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“That’s Nona’s boyfriend. Drew. He’s in the hospital, but Nona’s dead! And, yeah, she was killed! Friggin’ hanged! Either she killed herself or her boyfriend Drew did it, and he’s in the hospital on life support or something, and it’s … it’s friggin’ scary!” Shay was talking so rapidly that her voice had elevated an octave, her words tumbling out. “You have to get me out of here, Jules. This place … this place is worse than jail. I swear to God, everyone here is psycho!”
“Just calm down.” Jules was frantic, Shay’s anxiety infectious. But she had to take charge and somehow staunch Shaylee’s runaway fears.
“I can’t. People are dying!”
“Okay, okay, just listen,” Jules said, slowing for another curve as the defroster fought the condensation on the windows. “Try to pull it together, okay?” She wasn’t going to buy into Shaylee’s paranoia, her melodrama.
“Didn’t you hear me? Nona’s dead!”
“Shhh.” The connection was going bad again, and the snow that started as a white powder had turned into icy flakes. “Look, I’m working on getting you out. Trust me.”
“Well work faster!”
“Slow down. Take a deep breath. I’m just glad you’re okay,” Jules said, hoping the connection hadn’t been broken.
“I am definitely not okay!” Shay insisted. “Get me out. Call Edie, tell her this is a big mistake. If she won’t do anything, phone Dad. Tell Max I need the lawyer to make a deal—”
“It’s probably too late for that,” Jules said as her right tire hit a rock in the rutted road and the sedan bounced, jarring her already-pounding head. She gripped the wheel harder.
“Even when some whack job is killing kids?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll sort it out soon. Look, I’m almost there.”
“What?” Shay whispered. “Almost where?” After a pause, she said, “Here? As in …” The rest of what she said was garbled.
“I’m on my way to the school.”
“You are? This school? But I don’t …”
The connection was horrid. The snow came down in heavy, thick flakes, dancing in the beams of her headlights. She couldn’t see the sky, could no longer make out the ridges high over this ever-narrowing canyon.
“Listen to me, Shay. Can you hear me?”
“What?” Shay snapped, the connection clear again. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to be at the school soon, so do not blow my cover, understand?”
“What the hell are you talking about? What cover?”
Her tires slid a bit, breaking through the new layer of snow, finding packed snow and ice below. She clutched the steering wheel with one hand and told herself, despite the tense conversation, to not overcorrect.
“Blue Rock hired me as a teacher. So I’ll be at the school within the hour, I think, maybe less.”
“What? Here?”
Nothing again, just fading, sputtering noise. “Damn it!” She wanted to throw her cell phone out the window for all the good it was doing.
“You are joking, right? You did not take a job here! Come on, Jules, tell me this is your idea of a really, really bad joke.”
“I’m not kidding.”
The wireless connection was clear again, and Shaylee wasn’t having any of Jules’s scheme. “No! No way! Listen. You just need to get me out of here and fast! Detectives have been questioning me, because I was the last one to see Nona alive or something…. I don’t know what that means. Am I a suspect?”
“Why would you be a suspect?”
“I don’t know. Just because she was my roommate. I’m telling you things are fu-friggin’ weird down here.”
“So how did you get to a phone? I thought they were restricted.” She fiddled with the heater and realized that she hadn’t seen another vehicle on this road for miles. Just how isolated was this place?
