Dial Em for Murder (22 page)

“Hyperventilating.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Whatever! You weren't texting me!”

“Not in the locker room. I have sent a few messages to my grandpa that you've probably intercepted, though.”

That pulled me up short. “I won't stop until I find you,” I murmured quietly. “That was
you
?”

He shrugged. “My grandpa will explain his plan eventually. It's just a matter of time before he contacts me.”

It had been Sebastian. He was the reason I'd spent last night terrified, unable to tear my gaze away from the door long enough to get some sleep. I saw red.

“Guess what, Sebastian?
Dead men don't text!
” I snarled.

“Then we're both lucky that he isn't dead.”

I wanted to hit him. To cause some kind of physical damage as payback for the hell that he and his precious grandfather were still putting me through. I glared at him hotly, unsurprised by the matching anger flashing in Sebastian's icy blue eyes. He didn't want to believe that his grandpa was dead, but some part of him—even if it was buried deep, deep down—had to know that I was telling the truth.

His grandpa was gone.

The fight drained out of me. From what I'd heard about Frederick St. James, I wasn't the only one living out a nightmare scenario. If it was my mom in the morgue, I'd have been uncontrollably sobbing in the fetal position into endless boxes of Kleenex. Sebastian didn't appear to have shed a tear, but he still must have felt
something
.

I fumbled to find the right words. “Your grandpa told me to take the Slate and find my dad, okay? As far as I know, that's the full extent of his plan.” I crawled bonelessly back upright into the chair, toeing off my shoes, then tucking my feet underneath me. “How come I'm always the one who does the sharing?”

The set of his features seemed to soften slightly. “Practice.”

“I don't like it.”

“Too bad.”

I nodded, closed my eyes, and tried to add Sebastian's text messages to the puzzle. All I could see was a welcoming abyss of blackness tugging at me. Beckoning me to slide into unconsciousness. “So it wasn't a threat?”

“It was a private message that you happened to read.”

My arteries felt like they'd been clogged with a triple decker burger, large fries, and an enormous ice cream sundae as I mumbled, “The texts I got today, those were threats.”

“Are you sure?”

Trying to reopen my eyes would've been a losing battle against gravity, so I left them closed. This wasn't the healthy kind of sleepiness that comes from a full day spent kicking butt and taking names, but a sludgy, desperate exhaustion that made it nearly impossible to function.

“No,” I said honestly. “I'm not sure about any of this anymore.”

“Alright, here's what I know: My grandpa wouldn't keep me in the dark without a damn good reason.”

“What about the missing thirty-year-old scotch? Maybe he was mad that you helped yourself to his liquor.”

“The scotch was a birthday gift.” I could hear the wry smile in his voice. “This is different, which is why there's got to be some logical explanation for him to confide in
you
.”

I yawned drowsily. “No offense taken. Mostly because I'm too tired to care.”

He leaned forward until I could almost feel his harshly spoken words against my cheek. “There has to be something that you know, Emmy. Something that I don't.”

“Romance novels are a billion-dollar-a-year industry.”

I cracked open my eyes only long enough to get a glimpse of Sebastian's obvious frustration. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It's one of the many things that I know and you don't. Want me to keep going? The Romance Writers of America was founded in 1980 and—”

“There must be something
important
that you're not telling me.”

My mind sifted through a million possibilities, as my body grew increasingly warm, overheated, like an overwhelmed computer ready to crash. “Mhmmm, well, your guess is as good as mine.”

“It has to be about your dad,” Sebastian got up and began pacing, his tread muffled by a gorgeous Moroccan rug. “Except if there was a threat, I could've helped him neutralize it.”

“How lovely for you.”

Sebastian ignored me. “So why did he leave me out of it?”

He probably intended that as a rhetorical question, but my sleep-deprived brain decided to give it my best shot. “Maybe he thought you knew the bad guys? Maybe he didn't trust you? Maybe he was trying to protect you? Maybe he wanted you to focus on school, or lock picking, or knitting ugly Christmas sweaters instead.”

“You can stop now.”

“Okay.” My agreement sounded distant, as if I'd spoken it minutes earlier but the echo had taken a little side trip and was only now getting back to me. “That's cool.”

Then I pretty much conked out.

A romance novel would've made it sexy. The hero would have tucked me into bed, admiring the way my red hair fanned out luxuriously across his pillow. Then he would've spent the night standing guard over my sleeping figure. Sebastian's idea of chivalry extended only to spreading a blanket over me, probably because he didn't want me getting sick and sneezing my germs all over the place. I didn't know how he could be so cavalier about leaving a girl he barely knew in a room lined with priceless antiques, but when I jerked awake the room was deserted.

It was also pitch black.

I couldn't distinguish furniture from fantasy. It was all darkness with a side of shadows, oh yeah, and
more freaking darkness
. More than anything, I wanted to hear my mom calmly reassure me that the monsters were all in my head. That there were no pools of blood oozing out from my closet. No killers hiding in a corner waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Except she wasn't there and I wasn't brave enough to search for a light switch. My mind half-fogged from sleep, I decided that remaining silently perched in the chair was the safest option. As long as my feet didn't touch the ground, nobody could wrap their hands around my ankle and drag me away like a limp rag doll.

A limp, terrified,
screaming-its-head-off
rag doll.

I rubbed my eyes with closed fists and fought down a rising surge of panic. I was overreacting. Everything was fine.

Gritting my teeth, I lunged for the door, running my hands across the wall, searching blindly for a light switch plate. I sagged in relief when I finally bathed the room in light.

That's when my idiocy sank in.

I was clutching the doorknob, poised to flee an empty room without my bag, after—quite literally—falling asleep on the job.

Frederick St. James couldn't have picked a worse confidante if he'd tried.

I couldn't protect myself, let alone the precious Slate that his grandson had probably swiped from my bag. It wasn't like Sebastian had any moral scruples to hold himself back from engaging in some light theft. I strode across the soft Moroccan rug back to the leather chair I'd used as a makeshift bed.

A muffled vibrating came from the bag leaning haphazardly against it.

Sebastian hadn't taken it.

That realization came more as a surprise than a relief. The Slate had succeeded in freaking me out from the first moment Frederick St. James had slipped it into my coat pocket. Knowing that Sebastian was behind the
I won't stop until I find you
text didn't magically make everything better. I hadn't come any closer to unmasking the Potential Hostile or figuring out what they wanted with
me
. Something I would have forced Sebastian to discuss if I hadn't totally checked out in the chair instead. I had fallen asleep on the job. That had to set some kind of Emptor Academy record for incompetency.

There was also that last text I'd seen in the gym with Sebastian.

I gave myself a half-hearted pep talk as I reached inside my bag. “Okay, Emmy. It's a Slate, not a snake. It's not going to bite you.”

I glanced down at the screen and instantly wished I hadn't.

Too bad the old man
also
hadn't given me any pointers on refunding homicidal maniacs before he died. I'd waited too long to reach my Slate and the message disappeared, leaving an empty password screen and a tight knot of fear in the pit of my stomach.

Sebastian's words from earlier that night slowly began to resurface.

“There must be something
important
that you're not telling me.”

It had to be my father. No other part of my life contained anything even remotely mysterious. He was the only missing piece of the equation, and suddenly I wasn't sure I wanted the truth. I'd spent so many years clinging to the image of my dad as the handsome young man who had swept my mom off her feet with his omelets and his quick wit, and I didn't want to update that mental image. Some part of me had always known that if my father had been hero material he would have stuck around for the happily ever after instead of disappearing without leaving so much as an e-mail address behind. But replacing all those fantasies with cold hard facts? There was a good chance that by the time I reached rock bottom of this rabbit hole, my dad would resemble the villain a whole lot more than the hero.

I glared at the Slate in my hands, even as I braced myself for the inevitable.

There was only one way to find out if my dad's six-letter name matched the password.

“What have you got to lose, Emmy?” I demanded hoarsely. “Worst-case scenario, it's not the password and nothing changes. Best-case scenario,” I froze, leaving the sentence unfinished. I honestly couldn't picture a satisfying best-case scenario anymore. It used to be so simple. A five-book publishing deal and a romantic dinner date with Ben that would include candlelight and slices of dark chocolate cake. Although the trappings had never been the important part. The heart of the daydream centered on Ben confessing the depths of his feelings for me because he simply couldn't contain them any longer.

Now my best-case scenario centered on not getting murdered on a toilet.

My whole body tensed as I slowly typed D-A-N-I-E-L and pressed Enter.

So much for that idea. I forced myself to smile, even though there was nobody around to see it. I refused to be disappointed. This wasn't a setback, merely an opportunity to test another theory. Sure, and every time a bell rings an angel gets their wings. I reached into my bag and pulled out my beat up cell phone.

It was time to call in the cavalry.

I'd no sooner plugged my phone into the wall than it began ringing.

There were only three possibilities: Ben, Audrey, or my mom. None of whom would be reassured if I admitted that my day had included getting kicked out of one class, yelled at during another, and having my belongings drenched in soda by a vindictive willowy brunette. Oh yeah, there was also my panic attack at lunch, my first make-out session in the girls' locker room, and a series of death threats. But you know, overlooking all of
that
, it was a totally normal first day.

Right.

I stiffened my spine and checked to see who was calling.

Ben.

He probably wanted to check up on me, make sure I wasn't withholding any more information from the police. That I hadn't landed into even deeper trouble. Although maybe he wanted to remind me that he didn't think I was special. Not that I could ever forget hearing him say those words. Sending him straight to voice mail would only postpone the inevitable. Ben would only keep calling. Keep texting. Keep poking and prodding at me.

“Hey, Ben.” I could already feel my throat closing. Longing, desperation, heartbreak, the intensity made me want to curl into a tight ball, but the worst had to be the shred of hope. There's nothing quite like placing that last bit of optimism onto the conveyor belt of an emotional wood chipper. Soon there would be nothing but a mangled mess to show for it.

“Why the hell haven't you been answering your phone?”

I wondered how quickly the indignation in his voice would fade away if I told him the truth.
I can't always handle hearing you call me a friend when I want to be so much more.
Yeah,
that
would shut him up. Too bad it would also kill our friendship.

“Sorry, I fell asleep and forgot to charge my phone.” I didn't mention how desperately I'd needed sleep since the Starbucks Incident. Not that Ben would have accepted that as an excuse, given my track record with the low battery exclamation point of doom signal.

“Your mom called me when you didn't answer her calls. She's been worried sick about you, Em. You can't drop off the face of the earth with no warning!”

“I. Fell. Asleep,” I emphasized each word harshly. “Maybe you've heard of it? It's this trend that's really catching on. It's recommended by ten out of ten doctors.”

“I thought we'd reached an agreement. You were supposed to check in each night until this
stuff
dies down.”

Cameron had to be somewhere nearby. That was the only reason for Ben to be cleaning up his language. It wasn't like my delicate ears needed protecting, not when I'd grown up with a soundtrack of swearing in more languages than I cared to count.

“I'm fine.”

“Great. Glad to hear it. Next time, answer your phone before midnight.”

One quick glance down told me that Ben hadn't been exaggerating about the time. My digital clock read 12:14
A.M.
, and a pang of guilt shot straight through me.

“I should go call my mom now.” It was a lame excuse, but I didn't have anything else to say to Ben. Nothing that he wanted to hear at any rate.