to forget that her house was filled with people I had to attend school with for the next two years. How was I going to explain snooping
in Marcie’s bedroom? How was I going to explain holding her diary? The thought was too humiliating to bear.

“Shut
up
, Boomer!” Marcie shouted. “Would somebody hold my dog while I open the window? If you don’t hold him, he’s stupid enough to jump out. You—in the hall. Yes,
you
. Grab my dog’s collar and don’t let go. Just
do
it.”

Hoping the dog’s barking would mask any sounds I made, I rolled over and planted my back against the shingles. I swallowed the knot of fright in my throat. I had kind of a phobia about heights, and the thought of all that air between me and the ground had sweat leaking from my skin.

Digging my heels into the roof to push my weight as far away from the ledge as possible, I wrestled the walkie-talkie out of my pants. “Vee?” I whispered.

“Where are you?” she said through the music blaring in the background.

“Think you could get rid of the dog any day now?”

“How?”

“Be creative.”

“Like feed it poison?”

I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand. “I was thinking more like lock it in a closet.”

“You mean touch it?”

“Vee!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll think of something.”

Thirty seconds ticked by before I heard Vee’s voice float through Marcie’s bedroom window.

“Hey, Marcie?” she called over the barking. “Not to interfere, but the police are at the front door. They said they’re responding to a noise complaint. Do you want me to invite them in?”

“What?”
Marcie shrilled directly above me. “I don’t see any police cars.”

“They probably had to park a couple blocks over. Anyway, as I was saying, I noticed illegal substances in the hands of a few guests.”

“So?” she snapped. “It’s a party.”

“Alcohol is illegal under the age of twenty-one.”

“Great!” Marcie shouted. “What am I going to do?” She paused, then raised her voice again. “
You
probably called them!”

“Who, me?” Vee said. “And lose the free food? No way.”

A moment later, Boomer’s frantic barking faded into the house, and the bedroom light blinked out.

I held perfectly still a moment longer, listening. When I was positive Marcie’s bedroom was empty, I flipped to my stomach and belly-crawled up to the window. The dog was gone, Marcie was gone, and if I could just—

I pressed my palms to the window to force it up, but it didn’t budge. Leveraging my hands lower on the pane, I put all my strength into it. Nothing happened.

Okay
, I thought.
No big deal.
Marcie must have locked the window.
All I had to do was hang out here another five hours until the party ended, then get Vee to come back with a ladder.

I heard footsteps on the walk below and craned my neck to see if by some stroke of luck Vee had come to my rescue. To my horror, Patch had his back to me, walking toward the Jeep. He punched a number into his cell and raised it to his ear. Two seconds later, my cell phone sang out in my pocket. Before I could hurl the cell into the bushes at the edge of the property, Patch came to a stop.

He looked over his shoulder, his eyes traveling up. His gaze fell on me, and I thought it would have been better if Boomer had shredded me alive.

“And here I thought they were called Peeping Toms.” I didn’t need to see him to know he wore a smile.

“Stop laughing,” I said, my cheeks hot with humiliation. “Get me down.”

“Jump.”

“What?”

“I’ll catch you.”

“Are you crazy? Go inside and open the window. Or get a ladder.”

“I don’t need a ladder. Jump. I’m not going to drop you.”

“Oh, sure! Like I believe that!”

“You want my help or not?”

“You call this help?” I hissed furiously. “This isn’t help!”

He spun his key chain around his finger, then started to walk away.

“You are such a
jerk
! Get back here!”

“Jerk?” he repeated. “You’re the one spying in windows.”

“I wasn’t spying. I was—I was—”
Think of something!

Patch’s eyes flicked to the window above me, and I watched as understanding dawned on his face. He tilted his head back and gave a bark of laughter. “You were searching Marcie’s bedroom.”

“No.” I rolled my eyes like it was the most absurd suggestion.

“What were you looking for?”

“Nothing.” I yanked Patch’s ball cap out of my back pocket and flung it at him. “And here’s your stupid hat back, by the way!”

“You went in for my hat?”

“A big waste, obviously!”

He fit the hat to his head. “Are you going to jump?”

I took an uneasy look over the edge of the portico, and the ground seemed to drop another twenty feet out of reach. Sidestepping an answer, I asked, “Why did you call?”

“I lost sight of you inside. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He sounded sincere, but he was a smooth liar. “And the cherry Coke?”

“Peace offering. You going to jump or what?”

Seeing no alternative, I scooted cautiously to the edge of the portico. My stomach flipped circles. “If you drop me …,” I warned.

Patch had his arms raised. Squeezing my eyes shut, I slid off the ledge. I felt air break around my body and then I was in Patch’s arms, anchored against him. I stayed there a moment, heart hammering
from both the adrenaline of falling and from standing so close to Patch. He felt warm and familiar. He felt solid and safe. I wanted to cling to his shirt, bury my face into the warm curve of his neck, and never let go.

Patch tucked a stray curl behind my ear. “Do you want to go back to the party?” he murmured.

I shook my head no.

“I’ll drive you home.” He used his chin to gesture at the Jeep, because he still hadn’t unfolded his arms from around me.

“I came with Vee,” I said. “I should catch a ride with her.”

“Vee’s not going to pick up Chinese takeout on the way home.”

Chinese takeout. That would involve Patch coming inside the farmhouse to eat. My mom wasn’t home, which meant we would be all alone….

I let my guard slide a little further. Probably we were safe. Probably the archangels were nowhere close. Patch didn’t seem worried, so neither should I. And it was just dinner. I’d had a long, unsatisfying day at school, and I was famished from an hour at the gym. Takeout with Patch sounded perfect. How was a casual dinner together going to hurt? People ate dinner together all the time and never carried it further. “Just dinner,” I said, more to convince myself than Patch.

He gave the Boy Scout salute, but his smile was up to no good. A bad boy’s smile. The wicked, charming smile of a guy who’d kissed Marcie a mere two nights ago … and was offering to have dinner
with me tonight, most likely with the hope that dinner would lead to something else entirely. He thought one heart-melting smile was all it would take to erase my hurt. To make me forget he’d kissed Marcie.

All my inner turmoil scattered as I was jerked to the present. My speculations died, replaced by a sudden, strong feeling of unease that had nothing to do with Patch, or Sunday night. Goose bumps prickled my skin. I studied the shadows ringing the lawn.

“Mmm?” Patch murmured, detecting my concern, tightening his arms protectively around me.

And then I felt it again. A change in the air. An invisible fog, strangely warm, hanging low, pressing all around, zigzagging closer like a hundred stealthy snakes in the air. The sensation was so disruptive, I had a hard time believing Patch hadn’t at least noticed something was off, even if he couldn’t feel it directly.

“What is it, Angel?” His voice was low, questioning.

“Are we safe?”

“Does it matter?”

I shifted my eyes around the yard. I wasn’t sure why, but I kept thinking,
The archangels. They’re here.
“I mean … the archangels,” I said, so quietly I barely heard my own voice. “Aren’t they watching?”

“Yes.”

I tried to step back, but Patch refused to let me. “I don’t care what they see. I’m tired of the charade.” He’d stopped nuzzling my neck, and I saw a certain tormented defiance in his eyes.

I struggled harder to pull away. “Let go.”

“You don’t want me?” His smile was all fox.

“That’s not the issue. I don’t want to be responsible for anything happening to you.
Let go.
” How could he be so casual about this? They were
hunting
for an excuse to get rid of him. He couldn’t be seen holding me.

He caressed the sides of my arms, but as I tried to take the opportunity to break away, he caught my hands. His voice broke into my mind.
I could go rogue. I could walk away right now, and we could stop playing by the archangels’ rules.
He said it so decidedly, so easily, I knew this wasn’t the first time he’d thought it. This was a plan he’d secretly fantasized about many, many times.