Deadly Cool

by Gemma Halliday

  “She’s dead.”

  Even though I knew that had been coming, I felt my stomach roll. Another dead body at Herbert Hoover High.

  And found by me.

  A sick sense of déjà vu hit as I watched the CSU crawl across the football field. The area was lit up now by the huge floodlights circling the stadium. Uniformed officers staggered every four feet made a human chain, scanning the grass for evidence. The coroner and a handful of other guys in cheap suits knelt over poor Kaylee’s body. And Raley stood in front of me, feet planted shoulder width apart, his notebook out, grilling me like a summer hamburger. Apparently I hadn’t been quite as stealthy as I’d thought, as Raley had, in fact, seen me slipping down the street and decided to follow me. Though, at the moment, I couldn’t be too upset that he had. If he hadn’t stopped me, I’d probably still be running through the night, fueled by pure adrenaline.

  “So, what were you doing out here?” he asked, pen hovering.

  “I told you. I was meeting Deep Blogger.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “And who is this ‘Deep Blogger’?” he asked, doing air quotes around the name as if he didn’t quite believe me.

  “I don’t know. That’s the whole point of her being Deep Blogger. It’s an alias.”

  “Yeah. I got that.” He looked down at his notes. “You don’t have a name?”

  “No.”

  “But you said, ‘her.’ You know it’s a girl?”

  I looked down at my feet. Bad idea. The Smear stared me in the face. I quickly raised my eyes to meet Raley’s. “The voice was female. That’s all I know.”

  “And you think this Deep Blogger killed Kaylee?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe.”

  Again with the raised eyebrow.

  I took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know. I was meeting her here, and all of a sudden she just turned around and ran.”

  “And why were you meeting her?”

  I bit my lip. As much as I knew it wasn’t the wisest decision of my life to lie to the police, especially when dealing with a double homicide, I had promised Deep Blogger that I’d keep her identity as a witness safe. Not that she’d actually had time to tell me what she’d witnessed, but tipping my hand to Raley wasn’t going to help that any.

  “Hartley?” Raley prompted.

  “There was a tip,” I finally said.

  “What kind of tip?”

  “An anonymous one.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “From who?”

  I threw my arms up. “Well, if I knew that, it wouldn’t be very anonymous, would it?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Look, Hartley, the police get ‘anonymous tips,’” he said, again doing the air quotes with his fingers. “Teenagers do not.”

  “Okay. Fine. You follow your tips and I’ll follow mine.”

  “You’re not being very cooperative, Miss Featherstone.”

  “I know.”

  Raley pursed his lips so hard they all but disappeared. “How did you get this tip?”

  “It came in to the school paper.”

  “And what did the tipster say?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Journalistic integrity.”

  “You are not a journalist.”

  “I am now,” I said, pulling myself up to my full height. “The HHH Homepage has partnered with me to investigate Courtney’s death. Something you’d know if you’d watched the news last night instead of my front door.”

  Raley put a hand to his forehead, massaging the spot between his eyes as if I was giving him a headache.

  Ditto here, pal.

  “Okay, let’s go back to tonight,” he said. “You met with this blogger, then what happened?”

  “I told you. She took off.”

  “Any idea why?”

  I shrugged. “My best guess? She found Kaylee just like I did.”

  “Yes, interesting that.”

  My turn to narrow my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “You finding a dead body. Again.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Nothing.” Raley looked down at his notes, effectively obscuring his expression. “Just . . . interesting.”

  “Do I need a lawyer here?” I asked.

  Raley looked up, his eyes squarely meeting mine. “I don’t know. Do you?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, exercising my right to remain silent.

  “When was the last time you saw Josh?” Raley asked, jumping on his favorite go-to question as if asking it enough times might break me down.

  Luckily, I was saved from answering by a voice hailing me from across the field.

  “Hartley!” I turned and saw Mom flying at me with a speed that would make the HHH football coach sign her up on the spot. “Oh, my baby,” she cried, tackling me.

  I think I felt a rib bruise under the pressure of her hug, but right at that moment I didn’t really care. It felt good to be bruised, to feel anything at all, knowing that just a few feet away Kaylee would never feel anything again. I sniffed back a tear that I hadn’t known I wanted to shed until I’d spied Mom.

  “Are you okay?” she asked when she finally pulled away, her eyes scanning my face for bumps or bruises.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without turning into a bawling mess.

  “I got here as soon as the police called me,” she said, glancing at Raley.

  I could see warring emotions on Raley’s face. On the one hand, his headache would lessen the moment he handed me off to someone else. On the other, it was a lot easier to question a minor without her adult guardian present.

  I gave Mom a quick, much-edited version of the evening’s events, leaving out all the good stuff. I prayed Raley, who was listening the entire time, wouldn’t feel compelled to fill them in.

  When I was finished, Mom hugged me again. “You witnessed another murder!”

  “Whm, nhm ehmphhm.”

  “What did you say?” Mom took a step back.

  I sucked in a breath of air. “Well, not exactly,” I repeated. “I didn’t actually see her murdered.”

  But particulars seemed lost on her as she turned to Raley and said, “That’s it. We want protection.”

  “No, we don’t!” I protested.

  “Ma’am, we don’t believe your daughter is in any immediate danger.”

  “How can you say that?” Mom countered. “This is the second girl that’s been killed.”

  “I assure you that we are doing everything we can to keep the student body safe.”

  “Maybe a trip?” Mom said, turning to me. “Would you like to go on a trip?”

  “Mom, I have a trig test,” I protested. Not to mention Deep Blogger was still out there somewhere, with information that might lead to the real killer, and I was the only one she was willing to spill it to.

  “We could do a road trip. How fun would that be?”

  Me and Mom stuck in a car together for hours on end? About as fun as shoving daggers into my eyes.

  “Actually, Mrs. Featherstone,” Raley cut in, “we believe the best thing to do in this situation is for her to maintain her normal routine.”

  Yeah, and stay where he could keep an eye on me.

  It took another fifteen minutes of this back-and-forth before Raley finally convinced my mom that there wasn’t a big target on my back, and I didn’t need to either (A) move a hundred miles away, or (B) change my name and enter witness protection as Jane Smith from Ohio.

  By the time Mom bundled me into the back of her minivan and drove home, I was beyond beat.

  “Do you need to talk?” Mom asked as we pulled into our driveway. “There’s still cake in the fridge.”

  I shook my head. As tempting as thick frosting sounded, what I needed was about a million hours of sleep.

  And to figure out the identity of one Deep Blogger.

  “So what happened?” Sam asked, hiking her backpack up on her shoulder.

  A loaded quest
ion.

  I’d been fielding texts and IMs all morning as news had spread of Kaylee’s death. And, more specifically, me discovering her. Of course, Sam, being at the center of the gossip hive, had been the first to call me, going into a chorus of ohmigods and are you all rights and then some more ohmigods. Once I’d assured her I was fine, she’d demanded all the deets. I’d promised to deliver them to her at school. When my mom wasn’t listening outside my door, ready to ship me off to a deserted island at the slightest sound of trouble.

  “You just, like, found her?” Sam pressed.

  I nodded. “Actually I tripped over her.”

  “Ewwwww! You poor thing!” Sam hugged me around my backpack. “So, what happened to her?”

  I looked over my left shoulder. Ashley Stanic and Cole Perkins had their heads together, whispering and glancing my way. A little farther down the hall, a couple mathletes were shooting me sympathetic looks. Mathletes! Having sympathy! For me!

  “I don’t know.” I sighed, shutting my locker and starting for first period. “Kaylee was dead when I got there.”

  “Freaky,” Sam said, falling into step beside me. “How’d she die?”

  “I overheard the coroner say ‘exsanguination.’”

  Sam wrinkled up her freckled nose. “Which means . . . ?”

  “She bled to death. Someone hit her on the back of the head, then took off.”

  Sam did a mock shudder. “Sick.”

  “No kidding.” I’d tossed my Nikes directly into the washing machine when I’d gotten home, peeling them off with my mom’s rubber kitchen gloves and turning the water to scalding hot. Then washed them again. And even though they’d ended up a bright, sparkling good-as-new white, I hadn’t been able to force myself to put them on this morning, wearing Uggs with my jeans instead.

  “What about Deep Blogger?” Sam asked. “Did he show?”

  I nodded. “She. Deep Blogger’s a girl.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What do you mean, ‘kinda’?”

  “She bolted.” I told Sam about my encounter and the fact I’d been seconds from learning the identity of Courtney’s killer when DB had taken off.

  “Do you think she saw the killer on the field?”

  I shook my head. “Not likely. I would have noticed someone else out there with us. Honestly, I think she probably saw Kaylee, got scared, and ran.”

  “That’s some coincidence, Kaylee being killed right where you were having your meeting.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, more than a coincidence, I’d say. Whoever killed Kaylee must have been someone who knew I would be there.”

  “Okay, so who knew about your midnight meeting?”

  “Me. You. Chase.” I thought back to the argument Chase and I had had in the hallway yesterday about my meeting. The very loud argument. “And anyone within earshot of my locker.”

  “Or, in the text network of anyone with earshot,” Sam pointed out. “That doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot, does it?”

  “No. Not a whole lot.” Which left us back at square one. Again.

  As we rounded the corner, I spotted Chase leaning against the doorframe of my first period class. He was dressed today in a pair of low-slung jeans, and a black T-shirt with a black long sleeve underneath. A chain hung off the side of his jeans, and in place of his usual boots, he had on a well-worn pair of black Chucks, giving him a modern-day James Dean vibe. While the outfit might make anyone else look like he was trying just a little too hard at the “brooding-teen” thing, on him it looked completely authentic.

  “Hey,” he asked when we approached. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Mostly.”

  “She tripped on Kaylee’s dead body,” Sam supplied.

  Chase nodded. “Yeah, I saw.”

  I blinked at him. “What do you mean you ‘saw’?”

  “I was there. You didn’t really think I’d let you go meet some anonymous stranger in the middle of the night by yourself, did you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?” Though, I had to admit, part of me went kinda warm at the thought of him fancying himself my protector.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

  “I was hiding. Deep Blogger wanted to talk to you alone, so I stayed back near the snack hut. I figured I could keep an eye on you from there and jump in if anything shady went down.”

  “I’d call a dead body pretty shady,” Sam pointed out.

  “Right. As soon as I heard you scream, I ran after you, but that detective got to you first. You’re wicked fast,” he observed.

  “Yeah. Dead bodies bring out the track star in me.”

  “Anyway, as soon as I saw the detective, I left. I figured you were safe, and, well, let’s just say I don’t have the best relationship with the police.”

  Gee, I wonder why.

  “Did you see Deep Blogger?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Took off toward the back parking lot. I tried to follow him as soon as I saw you were okay, but he was long gone by then.”

  “She,” Sam said. “Deep Blogger’s a girl.”

  “Who?” Chase asked me.

  Reluctantly, I shook my head. “I couldn’t tell. It was dark, and she was wearing all black. But she had a female voice.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “Pretty sure. She was trying to disguise it, but it was high. I guess it could have been a guy, but I doubt it.”

  He frowned, his forehead wrinkling into a thoughtful pose. “And she didn’t tell you what she saw?”

  “Just that she saw someone go into Josh’s house that day. She was about to tell me who it was when she took off.”

  “Did she see them come out?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

  The bell rang, and Sam shoved her backpack up onto her shoulder. “Duty calls. I’ll catch you after statistics, cool?” she called over her shoulder.

  “I’ll text you,” I promised.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Chase said to me, pushing off the wall.

  “Go where?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  “We need to track down this Blogger chick.”

  “But I have lit now,” I protested.

  He shot me a look that clearly said James Dean thought I was a geek. “Ditch it.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  I bit my lip. Because I’d already done it twice in the last week. Once more and it would mean a note home, just one more thing for my mom to freak about. I’d caught her looking at boarding school brochures online this morning. I had a feeling I was two seconds away from parental lockdown as it was, never mind what would happen if she found out I was cutting class, too.

  On the other hand . . .

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that the sea of people rushing to class had created a wide berth around yours truly. While most people were bumping into one another, I could reach both hands out to either side and not touch a single soul. It was as if death was catching and I was ground zero for the virus. I had a bad feeling that my social life as I knew it was officially over. Unless I wanted to forever be “that girl,” I needed to find the real killer and fast.

  “Fine,” I finally gave in. “What’s one more day of juvenile delinquency?”

  FOURTEEN

  “SO, WHERE ARE WE GOING?” I ASKED AS I FOLLOWED Chase down the now empty hall. I fought the urge to duck at each classroom window we passed.

  “Library,” he said. “We need a computer.”

  He led the way out of the main building and to the right. It wasn’t until he made another right into the side parking lot that I realized we weren’t going on foot.

  “Oh, no. No way.” I stopped in my tracks.

  Chase spun around. “What?”

  “No way am I getting in a car with you again.”

  He cocked his head, the beginnings of amusement playing at the corner of his lips. “And why not?”


  “Because you drive like a maniac.”

  “I do not.”

  “How many speeding tickets have you gotten?”

  “This month?”

  “I rest my case.”

  “I’m joking,” he said, the grin taking full bloom. “Come on, I’ll drive slow for you, Granny.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve seen enough dead bodies for one lifetime, thanks. I think I’ll walk.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself.” Then he called over his shoulder, “Meet you there!” before continuing on to his Camaro, tucked in the second row between two used SUVs.

  I took the sidewalk the two blocks, perfectly content with my decision even when Chase roared past me at decidedly not Granny speeds a couple minutes later. The weather was nice, the street deserted, and the physical exercise was a welcome distraction from the mental workout I’d been doing ever since finding Kaylee. Had the same person killed both Courtney and Kaylee? Why? Had Kaylee known something about the killer’s identity? What had she been doing on the football field? And how did Deep Blogger fit into all this? I didn’t know. And, sadly, by the time I reached the library, I was no closer to figuring it out.

  I made my way down to the basement, where the one-hour computers were located. Chase was already typing away at one near the end of the row, and I pulled up a plastic chair and sat down beside him.

  “So, what’s your plan for tracking down our Deep Blogger?” I asked.

  “We’re going to trace her IP address,” he said, not looking up from the screen. “I should have done this yesterday when the email first came in,” he chided himself, “but I was kind of preoccupied with finding out what she had to say.”

  “Well, let’s hope she’s still feeling chatty. How do we find the IP address?” I asked.

  “Here’s the original email she sent,” he said, pointing to the screen. “We need to trace where it came from to get to the Homepage’s in-box.” He clicked a couple buttons on the side of the open email in-box window, and another window popped up, creating an email header three times the normal size, filled with tons of numbers and periods in seemingly random patterns.

  “What is that?” I asked, squinting at the screen.

  “It’s a list of the IP addresses of all the servers the email traveled through.” He stabbed his finger at a line farthest down. “See that one? That’s where it originated. That’s Deep Blogger’s computer.”