Price hung up.
Kylee paced the room. “You should have given an anonymous tip.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind talking to them.”
“Bill will know,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
The cops came to the house almost half an hour later. It was a rather uneventful visit. They asked Price the same questions they’d asked on the phone. One of them gave him a business card. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Did you find the body?” Price asked.
“We did find a body,” the second officer said. “Thank you for the tip.”
They left, and Price closed the door, exhaling as he leaned against it. “Well.”
That pretty much summed things up. “I guess now we wait,” Kylee said.
It was all over the news that evening. Kylee relaxed unnoticed at Price’s feet, watching the news with his family.
“Thanks to an unexpected tip, the body of missing teenager Kylee Mansfield was found this afternoon,” the newscaster said, shuffling her papers before looking into the camera. A picture of Kylee flashed on the television. “The teenage girl had been missing for three months. Her cause of death remains unknown.”
“Unknown!” Kylee burst out. “Haven’t they figured out yet that I was murdered?”
Price tapped her thigh with his foot. “They’ll do an autopsy, right, Dad? Figure it out?”
Mr. Hudson shook his head. “I assume so. And to think, those are our neighbors. Don’t you go near that house again, Price.”
“Sure, Dad.”
“Good thing he doesn’t know you found the body,” Kylee teased.
Mr. Hudson turned the television off. “Time for bed, kids. School tomorrow.”
There was no question in Kylee’s mind about going home or not. She didn’t plan to step foot in that house again, either.
“I’ll take the floor,” she said when Price closed the bedroom door.
“Why?” He took her arm and pulled her closer. “There’s room for both of us on my bed.”
“Not tonight.” Her throat ached from unshed tears, and her face felt swollen. All she could think about was they still hadn’t proved her murder.
“Sorry.” He kissed her forehead. “You take the bed.”
“If your dad comes in and finds you on the floor, he’ll think it’s weird. I don’t mind.”
They didn’t talk anymore as they settled into their spaces. Price’s breathing deepened from the twin bed, but Kylee didn’t sleep. She stared at the ceiling, then closed her eyes and willed time to pass.
Bright light filtered through her eyelids, and she opened them, surprised to find it was morning. She’d slept, or something. And she was still here.
The door opened and Price came in. “Oh, good, you’re awake.” He grabbed his backpack. “I have to leave for school.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Promise me you’ll still be here when I get back.”
She had no way of guaranteeing that. But she suspected if she didn’t say it, he wouldn’t go. “Of course I’ll be here.”
“Okay. You can just—hang out or something.”
“Yeah.”
He left, and she settled back for the longest day ever. She sat down at Price’s desk and fingered the notepad he kept there. On impulse, she flipped it to the very last page. Picking up one of his pens, she wrote in very careful lettering, “I love you, Price Hudson.” The words made her smile. She shoved the notepad back and turned on the computer, glancing out the window as it powered up. When she looked at the screen again, it was still dark. How long did it take to power on? She wiggled the mouse, and the welcome screen appeared. She moved the cursor toward the internet browser when she spotted the clock in the corner.
“Three oh-six?” she exclaimed. Where had the past eight hours gone?
Outside, she heard the familiar air brakes of the bus, followed by the voices of kids coming down the street. She leaned back in the computer desk chair. She didn’t want Price to know she’d been time jumping again.
He came in a few minutes later, his eyes darting around the room before landing on her. His expression relaxed. “You’re here.”
She faked a smile. “I promised, right?”
He gestured at the computer. “How was your day? Find anything new?”
“Um. No. Nothing.” That wasn’t even a lie.
He glanced behind him and turned back to her. “I’ll be back, okay?”
Where was he going? He didn’t give her a chance to respond, just turned around and left. She tapped her fingers on the desk, impatient to continue their conversation.
Price blew back in, closing the door behind him. “Sorry that took so long. Chores, dinner, you know. So.” He shrugged. “We tried, right? Maybe you’re not meant to move on.”
“I think we need a new approach,” Kylee said, not acknowledging his statement. “We need information.”
“Uh . . .” Price scratched his brow. “We tried that. And she gave us a bunch of steps and clues that aren’t helping. Or were you thinking of going to someone else?” Alarm flashed across his features. “I hope you don’t mean Bill.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“No.” She laughed. “While Bill is definitely the person who knows everything about my death, there’s no way I’d send you to talk to him.”
“Yeah, I won’t mention how relieved that makes me,” Price murmured. “Who, then?”
“The cops,” Kylee said. She couldn’t pass another day staring at the computer, waiting for something to happen.
“You think they know something they’re not telling us?”
She shrugged. “I know they have details we might not know.”
“There’s not any way to check police records—” Price broke off, and a slow smile slid across his face. “Listen. Of course there is. You can do it.”
“How?”
“If you can get me passwords, I can do the rest.”
“You can do that?”
Price cracked his fingers and put a lazy expression on his face. “I’ve been hacking websites since I was ten.”
She looked at him. “It’s illegal to hack into police records.”
“It’s also illegal to murder someone.”
He had her there. “How will I get passwords?”
“If I can get you into the police station—they can’t see you, right? All you’d have to do is spy on someone for ten minutes, just long enough for them to log in somewhere.”
“But you could get in trouble.”
“Only if I’m caught. Hey.” He put his hands on her shoulders and peered into her eyes. “If Madame Humphrey’s telling the truth, then time’s running out. We have to figure out what we need to do before—before—”
“Before I go to hell for a suicide I didn’t commit?” Kylee said it flippantly to brush off her own fear. “Okay. So how do we get me into the police station?”
“We’ll work that out.”
She looked around his cluttered computer desk and spotted the notepad. She grabbed a pencil and reached for the paper. It wasn’t until she started to write that she noticed her hand was empty. She lifted her gaze and saw the notepad hadn’t moved. “Didn’t I pick up that paper?”
“No,” Price said, shaking his head. “You just reached for it.”
“That’s strange . . .” Kylee extended her hand again. She felt the pokey corners of the notepad, the smoothness of the paper. But nothing happened when she grasped it. She withdrew her hand and stared at it.
“What’s wrong?” In an instant, Price was standing beside her.
“I can’t pick it up,” she whispered. “I’m trying to grab it and nothing happens.”
“Try it again,” he said, his voice tight.
She did. Her fingers went right through the paper. She gasped. “Price.” Coldness washed over her. Was this it? Was she going to pass over now, even though they hadn’t cleared her name? Icy tendrils crept over her fingers and toes. She didn’t dare look at the ring, certain all color would be gone.
“I’m here.” His fingers grazed her arm, and she closed her eyes in relief at the pressure of his hand. She’d had a terrible fear that he would go right through her. Warmth replaced the chill, and she leaned into his ribcage, terrified.
“Don’t let me go,” she whispered.
“I’ve got you.” He wrapped his arms around her, one hand rubbing her shoulder blades. His embrace tightened and he kissed the top of her head. “Je t’aime.”
She didn’t need to know French to know what that meant. She closed her eyes, an ache forming in her chest so sharp and poignant that it seemed alive. She pulled away from the embrace. “I guess you’ll have to take notes.”
“Yeah.” He gave a short laugh.
“Take my seat.” Kylee removed herself from the chair and sat two feet away from him on the plush carpet. “What time is it?” she asked, her eyes caught by the array of colors following the descending globe of sunlight.
Price turned his alarm clock toward him. “Almost seven. Is that important?”
“No, it’s just—I’ve been here for hours. All day.”
“I’m not keeping you here. You’re free to go.”
His reply annoyed her. “I will when I want,” she snapped. “Right now we’re planning.”
“So let’s plan.”
“We need to go to the cops.”
“Right.” His pencil tapped the paper. “I already have that. Visit the police station. Then what?”
Kylee shrugged. Things got a little iffy for her there, too.
Price drew a giant question mark. “This is a great plan. Foolproof.”
Before Kylee thought up a witty reply, the cell phone on his desk rang. He grabbed at it before it danced its way off the desk.
“Hey,” he said into the speaker. He glanced at her and mouthed, “Sorry.”
Kylee sat in rapt attention. Though Price got plenty of text messages, she couldn’t recall the last time someone had called him. She tuned her ears into the phone and thought she made out the high-pitched intonation of a female voice.
“Yeah, I wasn’t feeling that well.” He paused. “Crap, is that due this week? Sure. Okay, see ya.” He hung up and scratched his eyebrow. “Sorry about that.”
Kylee waited for elucidation, but Price didn’t offer any. He picked his pencil up and turned back to the paper.
“Who was it?” she prompted, hoping she appeared curious and not nosy.
“Oh, Amy,” he said, as if it were no big deal. “Anyway. Police station.”
He was trying too hard to change the subject, and it made Kylee more suspicious. “I didn’t know you guys talked on the phone.”
“We don’t. We’re working on a French project together, and it’s due Thursday. She’s coming over so we can finish it.”
He said it so casually, without looking at her, that Kylee immediately thought it was not as simple as he acted. “She’s coming over now?”
“Well, it’s supposed to be with Michael. But he’s never available. Amy called him just now, too, and he can’t come.”
Why did the thought of him working with her make her jealous? His words made perfect sense. “How does that work? Does he still get credit for the project?”
“I don’t know. We’ll give Michael the hard part when it’s time to present.”
“Should I leave before Amy gets here?”
“No, that’s okay.” But the way Price shifted in his chair and pulled on his earlobe said otherwise.
She cleared her throat and nodded at the paper. “Let’s finish this up.”
“Right. Police station tomorrow?”
She bobbed her head. Amy would be here soon. It wasn’t a long walk. Focus. “How will I get there?”
Price tapped his pencil on the desk, a sly grin spreading across his face. “I know. How would you like to go to school with me?”
“What? Go to school with you?” Kylee’s mouth dropped, all concerns about the French project and Amy fleeing her thoughts. “Really?” She tried to conceal her excitement at the idea.
“The police station is around the corner from the school.”
“How convenient. So we can walk over.”
“Exactly.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Aren’t you smart?”
The doorbell rang and Kylee jumped away, her face warming as if she’d been caught in the middle of something naughty. His dad knocked on the door before opening it.
“Price? Amy’s here.”
Price waved. “Just let her in.”
Mr. Hudson disappeared, and Kylee hissed, “He knows who she is? How often does she come over?”
“Come on, Kylee,” Price breathed, rolling his eyes at her. “You’re the one who stalks my house. Shouldn’t you know?”
Was he making a jab at her? For that matter, shouldn’t she know? How had this slipped past her? She folded her arms across her chest and huffed.
“Hi,” Amy said, appearing in the open doorway with her backpack slung on one shoulder. “Your dad said to come on in.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Price cleared some of his papers off the desk and coughed, shooting a look at Kylee. She frowned, trying to decipher his meaning. Was that her cue to leave?
Amy pulled a rolled up posterboard from her pack. “I have the pictures we chose, but I didn’t glue them on yet. We can see this better if I roll it out on the floor, right?”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
Kylee moved out of the way so Amy could lay it out. She glanced at Price, pleased to see him scratching his eyebrow in a nervous gesture. Suddenly she had no desire to go anywhere.
Amy glanced at him, her wavy brown hair spilling over one shoulder as she leaned over. “Did you get your stuff typed up?”
“It’s here.” Price grabbed a bunch of papers and plopped down next to her.
“Great.” She smiled at him. “Can you get the pictures from my backpack? I’m trying to smooth this out.”
“Sure.” Price cleared his throat again and opened her bag. He found an envelope and handed it to her.
She sat up, though the ends of the poster board still curled inward a little. “You okay? Still feeling sick?”
“Um, no, I’m good.” He sat beside her, his back straight and shoulders high.
“Hey.” Amy nudged him with her left hip. “Relax. It’s me.”
Kylee stood up. Her finger grew hot, and she glanced at the ring, a little surprised the color was red and not green with envy. “Obviously you two have a much friendlier relationship when I’m not here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Wait!” Price said, and then put a hand over his mouth.
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