Vanished Page 6

  There. See? I just stopped because I was getting a call and I didn’t want to be one of those annoying people who have loud cell phone conversations in the middle of a tiny, exclusive shop. I just wanted to avoid irritating your upscale clientele. You should give me something for free just for being so damn considerate.

  I turned my back to the window and breathed. Let her think I was gabbing away. I should have been sequestered in the library, working on the extra-credit project Mr. Barber had assigned me to make up for my D—yes, D—on yesterday’s test. I should have been stressed about my grades right now, not about fulfilling the sadistic requirements of the psycho who had kidnapped my best friend. But there was nothing I could do about it. This was my life. This was what I had to do. Noelle’s future depended on it.

  “Okay. Right. Bye!” I said loudly into the phone. Then I pantomimed turning it off and shoved it back in my bag.

  I am Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I told myself as I walked inside. I am Sarah the superspy chick from Chuck. I am cool and gorgeous and wealthy and can get away with anything.

  “Hey, Reed!”

  My hand shot up to cover my heart. Ivy stood near the back of the shop, holding a red silk nightgown. Her dark hair was down around the shoulders of her white coat, and a rust-colored Birkin bag dangled from her forearm. She looked like she belonged in here.

  But then … why was she here? She hadn’t mentioned anything about going shopping this afternoon. Wouldn’t a normal good friend have invited her good friend along?

  Not that I’d invited her, but I had a reason. I was here to steal something.

  The question was, did she already know that was why I was here? All the little hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as we faced off. Ivy couldn’t have something to do with this. Could she?

  All of these thoughts passed through my mind in the space of about ten seconds. Ten heady seconds that left me feeling off kilter and completely played.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked, placing the hanger back on the rack. “Shopping for a hot date with my ex?”

  I gulped against my dry throat. I wished she would stop bringing up Josh so often. As if I wasn’t tense enough already. But then, if her mission was to torture me …

  My eyes darted to the woman behind the counter. She looked down her aquiline nose at me and sniffed, although her forehead was so overly botoxed her expression didn’t change one bit. Then she got back to hand-pricing a stack of cashmere sweaters piled up on the counter, her short, dark hair falling forward over her sharp cheekbones.

  Ivy’s brow knit as she approached me. “I’m just kidding. You know I’m happy for you guys.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “God, you’ve been so serious lately. Is everything okay?”

  Her eyes were warm and concerned and just like that, my suspicions died away, replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Not every one of my friends was a psycho. Statistically speaking, I’d probably never have another psycho friend as long as I lived. Ariana and Sabine had already cornered the market.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine,” I replied, moving past her and pretending to browse. I fingered a silky, green-and-white scarf and checked the price tag. Fifty bucks. Probably not “fabulously extravagant” enough to impress the kidnappers. “I’m just looking for a birthday present for my mom,” I lied, moving on to a rack of winter hats. It was the same story I’d given Double H’s secretary to get my pass off campus. Her birthday was actually coming up, so if the woman cared to check my story it would have added up.

  “Oh, cool,” Ivy said. She walked back over to the lingerie rack, picked up the nightgown again, and smiled at me. “On second thought,” she said. “This is totally mine.”

  She sidled around a cascading rack of cocktail dresses and headed for the counter. Even in all my conspicuousness and on-the-verge-of-peeing-in-my-pants tension, I couldn’t help wondering who she planned on wearing that nightgown for. Tattoo Guy? I watched from the corner of my eye as the shop owner slid the sweaters aside so she could ring up Ivy’s purchase and decided now was not the time to ponder Ivy’s love life. For the moment, the woman was distracted. This was my chance.

  I turned around and found myself in the back alcove where the shoes were displayed. That was never going to work. I couldn’t exactly hide a pair of Uggs in my pockets. I heard the crinkle of tissue paper as the proprietor folded and wrapped Ivy’s nightgown. There was still time. I strode to the other side of the store where sunglasses and flip-flops and bathing suits dangled from silver hooks—everything the rich denizens of Easton might need for their winter getaways. I couldn’t exactly sport a bikini to class tomorrow, but sunglasses … those were a possibility.

  I reached for a pair of Gucci’s with the logo imprinted all along the sides. The tag read $350. I held my breath. Just slip them from the rack and into your pocket. One swift motion. My heart throbbed in my ears and my eyes stung. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. Could not believe it.

  But Kiran would have gotten away with ten pairs by now.

  Do it, Reed! I heard her say in my ear. Do it! Do it now!

  I was just slipping the glasses from the metal rack when Ivy came up behind me.

  “Wow! Nice gift!” she said loudly.

  I dropped my hand so fast it slammed into the rack and half a dozen pair of two-hundred-dollar-and-up sunglasses clattered to the floor. The woman behind the counter tsked under her breath, dropped her pen, and walked around to clean up the mess.

  “I’m really sorry,” I stammered, backing up. My skin was so hot I was sure I was about to melt into a puddle on the floor. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine, dear,” she said, her words placating, but her tone unkind. “Happens all the time.”

  I whipped around to face Ivy, sweat pricking the back of my neck. “You know what? I could really go for some coffee. Want to hit Starbucks?”

  “Sure,” she said, lifting a shoulder. “Oh, but I actually have to get some cash.”

  “Perfect!” I blurted.

  “What?” she asked, completely baffled.

  “You go hit the ATM and I’ll meet you there!” I said, my eyes wide. I sounded manic even to my own ears. “I’m just gonna look at a few more things.”

  “Ooookay,” Ivy said, eyeing me skeptically. “But are you sure you want coffee? You’re kinda hyper already.”

  The shop owner, still crouched on the floor, tried to hide a laugh.

  “I’m sure. I’ll be there in five,” I said.

  As Ivy left the shop, the little bell above the door tinkling behind her, I turned around and desperately surveyed the area. Chunky sweaters, distressed jeans, and faux-fur-collared coats stared back at me. Tears stung my eyes. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t do this. This was not me. I realized with a sudden sinking dread that I had failed. That the kidnapper had hit on the one thing I was not capable of doing.

  But Noelle needed me. It was this one little infraction—this one middle-school dare—or her life. What the hell was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just do it?

  The store owner stood up and smoothed her black skirt. “Can I help you find anything?” she asked, sounding like she’d rather wrestle a pack of hyenas. Her eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down.

  She knew. She knew why I was there. What I was trying to do. Of course she did. I was acting so guilty I may as well have had the word scrawled across my forehead in bright red letters.

  “I’m good, thanks,” I managed to say.

  As she went back to the counter, I wandered over to the shoes again, just trying to regain my composure. There was a rack of half-off socks back there, and I grabbed the first pair I saw—thick, black, and gray striped ones, probably meant for cozy nights by the fire at the ski house in Vail. They were only ten bucks. I figured I’d at least buy something to throw the woman off my scent. Prove her suspicions wrong, even though they so weren’t.

  “Hey, Mom!”

  A pretty girl with jet-black curls s
tepped out of the storeroom at the back of the shoe section and strode right by me, up to the counter. She was about my age, but petite, with a lip piercing and a ton of eye shadow.

  “Louise! There you are,” the woman said, exasperated. “Your break was over fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Sorry. I was on the phone with Christine, and you know how she gets,” Louise said, rolling her eyes. “Go ahead and grab dinner. I got this.”

  Louise’s mom patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

  Then she turned and walked toward the back room. As she passed me by, she gave me a long, admonishing look, but kept walking. Behind the counter, Louise popped a pair of ear buds in her ears, yanked a graphic novel out from under the counter, and leaned back against the wall to read.

  Well. Things had just turned right around, hadn’t they?

  Slowly, I walked up to the side of the counter, where a bevy of glittering necklaces were displayed on small, hanging racks. Louise looked up as I approached and gave me a quick smile, then returned to her reading. I lifted the tiny white price tag on the first necklace. It looked like something the new Lorna might wear. A string of delicate, white beads with every tenth bead replaced by a rhinestone-encrusted flower. The price was $250.

  I glanced at Louise again. She was engrossed. Carefully, casually, I slid the necklace off the display, folded it around my hand, and then stuffed my hand into one of the thick, woolen socks. My palms were sweating profusely, and for a second the necklace stuck to my skin, but I wiggled my fingers and it fell free, nestled perfectly inside the pocket of wool.

  “I’ll take these,” I said, dropping the socks on the counter.

  Louise pulled one ear bud from her ear and glanced at the price tag. She keyed the numbers into the register and snapped her gum.

  “That’ll be ten sixty,” she said.

  I dove into my bag and fumbled out my wallet. She waited patiently while I extracted a ten and a single and shakily handed over the bills.

  “You need a bag?” she asked, jamming down on a button. The cash register slid open with a clang.

  “No!” I practically shouted. I plucked the socks off the counter and into my handbag, shoving them as far down as they would go. Louise looked at me like I’d just escaped from a mental asylum.

  “Okay. You don’t have to take one,” she said a bit sarcastically.

  I laughed. “Sorry. Too many Red Bulls today.”

  She grinned and rolled her eyes. “I hear ya,” she said, sliding my forty cents across the counter. “Have a good one!”

  Then she popped her ear bud back into her ear and picked up her book. That was it. Easy peasy. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. I grabbed my change, turned around, and made for the front of the store like I was running for the carousel at the state fair when I was a little kid. Pure and utter joy coursed through my veins. Not to mention this kind of euphoric, all-powerful feeling. I’d gotten away with it. I’d actually gotten away with it.

  “Hey! Wait!” Louise shouted.

  I froze with my hand on the door. My heart choked off all air supply. Across the street I could see Ivy sitting in the front window at Starbucks, sipping a coffee, waiting for me. Little did she know that if she was ever going to see me again, she was going to have to bail me out at the Easton police station.

  I turned around to face my accuser.

  “Here!” Louise said. “You forgot your receipt!”

  She held out a tiny white scrap of paper.

  “My mom freaks if I forget to give them out. There’s a special discount coupon at the bottom and she thinks it’s the holy grail of repeat business,” Louise said, shaking the receipt like she was offering a bone to a dog.

  My brain was taking way too long to catch up. Somehow I managed to reach out and take the receipt, but my expression was completely confused.

  “Mothers, huh?” I heard myself say.

  “Can’t live with them, but they do pay for the pizza,” Louise joked back. “See ya.”

  She sashayed back behind the counter and I turned around and shoved open the door. A gush of cold air hit me in the face, waking me from my stupor, and just like that, I was free. I crumpled the receipt and tossed it into a garbage can as I crossed the street to meet my friend.

  Discount coupon or no discount coupon, there was no way I was ever stepping foot in that store again.

  I had committed a crime. I was a felon. A thief. Every time I looked down at the long, beaded necklace, dangling low on my chest, my stomach twisted. I couldn’t believe I’d actually felt proud of myself for even a moment. What had I accomplished, really? I’d managed to hide something from a girl who probably wouldn’t have noticed if a nuclear bomb had gone off under the countertop. And I’d probably gotten her in trouble. Once her mom realized a $250 necklace had gone missing on her watch, Louise was dead. That woman had no-nonsense written all over her. Would she fire Louise? Take away her iPod? Stop buying her the pizza she so clearly lived for?

  I was an awful human being.

  “Hey. Great necklace!” Diana Waters said to me as we slid our trays down the food line at dinner that night. Diana was one of my few friends outside the Billings circle. With her athletic, tomboy style, jewelry wasn’t something I ever would have thought she’d notice. But of course she noticed my one stolen item. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I … it … was a gift,” I lied. My heart pounded in my ears. Was that cafeteria lady with the ladle staring at me? Did she know something?

  Looking away, I grabbed a big bowl of mashed potatoes and added it to my tray, which was already loaded down with marinara-sauce-covered spaghetti and garlic bread. Comfort food at its finest.

  “WTF, Reed? Are you carbo-loading for some marathon I don’t know about?” Portia asked, glancing over her shoulder at me. Her tray held only a small salad, a bottle of water, and a plain piece of grilled chicken. All the better to fit into that size 00 houndstooth Chanel skirt she was sporting.

  “Sorry if it’s not my goal to disappear when I turn sideways,” I replied.

  Portia smirked. Clearly, she was proud of the fact that she had wrists so skinny she could practically wrap her fingers around them twice.

  “See you in class, D,” I said to Diana.

  She gave me a wave, still eyeing the necklace admiringly. Part of me wanted to just tear it off and give it to her, but my instructions were clear. I had to be seen wearing my stolen item on campus. So I grabbed a Sprite and fell into step with Portia, lifting my chin high to ensure the necklace was on full display as we walked into the dining hall. Already the tables were jam-packed with students, noshing, talking, laughing, and even—in the case of one of the guys’ tables—pinging grapes off one another’s heads. Portia turned toward the tables at the center of the room where the rest of the Billings Literary Society members sat, but I paused when I saw Josh waving me down from the far side of the room.

  “I’ll catch up,” I told her.

  She rolled her eyes slightly. “Ah, young love.”

  I rolled my eyes back. Maybe that was Portia’s problem. Maybe that was why she didn’t want to go to the Sweethearts Dance. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since I’d known her. In lighter times, I would have immediately focused on finding her one to curb her acerbic tendencies and make Valentine’s Day fun for her, but I kind of had a lot on my plate right then.

  “Hey,” I said, hovering at the end of Josh’s lonely table.

  He used his toe to nudge the chair across from him out from under the table. “Saved you a seat,” he said with a grin.

  There was nothing I would have liked better than to sink into that chair and hang out with him for the next hour, but I’d been kind of neglecting the BLS girls lately. Besides, if anyone was going to actually notice the illegal bling around my neck, it was my girlfriends. And the more people who noticed it, the better. Somehow it had to get back to this mysterious kidnapper that I was sporting my stolen goods.

  “Actually, I promised
the girls I’d sit with them tonight,” I said, biting my lip. “But maybe I’ll come over and join you for dessert?”

  Josh’s face fell. He glanced past me at the Billings table and I saw his jaw clench and unclench. There wasn’t much in this world Josh hated more than he hated the Billings Girls. He thought they were shallow, obnoxious, and self-serving, and even though I knew them better than he did, I’d never been able to convince him otherwise. As a result, my friends had always been a bit of a thorn in the side of our relationship.

  “Fine. Yeah. Whatever,” he said.

  “Don’t be mad,” I implored. “I promise I’ll come over later.”

  Josh forced a smile. “I’m cool. I’ve got some reading to catch up on anyway.”

  “Thanks.”

  I walked over to my usual table and sat down in the last chair, next to Portia, trying not to dwell on the fact that Josh was clearly pissed. Tiffany was sitting across from Portia, her short, dark curls pushed back from her forehead by a dark red headband. She was scrolling through pictures on her digital camera with Rose hanging over her shoulder to better see the frames.

  “Hey, ladies,” I said, trying for a light tone. “What’re you looking at?”

  “Shots from St. Barths,” Tiffany replied.

  Rose laughed at something on the screen, her red curls shaking. “Check out this one of you and Noelle.”

  She turned the camera around so I could see. There, on the screen, were me and Noelle, clad in bathing suits, our arms looped around each other as we model-posed for the camera. Noelle’s lips were pursed and my tongue touched my top lip, in what I thought at the time was a sexy pose. Now it just looked ridiculous. As my friends laughed and teased me, a bubble choked my throat.

  I reached down and fiddled with my necklace.

  Noelle. Where are you?

  “Hey,” Ivy said, dropping down across from me. She put her tray down and her eyes instantly went to my necklace. Not surprising, considering I was now twisting it tightly around my pinky. “Wow. Reed, that’s beautiful,” she said, reaching out to finger the beads. I let it uncurl and it lengthened out again. “Did you get that at Sweet Nothings this afternoon?”