Becca Fitzpatrick: Hush Hush

"I'm at school. We broke in," she said in a voice that was naughty to perfection. "We want to play hide-and-seek but don't have enough people for two teams. So… do you know of a fourth person who could come play with us?"

An incoherent voice mumbled in the background.

"Elliot wants me to tell you that if you don't come be his partner-hang on-what?" Vee said into the background.

Elliot's voice came on. "Nora? Come play with us. Otherwise, there's a tree in the common area with Vee's name on it."

Pure ice flowed through me.

"Hello?" I said hoarsely. "Elliot? Vee? Are you there?"

But the connection was dead.

"Who was that?" Patch asked.

My whole body was ringing. It took me a moment to answer. "Vee broke into the high school with Elliot and Jules. They want me to meet them. I think Elliot's going to hurt Vee if I don't go." I looked up at Patch. "I think he's going to hurt her if I do."

He folded his arms, frowning. "Elliot?"

"Last week at the library I found an article that said he was questioned in a murder investigation at his old school, Kinghorn Prep. He walked into the computer lab and saw me reading it. Ever since that night, I've gotten a bad vibe from him. A really bad vibe. I think he even broke into my bedroom to steal the article back."

"Anything else I should know?"

"The girl who was murdered was Elliot's girlfriend. She was hanged from a tree. Just now on the phone he said, 'If you don't come, there's a tree in the common area with Vee's name on it. "

"I've seen Elliot. He seems cock) and a little aggressive, but he doesn't strike me as a killer." He dipped into my front pocket and extracted the Jeep's keys. "I'll drive over and check things out. I won't be long."

"I think we should call the police."

He shook his head. "You'll send Vee to juvie for destruction of property and B and E. One more thing. Jules. Who is this guy?"

"Elliot's friend. He was at the arcade the night we saw you."

His frown deepened. "If there was another guy, I would remember."

He opened the door and I followed him out. A janitor wearing black slacks and a work-issue maroon shirt was sweeping bits of popcorn in the lobby. He did a double take at the sight of Patch exiting the ladies' room. I recognized him from school. Brandt Christensen. We had English together. Last semester I'd helped him write a paper.

"Elliot is expecting me, not you," I told Patch. "If I don't show up, who knows what will happen to Vee? That's a risk I'm not going to take."

"If I let you come, you'll listen to my instructions and follow them carefully?"

"Yes."

"If I tell you to jump?"

"I'll jump."

"If I tell you to stay in the car?"

"I'll stay in the car." It was mostly true.

Out in the parking lot of the theater, Patch aimed his key fob at the Jeep, and the headlights blinked. Suddenly he came to a halt and swore under his breath.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"Tires."

I dropped my gaze and sure enough, both tires on the driver's side were flat. "I can't believe it!" I said. "I drove over two nails?"

Patch crouched by the front tire, running his hand around the circumference. "Screwdriver. This was an intentional attack."

For a moment I thought maybe this was another mind trick. Maybe Patch had his reasons for not wanting me to go to the high school. His feelings about Vee were no secret, after all. But something was missing. I couldn't feel Patch anywhere inside my head. If he was altering my thoughts, he'd found a new way to accomplish it, because as far as I could tell, what I was seeing was real.

"Who would do that?"

He rose to his full height. "The list is long."

"Are you trying to tell me you have a lot of enemies?"

"I've upset a few people. A lot of folks place bets they can't win. Then they blame me for walking off with their car, or more."

Patch walked one space over to a coupe, opened the driver's side door, and took a seat behind the steering wheel. Reaching under it, his hand disappeared.

"What are you doing?" I asked, standing in the open doorway. It was a waste of breath since I was well aware of what he was doing.

"Looking for the spare key." Patch's hand reappeared, holding two blue wires. With some skill, he removed the ends of the wires and tapped them together. The engine turned over, and Patch looked out at me. "Seat belt."

"I'm not stealing a car."

He shrugged. "We need it now. They don't."

"It's stealing. It's wrong."

Patch didn't look the least bit troubled. In fact, he looked a little too relaxed in the driver's seat. This isn't the first time he's done this, I thought.

"First rule of auto theft," he said on a smile. "Try not to hang around the crime scene longer than necessary."

"Hang on one minute," I said, holding up a finger.

I jogged back to the theater. On my way inside, the glass doors reflected the parking lot behind me, and I saw Patch swing out of the coupe.

"Hi, Brandt," I said to the boy still flicking popcorn into a long-handled dustpan.

Brandt looked up at me, but his attention was quickly drawn over my shoulder. I heard the theater doors open and sensed Patch move behind me. His approach wasn't all that different from a cloud eclipsing the sun, subtly darkening the landscape, hinting of a storm.

"How's it going?" Brandt said uncertainly.

"I'm having car trouble," I said, biting my lip and trying on a sympathetic face. "I know I'm putting you in an awkward position, but since I helped you with that Shakespeare paper last semester…"

'You want to borrow my car."

"Actually…yes."

"It's a piece of junk. It's no Jeep Commander." He looked right at Patch like he was apologizing.

"Does it run?" I asked.

"If by run you mean do the wheels roll, yeah, it runs. But it's not for loan."

Patch opened his wallet and handed over what looked like three crisp hundred-dollar bills. Reining in my surprise, I decided the best thing to do was play along.

"I changed my mind," Brandt said, eyes wide, pocketing the money. He fished in his pockets and underhanded Patch a pair of keys.

"What's the make and color?" Patch asked, catching the keys.

"Hard to tell. Part Volkswagen, part Chevette. It used to be blue. That was before it corroded to orange. You'll fill the tank up before you return it?" Brandt said, sounding like he had his fingers crossed behind his back, pressing his luck.

Patch peeled out another twenty. "Just in case we forget," he said, stuffing it into the front pocket of Brandt's uniform.

Outside, I told Patch, "I could have talked him into giving me his keys. I just needed a little more time. And by the way, why do you bus tables at the Borderline if you're loaded?"

"I'm not. I won the money off a pool game a couple nights back." He pushed Brandt's key in the lock and opened the passenger-side door for me. "The bank is officially closed."

Patch drove across town on dark, quiet streets. It didn't take long to arrive at the high school. He rolled Brandt's car to a stop on the east side of the building and killed the engine. The campus was wooded, the branches twisted and bleak and holding up nothing but a damp fog. Behind them loomed Coldwater High.

The original part of the building had been constructed in the late nineteenth century, and after sunset it looked very much like a cathedral. Gray and foreboding. Very dark. Very abandoned.

"I just got a really bad feeling," I said, eyeing the school's black voids for windows.

"Stay in the car and keep out of sight," Patch told me, passing over the keys. "If anybody comes out of the building, take off." He got out. He was wearing a fitted black crewneck tee, dark Levi's, and boots. With his black hair and dusky skin, it was hard to distinguish him from the background. He crossed the street and, in a matter of moments, blended completely into the night.