Thirty-Three

The next morning the scene outside school was surreal. I got off the bus and stood there taking it in. There were trucks parked on the street with satellite dishes on top, each emblazoned with a different network affiliate name. An alphabet soup of media. They must have driven here from all over, drawn by the story. A group of reporters stood around in crisply starched clothes, all checking their hair. Our tiny town had hit the big time.

I rubbed my face. My eyes were dry and scratchy. I cried so long last night that they were dried out.

Then there had been the dreams. Over and over, I woke up with the image of myself raising a knife above an already bleeding and dying Paige. My right arm was sore, most likely from gripping an imaginary murder weapon all night. It wasn’t hard to understand—I felt guilty. If I’d told people where she was earlier, she wouldn’t be dead. I hadn’t killed her, but I hadn’t stepped forward with everything I knew either.

Packs of reporters clustered across the street, trolling for people willing to give a reaction on the record. Suddenly everyone had been one of Paige’s best friends. They positioned for camera time and cried on cue. The front fence had morphed into a creepy memorial complete with flowers, teddy bears, and notes woven into the links.

Paige’s abduction had been the most exciting thing to happen at our school, and her murder took it to an entirely new level. People vibrated with excitement.

I gave the front door a wide berth. The last thing I wanted was to be caught on camera. The media didn’t need my face; they had my mom. I’d tried to convince her that she shouldn’t talk to any reporters, but I didn’t stand a chance. She kept saying how horrible the whole thing was, but when I got home from getting rid of the burner phone, she’d already heard from two publicists who wanted to represent her.

Last night I’d lain in bed and tried to figure out if I should go to the cops and confess. This was murder, after all, but no matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t see how talking to the police would help. I had no idea who’d killed her, and if I came forward, there was the very real chance the police would blame me. The only plan I had was to keep my mouth shut and pray that whoever killed her didn’t know I was involved. Or figured I wasn’t worth the hassle if I was keeping quiet. It was a shitty plan, but it was the best I’d come up with so far.

I stepped into the flow of the hallway as everyone picked up speed before the last bell. People moved away from me like I was contaminated. It was one thing to have a touch of psychic ability. Being connected to murder was a different animal altogether. That wasn’t cool. It was creepy. The crowd parted as Drew barreled toward me.

“I texted you a thousand times.” She threw herself into my arms. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I bit my lower lip. “Listen, about the stuff I said when you came over yesterday—”

She waved off whatever I was about to say. “Don’t. I was being an idiot. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re all right.”

I nodded, my throat tightening. “I’m sad for Paige’s family.”

“I bet,” a voice mumbled behind me.

Drew and I both whipped around. Lucy stood there throwing stuff in her locker.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

Drew rubbed my upper arm while shooting Lucy a nasty look. “Everyone’s just shocked at the news.”

Lucy snorted. “What shocks me is that the police don’t think it’s weird you and your freak-show mom knew so much about Paige.”

Drew sucked in a breath. Dougie, who was standing next to her, made a low whistling sound. Before I could think of a response, Mr. Lester’s voice boomed out.

“Lucy Lam, that is enough,” Mr. Lester barked. Everyone in the hall froze. Drew’s eyes were wide, and her hand covered her mouth as if she were a witness to a drive-by shooting.

Lucy started to say something, but stormed away down the hall instead.

“Okay, people, move along,” Mr. Lester said, just as the bell rang. “Drew, give me a minute with Skye.” She looked at me to make sure I was okay, and I nodded.

Mr. Lester directed me into his office. Ms. Brew was nowhere to be seen. “Let me make you a cup of tea.”

“I don’t need anything.” Lucy had basically accused me of murder in front of the entire student body. I swallowed hard to keep a sudden rush of tears back. The fact I felt like crying made me irate. I didn’t want to give a shit what Lucy thought of me, but apparently I did. I hated this town, and I still wanted everyone to like me.

Mr. Lester fussed with his kettle. “It’s no problem to whip up a cup; I’d already boiled water for myself. Besides, I’ve always believed tea makes everything a bit better.” He passed me a mug. I wrapped my hands around the hot ceramic to keep them from shaking. I didn’t want to drink it, but if it had been possible to crawl inside and let the hot water rush over me, I would have.

“This is a hard situation. We’re bringing in extra grief counselors. But you should feel free to come directly to me.”

He acted like he was a pro at handling these kinds of situations, when I knew nothing like this had ever happened at our school before. He was making up what to do the same as the rest of us. Relying on what we’d seen in movies and on TV shows to figure out how to respond.

“People think I did something to Paige,” I said.

“No. That’s not true,” Mr. Lester rushed to say. “Everyone knows that you and your mom were doing everything you could to bring Paige home safe.”

I wondered if it was hard for Mr. Lester to continually see the best in everyone.

“Lucy doesn’t believe that,” I said.

Mr. Lester took a deep breath. “Lucy has her own issues that likely color how she’s dealing with this news.”

I sat up straighter. “What kind of issues?”

Mr. Lester tugged on his beard. “I can’t say, but she and Paige had a complicated friendship. And at your age, people tend to feel invincible, so this kind of tragedy hits extra hard. I’m certain once everything has had a chance to calm down, things will look different.” He patted my shoulder.

The tea sent up steamy clouds of bergamot and vanilla, and I breathed them in deeply. I took a sip. It was still too hot, and it burned my mouth, making me wince.

I let my eyes fill with tears. “I guess I’m more upset than I thought.”

Mr. Lester passed me the box of tissues.

I blotted my face and sniffled. “Thanks.”

He smiled. “No problem.” He leaned forward. “Would you like to talk about how you’re feeling?”

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Of course.”

I lightly touched my temple. “I have a terrible headache. I didn’t sleep well last night and then with everything today . . .” I sniffed again, attempting to look sad enough for him to feel bad, but not so sad that he felt we had to dissect my feelings.

“If you head down to the nurse, she’ll give you some Tylenol.”

“It’s just, her office is right by the cafeteria,” I said. “I don’t want to see a bunch of people when I’m like this.” I motioned to my face. “All of them wondering what’s wrong with me.” I rolled my eyes. “I know I’m being stupid.”

Mr. Lester slapped his thighs and stood. “I think you’re entitled to be a bit sensitive today. I’ll pop down and pick up some pain relievers for you. Until then, you relax here.”

“Thanks, Mr. L,” I said.

He smiled and waved his finger in my face, the cedar smell of his cologne filling my nose. “No problem. But don’t go telling everyone you got this rock star treatment, or people will think you’re my favorite.”

Great. Now I could add guilt on top of paranoia. I counted to sixty after he left. I stood and moved toward the filing cabinet. The top drawer was cracked open. My hand hovered over the handle, but I couldn’t seem to bring myself to grab it. I was certain as soon as I did Mr. Lester would suddenly return, remembering that he had a bottle of Tylenol in his desk. The only times I allowed myself to go into his cabinet before were when I knew he had a meeting or was out of the building. Doing it when he was just down the hall seemed reckless. I could perfectly picture his face if he caught me going through the student files. Betrayal. Disappointment. Suspicion of what else I might be capable of doing.

Do it.

Sweat poured down my back. My hand shot out and yanked the drawer open. It came out so fast that the entire cabinet tilted. I shoved my leg forward to keep it from falling over. My knee slammed into the metal side and pain radiated up into my thigh, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I glanced quickly over my shoulder to make sure I was still alone. Then my fingers flew over the files, the order of the alphabet momentarily completely erased from my memory.

Finally, I spotted Lucy’s file and pulled it out. I flipped through pages of test scores and grades. My finger trailed down the individual sheets of paper as I looked for something to jump out at me.

Bingo.

Around the holidays, she and Paige had been brought in to talk to Lester because of a fight they had in the locker room. I knew I had remembered something from Paige’s file, but I’d never looked in Lucy’s. There were more details of the fight in hers. It said that it hadn’t been really violent: there had been screaming, some hair pulling, and Paige had pushed Lucy. Neither of them would say what the fight was about, but Lester had indicated he thought a boy was involved. Lester had written something about “competitive friendship” and “lack of communication skills.” I squinted to make out his handwriting. There was something that, despite Lucy’s past, he had no further concerns. What did that mean?

There was a note that Lester had followed up a week later and both of them had insisted they’d made up—good as new. I had my doubts about that. Neither of them struck me as the type to forgive and forget. I flipped forward to the end of the file and saw there was a manila envelope from Lucy’s old school stuffed in the back. It was marked CONFIDENTIAL in a bright red stamp across the back flap, but it had been opened before. I pulled out the sheet inside and scanned it quickly.

Holy shit.

Lucy had been hiding a lot more than a hookup with her friend’s boyfriend. She hadn’t transferred here because our school had more AP classes; she’d been kicked out of her old school. I flipped the sheet over, looking for more information. All it said is that she was being expelled for “violence against another student and concerns for the emotional impact of Lucy remaining in the current toxic environment.”

There was a note scribbled on the bottom of the sheet in pencil noting “no criminal charges filed.”

My heart thudded in my chest. Did the police know about this? If there hadn’t been charges, it was possible her record was sealed. If Lucy had a history of violence, and she and Paige had it out over Ryan, who knew what she might be capable of doing.

There was a sound in the hall, so I stuffed the paper back in the file and slammed it shut. I’d answered one question and raised a whole bunch of new ones.