Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

BEFORE

TOM

Alison Danzinger is missing.

Daisy fills me in on most of the facts, although she's too upset to make much sense at first. Apparently, when Alison never came to breakfast this morning, her mother went upstairs to make sure she was awake, and her bed was empty.

That was about an hour ago. There's an AMBER Alert for Alison, and the police are hoping she just ran away. They say she had a minor argument with her parents last night.

"There's no way Alison would ever run away," Daisy confides in me. "She sometimes fought with her parents, but she would never want to worry them. She's not like that. She is such a sweet and good person."

"Uh-huh," I say, even though I disagree. I wonder how Daisy would feel about her best friend if she knew Alison was blackmailing me into breaking up with her.

Daisy wipes her puffy, swollen eyes. "I have this terrible feeling something really bad has happened to her."

I feel the exact same way, but I'm not going to tell her that. I'm not that sadistic. "I bet she's fine. Maybe she just went out for an early walk and her parents overreacted."

"No." Daisy shakes her head. "Alison would never go on a walk without Rufus. He goes nuts if she goes out without him. He starts barking up a storm."

You should see him around dead bodies. "I bet she'll turn up. Don't worry."

They're going to be questioning all the students again. Because it worked so well before. Daisy explains this to me while I try to ignore my growing uneasiness. Alison didn't run away. This isn't some kind of misunderstanding.

I part ways with Daisy after entering the school. Even though it's at the other side of the building, I head straight for Slug's locker. I manage to catch him there, tossing a couple of his books inside, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world. When he sees me, he waves. "Hey, Tom."

How does he do that? After the night we had last night, how can he pretend like nothing even happened? He doesn't even look tired . His acne even looks a little better.

"Hey." I clear my throat. "Did you hear that Alison is missing?"

"I did hear about that. I guess someone took care of our little problem for us, huh?"

And then he winks at me. I nearly choke.

"Slug," I whisper, "you didn't… I mean, last night…"

"Relax, Tom." He slams his locker closed and snaps the padlock back into place. "I didn't do anything to Alison. And neither did you, right? Sometimes things just work out in your favor. Call it luck."

Luck is when you're playing poker and you get a full house. Luck isn't a teenage girl disappearing because she knows something about you that you'd rather she didn't know. But it's clear Slug doesn't see it the same way. And at that moment, I realize something very important.

I might be dangerous.

But Slug is something far worse.