much closer to finding Alyssa.”
“We’re a little bit more than that much”—Will imitated my gesture—“to finding her kidnapper.”
My eyebrows rose. “How so?”
Will sauntered down the aisle of desks and plopped himself down in one toward the back of the room, kicking up his professor shoes on the desk kitty-corner from him. “We know that the garbage goes out on Monday mornings.”
I flipped a desk around and sat it in. “We do?”
“Okay, I know that the garbage here goes out on Monday mornings. So we know that Alyssa’s clothes had to have been dumped within the last twenty-four hours.”
“And that means?”
Will blew out a sigh. “I thought you were the crime-fighting expert and I was just the attractive sidekick.”
I felt myself bristle and let out and audible growl.
“It means that whoever dumped Alyssa’s clothes more than likely has a connection to the school.”
“Of course—” I was about to summon up my best “duh” expression, but Will held up a silencing hand.
“I mean other than as a hunting ground.”
I felt a hot blush was over my cheeks. “Go on.”
“Why would your perp—”
“Unsub,” I corrected, feeling the stupid need to contribute something of merit.
“Why would your unsub”—Will eyed me as he said the word—“return to the scene of the crime just to light up his victim’s clothes? He could have done that anywhere.”
“Maybe he was trying to make some kind of statement?” I bit my lip, considering. “A burning uniform . . . maybe his statement is that high school is like the burning fires of hell?”
“You know, you could really use some therapy for all those non-repressed memories.”
My head was spinning—and throbbing—by the time I snapped Nigella’s door shut and trudged up the steps to my apartment.
“Same time tomorrow?” Will asked as he sunk his key into the lock.
I shook my head. “I need to run some errands tomorrow so I’ll take my own car. But I’ll see you.”
Will gave me one of those exceptionally manly head nods before disappearing into his apartment. I pulled my own keys from my shoulder bag and was about to unlock my door, but I stopped, cocking my head to listen.
Music was thumping through my front door—a weirdly cheery electronica beat. I would have chalked it up to one of Vlad’s super-vamp bands, but this particular song lacked the recorded-in-a-coffin timbre and any lyrics bemoaning an afterlife pox that included Sookie Stackhouse and the
“Vlad?” I pushed my key into the lock and was surprised when Nina’s dark head popped up from behind my open laptop. She was stationed at the dining table, papers spread all around her, a spiral notebook thick with black scrawl in front of her. She grinned when she saw me.
“So, what do you think?” she yelled over the beat.
“About what?”
“This!” Nina stood up and did a series of funky club moves that probably looked great with low lighting and a severe buzz.
“What is that? And”—I gestured to her cira-1980s full-body snake motion—“what is that?”
She clicked the volume button off and we were dropped into blessed silence—even though the electronica beat still throbbed in my head. “What is all this?”
“Okay, remember how I said that I needed something to really make my mark?”
“Because I’m a substitute teacher, enriching young minds to the point of complete and utter disdain for me? Yeah, I remember that.”
“Well, this is it!” Nina flung out her arms in a measure of complete and utterly confusing joy.
“You’re teaching the snake to a new generation of club dancers?”
Nina’s sigh was so exasperated and so long I thought her chest would implode. “No, silly. Listen.” She clicked the beat on again, started her little jig again, and again, I was baffled.
“What is it?”
“It’s
“No,” I said, my sheer terror pushing me backward. “Just . . . no.”
Nina frowned, slammed my computer shut, and slumped down into a chair, chin in hands. “It wasn’t exactly coming together like I wanted. Nothing rhymes with Underworld Detection Agency.”
“Neens, you don’t need a musical to make your mark on the world. You’ve made your mark on me. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Nina’s eyes were soft and she took my hand, shaking it sweetly. “Oh, honey, of course that counts for something. Just not something for posterity. What do you think about a live action show based on my life?”
I sat down next to her. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you go back to your novel?”
Nina had had a short stint as a vampire romance novelist. Her book was awful, contrived, and a bloody love note to herself, but on the plus side, it wasn’t set to music.
“No, Soph. That was good, but this is different. I want to help. I want to make people really
I kept the empathetic smile on my face, thinking that the release of
Nina considered if for a second before smashing her hands against her open mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God, I’m so awful! Here I am lamenting about myself and my contribution to the world when you’re back from your first day as a crime-fighting substitute teacher!”
“How was it?”
I kept that smile pasted on my face for as long as possible, certain the second I moved my mouth, everything would shatter into a torrent of stupid, self-centered tears.
And it did.
“Oh, Neens,” I said, unable to control the hot tears that washed over my cheeks. “It was awful!”
I fell forward, my forehead plunking against a ballad about the UDA lunchroom. I felt Nina’s cold hand on my shoulder, rubbing softly. “Oh, honey! I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think it was. Come on.” She snaked an arm under my chest and pushed me upright. “Tell me all about it.”
I huffed, one of those half-hiccup, half-breath kind of wails locking in my chest.
“Did the girls make fun of your outfit?”
I looked down at myself. “What’s wrong with this outfit?”
“How ’bout I get you some chocolate pinwheels?”
I groaned while Nina rattled away in the kitchen. “The girls are awful, Neens.”
“They’re teenage girls. Of course they’re awful. It’s their job.”
I cast a frown at Nina and pushed out my lower lip pitifully. “It hurts my feelings.”
Nina blew out a long, sisterly sigh, then threw her arm across my shoulders and hugged me close. “They’re just kids, Sophie. And each one of them acts mean and nasty as a defense mechanism. They don’t know who they are yet. Besides, what’s that saying? They’re probably more afraid of you than you are of them.”
“That’s a saying about wild animals.”
Nina shrugged. “It’s not like you don’t have a defense mechanism of your own.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.” She grinned and at that moment a tiny shard of sunlight crept through the window and bounced off her glossy black hair. With her impeccable makeup, incredible outfit and now this diffuse yellow halo, she looked like the quintessential popular girl.
“You’ll come to school and be my friend?”
