Diana Peterfreund - Under the Rose

So much for security. The monitor displayed a webbrowser window open to the Phimalarlico webmail page. A “Compose” window lay open. I leaned into the screen.

From: Lucky-D177@phimalarlico.org

To: D177-Knights@phimalarlico.org

Subject:

I’m so sorry. By now, I know you are all very angry and I think you have every right to be. I don’t know if there’s any explanation for_ help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help

The words filled the page. I pressed Return and they started up again—help help help—filling every screen in the room.

I sat there for a moment, blinking at the screens. The chaos around me took on a new, sinister meaning. Maybe Jenny wasn’t usually so messy. Maybe someone had been here before me, rifling through her stuff. Maybe Jenny wasn’t hiding. Maybe she’d been disappeared.

He’s out for blood, and we all know from personal experience the man doesn’t bluff.

No doubt about it: We’d found our leak. Now the only problem was finding out what had happened to her.

I hereby confess:

He was the last person

I wanted.

I grabbed Jenny’s cell phone and keys and got my ass out of the room. Who should I call? The campus police? The dean? The FBI?

First, I called Josh. “Jenny’s gone,” I gasped into the phone as I ran across the Edison College courtyard. “She’s not in her room and it’s been—trashed. She’s definitely responsible for the leak. Come quick.”

“How were you in her room?” Josh asked.

“I broke in with my prox card.”

Josh was quiet. “You broke into her room?”

“Josh! I think something bad has happened to her.”

“And you broke into her room? What were you thinking?”

I was thinking that if no one believed me about Jenny, I was going to get some proof. And now I was thinking she’d been kidnapped. “What does it matter? The point is, she’s gone! We have to do something. Should we call the police?”

“And report your breaking and entering?” he scoffed. “Amy, unless there’s blood all over the floor, I don’t think you’ve got much of an argument.”

The only people who leave blood on the floor are your girlfriend’s society, I wanted to snap, but held my tongue.

He went on. “She’s probably just studying somewhere. Have you tried calling her?”

“I’ve got her cell phone in my hand.” But that was a good point. I pressed the button for Recently Dialed Calls. Micah, Micah, Micah, Home, Sally’s Pizza, someone named Grace, two numbers in New York, and two more here in Connecticut. I’d call those later.

“You stole her cell phone? Broke into her room and stole her cell phone. Are you crazy?”

“You’re right.” I stopped running, and stared down at my contraband. “I shouldn’t touch anything until the police get here.”

“You need to go put her stuff back. And then you need to write a note to have her call you. Go home, wait for her, and hope she doesn’t get you in any trouble. Just because you’re a Digger doesn’t give you free rein to start breaking laws. I’m not a lawyer yet, but I’d say nothing you did tonight is cool.”

“But Josh, you’re not listening to me. I think she’s in trouble. There’s this half-finished e-mail on her computer and it says ‘help’ all over it. You said Gehry was out for—”

“Amy, I can see you’re really upset, but you need to chill out for a second and think. Where are you right now? Why don’t you come home so we can talk about this—”

“Come home?” I cried. “My suite is not your home, Josh Silver! My best friend is not your latest romantic mistake. And you are not my superior. I was there. I saw what her room looks like. You have to believe me that she’s in trouble.”

“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” And then he hung up.

I walked back to Prescott, stewing. Maybe I should just call the cops, but Josh’s words echoed in my head. The last thing I needed was to be arrested on counts of breaking and entering. And, like he said, I doubted they’d take me seriously anyway. So a college student was a slob. They’d laugh me out of the station if I tried to file a missing persons report when the person in question had been gone for maybe a few hours. For all anyone knew, she was still at the library, “help help help” or no.

That opinion was buoyed by the next ten calls I proceeded to make. Mara and Omar were appalled that I’d even think of breaking into someone else’s suite (Mara, like the stick in the mud she was, even threatened to go to my dean with the information, until I reminded her of her Digger oaths); Kevin and Harun laughed and asked how many cracked-out conspiracy theories they could expect from me before this whole thing was over (Kevin even jokingly warned me that if I persisted in arguments along these lines, he’d start to suspect it was me behind the website); Odile said that no matter how angry I was at Jenny, there was no cause to start committing felonies; Ben was out jogging off his ire; and Nikolos, Greg, Demetria, and Clarissa told me little other than to leave a number after the beep.

I stood in the Prescott courtyard. No way was I going to go back to my place and let Josh lecture me. But I had one Digger left, and maybe I could get him to listen. I took the stairs to George’s room.

Light spilled through the crack near the floor, and I heard music, but I had to knock twice before he answered. And when he did, as soon as he saw me, George burst into a grin. “Hey there, cutie,” he said, and pulled me inside. “You ran off so quickly earlier, I thought I wasn’t going to see you tonight.”

His T-shirt was soft and hugged his chest and shoulders, and his similarly well-worn sweatpants sat low on his hips. His hair was tousled and he was wearing his glasses. I love George’s glasses. I love him in his glasses. As soon as we were inside, he crossed to his desk and closed his laptop. Sign of a guilty conscience if I’ve ever seen it. But I didn’t have time to worry about that now. “George, I was at Jenny’s.”

“She behind this whole snafu?” he asked. He was rummaging in his mini-fridge now, and retrieved two beers. “Figures as much. That girl’s a menace to the society. No pun intended.”

“Yes, but that’s not all. She wasn’t there.”

He popped the caps off and handed me one. “I’d be hiding out, too, if I were her.”

“I think she’s been kidnapped.”

He raised an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses. “Really. Why? Find a ransom note? Someone holding her for a million shares in Microsoft?” He chuckled and took a pull on his beer.

“No, I found a half-finished e-mail covered with the word ‘help.’”

This shut him up for a second, but then he regrouped. “Come on, Boo. Who do you think would kidnap her, aside from your average cult deprogrammer?” He leaned back on his futon. “And to them I say, have at it.”

This was beginning to get frustrating. Why would no one take me seriously? I’d been right about the patriarchs last time, but no one had listened until we all lost our summer jobs. “I think it was the patriarchs. I think they discovered she was behind the leak and had her disappeared.”