AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’d better hope he doesn’t,” the Chancellor snaps back at her.
“If you honestly think?—”
They’re getting too far away for me to hear. I lean out a little further, trying to get a better angle.
The urn wobbles, drowning out whatever the Chancellor replies.
I frantically grip its handles, preventing it from toppling over, but grimacing at the noise.
There’s a slight pause, as if Miss Robin and the Chancellor glanced back over their shoulders.
I hold my breath, worried that they might hear even an exhale.
After a moment, their motion resumes.
“Well, that’syourproblem,” Miss Robin says coldly.
Then I hear the light patter of her feet descending the stairs.
Luther Hugo comes stomping back down the hallway.
I shrink behind the urn, praying that he won’t look in my direction. I’m only partly concealed by the oversized pottery.
Born along in a cloud of irritation, he sweeps into his office and slams the door.
I stay exactly where I am, too scared to move.
I only heard a fragment of the conversation.
But I can’t help thinking they must be talking about Snow.
Finally Saturday rolls around again.I prefer the weekend—it’s much easier to avoid Lola.
Rakel and I spend the morning as we’ve been spending all our weekends lately—searching for my missing person.
We have to take the laptop up to ground level, because there’s no connection down in the Undercroft. We’re holed up in the ice house on the west side of campus, Rakel tapping away on Ozzy’s laptop and me keeping watch by the door so we’re not caught with technological contraband.
Rakel has become even more obsessed with this task than I am. She’s been neglecting her homework in favor of chasing up obscure leads that inevitably conclude in more dead ends.
“People can’t really disappear,” Rakel says grimly, her eyes fixed on the glowing screen. “There’s always some trace . . .”
“Unless they’re dead,” I reply.
“She’s not dead.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
I don’t share Rakel’s confidence. I told her from the beginning this might be a fool’s errand.
“I found her sister easy enough,” Rakel says. “She’s a nurse, too. Works at Evanston Women’s Hospital in Chicago. Which is a little weird ‘cause the address on her tax return is Madison. That’s a long commute.”
“Could be an old address,” I say, drawing idly in my sketchbook with a piece of charcoal.
“No, it’s from January.”
“Is that her only family?”
