I glanced at the clock, watched the red glowing numbers on my alarm tick off minute after minute.

  Damn it, Hope.

  Five

  “Going out, honey?”

  My parents were snuggled on the couch, watching some old movie on TV. I flipped my keys, grateful that my parents were pretty hands-off, that between working since I was fifteen and basically striking out with girls until Hope came along I had earned their respect, their stamp of He’s too boring to worry about curfews.

  “Just going to run a quick errand.”

  My dad glanced at his watch. “It’s after nine thirty.”

  “I just need to grab something for a project. Thirty minutes, tops. I’ll be right back.”

  I was out the door before they could say anything else.

  I dialed Hope three times in the twelve minutes it took me to drive to her place. I wasn’t surprised when she didn’t answer, just annoyed. Part of me knew I was playing right into her hands and hated myself for it. The other part was a tight ball of anxiety.

  What if something actually happened to her?

  I heard the scream in my mind again, the squeal of tires.

  It sounded real—didn’t it?

  “She’s messing with you,” I told myself, gritting my teeth and biting down hard until my jaws ached. “She’s just going to laugh when you get there…”

  Hope’s house—a massive estate set back from the private drive—was lit with outdoor lights, but the house itself was dark. I parked anyway and strode to the door, knocking.

  “Hope!” I yelled. “It’s me! Open up.”

  Nothing.

  I glanced at my phone again, texted her, told her I was waiting outside.

  No response.

  I dialed her again, groaning, then cocked my head, listening to the stereo ringing going on: one on my phone, one on hers. Faint, but I’d recognize the ring anywhere—Hope had specialized rings for everyone. I pulled my phone from my ear.

  “Hope?”

  My phone kept ringing; so did hers.

  I followed the sound down her porch, around the winding patch of golf-course-short grass. “Hope?”

  The phone stopped ringing and went to her voice mail. I hung up, speed-dialed her again, and made a beeline down the walk, down the drive, then hunched into the gutter where the tune was slightly less muffled.

  I poked at the mess of leaves caught in the gutter grate, my heart doing a double thump when a faded light flashed behind the debris. I pushed the leaves aside, and my own face was staring up at me as the phone vibrated and rang. The words Call from Tony G. were warped by the dirt, by the broken glass on the face of the phone, but it was definitely Hope’s phone. And it was in the gutter.

  My heart started to pound. Had she… Had it really… I took a deep breath. Hope would pull out all the stops to make it look like she’d been kidnapped.

  But her phone…

  Hope’s phone was her lifeline. She was never without it. I couldn’t imagine her dumping it, even for a prank of this magnitude.

  I picked her phone out of the gutter, shook off some leaves, smoothed off the dirt, and checked her call log. Her call to me. My return calls to her. Three calls from someone with the initials RR. Two calls back.

  RR?

  Renee Wright: ReRe, Hope’s best friend. RR.

  Cracked screen, cement-scratched edges. The phone had definitely been dropped—or tossed, I reminded myself.

  I was still hunched over the gutter when the headlights cut through the night, flooded me, and burned my eyes. I glanced up, squinted.

  “Everything okay here, son?”

  It was the security guard who patrolled Hope’s neighborhood. The guy was a rent-a-cop on a power trip who had caught me and Hope in her car or mine more times than I cared to count. We were both pretty sure he was a semicloseted perv who was into Hope and lived every day hoping he would catch her with her shirt off, but it was never going to happen. Hope liked the attention and trilled and drawled when he flooded our car with light, playing up her smeared lipstick and ruffled hair and acting all hot and bothered. She liked to see his eyes go round and glassy, liked to see the flush in his cheeks, but the guy gave me the creeps.

  He peered at me from his car now, eyes narrowed. As usual, all I could see were those beady eyes from under his Atlas Security hat, his lips pressed together as he scrutinized me. I pocketed Hope’s phone and stood up, brushing my hands on my pants. “Yeah, just dropped my phone.”

  The rent-a-cop and I stared at each other for a beat. He seemed to be daring me to make the first move. Finally, “You visiting the Jensens tonight?”

  I glanced over my shoulder as if checking that the house was still there. “Uh, no, no one’s home. Just heading out actually.”

  The cop got out of his car, slamming the door behind him and walking slowly toward me. He had his hands on his hips, television cop–style, but instead of a gun belt, all he had was an enormous flashlight that hung halfway to his knee.

  “So…” I thumbed over my shoulder toward where I was parked. “I guess I’m just going to go.” I turned on my heel.

  He kept his eye on me until I got into my car, then kept staring until I turned over the engine and backed into the street. I could see his headlights still fixed on Hope’s driveway as I slowly drove away.

  I got to school just before the first bell and strolled the halls, telling myself I wasn’t looking for Hope.

  I didn’t want to, but part of me was genuinely curious. The other part was sure she was keeping to the dark corners so she could spring out at lunchtime and call me a dick for almost getting her kidnapped. Just like the rest of her life, it was probably some publicity stunt, another show for the whole school to laugh at me and fawn over her. For a girl who hated her parents with a fiery vengeance, she was just like them.

  I filed into ethics with everyone else. Renee and Ashleigh—two of Hope’s current BFFs—stared at their phones until the second the bell rang, then looked around, their overly made-up eyes falling on Hope’s empty seat.

  “Where’s Hope?” Renee mouthed to me.

  I rolled my eyes and shrugged, not wanting to play a role in another of their stupid games.

  “Okay, okay, everyone, settle down.” Mrs. Patten was always late to class, always carrying an armful of notebooks and a coffee mug she never seemed to drink out of. Renee’s arm shot up.

  “Yes, Ms. Wright?”

  “Mrs. Patten, Hope isn’t here today. Is it okay if I call her and check in?” Renee pointed to her phone as if to prove that her intentions were honorable.

  Mrs. Patten blew out a sigh and shook her head. “No, Renee. If you want to call someone, please do it between classes.”

  “But Mrs. Patten, Hope didn’t tell me she wasn’t going to be here today. She tells me everything. I’m worried.”

  Mrs. Patten pinched the bridge of her nose like Renee was giving her a headache, which I’m sure she was. “She’s probably just sick. Call her on your break.”

  I shifted in my seat, glad Mrs. Patten was strict. Hope’s phone was rolling around in my glove box.

  Renee’s hand shot up again. “But Mrs.—”

  “Not now!” Mrs. Patten snapped.

  Class passed uneventfully, and when it ended, Renee was on her phone before the bell stopped ringing. I could see her face fall a little more with each ring, and my heartbeat started to speed up.

  She’s just trying to screw with you, Tony, I told myself. Hope is fine, probably just hanging out at her house, eating bonbons and watching herself on old episodes of her parents’ show, Wake Up the Bay!

  Hope’s parents were never around, and she was a fan of taking the more-than-occasional mental health day. The school didn’t even bother to call her house, since her parents were at the studio all day, and when you’re a celebrity—even a local one—the rules were different for you and your offspring.

  The rest of my morning classes were uneventful as I moved through the halls and into the cafeteria, taking stock of the huge crowd in there. I was starving, but as I looked at the packed tables, I was losing my appetite rapidly.

  Without Hope and our—or, her—gang, I had no one to eat lunch with. I had friends before Hope, but she never liked them, and I never bothered to stand up for them when Hope made fun of them so they were long gone now.

  I slid my tray along the lunch line, selecting the least gray-looking hamburger and a paper cup of limp french fries.

  “Aw, it’s our poet literette.”

  I had drunk beers with Rustin Rice in his backyard over Labor Day before Hope ripped my heart out. He was an idiot but an all-right guy—or he was before he thunked into me, slamming the edge of his tray hard into my left kidney, his soda sloshing from the cup and onto my T-shirt. He laughed at his own stupid, poorly worded joke.

  “Hey, Rice,” I said, my words barely audible through my gritted teeth.

  “Write any good poems lately?”

  The kids in the lunch line behind Rice—a couple of girls we ate lunch with, a few underclassmen, and a kid I didn’t recognize—laughed with him, and I could feel the heat sear my cheeks. I hope it looked like anger rather than niggling embarrassment that wouldn’t go away. I threw my money down to the lunch lady and popped my earbuds into my ears, trying to drown out the peals of laughter.

  I could still hear them.

  I dumped my food in the nearest trash can, my stomach turning over on itself, and made a beeline to the front hallway. Two girls I recognized—Renee, from class, and her friend Everly—were standing shoulder to shoulder, leaning into each other and whispering furiously. They stopped when they saw me, each eyeing me without trying to hide it.

  I gave them a slight nod of my head. “Hey.”

  Renee looked disgusted. “Hey? Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  “Hey…Renee?”

  She grunted. Everly gave a little snort. “You know that Hope’s not here today, right?” Renee said, hands on hips, lips pressed in an accusatory line.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I noticed. She sick or something?”

  Now Renee snorted and Everly grunted. “Like you don’t know. You know she was being stalked, right?” She narrowed her eyes. “Of course you know. You were responsible.”

  “I wasn’t stalking Hope. She was my girlfriend.”

  “Yeah,” Everly said matter-of-factly. “And then she dumped you.”

  I nodded, happy to let them believe whatever Hope had told them. “Yeah, it happens. No big deal.”

  “So, she dumps you. Then, like a day later, she’s getting prank phone calls, pizza sent to her house at all hours, random, disgusting stuff sent to her…adult diapers and crap like that.” Renee was on a roll.

  I tried to hide my head as I grinned and loosely congratulated myself. Wrong move as it apparently incensed Renee.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny? How did all these people get her phone number, Tony? Or her address?”

  I felt my face flush but tried to ignore it, tried to stay calm. “I don’t know. One of those star maps?” I grinned; Renee gaped.

  “Celebrities get hacked all the time, and Hope pretty much fancies herself a celebrity, right? Comes with the territory. She should have been more careful, I guess.”

  Renee looked like she was about to explode, but Everly caught my eye and gave me a small smile before looking away. She thought it was funny too.

  “Besides, this isn’t the first time Hope hasn’t shown up at school. She’s probably home lying on the couch.” I turned, ready to head down the hall.

  “Except that she’s not,” Renee said, her voice stark. “Her mother called me and asked if I’d seen Hope. Obviously she’s not home on the couch if her own mother doesn’t know where she is.”

  I paused at this, a tiny prickle of guilt itching the back of my neck. Was she home at all last night? I took a deep breath. Even if she wasn’t, it didn’t mean anything. I thought of the crushed gutter phone, the one that was now stashed in my glove box. This was Hope, the girl who left nothing to chance. She had a million hiding places and three credit cards. While most kids drank a few beers in the supermarket parking lot to get away, Hope rented a hotel room or went to the Bahamas or holed up in a dressing room at Nordstrom. She wasn’t exactly the down-and-out type.

  “I’m sure Hope is just fine,” I muttered before leaving.

  But unease lit in my gut, and I couldn’t seem to shake it.

  Six

  By the end of the school day, Hope was all anyone was talking about. I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than during my unfortunate run-ins with Renee and Everly, but everyone seemed to know something. There was a phone call, or I was the last to see or talk to her, or that she was “really scared” of “something or someone” who had contacted her.

  The scandal had all the markings of a Hope scheme. Her friends seemed to be the most in the know, but also were spitting out little morsels of information when it suited them. Every time I passed Renee or Ashleigh on my way to class or in the hall, they shredded me with their razor-blade stares or immediately got on their rhinestone-studded phones and started whispering frantically.

  It wouldn’t be the first time Hope had exacted revenge. When she lost out for editor of the school newspaper, she had her parents donate enough money to start the school news channel—with herself as primary anchor. Her first story was an exposé on the journalism teacher, highlighting his DUI arrest.

  When she lost out for homecoming queen, Hope threw a wild, over-the-top party at the same time as the dance so the homecoming queen was crowned with an empty court and exactly six people on the dance floor. Hope could be sweet, smart, and funny—as long as you didn’t cross her—and boy, did she love a good revenge.

  When the Florence High newscast flashed across the flat panels in sixth period, the headline news was Where Is Hope? I had rolled my eyes. She had been gone less than a day. Some of the students in class were rapt, sitting up and watching the newscast. Other kids had barely looked up from their laptop or phone or book, and one kid—Lance Hutchings, a fringe burner no one paid attention to—actually snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “She probably stayed home with a yeast infection or something,” he muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest and sliding low in his desk. “Why is a sick chick news?”

  Renee—we were lucky to be in nearly every class together—shot him one of the looks I thought she only reserved for me and growled.

  “She’s been missing almost twenty-four hours. She didn’t come home last night, you miscreant. She’s not home sick, she’s missing.” Renee positively hissed the word, and I strangled a laugh in my throat. Yep, orchestrated. Straight out of a Hope’s Leave ’Em Wanting More playbook.

  Lance rolled his eyes again. “If it were anyone else in this class, no one would give a crap. It sure wouldn’t make the news.” He raised a dismissive hand, letting everyone knew how he felt about the caliber of Florence High School’s reporting.

  Renee narrowed her eyes. “And where were you last night, Lance?”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe you should ask your friend Hope.”

  The newscast then flashed to a special message, and even I straightened in my seat. The Jensens. Looking distraught and uncomfortable, perched on the very edges of their fancily upholstered morning show chairs. The camera tightened its angle on the couple.

  “As some of you know, our daughter, Hope, a junior at your high school, didn’t come home last night,” Bruce started.

  Becky nodded next to him, wide-eyed and serious. She cleared her throat and licked her lips.

  “Hope has always checked in with us, has always been open and honest with us. At this point, she’s not answering her cell phone and has not been active on social media since eight p.m. last night.”

  “If you have any information that might be pertinent—even if it doesn’t seem like anything important, please, please contact us or the police.” I dazed out as a number flashed on the screen.

  “A car that you didn’t recognize at school, or someone on campus perhaps? Maybe you had a conversation with Hope that seemed”—Becky shrugged her tiny shoulders—“different somehow?”

  I didn’t have to turn around to know that everyone was staring at me.

  “Didn’t Hope and Tony have a”—a kid who sat behind me made air quotes—“different kind of conversation the other day?”

  There was a round of low laughter, cut by Renee’s sneer. “This is serious!”

  “Tony and Hope broke up,” Everly said carefully, and I wasn’t sure if she was on my side or not. “It happens.”

  “Yeah, and two days later Hope goes missing.”

  Anger and guilt sat like flat stones in the pit of my stomach. “What exactly are you trying to say, Renee?”

  Renee crossed her arms in front of her chest and popped her lip out in that mean-girl way that I’m pretty sure Hope had coined. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. Accusation wafted from her.

  The whole class was silent for an agonizing minute that seemed to stretch on. I jumped when Lance clapped a hand on my back. “Looks like you’re about to be famous, dude.”

  By the time we were dismissed from class, the student body had grown into one pulsing mass, talking, whispering, pointing, staring at me. I kept my head down, trying to make a straight line for the student lot and my car, but there were people everywhere.

  “That’s Tony Gardner,” I heard a shrill voice yelling. “He’s Hope’s ex-boyfriend.”

  When I looked up, I saw that it was Renee, talking to a police officer. My temperature ratcheted up, but the officer just looked at me and nodded, jotting something down in his notebook.

  I got in my car just as I saw the Channel 7 news van pull into the school’s horseshoe-shaped parking lot.

 

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