Light of Day by Allison van Diepen

grave.”
    I hoped X was right that she was alive—even if it meant she was with a pimp. But we needed to get her away from him as fast as possible. “What if this Milo decides to kill her because of all the press she’s getting?”
    â€œMilo won’t kill her. She’s worth too much to him, andmoney’s his bottom line. That’s how pimps operate. Swans like her can pull in thousands a week for him.”
    â€œSwans?”
    â€œWhite girls. Especially the blondes. They’re valuable. Milo will do everything he can to hold on to her.”
    X took out his keys. But instead of moving, he looked me in the eye. “I heard you talk about Bree on your show. Heard what people are saying about her on the news. Everybody’s painting a picture of this perfect little sweetheart. But nobody’s really like that. Tell me something else about her. Something that isn’t so sweet.”
    It was a strange thing to ask. I thought about it. “A couple of weeks ago, her friends deliberately bumped my table in the cafeteria—they were just being idiots. When they were walking away, Bree looked back and mouthed that she was sorry. She’s a nice girl, but she can be . . . kind of a sheep. She goes along with the crowd.”
    I hated criticizing Bree. I even felt guilty that I’d been upset with her over the table-bumping incident. It wasn’t her fault that Ellie and Karina had gone all Mean Girls on me.
    X nodded and thanked me, as if what I said was actually helpful.
    Before he could turn away, I caught his arm. “I want to help you find her. I could talk to her. No matter what situation she’s in . . . I could help.”
    He seemed to consider this. “Got a decent fake ID?”
    I hesitated, reminding myself that he was a cop. But I was sure my fake ID was the last of his concerns. “Yeah, I’ve got one.”
    â€œGood. You’ll hear from me soon.”

THE KISS
    â€œI BET ZOMBIES GOT BREE O’CONNOR,” Rory said the following Tuesday. “She could be huddled in an alley munching on some roadkill.”
    The rest of us looked at one another in disgust. Zombie club or not, it wasn’t acceptable to talk about Bree that way. As seriously as we pretended to take the zombie thing, it was mostly a joke. And Bree’s disappearance was anything but.
    I was about to tell Rory to shut it, but Alistair did it first. “Bree’s off-limits.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œOff. Limits.”
    Rory sighed. “Fine.”
    â€œI think poor Bree was kidnapped,” Adriana said. “Somebody could’ve dragged her into a car and . . .” She didn’t darefill in the blank. “Afterward, he could’ve dumped her somewhere. You hear about cases like that.”
    I’d hoped, selfishly maybe, that the zombie club wouldn’t talk about Bree today. I couldn’t sit in class or walk through the hallway without hearing her name. Then my thoughts would go spinning out of control. Had she been lured in by that pimp? Was he keeping her by force? Was she suffering at this moment?
    Everyone at school was upset, but I could tell that JC was especially shaken up. His usual laughter was gone, replaced by a sullen sadness. He’d grown up a block away from Bree, and they’d known each other since kindergarten. He drove past her house every day, and often crossed paths with her parents. Despite the way JC had treated me, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him.
    â€œI’m not so sure she was kidnapped,” Caro said. “My mom and I joined the search this weekend. There had to be two hundred of us out there. No one found anything. Not one little thing. If somebody grabbed her off the street, you’d think she might’ve dropped something.”
    Rory snorted. “Yeah, and it’s hard to picture her being grabbed off the street anywhere near Jeff’s house. Coral Gables isn’t