Read Online Nightmare by Robin Parrish - Free Book Online Page B

"Has Jordin ever done anything like that?
Disappeared for an extended period of time without warning?"
    He shook his head, and I caught the wary look in his eye,
though he was trying to hide it. He didn't want to appear ungrateful for my help, but he was indulging me without a lot of confidence in my abilities or in this particular witness. I supposed that as a future pastor, it was a good thing that honesty came
so naturally to him.

    Whatever. I wasn't here to pacify him. I was sure there had
to be more details I could wring out of Carrie. My mind spun,
thinking through the kinds of questions a detective would ask.
    "Did you notice anything unusual about Jordin before she
disappeared?"
    Carrie glanced at me warily. "You mean more than ever? She's
always been weird, even more so since she met you."
    When I said nothing-I was trying to practice reading Carrie's
expressions and body language, and ignore her belligerence-she
went on. "She used to be a fun person, you know. Carefree. Spontaneous. Really funny. And an amazing athlete. Then you came
into the picture, and she quit the team and stopped hanging out
with us. We had to beg her to go with us on this year's trip."
    "And when you say `go with us,' " Derek quietly interjected
while examining a nearby tree, "you of course mean `pay for.'"
    Carrie squinted at him but made no response.
    "Why didn't she want to go this year?" I asked, trying to stay
on point.
    "Guess she had `more important things to do,' " Carrie replied,
popping out the quotation marks again. "But she may as well not
even have been there, because we barely saw her. Well, she would
always turn up in her room each morning, but we could never
find her in the evenings when we wanted to go out."
    Well, sure. That wasn't surprising at all.
    "What about her behavior? Any sudden mood swings? Did
she complain of any odd pains?"
    It was entirely possible, though I had no intention ofvoicing the possibility aloud, that Jordin had fallen ill and was languishing
in a hospital somewhere. Or, the much worse possibility ...

    And that was a suspicion, I told myself forcefully, that had
nothing at all to do with what I'd seen at Ghost Town amusement park.
    "She was having nightmares."
    My ears perked up. "Nightmares?"
    Carrie nodded, remembering more as she spoke. "Yeah, she
always seemed tired during the day, and she kept mumbling about
this nightmare she was having over and over...."
    I carefully filed that away for later.
    "Also," Carrie went on with a rather satisfied glare at Derek,
"I think she'd just gotten a tattoo."
    Derek looked as if he'd been jolted out of his daydream. "I'm
sorry?"
    "That morning before she disappeared, she kept rubbing the
back of her neck like it was sore," Carrie explained. "I got a glimpse
of it when she turned around, and it looked like some kind of
tattoo. I remember thinking it was kinda rude of her to go off
and get one by herself, since that was something all of us could
have done together. You know, to commemorate the trip."
    "Jordin would never get a tattoo," Derek whispered under
his breath.
    I leaned close to him. "You're sure?"
    "She hates them. It's a sin to defile your skin that way."
    "So, she hates them, oryou hate them?"
    Derek didn't seem to like my tone of voice, and turned away
from me.
    So I turned back to Carrie. "What did this tattoo look like?"
    "Her hand was covering it so much, she kept rubbing at it," Carrie said, trying to remember. "I never really got a solid look
at it. But it was pretty small and I think it was black."

    "And no one said anything to her about it?"
    She shrugged. "IfJordin wants to talk about something, she'll
bring it up herself."
    Derek rose from his seat, apparently done with this. As he
walked away, he mumbled something so low, I only caught part of it.
Something about ". . . forbid you should be an actual friend ..."

    Ten minutes later, after reluctantly giving my cell number
to Carrie in case she thought