Kiss and Tell(34)

“Oh yeah?” Tim threaded his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She pressed her forehead against his chest, listening to the steady thumping under his shirt.

“Mmm-hmm. I plan to wait out the storm in my bed with a movie marathon and a big bowl of popcorn.”

“I love popcorn,” Tim replied. “And movie marathons.”

Tenley lifted her head. A playful smirk tugged at Tim’s lips. “Are you digging for an invite, Timothy Holland?”

“Me? Never.”

Tenley cocked an eyebrow. “Well, you are officially invited to wait out the storm at Casa Reed. Just in case you’re interested.”

“I could probably be convinced.”

Tenley lifted onto her toes and kissed him, not caring anymore who saw or who knew. The pressure of his lips sent a tingle through her whole body. “That do the trick?”

Tim looked thoughtful. “I could use a little more convincing.”

Tenley was midconvincing when an announcement blasted over the loudspeaker. “Tenley Reed, please report to Principal Howard’s office.”

Tim pulled back. “What’s that about?”

Tenley’s first instinct was darer, but she quickly dismissed it. There was no more darer. “Guess I better go find out.” She squeezed his hand. “Meet at my house in a bit?”

Tim smiled. “I believe I am officially convinced.”

Tenley tried to banish any nerves as she headed to the principal’s office. It was probably something to do with the fire. But then why hadn’t Emerson been called in, too?

“Miss Reed?” Mary, the principal’s secretary, looked up when Tenley entered the office. Tenley nodded. “Principal Howard will be with you in a moment. You can take a seat while you wait.”

“Is she expecting anyone else?” Tenley glanced around, but the office was empty, as was the hallway behind it.

“Just you,” Mary replied. “She said it wouldn’t take long.”

The loudspeaker crackled on as Tenley sat down. “Good afternoon, Winslow.” Mary was speaking briskly into the microphone. The slight delay made her words ring through the office twice. “This is an announcement that school will be closed tomorrow due to the pending storm. I repeat, Winslow Academy will be closed tomorrow.”

Tenley heard the distant roar of cheers from the hallway. She closed her eyes, imagining a whole free day, with no darer to shadow her every move. “Miss Reed?” Mary’s voice cut across the room. Tenley snapped her eyes open. “The principal will see you now.”

Principal Howard had run Winslow for as long as Tenley could remember. She was a thick woman, with a neat bob of blond hair and kind brown eyes that could harden when necessary. “Miss Reed,” she said warmly, gesturing for Tenley to sit. “I’m sorry to call you in at the end of the day, but I came upon something I thought might interest you.” She placed a puffy pink photo album on her desk. It was tattered and dirt-stained. “I thought it would be best if I gave it to you myself.”

Tenley picked up the album. Six dainty letters were painted across its cover. Tenley. “Where did you get this?”

“It was the strangest thing.” Principal Howard ran a hand through her straight blond hair. Each strand fell right back into place, as if it had never been disturbed. “Do you know about the construction being done over at the lower school?”

Tenley nodded. She’d seen the mass of construction trucks over at the lower school’s sports field. The grass was being replaced with the same fancy turf the upper school had.

“The whole field has to be dug up so the turf can be properly installed, and while digging, one of the construction workers found the album. Said it looked as if it had been buried years ago.” She tapped a finger against her desk. “Maybe as part of your eighth-grade time capsule?”

Tenley shook her head mutely. She didn’t attend Winslow in eighth grade; she was on the other side of the country in Nevada by then. She cradled the album in her hands. She remembered exactly when she’d started taking it to school. It was in the weeks after her dad’s death. She’d taken it to every class with her. Until it went missing.

“Maybe you left it outside by mistake,” Principal Howard suggested. “And over time it got buried.”

Tenley stood up abruptly, clutching the album to her chest. Dirt clumped off it, slipping under her fingernails. She would never have been that careless with this album. It had been her most prized possession, filled with her favorite photos of her dad. She mumbled something to Principal Howard—thank you, maybe—but she had no recollection of it as she hurried out to the parking lot.

She scrambled into her car. Snow painted the windows white, blocking out the world. “The clouds have landed,” her dad used to say after a snowstorm, right before pulling out the family sled. He used to love the first snow of the season. He claimed it was sacrilegious not to sled it. Tenley still remembered the thrill of soaring down a snowy hill, her dad behind her on the sled. The speed would turn her stomach and quicken her pulse, but if she ever got scared, if it ever got to be too much, all she had to do was lean back, and her dad would be there, tall and steady behind her.

She opened the album. The cover might be dirty, but the pictures inside had been perfectly preserved in their plastic slip covers. Tenley smiled at the first one: a photo of her dad lifting baby-her over his head. As she turned the pages, she grew from a swaddled baby to a teetering toddler to a Winslow lower school student. Her dad’s hair thinned and his midsection thickened, but his smile, so wide and crinkly-eyed, remained the same.

She paused on a page of terribly taken photos. The first was an off-center shot of her dad smiling on a boat, the second a close-up of his hands on the rudder. A laugh escaped Tenley. She remembered that day so clearly. It was long before her dad got sick. They’d gone out for a sunset boat ride during Fall Festival weekend, just the two of them, and she’d bossily insisted on taking all the photos herself. They’d stayed out on the water for hours, talking and laughing as night fell around them.

The last few pictures from the boat ride were mostly black, her dad’s face a blur of white in the camera’s flash. She smiled down at the page, wishing so much that she could talk to him now. There was an ache in her throat as she turned the page. Her dad’s face was a little less fuzzy in the next photo. Tenley paused. There was a strange reflection on the water behind her dad. What was that?

Her eyes skipped to the next photo. In the edge of the frame was a faint image. Tenley frowned. She’d never noticed that before. She flipped on the car’s overhead light to get a better look.

It was the corner of a life raft. Clinging desperately to the raft was the shadowy figure of a boy. He had white-blond curls that caught the light from the camera’s flash. Wait a minute. Those curls looked familiar. Was that a young Calum?

Tenley had been in second grade when that photo was taken. Part of the reason she remembered it so clearly was because of the news story that broke later that night. Meryl Bauer had taken a boat out on her own, only to crash into the Phantom Rock and die, becoming the very first Lost Girl. Tenley could still see her dad glued to the TV set, rare tears gathered in his eyes. “That’s awful,” he had whispered, pulling Tenley onto his lap. “And to think we were also out on the ocean tonight.”

Tenley fiddled absently with the album page. Had she and her dad been out on the water right around the time Meryl died? And if so… could this photo mean Calum had, too? Had Calum been on the boat with Meryl that night? Why had she never heard that before?

“Oh my god.” Tenley bolted upright in her seat. The only witness. It was the note in Sam’s surveillance shed—his reason for dragging Tenley into the game. At the time, Tenley had wondered what she could possibly have witnessed to make Sam hate her so much.

What if this was it? What if something had happened on the water that night—something Sam didn’t want anyone to know about? If Sam had found out about her photos, he could have stolen her album and buried it: insurance those photos would never get out. But if that were true, why wait so many years to target Tenley personally? And why mention nothing about it when he told her and Emerson about Meryl’s death?

Tenley slammed the album down in the passenger seat. It didn’t matter. Sam Bauer was in jail. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. She was done with conspiracy theories. She quickly wiped the snow off her car windows and took off for home.

“Hello?” she called out as she walked into her house. She shook a light layer of snow off her coat. “Anyone home?”

“Tenley?” It was Sahara’s voice that greeted her. The housekeeper peered out from the kitchen. “Your parents are stuck in traffic, behind an accident. They be home soon.” Tenley smiled as she stuck a bag of popcorn in the microwave. That meant more time alone with Tim.

She was halfway up the stairs, photo album in one hand and buttery bowl of popcorn in the other, when the house suddenly went dark. Tenley stopped short, nearly missing a stair. A cold trickle of fear worked its way through her. She hugged the popcorn bowl to her chest, refusing to acknowledge it. It was just the storm. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore. “Sahara?” Tenley called out.