Speak No Evil_ A Novel - Allison Brennan [34]
When he first met Angie, she was also nice to him. She talked to him, actually seemed interested in what he had to say.
She was a liar. When he’d found her MyJournal page the fantasy that was sweet Angie vanished. He was devastated, livid. She was a whore, a slut, just like the woman who’d turned against his father.
They were all better off dead.
His laptop computer beeped that an e-mail had arrived. Elizabeth.
Heart pounding, he turned his gaze from Becca working the desk and opened the message. It wasn’t from Elizabeth. It was an automatic e-mail alert.
MyJournal tracker has found a recent update on your track list. Click the link below to be taken directly to the updated content.
MyJournal.iloverealmen.com
Angie’s journal.
For a brief moment, a split second, he felt every eye in the library looking at him. Of course they weren’t. They didn’t know what he’d done, they didn’t know who he was. Becca didn’t even know his real name.
He almost clicked on the link. But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Instead he packed up his laptop, avoiding eye contact with anyone. He rushed out, heard Becca ask behind him, “Is something wrong?” He just shook his head at her and left the building. Ran to his car, heart pounding. Drove home. Fast. Too fast.
Slow down. Slow down or you’ll get a ticket.
He eased up on the accelerator a bit, but his head ran through every possible scenario.
That Angie wasn’t dead, that she was alive and the police would be waiting for him at home.
That she was dead and writing from Hell.
That she was alive but didn’t remember anything.
You’re dead! You’re dead!
In the glare of headlights, he saw her ghostly body, her bloody mouth open, accusing him. You raped me.
You’re dead. You can’t tell anyone what happened. You can’t say a word. You’re dead, you slut!
His heart continued to vibrate between his ears, a loud ringing, and he couldn’t hear anything but his internal organs working, working. Heart pumping blood through his veins, his head swelling, filling with certain knowledge that he would be discovered.
He escaped home. Locked, bolted the door. Ran into his bedroom, slammed the door as he tossed his laptop onto his bed. Angie’s soundless scream vibrated in his head and he sank to the floor.
You’re dead. You’re dead.
Several minutes later, he rose unsteady and walked to his desktop computer. Booted the hard drive. The ritual of the computer checking files, the fast zip-zip of the hard drive spinning, soothed him. A few deep breaths later and he almost stopped shaking.
He logged onto his e-mail and clicked on the MyJournal link.
Tribute to our friend Mirage.
Angie’s page, Angie’s online name. But not Angie. A sigh of relief whistled through his lips, and he focused on the “Tribute.” He quickly realized that the author of the journal entry was one or more of Angie’s friends.
I remember a day last month when Mirage went to work. I stopped by to visit, even though it was raining hard. It rarely rains here, but that day it poured.
He thought. That was . . . late January. Had to be. There were only a couple days last month that it rained.
Mirage got off early because it was so slow, and we sat in the corner talking about our first time . . . you know, the first time we had sex.
Eager and anxious and horrified, he read on.
I was a late bloomer. My first time was only three months ago, shortly after I started classes at the same university where Mirage and our other friends go. His name was, oops! Can’t say his name. Okay, his “name” was S. and he’s a junior. Plays water polo. Fabulous body.
The first time was icky, but S. told me the second would be better. It was . . . Mirage promised me my first “real” orgasm would be wonderful (you know, the kind that isn’t self-induced) and she was right. S. went down and licked me until I orgasmed and I swear I saw fireworks . . . .
Fists clenched, he read on. Each of Angie’s friends wrote about