Becca Fitzpatrick - Hush Hush

Downstairs, I heard the quiet rumble of the garage door gliding open.

"My mom!" I gasped. I found the clock on the nightstand. It was just after two in the morning. "They must have opened the bridge.

How does this whole guardian angel business work? Am I the only person who can see you? I mean, are you invisible to everyone else?"

Patch stared at me like he hoped I wasn't serious.

"You're not invisible?" I squeaked. "You have to get out of here!" I made a movement to push Patch off the bed but was cut short by a searing jab in my ribs. "She'll kill me if she finds you in here. Can you climb trees? Tell me you can climb a tree!"

Patch grinned. "I can fly."

Oh. Right. Well, okay.

"The police and fire department were here earlier," Patch said. "The master bedroom will need to be gutted, but they stopped the fire from spreading. The police will be back. They're going to have a few questions. If I had to guess, they already tried reaching you on the cell you called 911 on."

"Jules took it."

He nodded. "I figured. I don't care what you tell the police, but I'd appreciate it if you left me out of it." He slid my bedroom window open. "Last thing. Vee got to the police in time. Paramedics saved Elliot. He's in the hospital, but he'll be all right."

Down the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, I heard the house door shut. My mom was inside.

"Nora?" she called. She tossed her purse and keys on the entry table. Her high heels clicked across the wood floors, almost at a running pace. "Nora! There's police tape on the front door! What is going on?"

I looked to the window. Patch was gone, but a single black feather was pressed to the outer pane, held in place by last night's rain. Or angel magic.

Downstairs, my mom flicked on the hall light, a faint ray of it stretching all the way under the crack at the bottom of my door. I held my breath and counted seconds, assuming I had about two more before-

She shrieked. "Nora! What happened to the banister!

Good thing she hadn't seen her bedroom yet.

The sky was a perfect, rinsed blue. The sun was just starting to fan out across the horizon. It was Monday, a brand-new day, the horrors of the past twenty-four hours far behind. I had five hours of sleep under my belt, and other than the all-over body pain that came from being sucked into death, then spat back out, I felt remarkably refreshed. I didn't want to hang a black cloud over the moment by reminding myself that the police were expected to arrive any minute to take my statement on the night's events. I still hadn't made up my mind what I was going to tell them.

I padded to the bathroom in my nightshirt-mentally blocking the question of how I'd changed into it, since I'd presumably been wearing clothes when Patch brought me home-and sped through my morning routine. I splashed cold water on my face, scrubbed my teeth, and tamed my hair back into a rubber band. In my bedroom, I pulled on a clean shirt, clean jeans.

I called Vee.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"Good. How are you?"

"Good."

Silence.

"Okay," Vee said in a rush, "I am still totally freaked out. You?"

"Totally."

"Patch called me in the middle of the night. He said Jules roughed you up pretty bad, but that you were okay."

"Really? Patch called you?"

"He called from the Jeep. He said you were asleep in the backseat and he was driving you home. He said he just happened to be driving past the high school when he heard a scream. He said he found you in the gym, but that you'd fainted from pain. The next thing he knew, he looked up and saw Jules jump off the rafter. He said Jules must have snapped, a side effect from all the burdensome guilt he felt over terrorizing you."

I didn't realize I was holding my breath until I let go of it. Obviously, Patch had manipulated a few details.

"You know I'm not buying it," Vee continued. "You know I think Patch killed Jules."

In Vee's position, I'd probably think similarly. I said, "What do the police think?"

'Turn on the TV. There's live coverage right now, Channel Five. They're saying Jules broke into the school and jumped. They're ruling it a tragic teen suicide. They're asking people with information to call the hotline listed at the bottom of the screen."

"What did you tell the police when you first called it in?"

"I was scared. I didn't want to get busted for B and E. So I called in anonymously from a pay phone."

"Well," I said at last, "if the police are ruling it a suicide, I guess that's what happened. After all, this is modern-day America. We have the benefit of forensics."

"You're keeping something from me," said Vee. "What really happened after I left?"

This is where it got stick). Vee was my best friend, and we lived by the motto No Secrets. But some things are just impossible to explain. The fact that Patch was a fallen-turned-guardian angel topped the list. Directly below it was the fact that I'd jumped off a rafter and died, but was still alive today.

"I remember Jules cornering me in the gym," I said. "He told me all the pain and fear he was going to inflict. After that, the details get hazy."

"Is it too late to apologize?" Vee said, sounding more sincere than she had in our whole friendship. "You were right about Jules and Elliot."

"Apology accepted."

"We should go to the mall," she said. "I feel this overwhelming need to buy shoes. Lots of them. What we need is some good old-fashioned shoe-shopping therapy."

The doorbell rang, and I glanced at the clock. "I have to give the police my statement about what happened last night, but I'll call you after that."

"Last night?" Vee's tone shot up with panic. "They know you were at the school? You didn't give them my name, did you?"

"Actually, something happened earlier in the night." Something named Dabria. "I'll call you soon," I said, hanging up before I had to lie my way through another explanation.

Limping down the hall, I'd made it as far as the top of the stairs when I saw who my mom had invited inside.

Detectives Basso and Holstijic.

She led them into the living room, and although Detective Holstijic collapsed onto the sofa, Detective Basso remained standing. He had his back to me, but a step creaked halfway through my descent, and he turned around.

"Nora Grey," he said in his tough cop voice. "We meet again."

My mom blinked. "You've met before?"

"Your daughter has an exciting life. Seems like we're here every week."

My mom aimed a questioning glance at me and I shrugged, clueless, as if to guess, Cop humor?

"Why don't you have a seat, Nora, and tell us what happened," Detective Holstijic said.

I lowered myself into one of the plush armchairs opposite the sofa. "Just before nine last night I was in the kitchen drinking a glass of chocolate milk when Miss Greene, my school psychologist-appeared."

"She just walked into your house?" Detective Basso asked.

"She told me I had something she wanted, and that's when I ran upstairs and locked myself in the master bedroom."

"Back up," said Detective Basso. "What was this thing she wanted?"

"She didn't say. But she did mention she's not a real psychologist. She said she was using the job to spy on students." I divided a glance among everyone. "She's crazy, right?"

The detectives shared a look.

"I'll run her name, see what I can find," Detective Holstijic said, pulling himself back to his feet.

"Let me get this straight," Detective Basso said to me. "She accused you of stealing something that belonged to her, but she never said what?"

Another sticky question. "She was hysterical. I only understood half of what she was saying. I ran and locked myself inside the master bedroom, but she broke down the door. I was hiding inside the flue of the fireplace, and she said she'd burn the house down room by room to find me. Then she started a fire. Right there in the middle of the room."