ROSALIE
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
Amanda’s been gone all of three minutes when Ben walks out the Shaws’ front door. He pauses to check his phone on the stone patio, and my heart starts to pound. I rush to the window and look down the street, but Amanda’s BMW is definitely gone.
Ben switches off his phone and pats his coat pockets, checking for something. Before he puts it away, I try to get a good look. What does a burner even look like? I picture one of those boxy Nokias with a tiny screen and no camera, but I can’t make it out in the darkness.
A minute later, he shoves his way through the bushes lining the patio, avoiding the clusterfuck of cars in the driveway and cutting straight across the lawn toward the sidewalk. Toward his car. Amanda must have told someone where she was going, or Ben overheard someone ask her to go. He speed-walks across the grass, head down, and he doesn’t look like a killer. He looks like a gangly kid underdressed for a fancy party. In another life, he looks like someone who could be my friend.
I press speed dial five and wait for Nathaniel’s voice on the other end. After six rings, his voice mail picks up. No. No no no. I hang up and redial. My feet carry me from the couch to the fireplace, from the fireplace back to the couch. Six more rings, voice mail again.
I throw the Kelly’s phone into the couch as hard as I can, and it sinks into the plush cushion with an unsatisfying sigh. I look back outside just in time to see Ben’s car disappear at the end of the street. I let Amanda go to CVS alone. And someone is setting her up. Someone who is probably not my girlfriend. Someone who is now following her in a gray Ford.
I sink down on the couch and press my fingertips into my temples. The Logansville police are filing false reporting charges because of Amanda’s truly asinine mother, so they’re not going to be any help. And the PI who’s supposed to swoop in and save the day? Officially following the wrong trail, because of me. I grab the phone and dial Nathaniel again. This time, it doesn’t even ring before going straight to voice mail.
“Where are you?” I shout into the receiver. “This is Rosalie. Forget about Paulina and Ramon, okay? You need to get to the CVS two blocks down from Logansville South. Amanda’s in danger, that Ben guy followed her, and I’m stuck here with no phone and no car and where the hell are you? Don’t call back, just go.”
I drop the phone and stand in the middle of the Kelly’s warm, dim living room with the gas fire crackling. I can’t just stay here and do nothing. Leaving the Kellys’ means severing my one line of contact to the PI, but fine. He’s off the radar, and I’ve already made my decision. I grab my coat and messenger bag and run out back for my bike.
I shove off and head down the street, headlamp illuminating the pavement ahead. The high school is the opposite direction from the bus station, I know that much. If I can just get myself off this tree-lined avenue and onto a main road, I’ll figure it out. I take the same left that Amanda and Ben took at the end of the street and keep going. More big Victorian houses and lawns that are unnaturally green for the middle of winter. At least most of the snow has melted from last week’s storm, and the roads are clear. Up on my right, there’s a woman walking her white fluff ball of a dog. I slow down.
“Excuse me, which way to the high school?”
“North or South?” she asks.
“South.”
“Take a right at the end of the street, then a left onto Pike. Take your second left onto Foster, and you’ll see it from there.”
I thank her profusely and take off as fast as I can pedal. Right, then left, then second left. When I get to CVS, I’ll figure something out. Go inside and call 911. False reporting charges or not, they’ll have to respond to a real emergency. Right?