Page 37

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When I return to the brownstone, the first thing I do is make sure Whitney isn’t home. When I am certain I’m alone, I grab my laptop and bring it to the sofa. I wait for it to start, and then I bring up Whitney’s background check, which I had downloaded to the hard drive before she moved in nearly five months ago.

It doesn’t have much in it. It verifies that she has never been arrested or incarcerated. There are no active warrants for her arrest. It basically verifies that if Whitney has committed any crime in her life, she has not been caught.

But that’s not the information I’m looking for.

The background check also lists the town where she was born. It’s a place I never heard of in New Jersey called Telmont. I look it up on Wikipedia, which states that it’s a town in Sussex County with a population of fifteen thousand. It’s also about a two-hour drive from Manhattan.

I’ve never been there before. I’m positive of that. But there’s something about the name of the town that rings a bell.

A little more investigation reveals that it’s a small enough town that there’s only one high school. I bring up the website for Telmont High, which has a number listed.

I stare down at the phone number on the screen of my laptop. I don’t entirely know what I’m doing right now. Just because Whitney was born in Telmont, New Jersey, doesn’t mean she went to high school there. Back at Becky’s house, Becky and Krista were both looking at me like I had lost my mind—like they were scared of me—and now that I’m sitting here, googling high schools in New Jersey, there’s part of me that wonders if they aren’t entirely off the mark.

Yet my gut is telling me that something is going on.

I’d dropped my phone on the coffee table, and now it starts vibrating. I grab it from the table, and my stomach turns when I see who is calling me. Shit—it’s Kenny. I completely forgot to call in sick today. I swipe to take the call.

“Porter,” he barks at me. “Where are you? You know we have that meeting with Haywood in twenty minutes.”

Back at my old job, I would have been running a meeting like that. Now I’m photocopying spreadsheets and pouring coffee. And taking minutes, of course. “I’m sorry. I’m really sick today. I can’t even get out of bed.”

There’s a long silence on the other line. “You’re sick?”

“Yeah. It just hit me when I woke up. Fever, chills. Really bad stuff.”

“You know,” he says, “Davidson saw you standing on the street this morning. He said it was on the west side on his way to the subway.”

Is that possible? I was on the west side, outside Becky and Malcolm’s apartment building. But Davidson is an asshole, and he isn’t above making something up to get me in trouble.

“He said you were taking off your shirt,” Kenny adds.

Okay, that was definitely me. “Oh” is all I can muster.

“So you’re not sick.”

“I just…” The last thing I want is to share any of my problems with my boss, who already dislikes me. “It’s been a rough morning. I need a personal day.”

“What I don’t appreciate is the deception.” His voice is tight. “You could have asked for a personal day. You could’ve let me know at the beginning of the day, for starters. But instead, I have to call you when you don’t bother to show up, and then you lie to me. But after what I heard about you, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I…I’m sorry,” I stammer.

“You don’t want to come in today? Fine. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow either.”

“Kenny—”

“We’ll mail you your things. Goodbye, Porter.”

And then he hangs up on me.

He fired me. I can’t believe it. Actually, I can believe it, because I’ve been phoning it in recently, even when I did show up. I can’t even hold down a temp job.

He’ll let the agency know I’ve been fired. And then what? I don’t know. I suppose they’ll find me another degrading job. I’ll definitely need to sell the brownstone.

Somehow, Whitney is behind all this. I just don’t understand why or how.

I focus my attention back on the laptop screen. Telmont High School. It’s still morning, so they will almost certainly be open if I call. This is something I can do.

I punch the ten digits into my phone. Immediately, it starts ringing. I grip the phone, my palm suddenly sweaty. I don’t know what I’m doing exactly, but I have to start somewhere. I need more information about Whitney Cross, and this is as good a place as any to begin.

After a few rings, a pleasant-sounding woman picks up on the other line. “Telmont High School,” she chirps.

I clear my throat. “Yes, hello. My name is…John Sanders. I’m considering hiring a candidate for a job, and I’m trying to track down a copy of her high school transcript. She told me that you might be able to send it to me.”

“Yes, I could certainly do that,” the woman says cheerfully, “although we would need a signed release from the student.”

Damn, I had a feeling she might say that. “Actually, we faxed that over this morning. Didn’t you get it?”

To my relief, she laughs. “Oh, probably. We got a stack of faxes this morning, and I still haven’t gone through them all. I’m sure it’s in there.”

“It definitely is,” I assure her.

In the background, I can hear her tapping on a keyboard. “What is the candidate’s name?”

“Whitney Cross.”

The tapping abruptly stops. “Whitney Cross?”

“That’s right.”

“Whitney Cross applied for a job?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

On the other line, I can hear the sharp inhale of her breath. “Maybe it’s not my place to say so, but…”

“What is it?”

“If Whitney is applying to work for you, I would highly recommend you pick another candidate.”

I grip the phone tighter. “Why?”

Her voice drops several notches. “Whitney Cross—she’s extremely dangerous. If I were you, I would stay far away.”