Puzzled curiosity creases Lily’s face, but she doesn’t inquire why I’m calling Wren. Not that I care.
“Hello?” Wren answers, her voice flooded with perplexity.
“Hey, this is Maddy, Lily’s roommate,” I explain. “She gave me your number.”
“Oh, hey.” A drop of her confusion evaporates. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to ask you a question. It’s about this article that I’m looking into, and I was wondering if you knew the author of it because I really need to talk to her about … something.” Great, I sound sketchy as hell.
“Um … maybe,” Wren replies in a puzzled tone. “What’s her name?”
“Laura Mellyton.” I chew on my thumbnail, hoping she doesn’t ask why, mostly because I don’t want to get into it right now.
“Oh, yeah, I know her.” Wren drags out a pause. “I can give you her personal number if you want.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.” I breathe in relief that she didn’t ask for more information.
She tells me she’ll text it to me, and then we hang up.
Lily is watching me with a curious look, but I ignore it as I rise to my feet.
“Thanks for helping me out,” I tell her as I pocket my phone. “I’m going to go contact this reporter.”
“Okay, well, let me know if you need anything,” she calls out as I walk toward my room.
I nod and throw her a thumbs-up from over my shoulder before stepping into my room and shutting the door. I head to my laptop and send Laura a message about wanting to ask her a few questions about one of her articles. I mention I know Wren, but I’m extremely vague about which article I want to speak about.
Once I’m finished, I begin to gather my stuff for class but pause as my phone rings. I almost don’t check to see who’s calling, figuring it’s more than likely my mother or Drew. But this odd feeling washes over me that I need to look. So, I do.
The calls from Noah.
Assuming he has a question about one of the contacts I gave him, I answer it. “Hey, what’s up?” I say with the phone pressed between my shoulder and ear as I exit my dorm room.
“I’m sorry,” is Noah’s response.
A cold chill slithers up my spine. “What happened?”
“I called one of your contacts, Aiden, and we set up a time to meet up to make a deal, but when I showed up, this group jumped me, dragged me to this house, and now they’re forcing me to make this call.” The shakiness in his tone reveals he’s worried. “They said, if you don’t come to this place by six o’clock, bad shit will happen to me—ow, dammit, I’m doing what you’re telling me to do,” he says to someone else. “Fine … Maddy, Aiden wants to talk to you.”
I could hang up, and maybe I should. But I’ve never been the kind of person to put my shit on someone else—that’s my parents' thing, not mine.
“Hey, Maddison,” he says into the phone, sounding elated. “I heard a rumor that you have a bounty on you, but no one can get a hold of you. So, imagine my surprise when I get a call from a guy who knows you. Lucky me.”
“What do you want?” I snap, balling my free hand into a fist.
“I think you know the answer to that,” he tells me. “But in case you’re as dumb as your father, I’ll spell it out for you. Meet me at the old theater on northside, the one that’s been closed for ages, or your little rich friend will become best friends with the canal.”
While I hate most north-siders, Aiden was never a truly awful person. In fact, I once overheard him tell my mother he’d takecare of me and her if anything happened to my father. I guess that was bullshit, like everything else in my life.
I swallow the lump welling in my throat. “I thought you were my father’s friend.”
“I am, but you know how these things work, Mads,” he replies with a tiny bit of remorse in his tone. “Money is tight, and I need it more than I need to be on your father’s good side. Besides, he’s in jail for a long time.”
My heart is pounding so deafeningly inside my chest as I rack my brain for a way out of this. In the end, I know what I have to do.
“Fine,” I grit out. “I’ll be there.”
“You better,” he says. “The clock’s ticking. Tick. Tock.”
