“I understand why you did it,” I replied, wondering if the others had been motivated somehow to comply or if they’d been just as leveraged into things as Jaime had been. Then my eyes fell on Eric’s BMW and I stopped wondering about him. “Monday, we go back to hating each other, though—to keep up appearances.”
He nodded, then walked off. I yelled something obscene at him as he did, garnering me the attention of a few people around us—including Garrett, who was headed toward where I stood. He looked at Jaime as he walked away and then back to me.
“You okay? I got worried and decided to make sure you were all right.”
“I think that bike’s already been ridden tonight, Garrett,” Scooter yelled from a few cars down the row. “Might want to try the redhead instead.”
I thought Garrett would kill him for sure.
Then Tabby saved the day—again.
“I don’t do Americans. Sorry,” she said, walking up to join us. Her delivery was so deadpan and perfect that I wished I had an award to give her. I couldn’t have done it better myself.
Eric and Scooter stared at her as if she were crazy, then returned to their car. The three of us walked to the back of Garrett’s truck and climbed in. The second we did, the questions began.
“What was all that about?” Garrett asked, staring Scooter down from across the row.
I explained that Jaime had wanted to talk to me—to apologize for everything that happened—when Scooter and Eric walked up on us. I told them how I’d covered for him and everything that followed. Then I prepared myself for the question I knew was coming.
“Why would you cover for Jaime at all?” Garrett asked.
“Because he told me something about the case—something I swore I wouldn’t repeat because of how sensitive it is—but trust me when I tell you, not everything that happened is what it seems.”
“How so?”
“He told me that he lied about what he saw. That he was with AJ that night and saw Donovan in the basement. But the other three? He saw them head out to the hot tub.…”
“And if he’s fucking with you?”
“I don’t think he is, Garrett. Not after what he told me.”
“But you can’t tell us why?” His irritation was obvious.
“I can’t tell you what he said for the same reasons I can’t tell Striker what you told me about your dad. The consequences would be…” I hesitated for a second and left it hanging. “But I can tell you that someone tried to bribe him into telling the story he told. When he turned their offer down, they blackmailed him instead.”
Suddenly Garrett seemed far more willing to trust my judgment.
“So is there anything else weird going on in this town I should know about?” Tabby asked. She looked a bit overwhelmed by all she’d learned that evening. “Like, is your Gramps a secret agent?” She turned quickly to Garrett. “Are you really a superhero with powers? Please say yes, please say yes—”
“Sorry, Tabby. No dice.”
“Dammit!”
She cracked a shy smile at us, and we took the bait, laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. With Tabby relatively in the know, we spent the rest of the movie scheming in the back of Garrett’s truck about how to bring down The Three. Eric would be impossible to crack. Mark too. But Scooter? Scooter was little more than a yappy sidekick, and not a very smart one at that. If we could get him alone, I had no doubt we could get him to slip up somehow.
Maybe find out what the price was for his part in the cover-up.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Garrett wanted to accompany me inside, quoting, for the millionth time, Meg’s direct order to never leave me alone. But Gramps was due home in twenty minutes, so I waved him off. I said I’d take the heat from Meg if she came down on him. At some point, I was going to have to be alone.
I turned the key in the knob to unlock the door, then I looked over my shoulder to see if Garrett was still there. Once the door was ajar, he rolled off. I didn’t want to give him a panic attack by chasing him down the road, so I calmed my nerves with a deep breath and went inside—turning on every light I passed.
Everything looked fine. No ominous files were waiting for me on the kitchen table. No bricks with foreboding messages were lying in the middle of the floor. I let out a sigh as I stepped beyond the foyer, trying to calm my overactive imagination.
“Try to hold it together, Danners,” I muttered to myself. I tossed my things on the kitchen table, then turned to head down the hallway. My tiny bladder was up to its usual routine. The hall was dark, and for a second it gave me pause. Something in my gut stirred as I looked down the shadowed space.
Irrational thoughts raced through my mind. Everything from serial killers in masks to werewolves and glittery vampires. Even though I knew I was being ridiculous, I couldn’t get my feet to move. I pulled out my phone, ready to dial Garrett, but I stopped myself. Sooner or later, I was going to have to learn to deal with what was happening to me. The harassment. The warnings. Living in fear was something I had no intention of doing.
“Okay … here we go,” I said, psyching myself up. I grabbed a baseball bat from the hall closet and made my way down the hall. The bathroom was clear—no vampires in there. Same with Gramps’ bedroom. My room was closed, so I threw the door open, jumping back a step so I had room to swing the bat. When nothing jumped out at me, I leaned in and flipped the light switch on.
It became clear in a second that my room was empty—but someone had been in there. My window was open a crack, which would have been proof enough, given that I never opened it. But far more damning than that was the picture lying on my bed—a single modified photo with its not-so-cryptic message written in marker. My topless pic had Tabby’s face where mine should have been. I didn’t really need to read what it said. The message was already quite clear.
YOU CAN’T KEEP THEM SAFE.…
I bolted from my room, dialing the police as I ran. At the end of the hall, I hung up before anyone answered. We’d already established that Sheriff Higgins was useless to me. There was no point in wasting my breath.
I sat in the kitchen, baseball bat in hand, and tried to think of what to do. I didn’t want to get Gramps involved in it. The worry alone could have killed him. Doing nothing wasn’t an option, either. With shaky fingers, I dialed Meg, but she didn’t answer. Not knowing what else to do, I called Striker.
“Kylene? Everything okay—?”
“Someone was in my room tonight. They broke in through my window.”
“I want you to get out of there and call the sheriff right now.”
“I can’t call him,” I said, wishing I could take it back immediately. He started in on me until I cut him off. “Trust me when I tell you this: the sheriff isn’t an option. I can’t say why. You have to trust me.”
“You still need to get out of there, Kylene. I’m going to make a call. You get in your car and wait for me to get back to you. Got it?”
“I got it.”
The line went dead.
I grabbed the evidence and my keys, then went outside to my car. It was hardly Fort Knox, with its busted-out windows, but I turned it on, ready to tear out of there as fast as Heidi could take me if need be.
Exactly one minute later, Striker called me back.
“Agent Dawson is going to be there in five. Don’t go anywhere or do anything until he arrives, okay? In the meantime, you’ll stay on the line with me.”
I filled him in on everything that happened at the drive-in, including the admission Jaime had made. I told him about the mysterious call and the bribe and how Jaime had turned it down—and about the blackmail that followed. I left the details of how they leveraged him into lying out of the story, which seemed to piss Striker off. When I told him it would have involved U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he didn’t ask any more questions.
Plausible deniability is a beautiful thing.
“You’re getting close, Ky,” he said, pausing to think. “If you were your
father, I’d tell you to keep going, but … I know you want justice, and I basically told you to go for it, but this is getting out of hand, Kylene. I would never have guessed it would go this far.”
“Nobody has done anything directly to me,” I reminded him. “These pictures seem like a way to intimidate me, and nothing more.” I hoped he’d believe my bravado through the phone. If he’d been in the car with me, he’d have seen right through my act.
Headlights cut through the dark neighborhood and came to a stop in front of my house.
“Dawson’s here,” I said, getting out of the car. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? And please try not to worry. I’m probably blowing this all out of proportion.”
“B and E isn’t a prank, Kylene. Don’t treat it like one. And tell Dawson to call me as soon as he’s gone.”
He abruptly hung up on me for the second time that night.
I climbed out of my car to find Dawson, looking irritated as always, storming up my driveway.
“Striker didn’t brief me,” he said, walking up to my car as I got out. “What happened now? You need me to deliver something to him this time?”
“Like this?” I asked, flipping him the bird. “Oops, that’s for you, not him.” I reached into the car and pulled out the photo. I hesitated for a second, not wanting to hand over the scandalous picture. Even with my identity hidden under Tabby’s face, I was embarrassed. “Here,” I said, reaching it toward him.
He snatched it out of my hand, his frustration plain. Then it fell from his expression, leaving wide, disbelieving eyes in its wake.
“Who is this person?”
“My friend Tabby.”
“And the note?”
“That’s for me.”
He looked up to me, his game face intact.
“Why don’t you walk me through exactly what happened here tonight.”
So I did. I explained the previous threats, the town’s dislike for me, and The Six (which were now The Three), though I did so without divulging the why behind it all. I knew I couldn’t hide that fully, but I also had no intention of sharing that bit of my past with someone who loathed me like Dawson did.
“And you said your window had been shut when you left?” he asked. I nodded in response. “Was it locked?”
An excellent question—one I didn’t have an answer for.
“I haven’t been living here that long. I never bothered checking. Probably because I didn’t expect someone to be climbing through my window to drop off creepy photos with my friend’s face photoshopped onto it.”
“These guys—the football players—why would they have motive to do something like this?”
“Let’s just say they did something to me a couple years ago and almost got into trouble over it.”
“Almost?”
“Yeah—charges were never filed.”
He stared at me for a minute, his mind working hard behind his harsh hazel eyes.
“Does this have something to do with why you wanted to talk to Jim in cybercrimes?” The edge to his tone was notable when he referenced his dead mentor.
“Not important.”
“I think it is.”
“Well, I can see this is going to be an epic waste of time,” I sighed, stepping away from him.
“Believe it or not, Ms. Danners, I’m trying to help, but that’s impossible to do when you withhold relevant information.”
“The why isn’t relevant. The who is.”
He let out a hard exhale.
“Show me your room,” he said, heading into the house. I looked at my phone and cringed. Gramps would be home any minute. If Dawson was still there when he arrived, there would be no hiding what happened from him.
“Okay, but you have to hurry.”
“Why? Got a hot date?” he asked as he stepped into the foyer. I let my silence be answer enough and led him down the hall to my room. I pointed to the only window it boasted, and he wasted no time looking it over inside and out for any signs of tampering. “I hate to tell you this, but it looks like it was unlocked. I can do a makeshift dusting for prints if you have what I need, but other than that, there isn’t much to be done. I’ll do a pass outside to see if any footprints were left by the window.”
Without another word, he rushed out of my room and out the front door. Moments later, his head popped up in my window. Even though I expected it, I still jumped a little. Maybe the way he highlighted his face with his flashlight was to blame for my scare.
Asshole.
I made my way down the hall just in time to see Gramps pulling into the driveway. Panic shot through me, and I tried to think of what to do next, but nothing came to mind. I ran outside to greet him, welcoming him home loudly so that Dawson could hear me. I didn’t know if he’d stay put until we were inside, but I didn’t have a lot of faith. He seemed to live to torture me.
“How was work, Gramps?” I asked, walking with him up the porch steps.
“It was good, darlin’. How was your night?”
I looked back over my shoulder as we walked in. Dawson stood beside my car, staring at me. I gestured for him to stay put for a second, then closed the front door behind me.
“It was good. Went to the movies with Garrett and Tabby.”
“That sounds fun. Do you—”
“Oh, shoot! I left something in my car. I’ll be right back.”
Gramps laughed at my outburst but didn’t say anything as I bolted out the front door to my car.
Dawson leaned against it looking more put-upon than usual. Somehow he made irritated look good, which was annoying. I buried that thought as quickly as it popped up in favor of finding out if he had any information for me.
“Not going to invite me in to meet your grandfather?”
“Hell no. That man would eat you alive. Now, what did you find?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing we can cast.”
“Great,” I replied, my voice distant as my mind wandered. “Thanks anyway.”
I turned to walk away, but Dawson stepped in front of me cutting off my path.
“Listen, Kylene. Whatever is going on—whoever is doing this—I don’t think they intend to stop. From what you told me, these threats are escalating.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to my friend Meg. She knows a guy. We’ll figure it out.”
“She ‘knows a guy’? Is he in the mob?”
“He’s a PI, smart-ass. She’s got him looking into the last threat.”
“Tell me something, Ms. Danners. Why not just take this all to the cops? Why all this cloak-and-dagger routine?”
“Because I can’t.…”
“Does it have to do with those football players—the ones that got into trouble over something that happened to you?”
“They didn’t actually get into trouble at all,” I replied. “But if I say yes, will you drop it?”
“If that’s the truth, then yes.”
I nodded once, then looked away. “I need to go before Gramps comes out. Thanks for coming.”
“I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you soon, Kylene,” Dawson said as he walked away. “Be careful.”
I ran inside the house with a forced smile on my face.
“Friend of yours?” Gramps asked, looking at me with parental curiosity. Apparently he’d taken a peek when I didn’t come back right away.
“Just a boy, Gramps. Just a boy.…”
“Well, if that boy wants to be sneakin’ around my house at night, he’d damn well better have the nerve to introduce himself properly next time.”
I stifled a laugh, thinking if Gramps only knew who Dawson was, he wouldn’t be concerned.
“I don’t think you have to worry about him. He won’t be coming around anymore.”
I walked over and gave Gramps a kiss on the cheek before heading to my room. I wanted to be truthful when I told him that, but something inside me told me that wasn’t the case. Like it or not, Agent Dawson was now involved in whatever was
going on with me and those threats.
TWENTY-NINE
Early the next morning, I called Meg again but couldn’t reach her. Throughout the day, I kept trying her to no avail. Gramps noticed my frustration at some point, so I tried to let it go for a while, but I needed to talk to her. Her MIA status was starting to make me nervous.
Later that night, my unease was put to rest when she called to tell me her PI had been in contact and she wanted to discuss what he’d found. I told her I had news for her as well—that something else had happened. I told her the gist and she managed to keep most of the concern from her voice when she told me to meet her at the office right after school the next day. That we’d need to discuss some things before I started my shift. After she hung up, I realized I never asked what her PI had told her.
I was tempted to call her back, but I just didn’t have it in me.
Instead, I grabbed some leftovers out of the fridge, gave Gramps a kiss on the cheek, and holed up in my room. With food in hand, I plopped down onto my cot and stared at the stack of papers on my desk—the transcripts from my father’s trial. It was high time I really dug into those. It gave me something to do while Meg’s PI tracked down a lead on the threats. I needed to find something in there that could prove that Reider might not have been on the up-and-up. Something that could cast enough doubt for someone like Luke to reopen my dad’s case. I hadn’t broached that subject with him, but he was young and ambitious, and getting my father acquitted could make his career. As soon as I found something concrete, I’d bring it to him.
But first, I had to find a nugget of truth buried in all the lies.
* * *
I slept late Monday morning and ended up racing out of the house at the last minute, praying I wouldn’t be late for Callahan’s class. As much as I wanted to go toe-to-toe with him, I needed to pass physics. Continually pissing him off wasn’t likely to help me with that endeavor.
By the time I reached the parking lot, I had five minutes to find a place to park, and haul ass up to the third floor of the school. My odds weren’t looking too great. I finally found a spot near the back of the lot, where Donovan’s crew liked to congregate, and slid into it. Thankfully Heidi was small enough that I could manage it without a problem.
Dare You to Lie Page 21
