by Cj Omololu
“Look,” the detective says, leaning forward in his chair. “We’re going to get a sample one way or the other. You can either hang out here for the next several hours while we get in touch with your father or we can do this in the next thirty seconds and you walk on out of here. What do you say?”
“A quick cheek swab and it’s done,” the tech says. “Not even painful.” She flips the cap off the Q-tip and leans in toward me. “Open up.”
I can’t think of any more excuses, so I open my mouth and she rubs the swab quickly along the inside of my cheek.
“See?” she says as she caps the swab and then strips her gloves off. “Couldn’t be easier.”
I watch her walk out of the room, and I feel strangely violated. “Can I go now?” I ask Detective Naito.
“Sure,” he says, standing up and pushing his chair back. “But don’t go far. We might have some more questions for you.”
Ava’s car isn’t in the driveway when I get home, and I can feel my agitation starting up again. I must have gone through the conversation twenty times in my head but I can’t figure it out. Yes, the person in the photo looked like Ava, but the quality of the picture wasn’t that good. I even thought I saw Ava at the food trucks that night. There must be thousands of girls who look like us in the dark and from far away. To think anything else is just crazy.
I sit in the car and dial Ava’s number, but it goes straight to voice mail, so I hang up without leaving a message. I text her to call me, and then climb out of the car and go into the house. I can hear Cecilia’s TV on in the kitchen, so I quietly walk down the long hallway toward our bedrooms. I open Ava’s door, not even sure what I’m looking for in the messy room, until I spot the speeding ticket on top of a pile of papers on her desk. I fold it up, put it in my pocket, and pick my way through the mounds of discarded clothes to the closet. She has no organizational system at all, so I flip casually through the rack. My fingers touch the soft leather before it even registers, and I pull the jacket slowly out of the closet, glancing toward the open door to make sure nobody’s watching me. I pull it toward me and get a faint whiff of Ava’s perfume over the smell of new leather. Just holding it freaks me out, so I shove it back into the closet and smooth the clothes around it until I’m satisfied that it looks like it hasn’t been disturbed.
I try to calm down. Ava buys new stuff all the time. It’s no big deal. It’s just a coincidence that she has a new red leather jacket. And that it looks just like the one that the mystery girl was wearing in the photo right after Casey was killed.
“What are you looking for?” Ava asks from the doorway.
I jump back like I’ve been shocked. “Jeez, you scared me.” I was going to tell her everything—about what the cops know and the photo, but now I’m not so sure. “I was looking for those jeans I borrowed last week. I think I might have left five bucks in the pocket.” I casually reach in and pull the jacket out, like it’s no big deal. “This is nice. When did you get it?”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago, I guess. There was an end-of-season sale at the mall.” She looks up at me, but I don’t see anything in her eyes that’s giving her away. “You want to borrow it? I haven’t even worn it yet.”
I look down and see that the tags are still hanging from the sleeve. Has she really not worn it? If she did wear it that night, why would she lie about it? “Maybe,” I say, putting it back in the closet.
“So, what happened?” she asks, flopping down onto her bed.
“Well, they didn’t arrest me. Yet. And it has nothing to do with the fake ID.” I watch her face closely. The face I’ve trusted as much as my own all my life. Until now. “They wanted to ask me some questions about Casey.”
Ava picks some of the polish off her fingernails, putting the scraps of color in a little pile on her bed. She doesn’t meet my eyes. Is that a sign of guilt? “Yeah?” I’m searching her face for clues, but she looks totally unconcerned. “Good thing you have nothing to hide, right?”
“That’s what they’re trying to find out. I even gave them a DNA sample. To eliminate me. Us.”
Her eyes go wide, but now I can’t tell if it’s all just an act. “So what do we do now?”
I’m about to answer when we hear the front door open and a booming voice calling our names.
“Daddy’s home!” Ava shouts, scrambling off her bed to greet him.
I glance at her open closet and catch a glimpse of the red jacket pushed way to the back, which gives me an ache in the pit of my stomach. Dad’s home, but I’m not sure I’ve done enough. We’re keeping secrets from each other, and I’ve never felt so alone.
“I’m sorry,” the woman on the phone says, her voice wary and a little suspicious. “We don’t give out that kind of information. License plate lookups are done only for law enforcement or licensed private investigators.” She pauses. “What did you say you need it for?”
I can feel my heart pounding, even though it’s what I expected her to say. The speeding ticket was sent to us, which means the driver must have a copy of the fake ID—but the car might be registered to someone else. Someone who might help me figure this out. There’s no way that all of these random Alicia sightings are coincidence—someone is doing this on purpose. “There’s a car blocking my driveway, and I wanted to see if I could get in touch with the person who owns it before I have it towed.” I’m surprised at how smoothly this comes out. Almost like I didn’t practice it for an hour this morning.
“Have you tried leaving a note?”
“No. I haven’t,” I say. “Thank you for the advice.” I hang up the phone and stare at the screen. Now what? Aside from Detective Naito, I don’t know anyone in law enforcement. I open my desk drawer and pull out his card. As I stare at the phone numbers, an idea starts to form. I pick up the diamond A pendant that’s sitting on my desk and fold my hand around it. Alicia would do it. The worst they can do is say no.
My hand is shaking as I call the DMV’s number again and pray someone else answers this time. I say a silent thank-you when a gruff male voice answers the phone.
“Hi,” I say, pitching my voice higher than normal. “I really hope you can help me. I’m the assistant to Detective Jim Naito in San Diego County, and our computer system has totally gone down. He needs me to get some information on a license plate number right away, and until the computers come back up, there’s no way I can get it for him.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, exactly like the first woman. “We don’t give out that kind of information.”
“I know,” I say as sweetly as I can. “As someone in law enforcement, I’d never ask you to break the rules, but I’m seriously in trouble here.” I give a quiet sniff into the phone and let my voice waver a bit. “I just got this job, see, and I’ve got a baby girl at home to take care of, and my no-good husband ran off with his receptionist, so she’s all I got. If I can’t get this one little thing for the detective in the next five minutes, I’m pretty sure he’ll fire me.” I pause and can tell that he’s still listening. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to help me,” I say. “It’s just that I’m so desperate to save my job—”
“Hang on,” he says wearily, and the hold music comes on. I let out a deep sigh and relax a tiny bit. He might actually do this. “Look,” he says, coming back on the phone, “they could have my ass for this, but I’ve been where you are, so I get it. What’s the license plate number?”
I tell him, and he clicks back off the line. I can feel my heart pounding as I hold the phone to my ear and wait through the hold music.
“Okay, here’s what I can do,” the guy says. “I can’t give you an address, but I can get you a phone number. Will that help?”
“That would be great! Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate this, and so does my daughter, Katie.” I wince at that last part. I might be going a little too far with this.
He reads off the numbers, and I write them down on a scrap piece of paper. “You’re the best!” I say, as bubbly as
possible.
“No problem,” he says. “You stay safe out there.”
“You too.”
It doesn’t take long to do a reverse lookup on the Internet to get that answer and more questions: Who does Ava know in Oceanside, and why is she using that address?
“Oh. My. God!” Ava screams just before the front door slams so hard that my window rattles.
I stick my head out of my room in time to hear Cecilia yell about not slamming the door. Ava pounds on the wall as she walks down the hallway, with Maya right behind her.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Asshole!” I hear, followed by a sharp bang, and I reach the doorway to her room in time to see her throw the second of a pair of stilettos hard at the wall.
“What is it?” I ask. Cecilia is right behind me, looking concerned.
“Dylan Harrington, that’s what! He cheated on me—can you believe that? With a junior from Claremont! She’s not even that cute!” Ava’s hair is messy, and her face is red as she looks for something else to throw.
“I knew he was trouble,” Maya says from the corner of Ava’s bed.
Ava whirls on her. “You thought he was hot!”
“Hot, but trouble,” she insists.
I glance pointedly at Cecilia, but Ava doesn’t take the hint. Cecilia’s not supposed to know about Dylan because Ava didn’t go out with him. Alicia did.
“One of his friends posted that he was up in Cardiff with some girl, and sure enough, we went there, and they were totally making out under lifeguard tower number four.”
Cecilia shakes her head, a scowl in her eyes. “Seriously, Ava, again with the boys. When are you going to learn they’re not worth it?” I relax a little. I’m sure Cecilia can’t keep up with who Ava’s seeing.
“Dylan sure wasn’t.” The anger seems to seep out of her, and now Ava’s eyes are shining with tears.
Cecilia visibly softens when she sees that Ava is really upset. “You’re a smart, beautiful, kind girl. In a few days this Dylan person will be just a memory.” Ava seems to sink into Cecilia’s hug.
“I doubt it,” she says, wiping a stray tear off her cheek.
“I promise,” Cecilia says, pulling back and patting her on the cheek. “I’m going to go start dinner.” She gives her hand a squeeze. “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Ava can’t help but laugh at that. Cecilia never swears. “Okay. If you say so.”
“I say so.”
None of us says a word until Cecilia is safely down the hall. “Did anyone else see you?” I ask.
Ava shrugs. “I don’t know. Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t.”
“It was really hideous,” Maya says. “Dylan didn’t even look sorry. Almost like he was enjoying the fight.”
“Fight?” I watch Ava carefully. “What did you do?”
She turns to me, her hands on her hips. “I wished them the best and walked away. What do you think I did? I told both of them exactly what I thought.”
“And that’s it? Nothing physical?”
“I may have pushed that bitch a couple of times. But she totally deserved it. And more.”
“Okay,” I say. Even in the midst of all this anger, it’s hard to believe that Ava would do anything else. One minute I’d never believe she’d do something to Casey (or more realistically, get someone to do it for her), and the next I’m holding a red leather jacket that puts her at the scene and we’re getting speeding tickets that belong to somebody who really lives in Oceanside. What else isn’t she telling me?
“Well, I’m taking care of Dylan right now,” Maya says, tapping on her phone. “One more second … and there.” She flips her phone around to us, and I see a photo of Dylan and a girl who’s definitely not Ava clearly making out on the beach. “I posted it on my wall and then tagged everyone who knows Alicia.”
Ava kneels on the bed and puts her arm around Maya. “You’re the best.”
“I know.”
“So we’re still going out tonight, right?” Ava asks me, glancing at her closet.
I can’t believe she really wants to get out there and do it all over again. “I’m not going out,” I say.
“Oh, come on. There’s only a few days left of spring break,” Ava says. “Don’t let one little incident spoil everything. We were just starting to have some fun.”
“I don’t really count getting attacked at a party as a little incident. And I meant it when I said that I was done as Alicia. Now that Dylan’s over, you should be too.”
“Do whatever you want, but I’m going.” Ava walks to her closet and starts pawing through outfits. “This will be a good time to get Dylan out of my system.” She holds up a dress that looks more like a tunic, it’s so short. “What about this for drowning my sorrows?”
“That’ll work,” Maya says with a grin.
“Lex, you really need to learn how to live a little.” She holds up the dress and looks at herself in the reflection of the window.
I reach over and quickly pull her curtains closed. It’s not totally dark yet, but it’s creepy even thinking about someone sitting out there watching us.
“Hey! I wasn’t done.”
“Use your mirror,” I say. “The whole world can see you out there.”
“Like anybody even cares,” she protests, but turns to the mirror. “I told you those seeds don’t mean anything. You’re being paranoid.”
“Someone out there might be stalking us,” I say. “I don’t consider that paranoid.”
“You guys are like an old married couple.” Maya grins and then goes back to tapping on her phone. “Hey—when were you at the reggae festival?”
Ava’s busy looking in the mirror over her desk. “Never. Why?”
“Because someone named Nancy tagged Alicia in a photo from last week.” She hands her phone to Ava.
“That’s not me,” Ava says, handing the phone back.
“Let me see it,” I say. The photo is a picture of Ava holding a beer with a stage in the background. She’s standing next to a girl with blond hair and a guy with dreads. It’s taken from pretty far away, but it sure looks like her. “Are you sure that isn’t you?”
“I’d know if I accidentally stumbled into a reggae festival,” Ava says. “Must be you.”
“Come on,” I say. “That’s not me.” I scroll down. There are tons of photos on Alicia’s feed that I haven’t seen before.
“Give it,” Maya says, her hand out. She zooms in on the first image. “Probably Photoshopped,” she says. “Someone got a picture of one of you and cropped the head onto someone else’s body. Do you guys know this Nancy person?”
We both shake our heads.
“I’m sure it’s some kind of joke. Maybe someone found out about Alicia,” Maya says.
“I thought you locked this page,” I say to Ava. “So that people we actually know won’t find it.” The last thing we need is to have to explain Alicia’s page to people at school. “We did,” Ava says. “I haven’t even looked at it in forever.” Maya taps on her phone. “Uh-oh,” she says, using her finger to scroll down.
“What?” I ask, trying to see over her shoulder.
“You haven’t been posting as Alicia, have you?” she asks me.
“No. I told you—I totally forgot about it.”
“Well, someone has. Alicia Rios has been a very busy girl lately.” She scrolls down some more. “The page must have been hacked. There’s a trip to Tijuana … a beach party that looks like it’s in Mission Bay somewhere.”
Ava grabs the phone. “Let me see that.” She studies the photos on the page. “I didn’t take this profile shot—did you?” She turns the phone to me, and I see a selfie, obviously taken in a bathroom mirror that shows part of an eye and some hair. “No. You can’t even see who that is.”
“Shit.” Maya taps her phone hard. “I can’t get into the account anymore. Someone changed the password.”
“That’s crazy,” Ava says.
“Give it here.” She taps on the phone with an increasingly frustrated look on her face. “Call them or something. Tell them that someone stole our page.”
“It’s not that easy,” I say, looking at the phone. I try all of our usual passwords, but none of them will get us in.
Maya takes her phone back. “You know who can figure this out, don’t you?”
I stand up. “No way. I don’t want Zane getting involved in this.”
Ava leans against her desk. “Maya’s right. Zane could figure out if the pictures were Photoshopped. He might even be able to figure out how to get back into Alicia’s page. Quicker than the stupid people who run the site, anyway.”
“I don’t want anyone else involved in this. I already told him that we weren’t doing Alicia anymore.”
“Whatever.” Maya hands me the phone so that I can see the photos again. “If you go through the Internet, it might take weeks. Zane could have it done in an hour.”
I’m outnumbered. And they’re right. Zane was setting up our wireless system back in elementary school. If anyone can figure this out, he can, but I don’t want any of his I-told-you-so attitude. “Fine. But I’m not calling him.”
Maya takes the phone back and continues scrolling. “Hey.” She looks up at me. “When did Casey die?”
“March thirtieth. Sometime around midnight.” I know I’ll never forget the date. It looked so official on the paperwork Detective Naito had.
“And you definitely didn’t see him that day?” Maya is starting to sound exactly like a cop.
“No. Why?”
“You’re not going to like this,” Maya says, handing the phone back to me. I look on Alicia’s time line and see a one-line posting from March twenty-ninth at eight-thirty p.m.—four hours before he died. A line that neither Ava nor I put there.
Going to see Casey after he gets off work—wish me luck!
I click Alicia’s page off my phone just as Dad walks into the kitchen.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he says, giving me a kiss on the cheek.
