Free Nowhere Safe by Nancy Bush Page B

desk. “You called in with the flu yesterday about ten-thirty.”
    “Sorry. I kept thinking I would make it in.” His palms were sweating. He wasn’t even sure why he was keeping up the lie. Though he’d hoped he wouldn’t be found out, he’d caught the late news last night, and though they hadn’t named him, there was speculation all over the place that whoever had tied the teacher up at Twin Oaks had also killed a postman earlier in the year. Stefan vaguely remembered the incident. He hadn’t once thought about it when he was tied up, and it wouldn’t have come to him at all if he hadn’t seen it on the news.
    Jesus. Who was that bitch? What did she want? At least she hadn’t killed him like the postman, but she’d sure as hell taken his van, and his mother was all over him about that one!
    “You should have told September that the psycho who did this to you took your van!” she’d declared as soon as they were alone.
    “I’ll tell her,” he’d snarled back. “It’s just so fucking humiliating.”
    “Language, Stefan,” she’d responded, to which he’d started hysterically laughing and couldn’t stop.
    Amy Lazenby adjusted her glasses and said, “When I got here yesterday morning, the Laurelton police told me that a man was drugged and tied to one of our basketball hoops. Later, a detective called and said it was you.”
    September! Goddamned do-gooder! “I was sick,” he defended himself. “After being left there all night . . .” The catch in his voice was very real.
    “Do you think you should be here today?” she asked.
    “Maybe not.” He grabbed onto the thought as if it were a lifeline. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be home, locked in his room.
    “I’ve already taken a number of calls from newspeople. This is a media storm, Stefan, and I’d like to contain it as much as possible.”
    Stefan made an inadvertent sound of fear.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, sounding sincere, but he knew better than to trust anyone. They were all on the other side.
    No one had mentioned the sign yet, the one he’d been forced to write. But it was coming. The news was already talking about what the postman had around his neck: I MUST PAY FOR WHAT I’VE DONE . It was a goddamned nightmare!
    “I feel sick,” he said, his stomach roiling, and then he broke down and started crying. He covered his face with his hands and bent double.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, sounding surprisingly kind, and that got Stefan wailing even more. He nodded behind his hands, and she said, “I’ll get someone to take you.”
    He couldn’t make himself drop his hands from his face. He wanted to disappear forever. That bitch. That fucking bitch. He was going to track her down and kill her. How could she do this to him? It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair!
     
     
    September put a second call in to her brother on her lunch break. She’d left him a message earlier and she’d tried texting him as well. When his voice mail answered again, she clicked off and sent another text: Need some muscle this weekend to help move my stuff to Jake’s. You available?
    She was walking back to her desk when her cell phone rang in her hand. “About time,” she said aloud, lifting it up to see who was calling. But the number on the screen wasn’t Auggie’s and there was no name. “Hello,” she answered at the same moment she realized why the number was so familiar: it was Mrs. Ballonni’s.
    “Is this . . . the detective who left a message yesterday?” Janet Ballonni asked, slowly picking her words.
    “Yes, it is. I’m Detective Rafferty. I was wondering if I could talk to you about your husband.”
    “I already talked to that other woman detective. Twice,” she stated flatly.
    “I know, but we’re investigating a new angle now. Would it be possible to meet with you and go over the case in person? At your house, or work?”
    “I don’t have a job anymore. Company downsized and I got laid