Serial Hottie (22 page)

“Was it about Seth?”

“Give it a rest, Angela. I’m not talking to you right now. It’s four thirty in the morning. Go back to bed.”

“Can’t sleep,” she told me, ignoring my anger. “You’re not the only one having nightmares about Seth tonight.”

“I wasn’t dreaming about Seth.”
For once.
“Wait. Why were
you
having nightmares about Seth?”

Angela glanced out my window across the street and then sank to my bed. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before when you tried to tell me Seth was crazy.”

“Seth’s not crazy, and did you really just apologize to me? What the freak happened?”

“Tonight, after he saw you and Dave together, he was so mad.”

Angela can be so blond. “Of course he was.”

“He punched his fist through Rachel’s living room wall.”

“Big deal.” I shrugged. “I’ve put my fist through the kitchen wall and the family room wall. And remember that time I put my foot through my bedroom door?”

“You don’t understand. I felt really bad for him because he likes you, and Dave sort of won you and—”

“Whoa, whoa, Dave didn’t win anything. I
told
you we’re—”

“—and he looked so upset, so I went to talk to him and he—he—he grabbed me.”

“—just friends—wait. Seth
hurt
you?”

Angela frowned. “Well, no,” she admitted. “But he grabbed me and trapped me against the wall. He was so mad. And you were right about him. He really is the killer and now you’re next on his list and it’s all my fault.”

“Wow. So this is what I sounded like when I accused Seth of being a serial killer. You’re right. I was crazy.”

“Ellie, his exact words were, ‘your selfishness just killed your sister.’”

I wanted to tell Angela she was crazy, but I found myself smiling instead. How did Seth know? How did he know I was so upset tonight?
Because he knows me
, I thought. Angela shook me—literally shook me by the shoulders—from my thoughts. “Ellie, he admitted right out that he was going to kill you.”

“I don’t think that’s what he—”

“Don’t you see?” Angela interrupted. “He never wanted to come after you before because he liked you. But now that you’re with Dave, he can’t have you, so he’s going to come after you next.”

It was hard not to laugh at her. “I’m going back to sleep. Talk to me tomorrow when you’re being less stupid,” I said, even though I had been thinking those exact same kinds of thoughts just days ago.

I slept in, since I had no desire to go to the park after all the guys witnessed Dave’s Angela-induced brain fart last night. Not to mention I was tired from lying awake for hours stressing about Seth after Angela told me how upset he’d been.

Angela was sitting on my bed with my dad’s binoculars, watching the house across the street, when I woke up. I glanced at the clock, surprised to see that it was already nine thirty. I jumped up to my window and pushed Angela out of the way for a glimpse of my own. Missing the hockey game was one thing, but missing Seth’s workout? Talk about ruining my day.

“Don’t bother,” Angela told me. “He already went inside.”

I glanced at the clock. “But he never works out for less than an hour.”

Angela was crammed back by my side looking through the binoculars. “That’s because he probably broke his hand.”

“What?”

“You should have seen him this morning. It’s like you said—he was totally unhinged. He punched that bag until he was bleeding. Look!”

Angela thrust the binoculars at me and when I took a peek, sure enough, there were bright red smudges on the punching bag. But the stains didn’t disturb me the way they did Angela—Seth wouldn’t be the first boxer to make his knuckles bleed—they made me feel sorry for him. Seth must have felt worse than I thought. I had to set things right. I had to go over there and explain.

“What are you doing?” Angela asked me when I got up and threw some clothes on.

“What do you think? I’m going over there.”

“What?” Angela gasped. “Why?”

“Um, to apologize maybe?

“Apologize? To Seth? For what?”

“How about breaking his heart? You know how much Seth likes me! He was trying so hard last night and you sicced Dave—a guy he hates passionately—on me. On second thought, I’m not apologizing to him. You are.”

I grabbed Angela by her collar and started dragging her out the door. “No!” she screamed so forcefully I let go of her. “Ellie, you can’t go over there. You were right. He’s crazy.”

“He has a temper,” I agreed. “And he’s a bit socially awkward. But he’s not crazy. Actually, you were right this time—much as it pains me to admit that.”

“No! Ellie, no! You’ve never listened to me about anything in your life. Ever. Why would you start now?”

“Because he’s not a killer.”

I started dragging Angela again, but she fought back and tried to pull me to my window. “I saw him!” she said.

“You saw Seth kill someone?”

“I saw him do the knife thing. You see that metal cabinet? It’s full of knives. He—he—it was so fast. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you before.”

“So he throws knives,” I said. “It’s a hobby. A weird one, it’s true. But we’ve already established that he’s a bit strange. I’m going over there. You coming or not?”

I was almost out the door when Angela suddenly gasped. “Wait a minute! Hold it right there, missy.”

I stopped at the suspicion in my sister’s voice. When I looked back at her she was tapping her foot with her arms folded tightly across her chest.

“Since when do you care about Seth’s feelings?”

“I don’t,” I said quickly, but the redness suddenly in my cheeks probably told my sister I was lying.

“Liar!”

See?

“What happened between you two last night?” Angela demanded to know. She looked about ready to wrestle me to the ground for answers.

“Nothing.”

“Bull. Every time I saw you, you guys were together.”

“Not my fault. You know how Seth is. I couldn’t get rid of him any more than I could get rid of you or Travis.”

Angela’s eyes narrowed as she tried to decide whether or not she believed me. Well, I wasn’t going to just stand around until she decided to bleed me of all my secrets—she’s evil enough, I wouldn’t put it past her—so I chose to use the moment to distract her once and for all.

“Can we please forget about Seth? I’m taking my new jeep out for a nice long drive today and find those so-called outlets you spoke of. I was going to ask if you’d come with and help me shop, but if you’d rather sit here and spy on the neighbors, that’s fine.”

“What?” Angela perked up, just exactly as I thought she would. “You’d really let me help you pick out some clothes?”

I shrugged. It was going to cause me physical pain to admit my next statement. “I kind of liked the way I looked last night.” Okay, that did it. Angela’s jaw hit the floor. “Not that I’m going to let you buy a bunch of dresses,” I said quickly, “but we both know I can’t pick out a new wardrobe on my own, and I don’t really think I have a choice anymore. I sort of mentioned maybe buying some new clothes to Mom and she made me take this.”

I went over to my dresser and pulled a wad of rolled up cash from my sock drawer. Angela’s eyes widened with excitement. “I think she was afraid that I’d spend all my money on a new car and then continue to go around wearing… well, the clothes I own now.”

Seth who? Saturday Night Slasher what? Angela is just way too easy.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this!” she squealed. She practically dragged me down the stairs. “Do you know how pretty you really are? I’m going to show you, Ellie. And I promise you’ll like it. We don’t have to go crazy or anything. Your looks are more of a subtle beauty. It won’t be bad, I promise. And when we’re done you’ll have all those guys you hang out with foaming at the mouth.”

“Uh, most of them do that anyway. It’s not exactly attractive.”

“But now they’ll be drooling over you.”

I burst into laughter. “Yeah, right.”

Angela continued to ramble on about how for years now she’s wanted to make me realize my potential as a girl and blah-blah-whatever all the way to the outlets. But she was happy, and believe it or not, I was sort of having fun.

“Veto,” I said as Angela pulled a purple shirt off a rack. At least, I think it was a shirt—hard to tell with all those ruffles. I looked around at all the frilly, glittery clothes and wrinkled my nose. “In fact, let’s just save some time and veto this whole store.”

“You can’t veto an entire store, Ellie.”

“Oh, yes I can.”

“That is totally abusing your power.”

“And trying to shop in this store is abusing yours. We agreed you wouldn’t go crazy.”

“But this would look so cute on you. You’re trying it on.”

“I’m going to get a milkshake,” I called over my shoulder, already making my way out of the store and back into the mall. “Catch up to me when you’ve come back to reality.”

By the time Angela found me, I was sitting at a table in the food court sucking down the last of a chocolate shake. “Took you long enough.”

“For your information, I stopped at the newsstand on the way here.”

I raised my eyebrow at the bag hanging from her wrist that hadn’t been there before. I was sure it contained one butt-ugly ruffled purple shirt-dress thing. “Well, somebody had to try it on,” Angela muttered. “It was fabulous
and
forty percent off.”

“The newsstand?” I laughed. “Weak. Like I’d ever believe you’d stop at a newsstand, even if you weren’t in a mall?”

Angela scowled and then threw a newspaper down on the table in front of me. I didn’t care that I just ate my words. I was already sucked in to the lead story on the front page. “Mayor of Detroit implements city wide curfew?” I started to read the story. “The body of fifteen-year-old Crystal Chambers was discovered in Maplewood Park in Garden City this morning, upping the death count in the string of serial killings to four. With no new leads, state officials as well as law enforcement are urging citizens to take extra safety precautions.”

“No one under the age of eighteen is allowed out without adult supervision after 10 pm on the weekends,” Angela whined. “The mayor’s urging all the surrounding cities to do the same. Canton’s already kind of lame. I bet we’ll be on lockdown by the end of the day.”

“I think it’s smart.”

“But none of the bodies were found in Detroit.”

“Doesn’t mean the girls weren’t taken from there.”

“I know.” Angela sighed. “It’s just that a city-wide curfew that could spread to the whole of the metro area? That means it’s serious. They don’t have any leads. They can’t find this guy, and they don’t know how to keep people safe.”

I was still reading the rest of the article—thankfully there was a picture of the mayor of Detroit and not the newest victim. I didn’t need another face to haunt me. I looked up when Angela said, “I’m scared for you, Ellie.”

“I’ll be fine, Angela,” I said seriously. “It’s not like I’m going to go asking for trouble. I mean, what are the odds? There are over five million people living in the greater Detroit area. So long as I don’t go hanging out in any dark alleys or 7-11 parking lots, the Saturday Night Slasher will never even know I exist.”

“Unless he lives across the street.”

“So we’re back to this?” I asked, sighing. “I’m sorry I ever brought it up. Ang, Seth is not the Saturday Night Slasher. I only ever said that because I was mad that you were trying to make me go out with him.”

“But what if you were on to something? The guy is kind of creepy, right?” When I couldn’t deny that, Angela went on. “Think about it. He moved to Michigan right before the murders started happening. He has a thing for knives. He’s obsessed with you and you look just like all the dead girls. Plus, he didn’t come home until almost six o’clock this morning. I know, because after you woke us all up last night I noticed that he wasn’t home, so I waited up for him.”

“And you call me a stalker,” I grumbled. I think we’d had this exact conversation before, only now we’d switched points of view. “If you haven’t noticed, Seth never comes home before dawn on the weekends, and if you had parents that would let you get away with that, you know you’d do the same thing.”

“How can you ignore the coincidences? I know how much Seth scares you. You have nightmares about him so bad they have you falling out of bed.”

This conversation was already annoying me, but when I was reminded of my dream I got mad. “That dream wasn’t about Seth last night—it was about Dave!”

“Dave?” Angela, her brain being hardwired for gossip, was completely sidetracked. “Why would you have nightmares about Dave?”

“Nothing. No reason. Aren’t we supposed to be shopping?” I flew out of my seat and headed out of the food court.

“Because he kissed you?” Angela demanded, catching up to me and clinging on so I couldn’t run away. “Oh my gosh, was it bad? It was bad, wasn’t it? How bad was it?”