And it makes Joe’s smile falter.
“I’ll take my chances,” I say, standing up. It makes me just a bit taller than Joe, who sits with his body slumped in half like an old pillow. “Because I do remember. Everything. Maybe I should start answering all those questions the detectives have. I bet I could tell them even more.”
Now Joe’s standing. He bares his teeth at me, and when he speaks, spit hits the glass. “That a threat? You’ll pay for it.”
I turn around. “No, I won’t.”
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Thing is . . . if I were really a badass I probably wouldn’t have sat in the women’s restroom for ten minutes trying to collect myself. Not going to lie, standing up to Joe felt awesome.
I just wish my legs would stop shaking.
They only get worse when I spot Carson leaning against my car as I’m leaving the jail. I push my feet, one in front of the other, until my Chucks are almost touching his slouched shadow.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Wicket?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work, Carson?” The detective’s mouth flattens and a muscle in his jaw ticks once. “What? I thought we were playing State the Obvious.”
Behind the Mini, the detective’s sedan is parked and running, an officer I don’t recognize sitting shotgun. It’s creepy the way he’s staring at me—like I’m the one that got away.
Which I guess I am.
“What were you doing visiting Joe Bender?”
I shrug. “My good deed for the day. I thought he might be lonely.”
“You’re up to something, trash.”
Interesting how the insult seems . . . chipped . . . like it belongs to someone else. My visiting Joe has made Carson anxious.
“What would you two have to say to each other?” the detective asks.
I’m not sure yet. I’m not entirely convinced I should tell my dad what happened. It’s not that Joe doesn’t deserve punishment. I’m just not sure I want to be the one responsible for his death.
“Considering Joe’s going to be in jail for the next bazillion years, I doubt you have anything to worry about.”
“A bazillion years, huh?” The detective snorts. “Not likely. Joe Bender’s the Feds’ new favorite boy. At the rate he’s going, he’ll be out by next year, so whatever you’re playing at, trash, you should watch your back.”
I study Carson, looking for the lie. “What are you talking about?”
“Bender’s testifying against two other prisoners in return for a reduced sentence. He’ll be out soon.” A lopsided smile kicks up one corner of the detective’s mouth. “Judge Bay helped set it up. Be sure to remember to thank him for both of us.”
“What kind of case?”
“What do you think? More internet bullshit.” Carson shrugs, studying something in the distance. “This is his first conviction and, considering how useful he’s making himself, he’ll be out soon.”
Shit.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” I lie, sounding calm even though my brain is screeching. Aside from the whole do I tell my dad or not? thing, Joe getting out could be a real issue. When he was free, I was expected to work for him. If I had refused, he would have hurt everyone I loved.
And I just royally pissed him off.
Joe promised he could get back at me. Looks like he wasn’t lying after all. Means next time will be brutal.
Which also means there can’t be a next time.
I look past Carson’s shoulder and notice the officer still eyeing us with interest. “You really think it’s a good idea for your clown to see us? Aren’t you a little worried about people finding out how you get your information?”
Carson lifts one shoulder. “I pick my team carefully. I know they’ll stay loyal.”
The same way I do? Through blackmail?
“What did you do, Wick?”
Funny. I’d rather he call me trash than use my name. “Nothing.”
Yet.
I lift my chin. “Are we done?”
“No.” Carson’s attention is pinned to the building behind me. “We’ve been doing a bit of digging in Bay’s woods. Guess what we found?” His eyes flick to me. “More bodies.”
“Whose?”
Carson shrugs. “Not sure. Looks like there are animal and human remains. Whoever did this has been busy for years.”
Eww. “When will you get an ID on the bodies?”
“Not fast enough. There are multiple graves, multiple skeletons. It’s a lab nightmare.”
“Maybe you could narrow the focus? Girls disappear from our neighborhood sometimes. Maybe Lell wasn’t a victim because she was Kyle’s girlfriend. Maybe she was a victim because that’s where he . . . hunted.” It’s hard to say the word knowing it might apply to me right now. I take a ragged breath. “You could compare teeth or something to missing girls’ dental records.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You should also think about who would benefit from pretending Kyle’s still alive.”
“No shit.”
Anger flares through me. “Well, if you’ve got it all figured out, why’re you bothering me?”
“Why indeed.”
“You owe me protection. That was the deal, Carson.” I hate how my voice is sliding into a whine and I can’t seem to stop it. “You haven’t sent any more officers to watch our house.”
“Well, you know how these things go. It’s hard to maintain personal projects in this economic climate. Shame really.” Carson turns to leave and stops. “Remember to stay useful, Wick. Otherwise, what’s the point in keeping you?”
I leave Carson and drive straight to school, swinging my car into the parking lot as everyone else is leaving. I’d rather not be here at all, but I have a history paper due at the end of the week, and if my grades drop, Bren will come snooping.
If sneaking out of the house equals grounding, I can’t imagine what skipping school would require . . . an electronic tracking anklet?
Best not to think about it.
I head for my locker, being careful to avoid any of the teachers whose classes I missed. It’s not terribly difficult. The hallway is still pretty crowded—so crowded I don’t see him until I’m too close to turn around.
Milo.
He grins, looking like something out of a Ralph Lauren ad. The only thing the boy is missing is a wind machine and some half-naked model hanging on him.
“How do you keep getting past security?” I ask.
“It’s public school. They can’t even spell security.”
“You’re feeling better.”
“I’ll heal. I wanted to see you, say thanks.”
“No need.” I concentrate on my locker combination—maybe a little more than necessary—because when he’s this close I swear I can feel the heat from his skin.
The way his lips felt on mine.
“Thought I would repay the favor,” he adds.
“I’m good.”
“Really? Even if it takes care of your Carson problem?”
I jerk my head side to side to see if anyone’s listening. “Could you be a little quieter?”
Milo chokes on his laugh. “Someday you’re going to have to explain to me why you care what anyone here thinks of you.”
“It’s not about what people think of me, it’s about staying out of jail. No one knows about my hobbies, much less about Carson’s and my . . . arrangement.”
“Like when he promised he would turn off the security cameras and didn’t?”
“Seriously? Shut. Up.” I glare at him and it only makes Milo’s smile slide wider. “Not here.”
“Again, who cares? You can’t tell me you don’t want to know all about your detective’s storage unit and all the new compounds I put in there.”
My hands slacken. “Compounds?”
“Yep, specifically, the
kind the ATF gets really, really excited about. Lucky for him, I had extra lying around the restaurant. Just wait. Someone will call in a bomb threat. It’ll be epic.”
I gape and Milo grins like he enjoys it.
“Still think I don’t understand you, Wick?” He edges closer, and this time, I don’t move away. “We could be great together if you would just realize the past is dead, but the future is yours for the taking. We can take it together.”
“Why me?”
“What?”
“Why me, Milo?”
“Because when I’m around you . . .” His dark gaze climbs across my face, stroking something nameless inside me. “Around you, I feel like I’ve been smacked awake. You’re everything I could never be.”
“And that is?”
“Powerful. Hackers are meant to rule the world. You could take it all and I want to watch you do it. I like you—for what you are and what you could be.”
I like you too. It blooms under my tongue, but Milo’s attention shifts, tracking something beyond my shoulder.
“Gotta go,” he says, peeling himself off the lockers. “When Carson’s shit hits the fan, call me. I’ll want all the details on how impressed you are with what I can do.”
Milo slips into a crowd of band geeks heading for the exit, and when I turn around, I see why: Griff and Mrs. Lowe, the computer lab teacher, are heading my way.
“Is everything okay, Wicket?” Mrs. Lowe asks, drawing down on me with narrowed eyes.
Unable to breathe, I nod.
“Was that a new student? I don’t recognize him.”
“I think so. I didn’t really ask. He just wanted to know where the gym was.”
Mrs. Lowe nods like this is totally understandable since only a new student would ask me where the gym is located. I sneak a glance at Griff and catch him staring at me. We both look away.
All it would take is one word from him and Griff’s staying quiet.
“Okay then,” Mrs. Lowe says, shifting her purse higher on her shoulder. “You two have a nice evening.”
“You too,” I say, and wait, staring at the floor, for Griff to leave too.
“So. You and Milo, huh?”
I look up. “It’s not what you think.”
Except it is, isn’t it? Plus, unlike Griff, Milo isn’t ashamed of me. I’m ashamed of me though. I’m ashamed of how tied up I am with Carson, how I’ve disappointed Bren . . . how I can’t get over the boy who’s over me.
“If it’s not what I think, then what is it?” Griff asks.
I work my mouth around. What Griff thinks he saw is bad. What actually happened is worse.
Much worse.
I mean, I was going to frame Carson too, but the plan jumped off something the detective was already doing—digging into Bay—this . . . this is accusing him of something that won’t just ruin his career. It could get him jail time.
I should do something . . . but I’m not going to. I’m not sure what that says about me. I’m definitely sure I don’t want to know.
In the meantime though I’ve taken too long to respond so Griff thinks he already has my answer.
“That’s what I thought,” he says, and I watch him walk away. Again.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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I should follow Griff, tell him it was all a mistake, feed him lies . . . so why am I not running after him?
Because this feels too familiar to ignore and, suddenly, I’m not in my high school’s hallway, I’m standing in my parents’ house, watching my mom run after my dad, pouring words of love from bloodied lips.
Griff would never hit me, but he doesn’t get me either and I’m embarrassed of what he sees.
Of what it makes me see.
So I turn to my locker, taking extra time to make sure he’s long gone before I leave the school. This is my fault. I gave Griff a piece of me. He didn’t ask me for it. Hell, maybe he did, he wanted me—at least the idea of me—for a time. And here I am now: eaten from the inside out, craving someone I didn’t know I would ever crave and, if I’d been told, I would never have believed it.
I should never have allowed myself to want him. The least I can do now is protect him and I’m doing that. It should be enough.
But it’s not.
So I think about my Joe problem instead and it’s amazing how quickly my hands curve into claws. What am I going to do about that?
I have no idea. In fact, I could really use a bit of inspiration, but when I turn in to my driveway all I get is Jason Baines sitting on my front porch, waiting for me.
I glare at him as I park. Jason doesn’t seem to mind. He walks straight to my car door and waits for me to get out.
“You know this is creepy, right?” I ask, nearly bumping him with the door as I open it. “We’re not living in a sitcom. Waiting for me to come home is not cute. It’s stalkerish.”
“We really going to do this out here? Where your neighbors can see us?”
I’d tell him to shove it if he didn’t have a point. Mrs. Ellery is standing by her mailbox, watching us. Wonderful. That’s all I need right now.
“Five minutes,” I say, and motion for him to follow me to the side door.
Which is still no good because Mrs. Ellery just walks farther into the road so she can glare at us.
“Kitchen,” I mutter, and unlock the door, watching Jason from the corner of my vision as I key the security code into our system. He ignores it. “Talk,” I say.
“I want to know your decision.”
“I haven’t made one.”
“When will you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Fair enough.” Jason wanders to the kitchen doorway and stares down the hallway, head cocked like he’s considering our color palette. “Nice house.”
I stiffen. “Even nicer security system.”
Jason grins. “You like living with that lady?”
“Bren? Of course. She’s awesome.” When she isn’t overreacting. “You don’t have anything better to do than ask me personal questions?”
Jason swings around, one hand rubbing the back of his neck like it aches. The movement makes the sleeve of his shirt droop, revealing the pale skin of his forearm, and my heart trips.
There’s a curl of faded ink along his forearm, the edge of a tattoo.
It’s . . . lumpy. Like a birthmark. Numbness crawls up my legs. In the picture, I wasn’t looking at a birthmark. I was looking at the edge of a tattoo.
Jason smiles. “Everything okay?”
I swallow. “’Course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
He shrugs, searching my face for a beat.
All I can think about is that faded tattoo. It means Jason’s holding up Lell’s head in the picture and, based on the angle of the shot, that also means he was holding the camera.
Which suggests he was alone.
Kind of like I am now.
Cold creeps across my skin. I have no idea what to do here. Call Carson? How? It’s a little obvious if I announce I need to take a personal call. Furthermore, what can Carson even do? I don’t even know if he can arrest Jason. The incriminating pictures were obtained illegally. They won’t stand up in any court of law. So that leaves . . . I have no idea.
My cell rings. Keeping one eye on Jason, I check the screen. Shit. It’s Manda Ellery.
I mash the green answer button. “Hello?”
“Wicket? Wicket Tate?”
I roll my eyes. Are there any other Wickets running around? “Yes, it’s me, Mrs. Ellery. Is everything okay?”
“Of course everything’s not okay. You know you’re still grounded.”
Was that a question? I agree anyway. Jason is on the move again, and while Mrs. Ellery reams me a new one for having a boy at the house, I study him. He’s the right height for the guy I saw in the woods and I guess the walk is similar. Really though, aside from a limp
or something, how distinctive is a walk?
It makes sense and it doesn’t. Or maybe it’s just me. I can’t wrap my head around the idea, and as Jason passes me to look in Todd’s old office, I press my back to the cabinets, making yes or no noises into the phone.
“It’s just a guy from school, Mrs. Ellery,” I say, interrupting her tirade. “He’s just here to pick up a homework assignment. He’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
Jason pops into the kitchen again and leans against the oven to listen. Then he checks his phone . . . and starts to whistle, and my heart crams into my throat. He looks at me and I straighten, gripping the phone. Still whistling that long, low tune that makes me remember the taste of blood and mud, Jason begins to pace again, circling the kitchen—circling me.
He’s not just looking around. He knows.
“Wicket, are you listening to me?” Mrs. Ellery is getting screechy.
“Oh, I’m listening.” Golden afternoon light slants across the kitchen, catching on the cereal bowl I left in the sink.
The paring knife Bren left there to dry.
As Jason watches, I switch the cell to my other ear, pretend I’m fiddling with a strand of hair. Then I slide my hand into the sink, curling my fingers around the knife’s plastic handle.
Just having it makes me feel better, but now what do I do? Wave it around? Not likely.
I feed the handle up my sweatshirt sleeve, leaving the tip of the knife pointing toward my fingertips. If he jumps at me, I can stiffen my arm and the knife will drop into my hand.
In theory.
In practice, I might cut off my fingers. Well . . . it’s better than nothing.
“Homework or not,” Mrs. Ellery continues, “I don’t think your mother wanted you to have guests while she was gone.”
“You’re right.” I have to force the words through gritted teeth. “Maybe you should come over. You can wait with me until he’s gone.”
Jason’s eyes narrow.
“I’m already here,” Mrs. Ellery snaps, and starts pounding on the front door. Still watching Jason, I slide past him and hustle down the hallway. I barely have the door open before Mrs. Ellery shoves her way inside.
“Honestly, Wicket, I don’t understand why you have to be such an obstinate girl,” she says, glaring at me. “My children weren’t half the trouble you and your sister are to poor Brenda.”
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