Deadly Cool

by Gemma Halliday

  I stared at Chase’s dented Camaro in the driveway.

  “It’s just a scratch. She still runs fine,” he assured us, pulling open the passenger-side door.

  The dented bumper leaned to one side, the muffler tilting precariously close to the ground. If I sneezed, I was pretty sure the tailpipe would fall off.

  “So, some guy hit you from behind?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Total jerk. But it was the guy in front of me that really caused the accident. He stopped suddenly, I braked, and the guy behind me rammed my tail.”

  “Oh.” I felt a little better. Sudden stop slamage could happen to anyone, right? I pushed the front seat forward, climbing over it into the tiny back. “So it wasn’t your fault.”

  Chase shook his head. “Nope. Totally the guy in front of me. I mean, who stops for a yellow light, ya know?”

  Oh no.

  I opened my mouth to protest that maybe the bus wouldn’t be so bad after all, but I didn’t get a chance as Chase slammed the door shut. Sam slid into the front, and I tried to swallow my concern as Chase started the car. But it kinda stuck in my throat as he peeled out of the driveway and took the first corner on two tires.

  “Um, so, how long have you had your license?” I asked, gripping the armrest on the door like a life preserver.

  “Since last year. Spent my sixteenth birthday in line at the DMV.”

  “Really?” I felt the seat belt go taut against my chest as he took another corner at NASCAR speeds. “Did you, uh, pass on the first try?”

  “Of course.”

  He went over a speed bump, and I swear we caught at least two feet of air. I felt my head kiss the ceiling.

  “And how many accidents have you been in?”

  “Just one.”

  That was a small comfort.

  “This month,” he added.

  I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to the gods of clear intersections.

  Luckily, we arrived back at Herbert Hoover High in one piece (though I was pretty sure Mr. Chase’s wild ride had shaved a good five years off my life). We turned onto High School Drive (geniusly named, no?) just as classes were letting out for a fifty-five minute lunch period and pulled into the school’s back parking lot. Which, at this time of day, was a drive-at-your-own-risk zone. Brand-new drivers in SUVs and hand-me-down sedans filled the lot, furiously texting despite hands-free laws as they rushed to Starbucks for a quick caffeine fix. Each car was filled to capacity, and the sounds of dueling mp3s blasting from souped-up stereos filled the air—Taylor Swift warring with Usher over the indistinguishable deep bass of a hip-hop song.

  Chase seemed oblivious to the dangers of three hundred newbie drivers all cramming into one lot at the same time, his Camaro flying over the speed bumps like a bad seventies cop show. My teeth chattered together as I again caught air in my seat.

  “You know, you’re supposed to slow down for speed bumps,” I offered.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Chase grinned at me in the rearview mirror.

  I gritted my teeth, praying I would make it with all my fillings intact.

  After narrowly avoiding a collision with a Honda Accord carrying half the debate team, Chase pulled his car into a slot near the field.

  As Chase locked up his death trap and we crossed the parking lot, I caught a glimpse of Detective Raley hovering near the cafeteria. He had a member of the school band cornered, questioning him with an intensity that had the poor guy pinned. I hated to break it to the detective, but if Courtney had said more than boo to a band member all year, I’d eat my chem book. He was seriously barking up the wrong tree.

  I had much higher hopes for our prey as Chase led the way into the HHH main quad where the Color Guard girls held midday court.

  When I’d first started at HHH, Mom had suggested I try out for “that cheerleading with flags.” It had taken me the better part of a gluten-free soy burger to explain to her the intricate and seriously important differences between cheerleaders and Color Guard girls.

  Cheer was for girls who liked to shake their butts and do splits in short skirts in front of a screaming crowd. Color Guard was for good girls who had more school spirit than brains. Cheerleaders dated college guys with tattoos. Color Guard girls dated guys with trust funds. The last four girls in our school’s own “sixteen and pregnant” club were cheerleaders. The last four presidents of the Chastity Club had been Color Guard girls. Cheerleaders were the future Playmates of the world. Color Guard girls grew up to be soccer moms with Louis Vuitton diaper bags.

  Needless to say, neither had been a group I’d been dying to join as a freshman, and I had never regretted that decision.

  The cheerleaders usually spent their lunch break off campus, smoking Marlboro lights (to stay thin). The Color Guard girls, on the other hand, took the prime spot under the lone shade tree in the quad at the center of school, drinking Sugarfree Red Bull (to stay thin). (Okay, maybe they did have one or two things in common.)

  Usually the conversation from the Color Guard camp could be heard from two buildings over, since the cooler the person perceived herself to be the louder she chatted. But as we approached today, the group was unusually subdued in deference to the passing of their queen. Girls gathered in twos and threes to voice their theories about her death in stage whispers. I noticed black bands covering the upper arms of several of them, though instead of the usual plain cotton, these were shot through with sparkly purple threads. Designer mourning bands. How appropriate.

  In the center of the mix, surrounded by at least a dozen future soccer moms, sat Courtney’s two best friends—Caitlyn Calvin and Kaylee Clark. If you’ve ever seen a Barbie doll, you’ve seen Caitlyn and Kaylee. Straight, shiny blond hair loaded with enough product to create their very own ozone holes. Big blue eyes rimmed in eyeliner, mascara, eye shadow, and then a little more mascara for good measure. Complexions as perfect as a Proactiv after photo and their limbs an even honey color that somehow looked natural despite the absence of any tan lines.

  Clearly every girl on campus simultaneously hated them and wanted to be them.

  Caitlyn was dressed in a white skirt that came to mid-thigh (just low enough to pass dress code but high enough to show off the fruits of her Red Bull addiction), a tank top with ruffles down the front in a pale violet version of the Color Guard’s mandatory purple, and a pair of white canvas Skechers that somehow defied any sign of dirt. Beside her, Kaylee wore a carbon copy of the outfit, only her tank was more of an indigo purple. The only thing to differentiate Thing One from Thing Two was that Caitlyn’s hair was pulled back from her face on the right side with a purple clip. Kaylee’s was pulled back on the left.

  Caitlyn, right—Kaylee, left, I chanted to myself as we approached them.

  I felt conversation around us fall from a stage whisper to a heavy silence as I walked up, a clear sign I’d been the topic. I ducked my head, not wanting to make eye contact.

  Chase, on the other hand, walked right up to the gruesome twosome, oblivious to the stares, and abruptly halted conversations as an intruder invaded their ranks.

  “Caitlyn?” Chase asked.

  Thing One gave him a slow up and down, her blue eyes silently assessing whether or not he was worthy of an answer. While his black-on-black style probably wasn’t up to her standards, a tiny smile curved the corner of her mouth as she took in the broad shoulders, dark eyes, square jaw. He might not be a trust-fund baby, but he had enough of the brooding bad boy thing going on to arouse her interest. Or at least, I assumed he did as Caitlyn answered, “That’s me. And you are . . . ?”

  “Chase Erikson.”

  Caitlyn shot him a big smile that spoke to the fact she was a lot more vigilant about wearing her retainer at night than I was. “Nice to meet you, Chase,” she said, her voice purring over his name as she twirled a lock of blond hair between her fingers. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m with the Herbert Hoover High Homepage.”

  She gave him a blank loo
k.

  “The school’s online paper.”

  She shrugged. “’Kay.” Clearly she was not the reading kind.

  “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Courtney?”

  Caitlyn lowered her eyes to the ground, doing an exaggerated sniff. “I don’t know. It’s all so raw. I can’t believe she’s really gone.” Sniff, sniff.

  “I can answer for you,” Kaylee piped up, her eyes locked onto Chase’s biceps like they were éclairs and her underweight self had spent the school year existing on . . . well . . . Sugarfree Red Bull.

  Caitlyn shot Thing Two a dirty look. “I didn’t say I couldn’t answer. It’s just hard.” She turned back to Chase. “She was my best friend, you know.”

  Chase nodded.

  “She was my best friend, too!” Kaylee piped up, determined not to be left out. Then she did an exact replica of Caitlyn’s sniff thing.

  “When was the last time you saw your best friend?” he asked the pair.

  Caitlyn drew her perfectly threaded eyebrows together. “Yesterday. After school.”

  “What time?” I chimed in. If we knew exactly when Courtney left, it would help narrow down the time of her death.

  Caitlyn’s eyes cut to me, blinking as if seeing me for the first time. “I dunno. After school. We saw her right before Color Guard practice.”

  “Did she seem upset by anything?” Chase asked. “Or distracted? Preoccupied?”

  Caitlyn shook her head. “No, she was perfectly fine. Her usual self.”

  “Was she having problems with anyone?” he pressed. “Anyone have a reason to be upset with her that you know of? Anyone with a reason to want her dead?”

  Caitlyn’s eyes shot my way.

  “Besides me,” I quickly added.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” Kaylee cut in.

  Caitlyn sent her a look, but Kaylee marched on, undeterred. Clearly a cute bad boy trumped the Color Guard code of loyalty. “I know who killed her.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Surely it wasn’t going to be that easy, was it?

  “Who?” Chase asked.

  “Josh DuPont,” she announced. Then executed another perfect sniff. “He killed my best friend.”

  “No way!” I shouted automatically.

  Chase shot me a silent warning look, before turning back to Kaylee. “Why do you say that?” he pressed.

  “She got a text from him just before school let out,” Kaylee explained.

  I felt my stomach clench. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “Positive. She read it to me.”

  “What did it say?” Chase asked.

  “He wanted her to meet him at his house after school.”

  I bit my lip. “It didn’t happen to say why, did it? Like, maybe she was helping him with a science project about condoms?”

  Chase and Sam turned to me as one. Both wearing the same “get real” looks on their faces that said they pitied my stint in la-la land.

  “What? It’s possible . . .” I mumbled to a spot of lint on my sleeve.

  Chase turned his attention back to the Abercrombie twins. “So, the rumors were true? Courtney was sleeping with Josh?”

  I cringed at the directness of his question. Mostly because it begged a direct answer. One I wasn’t sure I wanted to face head-on while standing in front of the entire Color Guard squad.

  I could feel the eyes of every purple-clad girl giving me a critical assessment, silently comparing me to their late queen and wondering just how long it would have taken Josh to choose between us. I wore jeans. Courtney had worn designer denim with her initials monogrammed on the pockets in purple sparkly thread. I wore sneakers. She’d worn Ed Hardy athletic shoes with rhinestones embedded along the tongue. I had inherited what Mom liked to call an “athletic” build. She had looked like she was smuggling water balloons in her top. While my self-esteem was generally pretty healthy, I felt it wavering uncomfortably as speculation burned into me from fifteen different sets of judgmental eyes.

  Luckily, it was speculation that would go unanswered.

  Kaylee opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could answer Chase’s question, Caitlyn rode right over her.

  “There is absolutely no way Courtney was sleeping with Josh. She wasn’t sleeping with anyone. Courtney was a virgin.”

  Sam let out a loud snort.

  Caitlyn turned on her the way a lion might turn on a juicy steak. “Don’t you dare disparage her good name!” she warned.

  I was impressed. Disparage was a top ten SAT vocab word. Someone had been working with her tutor.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sam promised, holding her hands up in a surrender motion. Then muffled another snicker.

  “Courtney signed the chastity pledge on the first day of freshman year,” Caitlyn continued. “No way would she go back on it. She took it very seriously. Courtney was a virgin. I’d stake my life on it.” She turned to Chase. “And you can print that.”

  But he didn’t look so convinced. “If that’s true, why was she meeting Josh in his bedroom yesterday afternoon?”

  Caitlyn shrugged her bony shoulders. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

  Trust me, I intended to.

  SIX

  THE BELL FOR FIFTH PERIOD RANG, AND STUDENTS immediately ran inside, Sam included, calling over her shoulder that she had a Spanish test that afternoon. Me? I’d already ruined my perfect attendance record by cutting that morning. I didn’t really see any sense in finishing out the day. Especially when (A) I’d blown off my homework last night so I didn’t have anything to turn in, and (B) there was zero chance of me being able to concentrate anyway. Not when Detective Raley was lurking in the halls, Josh was on the run, and the entire HHH student body couldn’t decide whether I’d killed Courtney or had been about to be dumped for her. Or both.

  What I needed to do was to speak to Josh. If he really had texted Courtney, effectively luring her to her death, I needed to know why. Yes, I was aware that the obvious answer was, duh, booty call. But I held out hope that all was not as obvious as it seemed. What can I say? I’m a big fan of denial.

  Considering Raley was likely watching my cell usage like a hawk, I didn’t dare contact Josh via my phone. Instead, I decided to walk the two blocks to the public library on Main and mooch off their free internet to get in touch with him.

  I turned to go . . .

  And almost ran smack into Chase’s chest.

  Apparently not everyone had dispersed at the sound of the bell.

  “Going to class?” he asked.

  No. But he didn’t need to know that. Considering I wasn’t exactly sure what sort of answers I might get from Josh, I didn’t really want an audience. Besides, I wasn’t certain I totally trusted Chase. When push came to shove, Chase had no loyalty to me. He was in this for a story. And he got that story whether Josh went to jail or not.

  So instead of spilling my destination, I nodded. Slowly. “Yes. Yes, I am going to class.”

  He grinned. “Dude, you are the worst liar on the planet. Seriously, we got to get you some lessons or something.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever.” I pushed past him, heading toward the front of the school.

  “So, if you’re not going to class, what are you doing?” he persisted, following a step behind me.

  “Nothing.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Need a ride to nowhere?”

  “No!” Even if I did, I wasn’t ready to take my life in my hands by riding with him twice in one day. “Look, just because we’re both investigating this thing doesn’t mean we have to be joined at the hip.”

  Chase stopped following me. He gave me a long look. Then grinned again.

  “Okay. Fine. I’ll catch you later, then.”

  “Fine. Good. Catch ya.” I turned to go again.

  And heard him call over my shoulder, “Say hi to Josh for me!”


  Sigh.

  The local branch of our library was situated just down the street from the high school. In theory it was within convenient walking distance for students looking to study after class. In reality, it smelled like musty paper, mildewed carpets, and unwashed bodies. Needless to say, everyone under the age of sixty avoided it like the plague. It was a squat concrete block of a building, boasting the latest in “modern architecture,” circa nineteen fifty. Orange carpet covered the walls (yes, the walls) and beige linoleum the floors. Metal racks held books still organized via card catalog, despite the availability of digital sorting. The town kept threatening to update the library, posting fancy watercolor renderings of the new building in the paper every year. But as of yet, fund-raising had only reached the level of enthusiasm necessary to pay for the watercolors, not the real building.

  I held my breath as I pushed through the glass front doors, slipping past the circulation desk and heading downstairs to the basement that housed periodicals and two rows of ancient PCs. Laminated signs next to each station warned that we were only allowed one hour of internet usage at a time. With any luck, I’d only need a fraction of that.

  I settled down at a station next to a white-haired woman looking at pictures of her grandkids on Photobucket (letting out the occasional coo at how cute they were) and a guy wearing three coats, two pairs of socks, and a week-old beard. I made sure to sit upwind from the overdressed guy, then logged online and made my way to MySpace to find the fake account that Josh had set up last night.

  Honestly, I hadn’t been on MySpace in years, not since fourth grade. As soon as Jessica Hanson had enticed me to join her mafia, I’d been strictly a Facebook user. But, as Josh had pointed out, if everyone was on Facebook, MySpace was the virtual equivalent of a hideout in the woods. Deep, deserted woods.

  I clicked on HHHRunner94 and came to a page tricked out with a red background, flaming cursors, and about twenty different songs on an automatic playlist. Granny shot me a look as the Kings of Leon blasted from the PC speakers. I quickly hit Mute, sending her an apologetic smile. Clearly being on the run left Josh with way too much time on his hands.