Free Very Bad Things by Susan McBride Page B

as authorities try to locate any relatives. Dr. Gregory Summers, headmaster of Whitney Preparatory Academy, where both Mr. and Mrs. Lupinski were employed for many years, recently instituted a scholarship in their names. The first such scholarship will be given to Tessa Lupinski when she reaches 11, the minimum age for girls to attend the Whitney school.
    So Dr. Arnold had been the medical examiner at the time of the fire. Katie realized now that was how he’d known to call Tessa “Miss Lupinski” when she’d stepped up to the corpse at the cadaver lab. No wonder he’d looked surprised that she had volunteered.
    There were photographs alongside both articles, one of the charred remains of a house and another of the Lupinski family. That one looked like a picture from a Christmas card with everyone in turtlenecks and Mom and Dad smiling uncomfortably. Tessa looked like a smaller version of herself. She and Peter had the same fair hair and skin, the same stoic expression.
    Katie’s mind raced. Why was Tessa reading old articles about the fire? Was she thinking about it more lately because of The Box and the missing girl?
    “Snoop much?”
    Katie’s cheeks warmed. She slowly turned to see Tessa standing in the doorway holding a half-eaten apple. “I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “I bumped your Mac and the stuff about the fire came up. I was curious.”
    “You know what can happen to curious cats. It usually doesn’t end well.” Tessa tossed the apple in the trash bin and brushed past her. “So are you done prying?” She shut down the laptop and gave Katie an icy-blue stare. “Or do you want to read my diary next?”
    “I’ll pass.”
    Tessa plopped down on her bed, tucking her legs up to her chest and hugging them. She looked like she was making herself as small as possible.
    “C’mon, Tessa, don’t be like that. You’re my best friend. I’m worried about you,” Katie said. “If you’ve started thinking about the fire again—”
    “I’m always thinking about the fire!” Tessa snapped, and her cheeks flushed. “I have to live with what happened every day of my life. It never goes away.”
    “It must suck keeping it all in,” Katie said, and reached for Tessa, but Tessa jerked away. “Why won’t you let me help?”
    “How?”
    “Really talk about it for once.” Katie gingerly sat on the edge of the bed. It broke her heart to see tough-as-nails Tessa looking like a scared little girl. “Get it out. You keep everything so bottled up. Someday you’re going to pop.”
    “What do you want me to say?” Tessa asked. “That it was terrifying, watching the house burn? That I would have turned to ashes, too, if no one had heard me screaming?”
    “But you did survive! You had a guardian angel that night,” Katie said, repeating the words from the article. “Did you ever find out who it was?”
    Tessa tucked her chin against her knees, so Katie could barely hear her. “I think it was a ghost,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wish he’d left me there.…”
    “No!” Katie reached out again. This time, Tessa didn’t recoil. “Don’t ever say that. If you’d died that night, who would have shown me the ropes when I was a newbie? Who else would have put up with me bawling night after night when I first arrived? I was so messed up, but you kept me going.” Katie slid her fingers through Tessa’s and squeezed. “You saved
my
life.”
    “You
were
a disaster.” Tessa sniffed. “Someone had to look out for you.”
    “Well, I’m glad it was you.” Katie looked into Tessa’s face and saw her tough-girl mask soften. “Tell me something about your mom and dad, just something small that you remember. My dad loved doing stupid jigsaw puzzles. He’d have a new one every weekend for us to put together. It used to drive me crazy.” Katie let out a breath. “Now I miss it.”
    Tessa didn’t raise her eyes. At first, Katie wasn’t sure she was going to answer.
    “It was a long time ago,