If he was trying to hide something, he’d be smarter than that.
Whatever the cops are thinking, they’re wrong.
Jake says, “So he called her after the text. And she answered. And then no one heard from her again.”
My face flushes hot, blood prickling beneath my skin. “He’s the most popular teacher on campus. Kids call him all the time. He probably gave her the ‘I don’t think about my students like that’ speech.”
My brain scrambles to predict where this goes next, and I’m about to say Mr. McCormack will just provide an alibi for that night to clear himself. Except, I happen to know who his likeliest alibi would be and I doubt it’s going to work in his favor.
I take a long hit off my vape, because self-destructive tendencies define me today. “Since when does talking to someone mean you kidnapped them?”
“It doesn’t. But it makes you a hell of a suspect when you’re the last person to do it before they disappear.”
The wind gusts, battering my car and sending a funnel of leaves spiraling across the grass, and there’s this pause in time where I wait to hear Madison yell, “Leaf tornado!”
But there’s only silence.
I throw the car in reverse. “I have to go.”
“What did you find in the locker?”
If I tell him, he’ll insist on coming with me. If I don’t, he could march right into school and tell Preston Ashcroft. Or Headmaster Havens. Or the idiot detectives.
There is no winning in this situation. “A matchbook. From a bar I know in West Virginia.”
“A matchbook from a bar you know in West Virginia.”
“That’s what I said, yes.”
He clicks his seat belt into place. “I’m coming with you, for whatever it is you’re about to do.”
Whatever I’m about to do.
I’m going to stop holding candles and start doing what the cops aren’t — find my friend.
There’s no way Madison spent time at The Wayside. She’s meant for cocktail parties, not dive bars set along the side of the road. She wouldn’t fit in there. People would have noticed, and talked.
I would’ve heard about it.
Except the matchbook with her handwriting is real, and I didn’t hear about it, and that means whatever Madison was doing, it was a secret.
The Wayside is my secret — mine, and then mine and Willa’s — but never Madison’s.
There’s only one way to find out when that changed.
And the whole drive to The Wayside, I’ll try to make myself forget it’s a place where Willa’s presence is permanently soaked into the air, where I can close my eyes and still hear her voice.
If she were here, if she hadn’t run for California, she’d wrap her arms around me, her fingers threading through my hair, and this fog in my head that makes it hard to think straight would vanish. The tremble of panic in my blood would calm. Willa was quiet strength, endless optimism, the girl everyone told their secrets to because they knew they’d be safe with her. That she would understand, free of judgment.
If she were here, I’d kiss her and the world would be right again.
Instead, she’s gone and every minute is more wrong.
I jam the car back into park, toe off my shoes and raise my hips, ignoring Jake’s hard exhale as I slide my damp tights down my thighs. “We’ll go through the service entrance since the media are all out front. Are you allowed to leave or do I have to hide you under a blanket in the trunk?”
It takes him a moment of stunned silence before he manages, “Why do I feel like you’ve actually done that before. I can leave. Special Senior privileges.”
Of course. How could I have forgotten the enormous honor of being awarded Special Senior privileges: “seniors with high academic and social standing who’ve demonstrated consistent adherence to St. Francis’s guidelines for personal conduct.” See also: students whose parents hold enough influence.
I look Jake over, and he’s every bit the Special Senior. And nothing like a Wayside patron. “Do you have anything else to wear?”
“Not on me.”
“Give me your tie, and …” I survey him and he frowns. “I don’t know, roll up your sleeves, I guess? Hold on.”
I run my fingers through his hair, mussing it the best I can, the strands tickling my palms. It’ll have to do. Jake is gonna look like his Uber dropped him on the side of the road when his daddy’s credit card got declined no matter what I do.
After a quick forage in my landfill of a back seat, I come up with a jean jacket and a pair of black Chuck Taylors to fix my prep-school girl ensemble.
I loop Jake’s tie around my neck and leave it sloppy. “You’re just trying to get out of our calc test next period, aren’t you?”
He gives me a crooked smile. “You’re my only competition in that class anyway.”
I throw the car into reverse, but not before I sneak a glance at Mr. McCormack’s email.
It reads simply:
Ms. Lawson,
I’m requesting an immediate meeting to discuss your attendance and academic performance. Failure to comply will result in a demerit and an official letter to your student record.
Mr. McCormack
Chapter Three
It’s only a ten minute drive until we pass the border from Maryland to West Virginia. Ten minutes past the carefully manicured grounds of St. Francis, where rows of trees fence our world off from the stretch of open fields, insulating us from anything that hasn’t been purposefully curated for our developing minds.
Not that I’d admit it to Mom, but I actually love St. Francis. The feel of it, the history, the challenge. The nights spent talking, discussing, planning.
I have yearbooks filled with pictures and shelves lined with trophies, walls covered in awards and certificates. I can’t deny what the school has done for me — even if I wanted to.
But there are days — were days, even before Willa — when everything felt too close. Too small. When this pressure on my chest told me if I didn’t leave, didn’t remind myself there was a world outside those 689 acres, it would cease to exist.
I-81 is my gateway to freedom, to a life beyond this place. To the world I created to balance the one given to me.
It’s twenty minutes from the freeway entrance to Martinsburg, with old farmhouses sitting a leap from the road, rusted railroad tracks that cut through town and quaint little dress and fabric shops lining each side of WV-9.