Very Bad Things (9 page)

i didn’t do anything! i didn’t hurt that girl. you have to believe me!

Katie could only text back:

I want to.

At the moment, she wasn’t sure of anything. Her world had turned upside down again, just like when her dad died. But Katie wasn’t about to shut down this time. She didn’t feel depressed. She wasn’t even scared anymore. She was angry. Right when she’d found a guy she really loved—when she’d opened up her heart—someone seemed to be trying their best to take it all away.

Within hours after Katie had opened The Box, the
headmaster had shot an email to the student body and their parents about a “disturbing item” having been sent to a student and requesting that anyone with any information contact campus security. He’d instituted a nine p.m. curfew as well. Katie’s mom had called her right after hearing directly from the headmaster about the incident.

“Are you okay?” she’d asked, clearly upset. “Should I come and get you? Do you want to come home?”

Katie was tempted to pack her bags and leave this whole mess behind—to forget about the hand and Rose Tatum and Mark and that disgusting photo she couldn’t get out of her head. But Katie knew she couldn’t go. As confused as she was about Mark, she wouldn’t bail on him, not when the Barnard police considered him the prime suspect in Rose Tatum’s disappearance. If she really loved him, she owed it to him to stick around until Rose was found. And she would.

“I want to stay,” she’d told her mom. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“Oh, baby, this makes me so uneasy! Text me every day, all right? And if you change your mind, I’ll fly up there.”

“Okay,” Katie had told her, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Graduation was only six weeks away. It would suck to take off before then.
The police are doing everything they can to find whoever’s responsible
, the headmaster had told her.
The campus police are cooperating fully. You’ll be as safe here as anywhere
.

Katie hoped he was right.

“Where is she?” Tessa asked, drawing Katie back to the present. “You think they’ll find her on campus?”

“I don’t know,” Katie said, but she wondered, too. If Rose was dead, where was her body? What had gone on the night of the party? Who had hurt her, and why had they cut off her hand and left it for Katie at Amelia House? Was it some kind of threat?

Someone knocked on the door, and Katie nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Katie?” Mrs. Gabbert poked her gray head in. “There’s a police detective downstairs to see you. If you want me to tell him to come back—”

“No, I’ll come down,” Katie said. She’d been expecting it. They’d interviewed Tessa the day before after fingerprinting her, but Katie hadn’t been up to it.

She finished dressing and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

“I’ll go with you.” Tessa started to get up, but Katie shook her head.

“I should do this alone.”

The detective was waiting for her in the den, underneath a portrait of Amelia Whitney, who frowned down at him. He stood as Katie entered. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “I know you’re upset, but I have a few questions to ask you if it’s okay.”

“It’s okay.” She wasn’t going to puke on anyone’s shoes today.

Katie took a seat, and he passed over a photograph. It was the profile picture from Rose Tatum’s Facebook page.

“Did you ever see her around campus?” he asked. “Maybe with another student?”

“No, never,” Katie told him. It was the truth.

“But you
have
seen her before, haven’t you?”

Katie squirmed. “Not in person.”

He cocked his head. “But you did see a photograph?”

Oh, God
. Katie’s hands went cold. Of course he knew about the sex pic. Everyone on campus did. “Yes,” she admitted. She could hardly meet his eyes.

“You know about the party she attended at the headmaster’s house last Saturday night?”

“Yes,” Katie said, though the word seemed to stick in her throat.

“You’re dating Mark Summers.”

The way he said it wasn’t a question.

Katie almost said “I
was
” but caught herself.

“Yes.” They’d been together three months. She’d planned to follow him to whichever university he picked from the half a dozen dangling scholarships. If she had to, she’d attend community college just to be near him. But what would happen now? Would all those plans fall apart?

“What did he tell you about Rose?” the detective asked, watching her so intently that Katie was afraid to twitch. “About what happened last Saturday night?”

“Nothing.” Katie’s mouth was so dry. “He barely knew her. He didn’t even meet her until the party. You should be talking to Steve Getty. He’s the one who snuck her onto campus. He’s the reason Mark blacked out and can’t remember.”

“Uh-huh.”

Didn’t the police believe that Mark was drugged? Had
they talked to Steve or Charlie? Had they interviewed the other hockey players at the party? Katie needed to know more about what was going on.

“Tell me that at least she was dead before her hand was cut off,” Katie said.

The detective nodded. “It was definitely postmortem.”

“Did you find any fingerprints on the box?” she asked. “Anything to help you solve this fast?” On
CSI
, they were always pulling up matches in a blink.

“All I can safely tell you is we’ve taken your prints out of the equation, as well as Miss Lupinski’s and Mrs. Gabbert’s.” He shifted in his seat. “As for other prints on the box and the wrapping, it’s very much an ongoing investigation. Things take time,” he insisted.

“So that’s it?” Katie said. “Are we done?”

“For now.”

“I hope you find her,” Katie told him, and stood. “And I hope you catch the twisted person who sent me her hand.”

“I intend to,” he said, and tucked the photo back into a manila folder.

Katie started to walk away.

“Do one thing for me?” the detective asked, and she stopped. “Keep your eyes and ears open. If you see or hear anything that might help us, call straightaway.”

“I will.” Katie was determined to find answers, one way or another. She reached for the handle on the French door.

“Oh, and Miss Barton—”

“Yes?” She turned around.

“One of our guys will patrol campus until this thing’s over. So if anything odd comes up, someone will always be close.”

“Thanks,” she said, and meant it.

Katie definitely kept her eyes open, wide enough to see the Barnard cop car roll past Amelia House several times that day and every day after throughout the next week. She was on the alert for “odd” things, too, like the comments on her Facebook page by a few of the school’s better-known jerks, saying things like,
u need a hand with ur lit essay?
And
hey k8e i’ll bet ur bf is a real handyman!

Much as Katie wanted to pretend things were normal, her nerves were on edge.

She slept like crap and woke up in the dark every night, seeing shadows and smelling roses. She went to class, studied in the library (though she avoided the upper stacks), and let Tessa drag her to the student center for bad coffee and stale doughnuts. She texted her mom every day to say
I’m OK
, and she watched people in a way she hadn’t before.

She noticed that Charlie Frazer was suddenly going out of his way to avoid her. Whenever she saw him and waved, he’d cross the grass or duck into a building so he wouldn’t have to pass her. Every time she turned around in AP Biology, she caught Steve Getty watching her with a barely there smile on his face, like he knew something she didn’t know. One day, Katie lingered at her desk after class, waiting for Steve to leave first. Then she’d followed him as he’d crossed campus and snuck up on Joelle Needham while she sat on a bench near the library. He’d slipped his arms around her, and
Joelle had jumped, spilling books from her lap. She looked fit to cry and pushed Steve away. Whatever she said to him made his face screw up, and he’d stomped away, hands in pockets, looking truly pissed.

Tessa seemed to be even more out of sorts than usual, too. Several times when Katie’s weird dreams had awakened her in the middle of the night Tessa wasn’t in her bed. When Katie asked where she went, Tessa got defensive. “I watch TV down in the media room. Is that all right with you, or do I need a permission slip?”

Weird, maybe. But nothing worth reporting to the police.

Katie hardly saw Mark the entire week after The Box, but he texted her all the time.
Under orders to lie low
, he told her.
I miss u
.

She missed him, too. They hadn’t broken up, but they weren’t together, not the way they had been. And all because of this mess with Rose.

No one’s seen her in a week,
Mark texted.
Where is she?

I don’t know
, Katie replied.
But someone must.

Yeah, but WHO???

Katie wondered the same thing. Because someone
had
to know what had happened to Rose. But whoever it was obviously wasn’t talking.

The only talk Katie did hear was gossip. She couldn’t even go to the toilet without getting an earful. One night when she was just about to flush, she caught two girls dissing Mark.

“If it happened by accident, you know, like rough sex, why wouldn’t he just dump her somewhere no one could find
her?” one of them said. “Why would he chop off her hand and give it to his girlfriend?”

“He plays hockey,” the other remarked. “Those guys are vicious.”

Katie was about to flush the toilet and throw open the door to confront them when she heard the
tip-tap
of heels across the tile floor and then Joelle Needham’s angry voice.

“Mark Summers might be a smug bastard, but he doesn’t rough up girls.
Ever
. So maybe you should just shut up.”

“Sorry, Joelle,” the girls murmured.

“Yeah, you are.”

When it was quiet again, Katie flushed and stepped out of the stall, thinking she was alone in the bathroom.

Only Joelle was still there, staring into the mirror, tears bright on her cheeks.

Katie was about to ask if she was okay when Joelle sniffled and wiped the damp from her face. “So you heard that?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Stupid frosh. They don’t know which side of their butts to wipe.” Joelle leaned toward the mirror, using her pinky to clean up smeared mascara.

“Thanks for sticking up for Mark.” Katie went to the sink and washed her hands. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Joelle tugged her auburn hair over her shoulder. “Mark might not be mine at the moment, but I know who he is. He may be vicious on the ice, but he wouldn’t hurt that girl, not even if he was ripped out of his mind. He’s not the one
who likes it rough.” She stopped and held on to the rim of the sink. “Tell Mark something for me, okay? He won’t listen to anything I say.”

“Sure.”

Joelle pursed her lips for a moment. “Tell him I didn’t want it to happen. That it wasn’t what he thought.”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“Mark will.” Joelle’s hands were shaking. “Look, it’s late. Go to bed, Katie. You’ve got bags under your eyes. You need sleep.”

Joelle walked out with a
clip-clop
of heels. The bathroom door slapped closed, leaving Katie standing there wondering what the heck had just happened.

He’s not the one who likes it rough
.

Who was Joelle talking about? There were at least forty guys in their graduating class alone. But the first name that came to mind was
Steve Getty
.

K
atie hurried back to her room fit to bursting, expecting to find Tessa at her desk. Her friend’s laptop sat open, but Tessa was nowhere in sight. Katie tried not to worry. Tessa had always been restless, and it had gotten worse since The Box.

She leaned across Tessa’s desk to glance out the window. It wasn’t long before she spotted the police cruiser. As she watched it ease past the dorm, Katie jostled Tessa’s MacBook and woke the screen. “Three Dead in Local House Fire” read the headline. It was an article from the
Barnard Gazette
dated ten years back.

Katie glanced toward the door, then opened the window full screen.