Page 72 of Riot Rules
“Jesus, Freddie, what the hell are you doing? Open the curtains, man. You’re gonna give the girl a heart attack.” Another man dressed in uniform enters the room, followed by another. The confusion of activity; the sudden sunlight pouring into the room; the babble of voices, raised and anxious out in the hallway—all of it has my chest constricting and my lungs seizing. I can’t breathe.
“Excuse me. I said excuse me! I really don’t think this is an appropriate way to track down a student!” Principal Harcourt’s voice is a shrill shriek over the hubbub. She pushes her way into the room. There’s a cell phone glued to her ear, and her hair, normally so neat and tidy scraped back into a bun, is a loose mess. She’s wearing track pants and a t-shirt, which just does not compute. “Just a minute, Harry. Can I call you back? I have to deal with something quickly. Yes, yes, that’s right. No, I won’t be long. Okay. Bye.”
Principal Harcourt positions herself between the end of the bed and three police officers, standing on the other side of the room. “Gentlemen, can you wait outside while Carrie gets dressed. She’ll be right out to talk to you in a second.” They stare at her blankly, like she’s speaking in another language. “Now, please, gentlemen. Quick as you can.”
They shuffle out, grumbling about interfering with a police investigation. Once they’re gone, Principal Harcourt turns on me. “Is there anything I should know, Carina?”
“What—what the hell is goingon?”
Harcourt presses the edge of her cell phone into her forehead, eyes roaming the floor while she thinks. “Mara wasn’t in her room this morning. Some of her belongings are gone. Mercy Jacobi reported her missing. We’ve combed the entire place, looking for her. I forgot you’d changed rooms for a minute. I thought you were missing, too, and then I remembered. You and Mara are still close, right? What happened at that party last night? Mercy says she was upset about something?”
This is alotof information to take in. I shake my head.
It wasn’t Mara who was upset. It was Fitz. I almost tell Harcourt that, but I catch the words before they make it past my lips. I need to be careful here. I’m still reeling from the fact that I woke up to cops standing over my goddamn bed. I’m relieved that they haven’t come for me, but now it looks like Mara’smissing? This is way too much to take in all at once. I need a beat to think. Say the wrong thing right now andsomeone’sgonna be in the shit.
I shake my head. Close my eyes. “No. I don’t…think so. I’m sorry. Can I just get up and get my shit together? I’ll text her and find out where she is. I’m sure she won’t have gone far.”
A missing student is a big deal. We’re all minors, and Principal Harcourt and the staff are our guardians while we’re here. They’re not supposed to let us out of their sights. Once we hit sixteen, we do have privileges, though, and we are allowed to leave so long as we register our plans in the book down at the office. Mara’s mother is an extremely prominent legislator in New York. If her daughter’s slipped the net, even to go visit friends or something, then Harcourt’s about to be in for a world of hurt.
“Yes, yes, of course.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, biting her bottom lip. “Seriously, though. If there’s any insight you can give me into what’s going on here, it would be a very big help, Carina. I’m going to have to call Alderman, and—”
I sit up. “Why do you have to dothat?”
“Because you’re one of Mara’s best friends. The police are going to want to question you thoroughly if we can’t find her. Alderman is registered as your father on your paperwork, which I’m legally bound to give to the police. So it really would be in all of our interests if you could tell me anything you might know…?” She trails off, waiting for me to tell her what she wants to hear: that Mara was pissed after a fight and decided to drive to New York to hang out with her sister? That she skipped town and headed to the Hamptons, and she forgot to fill out the absence book? I don’t know what she wants me to tell her, but I can’t tell her anything yet. I need to talk to Dash first and find out what the hell I’m supposed to say.
Mara probably skipped out on Mountain Lakes. She’s temperamental and fiery, and if she fought with Fitz or Wren last night as well as going at it with Mercy, she may well have decided that she needed to make a grand exit. Anything could have happened after I left with Dash and headed up to his room.
“Presley,” I say. “Have you talked to Presley? She might know where she’s gone.”
Harcourt purses her lips, shaking her head. “Presley has astomach bug.” She doesn’t believe that for one second; she knows Pres is hungover as fuck. “She can’t remember much of last night, apparently, and what she can remember doesn’t make any sense. She said Doctor Fitzpatrick was partying at the house down the hill, which is obviously pure fantasy. There’s no way Wesley would do anything as stupid as attend a student party anddrinkwith them.” She watches my reaction closely. I presume she’s hoping to catch something on my face that might tell her if this is true or not, but I’m practiced in the art of controlling my features when needed; I give nothing away.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything right now. But if you let me get up and take a look at my phone, I—”
She holds out her hand. “Give it to me, please.”
“What?”
“Your phone. The police have been taking everyone’s cell phones, just in case Mara calls one of them. They’re definitely going to want yours, and Alderman wouldn’t want your device falling into their hands. It contains sensitive information.”
“What kind of sensitive information?” Does she think I’ve been discussing state secrets on there or something?
“Alderman’s phone number. Alderman’s email. Information that might guide interested parties right to him. You don’t…look, just trust me. You don’t want to be handing that kind of thing over the to police. Even regular cops, Carina. If your phone winds up with the FBI or the CIA—”
“TheCIA?”I was dreaming five minutes ago. I was in a bagel shop, trying to buy a bagel, but they kept sprinkling baking powder onto the cream cheese. That was weird, but this is so much weirder. I can’t wrap my head around any of this.
Harcourt waggles her fingers at me. “Your phone, Carina. There are men in uniform standing outside the door. Come on. I mean it. If you care one iota about Alderman, you’ll do as I say.”
This is about the only thing she could have said that would make me comply. Of course I care about Alderman. He’s protected me and made sure I didn’t get into trouble for years now. If he gets into trouble because I was being stubborn then I’ll never forgive myself.
I hand her the phone.
She looks down at the screen and rolls her eyes. “Christ, Carina. You have eight missed calls from Dashiell Lovett. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“He’s just a friend.” Even I can hear how pathetic and untrue that sounds.
“Boys like him don’t have friends, Carrie. They have conquests and victims. You start out as one and end up as the other. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll—”
A loud knock at the door prevents her from finishing the warning. The older cop who told the young guy to stop shining his flashlight in my eyes enters.
