Breathless 4 (Breathless #4) Read Free Page A

and kind is how he lures people in. I heard my mom in my mind,
telling me that if he could do that to one girl, he could do the same thing to
me.
    I didn’t even realize I was running as I left the gym,
frantic to find Johnny. I had to talk to him about this. I had to find out the
truth and tell him how scared and worried I was. I had to talk to somebody. I
had no idea of even where I was going; I just had to keep moving or I thought
the fear and sadness and frustration would engulf me.
    As I was hurrying across campus with no idea of where
I was trying to go, I spotted Georgia near the dorms. Maybe, I thought, maybe she knows
where Johnny is. Maybe she’s seen him. If nothing else, I had to unload
what my mom had told me about the whole sorry Claire White situation, the
horror of it all. “Gigi!” I called out to her, running towards her. She turned
on her heel at the sound of my voice and I realized that I was already starting
to cry.
    “Becky, girl, what’s going on?” Georgia pulled me off
to the side of the walkway, towards the “smoker’s circle,” a group of tables
that almost no one except for the campus smokers seemed to ever use. No one was
there; it was, for once, almost totally vacant. Everyone was either in classes
or the dining hall, giving the area around the dorms a deserted feeling.
    The words began to tumble out of me as I cried, hiccupping
and gasping for breath from all the running I had done in such a short time. I
felt a sharp ache in my side and tried to regain control of myself. “The
p-p-private investigator — he thinks — he thinks Johnny was involved…” Georgia
stared at me in shock, shaking her head.
    “First of all, who the hell hires a private
investigator to dig up dirt on their daughter’s boyfriend?” she shook her head
again in disbelief. She paused for a moment. “That poor girl. That poor girl.
God.”
    “I have to find Johnny and talk to him,” I said,
starting to gradually get my breathing back to normal. My side was aching so
much I couldn’t help but rub at it, even though I knew it wouldn’t do anything
to help the stitch there. I sagged against the table, rubbing at my face. “I
can’t just…I…” I looked at Georgia. “I never actually talked to him about it,”
I admitted. “But with this…how can I not? I have to talk to him, like, soon.”
    “Becky, he’s not even on campus,” Georgia said,
looking at me in bewilderment. “Remember? The team has an away game. He’s — I
have no idea, but he’s probably hours away somewhere. I don’t even know what
time the game is.” I groaned. I couldn’t believe it; not only had I totally
forgotten about the game, which made me feel more than a little guilty, but I
couldn’t talk to him. I buried my face against my arms, telling myself not to
start crying again. I knew people would start coming back from the dining hall
soon and I didn’t want to start any more rumors than I could help. I had to
think. Johnny would almost certainly call me later — on the bus or in the
locker room after the game. But I couldn’t talk to him about the terrible
accusations my mom’s private investigator had turned up over the phone. I
couldn’t do that to him in front of his friends, and I didn’t even know if he’d
be able to hear me if I did. His last call from an away game had been so short.
But I couldn’t wait until he had gotten back from the game; I knew I couldn’t
cope with not knowing for however long he would be away. I had to do something,
but I didn’t know what. Georgia rubbed my back and told me to breathe, and as
much as I tried to think, I couldn’t seem to keep my brain from going numb.

 
    Chapter
Three
    As soon as I had managed to calm myself down, Georgia
convinced me to come back up to the room and actually think. “You’re not going
to accomplish anything going off half-cocked,” she pointed out. I let her lead
me into the building and onto the elevator. She shoved a box of her