Last Breath by Diane Hoh Read Free Book Online Page A

person she saw, who happened to be Travis McVey. Classes were occasionally cancelled for various reasons: a professor’s illness, unusually bad weather, an important seminar that required a teacher’s attendance.
    “Cancelled?” Travis frowned down at her. “No. It’s over. Where were you?”
    “Over? It can’t be over.” Cassidy glanced down at her wrist, and realized she wasn’t wearing her watch. “It’s only nine o’clock.”
    “It’s ten o’clock,” Ann said, arriving at Travis’s side. Sawyer, flanked by Talia and Sophie, was right behind her. “You’re an hour late.”
    “That’s crazy,” Cassidy said, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. “I checked my clock. It said eight o’clock when I woke up. Not nine. Eight.”
    Ann shook her head. “ We got up at eight. Sophie said you hurt your leg last night and probably wouldn’t be going to class, so we decided to let you sleep.”
    “It was eight o’clock,” Cassidy insisted stubbornly. “I know how to tell time.”
    Sawyer shrugged. “Don’t get all bent out of shape. So you missed Bruin’s class. It was boring, anyway. Talia and Ann Freud here were the only two paying attention. Sophie was daydreaming about the dance and everyone else was dozing. So forget it.”
    Cassidy couldn’t forget it. Easy for them to dismiss it. They hadn’t missed a class they couldn’t afford to miss. “I know what I saw,” she persisted. “My clock said eight o’clock.”
    “And your watch?” Travis asked. “Did your watch say eight o’clock, too?”
    Her flush deepened. “I couldn’t find my watch. I had it last night, but it wasn’t on my nightstand this morning. I don’t know where it is.” Glancing around the group, studying their faces, she saw the same doubt in their expressions that she’d seen when she told them about the missing money from the car wash.
    And she felt every bit as alone as she had the night before, when she was lying, stunned, on the curb outside the mall.
    “That clock read eight o’clock,” she said, biting off her words. Then she brushed past them and went into the psych room to face Dr. Bruin.
    When she came back out, two red spots of embarrassment high on her cheekbones, the hallway was empty. She had hoped Sawyer would be waiting for her, but he wasn’t.
    She walked back to the Quad alone, anxious to reassure herself that she had not read the clock wrong.
    Sawyer was waiting for her outside the dorm. So. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all.
    Noticing her limp, he asked with concern, “What happened to your leg?”
    “I fell.” She wasn’t about to tell the bizarre truth to someone who was already questioning her ability to read a clock correctly. Maybe she’d tell him later, but not now.
    Sophie, Talia, Ann, and Travis were already back in the room when Cassidy and Sawyer entered. It seemed to Cassidy that the three exchanged a look of concern when they saw her.
    That annoyed her, and she hurried over to her bedside table, anxious to prove herself right. She reached down and picked up her alarm clock. “There!” she said triumphantly, holding it up and turning it toward them so they could all see its face. “What time does that say?”
    There was a long moment of silence. Then Sawyer said quietly, “It says ten-fifteen, Cassidy. Not nine-fifteen. Ten-fifteen.”
    Sophie nodded, her eyes huge.
    “What?” Cassidy whipped the clock around to face her. Sawyer was right. The clock now showed the correct time.
    After another long moment, Cassidy slowly, silently, bent to replace the traitorous clock on her nightstand.
    And saw her watch.
    It was lying exactly where it was supposed to be. It was lying in the same spot where she placed it each night after she climbed into bed. Exactly where it hadn’t been earlier that morning when she’d spent ten minutes searching for it.

Chapter 6
    C ASSIDY STARED AT THE watch. The silence in the room was as thick as pudding.
    “Maybe there was something lying on top