Free Gifted Touch by Melinda Metz Page A

rejected the wimpy paper cups and picked a big blue plastic one off the shelf over the cof-feepot. As soon as he got it filled—almost full, but not so full it would be easy for Rae to spill—he rushed back over to the cot.
    “Here. I’m leaving this for you.” Anthony put the 87
    cup on the little table next to Rae. He hesitated a moment, but he couldn’t think of anything else she might want, so he headed out.
    He could hear the chaos in the meeting room before he was even halfway there.
    “Is she okay?” Cynda asked as soon as he stepped back in the room. She gnawed on the end of her braid as she waited for him to answer.
    “Yeah,” Anthony said. He started toward the closest empty chair but was intercepted by Jesse.
    “They’re saying it was a pipe bomb,” Jesse said, clearly eager to be the one to give Anthony the info.
    “Sounds like bull. Who would put a pipe bomb in the girls’ bathroom?” Anthony asked. His heart was still beating like crazy, and his body hadn’t figured out that it was okay to stop pumping the adrenaline.
    And the sweat.
    “I don’t know. But that’s what I heard Mr. Rocha saying,” Jesse answered. He used his fingers to comb his red hair off his face. “You should have seen him.
    That little vein by his eye looked like it was about to explode. Rocha’s totally out for blood on this one.” Yeah, and I bet I’m on the top of his list, Anthony thought. If there’s trouble, any kind of trouble, who you gonna call? Fascinelli. Mr. Rocha, the director of the institute, was exactly like Mr. Shapiro in that way.
    But this time I’m totally clean, Anthony told him-88
    self. Even if Rocha wants to, he’s not going to be able to pin this on me.
    Except for the little fact that Rae saw Anthony coming out of the girls’ bathroom. The sweat on his body turned cold. Rae could place him at the scene about two minutes before the bomb went off. If that.
    She won’t say anything, he told himself. He and Rae weren’t friends. Hardly. But she wouldn’t—
    Anthony gave the sleeve of his T-shirt a yank. Rae’s blood was starting to glue itself to his arm.
    You’ve known each other for, like, two hours, he thought. Get real. You have no idea what she is or isn’t going to say. Fascinelli, you are totally screwed.
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Chapter 5
    “Are you feeling okay sitting up?” Mr.
    Rocha asked Rae. “We can go back to the nurse’s office and talk. That way you could keep lying down.”
    “I’m fine,” Rae answered. She lightly touched the bandage on the back of her head—
    /good as new/
    —and grimaced when she realized a little blood had soaked through.
    “You’re sure?” Mr. Rocha pressed.
    Like you care, Rae thought. She didn’t see any real concern in his hazel eyes. And even though it would feel good to lie down again, she did not want to have this little chat with Rocha with her in bed and him looming over her. Just too icky.
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    “I’m fine,” Rae repeated.
    “You’re also very lucky,” Mr. Rocha told her, adjusting the crystal paperweight so it was exactly in the center of the stack of papers on his desk. “If you’d been a few feet closer to the bomb when it went off, we wouldn’t be talking about whether you’re feeling well enough to sit. You’d be in the hospital. Or dead.”
    “Wait. Bomb? There was a bomb?” Rae demanded.
    The not-her thought she’d gotten in the bathroom ripped through her mind. Definitely kill Rae. Did that thought actually mean something? Was someone trying to kill her?
    “A pipe bomb,” Mr. Rocha answered. “It was in the stall closest to the door.” He leaned across his desk toward her. “What I need to know is, did you see anything unusual in the bathroom?”
    Anthony, she thought, her stomach doing a slow-mo flip-flop. That was pretty unusual, seeing a guy coming out of the girls’ bathroom.
    “I mean anything, ” Rocha said, a few droplets of spittle flying out of his mouth.
    The cut on the back of Rae’s head began to throb