The voicemail beeped for what seemed like the hundredth time. "Mr. Crawford," I said. " It's Sadie Davis. Please call me back as soon as you get this. He found me," my voice trembled. "He's here." I hung up the phone and started pacing again. He'd call me back. He had to call me back.
The sound of the door unlocking seemed to pull me out of my haze. I couldn't let Kins see me like this. I grabbed the box and shoved it under my bed. I sat cross-legged on my bed and tried to picture anything but blood. Whose blood was it? Was it someone I knew? What if I had accidently put someone in Don's crosshairs?
"Hey, are you okay?" Kins asked.
I shook my head and didn't look at her. "Fine, just tired. I'm going to go to bed." But I didn't move. I couldn't seem to move. Just thinking about what was under my bed made me feel like throwing up.
"You're staring at a blank space on the wall like a total psychopath."
I've already lost my mind. I tried to laugh but it came out forced. "I was just thinking." I tried to keep my voice as steady as possible, but I knew it wavered.
"About the fact that Eli came back to his dorm last night in a fit of rage?"
I didn't want to talk about last night. I didn't want to talk at all. "We got into a little fight. It was nothing." I burst out crying.
"Oh, Sadie," Kins said as she hopped onto my bed and pulled me into a hug. "It's okay. I'm sure it'll blow over." She patted my back, trying to comfort me.
"No," I croaked.
"Of course it will," she said soothingly. It sounded like he almost got in a fight with another man. Who's the other guy? Try to get your mind off Eli for a minute."
Try to get my mind off the blood. "No one." Kins would be furious if she knew about the time I had spent with Miles.
"Oh, come on. Give me the details. You know how much I approve of you seeing more than one guy at once."
God. I needed to get a grip and change the subject. "No, it's not that. We got into a fight because I think he's been hiding things from me." The thought of Eli lying no longer seemed of any importance. I needed to get the hell out of New York. I'd never see him again anyway.
Kins continued to rub her hand up and down my back. "What kind of things?"
"He's been avoiding showing me his dorm room. And I'm not sure he's been running off to boxing classes every night like he says. He's so evasive when I ask him questions." It felt good to ramble about something else.
"Hmm."
"But he said I could come over tomorrow night for dinner." I'd be long gone before tomorrow night.
"I have an idea."
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to plan to be there tomorrow night too. It won't be a problem, Patrick always says yes to anything I suggest. But instead of actually hanging out with them, we can lead an investigation."
I shook my head.
"I'm serious. We can trick them in to leaving and then ransack the place."
"Um...I don't know if that's a great idea."
"Come on, it'll be fun. You never know what you'll find under a boy's mattress."
I laughed. It sounded less forced this time. "As long as we put everything back exactly where we find it."
"But how fun w
ould it be to totally mess everything up? Patrick would be so mad. Maybe he'd do unspeakable things to me."
It was good that her mind wasn't truly focused on the investigation. I didn't want her to get her hopes up about something that would never happen.
I must have been making a face, because Kins said, "What do you think he's hiding exactly?"