Mason beckons me to follow him. He doesn’t make any comment on the fact that I have a kitchen knife clenched in my hand. Maybe he thinks I’m more capable of using it against someone than he is. He’s probably right. Mason has never been anything but sweet. Even as hockey players go, he always plays a clean game.
The warehouse is divided into several large rooms with wide doorways. We peek around each door frame before stepping into the next room. I expect to hear a man’s voice. I hope to hear Kadence. But besides the soft scrape of movement, it’s quiet. It could be raccoons. Or pigeons in the rafters.
But as we step from the third room and into the fourth, we both freeze in our tracks. There is a small light in this room, illuminating the man I saw before. He’s in the corner, lounging in a nylon camping chair and flipping through a magazine. Two full garbage bags sit beside the chair, though they seem too soft and round to be filled with garbage.
“Kadence?” Mason asks, testing out the name. I glance at him, not understanding.
The man shrieks, hands going to his head. He swings around with his back to us and a second later pulls off what I then realize is a wig. Revealing pinned-up magenta hair.
It’s Kadence.
She hastily pulls out the pins, then combs her hands through her long hair, trying to fluff it out. It’s oily from being underneath the wig and the apparent lack of shower facilities, but otherwise she looks fine. Perfectly healthy. Safe.
This I find to be annoying. But I can only watch with stunned fascination as she grabs lipstick and a compact from her pocket and tries to make herself look presentable. Presentation is everything. Another one of her quotable quotes. She had one for every occasion. And what exactly will she say on this occasion? How will she try to explain this one away? I wait for it.
Lips coated cherry red, she puts the lipstick back in her pocket and clears her throat.
“Miss me?” she asks with a Cheshire smile.
Thirty-Four
Jude
The Warehouse
Saturday, April 7
9:50 p.m.
I’ve circled the block a couple of times in my truck looking for Lauren. No trace. She can’t have gone far on foot. I’m idling at the stop sign across the street with my lights off when I finally catch sight of her again. She’s walking up to the warehouse and she’s not alone. Mason’s with her. That asshat who Kadence caught in the fort with Lauren. I get that she probably hates me now and will most likely never speak to me again. Seeing her with Mason still makes me want to punch something, preferably his pretty All-American boy face. I choke the urge back down and focus on what they’re doing.
Lauren and Mason approach the door of the warehouse and slip inside. I jump out of the truck and immediately follow. Lauren’s heading in there with a freaking knife. No way I’m letting her out of my sight. I don’t care if Mason Best-Guy-in-the-World Sisken is beside her. I don’t trust anyone to protect her but me. Now isn’t that the irony of ironies.
I don’t pay much attention to the piss-smelling warehouse as I enter a minute or so behind them. I’m silent and they don’t notice me. I hear them up ahead and soon I can follow the light of their phones, tentatively checking each step is clear with my foot before putting my weight down. I’m careful to keep quiet.
They enter one of the side rooms. I pause outside, give one quick peek around, then hide behind a stack of crates inside the doorway. Once again, I am watching them from the shadows, but I can see everything from here: Mason and Lauren. And Kadence. The witch herself, looking nice and hag-like, though she was trying to make herself presentable again when I glanced in. Gotta say, I preferred her with the man’s wig on.
Earlier when Lauren and I first got here, I recognized Kadence’s little rat-like figure as soon as I saw her scurrying in the warehouse door. There was a certain genius to it. Without her hair, makeup, and all her freaking diva clothes, no one would recognize Kadence Mulligan. Not decked out as a homeless dude, certainly. She could have been going to the convenience store across the street for food all this time and no one would’ve been the wiser. In fact, I think I may have even seen her around the garage where I work—the homeless person with that bright-colored backpack—but I wasn’t paying as much attention then as I was today.
Because today I recognized her. Probably only because I used to watch her from afar so often. Ugh, freakin’ disgusts me now, even if I did have my own messed-up logic to it back then. At least it gave me the opportunity to memorize her stupid jaunty walk and the way she sways her hips. I recognized it half an hour ago, even when she was trying to disguise it with a pretend off-kilter thug shuffle.
Then I hear the words that come out of her mouth. “Miss me?” As if she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“M—? Miss you?” Lauren asks, and on those words, her voice breaks through. Loud and clear and completely…normal!
The sudden return of her voice takes everyone by surprise. Lauren’s hand goes to her throat. I whisper, “Oh, thank you, God.” But my relief is overshadowed by Lauren’s rage and by what I know she must still carry up her sleeve.
“We thought you were dead!” Lauren yells. Her voice is still coming out strong and full-throated, but I can barely spare a thought for it. “What is going on, Kady? What sick game is this?”
“So are you and Mason a thing now?” Kadence asks, stretching her hands leisurely over her head. “Don’t answer that. Here’s a better question: How did you find me?”
“How did we find you?” Lauren stares at her incredulously. “How did we find you?” Her voice is almost a shout. “Do you know what everyone’s been saying? Do you know what you’ve done to me? To Jude?” My heart does a funny little skip when she says my name. She still cares. At least a little.
Lauren advances a stride toward Kadence but then stops. “They’ve accused us of murder! What have you been doing out here, Kadence?”
Kadence drops her arms and glares. “What have I been doing? Well, Lauren…” She looks down, and when she looks back up again, her face is tormented and her eyes are full of tears. “My best friend and my boyfriend betrayed me. I loved them more than I loved anybody else in the world, and then I walked in on them…” She buries her face in her hands and starts to sob. Her entire body is racked with it. My eyes narrow.
She gulps in breath after breath, only barely managing to get herself under control long enough to say through hiccups, “I had to get away. I had to get away from it all! So I went to where I knew there would be no distractions, no Internet, no reminders, no friends, and no gossip, where I could be alone with my thoughts and write music and pour out my pain. I’d been planning to do a music video here and no one knew about this place. But I had no idea that the whole country was looking for me. I had no idea I’d made everyone so upset.”
She gives another great heave of breath. “If I’d known”—she presses her hands to her chest—“you have to believe me…if I’d known, I would have come back immediately. As soon as I learned about all the terrible misunderstandings, I called my parents right away and set up a press conference to let everyone know I was okay. You don’t know how much it meant to me to know that all my fans and loved ones have been so worried about me. And please believe me when I say that I’m so sorry. I’d been so crushed. I hope that those of you who have also been ripped to shreds by love can understand and forgive.”
Kadence looks at the floor, and when her face comes back up, the furrowed brow and the sorrow-filled expression are gone. Instead, she’s grinning.
“And end scene.” She bows dramatically.
The three of us stare at her, shocked into silence. My mom told me never, ever, under any circumstance, to call a girl a bitch. But I can’t think of any other word for what I just witnessed.
“But why?” Mason manages to ask.
Dude sounds on the edge of tears. I take it he was buying into that
little performance of Kadence’s and then was confused as hell by the ending when she turned back into the Kadence that Lauren and I know so well. From everything I’ve gathered over the past eight months, this guy has been blind to all that she truly is. I feel a little bad for him. I don’t think he’s dumb. He just wants to see the good in people. Too bad there’s no good in Kadence Mulligan.
“Why?” Mason asks again. “Because I kissed her? Kady, I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything more than that. I don’t know where you heard that it was, but I swear that kiss meant nothing. There’s nothing between us.”
Kadence laughs at this and then sighs at him fondly like he’s a puppy. “Oh, you gorgeous idiot. You were the perfect high school boyfriend, someone nice and wholesome to bring home to the Major, but never quite quick enough, were you?” She snaps her fingers in front of his face as her gaze sharpens. “And when I set up one simple loyalty test, you couldn’t pass that any easier than the rest of your exams. Didn’t you ever ask each other about the Post-it notes that you found in your lockers that day?”
Mason and Lauren exchange a glance. He’s blinking like he can’t comprehend what’s going on, like the girl saying all these things is an evil twin and his real girlfriend will appear at any moment. Kadence continues in a singsong voice. “‘Would you please, please meet me after school (by flagpole)? I really need to talk to you, and it can’t wait. Signed Mason’; ‘Please. Need to talk. Meet me by the flagpole? Signed L.’ Wasn’t too hard to get the handwriting right, but then I’ve always been good with that.”
Kadence smiles charmingly at me through the crates I’m standing behind, and I suck in my breath. She must have seen me come in, but she doesn’t let on to Lauren and Mason.
“I learned that little trick early with that stalker Nathan.” She’s toying with me, knowing that I am now doing exactly what she accused me of all those years ago. Stalking in the shadows.
I want to rush out to Lauren and let her know I’m here and that if she would let me close to her again, I’d never leave. Instead, I hold my ground.
“You set us all up,” Lauren says.
Kadence’s easy manner shifts, her face hardening. “No. I’d seen the way you and Mason looked at each other. You thought I didn’t notice. That I was too busy. You thought I was stupid. As if! So I set up a little test. To see if you would be loyal.” Her gaze cuts back and forth between Lauren and Mason, her blue eyes cold as razors. “And guess what? You failed.”
“Babe, I—” Mason starts, hands up in entreaty, but Lauren cuts him off.
“So that’s what all this is about?” she asks, her voice still strong. “You setting us up with some twisted loyalty test that you had already manipulated?”
The cold smile is back on Kadence’s face. “Well, I’m not an idiot, am I? I knew you would fail. I was counting on it.”
Mason takes a step back as if he’s been dealt a physical blow.
“My YouTube views had flatlined. How was the Major supposed to brag to all his friends if I wasn’t anything special anymore?” Her eyes go slightly unfocused as she looks past Lauren and Mason. She’s not looking at me either, but at some point past the wall. “Do you know it was him who came up with my name? Not Mom. He always liked music even though he could never play or sing too well. He was so proud when we started being successful with the YouTube channel and making news. Kadence. A special musical name for a special musical girl, he tells his friends. Everyone else calls me Kady, but never the Major.”
My mouth flattens. Hello, daddy issues. I almost feel a moment of compassion, except that then she flips a hand at Lauren dismissively. “Then you had all your drama this year. And it was harder than I thought going on as a solo act.”
I see Lauren’s shoulders flinch when Kadence summarizes her throat troubles as drama.
“So I got to thinking, how can I make my videos go viral again? I’d toyed around with vlogging, but I couldn’t get the videos as perfect as I wanted, so I never posted them. Besides. Everyone’s blogging-vlogging blah, blah, blah these days. And then I had an epiphany. I needed to make news. Big news.” She grins.
“You wanted them to suspect me.” Lauren states it with sudden realization. “You wanted all of this to happen. That’s why you left your car door open. You planned to put your blood on that shirt. And then plant the laptop.”
Kadence smiles. “Aha, she finally catches up! But I had no idea about that creeper Nathan’s bizarre vendetta.” Her grin widens. “Bonus for getting the whole town out to search for my body in the woods. That was some great TV!”
“But if you’ve been here,” Mason asks, still with that bewildered shock on his face, “then how did you even know what was going on outside?”
Kadence tilts her head, giving him another look as if he’s an adorable but especially stupid puppy. “The library is only seven blocks away. They’re very nice to the poor, young homeless men trying to search for jobs on the Internet and get their lives back together.”
She juts her lower jaw out and drops her voice, adopting a more masculine stance. “Had to run away from my last foster home. Stood up to that son’a bitch when he went after my li’l sister. He almost kilt me, but I got Beth Ann outta there. I take care of her now. Trying to make a better life for us. But life’s rough on the streets, y’know?”
Kadence stands up straight again, popping one hip out and laughing. “They pushed me to the front of the waiting list for the computers every time. I think this one junior library chick even had a crush on me.”
“And the laptop?” Lauren asks between clenched teeth. “Those videos?”
“Oh, that was a genius idea I had a couple days ago.” Kadence tosses her hair. “I had some of those old videos on the laptop like I said, but then the news coverage was dying down and I thought I’d bump it back up. And why just local news? Why couldn’t I make national? Everyone loves video footage of a missing girl. I had to improvise a little to make them look like they came from before, but I already had some props for my next music video—” She gestures at the opposite corner from where she was rooting around when Lauren and Mason came in, to where a velvet curtain and stool I recognize as the backdrop for some of the later videos are still set up.
Then she frowns. “But since I haven’t seen anything online and you seem to know about it, I’m guessing you found my computer? Well”—she rolls her eyes—“that’s not the way it was meant to go at all. I hid it in the fort a couple of days ago and someone was supposed to find it, get all excited, and run straight to the media.” She sighs. “The best-laid plans. Oh well. I guess since you’ve all found me now, the jig is up and it’s time to come out of hiding.”
She runs her fingers through her hair, fluffing it some more. “I’ve already got my speech prepared after all.”
Then she smiles dazzlingly into her small compact mirror. “The views on my videos are already through the roof, and after all, that’s what matters.”
Thirty-Five
Lauren
The Warehouse
Saturday, April 7
10:12 p.m.
With a feral yell I launch myself at Kadence. I’m not even sure my feet touch the ground. One second I am standing with Mason at the far side of the room. The next moment I have my arm wrapped around Kadence’s throat, arching her backwards. The compact in her hands smashes to the ground, the mirror shattering. She may be seven inches taller than me, but I have the advantage with her back bent, my knife at her side.
Mason has gone pale. His eyes are blank. He doesn’t do anything to stop me. He better not.
“Since it’s apparently confession time, tell us everything,” I hiss in her ear. I don’t think about the consequences. I don’t think about anything except how time seems to have slowed, and how I want to draw out her agony. I want her to feel. I want her to hurt. “Tell us about Caleb. Tell us about Mary. I want to hear it from your mout
h.”
She looks sideways at me, half amused and half confused. I am not the Lauren she knows. I’m not even the Lauren I know. Before, she always had me under her thumb. She always played me so well. All of a sudden I’m going off script. I’m surprising her.
Kadence narrows her eyes as if I’m no threat, but she’s careful not to twist her torso. She feels the tip of the knife, and that realization gives me a rush of power. For once, I’m in control.
“Caleb,” Kadence says with an air of dismissal. “He was just a little boy who was too afraid to talk to his daddy about the fact that he rubbed off to boys instead of girls.” She shrugs. “So I helped him out of the closet.”
“You told him it was me who told his dad to go downstairs that night.”
She shrugs again. “Well, no one ever really liked you, Lauren, so it made more sense that way.”
She’s forgotten I’m the one holding the knife. Or she doesn’t believe I’ll use it. Or maybe she just can’t help being Kadence. I give the knife a little jab—just enough to focus her attention—and keep pressing for answers. I want my conscience to be clear when I finally act.
“And Mary?”
Kadence tips her head to the side with a groan of boredom. “She was a drama queen about the whole thing.”
My rage and fury are suddenly such real things that I can taste them in my mouth. “She was raped,” I finally manage to say through gritted teeth, “because of you.”
Mason sucks in his breath as Kadence swings her head to look at me out of the corner of her eye. “I never touched her. That was all Donny. Some of us had to make the hard choices to get us to the top. Mary Blake the Rake was being recruited by freaking Nickelodeon.” She shakes her head. “There was only going to be one breakout singing group from our school, and I did what I did to make sure it was us. You could thank me, you know.”
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