Push and Shove

by C. L. Stone

  “Maybe,” he said. “The problem is that if there’s a lot of money involved, and from what you’re telling me, this sounds like the case, it means they’ve figured out how to launder the money clean from the school system in a way that no one will notice. It might be some offshore account, or system of dumping the money into different organizations that could take a lot of time and manpower to track down, if at all. And if there’s an investigation, it may take longer, and the school would be out of that money for a very long time.”

  My lips parted. I sensed there was something more to the Academy being in the school before, but he rattled off this information way too easily, like he’d known for a while. “You knew about this? This is why you guys are at the school? It’s not just for security?”

  He smirked. “You pretty much know it all now anyway. I guess there’s no harm in you knowing about what’s going on. It’s your school they’re messing with. But right now, we don’t have evidence and we don’t know where they’re pulling the money from, or where it’s going. And we’re missing the identity of the third person you were talking about. My guess is a whole lot of money got moved into at least three people’s Swiss accounts somewhere. But I’m not allowed to go on guesses.”

  “How could that happen?” I asked. “Aren’t there teams of people involved when it comes to money for a school? I thought there was a whole school board to monitor this type of thing. Are you saying the whole school system could be in on this?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “If the superintendent is involved, it probably means a lot of things are getting by without anyone noticing. Like our contact who told us something was going on. Paperwork and data can be falsified pretty easily. A lot of people working at the school board may not know anything about it. That’s also something we have to consider. When people start shouting scandal, innocent people who had nothing to do with it could lose their jobs and their reputations. It’ll draw a lot of negative attention to the schools, too. Money would get frozen, and Ashley Waters is already a poor school. Freezing those accounts could make things worse. That second school they were talking about building might never happen.”

  I sat back, staring out the window at Mr. Crowley’s car a few lengths ahead of us. It was hard to imagine how three people could set back an entire school district. “You guys came in at a good time. It seems like we’ve got until the end of the year before they’re planning to disappear.”

  Luke smiled. “Let’s hope we can recover the money before then.”

  It seemed like such a huge responsibility. Wouldn’t the FBI or someone want to get involved in this? But if he was right, if the Academy figured out what was going on and could stop it, how would they return the money to the school? And how were they expected to do it all while attending school and trying to help with security?

  And spend so much time helping me?

  We tailed Mr. Crowley to an upper middle class neighborhood. When he pulled into a drive, Luke circled the block. The street had opulent brick homes, with white column porches and fresh black asphalt drives.

  “No fences,” Luke said, gazing up and down Mr. Crowley’s street. “There’s trees. Not a lot of good angles.”

  “Are you looking for a place to park the car so we can watch?” I asked.

  Luke grinned. “Does this look like the movies? We’re just here checking out the neighborhood and then we’ll move on. I doubt he’ll do anything exciting today. But we’ll want to keep an eye on him, and get to know his routine.”

  He circled the block one more time and then started back the way we came.

  “Where to now?” I asked.

  “We’re supposed to check on Rocky.”

  My eyes widened like saucers. That really wasn’t what I was expecting. “You’re kidding.”

  “We suspect he’s the one dishing out this new drug. After the party, Kota followed him. He holed up at home for a long time and his actions were odd. Silas talked to Jay, and it sounds like what we’re dealing with from other cases at school, although that’s just a guess because we haven’t seen him taking anything. We’re supposed to figure out if he’s dealing this stuff out, or if he’s innocent and if so, what’s wrong with him.”

  I kicked off the sandals and drew my knees up to my chest, hugging my legs in. I felt the hem of the pink dress ride up my thighs. I tugged at it to try to keep myself more modest. It wasn’t the easiest thing to curl up in.

  His gaze turned from the road and focused on my movements. “You weren’t wearing that earlier at school.”

  “Mr. Blackbourne had me change at the country club.”

  “Oh yeah?” He studied me. “I don’t know if I like that dress on you.”

  I had been watching the neighborhoods passing by, but his comment drew my attention. I met his brown eyes, striking against the blond hair. “You don’t?” I asked.

  “You usually wear cute things. That’s a little more... I don’t know. Mr. Blackbourne likes more sophisticated styles.”

  “And you like the cute stuff?”

  His playful lips started to curl up. “You are cute, sweetie.”

  My cheeks heated, and I squeezed my legs closer to my body to contain my heart that wanted to pitter-patter.

  Luke pulled into a neighborhood that was nestled in a golf course not far from the school in Goose Creek. The homes were big, the yards tiny, leaving more room for the golf course greenery.

  Luke pointed to a home at the end of a block, right before a row of newly constructed homes being built. “I think it’s that one.”

  The house was exactly like the ones next to it, but instead of having four car garages like the others, two of the garages were made over into an attached apartment.

  “Does he live in the main house or that apartment?”

  “I’m going to take a wild guess that he’s a spoiled kid that lives in that apartment. Probably how he gets away with what he does. Surprised he doesn’t go to a private school.” He made a circle around the neighborhood. Since it was later in the evening, the construction crew on the houses next door were gone. Luke pulled along beside them, stopping the truck.

  “Aren’t we far away?” I asked. “How are we supposed to check out what’s going on?”

  “With these,” Luke said. He opened the middle console and plucked out two pairs of binoculars. He passed one over to me. “We’re checking if anyone shows up or leaves.”

  “What are the chances he’ll do a drug deal at home?” I asked. “Won’t his parents notice?”

  “Does Rocky act like a kid who gets a lot of attention at home?”

  I sighed, holding up the binoculars.

  I lasted for about an hour of playing peek-a-boo with different windows and doors of Rocky’s house, but nothing happened. Luke was right. Babysitting was boring work.

  Luke sat up sharply and reached back for his phone. He said hello, listened and then passed it to me.

  “Are you okay?” Nathan asked right off after I said hello. His voice was a little raspy, like he’d been talking for hours.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Nathan breathed into the phone, hesitating. “Everything okay on your end?” I asked, trying to be encouraging.

  “Is it okay for me to spend the night in your room? I know you’re not going to be here.”

  “Sure.” Alarms went off in my head. “Is it your dad? Should I come back? I think I’m grounded and have to stay away, but I can ask Mr. Blackbourne.”

  “He called me.”

  “Oh?” I sat up in the passenger seat. His tone made my heart drop. Luke lowered the binoculars, asking me with curious eyes what was going on.

  “He basically told me we couldn’t move out on our own.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sorry that he heard it from Mr. Blackbourne first. I should have called him. “I tried to talk to him about it. He made a good point about how much we would have to work to afford it. Neither of us can drop school, not with everything going on.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t agree with him. I think we could pull it off, but we can’t do anything about it now.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of how to make it better. He wasn’t in a good place, and neither was I. It didn’t seem like we had much of a solution and I really wanted one for him. “Maybe there’s another way.”

  He huffed into the phone. “I miss you.”

  A warmth spread through me. “I miss you, too. Sorry I got grounded.”

  “Seems like when you get grounded, we all do,” he said. “Where are you going tonight?”

  “Dr. Green’s or Mr. Blackbourne’s.”

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  I hung up the phone. Luke dropped the binoculars into his lap and stretched. “What did Nathan want?”

  “He’s staying the night in my room.”

  “Oh.” He sighed. “When the phone buzzed, I was worried it was North.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s madder than anyone that you’re grounded, I think.”

  I started to smile a little. “Where is he?”

  “I think he’s at the diner. Or something Academy. I can’t keep up with him.” He slumped into the seat and then swung his head, looking at me. “Heard you wanted to move in with Nathan.”

  I sighed and nodded. “Well, Nathan wanted to. I kind of did, too.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”

  “I guess.”

  “You don’t sound excited about it.”

  “Am I supposed to be?”

  He shrugged lazily. “Feel something. Excited. Nervous. Bummed.”

  I fiddled with the hem of my dress. “I think I was nervous about the idea. Is that weird?”

  “No.” He reached over and took my fiddling hand into his, palm to palm, intertwining our fingers. “It’s a big change. I’d be worried about you living alone with him.”

  “Gabriel wants to, too.”

  Luke shook his head. “He probably likes the idea, but it isn’t time to do that yet. I mean, could you imagine living with those two? With Gabriel all the time?”

  “Would it be that bad?” I asked. “I mean Nathan practically lives at my house these days. And Gabriel’s been around more than ever lately.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be bad,” Luke said. “It’d be a big adjustment, though. You’ve never lived with boys. We’re messy. And we stink. And we’re rough.”

  “Danielle and Marie think I should move out. And Mr. Blackbourne did agree that I probably should, but there’s nowhere for me to go at this point.”

  Luke lifted my hand up and then kissed the back before planting it back down on the console. “If there’s one thing I know about Mr. Blackbourne, it’s that when you give him a problem, he’ll do whatever it takes to fix it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but show him an impossible problem and he does his thing and the next you know, problem solved.”

  I quieted, sitting back and gazing out the window at Rocky’s house. When I’d presented Mr. Blackbourne with the problem, we’d been distracted by Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Crowley. But then he told me we couldn’t move out. I couldn’t imagine another solution.

  A red car pulled in slowly through the neighborhood. It pulled right up to Rocky’s drive way, parking just outside the detached garage. We both sat up. Luke released me and we put the binoculars to our faces.

  Jade stepped out from the driver’s side. She fixed her hair, slammed the door, and walked toward the door of the apartment. She was wearing a really short skirt, a skimpy red top, and slim red heels. She opened the door without knocking, peeked her head in and then stepped inside.

  “On a Monday night?” Luke asked with the binoculars still attached to his face.

  “What?”

  He dropped the binoculars into his lap and turned his head to me. “She didn’t get dressed up like that to stay home. She came over to go out with him.”

  “So we’re going to have to follow them as they go out?” I paused, trying to think of why that wasn’t settling well with me. “He’s not dating her, is he? I mean, I’m confused. I thought she was interested in North.”

  “North doesn’t like her,” he said.

  I tapped my finger against the seat. “So she dates Rocky? I’d thought at the last party that they were dating because she was sitting near him and he had his arm around her. But then she started flirting with North, and then Rocky flirted with me... Now they’re going out?”

  “Uh.” Luke pointed a finger at his lip as he thought. “I’m thinking this is a mutual arrangement they’ve got.”

  “What?”

  “They’re friends with benefits.”

  I stared at him blankly. I’d heard the term, spaced on what he was talking about.

  He huffed. “They have sex but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  My mouth popped open in a big “o” shape.

  He smirked and then reached out to tap my chin. “Please tell me you’ve heard of sex because I don’t know if you want me to be the one to show you. Unless you really want me to.”

  I closed my mouth and widened my eyes instead at him. He laughed. I couldn’t believe he was teasing me about this right now, and wasn’t sure how to respond in a way that wasn’t an admission to knowing what he was talking about, because it was partially a lie. I mean I knew what sex was, technically. But when I thought about it, I hadn’t seen a guy naked, except as an encyclopedia reference, and I haven’t figured out how the parts fit together. I got a mild idea of it through books I’d read. My mother refused to sign the waver to allow me to sit in on sex-ed.

  It wasn’t like I had anyone to talk to about it.

  I looked away so he couldn’t see my expression. “So are we supposed to wait until they are... uh... done?”

  He looked like he was going to answer, but there was motion at Rocky’s house and we picked our binoculars up at the same time.

  Jade was nearly stomping in her heels toward her car. Rocky was following her, wearing only a pair of boxers. He had his hands held out like he was arguing with her. He was holding something in each hand though, because his hands were each fisted around something.

  She snapped back at him, got into his car and then started up the engine. Rocky stood in the drive watching her pull out.

  Except Jade didn’t go the way she’d come. She headed right toward us.

  “Get down!” Luke said.

  I did, slamming down against the console, dropping the binoculars and trying to become as small as possible.

  Luke kept a hand on the back of my neck, and lowered himself as well. I heard the car pass by and still waited until I couldn’t hear it any more before I sat up.

  Jade’s car went around the empty side of the street and followed it around, disappearing into another part of the neighborhood.

  Luke sat up slowly. I turned around to check out Rocky. He was fiddling with whatever had been in his hands.

  We slowly picked up the binoculars and watched. It appeared to be a cigarette, and he was trying to get it to light with a lighter.

  “He doesn’t smoke,” I said.

  “Uh, he does,” Luke said. “He’s doing it now.”

  “But he doesn’t smell like smoke.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, I’ve been around him a few times,” I said. “He’s never smelled like menthol, or smoke, or anything like that. He smells clean. The smell would linger on him, wouldn’t it?” I dropped the binoculars to look at Luke. “Unless he washes himself very well before and after he smokes. But his clothes...”

  Luke continued to stare at Rocky. “Maybe it isn’t a cigarette. There’s pipes that look like cigarettes.”

  “Can you smoke this ... JH14?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But North took a pill before, didn’t he? At the party.”

  Rocky walked back into his house and Luke lowered the binoculars. “I think your nose just solved the case.”

  “Huh?”

 
; “He’s smoking something. And if it is JH14, that’s why he reacts differently than other people do. He was aggressive, but operable. When you swallow the stuff though, the results are different. So we were right before. Someone’s been putting the pill form into drinks or something to get people to swallow it.”

  “Maybe Rocky?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “He’s been angry at everyone, and he has access. We’d have to get a sample to confirm.”

  “They fought,” I said. “Him and Jade. Will she be next?”

  “Looked like he didn’t want to go out,” Luke said. He slumped again in his seat. “Can’t say I blame him. She’s worse than Danielle.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. This seemed important somehow. I wished we could have listened in on Rocky and Jade’s conversation.

  Luke sighed. “Oh well. Whatever it is, it doesn’t tell us if Rocky’s a dealer, or uses drugs or not.” Luke tugged at my elbow. “This was probably all there is to this show, but we should stay here and keep an eye on him for a bit. Let’s get more comfortable. Scoot over,” he said. He released me and shoved the middle console up. Stuff stored inside rattled around. A heavy object inside slid, crashing to the bottom. We both cringed at the noise.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Something North will yell at me about later, because I might have just broken it,” he said. He grabbed my wrist, guiding me over. “Come on.”

  My heart had been pounding pretty hard after Jade almost saw us. I understood he was trying to get me to relax after the scare.

  He eased back into the corner, giving me room to sit close. He pushed a button that moved the seat back, giving us more space away from the steering wheel.

  I wedged myself next to him, and found a space for my head against the corner of his collarbone and neck. He pressed his cheek to my hair. He wove his arm around my neck. His other hand found mine, and he brushed his fingertips over my palm.

  “See,” Luke said. “Now we just look like a couple of teenagers making out. If anyone else drives by, they aren’t going to care.”

  I was glad our heads were so close, and he couldn’t see me blushing.

  He brushed his cheek against the top of my head. “Sang?”