I closed my eyes, trying not to think about that as a uniformed officer drove me home. Instead, I texted Josh again from the backseat of the squad car.
where the hell r u?!!
By the time the officer dropped me off at home, it was all I could do to drag myself through the door, drop my book bag on the sofa, and raid the back of the freezer for a pint of Cherry Garcia from my hidden ice cream stash. I grabbed a spoon and dug in, leaning against the kitchen counter. I was three bites closer to calm when Mom walked in, Nikes on her feet and a basket of laundry under her arm.
“Geez, Hartley, get a bowl, would you?” she said, grabbing one from the cupboard above the sink.
I refrained from pointing out that I intended to eat the entire carton and instead scooped what was left into the dish.
“I’ve got yoga in twenty,” Mom said as she trailed into the laundry room. “So you’re on your own for dinner. And ice cream does not count. There’s leftover rice pizza in the fridge.”
I wrinkled my nose. Mom didn’t eat gluten, hence the rice-crust pizza. She also didn’t eat dairy. Or processed foods. Or meat. Which basically left her existing on exercise.
“Fine,” I answered, scooping another mouthful of B & J’s onto my tongue.
“How was your day?” she asked, grabbing a soy protein shake from the fridge.
Bad. Awful. Deadly.
But after enduring Detective Raley’s interrogation, I couldn’t face another one from Mom. At least not until I’d had time to put together an edited-for-parents version. So, instead, I went with the standard, “Fine.”
“Great. Listen, I’m meeting some of the girls for coffee after yoga, so I’ll be late. Don’t wait up. Oh,” she added, grabbing her keys from the hook by the garage door, “and get cracking on your homework. Don’t save it all for the last minute again this week, huh?”
“On it,” I lied as she disappeared out the door. A beat later I heard her minivan start up and the garage door rumble closed behind her.
Generally, I’m a pretty honest person. And my 3.5 GPA attests to the fact that, despite my tendency to procrastinate, I almost always get my homework done on time. But tonight I just didn’t have it in me.
So I ignored Mom’s decree about ice cream not constituting a complete meal and trudged up the stairs to my bedroom, flopping spread-eagled on my patchwork quilt as I tried to block out the gruesome slide show of my day.
I shut my eyes, took a few deep, cleansing breaths . . . then felt my cell buzz to life in my jeans.
Josh.
I grabbed for it, catching a nail on the edge of my pocket in my clumsy haste before flipping it open.
A number that was clearly not Josh’s lit up the display. Crap. I swallowed down the surge of disappointment as I read the text from Ashley Stannic.
is it true? cc dead?
I bit my lip. Courtney’s entire life had just been reduced to one line of text. Granted, I hadn’t been the president of her fan club, but I hadn’t actually wanted to see her dead. (Maybe just maimed a little . . . )
I flipped the phone shut, dropping it on the quilt beside me, leaving Ashley to get her gossip elsewhere.
Two minutes later, my phone buzzed to life again. I looked at the readout. Jessica Hanson.
OMG! cc dead?
I deleted the message, slowly setting my cell down again. Or trying to. It buzzed in my hand before I could even let go.
ding dong the bitch is dead!
I quickly flipped it shut, a sick feeling churning in the pit of my stomach, warning of a repeat appearance by my Cherry Garcia.
A second later it buzzed again.
I immediately hit the power button without even checking the readout, then threw the offending device into my book bag as if it was a time bomb ready to go off.
I lay back on the bed, willing Ben & Jerry to stay put. Eventually I think I fell asleep. Because the next thing I knew, I was back in Josh’s bedroom. It was dark; I could just make out shadows, flashes of color in the moonlight. And then I saw her: Courtney Cline, still dressed in her purple Color Guard uniform. But she wasn’t slumped in the closet anymore. She was standing next to it. Walking toward me, her arms stretched in front of her like some sort of zombie. She was coming after me, I could feel it. I turned toward the door, but it was like my feet were stuck in molasses. I tried to call out for help, but I couldn’t make my voice work. I tried harder to run, pumping my arms with all my might, willing my feet to move. But she was gaining on me, the Courtney zombie with the grotesque earbuds wrapped tightly around her neck. She was almost on top of me.
And then I tripped, falling to the floor. I felt her hovering over me, her shadow blocking out the last of the moonlight. I turned to face her. She reached out a hand and . . .
Fingers squeezed my shoulder. I screamed, bolting upright in bed. Sweat trickled down the small of my back, my breath coming out in ragged pants as I focused through the darkness at the figure in front of me.
Tall, lean, shaggy hair.
Josh.
I leaned over and turned on my bedside lamp, blinking against the sudden onslaught of light as I took him in.
“Holy effing crap, Josh. You scared me half to death.”
“Effing?”
“We’re censoring now,” I explained.
“Oh. Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He sat down on the bed beside me.
Close beside me. So close I could smell his Axe body wash. Subtle and woodsy. I’d always loved the way it lingered after he’d been in my room. In spite of all that had happened, I inhaled deeply, something in my chest fluttering at the familiar scent.
“Hey, baby,” he said, leaning in. I watched his lips move toward mine, his scent swirling in my nostrils.
I took a deep breath.
Then shoved him hard.
“What the hell, Hart!” Josh’s head snapped back as he fell off the bed, landing in a heap on the floor.
But I wasn’t done with him.
“You creep!” I threw my pillow at him. “You jerk!” I joined him on the floor and swatted him in the stomach. “You absolute effing rat turd!” I rained a hail of blows on his chest, channeling all the hours I’d ever spent Wii boxing, until he finally caught both my wrists in his hands.
“Hart, baby, calm down.”
“You ever call me ‘baby’ again, and I swear your hamster will be using your nuggets as chew toys.”
I’m not sure he totally believed the threat, but he was smart enough to let my hands go. He scooted backward on the carpet, putting some distance between us.
“How did you even get in here?” I asked, my eyes going to my bedroom door, trying to get my heart rate back under control.
“Window.” He gestured at my curtains, fluttering in the breeze.
Did no one use the door?
“I couldn’t take the chance of anyone seeing me,” he explained.
As I tried to catch my breath, I took a good look at Josh. He looked awful—pale, tired, with dark, defeated circles under his eyes and lines of worry etched over his eyebrows. Despite the anger coursing through me, I had to fight the urge to reach out and hug him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
Then again, I had no idea if that was true.
“What happened to you today?” I asked.
Josh exhaled deeply and ran a hand through his perfectly mussed hair. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start at the beginning. Where were you after school today?”
“I wasn’t feeling well at practice—”
“Bull crap,” I interrupted him.
He paused, clearly surprised. Then one corner of his mouth tilted up in his trademark smile. “All right, fine. I heard you were pissed. I was afraid you were going to do . . . well . . . what you just did. So I was avoiding you. Happy?”
Hardly. But I urged him on anyway. “Then what?”
“Well, I drove home, but I was restless. So I decided to go for a run. Next thing
I know, I’m jogging back to my house and there’s a ton of cop cars parked out on my front lawn. So I hightailed it out of there.”
“Wait, why did you run? Didn’t you want to see what was going on?”
Josh’s eyes hit the floor. “I kinda had something on me.”
I cocked my head. “‘On you’? What kind of ‘something’?”
“Something the cops wouldn’t like.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What. Kind. Of. Something.”
“A fake ID, okay?” His cheeks tinged pink. “Last Friday, Cody’s older brother doctored a couple drivers’ licenses for us so we could get into this over twenty-one show in Santa Cruz. I had the fake license in my pocket. I didn’t want to get Cody’s brother in trouble, so I figured I’d hang back till the cops left.”
Why was it I’d never realized what a moron he was until now? “That was dumb.”
He ignored me. “Anyway,” he went on, “I went to Cody’s house, and he told me what was up. That they’d found Courtney’s body in my bedroom.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police then?”
Josh shook his head. “Someone killed her in my room. Look, the cops have already been at Cody’s and Chris Fret’s houses looking for me. And I’m pretty sure it’s not to invite me to the policeman’s ball.”
“Josh, this is crazy,” I said, hugging my knees to my chest. Even though a tiny part of me knew he was right. The way Raley had been questioning my movements, Josh clearly had some ’splainin’ to do.
Josh leaned in closer so that his eyes caught the light from my single lamp, sparkling a blue so clear it was almost unreal. “I’m seventeen,” he said. “Hart, I can be tried as an adult for this. This is serious.”
“So what are you going to do?”
He looked down, picking at an invisible piece of lint on my carpet. “Lay low for a while. Hope someone finds the real killer before the cops track me down. Honestly, that’s kind of why I’m here.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”
He looked up, his gaze suddenly pleading. “Look, someone killed Courtney, and until the cops can nail that guy down, I’m going to be their number one suspect.” He paused. “We need to find out who really killed Courtney.”
“We?” I let out a short bark of a laugh. “You must be joking.”
“Please, Hart, you’re the only one I can trust.”
“I’m sorry, trust is something I’m a little short on today.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
But Josh leaned in and took one of my hands. I could feel my resolve weakening. I tried to stay strong, to remember that ball of rage I’d felt looking into his locker that afternoon. But his hands were warm. And after the day I’d had, they felt nice. Familiar. Comforting.
“Josh?” My voice came out barely a whisper.
He leaned in and I could smell the minty gum on his breath. “Yeah?”
“Did you do it?”
“What? No. God, no!” He pulled back, running a hand through his hair again, this time making it stand up in little tufts. “How can you even ask that, Hartley?”
I sat up on my knees. “Look me in the eyes, Josh.” Which was a sign of just how desperate I was, because I’d never seen the look-me-in-the-eyes trick hold up in court.
Josh squared his jaw, his baby blue eyes meeting mine. I felt my chest flutter again but held tight to what little resolve I had left.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you did not kill Courtney Cline.”
Josh took a deep breath. “I swear on the cross-country championship trophy that I did not kill Courtney.”
I rolled my eyes. Hardly sacred, but I let it go.
“Okay,” I said, still holding his gaze. “Now swear that you didn’t sleep with her.”
“I . . .” He faltered, his eyes sliding to the floor before meeting mine again. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
I’d seen kindergartners lie better than that. I felt hope slowly shriveling into a sad little ball in my chest.
But.
He was easier to read than a Dick and Jane book. And when he’d said he didn’t kill her, he’d been as straight as an arrow. He was no murderer.
“Please, Hart, you’ve got to believe me,” he pleaded, taking my hand again.
I looked down at his thumb, aimlessly caressing the back of my hand. I told myself my decision had nothing to do with how good that felt as I gulped down what little bit of common sense I had left.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” The glimmer of hope in Josh’s eyes was enough to break my heart. I quickly looked away, telling myself I did not care what lit up his eyes anymore.
“I’ll help you.”
“Oh, Hart, you are the best—”
But I cut him off. “Let’s be clear. I’m not doing this because I’m your girlfriend. We are so over that. Done. Finito. The end.”
For a moment he looked like he might protest, but then his shoulders sagged in defeat. Apparently the day had taken the fight out of him as much as it had me.
“I’ll help you,” I said, softening my tone, “because I believe you.”
He nodded, his eyes a little sad. “Thanks, Hartley. I appreciate it.”
I pulled my hand away, shaking off the emotion I could feel backing up in my throat. “Look, the police will probably be watching your phone. How do I get hold of you?”
He reached into his back pocket and handed me a slip of paper with a name on it. HHHrunner94.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“MySpace account. I created it at Cody’s this afternoon.”
I wrinkled my nose. “MySpace? No one is on there anymore.”
“Exactly. What better place to hide out?”
Good point.
“Just message me there if you need me. I’ll try to log in at least once a day, okay?”
I nodded.
“Thanks again, Hartley,” he said, and leaned in as if to kiss me.
I quickly turned my face away.
He awkwardly stood up, moving to the window.
“Josh,” I called, watching his long, lean frame climb over the sill.
He paused, turning so the shadows played across his features, softening them in the dim light. “Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
He smiled. That million-dollar, charm-the-pants-off-any-girl, Josh DuPont smile.
And then he was gone.
I sank back on my pillows, alone again in the darkness, and stared at my ceiling.
What had I gotten myself into?
FOUR
WHEN I WAS TEN, MY PARENTS GOT DIVORCED. UP until then I had lived in Los Angeles, where Dad wrote sitcoms for a living and Mom stayed home and baked gluten-free cookies. But single parenthood meant Mom needed a job, so we had to move north to Silicon Valley, where she could put her degree in programming to use working for Google. The upside? Mom got to work from home in the afternoons, meaning she was still free to bake me after-school treats. The downside? I’d had to move to suburbia.
The suburbs were a completely different experience for a kid raised in the heart of the city like me. One I’d been unprepared for. Little did I know that suburban kids had mastered the art of the clique even better than their urban counterparts.
On the very first day of fifth grade, the kids all looked at me like I was from another planet. Branded the new kid, there was no way I could have blended in. I’d been the three-headed monster walking down the halls of their familiar school, threatening all that was status quo.
Eventually I’d worn out my new-kid smell and convinced my classmates I could be as homogenous as they were, but I still remembered that as the most uncomfortably conspicuous I had ever felt.
It didn’t hold a candle to today.
I bit my lip, feeling dozens of eyes on my back as I snaked down the halls of Herbert Hoover High Tuesday morning. I tried to ignore them, but they were everywhere, poised as if waiting for me to do something. Like return the seven hundred and fifty
messages they’d collectively texted me last night. No joke. Seven hundred and freaking fifty. My mom was going to have a heart attack when she saw the Verizon bill.
Never in my life had the first bell sounded so sweet, sending the gawkers reluctantly scattering to their classes. I slipped into the back row of my lit class, immediately opening my book and pretending to read in order to avoid the stares of my classmates.
Only some didn’t stop at staring.
I felt a pencil poke me in the back. I spun around to find Jessica Hanson leaning forward on her desk.
“Is it true,” she whispered through her braces, “about Courtney?”
I bit my lip, feeling my breakfast latte churn in my stomach. And nodded.
“Woooooow,” Jessica responded. Then leaned in again. “What did she look like? Was she, like, all messed up?” She scrunched her freckled nose up.
Luckily, the principal’s voice over the loudspeaker saved me from replying.
“Good morning, students,” he started. “I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve had some tragic news this morning.”
There went that churning again.
“One of our beloved students,” the principal went on, “Courtney Cline, has passed away.”
I heard muffled gasps, and one of the Color Guard girls at the front of the class bowed her head and started sobbing. Several pairs of eyes glanced my way, a silent question hanging in the air—just how pissed at Courtney had I been yesterday?
I ducked my head, again feigning inordinate interest in Shakespeare’s sonnets as the principal went on.
“We at Herbert Hoover High are both stunned and saddened by this untimely loss. We are providing a grief counselor to any student who may wish to take advantage of her services. You may meet with her in room twenty-five.”
I managed to make it through English and PE, but by third period, I’d had enough of the stares, the whispers, people mouthing across the classroom “Is it true?” Even worse were the sympathetic head tilts from my teachers, who all made sure I had the grief counselor’s name and room number written down. All but Mrs. Blasberg. She just reminded me to study for the trig test next week.
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