Hero Complex

by Margaux Froley

  Presley nodded. “I get it. You got to scratch that itch.”

  “Pres,” Devon began, “this is real. Something happened, and I have to find out who’s behind it.”

  “I know you do. It’s just … I miss the old you. I want that girl back, ya know?”

  Devon swallowed. “I miss her, too, Presley. I’d love the old me back, but that ship has sailed. Besides, it’s not like I chose this.”

  “Didn’t you?” Presley asked as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. “I’ll see you back on campus.” She carried her shoes as she walked down the beach to the parking lot.

  Devon watched her go, stunned. How could her best friend not even care what had happened? Or worse, maybe she’d just lost interest.

  “Let her go,” Raven said. “Most people can’t process something unless it happens to them.”

  “Presley isn’t ‘most people,’ ” Devon grumbled, but there was no point in getting into that part of her Keaton life with Raven. She still had bigger problems at hand. “So what’d you find?”

  “The yacht crew. When we did the first check, the numbers added up. That’s what the cops found that night, too. But when we matched the video with the numbers, one of the crewmembers didn’t match his ID badge. It’s all on our computer next time you come over to Reed’s.” She hesitated. “Didn’t exactly expect to find you here.”

  “Ha. One set of friends wonders why I’ve gone surf-centric. And you guys don’t think I’m beachy enough. Can’t win, can I?”

  Raven nudged Devon with her foot. “I’m going in. You want to be more beachy, try actually getting into the water at some point.” She grabbed her surfboard and wrapped the Velcro strap around her ankle, then nodded to the parking lot. “Here’s the surf king now. You know if you asked, he’d probably love to show you how to surf. Think on it.”

  Devon turned to see Bodhi stepping out of his blue Volkswagen camper, his own surfboard strapped to a roof rack. The door slammed shut, and Bodhi tucked his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, then turned to check out the water. He lifted his chin in a nod to Devon and Raven.

  “You’re not going in?” Devon called as he approached.

  Bodhi arrived at Devon’s boulder and sat down in the sand across from her. He squinted into the glare of the sun off the water. “Nah, the waves look a little small. I’ll wait until they pick up a bit.”

  “Whatever,” Raven said. She zipped her wetsuit up the back and jogged toward the ocean. Bodhi was silent as they watched Raven drop onto her board, paddling her way into the surf with ease.

  “Where’s Cleo?” Devon asked.

  “Probably doing whatever she wants. We’re not, like, hanging out anymore or anything, just so you know,” he added quickly.

  “At least one of you is keeping me in the loop,” Devon muttered. “Cleo never said anything. Not that it matters.”

  Why would it matter? Why was Bodhi telling her this, anyway? It was none of her business. Although she did have to fight back a small smile. Cleo and Bodhi had always seemed like a poor match. But it wasn’t because Devon was jealous or anything. She just figured Bodhi would be drawn to someone a little more grounded, a little less mega-yacht.

  “It’s not, like, weird or anything between us, but it probably wasn’t a good call to hook up with a Keaton student,” Bodhi clarified. “You know how word gets around.”

  Devon nodded, suddenly wanting to switch topics. “So Raven said you found a weird thing with the crew on the yacht? One of their IDs didn’t match?”

  “Yeah. One of the caterers, Isaac something … Isaac Green.” Bodhi tugged at one of his own dreads, which hung loose around his shoulders, his blue eyes distant. “His ID picture didn’t match up with video from the party. Don’t ask how we found that out; it’s better you don’t know. Point is, Isaac Green’s ID showed up to work that night, but Isaac didn’t.”

  Devon’s stomach started to spin just at the memory of her slow-motion fall into the railing. That glimmer of the metal spyglass, twirling end over end and disappearing into the dark water. “You think that’s our guy?” she breathed.

  Bodhi shrugged again. “I have pictures to show you in case something rings a bell. You can come by the guest house whenever. I just keep thinking about what you were saying, that someone did this on purpose. And I keep coming back to the Hutchins family. They’re the only ones that would have it in for you. But even Bill wouldn’t get his hands dirty like this. With Eric’s trial coming up, it just seems too obvious, even for them.” Bodhi dug his hand into the sand and slowly lifted it up, letting the sand rain off. He smiled at the water. “She actually got a good one.”

  Devon turned to see Raven riding a wave and then flipping her board over the top of the small crest, dropping down again to paddle back out.

  “Well, we know that Eric doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty,” Devon said. “I wouldn’t put it past him to have orchestrated something like this. He has enough money at his disposal. Besides, he’s been waiting out his trial at his parents’ house in Pacific Heights. It’s probably not the most restrictive situation.”

  Bodhi sniffed. “Yeah, that house arrest thing is totally cush. The guy commits murder, tries to hurt you, and he can still buy his way out of jail.”

  An idea began to worm its way into Devon’s mind. “Do you think you can visit someone who’s on house arrest?” she asked.

  “Nah,” Bodhi said with a laugh. “Not going to happen. I know where your head is at. You’re not visiting Eric Hutchins.”

  She scooped sand onto her bare feet, covering them and then drawing an outline of where her foot would be. “But it kind of makes sense when you think about it. If someone is trying to kill me, why not visit the last person who tried to kill me?”

  “No way. They’ll never let you in to see him. You’re a witness in the trial.”

  Devon finally met his gaze. “That’s why you’re going to help me.”

  CHARTER 3

  Phase one of the plan involved volunteering to be the “Ball Bitch.”

  The Keaton soccer team was playing Waldorf that Saturday in San Francisco, and being Ball Bitch meant Devon would be in charge of carrying a bag of soccer balls to and from the game with the team on the Keaton bus. “What good is self-directed gym if we can’t help out our favorite teams?” she had asked Coach Duncan in the dining hall that morning. “Besides, school spirit always looks good on a college application. My extracurricular activities have suffered since … you know.”

  She hated playing the pity-over-Hutch’s-death card, but extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures. And however thin her logic, there was room on the bus. Plus, Coach Duncan needed the help, so he couldn’t say no.

  Once the game got started at the Waldorf campus—Presley quickly put the Keaton team in a comfortable lead—Devon excused herself to find the nearest bathroom. Coach Duncan barely noticed her leaving the bench. Between clutching the stopwatch around his neck or chewing on the pencil he stored behind his ear, Devon knew he would be too distracted to keep track of how long she was gone.

  Luckily Bodhi was right on time, his camper idling in the school parking lot just like they had planned. With one quick glance behind her to make sure no one was looking, Devon pried open the heavy passenger door. “Good timing,” she said.

  Bodhi turned the radio off. Devon realized she had never been in Bodhi’s car before. Raven’s beat-up Volvo, yes. Reed Hutchins’s Range Rover, yes, but never Bodhi’s camper.

  “You still want to do this?” Bodhi asked. “We could just drive across the Golden Gate, get a bite at the marina. Or hang here until the game is over.”

  Devon knew what Bodhi was trying to do. She hadn’t seen Eric since that night two months ago when he’d tried to slice open her wrist at the Palace. Luckily Devon’s friends, Bodhi included, had been able to save her. But what if they hadn’t been there?

  Devon might not have met with Eric if she didn’t know she had the support. Yet she
did often wonder about that night. Would Eric really have killed her? She kept returning to Maya Dover: quiet, all business, the girl formerly just down the hall. Maya had gone out of her way to have an affair with Eric. Their families hated each other for reasons Devon still didn’t understand. But Maya and Eric were having a baby, and from what Devon could tell, they really did care about each other. Maybe they even loved each other. This was the key to getting through to Eric. This was how she could humanize him—to herself included.

  The brothers’ grandfather, Reed, had told Devon that power and money have a way of poisoning men. Eric had killed his brother out of anger over his inheritance. She could almost believe how Eric’s jealousy over Hutch had gotten the better of him. At one point Eric probably really did love Hutch, but the part of Eric that allowed him to cross that line, the part that said, Do it, was probably always in him too. And it was all the more reason to see Eric in person. If someone out there wanted Devon dead, she had to look Eric in the eye to know if it was him or not. She had to see if the evil within him had taken root and flourished.

  “We’re doing this,” Devon said out loud, looking straight ahead.

  “Well, you’re lucky that you’ve got one awesome bodyguard.” Bodhi pulled a black piece of fabric off his wrist and slipped it over his head. Devon smiled. There was something funny about watching Bodhi expertly pull his thick head of dreadlocked hair back in one simple move. It was almost … elegant. “Pacific Heights, here we come.” He shifted the camper into reverse.

  “The Keaton bus leaves in two hours. Think I’ll be on it?” Devon asked.

  “Done. No one will even know you were gone,” Bodhi said with a wink.

  PACIFIC HEIGHTS WAS SAID to have one of the best views in San Francisco. Devon had only driven through it before; no one she knew from home was exactly Pacific Heights material. But when Bodhi pulled up across the street from the Hutchins family home, Devon wondered if the Hutchins family might have the best view in the city. Perfectly situated at the top of a steep hill, the three-story villa—there was nothing else to call it—overlooked the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay, across the water to Mill Valley. The regal and elegant pink color of the stone even somehow avoided looking like a Pepto Bismol catastrophe.

  “LET ME DO THE talking,” Bodhi said, locking the front door to the VW. He wiped his hands on his navy-blue Carhartt pants.

  Devon looked down at her Keaton hoodie, jeans, and Converse—then at Bodhi’s grubby pants, flannel shirt, and Vans. Damn, she hadn’t thought that part through. Keaton-casual does not apply well to the outside world. Why did she always forget that? The Hutchins family probably had a separate entrance for their service staff, and Devon was pretty sure she and Bodhi looked more suited to that than they did to sit down for tea with Mitzi Hutchins. Bodhi reapplied his headband to little effect. His bleached-blond dreads stuck out from the back of his head like porcupine quills. There was definitely no way tea would be offered.

  Summoning her courage, Devon trailed him up the front steps. The doorbell echoed when he pushed it.

  Silence.

  She looked around for signs of Eric’s house arrest. Shouldn’t there be sensors to note the boundaries of the house? Maybe Devon was confusing house arrest with an electric dog collar. The ornate stone lions standing guard at the foot of the stairwell seemed appropriate, like Devon was there to visit a prisoner in ancient Rome.

  Bodhi pressed the doorbell again.

  “Coming!” Eric’s muffled voice shouted.

  When he answered the door, barefoot in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, he didn’t seem like much of a prisoner. His chin-length hair had gotten longer and hung just above his shoulders, and he seemed to be growing a beard. His eyes narrowed, and he sighed heavily. “You two. What now?”

  Bodhi stroked his chin. “Nice little grow going on there. You quit shaving? Mine just comes in in patches.”

  Eric just glared at him. “Why did you bring her here? After everything this family has done for you?”

  “I actually need to ask you something,” Devon said. “It was my idea.”

  “Oh, yeah? Well, ask away, little Keaton. Ask away.” Eric rubbed his shoulder against the doorframe, his eyes only on Bodhi.

  “Who’s trying to kill me?”

  Eric laughed and turned to her. “Always full of surprises. You came here to ask me that?”

  Bodhi stepped forward. “Someone attacked her on New Year’s Eve,” he said in his mellowest voice. “At a yacht party. She thinks you might be helpful in figuring out who it was. We can go. I figured you didn’t know anything.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and started to turn away.

  Eric laughed again, a bitter cackle. “This is the most entertainment I’ve had in weeks. Come on in. I wanna hear more about this conspiracy theory of yours.” He made a sweeping gesture and stepped aside.

  As Devon squeezed past Bodhi at the door, he mumbled, “I’m not letting you out of my sight.” His hand grazed the small of her back. Devon sneaked him a grateful smile. Bodhi was bigger than Eric—bigger, and in the end, probably tougher.

  Whoa, Devon thought, taking in the house. It was like walking into a Vanity Fair spread. A long staircase with a wooden banister sloped to the second floor in a relaxed curve. A wide chandelier hung from the two-story ceiling in a stylish array of crystal, metal, and light. Eric escorted them down the hallway to the living room. Or maybe it was a sitting room? A den? A library? What sort of terms did people like this use for their endless museum-quality assemblages of stiff sofas and carpets and sculpture?

  “So it’s open season on Devon, is it?” Eric said with a smile as he sat down in a large wingback chair. “Forgive me if I find that a little funny.”

  Devon felt her heartbeat quicken. She sat across from him. Bodhi remained standing. “You think someone trying to kill me is funny?” she demanded. “You must be more of a sociopath than I originally thought.”

  Eric’s smile dropped. “You’re going to testify against me in the trial, aren’t you? So yeah, I’ve thought about how nice it would be if you didn’t exist, but it’s not like I did anything about it. I’m already in deep enough shit as it is.” He leaned back and crossed his ankle over his knee. It was impossible to ignore the gray plastic ankle bracelet with a small green light. Eric noticed her stare as she quickly tried to look elsewhere. “You wanna get a good look? This is what it looks like when your future gets flushed down the toilet.”

  Bodhi drummed his fingers against his thigh. He finally sat beside Devon. “Doesn’t look too bad from where I sit.”

  “Mr. Hutchins?” a woman’s voice called.

  Devon and Bodhi turned. So they weren’t alone in the house. That was reassuring. Her fists unclenched at her sides.

  “I thought you and your guests might like something to drink.” A thirty-ish Hispanic woman, fashionably dressed, entered the room, carrying a tray of soda, a silver ice bucket, and crystal tumblers. She placed the tray on the coffee table. Devon and Bodhi smiled and thanked her, while Eric pressed his lips together and looked out the window until she was gone.

  “I’m sorry,” Devon said. “You were saying something about this being a horrible way to live?”

  Bodhi gave her a slight smile.

  “Look,” Eric said, ignoring the drinks. “I don’t know who or what happened to you on that boat. I have enough going on here. I am not going to complicate my situation. I’ve been kicked out of Stanford, and I’ll never get into med school now. And if for some reason I don’t spend the rest of my life in jail, I’ll forever be labeled a felon. You think that goes over well in job interviews? I’m screwed, Devon. Completely screwed.”

  “Yeah, but at least you’re not dead, which is more than Hutch can say,” Devon heard herself hiss.

  “She didn’t mean that,” Bodhi said quickly. “Sorry, we came here for your help, not to point fingers.” He bumped her knee with his own. It was her cue.

  Devon took a second to collect
herself. How dare Eric sit here and have the gall to complain about his life when he’d taken Hutch’s from him?

  “Bodhi’s right. I’m sorry.” She forced the words out of her mouth. “We came here for your help. I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry.” She couldn’t believe she was actually apologizing to Eric of all people, but it was the only way.

  “Guess I’m going to have to get used to people hating me,” Eric said quietly. It was the first time Devon had seen him show the faintest hint of remorse. If there was a caring human underneath the horrible rich boy persona Eric had so carefully cultivated, now was the time to find him.

  “Have you heard anything from Maya?” Devon asked. “About the baby?”

  When Eric looked up at her, she saw fear. Maya was his humanity; she knew it then. She and that baby were his salvation, even if he couldn’t participate in their lives. “They won’t let me talk to her. Her parents sent her somewhere to have the baby. Why? What have you heard? She’s okay, isn’t she?”

  Devon shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything. I saw her mom moving her out of her dorm room, but that was it. I guess she’s not coming back to Keaton, that’s for sure.” She hoped what she was about to suggest wasn’t a terrible idea. “I could try to find out for you. Where she is. See if you can email her or something. I mean, only if you think it would help her. I don’t want to interfere.”

  “Why would you do that for me?” Eric asked. His tone was soft now.

  “Yeah, why would you do that?” Bodhi demanded, his tone the opposite.

  Devon shrugged. “Because Maya’s pregnant and she’s been pulled from school. She’s probably lonely and afraid. And if you still care about her, maybe she’d like to know that. I would, if I was in her shoes.”

  Eric dropped his head and let out a long sigh before he spoke again. “If you can do that, I’d … I don’t know, Devon. If you can get me an email that works for her? A phone? An address? I’ll send freakin’ smoke signals if I have to, I just don’t know where. That’d be amazing. Thank you.”