by Elle Thorpe
Jagger raised an eyebrow as her gaze followed my finger. “Damn, girl. I take that back. You can give me a ride.”
Without bothering to lock her car again, she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the convertible, grinning ear to ear.
“Out of the way,” she said to the kids standing around gawking. “We got places to be.” She trailed her fingers over the perfect paintwork and grinned at me over the roof. “Open it already! This is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You like cars?” I asked, hitting a button on my keys. The locks slid down without a noise.
“I like this car!” she practically sang. She slipped into the passenger seat as I got behind the wheel and started the engine.
Jagger’s eyes were huge. “Leather seats! Oh my God, they’re so soft. Put the top down!”
That was the last thing I wanted to do, but I was also kind of digging her excitement. She’d been so kind to me today. It was a kick to see someone enjoy this car in a way I never had. I’d never thought about how nice the seats were. Or how it was pretty cool to be able to take the top down and let the late summer breeze blow through my hair. I hit another button, and the roof cranked to life, folding back above our heads.
Jagger bounced excitedly on her seat, like a toddler, impatient to go to McDonald’s.
I laughed at her, then pulled the gearshift into reverse and glanced over my shoulder to check it was safe to back out.
A large body landed in my back seat, and I yelped, slamming my foot down on the brake automatically.
Banjo gave me a lopsided grin. “Told you I’d see you around. This wasn’t exactly what I meant, but hey, I’ll take it. Man, these seats are like butter.”
My brain short-circuited while I tried to form words. Eventually, I stuttered, “Wh…what are you doing?” I couldn’t quite look him in the eye. Not after last night when I’d practically thrown myself at him. That was suddenly mortifyingly embarrassing.
“Getting a lift?” he asked cheekily.
“Could have asked!”
“But you would have said no.”
“You don’t know that.” He was right. I would have, to save myself further embarrassment. Being this close to him was stirring things inside me that I needed to keep a lid on. Especially since we weren’t alone.
“Lacey, can I get a lift in your sexy-as-fuck car?”
“No!”
“See?” He grinned. “That’s why I didn’t ask!”
It was hard to keep a straight face. He was so cute with all that blond hair flopping in his eye, his smile full of mischief.
I guided the gearshift back into park. “Banjo. Get out of my car.”
“Lacey. Go out with me.”
Jagger let out a gasp from the passenger seat and then clapped her hands with glee. “Well, this just got interesting!”
I shot her a glare. “Not interesting. He’s joking.”
“No, I’m not.”
Jagger slapped me on the arm. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “He’s the hottest guy in school and the freaking quarterback. If he asks, you say yes!”
Banjo was like a rooster preening in the sun.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” another voice said. Rafe appeared on Jagger’s side of the car. “Look at you right now, Banjo. You’re fucking ridiculous. Your ego is so big I could stroke it from out here.”
Banjo grinned at him. “Come on, we all know it’s not my ego you want to stroke.”
My eyes widened. But Rafe just dumped his backpack on the ground and hoisted himself over the side of the car. He landed beside Banjo, and the two of them launched into a full-blown tussle.
“Oh my God, stop!” I yelled. How the hell had I gone from wanting nobody to see my car, to three people inside it, two who seemed to be about to launch into a fistfight? I leaned as far away from the rumbling guys as I could. “Should we get someone?” I yelped to Jagger.
She waved her hand, like it was no big deal. “Got my money on Rafe!”
Banjo paused. “Hey!”
She shrugged. “What?”
“I don’t understand what’s happening right now,” I squealed, cringing away from the two boys to avoid a wayward elbow.
The two guys eventually settled down, shoving each other into opposite corners of the car, matching grins on their faces, both breathing a little harder than they had been.
“You two done now?” I asked.
Banjo gave me an impish grin. “Sorry, pretty girl. We got carried away. I wasn’t hurting him.”
Rafe rolled his eyes while he straightened his shirt. “Like you could.”
“What the fuck is going on here?”
All four of us flinched, and when I looked in the direction of the voice, I fully expected to see a teacher standing there. That’s how much authority that statement had held. Though in hindsight, the use of ‘fuck’ probably should have given it away. This might have been Saint View, but I still doubted teachers were in the habit of dropping F-bombs. Even if it was after hours.
Colt’s black eyes raked over the scene, taking in Jagger in the front seat, Banjo and Rafe in the back. Finally, his gaze landed on me. I didn’t think it possible, but I could have sworn his eyes hardened further.
“Quit fucking around and let’s go,” he said to Banjo and Rafe. “Leave the princess alone.”
I bristled at his tone. “I’m not a princess.”
He raised one dark eyebrow. “No? Do you see anyone else around here driving a seventy-five thousand dollar car?”
“Colt—” Banjo started.
Colt cut him off. “I said, let’s go.”
There was a shuffle from the back seat, and Rafe got out, grabbing his backpack from the ground.
Banjo followed more reluctantly. “What the fuck is up your ass today?”
Colt didn’t answer. A shiver rolled down my spine. There was a power in him that I found intriguing.
But it also pissed me off that he thought so highly of himself. My fingers clenched around the steering wheel. “You don’t get to judge me.”
Jagger sucked in a tiny breath beside me. She shook her head ever so slightly.
“Untouchable,” she said beneath her breath.
Colt bent down, leaning in until we were eye to eye. “You should listen to your friend there, princess. I do whatever I want around here. If I want to judge you, then there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Is there?”
Then he ran one finger down the side of my face, starting at my temple and tracing his way along my jaw.
I knew a power play when I saw one. He expected me to back down. To flinch away.
I wouldn’t. Not now, on day one. Not ever. It took more than a handsome face who overestimated his importance to intimidate me.
So instead, I got closer. I got so close our faces were less than an inch apart. If I’d been across the parking lot and seen a guy and a girl this close, I would have assumed they were going in for a kiss. My body flushed with heat at the thought, even as I fought to keep my anger under control.
I knew what he expected.
I wasn’t going to give it to him.
“The pauper bows to the princess, Colt. You’d do well to remember that.”
And with that, I threw the car into reverse once more, slammed my foot on the gas, and shot us out of the parking space. The three guys scrambled to get out of my way, but my gaze never left Colt’s. I put the car into drive and hightailed it out of the parking lot, tires screeching, back end fishtailing, leaving the three boys behind in a cloud of black smoke.
6
Lacey
My fingers still trembled with anger when I pulled into my driveway. Jagger had said little as I’d dropped her back at a modest-looking house in the middle of Saint View’s suburban area. The house had white peeling paint but neatly tended gardens, with a few flowers, wilted from the heat of summer. I vaguely remembered promising to pick her up for school in the morning, since we’d left her car there and she’d have no rid
e, but the rest of the drive home had been a blur. Louis, the guard at the gate, had asked me something, and I hadn’t even answered him. I’d just driven through.
“Shit,” I muttered. The automatic doors on the garage opened, and I guided the car inside. I felt like a right royal asshole for ignoring Louis. He was a nice man, with three small kids—James, Ally, and Kendra— plus a wife who I’d made a chocolate cake for at Christmas, because Louis had told me that her birthday was December twenty-fifth, and she hated her birthday cake was always leftover dessert from Christmas Day. They were good, kind people.
A voice in the back of my mind whispered that perhaps that wasn’t the only reason I felt like a jerk right now. What I’d done with Colt…played on the fact I had money and he didn’t…
I clenched the steering wheel tighter. No. I wasn’t going to feel bad about that. He’d been the one to call me a princess. I’d just played into it.
Yeah. Like that really made me a hero.
Groaning, I got out of the car and opened the internal door that led to the bottom level of our house. I trudged up the stairs, my limbs heavy with guilt. That wasn’t who I was. I knew what it was like to have nothing and no one. I might not have remembered much about the years before my aunt and uncle had adopted me. But I’d gathered together enough bits and pieces of conversations to know we’d been dirt poor. My aunt and uncle often told the story about how when I arrived on their doorstep, I had nothing but the clothes on my back and a ratty teddy bear.
“Selina?” I called out. But no reply came. I didn’t call out again. Her car had been in the garage, so she was likely in bed with a migraine. I sighed. That sucked. I wanted to unload some of my day onto someone. Not all of it, obviously. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone about Colt and the shitty things we’d said to each other. Or about how I knew Banjo, and how he’d asked me out twice now. Or how Rafe had offered me drugs, not even an hour into my first day. Yeah. I wasn’t about to tell Selina any of that. It was probably better that she was asleep. At least I’d have a chance to process my feelings before I spoke to her.
I opened my bedroom door.
“Hi!”
“Oh fuck!” I yelped, jumping near out of my skin. I put my hand over my heart to calm it, while Meredith laughed at me.
“You goose,” she said from her position, sprawled out on my bed. She threw her phone down onto the mattress.
“I didn’t see your car outside.”
“I had our driver drop me off after orientation.”
“How did that go?” I cast an eye over her gray skirt and starched white shirt with the Edgely Academy logo embroidered on the pocket. “Nice uniform.”
She pushed off the bed and went to stand in front of my floor-to-ceiling mirror. She smoothed down her skirt and twisted to the left, then to the right. Eventually she wrinkled her nose. “It’s awful, isn’t it? That said…” Her gaze caught mine in the mirror. “What on earth are you wearing?”
“Seriously, does no one like this outfit?” I muttered.
Meredith grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the padded window seat. Our maid, Angelique, had opened the gauzy white curtains, and late afternoon sun streamed through the spotless window. Meredith perched on the edge of the seat, and I sat heavily beside her.
“Start talking, Lacey-Lou. I’m pretty sure this morning I heard you say you were enrolling in Saint View High.”
“I did.”
“Are you on drugs? Is this a cry for help?”
I snickered. “No. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine if you willingly enrolling in that school. I heard they have to have armed security guards because a kid was stabbed there. Rumor is, he bled out on a classroom floor.”
I hadn’t noticed if the security guards were armed, but it wouldn’t surprise me. As for a kid being murdered there… The dark expression in Colt’s eyes flashed in my mind. Who knew? I couldn’t rule it out for sure. He’d looked like he wanted to kill me as I’d peeled out of the parking lot. “While that might very well be true—”
Meredith gasped.
I ignored her. “I had to.”
She squeezed my hand so tight I yelped. “Had to? No, you did not have to. What you do have to do is burn that awful outfit. And perhaps take a decontamination shower. Who knows what you’ve picked up there. What do lice look like?” She cringed away like she could see something crawling on me.
Which was ridiculous. But I scratched absently at my head. “Someone there killed my uncle.”
Meredith’s mouth dropped open. “Back up. What now?”
“Long story. Short version is the man who carried me out was wearing a Saint View High Football shirt. And my uncle didn’t die in the fire. He was murdered first.”
Meredith froze. Then a bunch of different emotions flickered across her face, too fast for me to grasp any of them. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly.”
Her face went white.
“Sorry,” I said, not really knowing why I was apologizing, when I was the one who should be traumatized by the word. But it was in bad taste, and Meredith had always been more sensitive than me.
“So, your plan is to just go all high school detective like you’re Veronica Mars or something?”
“Do you have to say it like that? You make it sound…”
“Ridiculous?”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “What am I supposed to do, then, Mer?”
She sighed. “Okay, fine. So say I’m on board for this…whatever this is. Sting operation?”
I snorted.
“Whatever. This plan then. What exactly is your plan? You’re just going to start asking people if they’re killers in their spare time? You’re going to conduct interviews in the cafeteria?” She wrinkled her nose. “Ew, you didn’t eat the food there, did you?” Her eyes went wide. “Maybe that was their weapon of choice! Deadly high school meals!”
I glared at her, but we both dissolved into laughter. It felt morbid to joke about this, but it kept me from crying.
“Seriously. If you’re doing this, you need a plan.”
I leaned back on the windowpane and tucked my feet up beneath me. “Truthfully? I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Get into the school was my number one goal. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But now…” Now it all seemed hopeless and impulsive.
She strode across the room to my desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a legal pad. She grabbed a pen from the cup on the desk and then plonked herself down in my desk chair. “Enough of the wishy-washy attitude. You’ve committed. Let’s at least see what you can find out. Number one suspect is the football team. Right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
“How many guys is that?”
“Not a clue.”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “You were there an entire day and you didn’t even find that out?”
I shrugged.
“Christ almighty, lucky you have me.” She switched on my laptop, and after waiting for it to boot up, she brought up Saint View High’s website. “Bingo!”
I got up and stood behind her. Right there on the main page was a photo of last year’s football team.
“Trust a public school to put sports on the front page of their website,” Meredith muttered. “No names on this photo, though.”
I squinted, then stabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s Rafe. Principal’s son. And that—”
“Holy shit, is that the bartender you were making fuck-me eyes at?”
My jaw dropped open. “Excuse me? I was not making fuck-me eyes at him.” I didn’t mention the fact I’d been set to take him up to my bedroom before the police had arrived last night. Hell, how had that only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Oh, right. Maybe that was me then.” She flashed me a grin.
Jealousy surged through me. Just the tiniest bit. But it was there. I pushed it away. “His name is Banjo.”
Meredith wrote it down on the pad. “Right,
know any of these other guys?”
I shook my head.
“What about the coach’s name?”
“You think it could have been the coach?”
Meredith squinted at the screen. “I don’t think you can assume it was a student. Coaches would have team shirts. Probably half the school does, actually. If they support the team. Or like to socialize on a Friday night.”
I groaned. This had been a stupid, stupid idea.
“But let’s not get overwhelmed. Your task for this week. Find out the names of everyone in this photo.” Meredith pointed at the computer screen, jabbing her finger into each guy’s face a little too viciously for my liking. My poor monitor.
“Okay. And then what, oh fearless leader?”
She grinned. “That’s the easy bit. We’re going to stalk them.”
7
Banjo
The faded red paint on Colt’s front door was as familiar to me as breathing. I twisted the handle and let myself in without knocking. I’d been doing that for almost half my life. Ever since Augie, my brother, had pulled me from the foster care system. We had a place next door—practically identical in layout to Colt’s. All the houses on this street were. They were all government housing. The rents were subsidized, which was the only way Augie had been able to afford a place of his own and raise me until I was old enough to contribute to the monthly payments.
Willa, Colt’s mom, looked up from flipping through a Walmart brochure when I wandered into her kitchen. At her warm smile, I detoured to her side, and put my arms around her tiny frame, engulfing her in a hug that lifted her off the floor. She yelped but hugged me back. I set her down and leaned on the kitchen counter, picking at the chipped countertop.
“How are you, B? Everything good?”
She’d been asking me that question for eight years now. When I’d first moved here, and started playing with Colt out on the street, Willa had been a good head taller than me. I’d long since towered over her, though she still liked to fuss as if we were still those ten-year-olds with scraped knees. She never failed to ask how I was or if I needed anything.
