Something to Dye For (Curl Up and Dye Mysteries, #2)

by Aimee Nicole Walker

  Gabe and Buddy showed up promptly at eight like he said they would. He picked up two pizzas because our choices of pizza on some nights were on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I wanted the Hawaiian pizza with ham and pineapple and he wanted everything except mushrooms on his, including anchovies. Yeah, I totally made him brush his teeth afterwards; no way I was kissing his fishy lips.

  I learned right away that somethings required a lot of work. There was more manscaping to consider when I was showing off my dangly guy bits on a regular basis. Gabe liked my smooth balls, plus I didn’t want him to get sac rash on his face from my scruffy nuts when he went down on me. We had schedules to juggle so that we got to see one another, and the debate about whose turn it was to sleep over at the other’s house. I had to make sure that Gabe’s favorite snacks were in my cabinets and he made sure to keep my shampoo and styling products on hand for me. Most importantly, and the only source for any serious debate, was the television shows we watched.

  I was convinced there was a football game of some sort on every single night and, of course, that was what he picked to watch on his nights. I wanted to watch reality television where they fought and bitch-slapped one another. Neither of us like the other’s choices, but we compromised. We were mature and shit. On that particular Thursday night, I lay on the couch with my feet in Gabe’s lap and pouted a tiny amount because it was his night for television and of course there was a football game on, which meant I missed the new bitch-slapping premiere that was also on. At least I recorded the show and could watch it later.

  Ugh, I would’ve been miserable if it hadn’t been for the way those guys looked in their tight pants. I tried to find the positive in every situation, and those pants were it. After an hour or more of staring at asses, I finally noticed the shirt thingies they wore. “Oh, those shirts are hideous. Who picked out that shitty brown color?”

  “They’re called jerseys, babe,” Gabe replied patiently. “The team owner picked them in honor of the team’s name. They’re called the Browns.”

  “Ugh, where is this team from? That color is just… I can’t even.”

  Gabe rolled his eyes as if I was just too much for him sometimes. “Um, Cleveland.”

  “Oh.” Oops. I had no idea about sports teams beyond Cincinnati or Dayton and my knowledge of those teams were sketchy at best. I pulled my foot out of his hand and held up the other for him to work his magic on.

  The game lasted way longer than I had energy for so I crashed hard somewhere around the third period, quarter, or whatever it was called. Gabe shook me lightly when the game was over and told me that he and Buddy were heading home.

  “Stay,” I said sleepily.

  “Are you sure?” Two consecutive overnights in a row was something we hadn’t done yet.

  “Yep.”

  We stripped down and climbed beneath the sheets of my bed. Oddly, I couldn’t go back to sleep once I cuddled up next to him. I blamed the brief chill I felt while stripping down, but I knew it was because I wanted to unburden my heart to him. There was something about the dark that made confessions easier.

  “Billy Sampson was the first guy I gave my heart… and other parts to,” I said softly. I felt Gabe tense beside me. I figured it had more to do with hearing that I had entrusted myself to someone so hateful than learning I hadn’t been a virgin. “He was a bullying prick even back then, but I learned one day after school that the hatred he felt was more towards himself than me–or so I had convinced myself.”

  “I can’t imagine it went well,” Gabe said softly. He pulled me tighter against him as if he could protect me from the hateful memories of my misguided youth.

  “He was like Jekyll and Hyde.” I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “When we were alone he was almost kind and caring, but when we were at school he still picked on me. In fact, he was worse after we had sex. I think it was easier for him to blame me than to accept that he liked boys. He made me promise not to tell anyone about us and I didn’t. I think a part of me was actually afraid of him and what he’d do to me if I talked about us. I didn’t even tell Chaz and Meredith about him until after he moved away.”

  “Did he hurt you?”

  “Not with his hands,” I answered. “He was just cruel and I put up with it for almost a year. I foolishly thought he was the best I could do. He started dating a popular cheerleader our senior year. I didn’t know if it was to keep people off his back, or if he tried to convince himself he was straight, or was bisexual and didn’t want to admit that either; I just knew I hated seeing them together. Billy told me that she meant nothing to him and that they weren’t having sex. He promised that things would change for us once we graduated high school. I believed him right up until the girl got pregnant.”

  “Ouch,” Gabe said.

  “Yeah, and of course, in this town I’d heard it through the rumor mill before he had a chance to tell me himself. Hell,” I laughed harshly, “I doubt he would’ve told me had I not confronted him about it.”

  “I’m almost afraid to find out.” Gabe slid his hand into my hair and rubbed my scalp.

  “He told me that I had never been important to him and he never had any intention of being with me beyond the fucking.” The memory still hurt, but time and wisdom changed it from a sharp, stabbing pain to a dull one. “As bad as he sounds, he wasn’t the worst of the losers I trusted. If you’re a really good boy I’ll tell you about my first year of college.”

  “College?” Gabe asked.

  “Don’t sound so damn surprised.” I pinched his nipple. “It’s downright insulting.”

  “Ouch!” I couldn’t see him in the darkness, but I felt the sheets moving as he rubbed his aching nipple. “I wasn’t trying to insult you. Damn!” He paused for a second and then asked, “What was your major?”

  I prepared myself for his reaction. “Accounting.”

  The bed shook from him laughing so hard. “What? Why?”

  “It’s a story for another night,” I told him. There was no damn way I was telling him anything else that night. My pride had taken enough blows.

  “Oh, come on.” The pout in Gabe’s voice eased the tension in my body.

  “Not tonight, darling. I have a headache,” I said primly.

  “Oh yeah?” Gabe took my words as a challenge.

  I didn’t even bother pretending that I didn’t want to feel him inside of me. I opened my arms and my soul so that his goodness and light could fill me, banishing the remnants of my past until all I felt was him. It was quite some time later when Gabe collapsed beside me and pulled my sated body to him. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel the solid thumping of his heart beneath my hand. “You matter to me, Josh.”

  Had I not already loved him then, I would’ve fallen so hard.

  “THIS IS SOME CRAZY shit,” Adrian said the next morning at the station. “I just can’t get over the street value of those drugs.” He rubbed his hand over his face and exhaled a heavy breath. “We’ve never had a bust that size in this town, or even in Carter County.”

  “I can’t believe we have no clue who put them in the locker,” I responded. “I find it awfully damn convenient the camera equipment isn’t working. How long do they think it’s been offline?”

  “They’re not sure,” Adrian replied. “It’s hard for me to imagine the drugs have been in that locker for long. If I’m a drug dealer and I hand off a stash like that to a pusher I’m expecting the money to come rolling in right away.” Adrian shook his head in disgust. “You have a lot more experience with drug busts coming from a big city like Miami. What do you think?”

  “It’s hard for me to believe a dealer is going to trust a high school kid with that kind of volume. We could be looking at a mule, but the same doubts apply.” In my experience, drug dealers only trusted teens to sell a little at a time. They had to turn in their cash before they could get more. Did that mean one of the adults in the school was involved? I had more questions than answer at that point.


  Captain Reardon approached our desks with his long purposeful stride. “I hope you miraculously crack the case today. I have a family dinner tonight and I’ll never hear the end of it,” the captain said before he returned to his office. It was the first time he ever said anything about his personal life in front of me. It was a testament to how much the drug bust weighed on his mind.

  Adrian and I grabbed another cup of coffee then headed to the school to conduct interviews with the staff and a few of the students who had lockers around the one where the drugs were found. I expected the morning to go by fast and to be rather dull; it turned out to be the exact opposite.

  Our first stop was the principal’s office. It was like any other principal’s office I had visited during my misguided youth. Principal Rogers’ office had the same boring tile floor and nondescript wall coloring as I expected to find, but the person sitting behind her desk was a surprise.

  “My name is Delaney Sampson and I’m the superintendent for the Blissville School District.” Her tone was very professional as was the handshake she offered before we settled down to business. Then shit got real. “I’ll be overseeing the interviews today due to Principal Rogers’ suspension.”

  “Suspension?” Adrian asked. His confused tone of voice matched my thoughts.

  Superintendent Sampson sat up taller, her posture looking so rigid she might break. “That’s what I said.” Her tone of voice was short, clipped, and as bitterly cold as the wind outside that day. I wondered if she was related to Deputy Dickhead when she first introduced herself. The arrogant look on her face that was identical to his negated my need to ask. Her demeanor told me that she didn’t like to be questioned or asked to repeat herself. Too damn bad.

  “I think we both know that Detective Goode heard what you said. He wasn’t confused, he was questioning,” I told her. Slipping into the role of bad cop was so damn easy for me. I had no use for misplaced arrogance and stupidity. “What we want to know, and have the right to ask,” I added so that there wouldn’t be any confusion, “is why she was suspended. Don’t give me the standard lecture that investigations involving school district personnel are kept private either.”

  “It’s to protect…”

  “No, you’re not protecting her,” I said, interrupting the spiel she was about to give me. “What you’ve done is cast suspicion on her in the community and we’d,” I gestured between Adrian and myself, “like to know why.”

  “It looks really bad for Mrs. Rogers,” Adrian added. “The largest cache of drugs in our county’s history is discovered and the principal is suspended the same day or the next.” He shook his head.

  “I’m not really concerned about your approval,” she said icily. “The fact is that someone had access to our school building and tampered with our video equipment under her watch. I’m not saying she was involved, but she was careless.”

  I disliked the woman immensely. I promised myself that it wasn’t personal and had nothing to do with Josh, but I wouldn’t have placed my hand on a bible and swore that it was the truth. “Couldn’t the same be said about you?”

  “Well, I…” She stuttered and blustered like she’d never been challenged before meeting me.

  “I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot.” Adrian held his hands up in the air, attempting to calm the situation. He was just as quick to fall into the role of good cop. “We asked, you answered. Let’s move on.” After receiving a barely perceptible nod from her, Adrian continued. “Let’s start with the students and then interview the staff who had access to the video equipment and master key to the lockers.”

  The superintendent’s reply was a brittle, “Fine.” She looked at her list and rattled off the names of the two students on the list that Mrs. Rogers made. “Let’s start with Regan.”

  Looking at a sullen, disinterested sixteen-year-old Regan Haines was like looking at myself twenty years ago. His insolence was plainly visible in his expression and by the way he slouched in his chair looking at his nails as if we weren’t in the room with him. Others might’ve been put out by his behavior, but not me. At his age, I was angry at the world because my older brother, my hero, had been a victim of a convenience store robbery gone bad. I grew angrier and angrier with every day that his killer wasn’t caught. I can honestly say that I don’t know what would’ve happened to me had my football coach not given me a good shake when I needed it most. I transferred my emotion to the sport I loved most and then later into my education so I could be the best cop I could be. I didn’t know Regan’s reason for his attitude, but I was willing to bet it was from more than just boredom.

  While his interview answers consisted of shrugs, the student who walked in after him was completely opposite. Lily Watson came into the office shaking like a Chihuahua. She took one look at Adrian and me then burst into tears.

  “I did it!” She held out her hands in front of her like she expected us to cuff her.

  Her confession took us off guard. She would’ve been the last person I suspected with her sweater set, pearls, and gray slacks. She looked like she was going to a church luncheon, not high school. I reminded myself that looks were often deceiving and my skills in that department were a bit rusty. I mean, a seventy-year-old woman got the drop on me and scrambled my brains. I once judged Josh as feminine because he had extra sway in his hips and wore vibrant clothes.

  “You’re confessing to putting the drugs in the locker next to yours, Lily?” Superintendent Sampson’s voice was as doubtful as my initial reaction to her confession.

  “Drugs? What?” Lily sounded as confused as the rest of us.

  “What exactly are you confessing to?” Sampson spoke slowly, enunciating every word carefully.

  “Well, not that,” Lily answered. She began fiddling with her pearl necklace and chewing on her lower lip. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Had she been living under a rock? Josh heard about it before I arrived on the scene, yet a student didn’t know it was going on in her own building.

  Superintendent Sampson asked, “How could you not know?”

  “Um… you see…”

  “Lily!” The superintendent’s loud, harsh voice was enough to scare me into a confession.

  “I played hooky yesterday, ma’am. I stayed up too late watching Netflix the night before instead of studying for the biology exam. It counts for thirty percent of my grade and I just couldn’t take the chance I’d fail it.” Lily began to cry again. “My mom doesn’t know I missed school yesterday. I called in and pretended to be her when I left a message on the student absentee voicemail box.”

  Superintendent Sampson let out a frustrated breath before she said, “We’ll deal with that later. These detectives are here to ask you questions about the locker between you and Regan Haines.”

  “Oh.”

  “Lily, have you seen anyone accessing that locker? Students or faculty?” Adrian asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “What about anyone selling drugs in the school?” I asked her.

  “I’m not very social. I only care about getting good enough grades to get a scholarship so I can get the hell out of here.” She raised her chin and looked at the superintendent. “I’ll gladly take whatever punishment you deem necessary for my actions yesterday, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t put that in my transcripts. I’ve had an exemplary record thus far.”

  “I’ll consider it,” Sampson said. Lily’s plea must’ve struck a chord because she sounded less like a battle ax and more like a human.

  The staff interviews were a lot less eventful and not nearly as entertaining. Each faculty member seemed to be shocked about the drugs, had no idea who was involved, and couldn’t believe that any student had connections to someone who could move that volume of drugs around. I thought the morning was a complete bust until the final two minutes of the last interview with the geometry teacher.

  “But you know,” Doug Baxter said, almost as a second thought. “There was a band concert the nig
ht before the bust so the whole town had access to the building. And if the office was unlocked, then anyone who’s gone to school here in the last twenty-five years knows where the school secretary keeps spare keys in her desk.”

  I looked over at Adrian who fell into that category. “Middle drawer on the right-hand side,” he answered without being asked.

  “Great! The whole damn town is a suspect,” I told Adrian when we were on our way back to the police station.

  “Including the secretary. She’s about Wanda Honeycutt’s age.” Adrian didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice when he brought up the name of the woman who clobbered me.

  “I don’t know why you’re so damn smug,” I told him. “She hit you too.”

  “Yeah, but not as hard.” Adrian laughed for a minute and then said, “Probably because you went all bad cop on her while I was nice.”

  “Fuck you, Adrian.” My ire only made him laugh harder. I was glad I could give him something to laugh about after a morning of interviews that gave us more questions and suspects than what we started with. “Just for that, you get to tell Cap that we’ve got nothing to go on.”

  It was my turn to laugh at Adrian’s misery, even more so when he returned from his solo trip to the captain’s office with his tail between his legs. “I was going to name my firstborn child after you, but you can fucking forget it now. I thought Gabriel or Gabriella Goode sounded like sweet names for a baby, but not anymore.”

  I suspected that Adrian was just teasing me, but just the thought that I could possibly mean that much to him moved me more than I could say. Adrian had become more than just a partner to me, he was my best friend and my brother. “Nah, Sally Ann likes Josh better and we all know who the boss is in your home. You’ll be having a Josh or a Josephine.”

  Adrian chuckled good-naturedly and I was glad to see the sting of the captain’s bite didn’t linger. “What do you have planned for tonight? Big date?”

  “Not tonight,” I replied. “Josh is taking Meredith to see Phantom of the Opera in Cincinnati for her birthday.”