“I’m looking for Victoria. Have you seen her?”
“Yeah, she played the last game with us. Took off with Abel when they lost though. I fucking rock at this game, by the way.”
“Well, if riding falls through, you can always be a cornholer. Any idea where they went?”
“House, I think. She had to pee and refused to go in the woods. Said she didn’t want poison ivy all up her ass.”
“Yeah, no one wants that.” I pin Bryce and my sister with separate glares. “Be home on time.”
Cassidy salutes, and Bryce nods earnestly. I leave them to their game, hoping I won’t regret it.
I find Victoria sitting atop the thin metal railing that rings the trailer’s tiny porch. She’s staring at the sky and swinging her feet in a way that makes me think of Humpty Dumpty. I approach carefully, afraid of startling her into falling from her narrow perch. “Hey, Vic.”
Victoria’s eyes find my face, and there’s a pause while she struggles to focus. “Oh, Kennedy. Hi. Cool party, right?”
“Yeah, it’s great. You got a sec? I was wondering if I could talk to you.”
“I’m just waiting for Abel.” She waves a breezy hand, and the motion almost sends her toppling. She laughs, catching herself just in time, and slides off the railing onto unstable feet. “Screw him though, right? Boys. Fuck ’em.”
Before I can respond to that burst of vehemence, we’re forced to squeeze to the side as the trailer door slams open and disgorges a pack of laughing boys.
“See,” Victoria says, slurring the word into a shh sound. She crinkles her nose. “Boys.”
“That they are.” I have exactly zero interest in whatever boy drama Victoria has brewing and wonder if she’s in any state to answer serious questions. The best I can hope is that she’s a chatty drunk and that the booze will loosen her up enough to tell the secrets she kept during our interview. “Want to take a walk?”
Victoria hooks an overly friendly arm through mine and leans heavily on me. “Yes. Let’s go away from the boys.”
I lead her down the steps and away from the crowd, letting her prattle about how she thinks Abel’s cheating on her and how he’s definitely getting high right now even though he promised not to. For someone who doesn’t want to talk about boys, she sure has a lot to say on the subject.
I wait until we’re at the edge of the forest, well away from the ears of the others, and ask, “Vic, can I ask you a couple questions about Emma?”
She staggers a bit and tightens her hold on my arm. “Oh god, Emma. I just wanted to forget Emma for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Is that awful of me? I thought a few drinks would quiet her down a little, right? But she’s still there, still in my head.”
I keep walking, knowing motion can sometimes make it easier to talk. I also hope it has a sobering effect on drunk girls. “When was the last time you saw Emma?”
“The game. It was so bad. We got our asses handed to us.”
I don’t want a rehash of the entire game and forestall the possibility by asking, “What happened after the game? Did you guys go out? Get food or something?”
“Emma was supposed to come back to my house. We were gonna have a spa night—do masks and manicures and have ice cream.”
“But you didn’t, did you?” I ask it gently, without judgment, but Victoria moans like she’s been punched in the stomach. I really hope she’s not about to barf.
Victoria lurches to a stop, drops my arm, and sinks to the ground in a heap.
I swallow a sigh and crouch beside the weeping girl. “It’s okay. Just breathe. You can talk to me.”
“I lied.” Victoria draws in a hitching breath and sniffles hard. “I lied. There was no sleepover. There was supposed to be, but Emma canceled at the last minute, told me to cover for her. I was a little pissed—I’d bought all sorts of stuff for our spa night—but I did it anyway. I always covered for her, right? I figured she was meeting Owen like she usually did.”
“But she didn’t?”
“She told me not to mention anything to him and was real serious about it. I should’ve told though. I should’ve told someone how weird she was being. The texts didn’t sound like her at all.” She curls in on herself, almost disappearing in the dark. “I let my best friend kill herself. I gave her the chance to sneak off instead of helping her.”
I groan inwardly. I have no desire to do what I’m about to, but it might be the only thing that jolts any sense into the person who may have been the last one to talk to Emma before she died. On the plus side, Victoria is drunk enough that she might not remember this conversation anyway. It’s a risk I’ll have to take. “Vic, I’m not so sure Emma killed herself.”
The result is instantaneous. Victoria flies up from her fetal position and grabs at me in the dark. “What do you mean? It was an accident? Or did someone else kill her? Did I let my friend get murdered?”
Oh shit. That’s not the road I meant to send her down. “You didn’t do anything,” I assure her. “None of this is your fault.”
“Then why do I feel so awful?” She’s close to dissolving again.
“Because brains are stupid.” I vow never to do a drunk interview again. “Do you still have the texts?”
“Yeah, of course. And screenshots of all our DMs and like two voice mails from when she called. I can’t delete it.”
“No, of course not. Can I see the texts? It might be helpful.”
“You think? Really?” The hope in her voice is heartbreaking.
“It’s possible.”
Victoria fumbles around and manages to free her phone from her back pocket. She hits the home button, and the glow of the screen is blinding in so much blackness. She adjusts the brightness, squinting against the glare, and opens her texts. She finds the correct ones and hands the device over. “See? It’s weird. It doesn’t sound like her at all.”
I scroll to the start of the day of Emma’s disappearance and read a string of hyperbolic messages about how she was on her period and wanted to kill her mother for not letting her have chocolate in the house and how she might literally die before she could get an ice cream bar at lunch. Next is a detailed list of self-care plans for the evening’s sleepover and messages about leaving class early to get changed for the game because she was sooooo bored in Directed Study.
The time stamps show a jump of several hours between that text and the next, and Victoria’s right. There’s a shift, however slight. Emma’s earlier texts were run-on sentences, punctuated only with strings of emojis, but the two texts that come after are clipped to the point of being taciturn.
The first reads: Can’t make it. Sorry. Pretend I’m there.
Victoria had responded by asking: But spa night!!! [crying face] Is it Owen? Again?
Emma’s response was delayed by nearly ten minutes. No. Do not mention this to him. If anyone asks, I was with you. Will explain later.
Victoria had responded: fine, whatev.
I know the period meant she was pissed. There are six more outgoing texts from Victoria, inquiring about her friend’s whereabouts the following day and asking her to check in with varying degrees of concern.
But nothing else from Emma.
I hand the phone back, ready to bet my arm that the final texts from Emma had been sent under duress or from another person entirely. The killer. What I wouldn’t give to lay my hands on Emma’s phone.
“See?” Victoria asks, still sniffling. “It’s like she was possessed.”
“It is weird,” I agree. “Vic, is there anything else you haven’t told me about Emma? Anything at all?”
“Like what?” Victoria, in her drunkenness, might be eager to help, but she’s not very good at it.
“Do you know if she was into drugs at all? Hanging out with anyone new? Or anyone that was bothering her?”
“I don’t think so. She wasn’t like that. She was perfect. She went out with Owen and hung out with me and Lil. She had her internship. I mean, maybe something happened
there—her aunt would know—but I think Em would’ve told us about any creepers. She was really happy there. She was dying to be on TV.”
I hear her clap her hand over her mouth at the turn of phrase, but I pretend not to notice. “That’s what I heard.”
“You wanted it too,” Victoria says in a way that most definitely is not a question. “That’s what Emma said. She was glad she beat you. I know she’s—she was—my best friend, but she could be like that sometimes, right? Everything was a competition for her.”
I do an acknowledge-and-set-aside with the flashes of jealousy threatening to crop up, reminding myself that I have plenty of mentors, run my own news site, and don’t have to be confined by corporate standards. On good days, I can convince myself I dodged a bullet, but sitting in Jacob’s field with a tearful Victoria, I can’t help but wonder if that bullet had been more literal than I thought.
The boy decided junior year would be different. God had come through on His end of the bargain, and the boy had read all the promised pages and more. He sought out the Old Testament, just to have new pages to read, to prove how grateful he was. Without consulting anyone, he took the clippers they used on the dog and buzzed his head down to the scalp. He had an okay-shaped head under all that hair, and his eyes looked wider than ever. Almost nice, even. He told his mother he wanted contact lenses instead of the plastic glasses he hid behind and let his sister choose new back-to-school clothes since he had outgrown everything he owned.
He didn’t just look like a new person; he felt like one. For the first time ever, he was optimistic about the start of school.
At first, no one noticed, or if they did, they didn’t say so. It wasn’t until first period when they were waiting for the teacher to get started that he heard someone whisper, ‘Hey, who’s the new kid?’ and his heart soared. He felt reborn. He turned around to see who had been wondering and locked eyes with the actual new kid. A girl. A pretty girl.
One of the monsters caught him looking and sneered, then told him to fuck off. His face flushed, straight to the top of his freshly shorn head. His overgrown body suddenly felt too big for the desk, crammed in tight like the boy in the locker. He was barely aware of the teacher talking as he silently asked God why. Why did this feel so much like it used to?
When I pull in to school on Monday, I know something is very wrong.
For one thing, the buses driving away from the school are still full of students, but that’s not what sets the hair on my neck on end.
It’s the row of police cars, along with an ambulance and a fire truck, that are parked outside the school’s entrance. Teachers stand in small huddles near cars and along the walkways, and I could almost believe it’s a fire drill if not for the early hour, the fleeing buses, and the fact that the ambulance has its lights flashing.
“What the hell?” I park in our usual spot and turn to Cassidy. “Stay here. Check social media, see if you can find out—”
“Text from Mom,” Cassidy says. “School’s canceled. Unspecified emergency, details will be released at a later time.”
I open the door and hop out. “Start texting. See what rumors are out there. Someone knows what’s happening.” I hope whatever drama is unfolding is enough to get Kylie to ping the Monitor’s inbox. “I’m going to see what I can find out.”
I debate walking straight into the building, but the police officer at the door sees me coming and shouts, “No school today. You can head home.”
“What’s going on?” I ask in my best on-air voice, still striding purposefully toward the entrance.
He holds up a hand, halting me with a palm. “Afraid I can’t tell you that. Also, can’t let you in the building, miss. I’m sure the principal will be in touch later today. For now, head home. Try to enjoy your day off.”
I don’t push it. Not yet, anyway. I scan the pods of teachers, realizing how distraught they look. Several dab at their eyes as if they’re crying.
My chest constricts. Teachers in tears before their classes have even started can’t possibly bode well. I spot Mr. Monroe near the tennis courts and jog over, the hammering of my heart having nothing to do with the burst of exercise. “What’s going on?”
Mr. Monroe looks slightly taken aback. “Kennedy, dear, we’re canceled today. There’s been an accident. You shouldn’t still be here. A call went out.”
The softness of his voice, the fact that he calls me “dear” instead of “Ms. Carter,” turns my knees to rubber. “Yeah, my mom texted just as we got here. What’s going on?”
Visions of school shootings whiz through my head like bullets, but surely we would’ve heard about that. The cancellation call would’ve said if there was an armed intruder; there would’ve been barricades and more cops. Maplefield doesn’t have a large police department, but surely the state cops would send cars if there had been a shooting.
My phone buzzes with a text alert. It’s Ravi. The fuck is going on? We got sent home!
I don’t reply.
“Mr. Monroe, please. What’s going on?” He smiles that sad smile adults think is sympathetic but is mostly just patronizing. Anger at being kept in the dark, at being treated like a child, is overriding the lizard-brain fear about who the ambulance is for. “I have a right to know what’s going on. As a student and as a reporter. The Monitor’s readers will expect a story.”
He meets my eyes. “And you’ll get it to them. Just not yet.” He shakes his head, breaking our gaze. “You’re not gonna want this one, Carter.”
The rubber band feeling in my knees intensifies, but I keep the on-air mask on. “Why not?”
“We can’t discuss it yet.”
“Off the record?”
He gives me a look. “At all. Look around. You see any other press here? No.” He holds an arm out as if to guide me back to the parking lot. “Let it rest, Carter. Take your sister home. There will be plenty of time for stories later.”
“This is obstruction,” I say, but Mr. Monroe only chuckles.
“Get used to it. Uncooperative witnesses and tight-lipped police forces are facts of investigative life.”
“Can you at least tell me if we’re having school tomorrow?”
“To my knowledge, yes, but at this point, I know little more than you do.”
“Which is still more.”
When he doesn’t offer anything else, I turn to go. I know when I’m being stonewalled and hope Cassidy has learned something through the rumor mill.
I consider ducking around the back of the building to sneak in that way, but Mr. Monroe is still watching me. I wave at him, more to show I know he’s thwarting me than in farewell, and pick a route that goes by the school entrance instead of straight to the car.
And luck is finally on my side. The officer who had been manning the door is gone.
I’m about to go in when I see the EMTs coming down the hall, a stretcher between them and the cop who’d banished me walking alongside it. The EMTs move a lot slower than the ones on TV, and I wonder if maybe they hadn’t been needed after all.
I step out of the door and into the bushes to make room for the trio—and to avoid being caught—and watch as the cop holds the door open and the first EMT backs out, guiding her end of the stretcher through the opening. The stretcher is draped in black.
No, not draped.
Something black rests on the stretcher, atop the white sheet. Something big.
The second EMT emerges, and the cop lets the door whoosh shut.
I don’t realize how far I’ve backed into the bushes until a branch scratches my cheek. I brush it away, barely noticing. All I can focus on is the stretcher being loaded into the back of the ambulance and the body bag that’s securely strapped to it.
I drive home in a fog as Cassidy runs through the rumors she’s dug up: a gas leak; a shooting; an electrical fire; Henry bit someone; someone died; Ms. Larson died. I don’t confirm that she’s right—someone did die.
I texted Ravi to meet me at home, and he’s wait
ing when we arrive.
“Any news?” he asks.
I give a tight shake of my head as I wait for Cassidy to transfer herself out the car. The conversation I need to have with Ravi is not for her ears.
As she wheels herself up the ramp—she always insists on going first, even though she never has the key—she says, “Savannah and Janice are coming over. Can Bryce come too?”
“Negative, Ghost Rider.” I unlock the front door and let her go through. “Savannah and Janice fine, but I’m not being responsible for you having boys over without the parentals’ permission.”
Cassidy pouts. “You get to have Ravi over. How is that even fair?”
“Because there’s exactly zero chance that I’m gonna make out with Ravi. Or worse.”
“Hey,” Ravi says. “I resent that. I’m very make-out-with-able.”
“You kind of are,” Cassidy says, and he winks at her.
“Cass, that’s gross. He’s like family.”
“Again with the resentment,” he says.
My patience for the whole conversation is fraying rapidly. “Look, Savannah and Janice only. I’ll give you takeout money. Get it delivered. I’ll let Mom know you’re here and with who. Have Bryce over for dinner if you want.”
“Can we have takeout for dinner too?”
“Not my division. That’s Mom’s call. If Bryce’s coming over, let’s hope so, for his sake.”
“Where are you going?”
“Out. With Ravi. Call me if you need me. Just don’t burn the house down or anything.”
Cass salutes. “Captain Fun-Stealer till the end.”
“House fires—not as fun as you’d think,” Ravi says while I go raid my cash stash. “The mess alone, plus the paperwork. You want small fires. Like dumpsters. Or trash cans.”
“Not helping!” I shout from the hall.
“Trash fires only—got it,” Cassidy says.
I return and hand her a pile of fives that she takes with a wicked smile.
“Oooh, maybe I’ll buy drugs with this.”
I glare at her. “You are the literal worst.”
Bury the Lead Page 15
