Chapter 39

My alarm, which I couldn’t even remember setting, woke me at normal school-morning time. My stomach felt really sore and stiff, and the initial red colour of the bruise had turned purple overnight. That meant it was getting better, although it didn’t feel like it.

When I got down to the kitchen for breakfast, Mum and Terri were already there. Mum gave me an icy glare, which stifled any inclination to talk while we ate.

After Terri left for school, I decided it was worth risking making things even worse. “Any chance of a lift to the bottom of the mountain?” I asked my mum.

The look I received was so chilling it almost turned the kitchen’s wiring superconductive. “If you go out today, there will be consequences,” Mum snarled.

Taking that as a negative, I decided it would be politic to wait until after Mum had left for work before I set off. She seemed in no hurry to leave so I retreated to my bedroom and accessed the town newspaper’s website to see whether there was an update on Jo’s disappearance. To my surprise, the story about local law enforcement searching for a missing schoolgirl had been removed from the site.

What was going on? Had Jo been found? I could hardly contact the police to ask them, especially since they considered me a suspect in her disappearance, and I didn’t know Jo or her family’s phone numbers to ask directly. Then I remembered the piece of paper with Cayenne’s phone number. As Jo’s best friend, surely she would know what was happening. I retrieved the piece of paper from the pocket of the clothes I’d worn to school the previous day, and dialled the listed number on my smartphone.

“Hello, who is this?” came Cayenne’s voice after four rings.

“Hi, it’s Kevin Randell,” I replied.

“Where were you yesterday lunchtime? I wanted to talk to you.”

“I was doing some research. Has Joanna been found? The story about local police searching for a missing schoolgirl has been deleted from the town newspaper’s website.”

“No, Jo’s still missing and everyone’s worried stiff about her,” said Cayenne. “The police think she’s been kidnapped for a ransom. They’re asking people to keep her disappearance quiet because they don’t want lots of nut-jobs contacting the family to demand money. I spoke to Marcus on the phone after he got back from football camp last night. He said that police had obtained hotel security camera footage showing you’re not responsible for Jo’s disappearance. The Kafkasians aren’t happy she spent the night in a hotel with you, but Marcus told them that since you’re gay, at least Jo was in safe hands. He promised to let me know the moment there’s any news.”

There was a pause in the conversation while I processed that. Jo was still missing and the police were likely barking up the wrong tree. But it wasn’t all bad news. Not only did the police no longer consider me a suspect, but they had to have seen the elderly woman walking after Jo at a spritely pace. At a minimum, surely they’d want to identify and question her.

For Marcus to be convinced I was gay, I must have been pointed out to him in the past fortnight or so since he had to have seen me in order to be convinced I was gay. I didn’t think Cayenne’s word alone would have been enough to persuade him to approve me as his prom stand-in and vouch for me to his parents.

“I heard about what Jaymon did to you,” said Cayenne, interrupting the silence. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect him to do that and we didn’t know about the hotel footage at the time. He took Jo’s disappearance personally because he was supposed to be looking out for her. Are you okay? They say you got up and walked away so you can’t have been badly hurt.”

“I’ve got a nasty bruise on my stomach but I’ll live. Jaymon and I have been suspended, along with Dimitri Antonov, who was a real hero when he interposed himself between us in order to protect me.”

“Did Dimitri really say you’re the best chance Joanna has of being found alive? What did he mean by that?” asked Cayenne.

“We’ve been working on one of our nerd theories. It’s pretty outlandish,” I admitted.

“Oh,” said Cayenne disappointedly. “Kidnapped by aliens and taken to their mother ship?”

“Something like that,” I muttered, surprised that such words had passed Cayenne’s lips.

“Look, I’d better get to school or I’ll be late.”

“Can you let me know if you hear any news about Joanna?” I asked.

“Will do. Bye.” Cayenne hung up without waiting for me to reciprocate.

The timing was fortuitous because just after the call ended, I heard Mum start her car and drive off. I went downstairs and used the home phone to call the local cab company.

“Where to?” asked the receptionist, after taking my home address.

“Can you take me to Calhoun’s Place,” I said.

“Does that have a Zip Code?”

“No, it’s halfway up the mountain.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t take people up there.”

“How about to the road at the bottom of the mountain so I can walk the rest of the way?”

“Is there a specific address on that road to which you’d like to be conveyed?”

“No.”

“If you hold, I’ll ask around but it’s unlikely any of our drivers will be willing to take you without a specific destination address.”

“Okay, I’ll hold.”

That was the receptionist’s cue to torture me with some irritatingly cheesy muzak.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist eventually interrupted. “Nobody is willing you take you.”

Having been turned down by my mum and the cab company, plan C was to dredge out my bicycle. I hadn’t used it for a couple of years but at least I could ride it to the bottom of the mountain. Finding somewhere safe to leave it could be a problem but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. I went to the garage, where I last remembered seeing it, and found it quite quickly. It had a flat tyre which I had no way of repairing. Terri’s bicycle still looked functional, but although she had ridden it a couple of years ago, nowadays it was way too small even for her, let alone myself.

Plan D was to walk the whole way. I reckoned that I could walk the eight miles in a couple of hours. Getting there and back would take a huge slice out of the time I had earmarked for searching for Jo on the mountain, but it was better than not trying at all. At least I would get to talk to Jay Calhoun and hopefully find out what his family knew about the witch.