“Yeah, it’s me,” Jem said. “I saw you through that big window—” He gestured toward the hallway. “And I was headed ho—well, back. What’re you doing here? You weren’t hurt somehow, were you?” He scanned the room. “Oh. Intensive care. Professor Shaw. Are they telling you anything?”
Cassie couldn’t decide what to say. She’d asked around about Jem, of course, the idiot guy who’d raced back into Wharton as the fire got worse. Marianne had told her she’d heard that Jem Duggan hadn’t actually gotten into Wharton Hall before he was overcome by smoke. Firefighters had found him on the concrete front steps of the building, his head bleeding, one arm kind of burned. So everyone was saying. He was just a random guy to Cassie, the snarky one who’d called her invisible, so no reason to check any further.
“How are you?” She had to ask, and plus, thinking about it, if not for him, really, she might have lingered in the building, too. Might have wound up behind those ICU doors, maybe hooked to a machine. “Thanks for.…” She shrugged. “Getting me out. I thought it was another one of those false alarms, you know? How’d you know it wasn’t?”
The more she thought about it, the more grateful she was. She’d been so focused on Professor Shaw that she hadn’t even imagined what might have happened if Jem hadn’t come along, urging her to hurry. He wasn’t really an idiot to go back in there. More like brave. He’d saved her life, if you looked at it that way.
“Coincidence,” he said. “Lucky guess.”
“Lucky for me.” She frowned, picturing it again. “Really, though, how’d you know there was a real fire? And why’d you go back? It was so awful by then, when it, like, exploded. You were so—”
“Dumb?”
“I was going to say courageous.” Jem was kind of pitiful now, bandaged and bedraggled. “But yeah. Dumb.”
“I didn’t get very far,” he said, looking down at her. “That’s why I have this bandage. And my hair got all singed, see? They told me I tripped on the steps and fell on my head.”
“Good thing, right?” Cassie pictured it again, Jem disappearing into the blackness. “You were totally invisible in all that smoke. Like you’d vanished. You’d have died, maybe, if you’d gotten inside. Did they tell you anything about Professor Shaw?”
He sat down beside her, smoothed the dark denim of his jeans. “Some nurse washed my clothes for me. Can you believe it?” He didn’t look at her, just at his outstretched legs. The laces of his boots looked new, stark against the battered tan leather. “Funny how the world works.”
She watched him, wondering how it would feel to have a narrow escape. To be brave enough to risk your life to save someone else’s. Did she care about anyone enough to do that? She tried to imagine it—her mom, or Lily. Would she save her sister from a burning building? Of course she would. But she’d never have to.
“What made you do that, anyway? How do you know Professor Shaw?”
“My teacher. Like you. I took a gap year, two really, almost three, after high school.”
Cassie nodded. She’d thought he’d seemed older. Which would make him maybe twenty-one. Old for a freshman, but lots of kids took time off before college.
“What’d you do?” she asked Jem. “In those years?”
He shrugged again. “Bummed around. So, you and Professor Shaw…”
The way he was looking at her now, she felt something different in his appraisal, but it vanished so quickly, maybe she was wrong. She waited for him to finish his sentence.
He smiled. A soft, fast smile. He straightened in his seat and turned to face her. He was one white plastic chair away, and she felt his energy filling the space between them. She almost wanted to move farther away.
“Is it a thing?” he asked. “You and Professor Shaw?”
“Are you kidding me?” She answered too loudly, in her surprise, and quickly covered her mouth. Sarita, at the reception desk, gave her a death stare. “Well, that’s rude.” She whispered now, leaning closer to him so people would stop looking at them.
“Not really.” Jem’s voice was quiet now, too. “You’re here, right? See any other students? I don’t.” He crossed his legs, leaned back, draped his left arm over the back of the chair between them. “Makes sense to wonder what’s up between you.”
“Nothing is up.” She shook her head to make it sound truer. Closed her eyes briefly to illustrate her scorn. “At all.”
“Fine. Forget I asked.”
“Fine. I will,” she lied. But there had to be a reason he’d brought it up. “How about you? Are you friends with him?”
“So, guess I’ll head out.” He flapped back the right cuff of his plaid flannel shirt, revealing a stretchy beige bandage. “They gave me pills, which I don’t really need. They kept me all this time to be sure I didn’t have a brain thing. Now I just have to change all this twice a day, which is a pain, but it’ll heal.”
“Does it hurt?” She winced, looking at the thick bandage. The firefighters had rescued Professor Shaw, too, the newspaper said, who’d collapsed a few yards from the front door. Everyone else had made it out. Including her. Because of Jem. It almost brought tears to her eyes. She needed to take care of him, the same way he’d done for her. “Brain thing?”
“It’s fine. Ibuprofen, rest, and I’m all set. I’m supposed to call if I get a headache.”
“Headache? Like a concussion? Listen, do you have a roommate or someone to help you? Or, like, parents?” He seemed too old, and too cool, to be living with parents. Twenty-one was a total adult, but concussions were bad. “Are you supposed to be alone?”
Jem smiled in a way she couldn’t quite decipher. “Is that an offer?”
NOW
CHAPTER 26
LILY
“Cassie?” Lily kept her voice low, her phone clamped to her ear, urging Smith to talk faster. “Tell the detective about Cassie?”
Banning had gone back into Lido, signaling her with a pantomimed tip of an imaginary cup that he was getting coffee. That left Lily on the sidewalk, trying to bargain.
Her mind raced through the possibilities. Had Greer told Smith about Cassie? Or had Smith told Greer about her?
“How do you know about Cassie? Do you know where she is? Where Greer is? Do you have her? You say you can see me, so you know I’m alone. If you have Greer, or know where she is, then you have to—”
His chuckle, interrupting, shocked her into silence. “Do I? Have Greer?” Smith’s voice sounded authentically amused.
She kept scanning the office windows, couldn’t help it, felt scrutinized. Toyed with. “You just said—if I tell the detective about Cassie, that might lead to Greer. How do you even know about Cassie? And as for Greer—yes, that you have her. Or how else do you know about this?”
In his silence, the world around her seemed exactly the same; the same blue sky, and the same flapping, complaining pigeons, the same snippets of music from wafting open car windows as drivers waited, engines idling, at the corner stoplights.
She’d worked on a jigsaw puzzle once, with Cassie. Her mother had suggested it, and Cassie agreed to be parked at the living room coffee table with her little sister and two hundred pieces of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. At one point, with the puzzle half done, Cassie had unintentionally knocked the board with one elbow, sending the tiny, interlocked puzzle sections falling to the floor, ruining the slowly materializing picture. Lily, age maybe six, had burst into disappointed tears. She’d wanted to see the finished flowers, longed to see the final painting.
“Oh, Lillow!” Cassie had exclaimed. “I’m so sorry! But don’t worry, we can try again.”
Lily felt like that now. The puzzle of Greer had been forming, Lily’s mind putting the pieces together. And now, with the addition of Cassie, they had fallen apart.
“Ms. Atwood. Lily,” Smith finally replied. “Haven’t I always been on your side?”
“Yes, that’s why—and we may not have much time, so—”
“I can warn you when he’s coming out
of Lido,” Smith said.
“How would you know?” Noontime in Boston, the sun straight overhead. The heat crept up her neck and under her hair. Where was Greer?
“Lily? What if I told you Ms. Whitfield is perfectly fine? That yes, she was at Lido last night. And I know because I was there with her.”
Lily leaned against the restaurant’s stone exterior, grateful it was there to steady her. Puzzle pieces, puzzle pieces. Where did they fit?
“But if she was meeting with you here last night…” Why hadn’t she told me? And that’s when they must have talked about Cassie. “So that means this detective is actually looking—for you.”
Smith did not reply, and this time, in the silence on the other end, Lily did hear a noise inside. The buzz of an intercom, maybe, or some sort of electronic alert. Or not.
“He’s coming out,” Smith said. “Thirty seconds.”
Lily took a step onto the sidewalk, eyes on the still-closed door. “Thirty seconds is long enough. You’re the big source. The anonymous caller. If you know so much, tell me where Greer is.”
“Here’s what matters,” Smith said. “Banning is a private investigator. But it’s Cassie he’s looking for. Ms. Whitfield is involved in the search, too.”
“What? Why?” Lily felt the seconds ticking away. Smith had always told her the truth before. But maybe it was the reverse of the boy who cried wolf. Tell the truth, over and over—and thereby train your victim to believe it when you tell the big lie.
“Do what he says,” Smith instructed. “Be patient. If you’re patient, you’ll be fine. Because trust me. Greer’s not in danger. Cassie is.”
BEFORE
CHAPTER 27
CASSIE
“Wine?” Jem had closed the door behind them after gesturing her inside. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the vast Berwick Forest, now a chaos of burnt orange and flaming red. This wasn’t a dorm room, not even close, and hadn’t he told her it was? Cassie tried to replay their waiting room conversation as she took in the long tweedy couch, two black leather chairs, the built-in bookshelves, and the desk by the window, stacked with what looked like textbooks—she recognized one Professor Shaw had assigned—and a pile of spiral notebooks.
The place looked expensive. Curtains, and carpeting. Plus, it was a real apartment, not like the dorky room in Alcott Hall she shared with Marianne. Who, it crossed her mind, might be wondering where she was. Not that she had plans with her clingy roommate, but it was pushing six o’clock.
Cassie had been second-guessing herself from the moment she and Jem walked out of the hospital together, crossing the too-bright lobby lined with gurgling tropical fish tanks and slumped weary visitors, and then revolving out the thick glass doors into the autumn evening. They continued along Mountville Street, orange flags for Berwick’s upcoming Fall Festival fluttering from every streetlight, more bicycles than cars in this college town. At first, Jem’s long strides covered more ground than her shorter ones, and she’d trotted to keep up. But he’d noticed and slowed his pace to keep them side by side.
She honestly did owe it to him to make sure he got to his dorm safely, she reassured herself as they passed the intentional graffiti on the front of Whole Latte Love and the wrought iron gargoyles of the Voltaire Bookstore. It meant absolutely nothing, except it was what a thoughtful person would do. After all, he—a total stranger—had hustled her out of danger at Wharton Hall. So today, her turn to be the good guy. She’d walk him home, then leave. Her debt would be paid, the balance even.
And it was safe, because you had to sign into dorms if you didn’t live there, and everyone was supposed to leave the door open. She wasn’t going inside, anyway. She was dropping him off.
At first, they walked in silence. He seemed to check on her from time to time, observing her, stepping off the curb first when they crossed each narrow side street. Mountville Street was all businesses, but some older students had apartments above the too-expensive clothing stores and Berwick souvenir shops. The side streets had mostly houses for the real people who lived in the town of Berwick. Townies, they were called.
“We’re close, right?” she asked. “I didn’t know there were any dorms this far off campus.”
“Late admission,” he said. “You know.”
She didn’t, but whatever. “Sure.”
“Cassie?”
The crosswalk beeps started, and she stepped into the street. “Yeah?”
“Since we’re here?” Jem pointed past the zebra-striped crosswalk to Outpost, the corner restaurant where a few cast-iron tables, set with baskets of paper napkins and IPA bottles as vases, waited for the Friday night beer-and-burgers crowd. The bass line from “La Vida Loca”—as always—thumped from inside, and Cassie heard a riff of laughter. She’d been in this place, couple of times.
“Since cafeteria food sucks, we could get dinner,” Jem went on. “Hospital food sucks, too, so I’m pretty hungry. How about it? You up for the Post?”
She was, she was starving, and Post burgers were awesome, and food in the caf totally did suck.
“Well…” She stalled, considering. The Post had booths. Dim lights. A din of talk and music. Plus. If Jem was twenty-one, he could drink. Maybe if he had a beer, or two, she could get him to tell her why he’d thought she had a thing with Professor Shaw.
“I guess…” She weighed her options as they stood on the corner in front of the restaurant. Friday in Berwick, no classes tomorrow. Mountville Street was getting a TGIF vibe, the loosening energy of the impending weekend, the relaxing of responsibility. The promise of the unexpected encounter, or a memory-making event. Thing was, this Jem had a way of throwing her off balance. Like he wasn’t really asking what he was asking. It had been her idea to make sure he got home—hadn’t it? Or maybe not.
“No, thanks,” she said.
“Thought I’d ask.” He gestured at an empty round table as they approached. “They have room, though, see?”
“Let’s get you back to the dorm.” She walked purposefully past the restaurant, reinforcing her decision, putting it behind her.
But she needed to know about Zachary Shaw. And Jem had brought him up. She chewed her bottom lip as they walked. That reporter who’d shown up. Tosca? Something? But she didn’t seem to know anything.
It was driving her crazy that Professor Shaw might blame Cassie herself for delaying him. What if he died, blaming her? Things should be easier than this, less complicated. How could anyone have known there’d be a gas leak? Mumma had always warned her—life could pull the rug out from under you.
“Here we are,” Jem said.
“Wait. You said dorm.” Cassie stopped as Jem approached the boxy yellow-brick building. Four stories, she quickly counted, each front window white-shuttered. A carved granite sign mortared just under the flat roofline said “One Mountville” in old-fashioned scripty letters. She turned her head to look at him, baffled. But he was walking toward the building.
“Jem?” She stayed on the sidewalk, didn’t follow him as he continued past the potted copper chrysanthemums and up the three front stone steps. “This is a regular apartment building.”
Jem pulled a loop of keys from his jeans pocket, stabbed one into the metal latch that flapped over the edge of the black metal front door. Clicked it. Kept his hand on the key as he looked down at her. “Yeah, so? It’s cool, right? None of that ridiculous dorm stuff. I mean, we’re not kids.”
Two motorcycles roared past, speeding away down Mountville. Cassie saw a woman on the back of one of them, blond hair flying under her helmet, her arms wrapped around the driver. Friday night, Cassie thought, fun night in a college town, and was she suddenly the doofus freshman, terrified to go into an older guy’s apartment? This was what life was all about, adventure, new experiences, and if she didn’t take control of her life, right now, she’d forever be a small-town girl with a small-time life. Jem was right, they were not kids. The whole point of college was to get out on your own. Make your own decisions.
Be in the world without someone else’s rules. And maybe Jem knew stuff about Professor Shaw.
Why not see if he’d tell her?
She’d tossed her hair to prove she was in charge, and followed Jem Duggan up the steps and through the front door. When the elevator doors slid open, he’d gestured her in first. She’d chosen the left wall. He’d walked toward her, and she felt her heart race, apprehensive and wary, but then he’d reached past her and pushed the lighted button marked four. He’d moved to the opposite side of the elevator, as far from her as he could get. Silence, until the doors slid open, revealing a carpeted hallway, soft twilight shimmering through a four-paned window at the end of the corridor.
And now he was asking if she wanted wine.
NOW
CHAPTER 28
LILY
Cassie is.
Never before had two single words so pivoted Lily’s world on its axis. Ten seconds until Banning came out of Lido, Lily figured. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk as if nothing had changed. She had ten seconds to get her knees and brain to work again. To regain her equilibrium. To plan her next moves.
Greer’s not in danger, Smith had just told her. Cassie is.
Cassie. Meant Smith knew her name.
Is. Meant Cassie was not dead. It meant Smith knew that. And Banning, too, whoever he was. Cassie lived, existed, somewhere. As Lily had always, she had to admit, believed.
Five seconds. Not a sound from within the restaurant, not a motion from the glossy front door. Maybe Smith had been wrong about the timing. Maybe something had changed. Maybe Smith had been guessing. Three seconds.
Her Perfect Life Page 13