The Stranger Inside (32 page)

I wasn’t messing around anymore. I was going to get me a plan.

***

In the early afternoon, I fell asleep at Sawyer’s computer. I felt him lift me in his arms and lay me on his bed, covering me with his warm rumpled blankets.

My sleep was fitful, to say the least. I kept dreaming the band came into the room while I slept, kept hearing Zack say, “Just tell her. Get it over with—tell her.”

 When I woke, I was covered in sweat. I could feel a dark cloud over me, hovering. It seemed I was becoming too much of a liability to the band. Too much of a problem.

Apparently Kenzie had gone on the rampage last night, even getting Sawyer frustrated. And Sawyer never gets frustrated.

Finally, I decided to get up and make dinner for the guys—a peace offering for all the trouble Kenzie was causing. While I cooked, I could hear the guys practicing in the basement. But when I had dinner ready and finally went downstairs, I was surprised to find they weren’t practicing. They were huddled at the card table, talking grimly in hushed tones. Seeing them so somber and secretive sent jolt of fear through me.

“Hey,” I choked out. “Dinner’s ready.”

They all rose to their feet and scrambled upstairs, quickly becoming their usual rowdy selves. Sawyer took my hand as we went up, kissing the back of my neck.

Maybe things are okay
, I told myself. And they seemed to be as we gathered around the table.
Maybe I just imagined their odd behavior, felt insecure
. I started to think that was it.

But then I noticed Zack had another scratch across his cheek. Had he and Eve gotten back together—again? Man. I missed a
lot
last night.

“Geez,” I said, “Eve’s really going to scratch you to death, isn’t she?”

The table fell silent.

Zack paled, looking at me confused for a second, then he seemed to understand. He put his hand to the wound, covering it. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “The wench is going to bleed me dry.”

A tense, heavy silence stayed in the room, the guys looking down at their plates, focusing on their food. No one saying anything. My stomach knotted. What was I missing? Then I blanched as realization washed over me. Eve hadn’t scratched Zack. Kenzie had. She clawed them both—Sawyer and Zack. And now Zack was covering for me, sparing my feelings.

I felt sick. What exactly happened last night? Why had Kenzie done that? “You know what? I’m going to go home,” I said, rising from the table. “I don’t feel so good.”

“No, stay,” Zack said. “All this crap, it’s Kenzie—not you.” Zack looked into my eyes. “I like you, Jodi. I like you a lot.”

Yeah. The way he said that, it didn’t really make me feel much better. Zack scared me.

CHAPTER 36

I took my laptop to the cemetery. It was a long walk. But I didn’t mind. I was glad for the exercise and the chance to get away from the house and Mom and Craig’s closed study doors—and Sawyer’s insistent calling. I knew he was worried about me. But I just needed answers. Not the band’s protective silence.

But I figured they were right. It seemed Kenzie could listen in on any conversation she felt like. She seemed to be getting stronger, since she was now able to communicate with me in my thoughts.

I decided to do my research and plot my freedom from her at the cemetery, where it seemed most likely Kenzie couldn’t spy on me. I sat at the grave of a young girl named Lucy. I picked it because I used to have a cat named Lucy. She died when I was ten. But she was a sweet cat that always gave me comfort when Mom and Dad fought at night. I needed comfort now—so bad. I pretended the headstone was Lucy’s—my cat’s. First thing I did was emailed Grey and ask him about his girlfriend Darcy, the nurse. He texted me back, almost immediately. Now this was information I could use.

***

An hour later, it was getting dark and the peaceful cemetery turned all kinds of spooky. When I finally noticed the darkness, my heart jumped to my throat. Definitely time to leave. Should have bolted a while ago—obviously—only I’d been really engrossed in my research and plotting online with Grey, I didn’t notice how dark it was … until I heard a noise.

I clicked my laptop shut, dreading my long, dark, spooky walk home. I sighed, totally anxious, then looked up, and there was Jeremy only a few feet away. He was leaning against the stone maintenance building, watching me.

Seeing him made my heart leap to my throat, not because I was scared, but totally rattled. How long had he been there? Watching me?

A small smile crept on his lips. “You get really engrossed in your work.”

Obviously, he had been here a while. “H—how’d you know I was here?”

He touched his forehead. “I’ve been getting these feelings—like that girl, Hanna.”

I blinked, the hairs on my arms standing on end. “Seriously?”

His eyes flashed in that teasing way he has, getting me all panting. But his smile was tender. “No. Grey texted me. Said you were here.”

Hearing Grey’s name come out of Jeremy’s mouth made me feel funny for some reason. My two different worlds colliding—life with Jeremy crashing into my life without him. It gave me a weird, loopy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I rose to my feet, assuming Jeremy was here to give me a ride home. “You two are communicating?” I asked, trying to sound undisturbed about it.

“Little bit,” he said. “He’s worried about you.” Then he added softly, “Like everyone else—me.”

He blocked my way as I tried to walk past him, closing the space between us. His long lashed eyes weren’t teasing now. He brushed my hair back behind my shoulders, his sultry gaze full of want. It kicked my heartbeat up a notch, made the breath whoosh out of me.

Jeremy’s lips parted slightly, his eyes drinking me in. Slowly he backed me up against the wall of the maintenance building. A fire burned inside me, smoldered. Knowing he was going to take me in his arms, I was finally going to feel his soft, gentle lips press against mine again, taste his sweet, tender kisses that I had missed so much. It had me shaking.

Jeremy’s hot hands slid down the sides of my shivering arms. His lips brushed my ear. “You okay?”

I swallowed and nodded, though being this close to him, feeling his warm breath on my neck, made me tremble. So did the hunger I saw in his eyes. It filled me with a longing, aching desire, making my heart yearn so bad I couldn’t breathe.

He made a soft groaning sound, drawing closer, breathing my name. Tenderly, he cupped my chin in his warm hand and now it was my turn to moan, my breath catching as his soft, tantalizing lips slowly pressed against mine, first lightly—sweet, so sweet—then hungrily, his velvet tongue searching, entwining with mine, sending tingles through my body, making me light-headed and dizzy, ready to explode.

He leaned into me deeper still, his lips insistent, his hot hands tangling in my hair. The passion and intensity had me breathless, so weak he had to hold me up, but still his kisses went on. On and on. His hungry, hot tongue tantalizing my mouth, ravenous.

But all too soon, he pulled away. For an instant there was just our flushed faces, our exploding hearts. Us panting as we tried to catch our breath. Us. Only us.

But then the world came crashing back on me—the real world—Sawyer, my adoring boyfriend. And Jeremy, kissing every girl in sight. Reality.

Jeremy brought his fingers up to his lips. He winced, then flashed me a weak smile. “Okay, maybe you do need the rubber bands.”

CHAPTER 37

I had Sawyer drive me to the cemetery before school. All night I’d thought about how I could trick Kenzie in to going to New York—that is when I wasn’t thinking about Jeremy’s kiss. I’d floated into the house last night after Jeremy drove me home, not quite sure the last few moments were real. Jeremy had kissed me. He’d
kissed
me. I’d lightly traced my lips with my index finger, still feeling his hot mouth against mine, still feeling his warm hands pressed against my waist and running through my hair. It had me dreaming of things I knew could never be. But Jeremy was like that to me—a drug—an addiction. And fatal to my heart.

Guilt set in. I’d basically cheated on Sawyer. Even though I hadn’t started that kiss. Jeremy had. But still.

Sawyer and I sat at Lucy’s grave, guilt twisting my heart as I caught him up on the plans I’d been making with Grey yesterday at the cemetery— to have Grey’s nurse girlfriend, Darcy, have Kenzie’s body moved to the new medical clinic in Cornallis, about 40 minutes from New York City. Grey had messaged that the building was being remodeled, but that Darcy could fudge up some paperwork and get the body moved there.

Sawyer raised his eyebrows. “Great.” He sounded surprised with the plan, but happy to hear it. “Did you come up with a way to trick Kenzie into going to New York?”

“I was thinking about that all last night,” I mused, pushing my wind-tossed hair out of my face. “I was thinking, Jeremy said Kenzie was really poor. He said she hated that.”

Sawyer nodded, cocking his head, seeming to get where I was going with this information. “Money could be a motivating factor for her.”

“Yeah, like if something happened here to make me lose any financial support. And I had to go to New York to get money.” I bit my lip. “And it would have to be a
lot
of money for her to agree to go there—crazy amounts.”

“Like,” Sawyer shrugged, not seeming too in love with the idea but throwing it out there anyway, “Grey won the lottery, and he wants you to move in with him.” Then he flashed a weak smile, adding wanly, “And he wants Jeremy to come too.”

I frowned, agreeing. Kenzie wouldn’t buy the lottery idea, no way, but Sawyer was right about the Jeremy thing. “That’s true,” I sighed. “Whatever we come up with—and it can’t be anything like the lottery, it has to be totally believable—but, yeah, Jeremy would have to come too. She won’t go anywhere without him.”

Unfortunately.

Ugh. My heart started to sink. “There’s no way to get her to go to New York—she won’t believe a windfall just
fell
there.”

“Look, the money may not be an issue,” Sawyer said.

“What?” I looked up at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I should tell you—Kenzie can probably read your feelings too, not just your thoughts—I mean, not right now, here, but later, when you’re not surrounded by dead bodies. So, I can’t tell you … it has to be believable.”

I blinked up at him. “What are you
talking
about?”

He shook his head, helping me to my feet. “Come on, we’re going to be late for school.”

***

“What’s that?” Sawyer asked, skirting his eyes from the road for a moment as he pulled out of the cemetery on our way to school. He eyed the small blanket I took out of my backpack and placed on my lap.

“This is a blanket,” I said, unfolding it.

It was small, maybe the size of a large towel. But the thing was, it was from Kenzie’s car. Dad had wrapped it around me the night of the accident, the night we came upon Kenzie and Ethan, their car smashed into a tree.

That night had been freezing. Dad found the blanket in Kenzie’s mangled car and wrapped it around me to keep me warm once the ambulance came, while we were talking to the police about the accident.

“What are you going to do with it?” Sawyer asked.

“I want you to give it to Hanna. Would you? She doesn’t run from you.”

Sawyer gave me a sidelong look. “What are you going to have her do with it?”

“I’m not sure. I thought maybe she could link to it. Find out something more.”

Sawyer furrowed his brow. “Didn’t you find out enough? Wasn’t that gruesome enough for you? Jodi, the guy chopped up your dad. And your dad, he cut out—”

“No! Don’t say it. I know what my dad did.”

Sawyer’s eyes grew tender. “Okay. I know,” he said. “So, why do you need to know more? He did it for you. What else is there?”

“I don’t know, that’s just it—we’re missing something.”

“But you’re scaring Hanna. Do you really need to put her through any more of this?”

I glanced up at him in surprise. He was being protective of Hanna. It was sweet.

Ugh.

I bit my lip. “Should I not? Look, would you just ask her? She doesn’t have to do it. Just ask her.”

“Jodi, if I ask her, she’s going to do it.”

“I know.”

When we got to Roosevelt , there was a huge commotion. Police cars were parked all along the front of the school. “What’s going on?” Sawyer asked some girl I’d never seen before.

“Oh Sawyer, you didn’t hear?” Her brown hair bounced all shiny in the sun. “Lindsey Martin was
murdered
over the weekend. Some freak-oid made off with her body.”

I froze, a chill sprinting up my spine. Lindsey was dead? I looked up at Sawyer in disbelief, the world spinning. “Oh my gosh, Sawyer.”

I couldn’t breathe. The other night at The Pancake House, Lindsey was shook up. I saw that. But I ignored it, didn’t want to help her, or Sawyer to help her, because she was being a witch, scamming on Sawyer. Now I felt horrible.

And responsible.

She was … dead.

All morning the school was abuzz about Lindsey—gruesome stories about the police finding “remnants” of her—but not her actual body. It made me sick. So sick. It made me think about Ethan. Could he have done it? It sounded like his work—exactly like his work—gruesome. Only he didn’t have a body now. Dad took care of that. Didn’t that mean he couldn’t kill anymore? Not unless he somehow got in another body.

A chill ran down my spine. Could he do that?

Instead of morning classes there was an assembly about Lindsey—or more about dealing with death, with counselors and everything. Then our principal got on the stand and announced that the police would be speaking throughout the day with students who were close to Lindsey, stressing that anyone who knew
anything
about her death should come forward and speak to the police.