Mind Games

“Okay, this is your homeroom. Mine’s right across there. So after the bell rings to go to the first class, we’ll meet right out here. Now go on in there and talk to somebody.”

Without a choice, Thea went in and started to head straight to the back where she’d have a better chance of invisibility.

But she stopped herself when she got to the middle and slid into a desk.

Her ears rang; her heart thumped. So she gripped her hands in her lap under the desk and tried desperately to look normal.

Eventually someone dropped into the desk beside her. The girl with short red hair wore snug, cropped jeans and a bright green shirt. Her nails matched the shirt.

She propped her chin on her fist and appeared bored to the bone. But she looked everywhere, including at Thea. She gave Thea a long once-over that made Thea want to sink into the earth and pull it over her head.

“I like your shoes.”

The shock of the words nearly left Thea speechless.

“Thanks.”

“My grandmother says redheads can’t wear pink, but hell with that. I like pink. You’re new, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll get used to it. We’ve got Mrs. Haverson for homeroom. She teaches history and makes it boring. I’m Gracie.”

“Thea. I’m Thea.”

“Well, Thea, welcome to the last year, thank you, Jesus, of middle school hell.”

By the time Thea got back on the bus to ride home, she’d kicked the idea of homeschool in the ass.

* * *

She survived that last year of middle school hell with a circle of friends. She turned thirteen—at last. She had her first boyfriend, her first breakup. Her vow to never love another didn’t last through Christmas of her freshman year in high school.

In her other world, as she sometimes thought of the world of Riggs, prison, detectives, the police traced Riggs from his home outside of Bowling Green to Toledo, to the motel and the room where he killed Jessica Lynn Vernon.

“Once we tied him to it,” Howard told her on the phone, “he laid it all out. Where he’d picked her up, how he’d taken a bus to Akron after.”

“He was proud of it. It gave him a way to relive it again, to feel it all again.”

“I think you’re right.”

She knew she was right.

“Charging him with another murder, that gives him a…”

“A shine,” Howard finished.

“A shine. Yeah.”

“Are you doing okay, Thea?”

“I’m doing fine, thanks. He pushes at me sometimes, especially when he’s bored.” She didn’t add Riggs was bored a lot. “But I don’t let him in.”

“Good. Don’t. You’ve still got my number. Use it anytime.”

“Thank you. Um … congratulations on the baby. Fiona’s a pretty name. You’re thinking about her really hard,” Thea explained.

“And you get that through the phone?”