One of Us Is Lying

by Karen M. McManus

  I didn’t think Cooper could get any paler, but he manages. “What?”

  “Kind of a long story, but—yeah. Turns out she was a drug addict living in some kind of commune, but she’s back now. And sober, supposedly. Oh, and Bronwyn got called into the police station because of a creepy post Simon wrote about her sister sophomore year. Bronwyn told him to drop dead in the comments section, so…you know. That looks kinda bad now.”

  “The hell?” By the incredulous look on Cooper’s face, I’ve managed to distract him from his problems. Then the late bell rings, and his shoulders sag. “We’d better go. But, yeah. If you guys get together, I’m in.”

  —

  The Bayview Police set themselves up in a conference room with a school liaison again, and start interviewing students one by one. At first things are kind of quiet, and when we get through the day without any rumors I’m hopeful that Cooper was wrong about his secret getting out. But by midmorning on Tuesday, the whispers start. I don’t know if it’s the kind of questions the police were asking, or who they were talking to, or just a good old-fashioned leak, but before lunch my ex-friend Olivia—who hasn’t spoken to me since Jake punched TJ—runs up to my locker and grabs my arm with a look of pure glee.

  “Oh my God. Did you hear about Cooper?” Her eyes pop with excitement as she lowers her voice to a piercing whisper. “Everyone’s saying he’s gay.”

  I pull away. If Olivia thinks I’m grateful to be included in the gossip mill, she’s wrong. “Who cares?” I say flatly.

  “Well, Keely does,” Olivia giggles, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “No wonder he wouldn’t sleep with her! Are you headed to lunch now?”

  “Yeah. With Bronwyn. See you.” I slam my locker shut and spin on my heel before she can say anything else.

  In the cafeteria, I collect my food and head for our usual table. Bronwyn looks pretty in a sweater-dress and boots, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her cheeks are so pink I wonder if she’s wearing makeup for a change, but if she is it’s really natural. She keeps looking at the door.

  “Expecting someone?” I ask.

  She turns redder. “Maybe.”

  I have a pretty good idea who she’s waiting for. Probably not Cooper, although the rest of the room seems to be. When he steps into the cafeteria everything goes quiet, and then a low whispering buzz runs through the room.

  “Cooper Clay is Cooper GAY!” somebody calls out in a high, falsetto voice, and Cooper freezes in the door as something flies through the air and hits him across the chest. I recognize the blue packaging immediately: Trojan condoms. Jake’s brand. Along with half the school, I guess. But it did come from the direction of my old table.

  “Doin’ the butt, hey, pretty,” somebody else sings, and laughter runs through the room. Some of it’s mean but a lot of it’s shocked and nervous. Most people look like they don’t know what to do. I’m struck silent because Cooper’s face is the worst thing I’ve ever seen and I want, so badly, for this to not be happening.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” It’s Nate. He’s in the entrance next to Cooper, which surprises me since I’ve never seen him in the cafeteria before. The rest of the room is equally taken aback, quieting enough that his contemptuous voice cuts across the whispers as he surveys the scene in front of him. “You losers seriously give a crap about this? Get a life.”

  A girl’s voice calls out “Boyfriend!” disguised with a fake cough. Vanessa smirks as everyone around her dissolves into the kind of laughter that’s been directed my way over the past month: half-guilty, half-gleeful, and all Thank God this is happening to you and not me. The only exceptions are Keely, who’s biting her lip and staring at the floor, and Luis, who’s half standing with his forearms braced on the table. One of the lunch ladies hovers in the doorway between the kitchen and the cafeteria, seemingly torn between letting things play out and getting a teacher to intervene.

  Nate zeroes in on Vanessa’s smug face without a trace of self-consciousness. “Really? You’ve got something to say? I don’t even know your name and you tried to stick your hand down my pants the last time we were at a party.” More laughter, but this time it’s not at Cooper’s expense. “In fact, if there’s a guy at Bayview you haven’t tried that with, I’d love to meet him.”

  Vanessa’s mouth hangs open as a hand shoots up from the middle of the cafeteria. “Me,” calls a boy sitting at the computer-nerd table. His friends all laugh nervously as the pulsing attention of the room—seriously, it’s like a wave moving from one target to the next—focuses on them. Nate gives him a thumbs-up and looks back at Vanessa.

  “There you go. Try to make that happen and shut the hell up.” He crosses to our table and dumps his backpack next to Bronwyn. She stands up, winds her arms around his neck, and kisses him like they’re alone while the entire cafeteria erupts into gasps and catcalls. I stare as much as everyone else. I mean, I kind of guessed, but this is pretty public. I’m not sure if Bronwyn’s trying to distract everyone from Cooper or if she couldn’t help herself. Maybe both.

  Either way, Cooper’s effectively been forgotten. He’s motionless at the entrance until I grab his arm. “Come sit. The whole murder club at one table. They can stare at all of us together.”

  Cooper follows me, not bothering to get any food. We settle ourselves at the table and awkward silence descends until someone else approaches: Luis with his tray in hand, lowering himself into the last empty chair at our table.

  “That was bullshit,” he fumes, looking at the empty space in front of Cooper. “Aren’t you gonna eat?”

  “I’m not hungry,” Cooper says shortly.

  “You should eat something.” Luis grabs the only untouched food item on his tray and holds it out. “Here, have a banana.”

  Everyone freezes for a second; then we all burst out laughing at the same time. Including Cooper, who rests his chin in his palm and massages his temple with his other hand.

  “I’ll pass,” he says.

  I’ve never seen Luis so red. “Why couldn’t it have been apple day?” he mutters, and Cooper gives him a tired smile.

  You find out who your real friends are when stuff like this happens. Turns out I didn’t have any, but I’m glad Cooper does.

  Nate

  Thursday, October 25, 12:20 a.m.

  I ease my motorcycle into the cul-de-sac at the end of Bayview Estates and kill the motor, staying still for a minute to check for any hint that someone’s nearby. It’s quiet, so I climb off and give a hand to Bronwyn so she can do the same.

  The neighborhood is still a half-finished construction area with no streetlights, so Bronwyn and I walk in darkness to house number 5. When we get there I try the front door, but it’s locked. We circle to the back of the house and I jiggle each window until I find one that opens. It’s low enough to the ground that I haul myself in easily. “Go back out front; I’ll let you in,” I say in a low voice.

  “I think I can do it too,” Bronwyn says, preparing to pull herself up. She doesn’t have the arm strength, though, and I have to lean over and help her. The window’s not big enough for two, and when I let go and step back to give her room, she scrambles the rest of the way and lands on the floor with a thud.

  “Graceful,” I say as she gets to her feet and brushes off her jeans.

  “Shut up,” she mutters, looking around. “Should we unlock the front for Addy and Cooper?”

  We’re in an empty, under-construction house after midnight for a meeting of the Bayview Four. It’s like a bad spy movie, but there’s no way all of us could get together anywhere else without drawing too much attention. Even my don’t-give-a-crap neighbors are suddenly in my business now that Mikhail Powers’s team keeps cruising down our street.

  Plus, Bronwyn’s still grounded.

  “Yeah,” I say, and we feel our way through a half-built kitchen and into a living room with a huge bay window. The moonlight streams bright across the door, and I twist its dead bolt open. “What time did you tell them?
”

  “Twelve-thirty,” she says, pressing a button on her Apple watch.

  “What time is it?”

  “Twelve-twenty-five.”

  “Good. We have five minutes.” I slide my hand along the side of her face and back her up against the wall, pulling her lips to mine. She leans into me and wraps her arms around my neck, opening her mouth with a soft sigh. My hands travel down the curve of her waist to her hips, finding a strip of bare skin under the hem of her shirt. Bronwyn has this unbelievable stealth body under all her conservative clothes, although I’ve barely gotten to see any of it.

  “Nate,” she whispers after a few minutes, in that breathless voice that drives me wild. “You were going to tell me how things went with your mom.”

  Yeah. I guess I was. I saw my mother again this afternoon and it was…all right. She showed up on time and sober. She backed off asking questions and gave me money for bills. But I spent the whole time taking bets with myself on how long it’d last. Current odds say two weeks.

  Before I can answer, though, the door creaks and we’re not alone anymore. A small figure slips inside and shuts the door behind her. The moonlight’s bright enough that I can see Addy clearly, including the unexpected dark streaks in her hair. “Oh, good, I’m not the first one,” she whispers, then puts her hands on her hips as she glares at Bronwyn and me. “Are you two making out? Seriously?”

  “Did you dye your hair?” Bronwyn counters, pulling away from me. “What color is that?” She reaches a hand out and examines Addy’s bangs. “Purple? I like it. Why the change?”

  “I can’t keep up with the maintenance requirements of short hair,” Addy grumbles, dropping a bike helmet on the floor. “It doesn’t look as bad with color mixed in.” She cocks her head at me and adds, “I don’t need your commentary if you disagree, by the way.”

  I hold up my hands. “Wasn’t going to say a word, Addy.”

  “When did you even start knowing my name,” she deadpans.

  I grin at her. “You’ve gotten kinda feisty since you lost all the hair. And the boyfriend.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Where are we doing this? Living room?”

  “Yeah, but back corner. Away from the window,” Bronwyn says, picking her way through construction supplies and sitting cross-legged in front of a stone fireplace. I sprawl next to her and wait for Addy to follow, but she’s still poised near the door.

  “I think I hear something,” she says, peering through the peephole. She opens the door a crack and steps aside to let Cooper in. Addy leads him toward the fireplace but nearly goes flying when she trips on an extension cord. “Ow! Damn it, that was loud. Sorry.” She settles herself next to Bronwyn, and Cooper sits beside her.

  “How are things?” Bronwyn asks Cooper.

  He rubs a hand over his face. “Oh, you know. Livin’ the nightmare. My father won’t talk to me, I’m getting torn apart online, and none of the teams that were scouting me will return Coach Ruffalo’s calls. Other than that I’m great.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Bronwyn says, and Addy grabs his hand and folds it in both of hers.

  He heaves a sigh but doesn’t pull away. “It is what it is, I guess. Let’s just get to why we’re here, huh?”

  Bronwyn clears her throat. “Well. Mainly to…compare notes? Eli kept talking about looking for patterns and connections, which makes a lot of sense. I thought maybe we could go through some of the things we know. And don’t know.” She frowns and starts ticking things off on her fingers. “Simon was about to post some pretty shocking things about all of us. Somebody got us into that room together with the fake cell phones. Simon was poisoned while we were there. Lots of people besides us had reasons to be mad at Simon. He was mixed up in all kinds of creepy 4chan stuff. Who knows what kind of people he pissed off.”

  “Janae said he hated being an outsider and he was really upset nothing more ever happened with Keely,” Addy says, looking at Cooper. “Do you remember that? He started hitting on her during junior prom, and she caved at a party a couple weeks later and hooked up with him for, like, five minutes. He thought it was actually going somewhere.”

  Cooper hunches his shoulders like he’s remembering something he’d rather not. “Right. Huh. I guess that’s a pattern. Or a connection, or whatever. With me and Nate, I mean.”

  I don’t get it. “What?”

  He meets my eyes. “When I broke up with Keely, she told me she’d hooked up with you at a party to get rid of Simon. And I asked her out a couple weeks after.”

  “You and Keely?” Addy stares at me. “She never said!”

  “It was just a couple times.” Honestly, I’d forgotten all about it.

  “And you’re good friends with Keely. Or you were,” Bronwyn says to Addy. She doesn’t seem fazed at the idea of Keely and me getting together, and I have to appreciate how she doesn’t lose focus. “But I have nothing to do with her. So…I don’t know. Does that mean something, or doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t see how it could,” Cooper says. “Nobody except Simon cared what happened between him and Keely.”

  “Keely might have,” Bronwyn points out.

  Cooper stifles a laugh. “You can’t think Keely had anything to do with this!”

  “We’re freewheeling here,” Bronwyn says, leaning forward and propping her chin in her hand. “She’s a common thread.”

  “Yeah, but Keely has zero motive for anything. Shouldn’t we be talking about people who hated Simon? Besides you,” Cooper adds, and Bronwyn goes rigid. “I mean, for that blog post he wrote about your sister. Addy told me about it. That was low, really low. I never saw it the first time around. I’d have said something if I did.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill him for it,” Bronwyn says tightly.

  “I’m not saying—” Cooper starts, but Addy interrupts.

  “Let’s stay on track. What about Leah, or even Aiden Wu? You can’t tell me they wouldn’t have liked revenge.”

  Bronwyn swallows and lowers her eyes. “I wonder about Leah too. She’s been…Well, I have a connection to her I haven’t told you guys about. She and I were partners in a Model UN competition, and by mistake we told Simon a wrong deadline that got him disqualified. He started torturing Leah on About That right after.”

  Bronwyn’s told me this, actually. It’s been eating at her for a while. But it’s news to Cooper and Addy, who starts bobbing her head. “So Leah’s got a reason to hate Simon and be mad at you.” Then she frowns. “But what about the rest of us? Why drag us along?”

  I shrug. “Maybe we were just the secrets Simon had on hand. Collateral damage.”

  Bronwyn sighs. “I don’t know. Leah’s hotheaded, but not exactly sneaky. I’m more confused about Janae’s deal.” She turns toward Addy. “One of the strangest things about the Tumblr is how many details it got right. You’d almost have to be one of us to know that stuff—or spend a lot of time with us. Don’t you think it’s weird that Janae hangs out with us even though we’re accused of killing her best friend?”

  “Well, to be fair, I did invite her,” Addy says. “But she’s been awfully skittish lately. And did you guys notice she and Simon weren’t together as much as usual right before he died? I keep wondering if something happened between them.” She leans back and chews on her bottom lip. “I suppose if anybody would’ve known what secrets Simon was about to spill and how to use them, it’d be Janae. I just…I don’t know, you guys. I’m not sure Janae’s got it in her to do something like this.”

  “Maybe Simon rejected her and she…killed him?” Cooper looks doubtful before he finishes the sentence. “Don’t see how, though. She wasn’t there.”

  Bronwyn shrugs. “We don’t know that for sure. When I talked to Eli, he kept saying somebody could’ve planned the car accident as a distraction to slip into the room. If you take that as a possibility, anyone could’ve done it.”

  I made fun of Bronwyn when she first brought that up, but—I don’t know. I wish I could remember more about
that day, could say for sure whether it’s even possible. The whole thing’s turned into a blur.

  “One of the cars was a red Camaro,” Cooper recalls. “Looked ancient. I don’t remember ever seeing it in the parking lot before. Or since. Which is weird when you think about it.”

  “Oh, come on,” Addy scoffs. “That’s so far-fetched. Sounds like a lawyer with a guilty client grasping at straws. Someone new was probably just picking up a kid that day.”

  “Maybe,” Cooper says. “I dunno. Luis’s brother works in a repair place downtown. Maybe I’ll ask him if a car like that came through, or if he can check with some other shops.” He holds up a hand at Addy’s raised brows. “Hey, you’re not the police’s favorite new person of interest, okay? I’m desperate here.”

  We’re not getting anywhere with this conversation. But I’m struck by a couple of things as I listen to them talk. One: I like all of them more than I thought I would. Bronwyn’s obviously been the biggest surprise, and like doesn’t cover it. But Addy’s turned into kind of a badass, and Cooper’s not as one-dimensional as I thought.

  And two: I don’t think any of them did it.

  Bronwyn

  Friday, October 26, 8:00 p.m.

  Friday night my entire family settles in to watch Mikhail Powers Investigates. I’m feeling more dread than usual, between bracing myself for Simon’s blog post about Maeve and worrying that something about Nate and me will make it into the broadcast. I never should have kissed him at school. Although in my defense he was unbelievably hot at that particular moment.

  Anyway. We’re all nervous. Maeve curls next to me as Mikhail’s theme music plays and photos of Bayview flash across the screen.

  A murder investigation turns witch hunt. When police tactics include revealing personal information in the name of evidence collection, have they gone too far?

  Wait. What?

  The camera zooms in on Mikhail, and he is pissed. I sit up straighter as he stares into the camera and says, “Things in Bayview, California, turned ugly this week when a closeted student involved in the investigation was outed after a round of police questioning, causing a media firestorm that should concern every American who cares about privacy rights.”