The Disappearance of Sloane Sullivan, page 21
“Yup,” Jason said. “He’s good at tracking down rental properties in small beach towns and packing food for short-term stakeouts. He’s also good at knowing when you’re trying to dodge the question.”
I hesitated. Not because I was trying to think of a way out of the question. Jason had already seen Mark, so I was going to have to tell him something. It was just that I’d never said the words out loud before. I took a deep breath. “My dad committed suicide.”
“I didn’t... Shit. That sucks.”
I rested my head on his shoulder again.
Jason’s voice was gentle when he asked, “What happened?”
That I definitely couldn’t explain. I shook my head, knowing he would feel it against his shoulder.
“So who was that guy I saw at your house then?”
I gave him the truest, most simple answer I could: “He’s my family.”
Jason shifted a little and I could tell there were more questions building up inside of him. I decided to change the subject before they made their way out. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
I lifted my head and looked into those deep blue eyes. “What’s going on with you and Livie?”
Jason flipped my hand over and traced the veins under my wrist. I’d never had a single touch make me want to kiss someone so badly before.
“The thing with Livie,” Jason said, “is that she shows you what she wants you to see. With me, that was the sweet friend who started having feelings for me.”
Livie’s words in the school bathroom popped into my head: “Friends for a couple of months, then slowly show him I was interested, like I couldn’t help developing feelings for my best friend.”
“And at first, things were good. Then, not so much. And I thought it was because of me.” His fingers stilled on my wrist. “I knew I never took any of those first dates seriously, never gave anyone a real chance. And I thought that’s what I was doing with Livie too.” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “I’d started to lose hope I was ever going to see you again and I needed to be able to forget you. So I promised myself I’d stick it out and try to make it work with Livie. And then you showed up.”
Jason lifted his eyes to mine with that half smile that wrecked me.
“And there you were, making bets and racing me to the Kissing Tree and looking at me the way you are right now and...” He swallowed hard. “Jesus. When you look at me like that?” He closed his eyes for a second. “It was like everything came rushing back at once and I remembered how much I didn’t want to forget you.”
My heart felt like it was about to explode out of my chest.
“And when I ended things with Livie, she thought it was because of you. She said she’d seen the way I looked at you. So I told her what she needed to hear so she wouldn’t blame you. With my mom, the only way to get her to stop asking whether you were Sasha was to make her believe I was upset about it. With Livie, the only way to stop her from taking her mean streak out on you was to make her believe I didn’t have any feelings for you.”
My stomach flipped.
“That’s why I’ve been so distant since the senior trip. I had to lay it on thick after she took that picture of us at the hotel. I made her think I regretted ending things, that I was jealous after seeing her with Oliver. But I figured acting like I only liked you as a friend was a small price to pay for Livie deleting that picture.”
I swallowed. “Acting?”
Jason ran his thumb over my cheekbone. “I thought I could keep my distance, at least until school was over and we didn’t have to see Livie again. But it killed me walking away from you at the hotel without explaining why. I wanted to be the one sitting next to you on the bus ride home from the trip. I wanted to take you to prom. I wanted to be the one complimenting you tonight.”
I shook my head slightly.
“Yes,” Jason insisted. “Don’t you get it? You are the girl I’ve been comparing everyone else to, Sasha. My best friend, the person who gets me better than anyone. That’s what I want.”
I closed my eyes. “Say my name again.”
“Sasha.”
Jason’s breath tickled my lips, his mouth only inches from mine. I grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulling him the rest of the way to me.
When we kissed, I knew there was no going back. I could pretend to be a thousand different girls, but none of them would ever be real. This was what was real. I was the girl who made bets and climbed through bedroom windows and ate themed snacks with the boy who’d given me the stars. It didn’t matter what my name was, I was Sasha, and Jason had my heart.
So when I finally pulled away from him, breathless and dizzy from the amazing softness of his lips and the feeling of his hands against my skin, dread filled me. Because now, without any doubt, I’d broken the only rule I’d ever made for myself: don’t have anything you can’t leave behind.
Twenty-Two
I knew the moment Sawyer entered the hallway Monday morning by the way Jason tensed before pushing off the locker next to mine.
Sawyer paused when he spotted us, but squared his shoulders and kept walking in our direction. He was wearing cargo shorts and a frayed navy T-shirt that was slightly too small. His normally clean-cut hair was disheveled, making him look younger. The bruise spreading from the bridge of his nose to under his left eye made him seem fragile, almost breakable. And his eyes weren’t cold anymore. They were filled with regret and shame and apologies. “I’m sorry,” he said as soon as he was close enough.
Jason crossed his arms. “I can’t—I don’t want to do this right now, Sawyer.”
Sawyer’s shoulders slumped. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what else to say. I was drunk and stupid and I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t mean it.”
“You were about to hit her,” Jason growled. He took a deep breath and turned to me. “Let’s go.”
Sawyer reached out as if to grab my arm but stopped himself, his hand hovering inches away from me. “I’m sorry, Sloane. I don’t know why I came at you like that. I’d never actually hurt you.”
I thought about his unwelcome kiss in the diner right after Jason told him I wasn’t interested, the way he’d talked about me like a consolation prize for the taking, the creepy feeling of his fingertips trailing down my arm and his breath hot on my neck. “I’m not sure I believe that, Sawyer. No means no. It’s a simple concept, but you don’t seem to get it.”
He hung his head as we walked away.
When we reached Jason’s locker, he let out a long breath. “I don’t even know what to think. I mean, he’s always been a mean drunk. But we’ve been friends since the first day of eighth grade. Does he really think I purposefully stole every girl he’s liked?”
“I don’t know.”
Jason stared at his feet. “There has to be some truth to it. He never could’ve just made that up when he was that drunk.” He toed the edge of his locker. “Maybe it is true. I know it killed me every time he touched you. And did you see his face? God, I did that.”
“Hey.” I squeezed his hand until he looked at me. “You did that to protect me.”
He pursed his lips.
“Did he say anything to you after I left your house Saturday night?”
“No. I told my mom he passed out and left him on the floor to sleep it off. He was gone by the time I woke up on Sunday.”
I squeezed his hand again. “You don’t have to figure it all out right now. There’s time.”
Jason moved to pull me into a hug but I stepped back and slid my hand out of his. “Livie might see,” I whispered. “We don’t need to antagonize her.”
“Livie won’t do anything.”
I frowned. “I thought the whole plan was to make her think you didn’t like me.”
Jason stuffed a book into his locker and slammed it shut. “That was the plan when I broke up with her and when I got her to delete that picture. But that was before she saw me with my arms wrapped around you and wanting to kiss you so bad it hurt. There wasn’t any way I was going to convince her I didn’t like you after that.” He leaned against his locker with a slight smirk. “So when I chased after her at prom, I used my ace in the hole.”
“Your what?”
Jason glanced around and lowered his voice. “Livie’s the one who made Chloe break up with Oliver.”
I scratched my head. “I’m not following you at all.”
“When Livie started here last fall, Chloe began picking on her. She was an easy target, the new girl with no friends yet. By the time Livie started hanging out with Sawyer and me, Chloe had moved from making fun of Livie’s clothes to spreading rumors about her sleeping around with guys she barely knew. I assumed it was a lie, like all of Chloe’s stories, but...” He shrugged one shoulder.
“But maybe she knew Livie and Sawyer slept together last fall?”
Jason nodded. “Chloe has a knack for learning secrets and talks crap about everyone, including me with my reputation. I learned a long time ago that she’s only in it for the power trip. If she doesn’t think she’s getting to you, it’s not fun to her anymore, you know? So I told Livie to ignore Chloe and act like it didn’t bother her.”
“Did it work?”
“I thought so. Chloe wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted so she stopped. Things seemed calm between them for months. Then the night I broke up with Livie, we were hanging out in her room. She went to tell her parents something and her laptop dinged. We were waiting for an email from Sawyer so I assumed that’s what it was.” Jason pushed off his locker and took a step closer. “But when I went to read it, there was this email account open in some name I’d never seen Livie use. And the email that had just come in was from Chloe.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Exactly. It was this long email chain in which it was very obvious that Chloe had no idea who she was really talking to. And it all started with a photo Livie anonymously sent of Oliver kissing a blonde girl that definitely wasn’t Chloe.”
“But Oliver told me he didn’t cheat on Chloe.”
“He didn’t,” Jason said. “Not a lot of people know that Liv’s a whiz when it comes to photo editing.”
“I like to get creative with reality.” I remembered Livie’s words from my first day, when I’d seen her doctored sunset picture at Jason’s house. “Wow.”
Jason nodded. “I opened the editing software on her laptop to make sure. She had a picture of Oliver and Chloe kissing and a picture of some random blonde and somehow she made a new picture that switched out Chloe for the blonde.”
I peeked down the hall to make sure none of the people we were talking about were within earshot. A middle-aged woman in a navy suit walked past us, deep in conversation with Principal Thompson, who was equally decked out in a tailored charcoal gray suit and her usual stilettos. “So Livie waited until no one would suspect her of seeking revenge on Chloe, sent Chloe fake evidence that Oliver was being unfaithful, and pretended not to know why they broke up?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
The shift in Livie’s eyes when she decided to ask Oliver to prom took on a whole new meaning. “And then she asked Oliver out to get back at Chloe even more! That’s so messed up.”
“I know,” Jason agreed. “But when I saw that email, I was thrilled. It felt like I was finally seeing the real Livie, not just the one she wanted me to see. And I was going to call her on it, use it as an example of why I was ending things. But then I thought of you.” He gave me a sexy grin he definitely didn’t have when we were twelve. “Which happens a lot, actually.”
My cheeks grew warm.
“I knew Livie would be suspicious that you were the reason I was breaking up with her. And I figured it would be good to have a little insurance in case she decided to get revenge on you the way she had on Chloe. So I didn’t tell her I saw the email.”
Now I understood. “When you chased after Livie on prom night, you told her that if she did anything mean to me you’d tell Chloe everything.”
Jason stood a little taller. “Yup,” he said with a grin.
“Did you tell Oliver?”
Jason’s smiled faltered. “Not exactly. And before you say anything, I know he deserves to know how horrible Livie really is. But I told you I’d do whatever I had to to get you to stay. And if that includes blackmailing Livie and leaving Oliver in the dark for now, so be it.”
Oliver’s voice echoed in my head: “Remember ‘points for being honest’?” I wasn’t sure if he was mad at me after the semiargument we’d had at prom, but I needed to tell Oliver somehow. I frowned as a man in army fatigues strolled past us.
“We’ll figure out a way to let him know,” Jason promised. “After we’re sure Livie’s calmed down. But not now. Now all I want to do is this.” He grabbed my hand. “And this.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “And especially this.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek, right by the corner of my mouth.
I blushed all the way to my toes.
“Do you know how often I’ve wanted to make you blush like that?” Jason whispered in my ear.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me pull away from Jason. Even though he felt confident about the Livie situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had more tricks up her sleeve. We still needed to be careful around her. But it wasn’t Livie I’d seen. A man with short salt-and-pepper hair stopped at the end of the hall next to the woman I’d seen earlier walking with Mrs. Thompson. They said a few quiet words to each other, then disappeared around the corner. “Okay. What’s going on with all the weird adults here today?”
Jason pulled me down the hall toward the auditorium. “It’s senior career day, remember?”
I groaned, then squeezed his hand. “Wait. Does that mean I don’t have physics with Sawyer and Livie?”
He chuckled. “Yes. Instead you get to sit with me all morning while people describe in great detail what they studied after high school to get the delightful jobs they have today.”
“That sounds perfect.”
Jason gave me a disbelieving glance. “Really?”
“Not the detail part. The with you part.”
* * *
“Are there a lot of seniors who want to be embalmers at mortuaries?” I asked as the balding man with glasses left the stage.
Jason shuddered. “There must be at least one. That’s how they find the speakers for career day. Seniors fill out a questionnaire listing the types of careers they’re interested in, and the counselors try to find representatives from as many of those careers as possible.”
“I think I’ll pass on that one.”
Jason nodded his agreement as the man I’d seen in the hall with the short salt-and-pepper hair strode onto the stage. He adjusted his suit jacket and took a microphone from Mrs. Thompson. He cleared his throat once, then said in a commanding voice, “My name is Agent Kessler, and I’m with the US Marshals Service.”
I froze.
“The Marshals Service is the enforcement arm of the federal courts. It is the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency and the most versatile.”
I ran a hand over the phone hidden in my pocket. I was positive I’d set it on vibrate, and I hadn’t gotten any texts or calls from Mark. Why didn’t Mark tell me Marshals were coming?
“It serves our country in a wide variety of ways,” Agent Kessler continued, “but the most well-known, and the one of interest here today, is the witness protection program, which is officially called the Witness Security Program or WITSEC for short.”
My heart pounded in my chest. Something was wrong. Even if every senior had stated they wanted to be a Marshal working with WITSEC, there was no way they’d send Marshals into a school where they were actually hiding a witness. Not as publicly as this. Not without letting me know first. It could lead to questions that shouldn’t be asked. It wasn’t blending in. And Mark never would’ve allowed it. Which meant Mark didn’t know about it.
I peeked at Jason. He was studying me with narrow eyes.
“Since the WITSEC program began in 1971, Marshals have successfully protected more than 8,600 witnesses and 9,900 of their family members,” Agent Kessler said as he paced the stage. “As you are probably aware from portrayals in movies and television shows, participants in WITSEC are given new identities and can never have contact with anyone from their past lives again.”
Jason’s eyes grew wide. I held his gaze, pulled it into me, until I saw the realization settle on his face. Until I knew I could finally tell him the truth. “I wanted to tell you, so many times. I just...” I slowly turned my head in both directions to check all of the auditorium’s exits, two in the back and two on the sides. My stomach dropped. Each exit was being guarded by a person in a suit. “I wasn’t allowed.”
“Why are they here?” Jason’s voice was as unsteady as my heartbeat.
I eyed the youngest-looking agent blocking the side exit closest to me. He looked to be in his early twenties, but I knew from Mark that looks could be deceiving. His brown hair was short and neat and his brown eyes were scanning the crowd of students. As his gaze swept in my direction, I inched down in my seat to hide behind Jason. “I don’t know. This isn’t right.”
Agent Kessler’s voice boomed from the stage. “We are very proud of the fact that no WITSEC participant following program guidelines has ever been hurt or killed while under the active protection of the Marshals Service.”
I closed my eyes. Following program guidelines. And here I was, sitting next to someone from my past life. I was breaking the rules, they knew and they’d come to stop me.
“To become a Marshal...” Agent Kessler’s voice echoed through the room but I tuned him out.
I could count on one hand the number of Marshals I’d had contact with besides Mark. I wasn’t about to deal with agents I’d never seen before without talking to Mark first, especially not agents whose ill-conceived public presentation just caused Jason to figure out I was in WITSEC. Together maybe Mark and I could convince them that Jason would keep my secret, that I didn’t have to be yanked out of here or kept in WITSEC forever. And if Mark was in trouble for me having contact with Jason, if that’s why Mark wasn’t here, then I had to find a way to explain what I’d done, to apologize to him before they never let me see him again.
