Cutting Up The Competition (Horror High Series Book 2) Page 9

  I looked around the kitchen. There were a few dirty dishes in the sink. A week old newspaper on the table. Where the hell was Sydney?

  We walked through each room on the bottom floor, seeing nothing out of the ordinary—besides the fact that everything looked unused, like no one had been here in weeks.

  “Detective Simms said he saw signs of struggle. But I don’t see anything down here, do you all?” I asked, peeking in a tiny one and a half bath off the living room.

  “Nope,” Winter said, staring at the twisted staircase leading upstairs.

  We made our way upstairs to Sydney’s bedroom. Seeing it again, only after being here a week ago, felt strange. We’d sat on her bed and talked. She was this living, breathing person and now she had simply vanished. And wherever she was, she was more than likely missing a tongue…

  Bottles of perfume, makeup, and clothes were strewn across her bedroom…although her bed was perfectly made.

  “Do you think she was sitting at the dresser when someone took her?” Dakota asked, her hands shaking as she reached down to touch Sydney’s brushes and combs. “This must be where the struggle happened…”

  “It almost looks that way…like someone yanked her out of her seat and knocked everything over in the process,” Winter added.

  “Or maybe Sydney knocked it all over while she was fighting like hell against the piece of shit who took her,” I said angrily.

  I opened her closet and dug through her drawers. Winter looked under the bed.

  “She was such a neat freak,” Winter said, sifting through a stack of magazines she’d pulled out from under the bed. If I knew Sydney, they were organized according to date…

  “She is a neat freak. Not was.” Dakota stared up from the floor at Winter, giving her the evil eye again.

  “Sorry,” Winter muttered.

  Standing in front of Sydney’s tall bureau drawer, I saw a cluster of silver and gold-framed photographs. There was a cheerleading picture of the whole team from last year, and a photograph of her with her parents. Behind those was a picture of a cute, little, old lady—the same one from Facebook I had messaged the other day—this must be Grandma Rose.

  I lifted the photograph, staring at the woman in question. I wondered why she hadn’t messaged me back yet. It seemed strange. Most people check their Facebook accounts daily, but since she was old…maybe she didn’t log on regularly.

  We searched the upstairs bathrooms and Sydney’s mom and dad’s bedroom. I was hoping to find an address book or a list of extra out of town contact numbers, but again I came up empty.

  “Nothing. This place is so beautiful but it’s got no heart. Nothing in the drawers or cabinets, except for the bare necessities. I see why Sydney is the way she is. Her parents don’t strike me as the nostalgic type. Or the type who spend much time living inside this house,” Winter said.

  By the time we made it back to my house, it was nearly four in the morning. We had to get up and go to school—unless it got called off again.

  Dakota snuck back home, while Winter and I creeped up the creaky staircase, trying our best not to wake up my mom or grandma.

  We collapsed on my bed, falling asleep instantly and not even bothering with setting the alarm.

  ***

  I didn’t open my eyes until nearly eleven in the morning. Thinking I was late, I crept downstairs, my eyes still adjusting for the day. I felt like I had a hangover, from lack of sleep and the stress of everything. Had we really gone to Sydney’s house last night? In retrospect, it seemed so foolish.

  My mom wasn’t home, but Grandma Mimi was humming and knitting in the living room. I’d never seen her sew or knit before. It seemed almost too grandmotherly of an activity for her…

  “I’m incredibly late for school,” I croaked, my voice strained and raspy from lack of sleep.

  “It got called off again. The police are treating it like a crime scene again, trying to get some prints off of that box with the tongue in it,” Grandma said.

  “Was it on the news?” I asked, staring at the turned off television in the corner.

  “Yep. I needed a break from it all.” Grandma Mimi kept knitting, resuming her humming as I went upstairs to wake up Winter.

  “I better head home. I left a note last night, but I’m sure my mom will be pissed that I left without waking her up. Thanks for letting me stay. And, Amanda? I’m sorry we didn’t find anything to help Sydney. I didn’t know her well—don’t know her well—but she seemed very smart and kind.” Winter gave me a sad, sorry look.

  I nodded, pursing my lips.

  After Winter left, I seriously considered climbing back in bed. To hell with this day, I thought, sitting on the edge of the bed and twisting the covers in my fists.

  I felt like I needed to be doing something, anything, to help my missing friend.

  Pulling out my cell phone, I was surprised to see a new message in my inbox from someone on Facebook. Quickly opening it, I was happy to see Sydney’s Grandma Rose has responded.

  Rose: I’m so sorry about your friend, hun. I have lots of friends on FB, but I don’t know most of them personally. Sydney seems like a sweet young girl, but she is not my granddaughter. Maybe in another life she would be, you never know. Good luck finding your friend, sweetheart. If there’s any way I can help, please let me know and I will.

  I stared at her response in shock. Clicking on her profile pic, I felt certain she was the same woman in the framed photograph on Sydney’s dresser.

  The hair on my arms stood up and I shivered, gripping the blankets around me for warmth.

  Why would Sydney lie about having a grandmother named Rose? Furthermore, why in the world would she put a stranger’s picture in a frame and call the stranger her grandmother?

  Chapter

  Thirty-Three

  According to Grandma Mimi, my mom was out looking for a job. Job hunting for so long seemed unlikely, and by the time six o’clock rolled around, I was certain she was never coming back again.

  It wouldn’t be the first time she said she was going somewhere and then didn’t show up again for several months.

  I baked cookies to distract myself, kneading the dough with a vengeance and angrily cutting out heart shaped pieces from the flattened dough.

  But then the gooey little white pieces reminded me of Genevieve’s nose…

  The news was on in the living room. When I heard a local correspondent say the words, “breaking news,” I set down the knife and joined Grandma Mimi on the couch.

  “After much investigation, a source in the Harrow Hill police department confirmed what we’ve all suspected. Genevieve McDermott was murdered. A blow to the back of the head is what killed her. All other injuries were sustained postmortem.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. At least they didn’t cut off her nose while she was still alive.

  The fact that that was comforting, made me realize how bad things had really gotten.

  “There’s a killer on the loose in Harrow Hill. Police suspect the same person who killed Miss McDermott also kidnapped another young student, Sydney Hargreaves. A terrifying note and tongue were planted in another girl’s locker, along with a note leading us to believe that the tongue belonged to our missing girl. But sources now say the tongue did not belong to a human. The tongue appears to be from the porcine family…or in other words, it came from a pig.”

  The reporter kept talking, but I couldn’t hear anything else. I was hit by a flood of emotions.

  Relief that the tongue didn’t belong to Sydney…but something was off about this.

  What did Sydney say the other day when we were running late to school?

  Suddenly recalling the details, I repeated her words aloud: “I’m dissecting a pig today.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Four

  I was surprised to find my mom sleeping on the living room couch the next morning, bundled up in a fetal position and under a blanket. She appeared to be sweating profusely.

 
; I rolled my eyes at her, heading for the front door. I had plans today—important ones.

  “Where are you going?” With one eye open, my mom sat up from the couch, looking at me, confused.

  “I have to run some errands,” I said vaguely, slipping my feet back in the dew-dampened Keds from last night.

  “Going where, exactly?” she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and pushing the blankets aside.

  “What business is it of yours? You were gone all day and night yesterday. How about I ask you some questions? For starters, where were you all day yesterday, and why the hell did you even bother coming back?” I asked, sounding harsher than I’d anticipated.

  What came next surprised me.

  “I was having an evaluation done at the hospital. I’ve been accepted into a drug treatment program but there won’t be a bed available for me for another week. I’m trying to dry out, honey. I want to get better for you.”

  Momentarily forgetting my plans, I took a cautious step toward her. I wanted to believe her…I did.

  But she’d disappointed me so many times before…

  “Why did you ever start using in the first place?” I asked, afraid to even hear her answer. What if it was because raising me was too stressful? Was I to blame for her desperate need to numb the pain?

  “Baby, life is complicated. People are complicated. I was so young when I had you. Young and childish. Your dad was in a band and I thought he was so damn cool. I’d have done anything to impress him. That’s when the addiction started. It became less of a fun activity and more of a necessity to function,” she explained.

  “So it wasn’t because of me…? It wasn’t my fault you all struggled with money and used drugs…? My fault Dad did what he did?”

  She looked stunned by my questions. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry you ever thought that. Absolutely not! You are the only reason I ever stopped using. The only motivation to be good. I want to be someone you admire, someone you can look up to someday. I want you to be proud of me.”

  “I’ll be proud of you if you get clean, Mom.”

  “I will. I won’t promise you because I always promise and break it…but I am going to get clean.” She said it with such conviction, for me but also for herself.

  We hugged, and for the first time in a long time, I saw her for who she was—my mother…imperfect in every way possible, but my mother nevertheless. I’d never loved her more.

  “I need to get going,” I said, standing up and wiping wetness from eyes.

  “Will you tell me where you’re really going?” my mom asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “I will, but you’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me,” she said.

  “I’m going to see Ashleigh Westerfield, the girl who tried to kill Sydney last year. I called juvenile detention. She’s allowed visitors today. There are some questions I need to ask her.”

  My mom raised her eyebrows, surprised. “Let me get my purse and I’ll take you,” she said, surprising me.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Five

  I expected Crimson County’s juvenile detention center to be scary and hulking. Instead, it was a small round building, filled with “cells” that more closely resembled small dorm rooms than locked cages.

  My mother and I waited patiently at the main desk in the center, watching “inmates” come and go from their rooms freely. There was a quaint sitting room, equipped with a fancy flat screen television and a work station with a decent-looking computer and monitor.

  It was hard to believe this place could be used as a form of punishment…but at the same time, I guess being kept away from school, family, friends, and everyday normal society was punishment enough in itself.

  “This way please,” said a cute male orderly, who was sporting a tiny mustache that looked freshly grown on his youthful face.

  The three of us stood outside a “cell” with the number eight painted on the side next to its door frame. With the scan of a keycard and a small buzzing sound, we were led inside a girl’s bedroom. Ashleigh Westerfield sat on the bed, drawing.

  She barely glanced up at us, much to my surprise. Her cream colored walls were covered in sketches. Some of them were drawings of cheerleaders, a big letter D—for Dragons, I presumed—displayed proudly on the chest of their uniforms.

  “You have about fifteen minutes,” the orderly said, giving me an apologetic look. He walked out, leaving Mom and me alone with Ashleigh, although he did leave the door to the room propped open. Across the hallway, I could see several staff members patrolling. That gave me a greater sense of safety.

  “Ashleigh, its’s Amanda. Do you remember me from school?”

  She stopped drawing and looked up, seemingly catching my words. She nodded, a strange, gleeful expression on her face. “How’s the team doing?” she asked, surprising me.

  My mom gave me a strange look, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

  “Can you leave us alone for a few minutes?” I asked her. Mom looked like she wanted to say no, but finally, she backed out of the room, never taking her eyes off of Ashleigh. “I’ll be right in the hallway if you need me,” she warned.

  Ashleigh watched me as I took a seat, pulling the chair close to where she sat on the bed. Her expression was friendly, genuine. She looked wide-eyed and eager…almost innocent.

  “Things are not well, actually. Now there’s a new person harassing us. I was hoping you could help me figure it out,” I said.

  “How can I help from in here?” Ashleigh asked, looking around her small eight by six room.

  “Why did you do it, Ashleigh? Why did you stalk us and try to kill Sydney? Can you at least tell me that?” I pleaded.

  I expected her demeanor to change. But her smile never faded, almost like it was painted on.

  She reminded me of a ventriloquist dummy, one of those bizarre-looking ones that always seemed to be in a perpetual state of creepy bliss.

  Ashley’s expression turned serious. “You want to know why? Well, that’s easy. I put Sydney in the locker because she told me to. She wanted me to stop her because she couldn’t stop herself.”

  I felt the air leave my lungs. “What do you mean?” I demanded, still not registering her words.

  “Sydney told me to stuff her in the locker. She told me to do all of those things. She said I had to do it, for the team.”

  Chapter

  Thirty-Six

  “Mom. Let’s go home,” I breathed, nearly tripping over myself on the way out of the door. The walls of the detention center were wavy, distorted. I felt disconnected, like the world wasn’t real anymore.

  When I was little, I used to literally believe that the world revolved around me. My life was like The Truman Show, everyone watching and playing their role in this movie I called My Life. I used to pretend my decisions and actions could influence the entire planet.

  I think I wanted to believe it because I felt so insignificant and small. By playing that silly game, I could make even the most unbearable days have meaning.

  Today felt like one of those days. I stumbled through the hallway, people staring at me strangely.

  The world is a stage, and everyone is laughing…

  When we finally burst through the exit doors, I desperately sucked in air, trying to fill my lungs and calm my rapid heartbeat.

  What did this new knowledge mean? And did it mean what I thought it meant?

  My mom reached across the seat of Grandma’s classic car, pulling my seatbelt across my lap for me. She hooked it in, then just stared. “Talk to me, Amanda. Talk to me now. Are you all right? What did that girl say to you?”

  “Nothing. It was just so upsetting for me to see her, is all…” I breathed, trying to recover.

  I had to go to Detective Simms. I had to tell Mom and Grandma. I had to tell Dakota too. But I wasn’t ready to do it just yet.

  Somewhere in the distance, Mom was offering to take me to Kentucky Fried Chicken. “Want a bucket of chicken?” she asked,
her voice sounding far away.

  “Can we just go straight home? I’m really tired.”

  “Okay.” My mom was quiet and pensive, wanting to ask more but apparently deciding not to. I was grateful she didn’t. We listened to the radio, local news about sports and upcoming events.

  “This just in—we have breaking news.” The young female reporter’s voice woke me from my trance—the reporter sounded excited as she fumbled for a few minutes, obviously live and unscripted.

  “The young girl reported missing—Sydney Michelle Hargreaves—has been found. Stay tuned for details after these messages from our sponsors.”

  “What?” I screamed at the speaker. I pounded it with my fists, willing her to come back on. By now, my mom had pulled over on the side of the road. She reached for my arms, trying to calm me down.

  “Is she dead? Did they find her body? Is she alive? Come on!” I screamed at an advertisement for itch relief cream.

  “Just wait and listen,” my mom whispered, turning up the volume on the radio.

  “Okay, Kelly Fenteel back again. This just in—Sydney Hargreaves has miraculously been found. And, get this folks! She’s alive! She walked back into town bruised and bloody, but essentially nothing broken and most importantly, alive! Apparently, her captor had a change of heart and decided to let her go. She is currently with police, and more details are soon to follow…now here’s an old favorite, “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones…”

  “That’s wonderful news, honey. Do you want me to drive you down to the police station to see her now?” my mom asked, an expression of wonderment on her face.

  I shook my head, still staring at the speaker, which sung of red doors and the need to paint the whole world black. I wanted to listen to this song…