Read Online The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff - Free Book Online Page B

up?”
    She turned, startled—and was even more startled to see Tyler Mountford standing on the grass, watching her.
    “Everyone does it.” Tyler’s eyes flicked up to the statue of Washington Duke, then back to Laurel, with insolent amusement. “That ol’ dog has had more sorority girls in his lap than three generations of lacrosse teams.”
    Laurel almost laughed. “I’m sure,” she said, willing her face not to redden under the boy’s sly smile. She suddenly wondered if he had followed her from class. “I think I’ll pass, though.”
    He glanced around the deserted quad. “What are you doing all the way over here on East? Nothing but freshman and theater geeks over here.”
    I might ask the same thing of you, she thought. While she was annoyed at his intimate and knowing tone, she realized she might be able to get information out of him, so she smiled as she answered.
    “I’d seen photos of that building”—she turned and indicated the domed auditorium—“and I wanted to come take a look … but it’s locked. Do you know—was it always an auditorium? Or did there used to be classrooms there?”
    “Looking for the Rhine Lab?”
    She started, and he smiled slowly at her, enjoying her discomfort. How did he know?
    He shrugged. “You’re from California, aren’t you? Y’all are into all that spooky shit.” He looked at her challengingly.
    “I don’t know,” she found herself responding without thinking. “From all I’ve been reading, you have a whole lot more ghosts here in the South.”
    “Yes, we do.” His drawl extended all vowels for at least three syllables, and she was uncomfortably aware of feeling the words like an illicit caress. She was immensely irritated at this automatic sexual response she was having to a kid who was at least ten years younger than she was. That’s the last thing you need, she thought. Leave. Now.
    Instead she found herself saying aloud, “So the Rhine Lab was in that building?”
    “Oh yeah,” he said, his eyes gleaming.
    “How do you know?” she demanded.
    That lazy shrug. “I’ve worked crew on some shows.”
    This seemed to her unlikely in the extreme and she was about to say so, when he smiled crookedly. “Gut class. Easy five units.”
    She studied him, still skeptical. “I can’t see it.”
    “I had a band for a while,” he said, and his face was suddenly closed.
    Now that makes some sense … that musician indolence. And probably didn’t have the guts to risk the family inheritance by telling Daddy he was going into music.
    “What’s your major, anyway?” she asked casually.
    His smile twisted again. “Business, what else?”
    “Ah. Oldest son?”
    “Oh, yes, ma’am.”
    His voice was light and mocking, but she could hear the simmering anger underneath. She supposed his family went to Duke, too, the father at the very least, but probably a whole line of them. She decided not to push the questions, for the moment.
    She turned and looked at him straight on. “Who told you where the lab used to be?”
    He leaned back against the base of the statue, hands gripping the marble edge, a pose strikingly similar to the captured arrogance of the statue. “The old guys from the scene shop talk about it. Say it’s haunted, because of all the Rhine experiments.”
    “Haunted?” She stared at him.
    “Oh, they’re just mainly trying to haze us, I know. But things go missing down in the shop, and sometimes the lights go weird, and they say it’s because of all those kids that Rhine brought in and tested. The kids from the haunted houses. The shop guys say they brought the ghosts in with them.”
    Laurel was strangely electrified, even though she knew the prevalent theory was that poltergeist phenomena had nothing to do with ghosts.
    She realized she was holding her breath, and was suddenly annoyed with herself. What are you looking for? What do you expect, here? What the hell is this about, anyway?
    Tyler was watching her like a cat. He smiled