Last Breath Read Free

the wooden racks. It hadn’t.
    Although Cassidy was absolutely positive that she had slaved over and finished the essay for psych 101 class, the paper was nowhere to be found.
    “I’m sure I gave it to Travis,” she said when they’d given up and were sitting on the floor trying to restore some semblance of order in the room. “I remember it so clearly. At least, I think I do. But he doesn’t have it.” One hand went to her aching forehead. “Maybe that stupid asthma attack damaged my brain cells.”
    “Or maybe,” Sophie said lightly, “Travis is madder at you than you thought he was.”
    Cassidy’s eyes went to Sophie’s round, pink-cheeked face. “How could he be madder than I thought he was? He was furious.”
    “My point exactly.” Sophie fell silent then, busily sorting CD’s, but her implication was clear to Cassidy.
    She thinks Travis has that paper, Cassidy thought miserably, getting up to go over and lie down on her bed. Or had it, anyway. Sophie thinks maybe he deliberately sabotaged me with Dr. Bruin because we had that fight.
    It was Ann who came to Travis’s defense. “He wouldn’t do something so slimy,” she said firmly, tossing a handful of sweatshirts into the closet. “Not Travis.”
    But Cassidy, remembering Travis’s face burning with anger on that day of their last argument, wasn’t so sure.

Chapter 2
    O N SATURDAY MORNING, THE autumn-hued campus was bathed in bright sunshine, but there were dark clouds gathering low on the horizon.
    “Let’s hope,” Cassidy said as she dressed in bright red sweats, “that the rain holds off until after the car wash. We’ve hustled our buns pulling this together. No one wants to see it washed out.”
    Ann, plucking her eyebrows at the dresser mirror, laughed at Cassidy’s unintentional play on words. Sophie said, “It’s not supposed to rain until later. We should rake in a pile of money for the dance. So relax, Cassidy. All of your efforts will not be in vain.”
    Talia, in exercise clothing, came in, telling Cassidy that she had just talked to her mother on the phone. With an impish grin, she said, “She says you probably lost that essay on purpose. Passive-aggression, she called it. You didn’t really want to turn it in, so you lost it instead. Isn’t the human mind intriguing? And that’ll be fifty bucks, please.”
    “I’m sure your mother charges more than that,” Cassidy said drily.
    “Not over the phone.”
    “Well, I don’t have fifty bucks, and I didn’t lose that essay. Travis did.” Cassidy wasn’t wild about the idea of Talia discussing her with a shrink, even if it was her own mother. And she had, too, wanted to turn in that essay. She’d worked hard on it.
    Psychiatry was obviously not an exact science.
    None of Cassidy’s roommates would be at the car wash. They had helped her set up the event, but Ann was baby-sitting for her economics professor, a widow with three children for whom she often sat, saying she needed the “brownie points” because her grade in that class was “iffy.” Talia was running in a race, and Sophie had left an important paper until the last minute, as Sophie always did, and planned to spend the day in the library.
    “Traitors!” Cassidy had accused half-seriously. “My own roommates, letting me down. Can’t count on anybody these days.”
    “You’ll have tons of people,” Sophie assured her. “Everyone I know is planning to help.”
    Cassidy had no choice but to take Sophie’s word for it.
    On the way to breakfast in the Quad’s basement dining hall, Ann asked Cassidy, “So, is the new love of your life going to be there? At the car wash, I mean.”
    “Sure. That’s how I met him, remember? We put out a call for volunteers, and blond, gorgeous Sawyer Duncan showed up, almost like I’d placed an order.”
    “And the rest is history,” Ann said drily. “Poor Trav.”
    “I didn’t dump Travis,” Cassidy replied, glancing up at Ann who, like Talia, was