AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What did you say?” I ask.
Ella shakes her head. “I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what had happened at the office, and if we had what we needed to confront her. So I just said that you went off with Sean.” She looks sorry, like she’s worried she got me in trouble.
“El, don’t worry about it,” I say. “We’re way beyond me stressing about being grounded. And besides, Mom knows about Sean.”
“What?” Betsey gasps.
“Totally,” I say. “I’ll tell you about it in a sec. But first, what else did Mom say to you before she left the dorm?”
Ella shifts. “She said she was going to leave you a message at home so you’d know we were okay. And then she said, ‘Stay here—don’t go out. I’ll be back in the morning. You have to trust me that this will all be over soon. We’ll go home and it’ll be like this whole thing never happened.’ ”
“What did she mean by that?” I ask.
“Well, since she had no idea you were digging through her stuff, about to expose her,” Ella says, “I think it meant that she thought we could just brush the whole hostage thing under the rug and go back to living as one person.”
“Ugh!” I shout, blowing out my breath. “Why is she so… ugh!”
“I don’t know,” Ella says. “But that’s when we decided that we most definitely weren’t going to stay. The room didn’t have a phone, so we couldn’t call you, and we didn’t want to leave at night—we had nowhere to go. The plan was to leave in the morning before Mom came back. But then you showed up.”
We all look at one another with a lot of emotion behind our eyes, but no one says anything for a few moments. Then, finally, Bet says, “Now you tell us about the office.”
Nodding, I begin the story of what happened after I left the house yesterday morning. I am all the way to the part about how Sean’s call nearly scared me out of my skin when I realize that Sean’s been gone for an awfully long time. I pause the conversation to text him.
WHERE ARE YOU?
PIZZA PLACE. OKAY TO COME BACK?
YES, AND BRING PEPPERONI!!!
I launch back into the story, and I’m too caught up in it to realize a few minutes later that it’s only been a few minutes. There’s a knock at the door, and I run over and fling it open. “Did you bring drinks or do we have to—”
“Hi, Lizzie,” Mom says, frowning at me from the doorway. It hits me like a ton of bricks: the necklace. Of course Mom could find us as easily as I found Ella and Betsey. I want to smack myself on the forehead.
“May I come in?” she asks. She looks cold: Her nose is red and I can see her breath. I hate that I feel a twinge of sympathy; I hate that I step aside.
“I asked you to stay put,” Mom says to Ella and Betsey. “You scared me.”
“Where’s the woman?” Betsey asks. “Maggie Kendall?”
“Out of our lives,” Mom says flatly. “Don’t worry about her again.” She pauses. “Why didn’t you stay in the dorms? Or leave a note?”
“Why did you want us to stay there, Mom?” Ella asks. “So we can go back to life as one person?”
Mom looks quizzically at her, probably sensing the mutiny in the room.
“I was just telling Ella and Bet what I found in your office, Mom,” I say from behind her. “You know, the one with the stalker walls… one for each of us?”
As I walk by to join the others on the bed, I see Mom’s mouth open a bit; she closes it quickly.
“We know you’re not a doctor,” Betsey says quietly.
“But that you still get money—and a lot of it—from somewhere,” Ella says. “It’s time to come clean. Tell us what’s going on.”
“So that’s where you were?” she asks me. “Not with Sean?”
“That’s where I was,” I say, my eyes never leaving hers. “Looking at photos and weird notes about all three of us,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
