DEAD INSIDE

(25)

Something occurred to me after I was done with my homework an hour later.

I reached for my phone, ignored the two missed calls from Hugo, deleted Damian's text without looking at it and scrolled down my contacts until I found Vanessa's.

Won't you get in trouble with people from your school for hanging out with us in public?

Her answer was almost instant.

They can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned... And G. wouldn't let it happen anyway...

Got you! :-) Night x

Night Ali x Ps. My cousin's been asking after you...

Tell him I'm too busy with Bellucci...

I won't but it made me laugh x

You're no fun... :-p

Vanessa seemed to be a really nice girl and she must have been hanging out with the wrong crowd if all her friends turned their back on her after she got dumped by Victor.

I sighed. Who said life was a piece of cake?

I dragged myself to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

As I was brushing my teeth, terrible doubts started filling me. Should I really trust Charles? What if my mother was in danger somewhere?

Maybe I should talk to Officer Jenkins about this. He could check that everything is ok for me, I thought. I had to put my dislike for the blond-haired man to the side if I wanted to get answers.

So after crawling under my covers I called his number.

"Alison?" I shuddered at how close he sounded but shook it off quickly, thinking I must be losing it.

"H-hi..." I stuttered. "I just wanted to talk to you about my mother..."

"Your mother?" I had the impression that he'd been expecting something else.

"Hum... Yeah... A friend of hers called me last night to tell me that he'd driven her to some ranch for at least a couple of weeks so she could rest... And... I don't know... With the threats and everything, I'm just worried he lied to me or something..." I explained and the more I spoke, the more I realized just how ridiculous I sounded. "You must think I'm being paranoid..." I added, feeling a bit ashamed now.

"N-no..." He visibly had trouble to recover from his surprise. "What's her friend's name? I'll look into it..."

So I gave him Charles's number.

"Do you think you could call me to let me know what you found out?" I then asked him, with a small voice.

"Of course, I will, Alison." He answered and I once again got the impression that he was nearby. "Good night."

"Night..." I muttered before hanging up.

Had I just made a mistake? I blew out a big breath of air. Only time would tell.

I decided to check on Marla and she answered after the first ring.

"Hey." I muttered. "How are you doing?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" She argued.

"No, tell me more about Marvin..."

"There's nothing to say, really... I went to one of the mid-week VIP parties last night and had to leave after an hour." She said, her disgust hard to miss.