OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Seventy-One
ADDIE
I HATE the way my mother keeps looking at me.
She’s been looking at me that way ever since I got picked up outside Mr. Tuttle’s house. Actually, to be fair, she’s been looking at me like that ever since my father was found in a crumpled pile at the bottom of our stairs. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t more sad that he was dead. And then a few days after the funeral, she said to me, I thought you were planning to study at home that night. Isn’t that what you told me?
It’s like she knew. She knew I was the one who pushed him.
And now she knows I have something to do with Eve Bennett’s disappearance.
Avoiding her eyes, I grab my coat and head outside. It’s supposed to rain tonight, and now it’s just a bit of drizzle. I put up my hood to keep the moisture out of my hair, but the tiny freezing raindrops still smack me in the face. It’s uncomfortable, but it also feels good, if that makes any sense.
There are a couple of online news stories about Mrs. Bennett’s disappearance, although I’ve only taken a few peeks. It’s hard to read what happened. I got a few text messages from some kids who never had any interest in being my friends before, trying to pump me for information. And one more text message from Hudson:
Are you okay?
I don’t respond to any of them.
I wonder if Hudson talked to the police about what he knows. He promised he wouldn’t say a word to anyone, but that was before he knew he could be an accomplice to a serious crime. I wouldn’t blame him, honestly.
As I’m walking a couple of blocks from my house, I notice a black car slowing down beside me. I walk a little faster, ducking down my head, and the car matches my pace. Oh God, what now?
The car pulls up along the sidewalk just ahead of me. The engine cuts out, and for a moment, I wonder if I should make a run for it. And then Detective Sprague climbs out of the car. I’m still thinking maybe I should make a run for it.
“Addie!” she calls out.
I stop, because I think you have to when a police officer tells you to do that. I stand there in the drizzling rain, my hands shoved into my pockets, but I don’t say anything.
Sprague darts around the side of her car so that she’s standing face-to-face with me. I’m not exactly tall, but she has to tilt her head to look up at me. “Addie,” she says. “I’d like to talk to you.”
“My mom says I’m not supposed to talk to you if she’s not there.”
“Right.” The detective nods. “That’s good advice. But I just want to talk to you off the record. This is important, because I’m trying to find Eve Bennett. I’m worried something bad has happened to her.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I keep my mouth shut.
Detective Sprague doesn’t have a hood, so the drizzle is getting in her black hair. She doesn’t seem to notice or care. Her dark brown eyes are laser focused on my face. “I found out that Nathaniel Bennett was your English teacher.”
That seems like a harmless question, so I nod.
“And you were in the poetry magazine he runs too, right?”
Again, I nod.
“So this is off the record, Addie, like I said.” She blinks up at me, her eyelashes heavy with water droplets. “Was anything going on between you and Nathaniel Bennett?”
Deny everything. Even if Nathaniel has betrayed me, which I still don’t believe he would do, I recognize this information is better kept secret for both our sakes. “No.”
“I’m sure if there was,” she continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “he told you to keep it a secret at all costs. I understand why he would tell you that, but you have to understand that it’s not in your best interest. It’s in your best interest to be honest with me, and I know it might be uncomfortable to tell me something like that in front of your mother, which is why I wanted to talk to you alone.”
“Nothing is going on between me and Mr. Bennett,” I say quietly.
“But if it were,” she says, “you need to realize that it wouldn’t be your fault. He is the adult—your teacher—and starting up any kind of sexual relationship would be extremely unprofessional on his part. You would not be at fault, I promise.”
She doesn’t understand. She could never comprehend the connection Nathaniel and I have. We are soulmates. He wasn’t taking advantage of me—I wanted it as bad as he did or maybe even more. He told me no other adult would get it, and he was right.