“Look, he doesn’t know anything except that you’re Deep Blogger. I’ll just tell him that you didn’t really get a good look at the guy.”
She spun on me, eyes narrowed. “You better, Hartley Featherstone, or I’m gonna hunt you down and beat you senseless.”
Scary thing? I totally believed her.
“Right. Cool. No problem. Hey, you can totally count on me. Okay, well, I’m gonna just go now,” I said, slowly backing away.
“I know where you live, Hartley!” she yelled after me. “This is all your fault!”
Why did everyone think that stumbling on dead bodies was somehow my fault? Like I wanted to stumble on them. Like this was my idea of a good time. Trust me, between wearing braces for the entirety of my high school experience and finding one more dead body, I’d totally take the metal mouth torture.
Only, as long as the killer was still out there, the fates seemed intent on making my life suck like a black hole.
As soon as I got back on campus, I texted Sam.
where r u?
Thirty seconds later a response buzzed my phone to life.
cftria. y?
need 2 tlk. brt.
Five minutes later, I hit the cafeteria. It was packed with hungry students, the melded noise of dozens of conversations bouncing off the poorly insulated walls, the smell of spaghetti, mystery meatballs, and extrastrength disinfectant permeating the air.
I spied Sam sitting at a table near the middle of the room with Kyle and Erin Carter and Jessica Hanson, both still wearing their mourning armbands. I made a beeline for them, grabbing my best friend by the arm as soon as I could reach her.
“Hey, we need to talk. Pronto.”
“Whoa, chill,” she said, as I jostled her box of organic grape juice, spilling purple stuff on the table.
“I’m serious. This is, like, life and death.”
Poor word choice. Jessica raised an eyebrow at me, then sent a look to Erin.
“Uh, we were just leaving anyway,” Jessica said, gathering her tray of pizza sticks and spaghetti. She elbowed Erin, who did the same, moving to a spot a few tables away next to some guys from the track team. And, I noticed, skirting the long way around the table to avoid getting too close to me in the process.
I rolled my eyes.
But I had bigger fish to fry. Sam and I had possibly been in cahoots with a killer.
“We’re possibly in cahoots with a killer,” I said to Sam as soon as Jessica and Erin were out of earshot.
Kyle wrinkled his forehead up. “What’s a cahoots?”
“Hart, what are you talking about?” Sam asked, wiping at the juice spill with a paper napkin.
I quickly filled them in on my meeting with Shiloh and her revelation that the killer had been wearing Chase’s eagle hoodie.
“Did she say for sure that it was Chase in the hoodie?” Kyle asked when I was done.
“No,” I hedged. “She said she never saw the guy’s face.”
“So, isn’t it possible it was someone else?” Sam asked.
I shrugged. “Possible, I guess, but hecka coincidental, isn’t it? I mean, he just happens to be there at the time of the murder, and the killer just happens to be wearing his clothes? Then Chase just happens to offer to help us catch the killer, instead completely throwing us off the real trail.”
“Has he?” Kyle asked.
“Has he what?”
“Thrown you off the trail? I mean, it kinda sounds like he’s been helping you.”
“Right. Which is exactly what he’d want us to think if he was the killer.”
“She has a point,” Sam said. “So what do we do now?”
“I don’t know. But, I tell you what we don’t do.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell Chase what Shiloh saw.”
As if on cue, the doors to the cafeteria opened and I spied our newest suspect pushing through.
He walked up to the lunch counter, grabbed a tray, and threw a slice of lukewarm pizza and a Coke on it.
Not exactly nefarious, but I guess even killers had to eat lunch.
“Let’s go confront him,” Kyle said, standing up.
I grabbed his arm. “Are you kidding? Sit down.”
His butt thumped back onto the chair with a thud.
“What if we’re wrong?” I asked. “What if Shiloh was mistaken? Or lying!” Though, even as I said it, I had to count that theory as a long shot. Even if Shiloh did hold some wounded ex-girlfriend grudge against Chase, the look in her eyes when she’d talked about seeing the killer had been pure fear. No doubt about it, she’d been afraid of Chase.
Still, it was possible she’d been mistaken. . . .
Sam shrugged. “Okay, so what if he’s innocent? We confront him, he denies it, we’re good to go.”
“Wrong. If he’s innocent, we’ve just totally pissed him off and there goes his help catching the killer.”
“But what if we’re right?” she countered.
“If we’re right, we’ve just accused him of being a killer. That kinda puts us on his short list of future killees.”
Sam scrunched up her nose. “Good point. It’s a lose-lose.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, grabbing her by the sleeve again and tugging her toward the back door.
“Dude. This is a fifty-dollar shirt. You stretch it out, you buy a new one.”
I let go of her sleeve. “Sorry.” But I ducked my head, the three of us scuttling toward the back of the cafeteria. We hit the door just as Chase paid for his food and turned around to scan the room for a seat. For half a second I could swear his eyes were searching for me, but I shook it off, quickly pushing outside.
No sooner had we stepped outside into the sunshine than my cell chirped to life. I looked down at the readout. A text from Chase:
where r u?
I bit my lip. So he had been looking for me.
busy. why?
did u talk to Shiloh?
Despite the fact that I wasn’t 110 percent sure I believed Shiloh had actually seen Chase in Josh’s house, I had promised to keep Shiloh’s observations confidential. Besides, it was better to be safe than sorry.
ya. no help. she didn’t c bg.
A second later he texted back:
bg?
bad guy, I clarified.
A few seconds later my cell chirped again.
cute.
I really wished he’d stop calling me that. Especially if he was a killer.
so shiloh was no help?
no. not a reliable witness.
At least, it was safer for her if he thought that. Me? I had a sinking feeling she was a very reliable witness.
bummer.
I was just about to text back, when Chris Fret came running through the quad, heading toward the front of the main building.
“Dude,” he called when he spotted us. “Did you guys hear?”
“Hear what?” Kyle asked.
“There’s a news van parked out front again,” he said. He started dancing backward. “Word is, they’re interviewing students for the news tonight.”
“Not again,” I mumbled.
“We’re gonna go see if we can be those jerks in the background waving to Mom.” Chris grinned, looking like it was his life’s dream to be a jerk.
We followed him around to the front of the quad, pausing as we hit the lawn. Sure enough, a KTVU news van was parked outside again, a satellite on its roof, cables leading across the lawn to the camera guy. Next to him stood the intern, and a couple of feet away was Diane Dancy. She held a microphone in one hand and fluffed her hair with the other. Beside her, Caitlyn was checking her lip gloss in a compact and carefully posing so the sunlight hit her highlights at just the right angle.
A small group of people had gathered behind them, other aspiring jerks sticking their tongues out at the camera and yelling things like “Go, Wildcats!”
“Check one, two, three,” the intern said into Diane’s microphone.<
br />
The guy under the camera gave him a thumbs-up, and the intern nodded at Diane.
She shook her hair out one more time, then looked straight in the camera as the intern counted her down. “We’re on in five, four, three, two . . .” Then he trailed off, pointing at the reporter.
“This is Diane Dancy reporting live in front of Herbert Hoover High School in San José where a second innocent student has been found brutally murdered this week. The body of young, vivacious Kaylee Clark was discovered last night on the deserted football field, viciously bludgeoned to death.”
I shivered as I remembered the scene. Despite the warm sunshine hitting me, goose bumps broke out on my arms.
“Like the first victim,” the reporter went on, “Kaylee was a member of the very popular Color Guard on campus.”
The use of the adverb “very” was a bit of a stretch, but it was clear Diane was a woman who used modifiers to squeeze every last drop of drama from a situation.
Though, to be honest, this one was an easy squeeze.
“I have beside me one of their fellow students, Caitlyn Calvin. Caitlyn, how has this tragedy affected you?”
Caitlyn sniffed, her face showing what I would swear was genuine emotion.
“Kaylee and Courtney were my best friends in the whole world,” she told the camera. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without them.” She did a little sob, a single tear rolling down her face. Though I noticed it wasn’t actually enough to mess up her mascara in front of the camera. Cool trick. I wondered if she’d practiced it in front of the mirror or if it was a natural talent of Color Guard girls.
“What can you tell us about the other Color Guard members’ reaction to Kaylee’s brutal death?”
“We’re scared, Diane,” Caitlyn said. “It’s clear that a serial killer is targeting members of the Color Guard.”
While two people hardly qualified as serial, I had to admit that Caitlyn might have a point. It had to be more than coincidence that both Kaylee and Courtney had been killed. Was someone targeting them because of their abstinence beliefs? Was this less a personal vendetta than a moral one?
And, if it was, did that mean the killer wasn’t done? With both Courtney and Kaylee gone, there was one obvious target left.
And apparently she knew it, as she looked straight into the camera, her eyes shining with tears.
“I implore the police to find the persons responsible for these murders,” Caitlyn choked out. “Because if they don’t”—short pause for another sob—“I fear I may be next!”
SIXTEEN
I HAD TO ADMIT THAT IN CAITLYN’S POSITION, I’D BE A little scared, too. As the lone purple clone left, it was entirely possible that Caitlyn was a sitting duck.
Which is why, as the bell rang, I decided that I had to talk to her. If someone did have a Color Guard grudge, she was the one person who might be able to shed some light on it. Unfortunately, Caitlyn spent fifth period in the grief counselor’s office. Then she had sixth period lit in the west wing while I had trig in the east, meaning that by the time the final bell rang and I was free to stalk my prey, she’d already left campus in her cute little Volkswagen Rabbit. (At least that’s what Ashley Stannic said when I caught up to her in the parking lot.) Luckily, according to Chris Fret, Caitlyn worked at Hollister in the Oakridge Mall after school on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. The mall was a ten-minute ride down Blossom Hill Road if you had a car. Or a half-hour bus ride with the homeless and mentally challenged if you didn’t.
Needless to say, fifteen minutes later, Sam and I were pleading our case to Kevin.
“Look, we just need to borrow the car for a few minutes. An hour, tops.”
He lifted his head from the sofa where he was lying, totally engrossed in a rerun of Meerkat Manor.
“I dunno,” he hedged, licking brownie dough off a plastic spatula. A bowl of mix sat in front of him, an empty box and bottle of water beside it on the coffee table. Apparently the munchies had hit before Kev could bake his brownies.
“We won’t go far,” I promised. “The mall is practically down the street.”
“The mall?” He looked up, a small glob of fudgey stuff clinging to the side of his mouth. “That’s the epitome of our capitalist materialistic society. I can’t even begin to tell you the horrors of the environmental and humanitarian crimes that are committed in the name of the almighty dollar at the mall.”
Seriously? It was a Cheesecake Factory and a couple of department stores. It wasn’t like they were killing puppies.
“We won’t buy anything,” I promised. “We just need to talk to someone there.”
“Who?” he asked, shoving another spatulaful into his mouth.
“Caitlyn Calvin. She works at Hollister.”
“Hollister? Dude, they, like, employ monkeys to sew their clothes!”
Sam put her hands on her hips. “Monkeys? Really?”
Kevin wrinkled his forehead. “Or maybe kids. Some workers that are really not cool.”
I vaguely wondered if those brownies were the “funny” variety.
“Look, we just need to talk to her,” I said, “about the deaths at the school. Both girls were her friends.”
“Dude. I heard about that. You found them. Both.” He gave me a long look.
“I had nothing to do with it!” I protested.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You sure?”
“That I didn’t kill two people? Yeah, kinda.”
Luckily, his brain was too full of holes to detect my sarcasm. “Okay. If you say so, I trust you, dude.”
“So . . . the car?” Sam asked. “Can we please borrow it?”
Kevin nodded, spooning more brownie goo into his mouth. “Yeah, sure. Knock yourself out. But she needs fuel.”
Uh-oh.
“You mean veggie oil?” I asked.
He nodded.
I hated to even ask. . . . “Okay. So, where do we get five gallons of veggie oil?”
“I suggest Burger Barn.”
Oh boy. The bus was looking better and better.
After helping Kevin find his keys (“Dude, like they were just here a second ago . . . oh, there they are. Under the brownie mix. Dude, want some brownie mix? It’s killer.”), Sam and I said a silent prayer to the gods of canola that we had enough fuel to drive the three blocks to Burger Barn.
Luckily, we had just enough, the Volvo giving a surrender cough as we glided into the parking lot and slid into a slot. Inside, three guys manned the registers—a twentysomething with pimples, an Indian guy with a mustache that looked like it needed its own hairnet, and a guy I recognized from my fourth period Spanish class.
“Hey,” I said, catching his attention.
He looked up from his register and squinted his eyes as if he were in denial about needing glasses. A second later recognition dawned on him. “Senorita Gonzalez’s class?”
I nodded. “Hartley.”
“Right. You’re the one that keeps finding dead chicks.”
Of all the things I aspired to be known for . . .
“Anyway,” Sam jumped in, knowing this was a touchy subject, “we were wondering if we could have some of your grease?”
He raised an eyebrow, his eyes darting to the visibly greasy countertop.
“For our car,” she explained. “It’s an SVO-converted engine, and we’re out of veggie oil.”
“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “Sure, I guess. I mean, we usually just throw that stuff out.”
Score.
“How much do you want?”
“How much do you have?”
“We’ve got a couple drums outside. Meet me around back,” he instructed.
We did, circling the building to the service entrance where Spanish Class Guy emerged from a minute later.
He pointed to a huge drum sitting near the Dumpster. “She’s all yours.”
The drum was almost as tall as I was; twice as wide; and had white, pus-looking stuff oozing out the top. Like a gian
t zit.
Lucky us.
“You got a funnel or something?” Spanish Class Guy asked.
Sam shook her head.
“Hmmm.” He stroked his chin where the first wisps of a goatee were trying their darnedest to grow. “Well, we’ve got some plastic gloves in the back. I guess you could just use your hands.”
I tried really hard to suppress a gag.
Two minutes later, Spanish Class Guy returned with a pair of plastic food-prep gloves. He gave one to each of us, then tossed a “Good luck” over his shoulder before disappearing back into Burger Barn.
Sam and I looked at each other.
“I guess we should dig in,” she said.
I nodded. “Yep.”
Neither of us moved.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“You gonna move soon?”
“Me? Why should I go first?”
“It’s your boyfriend that got us into this.”
“Ex-boyfriend. Besides, it’s your brother’s stupid eco car.”
We both looked at the Volvo. Then the drum. Then the teeny plastic gloves again.
“Fine!” I threw my hands up, giving in. “I’ll go first.”
I slipped the gloves on, then closed my eyes and shoved one hand into the vat of grease.
Oh. My. God.
It was soft and squishy, and it smelled like rancid meat. I clamped my mouth shut to keep my lunch down as I shoved one handful of gooey grossness into the fuel converter. That’s it, I was never eating anything cooked in oil ever again.
“Is it totally sick?” Sam asked, scrunching up her nose as she watched me.
“Nope,” I lied. “I’m good. Dig in.”
She looked a little green, but she did, shoving one gloved hand into the vat.
“Oh. My. God. This is so gross!”
“Breathe through your mouth. It doesn’t smell as bad that way.”
She nodded, the two of us panting as we shoved handful after handful into the converter.
Twenty minutes later we had shoved enough goo down the converter to get us to Oakridge and back. We hopped into the car, a stream of cheeseburger-scented smoke trailing in our wake. I prayed no one we knew saw us. Or smelled us.
Deadly Cool Page 13
