The Last to Know Read Online Free PDF Page B

Lacey, tossing her shiny dark hair. “He’s not going on some Star Search show. And he’s not the actor type, you know? He’s not into stuff like that.”
    “Yeah, but he’s so cute. I love the way he looks in those tight gray sweats he wears for football practice. You can see the outline of his—”
    Alyssa has bent her head close to the other girls and Jeremiah can’t hear anything until a burst of giggles erupts.
    He shifts his weight uncomfortably and keeps looking for his notebook.
    They’re talking about Peter Frost. They must be. He’s on the Townsend Heights High football team, and Jeremiah has seen him in those tight gray sweats they’re talking about. If he ever wore something like that, he’d look ridiculous. But Peter Frost is a younger version of Uncle Fletch. He’s muscular, handsome, charming, and the girls go crazy for him.
    There’s one major difference between Peter Frost and Uncle Fletch, though. Peter Frost would never try to help Jeremiah. In fact, he gets a kick out of doing exactly the opposite, tormenting Jeremiah every chance he gets, particularly in gym class, where he’s always making snide comments under his breath.
    His jaw clenched at the mere thought of his nemesis, Jeremiah finds his notebook, slams his locker door hard, and realizes that the abrupt sound has apparently startled Lacey and her friends.
    “Oh, hi,” Lacey says off-handedly, since she’s looking right at him. “Geez, that was loud.”
    “S-s-sorry.” Jeremiah feels his cheeks grow hot.
    His stutter. It’s back. Damn it, it always comes back when he’s nervous. After all the money Dad spent on therapy years ago so that he could get over it, the stutter shadows him still, always lurking, always waiting to pounce.
    “Hey . . .” Lacey pauses slightly in a way that indicates she can’t remember his name, then goes on as if it doesn’t matter, “did you hear about that woman who disappeared last night from the park?”
    “Yeah, it w-was on the n-news this morning,” Jeremiah mumbles, struggling to stay calm and will the stutter away, unable to fathom that Lacey Birnbach is actually talking to him , even if she has no idea what his name is.
    “Well, guess who found her abandoned baby there?”
    Jeremiah shrugs, not about to let on that he’s already overheard the answer.
    “Peter Frost. Can you believe it? He was, like, jogging and he came across the screaming little baby in her jogging stroller. Now he’s this major hero.”
    “Wow.” Apparently, Jeremiah’s attempt to muster suitable awe is unsuccessful.
    Lacey turns her attention back to her friends. Clearly he’s been dismissed.
    Jeremiah turns and drifts into the throng of students in the corridor, thinking it’s too bad that it wasn’t Peter Frost who vanished from High Ridge Park last night.
    “F ancy meeting you here.”
    Paula Bailey turns to see a familiar face grinning at her from beneath the brim of a Yankees cap.
    “Oh, hi, George.” Her gaze flits back to the three-story red-brick Victorian mansion beyond the iron gate.
    “Covering the crime beat these days?”
    “What’d you think, that I’m just doing golden anniversary write-ups and reporting Brownie troop news?” Paula fights to keep her tone light.
    It isn’t easy. Not for someone like her. Not with someone like him.
    Lord, I need a cigarette.
    She’s known George DeFand since they were both freshmen in community college, where she took every communications course the meager department offered, and so did he. Of course, after two years, he went on to Columbia while she dropped out of the academic scene for good, knocked up by her boyfriend.
    Now George is living down in Rye, married to a soap opera actress and reporting for the New York Post , and Paula is a single mom living in a one-bedroom apartment here in town and writing for the weekly Townsend Gazette .
    Well, she thinks defensively, the Post is just a crummy tabloid—it’s not like he’s working at the New