“What were you talking about all that time?” I’m trying to sound casual, but my voice comes out screechy.
“Actually,” he says, “he asked me a lot about you.”
My legs wobble beneath me. I had been worried about something like that, but I had tried to convince myself I was just being paranoid. Apparently not. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. A bunch of questions.”
Ugh, Caleb is such a guy. So aggravating. “Like what?”
He shrugs. “Just if you and Dawn were friends, and if Dawn ever talked to me about you. It was strange.”
“Did he ask you about Monday night?”
“Yes…”
My chest feels heavy. “And what did you tell him?”
“I… I told him we were together the whole night.”
I can’t help myself—I throw my arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, but…” He pulls away, his cheeks pink. “I don’t feel great about this, Nat.”
“It’s a white lie.”
He drops his voice several notches. “How exactly is lying to the police about our whereabouts a ‘white lie’?”
I grit my teeth. “So… what? You think I killed Dawn or something?”
“No, of course not!” Then he hesitates. “But… when we said we were going to meet, you said you had to do something else that night. Remember?”
I stare at him blankly. “What?”
“I remember you said that. When I said you should come over, you said there was something else you had to do that night. What was it?”
My cheeks get so hot that I’m sure my face is bright red. “I just had to drop off a couple of cases of Collahealth at a vitamin store. Are you serious? You really think I had something to do with what happened to her?”
“No. Sorry, I just…”
“Look, you’re just saving us both some grief. I mean, between the two of us, you’re much more physically capable of hurting Dawn, and you’re getting an alibi out of this too. So you’re welcome.”
Caleb takes a step back, his face dark. “But I don’t have a motive.”
“And I do?”
He averts his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Anyway, it’s done.”
I’ve been going about this wrong. I’m starting to antagonize my boyfriend, who is already feeling ambivalent about this whole thing. I need to tone it down. And make him remember what a great time we have together.
“Listen…” I run a finger up the thin fabric of his dress shirt. “Why don’t you come over to my house again tonight? I’ll cook you some dinner.”
He looks down at his watch. “I can’t. I came here because Seth told me I needed to talk to the detective, but I’ve got to get out to Newton right now and I’ll be stuck there till late. This took a lot longer than I thought it would.”
“Oh. Maybe tomorrow then?”
“Yeah, maybe.” He sounds distracted. “I’ll text you, okay?”
It’s hard to hide my disappointment. It’s hard not to notice that Caleb isn’t looking at me anymore like he’s lucky to be with me. He looks like he wants to take off. I had really thought Caleb could be the one—somebody who might stick around for the long term. I thought I had found a great guy. And now that great guy is slipping through my fingers.
But before I can get too worked up over it, he grabs my shoulders and plants a kiss on my lips.
“I’ve got to go,” he says. “I’ll see you later, Nat.”
I watch him walk away, his shoulder slumped. I still can’t tell if I’ve blown it or not.
Chapter Seventeen
When I left the house this morning, I double and triple-checked to make sure I locked my front door. And sure enough, it’s still locked when I get home.
The first thing I do when I walk in my front door is flick on all the lights. It’s wicked dark outside. It feels like it’s the middle of the night, when it’s actually only like five-thirty.
I hate having roommates, but this week I’ve been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about living alone. After all, Dawn lived alone, and look what happened to her. Well, we don’t actually know what happened to her. But nothing good. I found a bunch of blood on her floor and nobody can find her anywhere. Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t look good for Dawn. I still can’t stop thinking about the way she sounded during that phone call.
Help me.
My phone rings inside my purse. I fumble for it, my fingers crossed that it’s Caleb, having changed his mind about dinner. Or maybe it’s Kim. But instead, it’s a blocked number.
Just like when I got home yesterday.
Months ago, I was getting a lot of calls like this. Blocked numbers, hanging up on me or hissing threats in my ears. Except the difference is that back then, I knew who was responsible for the calls, and that person has no reason to bother me anymore. It seems even less likely to be related to Dawn’s disappearance—it’s probably just another one of those stupid spam calls. I shouldn’t even answer it, but before I can stop myself, I swipe on the screen to take the call.
“Hello?”
It’s the same as yesterday. No sales pitch. No strange foreign languages. Just silence.
My fingertips squeeze the phone. “Who is this?”
No response.
After waiting another beat, I press the red button to end the call. I look around my empty house, which is so quiet, I can hear myself breathing. I kick off my red heels and walk over to the coffee table. I grab the remote and flip on the television.
There. Now it’s not so quiet.
Except I have unwittingly tuned into the evening news. The top local story is about the disappearance of Dawn Schiff. The camera is panning in on her little yellow house, then a shot of the four-story building where we work. Then it skips to a shot of Detective Santoro.
“We have not yet located Dawn Schiff.” His dark eyes flash under the lights of the camera. “But we have identified a person of interest in her disappearance.”
A person of interest? What does that mean? But he doesn’t elaborate.
“We feel confident that we’ll be able to find out what happened to Miss Schiff,” Santoro continues.
Am I the person of interest? Would I know if I were a person of interest? Do they tell you stuff like that?
I grab the remote and change the channel. It’s Wheel of Fortune. Somebody is buying a vowel.
I pick up my phone from where I dropped it on the sofa next to me. I stare at the screen, which is black. The truth is, there’s only one person I want to talk to right now.
But I shouldn’t. I really, really shouldn’t.
Then again, making stupid decisions is my specialty.
Hey. Could you come over?
I send the text message before I can overthink it. It’s a mistake. I know it’s a mistake. But… well, I’ve already done it.
Barely thirty seconds later, a text appears on my screen:
When?
How about now?
I watch the three bubbles hovering on the screen. A few seconds later, the reply pops up: