Then it comes to me.
I could head to New York City and straight up ask Harold Montgomery’s assistant if she’s seen my sister around the office. Maybe secretly record her answer.
Then, once I have actual proof, I’ll head to the police.
36
I spend Sunday something of a wreck. Seth’s not around; he went to the city because his dad wants him to meet someone on Monday for an internship next summer that he doesn’t want. So at least I don’t have to spend the day with him, pretending like I’m not planning on calling up his dad’s assistant tomorrow and potentially sneaking into his dad’s office.
Monday morning, I make the call. When the robotic voice asks me to whom I’d like to be transferred, I say, “Harold Montgomery, please.”
After three rings, someone picks up.
“Harold Montgomery’s office, this is Patrice speaking.”
I rip the phone away from my ear and press end.
Now I just need proof my sister was there.
Which means I need to find a way to get to the city. I can’t exactly borrow Dad’s car without him asking me why. There’s a bus, but the bus stop is a half hour away. Then it’s two hours to Port Authority, and from there I’d have to navigate the subway or take a cab down to Wall Street. All in all, about three hours door to door, assuming I don’t get lost in the city, which I almost certainly will. Whereas a car ride would take half the time.
An idea comes to me, and before I can talk myself out of it, I’m punching Gen’s number into my phone—I deleted it last year, but I know it by heart—and pressing it to my ear.
“Hello?” She sounds wary. So either she didn’t delete my number, or she has it memorized, too.
“Hey. It’s me.”
“I know.”
“Listen, I’ve been thinking about what you said,” I blurt out. “And I think—I need to go to Manhattan and look around Seth’s dad’s office.”
“You think Seth’s dad had something to do with this?” Gen’s voice is skeptical.
“I don’t know, just…Seth hangs out there, and I thought I might find something,” I fib. I’m not about to tell her about the phone. I still don’t know if I can trust her. I take a deep breath. “Can you give me a ride to the city?” Gen and her mom share a little old red car. “I know we’re not exactly close right now, but…” I trail off.
“But you have no one else,” she finishes.
No use denying it. “Yeah.”
“Our car’s in the shop,” she says, and my heart sinks. “Something about the engine, I don’t know.”
“For how long?”
“Until Friday at least, they said.”
I swear. “Okay, well—”
“We could ask Jeremy, though.”
That idea hadn’t occurred to me. His mom gave him a car last fall, I’d heard. “You think he’d do it?”
She sighs. “Probably. I’ll check with him and let you know what he says.”
With that, she hangs up.
Sadie scratches at my door then, so I go take her for a walk. I’m just coming back in when my phone buzzes.
It’s Jeremy.
Pick you up tomorrow at 10.
37
At ten A.M. sharp the next morning, Jeremy pulls up in a silver two-door Honda Civic.
The boy in the driver’s seat looks like the Jeremy I knew: football T-shirt, dark sunglasses, backward hat over his brown hair, which is damp because he’d have just showered after his morning run and workout.
But I can’t get the image of the other Jeremy—the angry one in the woods, who insulted me, who was about to hit Seth again—out of my head.
Maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought you did.
I push that thought aside. Either Seth is just pissed that Jeremy assaulted him—justifiably so. Or he’s trying to throw Jeremy under the bus—to take suspicion off himself and his family.
Plus, Gen said she and Jeremy were together the night Thatcher died. So that murder, at least, cannot have been committed by Jeremy.
Gen gets out the passenger side of the car and looks me up and down. “Nice outfit.”
I tug at my collar. I’ve dressed for the occasion, in a white blouse and the nicest pants I own. And I’ve curled my hair. I hate wearing clothes like this, doing my hair; I feel like a kid playing dress-up.