What Lies in the Darkness (Shadow Cove Book 1) (7 page)

“It could be some of the poor kids,” Ev says. “I know you don’t like to think that, Mak, but maybe they’re doing it because they need money.”

I sigh. “I know. But you never know.”

By the time we get to the Rewards Board, Kennedy is waiting for us with an impatient look on her face, casting glances at her diamond encrusted watch. Above her, the infamous massive marquee sparkles with digital numbers and letters—a request for a tutor, followed by a phone number to call.

I’ve never used the Rewards Board before, but I do know that, in order to get an ad up there, a student has to go into the main office and put in a request with the secretary. However, a few times, students have hacked into the system and rigged the marquee to show an ad about the local gossip around the school.

Before my brother died, he was the subject of a false ad. “
Sawyer Evingston has drugs in his locker and was selling crack down at the corner this morning.
” This was before Sawyer started getting really depressed, back when he was a happy, joking brother who in no way came off as a drug dealer. Still, the cops were called in, and Sawyer was searched and questioned. Nothing was found, but the incident gave the school even more of a reason to torment my too-nice-for-his-own-good brother. Now, whenever I see the Rewards Board, a little bit of hatred for this school burns inside my chest.

“Oh, my God, you guys took forever.” Kennedy’s designer heels click against the floor as she shoves her way through the mob. “What’s with everyone today?” She stops in front of us and raises her tone. “Didn’t anyone ever learn that staring’s rude?”

“Didn’t you learn no one gives a shit about anything that comes out of your mouth?” Hunter, a senior who plays lacrosse, shouts at Kennedy from across the hall.

Kennedy rolls her eyes, sliding her leather purse higher onto her shoulder. “Shut up, Hunter, or I’ll tell everyone what you did last summer at Tia’s birthday bash!”

Hunter’s eyes pop wide, and then he hurries down the hallway in the opposite direction.

“Okay, what did he do at the birthday bash?” Embry wonders with delight in her eyes.

Kennedy waves her off. “That’s another story for another day. Right now, we have bigger problems to worry about.”

“You mean, why everyone’s staring at us like we forgot to wear pants or something?” I ask, doing a double-check that I fully have my outfit on. Sneakers: check. Torn skinny jeans: check. Plaid shirt with all the buttons done up: check.

“Exactly.” Kennedy taps her polished pale pink fingernail against her glossy lips. “Did anyone do anything interesting this weekend?” She glances accusingly at Embry. “Did you kick anyone’s ass?”

Embry mulls the question over for slightly too long. “Not that I can remember.”

“I know I didn’t do anything to piss anyone off—well, besides my stepmom. So that has to mean …” Kennedy turns toward me with an exaggerated smile on her face. “Mak …?”

I mimic her smile and tone. “Kennedy …?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “What did you do, and who did you do it to?”

“I didn’t do anything.” I draw an X over my heart. “I promise.”

Her meticulous brow arches. “Are you sure you didn’t piss anyone off? Like, say … by snooping around in someone’s bedroom or hacking into someone’s emails?”

I press my hand to my chest, mocking offense. “Now, why would I ever do something so horrible?”

“Um, because you love snooping around and finding out people’s dirty secrets,” she says. “You’ve been doing it since we were eight and your dad showed you how to crack passcodes.”

Man, she knows me too well.

“Okay, maybe I do snoop a lot.” I swipe a strand of hair out of my face and sigh. “But I promise I didn’t do anything this weekend.” Except for with my mom’s computer, but I’m not ready to tell them that my mom accepted money from Don Jennings and that she might be having an affair with him.

“Hmmm …” Kennedy contemplates this. “So, if none of us did anything wicked this weekend, then maybe this is about Dixon yelling that you’re great in bed.”

I pull a face. “God, I hope not. The last thing I want is for anyone to think I’m sleeping with Dixon Jennings.”

“Hey, why didn’t anyone ask me if I did anything bad?” Ev asks with a hurt look on her face.

Kennedy threads her arm through Ev’s. “Aw, my dear, sweet Ev, we don’t ask you those things because you’re the sweetest person in the entire school, and you never do anything bad, so no one ever gets upset with you.”

“That’s not true,” Ev starts to argue then sighs in defeat. “All right, maybe I do follow the rules all the time and try to be nice, but that doesn’t mean people don’t get upset with me. Just look around. Everyone in this school seems upset with us right now.”

I peer around, measuring people’s expressions. “No, they’re not upset. They’re pissed off.”

“There’s a difference?” Embry asks, fiddling around with a clasp on one of her leather wristbands.

“Upset means we probably hurt their feelings,” I explain. “Angry means we did something they think is godawful to them.”

Embry considers this then shrugs. “Well, I say fuck them. If they want to be pissed, then let them be pissed. We don’t need to stand around and give them the benefit of witnessing us squirm.” She spins toward Kennedy, her red hair whipping behind her like a cape. “So, what’s your big plan?”

Kennedy’s eyes light up with glee as she claps her hands together. “Oh, my God, it’s so brilliant.” Her gaze skims the main entrance, and then she leans in and lowers her voice. “We have about twenty minutes until the first bell rings. Let’s talk in the secret spot. Too many people are paying attention to us right now.”

We nod, and then the four of us make our way outside, past the outdoor building where detention takes place, and to the back section of the school beside the dumpsters.

“I still can’t believe no one’s found this place,” Ev remarks as Embry and I inch the smaller dumpster away from the side of the school, uncovering a door to a stairwell that leads to a basement.

Embry was the one who found the spot at the beginning of our freshman year after someone threw her art project away. She went out to the dumpster to search for it and stumbled upon the hidden door. Curious, she asked me to pick the lock. When we discovered the door led to a stairwell that hadn’t been touched in years, we declared the area our secret spot, a place we go when we need to have private conversations or just need a break from mornings like this one.

“Even if someone did find it, they wouldn’t have a clue how to get in.” Kennedy unzips her purse, digs out a hairpin, and hands it to me. “Because they don’t have Mak’s awesome lock-picking skills.”

“Nope, they sure don’t.” I grab the hairpin from her, crouch down in front of the rusty metal lock, and work my awesome lock-picking magic.

Once the lock unclicks, I return the hairpin to Kennedy, pry open the door, and usher everyone into the darkness.

“
Be careful Mak,
” a deep voice whispers in my ear. A voice that sounds an awful lot like Sawyer’s. “
Once you start, you can’t go back.
”

LOCATION: THE SECRET SPOT

TIME: 8:17 AM

DATE: MONDAY, MARCH 22
^ND

My heart is pounding in my chest as I fumble to get the door locked, and then I tug on the cord above our heads. Soft light filters around the flat section of space above a flight of stairs that winds down to a very cobweb-covered basement. I quickly glance around, looking for a sign of where the voice came from. My lack of surprise when I only see my friends is unsettling.

It’s starting again. Shit.

I only panic on the inside. On the outside, I’m the epitome of calm.

Embry fans her hand in front of her face, gagging. “Man, it always reeks in here like fish and rotten eggs.”

“You should be used to it by now.” Kennedy leans to the side and checks down the stairway before unzipping her purse and retrieving a crumpled receipt. “So, here’s how we’re going to get back at Dixon.” She hands me the crumpled receipt with a proud smile on her face.

I force a smile and skim the purchase on the receipt. “Um, thanks, but how is a pair of five hundred dollar shoes going to help us get back at Dixon?”

“
Five hundred dollars,
” Ev mouths with wide eyes.

“Hey, I got a twenty percent discount.” Kennedy taps the total amount for the purchase. “And the shoes aren’t my plan. This is.” She flips the receipt over and hands it back to me.

A phone number is written across the back in glittery pink ink.

“Some dude gave you his phone number,” I say with amusement, “on the back of a receipt. How very old-school of him.”

Kennedy stares at me, unimpressed. “It’s not a guy’s phone number. It’s a phone number off the marquee for a lost laptop ad. And for your information, Miss Smartass, I had to write it down because my phone battery died while I was typing it.” She points a finger at me with a sassy smirk. “And you should be grateful that I know how to do old-school, or else we wouldn’t have this awesome plan right in front of us.”

“But what is the plan, exactly?” I smooth the creases out of the receipt. “This phone number doesn’t explain much.”

A sinister grin spreads across her face. “You need a thousand bucks to enter the skate competition, and the reward for this lost laptop just happens to be a thousand dollars. So, I figure we call the dude up, ask a few questions, and then go looking for the laptop ourselves. You’re good at this detective stuff, Mak.” She bows to me, and I laugh. “Something like this should be a cakewalk for you, oh great one.”

She’s right. I do kick butt at detective stuff, but I still have reservations about this.

“I’m just finding it a little weird that there’s a thousand-dollar reward.” I assess the phone number on the receipt. “That’s more than my laptop costs brand new.”

“High-tech ones can cost up to, like, five to six thousand dollars, Mak.” Ev slides her glasses up the brim of her nose. “I’m sure a lot of the people who go to Shadow Cove High have high-tech ones. Even the computers in the library probably cost a couple thousand.”

“Okay … Still …” I chew on my bottom lip, mulling it over. I don’t know why I keep thinking of the voice I heard when I first stepped into the secret spot. While I know it wasn’t real, the warning it whispered haunts my thoughts. “I know I’m probably sounding super overanalyzing right now, but I can’t help it. I’m worried there might be more to this than a lost computer. I mean, if someone can afford a five-thousand-dollar computer, they should be able to replace one, right? Why offer such a big reward to get an old one back unless there’s something really important on it?”

“The files on the computer are probably irreplaceable,” Ev tells me. “Photos, school assignments—things like that.”

“Sex videos,” Kennedy adds with a giggle. When I roll my eyes at her, she shrugs. “What? You know that’s Dixon’s phone number, right?” She grins. “And he’s such a dirty man-whore. I bet he has a ton of sex videos stored in his computer.”

My jaw nearly smacks the concrete. “What the hell? How did you …? What did you …? Huh?”

“Don’t worry; you don’t have to say it.” Kennedy beams proudly. “I know I’m awesome.”

“Awesome, yes. But this …” I glance down at the receipt. “It’s like the stars aligned perfectly. I need a thousand dollars to enter the skate competition so I can kick Dixon’s ass in front of his whole family, and he’s the one who’s going to give me the entry fee. Plus, I can snoop around on his computer before we give it back and see if I can get some dirt on him. It’s so perfect.” I suddenly frown. “You don’t think he’s setting us up, do you?”

“I seriously doubt Dixon put up the ad, hoping we’d see it and call his number so he could set us up,” Kennedy says. “I love you, babe, but sometimes, you overthink things too much.”

“Hey, the trait can be annoying sometimes, but it’s useful sometimes, too,” I point out. Of course, deep down, I know she’s right. I am overthinking this, all because some creepy-ass voice that isn’t real whispered a warning to me. “I’ll try to tone it down a little.”

“Good.” Kennedy rubs her hands together. “Okay, who gets the honor of making the call and convincing Dixon to give us enough info for us to start the search?”

The four of us exchange a wary look as the light above us flickers on and off.

“Fine, I’ll do it. This is my thing, anyway.” I reach for my phone in my pocket, but Embry smacks my hand away.

“He’ll probably recognize your voice.” She blasts me with a pressing look. “You two talk a lot.”

“More like argue,” I clarify. “But, yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I’d offer to do it,” Embry says, scraping some black fingernail polish off her thumbnail, “but I have sucky people skills.”

“True dat.” Kennedy laughs, and Embry playfully shoves her, causing her to stumble. Once she regains her balance, she sticks her hand out to Embry. “Let me borrow your phone. I’ll do it.” Once Embry hands over her phone, Kennedy looks down at the receipt in my hand and punches the digits into her phone. Then she flashes a smirk at Embry as she puts the phone to her ear. “Good thing I have excellent people skills.”

Embry sticks her tongue out at Kennedy while I rush to dig a pen out of my backpack. Biting off the cap, I quickly jot down some important questions Kennedy needs to ask.

1). Where was the laptop last seen?

2). What was the date and time the laptop was last seen?

3). What kind of laptop is it? What does it look like? Is there anything on it, like a decal or something that will make it stand out?

4). Would anyone want to steal it for some odd reason, or does he think he just misplaced it?

5). Is there any other helpful information he can give us?

By the time I finish scribbling down the last question, Kennedy has Dixon on the line.

“Hi, I was calling about the lost laptop ad you posted,” she says in a fake, flawless southern accent. She pauses as Dixon says something to her. “No, it’s not that. I was actually calling because the school has a team of specialists coming in to do an investigation about the increasing number of pricey lost items. There’s a bit of concern from the faculty that these items are being taken intentionally.” She bobs her head up and down as Dixon yammers her ear off about something. “Yes, I see. Well, that’s terrible, but it’s not uncommon. There’ve been a lot of complaints about the security cameras around the school premises experiencing power outages, and we’re looking into that, too, to make sure they haven’t been hacked into.” She snaps her fingers at me, signaling for me to hand her my list and a pen. “I would greatly appreciate it if I could ask you a few questions about your missing laptop so I can cross-reference the date and times with the security camera outages.”