Read Online Fly Away by Nora Rock - Free Book Online Page A

looked as elegant and well groomed as ever, but her hands were shaking. She led me into the living room, where Mr. Kuypers was waiting, and we sat stiffly across from each other. The last time I had been in that room, Arielle and I had been sprawled on the floor, our feet up on the couch cushions. We’d just come in from a long run. It was September, the beginning of cheerleading season, and we’d been trying to whip ourselves into shape. We were laughing at how winded we were and talking happily about the season to come.
    What a difference a few months can make, I thought as I sat across from Ari’s worried parents.
    â€œSo she told you she’d applied for residence?” Mrs. Kuypers asked. “Actually applied?”
    I tried to remember Arielle’s exact words. “I’m not sure,” I said. “I think she just told me she’d make up her mind later.”
    â€œAnd you say you didn’t help her pack for this Toronto trip? You don’t remember how many bags she had?”
    I shook my head. Clearly, my focus had been on one person only: me. “When did you notice the paintings were gone?” I asked.
    â€œThis afternoon,” Mr. Kuypers said “As soon as I got the call from your coach, I drove home from work and checked Arielle’s room. The outside doors were all locked, as usual. But the paintings were gone. There was a roll of packing tape on the floor. Whoever took the paintings had to have had a van and a key.”
    And they wouldn’t have been spotted, I realized. The Kuypers’ driveway went all the way around to the back of the house. Whoever took the paintings would have gone in and out the side door to Arielle’s studio. It wasn’t visible from the road.
    â€œAnd she didn’t say anything to you about any unusual plans?” asked Mrs. Kuypers. “Nothing at all?”
    Both of them stared at me, disappointment written all over their faces. “You’re her best friend…,” Mr. Kuypers said.
    â€œShe didn’t tell me anything,” I said.
    She didn’t trust me enough, I thought as I put on my boots at the door. On the bus trip to Toronto, when she’d seemed so excited, it wasn’t the cheerleading competition that was on her mind. It wasn’t cheerleading at all. It was something else. Something that I was absolutely clueless about.
    A secret.
    That really hurt.
    The next morning, I answered all the same questions at the police station. When I asked them when they were going to start looking for Arielle, they wouldn’t give me a straight answer. All they would tell me was that they’d circulated her photo and some details of her disappearance through both police forces. But that was it.
    As I was about to leave, the interviewer, an older guy named Detective Fuller, asked me a question no one had asked before. “Did she have a private email address? One her parents might not know about?”
    â€œShe had at least three addresses,” I told him. “The home one and two others. I don’t know them off by heart. But I have them on my computer.”
    Detective Fuller gave me his card. “Send them to me,” he said.
    Not even “please” or “thank you,” I thought, as I walked out. Just “send them to me,” as if I’d give up my best friend’s secrets that easily.
    But when I thought about the despair I’d seen on Mrs. Kuypers’s face, I knew I’d do just that.

chapter sixteen
    I turned on the computer as soon as I got home and did a search of my inbox to find Arielle’s addresses. There were lots of messages from her home email address. Most recently, there were details about the Toronto trip, most of them sent to the whole team.
    I had to look harder to find messages from her other addresses. A note she’d sent me from Toronto when she was checking out residences was sent from her iPhone. I pasted that address into a