Page 3 of Undone
Chapter Two
“Can you believe that guy?” I cried as soon as I was in Jasper’s truck. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”
Jasper climbed into the driver’s seat and slipped the key into the ignition. The engine rumbled to life. “Cari, listen…if—”
“I mean, the first words out of his mouth were practically ‘I think you paid someone to do it’! What is this, the blame-the-victim law? I suppose if I were to get gunned down in the street, it would be my fault for standing in the way of the bullet!”
“Cari—”
“I knew we should have gone over this guy’s head,” I fumed. “He’s nothing but a drunk, sloppy, id—”
“Cari!”
I turned to Jasper.
“He was testing you. That’s all.”
“He was testing me?”
Jasper nodded. “Testing you. Feeling you out. Poking and prodding to see what you know. I don’t think he believes any of those theories. He said as much himself.”
“Then why waste the time?”
“To see what you’d give him,” Jasper said. “To see what you’d blurt out without thinking.”
“Oh,” I said. “Do you think I gave him anything? I mean, you know it couldn’t have been me, but did I say anything to make him think it was?”
Jasper shook his head. “No. He’s probably suspicious, but I don’t think he has anything solid. He knows you’re defensive, though, from the way you reacted to that first idea he suggested.”
“So…what now?”
“I don’t think Sands knows who it is any more than we do,” Jasper sighed. “No, I think it was someone else. Someone close to you. I think you pissed someone off, and that someone is out for blood. You still have that card Sands gave you?”
As we turned out onto the road, I pulled out the small cardboard rectangle. “This one?” Jasper took it from me, rolled down the window, crumpled the card into a ball and tossed it outside. “What are you doing?” I looked out the back of the truck, watching the crushed paper tumble down the pavement and into a pile of leaves. “We might need that!”
“We don’t,” Jasper said. “Sands is no use to us. He’s got no leads, and if we need to call him, we have the emergency number. No, we’re going to have to figure this one out ourselves. Who have you pissed off recently?”
I propped my elbow on the edge of the door and my chin on my fist, watching Meadow Ridge pass by. Who had I pissed off? Nobody, at least not that I knew of. I got along with pretty much everyone, Daly being the one notable exception. “A fan, maybe?” I tossed out. “That could be it. Maybe it’s not so much who I’ve pissed off as who I’ve turned on.”
I pursed my lips. I couldn’t imagine anyone being that twisted up over me.
Jasper gave me a wicked glance. I scowled at him. “You know what I mean,” I said. “Maybe someone is obsessed with me. You know, one of those crazies.”
It wasn’t likely. Selena Gomez I was not.
“Have you gotten any weird mail? Emails? Notes stapled to your door, maybe written in blood?”
“Very funny,” I said with a sneer. “I’m serious. It’s been known to happen. But in answer to your question, no, I haven’t gotten any weird mail, at least no weirder than usual. Sure, the occasional request from a fan for a lock of my hair, or a video of me stepping on grapes, but nothing that I would consider alarming.” I sighed. “I don’t like this, Jasper. All this craziness is starting to freak me out.”
“Don’t be freaked out,” Jasper said. “You get freaked out, you get careless. You start making mistakes. The last thing we need is for you to start making mistakes.”
“I am freaked out,” I reiterated. “I can’t help it. There’s someone out there, and they’re after me, and I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless. And I’m worried—you don’t know who this person is, either. What if they’re stronger than you? What if you can’t protect me?”
“Do you trust me?” Jasper asked curtly.
“Do I trust you?”
“Yeah. Do you trust me to keep you safe?”
