Saving Sloan (Sloan Series Book 2) (8 page)

“Maybe. But it sure is scaring you.” He leaned closer. For some reason, Sloan did the same. It wasn’t like they had an audience in the empty auditorium. “Think about it. Lame or not, it’s obviously affecting you. Whoever it is doesn’t want you to go to the police, and Darcy was all over you this morning to open your locker. It’s her. Why would she care if she didn’t know what was inside?”

Sloan didn’t have a good answer for that.

“See. She had to know or she wouldn’t have been pestering you to open it.”

He made a lot of sense. Lots of valid assumptions, but she couldn’t really focus on any of them. She felt so sleepy and rolled her neck around her shoulders to keep awake. It wouldn’t take much to fall over and nap all evening. Man, it would be nice.

“You okay?”

Ray, always on top of things, Ray. “Just sleepy.”

“Have the notes bothered you that much that you aren’t sleeping?”

She had to think about that. One would think it would keep her from sleeping. “Not really. Sunday night I didn’t know enough to be scared. Monday night I slept because… uh…” Well, she’d slept basically because of the pain pills Darcy had given her. They’d relaxed her. Calmed her. It was pretty nice actually, not that she’d take them anymore. She could see herself getting addicted to them very easily.

“Because why?” Ray stared. Sloan wished he’d quit.

“And so, yeah, I’ve slept. I’m just tired. Stress I guess.”

Ray didn’t look convinced, but did drop it, which Sloan appreciated. “So, four suspects.”

“B-oy-d.” She drew out his name, because to her, he was the only suspect. “Tanner, Darcy, and Boyd’s mother.”

Ray nodded slowly, apparently a million miles away. When he did move, he grabbed her by the hands and made her jump. “Sorry. I’ve gotta go.”

“Where?”

He let go of her hands, stood, and grabbed his backpack. “I probably won’t be at lunch so don’t wait for me. Come over to my house tonight and we can work on Biology. Get the lesson from Mrs. Knight. Pig dissection next week, remember?”

“Where are you going?”

Ray smiled, but it looked very forced. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll see you tonight. Be there right after school if that’s okay?”

He left without even looking back. Sloan grabbed her stuff and ran after him, but there wasn’t any sight of him. He’d gone somewhere. Knowing him,
somewhere
involved finding out who had been sending her those letters and roses. He’d no doubt either gone to see Boyd or Mrs. Lawrence. Sloan very much hoped it wasn’t to see Boyd. Even though he was her number one suspect, she didn’t want him talking to Boyd alone. Ray hadn’t been around to see Boyd at his worst. Aaron had been attacked by Boyd, not Ray. Ray didn’t know what Boyd was capable of, wheelchair or not.

Sloan looked at her phone to check the time: 8:36.

Just enough time to get to Biology before the bell rang. And what exactly would she tell Mrs. Knight?
“Sorry I’m late. I was talking to Ray, who has gone who knows where, about these letters I’ve been getting from a stalker who has threatened to kill my mother if I tell the police. So, could you not give me a lot of homework? Thanks.”

Ugh.

Sloan waited outside the door until the bell rang. She scooted to the side with her head down, praying no one saw her. She didn’t need the embarrassment.

When everyone cleared out, Sloan noticed Darcy wasn’t among them. It made her take a mental note, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She needed to talk to Mrs. Knight before the next group came in and before she was late for another class.

Sloan settled on the truth. “Mrs. Knight. I’m sorry I missed class. I rose late.” Hilarious. She rose… like flowers… roses… yeah.

“You rose late?” Mrs. Knight never stopped erasing the white board. “Did you also get lost between your locker and class?”

“Excuse me?”

Mrs. Knight turned her direction. “Darcy told me she spoke to you and Mr. Hunter at your locker. Do you have an alarm clock at your locker to tell you when to come to class?”

Darcy. Of course it was Darcy. Why couldn’t that girl ever keep her mouth shut? Sloan didn’t have anything to say about that, actually.

“What you and Mr. Hunter do in your own time is your business,” Mrs. Knight added, wiping more of the notes off the board, notes Sloan desperately needed.

“No. You have it all wrong. Ray and I don’t have any business.”

Mrs. Knight didn’t stop talking. “But this is school and I have a job to teach you. According to the state, they don’t care if you want to be here or if you’d rather be up in the rafters making out. I’m still responsible for our end-of-course testing. I’m responsible for getting your little mind off of Ray’s chest and on to dissecting pigs.”

She had it so
so
wrong. Not to say Aaron didn’t have a nice chest.

Ray!

Not Aaron, Ray.

Ray had a nice chest.

Blah!

“But I expect if you are on this campus, you will be in my classroom at the appointed time. Do you understand?”

Hadn’t Sloan thought the day before that she liked Mrs. Knight’s hard-butt attitude? Not so much now. “Yes, ma’am.” She certainly wasn’t going to argue with the woman.

“I assume you came for your homework?”

Sloan nodded.

Mrs. Knight laid the dry eraser down on the rail. “Your assignment was on the board.”

She walked away, leaving Sloan dumbfounded. Second period folks started filtering in, and she could tell from Mrs. Knight’s body language, she wasn’t going to hand her an assignment.

That meant find someone in the class.

That meant talk to Darcy.

Sloan’s head started to pound behind her eyes. Maybe it was time for another over-the-counter pill.

“Oh, and Sloan,” Mrs. Knight called when she was almost out the door. “You were turned in on the absent list. You and Mr. Hunter. You mother will be called. I hope she doesn’t worry too much about you. See you in class tomorrow.”

Sloan wanted to crawl into a hole. She might not have to wait for Mr. ICU to make her fall. She was doing a pretty good job at it herself.

Perfect.

CHAPTER FIVE

B
Y LUNCH,
S
LOAN HADN’T SEEN
D
ARCY
. It was both good and bad. Good, because, hello, she hadn’t seen Darcy. And bad, because she really needed to talk to her. She needed notes, and she needed information on if,
if,
she was Mr. ICU. Sloan didn’t think she was, but if she could prove it, it would shut Ray up, wherever he was.

At lunch, Mackenzie snapped her fingers in Sloan’s face. “Hey, you even in there?”

Honestly, no she wasn’t. She was way off somewhere in la-la land where frogs jumped in lovely ponds and unicorns frolicked in the blowing wind. Anything sounded better than Chapel Hill at the time. “Sorry.”

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Zoning out. Everything okay?”

No. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?” Sloan took a drink from her water, not sure how much nervousness she was showing. She hoped not much. She hoped she was showing calm and cool. But Mackenzie, always observant Mackenzie, would probably see right through her.

“I don’t know. Something’s off with you this week.” She leaned back and studied her.

“Your eyes are going to stick that way if you keep furrowing them like that,” Sloan observed as she moved a few pieces of food around her plate. She so wasn’t hungry.

“Does anyone actually use the word furrowed in real life?”

“They would if they looked at you.” Sloan grinned. It was so hard to be serious around Mackenzie. The girl always had a face or an expression or a joke or even just a snort that made a person feel better and laugh. Laughing was good. Mackenzie had been hurt after Travis had left due to his involvement with Boyd attacking Sloan. Sloan knew she liked him more than she let on. She’d driven him to school for a few days, after all. Mackenzie never talked about him now, but Sloan knew it had to be hard on her. Sloan wondered every once in a while where Travis was, but she’d never asked Mackenzie if she’d heard from him. She assumed she hadn’t and didn’t want to stir up old, painful memories.

“Touché.” Mackenzie snorted and tossed her red hair to the side. She’d cut it recently and hadn’t gotten used to how short it was. It wouldn’t even go all the way around over her shoulder now, an annoyance for her. “But truthfully. You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? Did you see Boyd again?”

Sloan noticed how she worded it. Not
“Did you think you saw Boyd again”
, but
“Did you?”
Her friend apparently believed her through thick and thin, but she had no idea how much to tell her. She wanted to tell her everything, but she didn’t want to put her in danger. Who knew who her attacker was? It could be someone in the room. If Ray was right, it was Darcy who had ears all over the place, ready to tell her things. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Mackenzie; she didn’t trust anyone else at the school at the moment.

“I’d tell you. I would. How about I call you tonight? We can talk about the prom.”

Mackenzie tilted her head, “You hate talking about the prom.”

And she had to say it out loud. “I know that. But maybe this one time, I’d like to.” Sloan tried to give the best look she could to let Mackenzie know she was talking about more than the prom.

Mackenzie looked more confused.

Sloan lifted her eyebrows.

Mackenzie shrugged.

She made her eyes nearly pop out of her head.

Mackenzie finally had a light bulb moment. “Ohhhh.”

Sloan scrunched her face together so Mackenzie would get it to shut up and not let anyone in on the plan. That’s all she needed. Darcy still had a lot of pull in the school, and any freshman wanting an
in
would run with the information she had to get in the
clique
. In fact, not three seats away, sat a group of juniors. They were all pretty much doing their own thing, involved in their own conversations… all except this one girl. Sloan had seen her around the halls from time to time. She didn’t know her name. Seniors didn’t always know underclassmen. She had mousy short hair that stuck out at uneven angles, not apparently achieved with products, and black-rimmed glasses. Her eyes were a light brown, and she was skinny as a rail. Something about her seemed so familiar. Her looks or mannerisms or… something.

Every once in a while, Mousy would tilt her ear toward Sloan and Mackenzie like she was trying to hear, but not be caught hearing. If she ever wanted a career in spying, she very much needed to up her game because the girl was so obvious it was pitiful.

“Are you listening?” Mackenzie asked. Sloan so needed to keep her mind turned on when her friend was talking. Mackenzie would start to get a complex if she kept tuning her out.

“Absolutely.” Insert overly friendly smile.

“Okay.” Mackenzie winked. The girl really didn’t know how to be subtle. “We’ll talk about the prom.”

Oh, good glory…

“I do need to talk to you about it, actually. I’m totally okay going by myself. It’s not like I want a date after, well, you know.”

Sloan knew. It hurt that Mackenzie was dateless to the prom, but the girl seemed to be handling it well. “I don’t want one. I’m fine going stag.”

“You aren’t going stag. You’re going with me and Ray. A hot girl on each of his arms.” Sloan tried to make light of it, but truthfully, she hadn’t thought much about Mackenzie having to be solo at the prom. If it were her, she wouldn’t care… well, that was a lie. She would care. She’d probably leave early, go home, and eat a ton of ice cream, but that wasn’t Mackenzie’s deal. That curly-headed girl could be the life of a party at a funeral.

“And I’m sure he’ll enjoy every minute of it.” Mackenzie winked with a smile. “Speaking of Ray, where is he?”

“No sense looking for him. He’s not coming.”

That information intrigued Mousy. She leaned further on her hand toward our direction. She hadn’t said anything to her group in the last five minutes.

Interesting.

Mackenzie took it upon herself to look a few more seconds for Ray. “Why? What’s up?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. He was here this morning and then he left.” She took another drink of water. It was quickly becoming her nervous tic. It wasn’t a lie. He’d been there this morning, and he had left. She honestly had no idea where he’d gone. She had a pretty good idea, though. If she had her guess, she’d assume that he was, right at that moment, at Boyd’s house, talking to his mother and verifying he was actually in a wheelchair. And of course, Ray’s crazy idea that Boyd’s mother was the stalker. He’d better be careful. Sloan didn’t know what she’d do if something happened to him.

“You keep doing that,” Mackenzie said as serious as Sloan had ever heard her. “You keep zoning out. Are you overly stressed? I mean, we can blow off the rest of the day if you want.”

Sloan shook her head and ran her fingers through her falling hair. The side ponytail hadn’t held up today. She had to keep it together or everyone would know and Mr. ICU would see. Irony and all. “Just a long morning. I’ll be fine. I am fine.” She plastered on the biggest smile ever. “I’ll call you after Ray’s house. I promise. We have prom issues to discuss.”

“Yes. We do.” Mackenzie knew something was up. She also knew not to say anything out in public. Good girl.

Without much of an appetite, Sloan put her tray up, deciding she’d talk to Mousy first. Rumblings of things to say ran through her head. When she turned back to the table, Mousy was gone, but the girls she sat with were still there.

Interesting indeed.