AMANDA
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23
“Picking up for Carter Shaw.”
The pharmacist turns to rifle through the bins of white bags, and I reach for my phone, but of course it’s not there.
“What time did you request them, miss?” He’s empty-handed.
“I don’t know. His dad asked me to pick them up. Winston Shaw? He got a text about twenty minutes ago.”
“One minute.”
I wait while he types something into a computer in the back, shifting my weight from the balls of my feet to my heels and back again. I need to get back to the party.
When he returns, he looks apologetic. “Miss . . . ?”
“Kelly.”
“Right, Miss Kelly. Mr. Shaw’s physician called in three prescriptions this afternoon, but they haven’t been filled yet. They were scheduled for tomorrow morning. Our system doesn’t have any record of a message to the Shaws, but we can fill them now while you wait.”
I frown. “How long will it be?”
“No more than ten minutes. We’re about to close, but we’re happy to fill them since you’re here.”
“Fine. I’ll wait in my car.”
When I step outside into the tiny front lot, David’s truck is in the spot next to mine. He rolls down the window and grins.
“Fancy meeting you here, Amanda Kelly. Shouldn’t you be celebrating Carter’s homecoming?”
“David Gallagher, as I live and breathe.” I glance around the lot, but it’s just the two of us.
“Hop in.” He leans over to unlatch the passenger’s side door.
“Can’t. I have to wait for Carter’s prescriptions. Then back to the party; you know how it is.”
“Suit yourself. I was about to drive around back and light up. You’re waiting anyway, right?”
The last time I smoked up with David, I wound up locked in at the track. He probably has no idea what his little brother’s been up to, but if Ben came to visit him at the site that day, if David could confirm he was there, that’s another nail in Ben’s coffin.
“Five minutes, then I have to go back in.” He pushes the door all the way open, and I climb inside.
David’s truck is the extra large kind with four doors and a backseat, and he keeps it meticulously clean. I remember when he got it two years ago. Despite its age, it still has that new car smell. I lean my head back against the headrest as David backs out of the lot and drives around to the delivery area.
“So, what brings you to CVS?” I ask.
David puts the truck in park right next to the dumpster where I tried to shake down counter boy for teddy bear information. Tonight, the delivery lot is empty except for us.
“Huh?” David asks.
“CVS. The store we’re currently patronizing. Never mind, it’s not important.” I wait for him to turn off the truck and pull out a joint. Instead, he just stares at me.
“I’m sorry, Amanda.”
Before I have a chance to ask what he means, two sets of hands are on me. David lunges forward and grabs my wrists, and something dark and scratchy covers my eyes.
“Fuck!” I scream. “What the hell?”
The cloth jerks tight, and I can feel someone knot it around the back of my head.
“You have the ties?” David asks. His fingers are firm around my wrists, crushing them. I try to wrench away, but I can’t see anything, and his grip doesn’t loosen.
“Yeah, one sec,” says the voice from the backseat. “Here, hold them up.”
“Ben?” I ask. “Jesus Christ.”
Ben just grunts, but I know it’s him. “I know your voice, you asshole.”
David jerks my wrists up, and something plastic slides around them. It bites into my skin as he pulls it tight.
“Ouch.”
“Sorry,” he says again, and then I’m being dragged into the backseat and shoved onto the floor. My hands lie useless in my lap. Ben’s hands are stiff on my shoulders, ready in case I try to struggle.
“Help! Hel—” I start to yell, but my voice is immediately drowned out by some metal band blasting through the truck stereo. David cranks it up. Then the truck jerks into reverse, and we’re backing onto the street.
“Get your hands off me,” I growl at Ben over the music.
“Sorry,” he mutters, but doesn’t budge.
“Is that all you two know how to say? If you’re so sorry, let me out of this truck.” My heart is pounding. Ben doesn’t move.
“You can take off the blindfold,” I shout, trying another tactic. “I obviously know who you are.”
Ben doesn’t say anything. He must have been crouched on the floor when I got in. When I walked right into this. We’re stopped at the end of the street. David turns the truck left, away from CVS and South. Of course, the blindfold’s so I don’t know where we’re going. Everything’s a little sideways from the floor of the truck, but Logansville is small. Unless we’re headed out of town, all I have to do is pay attention.
We stop, and I know we’re at the light three blocks down from CVS, at the base of the hill. Then the light must change, because the truck lurches forward. My mind reels. That Saturday at the high school was a setup for tonight, so I’d get in his truck. I imagine Ben and David planning this out. David must have faked a text from CVS while Ben was at the party. I picture Ben, how he kept checking his phone—for updates from David. He knew the Shaws’ cars were parked in. He knew mine would be across the street, that Winston would ask me to go.
The truth explodes across the back of my eyelids. I was onto Ben, but not David. It’s been both Gallaghers all along.
We turn left again, and my mental map goes blurry. Are we turning onto Oakwood or Clover? We can’t be all the way to Bancroft. Right? David makes a right and then two more rights, and by now I’m totally lost. We drive around for minutes or hours. I lose track of time. It can’t really be hours, but by the time the truck slows to a stop and David puts it in park, I have no idea where we are or how long we’ve been driving around. I am totally screwed.
A loud screech. Then something that sounds like scissors or a knife being dragged across cloth.
“What the—” I start to ask, but before I can get the words out, Ben presses something sticky across my lips. Duct tape.
David switches off the ignition, and the car fills with silence. My ears are ringing.
“Sorry, darling,” he says, “but we’re getting out now. Can’t have you yelling up a storm.”
“Where the hell are we?” I try to ask, but it comes out as, “Mmrmph . . .”
The back door swings open, and I’m hit with a blast of icy air.
“Time to get out.” The guys reach in and pull me to my feet. I want to say I can do it on my own, but I can’t say anything. My heart starts hammering again. We didn’t get on a highway, I know that. We’re definitely still in Logansville. Someone will notice I’m missing, right? Rosalie will have called PI Krausse by now. He’ll come to CVS and find my abandoned car. Maybe someone saw me get inside David’s truck. They’ll put out a search on the vehicle. They’ll find me.
Unless no one saw me get in the truck. Unless they have no idea where to look.
I’m sweating through my dress and my legs are shaking as the guys steer me toward wherever we’re going. I curse my heels, which aren’t making this any easier. We’re walking over pavement or cement, something hard. We could be on a sidewalk, but something tells me we’re nowhere public. A parking lot?
“Watch your step.” David grabs me beneath my arms and guides me over something—a log? But we’re not in the woods. “Hold her.”
David transfers me to Ben and I give a little twist, testing him. His fingers dig into my shoulders. Then, the sound of a key turning in a heavy lock. A door swings open, and we’re moving again. The ground beneath us is uneven now, rocks and dirt? We’re inside, I think, but there’s no heat, and there’s definitely no furniture because everything echoes. It smells a little like cement mix and something earthy.
Suddenly, I know exactly where we are. All that driving around, and we only went two blocks. We’re in the construction site at the high school. Of course, David has the keys.
Fingers touch my face, and I jerk, but then the tape rips off in a quick, burning flash. Before they can slap it back on, I scream at the top of my lungs. No one stops me.
“Scream all you want, there’s no one here.” Ben’s voice.
“Bullshit. I know exactly where we are. Construction site. Gymnasium, to be exact.”
“Good work.” David’s voice. “But no one’s coming, roof’s finished. If it’s soundproof enough for hundreds of screaming teenagers, it’s soundproof enough for you.”
I scream again, just in case, and my voice crashes back at me in a hail of echoes.
Something drags across the floor, and then hands are pushing on my shoulders, pushing me down to sit. A chair, probably the metal folding variety.
“You done now?” David asks.
I don’t respond.
“Look,” he continues. “I’m real sorry about this, Amanda. But we’re not going to hurt you, swear to god.”
“Then why are we here?” I ask. “When everyone finds out about this, you’re both going to rot in jail.”
“Whoa, slow down.” David’s voice again. “No one’s going to jail, because nothing bad is going to happen.”
“You assholes are terrible criminals.” I can’t stop my voice from shaking, and I pray they don’t notice. I’m at Logansville South, inside the new and apparently soundproof gym. I’m blindfolded, my wrists are tied up, and no one knows I’m here.
Then two hands remove the blindfold, and I blink hard and fast. It only takes a minute for my eyes to adjust because it’s really freaking dark in here. Only the floor is unfinished; the walls and ceiling are complete. A bank of thick, glass windows line the top of a wall where bleachers will eventually go, but it’s pitch dark outside.
“Better?” David asks.
I glare at him.
“You asked why we’re here,” Ben says. “It’s simple. We’re here to make a phone call.”
“Then joke’s on you,” I say, “ ’cause I don’t have my phone.”
Ben reaches into his pocket and pulls out his Android. “That won’t be a problem.”
His voice is shaking worse than mine. “We’re going to call Carter. When he’s on, you’re going to ask him to put his phone on speaker. Then, you’re going to tell him you never loved him, and that your relationship is over. Simple as that.”
“No way,” I snarl. “You’ve always been jealous of Carter, admit it. Getting him benched in lacrosse, getting me to dump him? This is pathetic, Gallagher.”
David’s face is expressionless, but Ben’s mouth twists into a scowl. “Make the call, Amanda.” He places the phone in my hands. Carter’s number is up on the screen. All I have to do is press the call icon.
“No.”
Ben reaches into his coat pocket. “I really didn’t want to have to do this,” he says.
Something metal catches the dim light in the gym, and there’s a flash of silver. Ben Gallagher is holding a gun, barrel pointing straight at me.