By the end of the school day, Hope was all anyone was talking about. I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than during my unfortunate run-ins with Renee and Everly, but everyone seemed to know something. There was a phone call, or I was the last to see or talk to her, or that she was “really scared” of “something or someone” who had contacted her.
The scandal had all the markings of a Hope scheme. Her friends seemed to be the most in the know, but also were spitting out little morsels of information when it suited them. Every time I passed Renee or Ashleigh on my way to class or in the hall, they shredded me with their razor-blade stares or immediately got on their rhinestone-studded phones and started whispering frantically.
It wouldn’t be the first time Hope had exacted revenge. When she lost out for editor of the school newspaper, she had her parents donate enough money to start the school news channel—with herself as primary anchor. Her first story was an exposé on the journalism teacher, highlighting his DUI arrest.
When she lost out for homecoming queen, Hope threw a wild, over-the-top party at the same time as the dance so the homecoming queen was crowned with an empty court and exactly six people on the dance floor. Hope could be sweet, smart, and funny—as long as you didn’t cross her—and boy, did she love a good revenge.
When the Florence High newscast flashed across the flat panels in sixth period, the headline news was Where Is Hope? I had rolled my eyes. She had been gone less than a day. Some of the students in class were rapt, sitting up and watching the newscast. Other kids had barely looked up from their laptop or phone or book, and one kid—Lance Hutchings, a fringe burner no one paid attention to—actually snorted and rolled his eyes.
“She probably stayed home with a yeast infection or something,” he muttered, crossing his arms in front of his chest and sliding low in his desk. “Why is a sick chick news?”
Renee—we were lucky to be in nearly every class together—shot him one of the looks I thought she only reserved for me and growled.
“She’s been missing almost twenty-four hours. She didn’t come home last night, you miscreant. She’s not home sick, she’s missing.” Renee positively hissed the word, and I strangled a laugh in my throat. Yep, orchestrated. Straight out of a Hope’s Leave ’Em Wanting More playbook.
Lance rolled his eyes again. “If it were anyone else in this class, no one would give a crap. It sure wouldn’t make the news.” He raised a dismissive hand, letting everyone knew how he felt about the caliber of Florence High School’s reporting.
Renee narrowed her eyes. “And where were you last night, Lance?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe you should ask your friend Hope.”
The newscast then flashed to a special message, and even I straightened in my seat. The Jensens. Looking distraught and uncomfortable, perched on the very edges of their fancily upholstered morning show chairs. The camera tightened its angle on the couple.
“As some of you know, our daughter, Hope, a junior at your high school, didn’t come home last night,” Bruce started.
Becky nodded next to him, wide-eyed and serious. She cleared her throat and licked her lips.
“Hope has always checked in with us, has always been open and honest with us. At this point, she’s not answering her cell phone and has not been active on social media since eight p.m. last night.”
“If you have any information that might be pertinent—even if it doesn’t seem like anything important, please, please contact us or the police.” I dazed out as a number flashed on the screen.
“A car that you didn’t recognize at school, or someone on campus perhaps? Maybe you had a conversation with Hope that seemed”—Becky shrugged her tiny shoulders—“different somehow?”
I didn’t have to turn around to know that everyone was staring at me.
“Didn’t Hope and Tony have a”—a kid who sat behind me made air quotes—“different kind of conversation the other day?”
There was a round of low laughter, cut by Renee’s sneer. “This is serious!”
“Tony and Hope broke up,” Everly said carefully, and I wasn’t sure if she was on my side or not. “It happens.”
“Yeah, and two days later Hope goes missing.”
Anger and guilt sat like flat stones in the pit of my stomach. “What exactly are you trying to say, Renee?”
Renee crossed her arms in front of her chest and popped her lip out in that mean-girl way that I’m pretty sure Hope had coined. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. Accusation wafted from her.
The whole class was silent for an agonizing minute that seemed to stretch on. I jumped when Lance clapped a hand on my back. “Looks like you’re about to be famous, dude.”
By the time we were dismissed from class, the student body had grown into one pulsing mass, talking, whispering, pointing, staring at me. I kept my head down, trying to make a straight line for the student lot and my car, but there were people everywhere.
“That’s Tony Gardner,” I heard a shrill voice yelling. “He’s Hope’s ex-boyfriend.”
When I looked up, I saw that it was Renee, talking to a police officer. My temperature ratcheted up, but the officer just looked at me and nodded, jotting something down in his notebook.
I got in my car just as I saw the Channel 7 news van pull into the school’s horseshoe-shaped parking lot.
“Looks like you’re about to be famous, dude.”