Red 1-2-3 (34 page)

The Wolf decided he would give the river searchers another half hour to pluck Red Two from the black currents, but no longer. He settled in and waited for answers that he didn’t really expect to get from his perch above the waters.

The dean stood in his doorway and half-smiled at Mrs. Big Bad Wolf.

He seemed troubled, as evidenced both in his soft tone of voice and his hunched-over posture. “Did you read the report from the girls’ basketball coach? They had some trip back to school,” he said, shaking his head.

On her computer screen, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf began reading a copy of a single-page account that the coach had e-mailed to the dean. It was short on description, just a brief recitation of the reasons for their delay getting back after a victory. She had the distinct impression the coach would have 245

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preferred to write about the win, not the aftermath. Nothing in the coach’s report indicated that the suicide victim Jordan saw had red hair. Or that Jordan knew the victim. Or that they were connected in any way.

She nodded her head to the dean to let him know she was finished reading.

“Will you send a text and a follow-up e-mail to Jordan Ellis’s history teacher—that’s where she’s in class next period. Ask him to tell her to come to my office before lunch.”

“Will do,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf replied cheerily.

The dean thought for a second, then said, “Tell him she’s required to be here.”

She typed out the messages. After sending them, she punched up Jordan’s schedule on her screen. Then she glanced at the clock on the wall, and guessed that Jordan would walk through the office door at eleven.

She was off by two minutes.

Jordan seemed hurried, distracted. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf put on her most sympathetic look and used her most understanding voice. “Oh, dear, that must have been simply terrible last night. I can’t imagine how frightened you must have been. It must have been awful for you. And so sad.”

“I’m fine,” Jordan said briskly. “Is he in?” She gestured toward the inner office.

“He’s expecting you, dear. Go right in.”

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf felt a quickening in her heartbeat. She had not realized how exciting it would be for her to find herself close to Jordan—

knowing that she was a literary model for a murder victim. She suddenly felt alive, as if caught up in a swirling confection of secrets. Jordan’s sullen responses and slouching, contemptuous attitude made Mrs. Big Bad Wolf imperceptibly nod her head in total comprehension.
She’s perfect,
she thought.
No wonder he chose her.
She could suddenly see hundreds of reasons to kill Jordan.

Kill her,
Mrs. Big Bad Wolf thought
. On the page.
Her hands trembled slightly, quivering with a delicious sort of intrigue.
It’s like being caught
up in my own private novel.
Mrs. Big Bad Wolf felt herself sliding, as if 246

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slipping into some world where what was real and what was fiction were no longer different. It was like descending into a warm and soothing bath.

Jordan strode past her desk, and Mrs. Big Bad Wolf watched her from behind. She could suddenly see arrogance and selfishness and teenage isolation and nastiness all wrapped up in Jordan’s every step.

Her breathing was shallow, and she wanted to burst out in a laugh. It was a little like being let in on a huge, wonderful secret. She could suddenly imagine the entirety of the writing process, turning a self-centered, privileged young woman into a character in a book. Just like being present at the Creation, she thought, although she admitted that was overstating matters slightly.

She suddenly rose up and trailed Jordan into the dean’s office. As Jordan slipped into the chair across from the dean, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf cheerily said, “Don’t forget about the phone meeting with the trustees.” This phone session was not until later, but it gave her an excuse to leave the office door ajar, which she guessed neither the dean nor Jordan would notice.

A production assistant,
she thought.
A good production assistant listens to
everything.
I’m a lot more than just a secretary.

Mrs. Big Bad Wolf returned to her desk and craned her head to listen, arranging a pad of paper on the desk in front of her to take notes.

The first thing she overheard was: “Look, I’m okay. I don’t need to speak with anyone, especially some touchy-feely psychologist. I’m fine.”

Jordan’s voice seemed angry and filled with contempt.

“I understand, Jordan,” the dean replied slowly, “but these sorts of trau-matic incidents have concealed impacts. Seeing a woman kill herself the way you did can’t just be shrugged off.”

“I’m okay,” Jordan stubbornly repeated. She was desperate to get out of the office. Every second she spent distracted from the real threat was potentially dangerous. She knew the only respite she had from the Big Bad Wolf were her moments on the basketball court, when she could lose herself in exertion. She wanted to scream at the dean,
Do you know that I’m doing
something far more goddamn important than any class or any meeting with a
shrink or anything you can imagine in your closed little private school mind?

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JOHN KATZENBACH

She said none of this. Instead she could feel tension within her tightening like a knot and she knew she had to say the right thing to get out and get back to the more serious business of avoiding being murdered.

“Well, yes, I believe so,” the dean continued. “And I’ll take your word for it. But still I’m insisting that you speak with someone. If you do that and the doctor signs off, says all is okay, then so be it. But I want a professional involved. Did you sleep any last night?”

“Yes. Eight hours. Slept like a baby,” Jordan trotted out the cliché, not actually imagining that the dean would believe her.

He shook his head. “I doubt that, Jordan,” he said. He didn’t add
Why
do you lie to me?
although that was what went through his head. He handed her a piece of paper. “Six o’clock. This evening at Student Health Services.

They will be expecting you.”

“All right, all right, I’ll go, if that’s what you want,” Jordan said.

“That’s what I want,” the dean replied. “But it should also be what you want.” He tried to say this in a softer, more understanding tone.

“Can I go now?”

“Yes.” The dean sighed. “Six p.m. sharp. And fail to show up and we’ll just be back here tomorrow morning, doing all this all over again, except this time someone will escort you to the appointment.”

Jordan stuffed the appointment slip into her backpack. She rose and exited without saying anything else. The dean watched her leave, thinking he had never seen anyone as determined to throw away every opportunity as Jordan.

Outside his office, Mrs. Big Bad Wolf hurried to jot down everything she had heard
. Six p.m.
Student Health Services.
She looked up as Jordan swept by her, then reached for her telephone. The teenager hadn’t even looked in her direction.

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Outside the window Jordan could see nothing except growing darkness.

Her angle through the glass showed empty playing fields blending into distant stands of trees that marked the beginning of undeveloped conservation land. This was typical of private schools in New England: They favored the woody, isolated, forest look that gave visitors the impression that there were no distractions from the world of studying, sports, and the arts that was cultivated at the school. Jordan knew that in other directions there were bright lights, loud music, and all the typical sorts of trouble that teenagers routinely found.

She waited patiently for the psychologist seated at a desk across from her to finish a conversation with a local psychiatrist who specialized in pharmacological solutions to teenage angst. They were discussing a prescription for Ritalin, the preferred drug to deal with ADHD. The psychologist, a frowsy, angular young woman probably only about ten years Jordan’s senior but trying hard to look more mature, was being careful not to use any names, because Jordan was present. The issue appeared to be a refill order that shouldn’t have been necessary. Jordan knew exactly why 249

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this anonymous student had run out of Ritalin early: because he had sold some or had some stolen, or maybe both. It was a favorite party drug.

Fun for some,
she thought,
and now the kid can’t concentrate enough to
get his history term paper finished.
She wanted to laugh at the dilemma, and the pathetic way the student had tried to talk the psychologist into getting more pills. Jordan knew the school monitored the number of pills each student was supposed to have on hand at any given time: just enough for a once-a-day respite from distraction.

The psychologist gestured in the air as if to make a point and then, with the phone still to her ear, waved in Jordan’s direction, a
just a minute
motion that turned Jordan back to the window. She could just make out her reflection in a corner of the pane—pale, as if the image was of some different Jordan.
That’s Red Three, not Jordan,
she decided.

In that moment, Jordan wondered whether the Big Bad Wolf had electronically visited the YouTube entry for Red Two. It had not taken Jordan long to post two messages on the website:
RIP Red Two
and
We will miss
you, your friends 1 and 3.

She didn’t know if he would see them. But she thought they were a nice touch.

The psychologist hung up the phone with a chorus of “
Okay, okay,
okay
” before slumping back. She smiled. “So, Jordan, tell me about what you saw last night.”

She doesn’t waste any time,
Jordan thought. “Maybe if I had a prescription for Ritalin . . .” Jordan began.

The psychologist managed a laugh. “That was a pretty predictable conversation, wasn’t it?”

Jordan nodded.

“But unsuccessfully trying to talk the staff out of a class two substance isn’t the same as seeing a woman kill herself,” the psychologist said.

Straight to the point,
Jordan thought again. “We were driving back to school after the game. I was the only one staring out the window. I spotted the woman climb up on the bridge barrier and saw her jump. Then I screamed. Just a natural reaction, I guess.”

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The psychologist bent forward, expecting more.

Jordan shrugged. “It wasn’t like I killed her.”

But now she’s free,
Jordan thought. It was a little like seeing someone else get a gift that she particularly wanted. She envied Red Two.

Jordan shifted in her seat. The psychologist was asking more questions, probing feelings, impressions. It was inevitable that she would try to steer this conversation into some discussion about her parents, her grades, and her bad attitude. Jordan waited for this to land in front of her, replying as succinctly as she could. She just wanted to get out of the psychologist’s room with as little damage as possible and get back to the task of saving her life. She was willing to say anything, behave any way, or act as appropriately as she possibly could to achieve that result.

Nothing I say here means anything.
For a moment she considered telling the psychologist everything. The letters. The video. All about becoming Red Three. It was like telling herself a joke, and she had to stifle a smile.

And what will she do? She will think I’m crazy. Or maybe she will call the
dean. He’s a well-meaning idiot and he’ll call the police. More well-meaning
idiots. And then the Big Bad Wolf will just disappear into the woods and wait
until I’m on my own again, and he’s free to do whatever he wants. Maybe I’ll
get a year or two and then I’ll be Red Three all over again. And I know what
he will do then.

Jordan could hear herself replying to the psychologist’s questions, but barely paid any attention to what she was saying. The words coming out from between her lips were flimsy and had no real connection to what was happening to her. She believed the real forged iron and steel was within her, safely stored away for the time being, being held back for when she truly needed it.
That will be soon enough
.
The Big Bad Wolf is our problem,
she told herself.
And we’re going to solve it ourselves.

She smiled at the psychologist, idly wondering whether a smile was actually the right bit of performance, thinking that perhaps the fastest way out of the office and the meeting was to concede some small bit of trauma, so that the shrink would have something to write in a report to send to the dean and everyone would think they were doing their job. Jordan 251

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considered this for a moment and said, “I’m a little afraid of having some really bad nightmares. I mean, I can see that poor woman as she jumped.

It was so sad. I would hate to be that sad myself.”

The psychologist nodded. She wrote something down on a pad of paper.
Sleeping pills,
Jordan thought.
She’s going to give me a prescription for
sleeping pills. But just a couple so I can’t kill myself.

There was a single weak light over the entrance to Health Services, and Jordan paused for an instant as she exited to survey the nighttime stretching in front of her. The Health Services building was tucked off on a side street in one of the less-frequented parts of the campus, so Jordan realized that she would have to pass through a great deal of darkness before reaching a spot where other students were likely to be walking the pathways.

Hunching her shoulders against a wind that had picked up, she hurried forward.

She had not traveled more than a half-dozen strides when she saw the figure in the shadows, right where a large oak tree brushed up against the back of one of the now-empty classroom buildings. It was like seeing a ghost. Jordan nearly stumbled and fell. She had the sensation of her heart stopping, then starting again, all in the same microsecond.