Saving Sloan (Sloan Series Book 2) (7 page)

Darcy raised a brow. “Do people still say weird things like that in this century?”

That was Darcy being Darcy. “Don’t know.”
Don’t care.

“Hmm…” Darcy stepped back and eyed Sloan from the tip of her hair to the toes of her shoes. “You just look tired. Pale.”

Of course she’d notice. “Just sleepy. I’ll be happy when summer gets here.”

“Me too! I’m going to Panama City for vacation. You?”

Um… “No. No. I’ve got a job this summer. Got to get some extra money for college.”

“My daddy’s paying my way. He’s even throwing in an extra few grand because I’ve had such a rough year.”

Darcy. Had. Such. A. Rough. Year.

Sloan wanted to choke her.

And then she felt bad about it.

Darcy had had a rough patch. Boyd had beaten her up and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. So, yeah, she’d had it hard. But to get an extra few thousand dollars for college because of it just made Sloan more jealous of Darcy than she already had been. It would have been nice if someone would have paid for her college. Her father already said he wouldn’t. He paid for her car. Guess that meant his obligation to her was over. Besides, Tiffani was pregnant now. He had other priorities.

“Yeah. Rough patch. I get it.” When would Darcy go so she could get her books and go on her merry way?

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that you hadn’t…”

“I know what you meant. I’ll see you in Biology.” Hoping she’d get the hint.

“Why are you standing there with your hand on the locker but not opening it?” Darcy had gotten very perceptive. Oh good. Though, to be fair to her, Darcy had always been pretty smart.

“I’m… uh…” What was she doing? “I’m not wanting to be rude and throw a locker in your face.”

She laughed. “A few months ago you’d have loved to throw it in my face. Maybe even break my nose.”

“Well, you aren’t like you were then anymore. You are more, I don’t know, normal. Almost like the old you… the old you before you got so mean.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As you should.” And you should go away.

“Seriously, though. Why aren’t you opening it?”

“I’m just not.”

“Do it,” Darcy demanded.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Sloan.”

“Darcy.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” Darcy threw her hand on her hip.

“You’re being bossy.” Sloan’s posture matched Darcy’s.

“Eleven — thirteen — forty-four. That’s your combination, in case you’ve forgotten. Open it.”

“No.” How did she….

“You’re being secretive.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Children.” Ray walked up between them and put his hand on each of their shoulders. “You’re making a scene. Why are you arguing?”

“Sloan’s hiding something in her locker,” Darcy said, swatting Ray’s hand away.

“And what’s it any business of yours?” Ray asked with a polite smile on his face.

Darcy huffed and crossed her arms. “None.”

“Exactly. See you in Biology.” Darcy blessedly took the hint and went on her way.

Sloan took the opportunity to let out a shaky breath. It had been one bad morning. “Thank you. I didn’t think she was ever going to leave.”

“No problem.” He hesitated a second. “Everything okay?”

Ugh. “I wish people would stop asking me that. I’m fine.”

Ray held his hands up defensively. “Okay. Fine. I believe you. Just… Darcy’s right. It’s odd you won’t open your locker. Hiding some deep, dark secret?”

Yes… yes, I am. “You wanna see what’s inside? Here ya go.” Angrily, she spun the combination and opened the locker. She pointed inside, waiting for Ray to get the hint.

“It’s terrifying.
Hoarders
needs to be called.”

“Huh?” She looked then and saw… nothing. Books, her normal books were laying in piles like… well… normal. No roses. No note. No nothing. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“That makes two of us,” Ray said. “I don’t think Darcy would have cared about your messy locker.”

“They’re gone.” That couldn’t be right.

“The roses?”

“They were here yesterday afternoon. They were here, and now they’re gone. I don’t get it.”

“Wait,” Ray opened her locker wider. On the door were pictures of her, Ray, and Aaron all having fun. Some were of her and Mackenzie. Another was from her days with Boyd, but he’d been cut out. She’d been really cute in it, though, so she’d kept her part of it. ““You left them in here?”

She nodded.

“You’re sure you didn’t take them out?”

That was the least of her worries. She had no words. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Someone had put the roses back on her nightstand the day before. Someone had taken the flowers from her locker. Someone knew everything about her. Sloan wanted to throw up. She couldn’t go through something like this again.

Ray grabbed her by her shoulders to get her to focus. The hallway was nearly empty. The eight o’clock bell would be ringing soon. “You need to calm down, stop freaking out, and tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“I don’t know what’s going on. I told you last night.”

“No.” He shook his head and grasped her shoulders a little harder. “You’re not telling me something. What is it?”

Why not? Her stalker would
only
kill her mother if the police were involved. “At lunch. I’ll tell you at lunch.”

“You’ll tell me now.”

“We’ll be late for Biology,” she reminded him.

“Screw Biology.” Ray grabbed her hand and led her down the hallway and turned left. They went down a short hallway until they got to the gymnasium doors. Ray opened them and took her up the creaky old stairs that weren’t in use anymore and up to the balcony, which had been recently renovated. He sat her down in the middle seat of the back row. “Now. Talk.”

Her hand shook. Honestly, she’d rather be in Biology than talking to Ray right now. She didn’t want to do anything that her stalker could see. She didn’t want anything to happen to her mother. “We can’t be here. We need to get to class.”

“We’ve not missed any since December. The room won’t fall down if we aren’t there, Sloan Bridges — who is too moral for her own good.” He let out a nervous laugh.

“I wouldn’t say that.” She hung her head.

“I would.” Ray swept a piece of hair that had fallen out of her side ponytail behind her ear. “Is it Boyd? Talk to me. Please.”

Sloan took a deep breath and blew it out. “Okay. But you have to promise you won’t go running off to the cops.”

That made him sit up straighter. “Why would I need to go to the cops? Has he threatened you?”

Did she really want to tell him? Yeah. She did. Did she really want to get him involved? No. Not really, but she didn’t feel like she had a choice. She couldn’t go through this alone. Maybe Ray could give her another perspective.

Ray sat back a little. “Who would know the combination to your locker?” he said before she could tell him about the flowers delivered this morning.

It took her a second to get back on the same page as Ray. “I don’t know. The lock wasn’t off or anything. It looked normal. Totally normal.”

“That’s why you didn’t want to open the locker in front of Darcy. Because of the roses.”

Smart man. “Didn’t want to explain them to her. The less people know, the better.”

“Good call.” He sighed. “Well, okay. If we think this out, it stands to reason that if someone could open your locker to put flowers in, then he or she could open it again to take the flowers out. No big mystery there.”

That made sense. Still shook her up, though.

“What about today?”

“What about it?” Her mind had gone nearly blank, and all she wanted was to take a nap, which was weird being it was only a little after eight. This questioning from Ray made her so sleepy. She leaned her elbow on the back of the seat and laid her head over on it.

“Today is a new day. Did the pattern continue? Did you get roses?”

Oh, she’d gotten them all right. “Before I left the house to come to school, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery man from one of those flower shops. He handed me three roses, wrapped like all the others with a black ribbon. And a note.” She yawned. One would think she could stay awake telling this story. She really needed to get to bed earlier tonight, that is, if the worry didn’t keep her awake.

“What did the note say?” Ray prodded.

Sloan took it out of her bag and handed it to him. His lips moved as he read it to himself. “ICU”

“Yeah. Among other things. See why I don’t know what to do?”

“It says not to call the cops.”

“That it does.”

“Are you?”

“Are you crazy?” She found enough energy to snatch the paper away from him. “He’s threatened my mother. I can’t call the police. He’ll hurt her.”

“Do you know that for sure?”

“I can pretty much guarantee it. He can get into my locker and into my room. I’d say he can get my mother.” It freaked her out thinking about it.

“She needs to know. You can’t keep this from her.”

“Yes, I can,” Sloan said with every bit of defiance she could muster. She had to make Ray understand. “Whoever it is will hurt her, Ray. I can’t live with that.”

Ray’s jaw tightened. He balled up his fist and hit it on the seat. “And do you think she can live with something happening to you? Do you think any of us could?”

Sloan stared at him. She hadn’t thought about it before, to be honest. It was more protecting her family and friends than herself. And, really, she’d never seen Ray so mad. Like ever. A little vein on his temple stood out in all its blue glory. He really did care for her. How in the world was she supposed to feel about that? “I know she cares. And I know…” This was so hard. Why did it have to be hard? “I know you care for me. And Aaron and Mackenzie,” she threw in for good measure. “But this is on me. I have to figure this out or he or she or… it will hurt someone I care about. Do you understand that? Don’t you get it?”

“I get it. But I think you’re being ridiculous and reckless. Your mom needs to know. Maybe not the cops. Maybe not Detective Morgan, yet. But definitely your mother. You can’t keep this from her.”

Oh yes, she could. “Just give me until tomorrow to figure it out, okay? To handle it on my own. If I can’t, I promise I’ll tell her.”

“Her who. Which her?”

Ugh! “My mother, okay? I’ll tell my mother if things get creepier. Would that make you happy?” Her words had more bite than she’d expected, but Ray frustrated her to death. Why couldn’t he just let her deal with this on her own? It would kill her if someone got hurt because of her, and Ray needed to understand that.

“I’d hate to see it creepier than it already is.” He looked away and barely whispered.

Sloan took a deep, cleansing
I’m-not-going-to-be-mad-at-him-anymore-because-he’s-just-worried-about-me-and-I’m-being-sort-of-too-hard-on-him
breath. “Look. Ray, I’m sorry about snapping at you. I’m just stressed. It’s not been the easiest year.”

“That’s an understatement.” A small, sad grin pulled his lips.

“Right? I don’t know what to do. I just know I can’t tell anyone yet. I need time to figure things out. Maybe even decide who is sending the flowers.”

“And you think you can do that on your own? You’re not exactly a detective, Sherlock.”

She glared at him, semi-playfully. “I know that,
Watson.
But I can do some things. Talk to some people.”

“Have any ideas? Any clues?”

She shook her head. Clues were the hard part. Being all brave and strong and smart and detective-ish in theory was great. Actually doing it scared the worms out of her. “Just the letters. Something about a fall that will happen the day of the prom, but I don’t know what kind.”

“Hopefully an emotional one. Much less permanent than a physical one.”

He had a point. Emotional would embarrass her to death. A physical one, well, it could likely lead to her own death, something she’d thought about a lot in the past few months since Boyd had tried to kill her. She wasn’t ready to die. Well, she was in theory. She was saved and knew where she’d go in the great hereafter. Didn’t mean she was counting down the minutes to go there. She had things to do, people to see, and she was only eighteen, for goodness’ sake. Telling her mom and Detective Morgan might not be an option, but neither was letting whoever was stalking her win.

Then hopefully, she’d move off to college and people would leave her alone, crazy stalker people anyway. “I vote non-permanent falling. Definitely.”

“Any ideas on who sent them?”

Oh she had an idea. A big idea. The best idea of all.

He must have read her mind. “Boyd. You still think he has something to do with it?”

“If not him, who? How many people have I ticked off?”

Ray started counting them off with his fingers, which made Sloan feel real good. “Darcy. Tanner…”

“Boyd.” She added the obvious choice.

“Boyd’s mom.” Ray kept right on going, with four fingers held up. The four suspects.

“Why Boyd’s mom?”

Ray’s hand fell. “Really? You hurt her baby. Any mama bear would go grizzly on someone who had done that.”

She so didn’t see Boyd as a baby. “I don’t think that she’d hold a grudge.”

All Ray had to do was raise both eyebrows.

“Okay, fine. Yeah, if I were her, I’d hold a grudge. I guess we can throw her on the list.”

“And Darcy? You really think it could be Darcy? She’s been acting so, I guess, nice these last few months. I thought she was sort of becoming my friend again.”

“What’s that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Who says Darcy hasn’t been playing you, or that she hasn’t been working for someone?”

Truthfully, Sloan didn’t want to think about it. It had been nice having Darcy around again, a little weird at times, but nice. Then again…

“She did know my locker combination today.”

“There ya go!” He slapped his knee like he’d figured out the killer in that game Mystery Manor. “See. She has a good reason to get even with you. This could be how she’s doing it.”

“A countdown to the prom with roses? Isn’t that kinda lame?”