Crescendo

boyfriend, there’d be hell to pay.”

I pointed a stiff finger at the street. “Drive!”

“You know what? You really need a new boyfriend. You need a good old-fashioned make-out session to mellow you out.”

Why did everyone think I needed a new boyfriend? I didn’t need a new boyfriend. I’d had enough of boyfriends to last a lifetime. The only thing a boyfriend was good for was a shattered heart.

CHAPTER 10

AN HOUR LATER, I’D FIXED AND EATEN A LATE SNACK of cream cheese frosting spread on graham crackers, tidied up the kitchen, and watched a little TV. In a shadowy corner of my mind, I hadn’t managed to forget the text message warning me to stay home. It had been easier to brush off as a miscall or prank when I was safe and sound inside Vee’s car, but now that I was alone, I wasn’t feeling anywhere near as confident. I considered turning on some Chopin to break the silence, but I didn’t want to handicap my hearing. The last thing I needed was someone sneaking up behind me….

Pull it together! I ordered myself. Nobody’s sneaking up on you.

After a while, when nothing good was left on TV, I climbed upstairs to my bedroom. My room was, for all intents and purposes, clean, so I color-coded my closet, trying to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t be tempted to fall asleep. Nothing would make me as vulnerable as dozing off, and I wanted to delay it as long as possible. I dusted the top of the bureau, then alphabetized my hardcovers. I reassured myself that nothing bad was going to happen. Most likely, I’d wake tomorrow realizing how ridiculously paranoid I’d been.

Then again, maybe the text was from someone who wanted to slit my throat while I slept. On an eerie night like this, nothing was too far-fetched to believe.

Sometime later, I woke in the dark. The drapes on the far side of the room billowed as the electric fan oscillated toward them. The air temperature was overly warm, and my stretchy tank and boy briefs clung to my skin, but I was too caught up in envisioning worst-case scenarios to even think about cracking the window. Looking sideways, I blinked at the numbers on my clock. Just shy of three.

An angry pounding reverberated through the right side of my skull, and my eye was swollen shut. Turning on every light in the house, I padded barefoot to the freezer and assembled an ice pack out of ice cubes and a Ziploc bag. I braved a look in the bathroom mirror and groaned. A violent purple and red bruise flowered from my eyebrow down to my cheekbone.

“How could you have let this happen?” I asked my reflection. “How could you have let Marcie beat you up?”

I shook the last two Tylenol gelcaps out of the bottle in the mirrored cabinet, swallowed them, then curled into bed. The ice stung the skin around my eye and sent a shiver through me. While I waited for the Tylenol to kick in, I wrestled with the mental picture of Marcie climbing inside Patch’s Jeep. The image played, rewound, and replayed. I tossed and turned, and even folded my pillow over my head to smother the image, but it danced just out of reach, taunting me.

What must have been an hour later, my brain wore itself out thinking of all the inventive ways I’d like to kill both Marcie and Patch, and I slipped back into sleep.

I woke to the sound of a lock rolling over.

I opened my eyes, but found my vision muddled by the same poor-quality black and white as when I’d dreamed my way into England, hundreds of years ago. I tried to blink it away and bring my normal vision back, but my world stayed the color of smoke and ice.

Downstairs, the front door eased open with a low-pitched creak.

I wasn’t expecting my mom home until Saturday morning, which meant it was someone else. Someone who didn’t belong inside.

I stole a look around the room for something I could use as a weapon. A few small picture frames were arranged on the night-stand, along with a cheap drugstore lamp.

Footsteps trod softly over the hardwood floors of the foyer. Seconds later, they were on the stairs. The intruder didn’t pause, listening for signs that they’d been heard. They knew exactly where they were going. Rolling silently out of bed, I snatched my discarded tights off the floor. I tightened them between my hands and pressed my back to the wall just inside my bedroom door, a clammy sweat beading my skin. It was so quiet I could hear myself breathe.

He stepped through the doorway, and I roped a leg of the tights around his neck, tugging back with all my strength. There was a moment of struggle before my weight jerked forward and I found myself face-to-face with Patch.

He looked from the tights he’d confiscated to me. “Want to explain?”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my breathing elevated. I put two and two together. “Was that your text earlier? The one telling me to stay put tonight? Since when do you have an unlisted number?”

“I had to get a new line. Something more secure.”

I didn’t want to know. What kind of person needed all that secrecy? Who was Patch afraid would be eavesdropping on his calls? The archangels?

“Did it ever occur to you to knock?” I said, my pulse still hammering. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Expecting someone else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes!” A psychopath who sent anonymous text messages telling me to make myself accessible.

“It’s after three,” Patch said. “Whoever you’re waiting for can’t be that exciting—you fell asleep.” He smiled. “You’re still sleeping.” As he said it, he looked satisfied. Maybe even reassured, as if something he’d been puzzling over had finally worked itself out.

I blinked. Still sleeping? What was he talking about? Wait. Of course. That explained why all color was drained, and I was still seeing in black and white. Patch wasn’t really in my bedroom—he was in my dream.

But was I dreaming about him, or did he actually know he was here? Were we sharing the same dream?

“For your information, I fell asleep waiting for—Scott.” I had no idea why I’d said it, other than my mouth got in the way of my brain.

“Scott,” he repeated.

“Don’t start. I saw Marcie climb inside your Jeep.”

“She needed a ride.”

I adopted a hands-on-hips pose. “What kind of ride?”

“Not that kind of ride,” he said slowly.

“Oh, sure! What color was her thong?” It was a test, and I really hoped he failed.

He didn’t answer, but one look at his eyes told me he hadn’t failed.

I marched to the bed, grabbed a pillow, and hurled it at him. He sidestepped, and it flopped against the wall. “You lied to me,” I said. “You told me there was nothing going on between you and Marcie, but when two people have nothing between them, they don’t swap wardrobes, and they don’t get inside each other’s cars late at night dressed in what could pass as lingerie!” I was suddenly aware of my own clothes, or lack thereof. I stood feet away from Patch in nothing more than a spaghetti-strap tank and boy briefs. Well, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it now, was there?

“Swap wardrobes?”

“She was wearing your hat!”

“She was having a bad hair day.”

My jaw dropped. “Is that what she told you? And you fell for it?” “She’s not as bad as you’re making her out to be.”