Maximum Exposure Read Online Free PDF Page A

anything. Like, put a dozen loners together and you have a dozen loners in the same room. They weren’t like a team, or a group, or even in the same major, or what.”
    “So you haven’t seen any of them in the last six months.”
    “One of the guys, Tom Keller, is in my math class. But we don’t meet today. Tomorrow at ten. Pike Hall, if you want to stake it out.”
    “I’m here today.”
    It took him a good minute before he said, “Jess Sanchez. She was a friend of Scott’s, she’s okay. She’s the only one who seemed to be worried about Scott at the time, anyway.”
    “You weren’t?”
    “Look, I said Scott was weird. Honestly? I thought he’d show up Monday and be all, like, why were you so worried? I’m really sorry about everything, but I don’t know what I could have done different.”
    Max considered that. If she and Karen hadn’t become close friends while they were roommates, would Max have worried if Karen was out all weekend? Probably not. She might even have been relieved to have the room to herself.
    “I’ll talk to Jess,” Max said. “Where can I find her?”
    “She works at the bookstore on campus. You can’t miss her. She wears all black, has a nose ring, and is tiny. She looks like a freak, but like I said, she was the most normal out of all of them.”
    Ian left and Max read over the police report again.
    Jess Sanchez hadn’t been one of the group that Scott went camping with and Scott’s mother hadn’t said anything about a girlfriend. Was Jess a friend or something more? Why hadn’t she contacted campus police if she was worried, as Ian implied?
    Time to find out.

Chapter Three
    Ian’s description of Jess Sanchez was accurate. She was indeed tiny in every way—barely five feet tall, not even one hundred pounds. Black hair, brown eyes, naturally tan skin, a nose stud, and multiple piercings in her small ears. She looked more American Indian than Hispanic as her name suggested. She agreed to talk to Max after Max told her she was a reporter writing about Scott Sheldon’s disappearance, but her tone was indifferent. She told the guy she was working with that she’d be back in ten minutes; then they stepped outside.
    “It’s freezing,” Jess complained as she zipped up her coat and pulled a cap over her short hair.
    “Is there a lounge where we can sit?” It was cold, but the sky was so clear, it looked like it would shatter.
    “I’m fine. So why are you here after nearly six months? No one cared when he got lost.”
    “No one?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Right. Search and rescue. Too dangerous, they said, to look for him in the storm. So Scott’s probably dead because it was too cold for everyone else.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and walked briskly. Fortunately, her legs were short and Max easily kept up with her.
    “Jess, search and rescue did everything they could with the information they had. And, like you, I don’t think Scott survived.”
    The girl stopped walking. Her cheeks were bright from the cold. “I didn’t say that.”
    “Let’s look at the possibilities: One, Scott ran away, voluntarily disappearing. There’s no evidence to support that. Two, Scott stomped off in anger like his friends said, and has built a shelter and survived for six months. Or three, Scott died on that mountain before anyone started looking for him.”
    Jess frowned, but didn’t say anything. Max continued. “There’s no evidence that Scott ran away or that he survived. I’m pretty certain he’s dead, and so is search and rescue. Even his mother, and parents are the most likely to believe that their child found some way to survive the unsurvivable. But I think there’s more to what happened that weekend than what your friends told the police.”
    “ My friends?”
    “Tom Keller, Carlos Ibarra, and Arthur Cowan.”
    “They’re not my friends.”
    Max raised an eyebrow. “No?”
    “Art and Carlos used to be. But not anymore.” She averted her eyes, and