Private 03 - Untouchable (2 page)

"Hey," I said, touching his arm.

He took one look at me and his blue eyes widened. "You okay?"

Just being near him made me feel slightly better. Solid, comforting, levelheaded Josh. He would take care of everything.

"Fine," I said flatly. "I just need to go. Can we go?"

'Yeah. Definitely. Let's go," he said.

He placed his water glass on a table nearby, said a few words to the guys, and placed his hand against the small of my back as we 
turned. He walked me back to my friends near the fireplace, all of whom were already gathering their purses.

"You guys wanna bail?" he asked.

"My hero," Noelle said wryly.

"Inyour car?" Taylor asked, her eyes still wet.

"Yes, in his car. What do you think, he's gonna hijack a helicopter?" Noelle snapped.

Taylor looked at Kiran, who rolled her eyes and finished the wine she'd grabbed back from the mantel. "Just what I need," she muttered.

What the hell was wrong with these girls? Were they really that put out by the fact that they'd have to spend a couple of hours in a car that wasn't a limo? Five minutes living my life at home and they'd probably all break out in hives.

"Where are Dash and Gage?" Josh asked.

"Who cares?" Noelle said, abandoning Dash, who was her boyfriend, with two words. "They're big boys. They'll live without us. Let's just get the hell out of here."

"Constance?" I said, turning to her. "Wanna come?"

Constance looked warily at the four girls surrounding me--the four most powerful girls in all of Easton. Apparently the idea was too intimidating for her to handle.

"Actually, I'm supposed to have dinner with my parents and the Whittakers tonight," she said finally. "They're bringing me back."

"Really?"

Under any other circumstances, this news would have made me smile. Constance blushed. "It was our parents' idea."

Later, when I had the energy and the motivation, I would have to grill her about this. But for now, she was off the hook. The good news was that I could tell that all the Whittaker-related tension between us was gone for good.

"Okay. I'll see you back there," I told her.

Then I did something I had never done before. I voluntarily hugged a person.

Suddenly, I couldn't wait to get out of this place. I could practically taste freedom. On our way out, Ariana veered off course, away from the door.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Reed, we have to pay our respects," she said over her shoulder. "We're not heathens."

Great. Exactly what I wanted to do. As we approached the family, Mrs. Pearson chatted with a horse-faced woman with capped teeth and a widow's peak.

"Well, yes, of course. This is the only time of year to be in Paris. Any other season it's just overrun with tourists," Mrs. Pearson was saying.

"Trina hasn't considered herself a tourist in any part of Europe since the day she bought her first couture," Thomas's father added, sharing a chuckle with his friend.

"We'd be there now, if it wasn't for this," Thomas's mother said, gesturing blithely at the room.

My heart was in a vise. There was no way. There was no way these people were standing there joking about their travel habits and dismissing Thomas's wake as an inconvenience. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe.

"Screw them. Just get it over with," Noelle said in my ear as Ariana politely shook the Hands of Evil.

When I stepped before the Pearsons, I must have been red with rage. Still, part of me expected them to recognize me as the person who had been with them when we had first realized that Thomas was missing. The person who had meant enough to their son that he had invited me to brunch with them. But when his mother's cold, hard eyes fell on me there was no spark of anything. Except, perhaps, mild displeasure. Apparently my simple black dress and unhighlighted brown hair didn't meet her exacting standards. These were the things that were on her mind today of all days. Well, these things and Paris.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I told her through my teeth.

Then I somehow refrained from grinding my heel into her toe on my way out the door.

TIME BOMBS

Josh adjusted his seat and checked the mirror for the tenth time. Behind us, the line of cars waiting to get out of the Eighty-first Street garage started to grow.

"Any day now, Hollis," Noelle said through a sigh. She leaned her arm on the front windowsill. Of course she had taken the front, no questions asked.

"Sorry. When I picked up the car back at Easton the seat was all pushed forward for some reason, and I still haven't gotten it back where I like it," he said.

Kiran glanced around at everyone as if this news made her feel unsafe somehow. Ariana caught her eye for a long moment and then Kiran relaxed again. That penetrating stare of Ariana's had multiple purposes.

"Great. So you're too cheap to spring for memory seats and we're the ones who have to suffer," Noelle griped.

"Back off, Noelle," Josh said through his teeth. "I wanna get out of here as much as you do."

My fingers curled into tense fists and I tried to breathe. All I got was a lungful of noxious fumes. I just wanted to go, to put this all behind me. My leg started to bounce up and down. Sitting still was not an option. When I was sitting, it felt like something was gnawing on my heart.

My heart pounded harder and harder. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

"There's no air in here," Ariana stated.

Amen, sister.

"It's the long pedal on the right, Hollis," Noelle said.

"Do you always have to be such a bitch, Noelle?" Josh snapped.

Whoa. That was uncharacteristic.

"Do you always have to be such a Boy Scout, Josh?" she snapped back.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

A horn honked from one of the cars behind us, echoing throughout the garage.

"Josh?" I half-whined, at the end of my rope.

"Fine! Fine, we're going," Josh said. "Remind me never to get in a car with five women again."

As he eased out onto the street, Josh caught my eye in the rearview mirror. I could tell he was wondering if I was okay. Already I was breathing easier, so I attempted to smile reassuringly. Unfortunately, somewhere between the elevator and the parking garage I had finally let a few tears loose and now they were drying on the skin under my eyes, making it feel tight and itchy, which made it hard to smile.

"What the hell am I sitting on?" Kiran yanked a dirty white batting glove out from under her perfect little butt. She groaned and threw it over her shoulder, where it narrowly missed the side of Taylor's face. It fell over the second row of seats into the back, where it joined the rest of Josh's baseball equipment. "God, do you ever clean out your car?"

Josh ignored her comment and Ariana sighed. Finally, we all fell into an exhausted silence. As Josh whisked us northward I stared out the window at Yankee Stadium on the other side of the East River and tried to silently name every professional baseball team I could think of. Anything to keep from actually thinking.

Thinking that I was never going to see Thomas again. For the rest of my life. We had spoken our last words to each other. Had our last kiss. God, I wished I had known that then.

"Well, at least that's over," Kiran said finally, hugging herself rather tightly, as if she was trying not to touch anything she didn't have to touch. I could smell her breath from three feet away.

"It's not over," Josh said flatly. "Thomas is still dead."

I tried to ignore the squeezing in my heart. Ariana stared at the back of Josh's head as if he'd just said something totally inappropriate. He did, however, have a point. This misery would never be over. Thomas was dead. Forever.

"I wish the police would tell us what the hell is going on," Noelle said, staring out the window. "I bet they don't know a thing."

"Wouldn't be the first time the cops effed things up," Josh put in.

Noelle turned to Josh suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to her. "Do you think one of his drug buddies had some thing to do with this?"

No one moved. I saw Josh's grip on the steering wheel tighten. Noelle had just voiced a suspicion that had been lurking in the back of my mind ever since I'd heard that Thomas was dead. For days I had been forcing myself not to think about it. Because whenever I did, my imagination conjured horrible things. Things that made my stomach clench and caused serious sweat issues. Hundreds of gruesome grudge murders and torture scenes I had seen in the movies or on those endless stupid cop dramas--they all came flooding back. And I couldn't handle the idea that Thomas might have died in some twisted, excruciating way at the hands of some red-eyed druggie psycho.

But all Noelle was doing was pointing out the obvious. Thomas had been dealing drugs. And when a drug dealer turns up dead, there are logical conclusions that can be easily drawn.

"I'd say it's a definite possibility," Ariana said coolly.

Josh glanced in the side mirror, flipped his blinker on, and changed lanes. He cleared his throat.

"You know, no one has said that Thomas was mur--that his death was, you know ..."

I met Kiran's eye and knew she was thinking the same thing I was. There was just something so horrifying about the word murder that no one wanted to say it.

Noelle exhaled loudly. "Come on, Hollis. Like he what, died of 
natural causes? A perfectly healthy seventeen-year-old guy? I mean, I know you of all people don't want to open that particular can of worms, but come on."

Josh turned his head fully to glare at her. She didn't deign to look back.

"Watch the road, Hollis. Unless you want to get us all killed," she said.

With a clenched jaw, Josh turned his attention back to his driving. No one said a word for a good two minutes, during which time I wondered what the hell that little exchange was about.

"Healthy, Noelle? Really?" Kiran said. "Thomas Pearson wasn't exactly the poster boy for holistic living. He had more chemicals in his system that night than Kate Moss on a New Year's Eve bender."

"How do you know what he had in his system? " Josh asked.

Kiran pulled her hair in front of her face and inspected it. "Just an informed assumption, Hollis. When did he ever not have crap in his system?"

Look who's talking, Kiran.

My heart clenched in anger. Hadn't anyone in this car ever heard of not speaking ill of the dead?

"And even if he was healthy, it happens all the time," Taylor piped up, sitting forward and resting her hands on the back of the front seat. A mangled tissue was crushed in her fist. "Kids our age have aneurysms . . . even strokes!"

Her hope was so incongruent I had to stifle a rueful laugh. Happily suggesting strokes. This was what we had come to.

"Well, if it wasn't some freak of nature, then I bet it was that shady townie character he was always hooking up with," Noelle said blithely.

What shady townie character? I knew of no shady townie character.

"These people are like walking time bombs," Noelle continued. "Living up in the sticks with nothing to do, no outlet for all their little psychotic tendencies. And you know they resent the shit out of us."

"Maybe one of them snapped," Ariana suggested, lifting a shoulder.

"I'm just saying it's possible," Noelle added, looking at Ariana in the rearview mirror.

I took a deep breath. Images were starting to flood my mind. Blood. Rope. Knives. Guns. Gags. Images I would rather not have dwelled on.

"Do you think the police know that Thomas was dealing?" Noelle asked Josh.

He cleared his throat again. There was no doubt he wanted out of this conversation. "Probably not. If there was one thing Thomas knew how to do, it was cover his tracks."

"Well, somebody should tell them," Noelle said, her tone as casual as if she were suggesting an ice cream stop on the way home.

"You want us to tell on Thomas?" I said without thinking.

"Aw! That's so cute! What are you, five?" Noelle said. "Come on, Reed. What does he care? It's not like they can arrest him."

Everyone fell silent. Noelle was getting just a touch too morbid for me.

"I'm serious!" Noelle said. "If that freak show did have something to do with it, he should be brought in and questioned. Unless you want him to get away with it."

I glanced at Josh, who stared back at me in the mirror. How could we tell the world that Thomas was dealing? He was gone. Didn't he deserve to rest in peace? To have his perfect prep school boy image untarnished?

"His parents would freak," Josh said. "I don't think I could do that to them."

'You don't owe those ice sculptures anything," Noelle said.

Josh's face went flat--in a way that made me think that maybe he did owe the Pearsons something. Interesting. What could that possibly mean?

"The guy did die," Kiran said, her eyes half-closed and bleary. "Somebody should probably pay for it."

Taylor let out a choked sob, then dropped back in her seat and started crying all over again.

"Are you okay?" I asked her.

Actually, it kind of snapped out of me. But Taylor didn't seem to notice. She simply nodded and grabbed a new tissue from the box at her feet.

"It's just so sad," she said. "I just wish none of this had happened. I just--"

And then she went incoherent all over again.

After that we all lapsed into silence, watching the world go by as Taylor's sobs slowly quieted to nothing.