Page 13 of Killer Summer
“Saw that boy in there talking to you. What’s his name?”
“Jake,” she said. “He asked me to go see a movie tomorrow.”
“Oh?”
“Don’t.” Dani groaned. “We’re going as friends.”
“I’m just glad that you feel like getting out there again,” he said. “This is a good step.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Can you drop me off tomorrow night at Galaxy 8?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
Dani slipped her switchblade and mace back into the side pocket of her gym bag. She rolled down the window and inhaled a long, slow breath of night air. The scent of dead, wet leaves filled her nostrils as a cool breeze kissed her cheeks. Fall was in full swing. A new season. A new start. Could she ever be new again too?
As they drove in silence toward home, Dani’s pager buzzed in her gym bag. Since Tommy died, her pager had gone nearly silent. No more messages of 143. No more late night pages to signal that it was safe to make an illicit after-hours phone call. Could Jake really be so eager to have paged her already?
She pulled out her little purple device, expecting to see a new set of seven digits to memorize; the phone number of a new friend. Maybe someday, if she was ready, a new boyfriend. Instead, a three digit number flashed on the digital screen. A series of numbers she had never received before. Three numbers that made her blood run cold.
“What is it sweetie?” her father asked, turning toward her illuminated pager screen. “Tiffany or Lisa?”
“No,” she said, her throat tight and dry. “Someone paged me 187.”
“187? What does that mean?”
Dani stared at the pager, her pulse pounding.
“Death,” she said. “It’s the code for murder.”
“Okay, so I know we agreed that this wasn’t a date, but I can’t eat all this popcorn by myself. You have to help me.”
Jake scooted past her seat in the darkened Galaxy 8 theater the following evening. He juggled a large soda in one hand and an even larger popcorn in the other as he threw her a devilish smile. He was dressed in jeans and a plaid flannel layered over a black t-shirt, and Dani realized that she had never seen her fellow martial arts student in street clothes before. The smell of salty, buttery goodness filled her senses as he passed her the popcorn and eased into the seat next to hers. His elbow grazed against hers and a little hummingbird of excitement fluttered against her chest. Even though they weren’t on a date, Dani was feeling more and more like she wanted it to be.
“Itdoessmell pretty amazing,” she said, helping herself to a handful of popcorn. “Thanks.”
“You look nice,” Jake said. “Cool hoodie.”
“Oh.” Dani stared down at her chest. The hummingbird wings stilled and guilt settled into her gut. Maybe wearing Tommy’s old hoodie wasn’t the best idea, but it was her comfort article of clothes. Wearing it out in public helped her feel just a little more at ease. “Thanks. It’s my favorite.”
Dani crunched on the popcorn and closed her eyes. She knew that she deserved this night out. She needed to get back out into the real world and try to feel some semblance of normalcy again. She took in a deep breath and opened her eyes.
“Jake, I have to ask you a question,” she said.
“Oooh. This sounds serious.” Jake tossed a piece of popcorn in his mouth. “Shoot.”
“Did you send me a page last night?”
Dani studied his expression in the low light. She was still learning how to read people, and couldn’t really tell if he was being sincere with her or not. Too many times in her life she had been fooled by insincere friends, but at that moment, Jake seemed to be telling the truth. The 187 page she had received the night before rattled her, but not enough to stop her from going out. She had received random weird codes on her pager from time to time long before all of this happened. Kids liked to prank each other and use all sorts of number combinations when they were bored to reach out to their friends. Dani wasn’t going to let a stupid prank stop her. She had to live again. Life had to go on.
Jake frowned and shook his head. “No. I only paged you before we met up tonight. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I just got a weird, random page last night. I don’t get a lot of pages these days, so I thought maybe it was you.”
“Nope. It wasn’t me.” Jake’s frown disappeared as he wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ll page you more if you want me to, though.”
“Sure.” Dani hid a smile behind a handful of popcorn. Maybe letting Jake into her life wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
“So, this is supposed to be a pretty cool movie,” Jake said between slurps of soda. “Have you seen the previews yet?
