Thirty-Six

I locked up the Burger Barn after Ryan left, but I didn’t want to go home. I couldn’t sleep; my brain was spinning in circles. There weren’t many options of where to go in our town after eleven. I walked over to the twenty-four-hour Pancake Palace and wedged myself into a booth.

The waitress dropped off a cup of coffee and left me alone so she could go back to comparing manicures with the hostess. I stacked the creamer containers into a pyramid, knocked them down, and then stacked them all over again.

I clicked around on my phone, trying to find information. I searched using Lucy’s name and her former school. I scrolled through various pages detailing her track success, her role in the play Oklahoma!, and her run for junior class president. Nothing useful. Of course if it were that easy, someone would have stumbled across it before now.

I pulled up her Facebook page. She didn’t post often. Her most recent post creeped me out. It was a picture of Paige with the caption good friends are never gone from our hearts. I scrolled back and realized her page started at the beginning of the school year. I leaned back. That was weird. I wondered if she had an earlier page that she’d deleted.

I watched the couple one table over. The woman would pour a drop of maple syrup onto her finger and then he would lick it off. I wondered whether they’d hook up before he went into a diabetic coma. They were the only people in the place other than a truck driver wearing a MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat sitting at the far back, shoveling forkfuls of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

I pushed the mug of coffee away from me as if it were contaminated. Was Lucy capable of killing Paige? That was pretty damn dark. I didn’t like Lucy much, but I had a hard time picturing it. But I was almost a hundred percent certain it wasn’t Ryan.

I pulled out my phone and did a quick search of the online student directory. Once I found Lucy’s number, I sent her a text. We need to talk.

Her answer came back almost immediately. Stay away from me.

I typed back furiously. I know about you and Ryan.

I folded my legs underneath me, waiting for her to answer. Nothing. I waited another minute. I’m not going away until you answer my questions.

Two more minutes ticked by. When my phone finally rang, I jumped.

“Stay away from me,” Lucy hissed into my ear.

“You and Ryan hooked up.” There was a loud clatter of plates as the busboy dumped dishes into the giant Rubbermaid tub balanced on his hip.

“How do you know about that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Paige must have been really ticked. I bet the cops would find that interesting.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucy said.

I clenched my free hand into a fist. “I want to know what happened between the two of you.”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

I paused while the waitress filled up my cup with the stale coffee that had been sitting on the burner for hours. Once she moved away, I lowered my voice. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll tell the cops you were sleeping with Paige’s boyfriend. Then I’ll tell them to check out what happened at your old school.” I crossed my fingers that she wouldn’t know I was bluffing and had no idea of the full story.

The phone was silent. The only way I knew she hadn’t hung up was that I could hear her breathing. I’d had too much coffee. My hands were shaking again.

“How dare you bring that up?” she spit.

There was a pause, and the pressure in my chest made me realize I was holding my breath.

“Did Paige threaten to tell everyone about your past?”

“Stay the hell away from me, or I’ll make you wish you had.” Lucy clicked her phone off.

I needed to talk to Drew. I glanced at the giant clock on the wall; the hands were made out of a giant knife and fork. It was after midnight. No way I could show up at her house now. She wasn’t supposed to be on the phone this late either. Screw it.

I rang her cell number, hung up after one ring, and then called back, letting it ring twice before hanging up. It had been our signal forever. If she was still up, she’d call me back if she could talk. I took a sip of the bitter coffee and then pushed it away.

My phone buzzed, skipping along the top of the table, and I snatched it up.

“When you said we’d talk later, I didn’t think you meant this late,” Drew said softly.

“I need to ask you something.”

She paused as if she sensed something was off in my voice. “Sure.”

“What did you tell Paige about Lucy?” Silence. “You still there?”

“I could get in a lot of trouble if it came out that I told anyone.”

The smell of bacon and burnt toast was making me nauseated. “I’m already in trouble. I know something happened at Lucy’s last school. And I know you thought it was important enough to tell Paige.”

Drew sighed. “This is just between us—right? I overheard my mom talking about it with one of her friends at work. There was a girl at Lucy’s old school who was a patient in the hospital, Shawna something. She was hurt pretty bad. Depending on who you believe, Lucy either pushed her down a flight of stairs on purpose or it happened by accident.”

My mouth was dry. “Why would people think Lucy did it on purpose?”

“Lucy was totally obsessed with a girl in her school, Cara. Cara hated Shawna. The police thought Lucy might have pushed Shawna down the stairs to get in good with Cara, but they couldn’t prove it. The official story was it was an accident.”

I blinked. “That’s messed up.”

“Tell me about it. My mom was pissed. She thinks if Shawna had been white, the cops would have dug harder. The thing is my mom could get in real trouble if people knew she was talking about patients outside the office.”

“But you told Paige,” I pointed out.

“It seemed to me Lucy was obsessed with her too. I felt like someone should warn her.”

And Drew liked the idea of having a secret with Paige, but I didn’t mention that.

“Do you think Lucy had something to do with what happened to Paige?” Drew asked quietly.

“I don’t know. Have you told anyone else?”

I heard her swallow. “No. My mom is going to be pissed if this comes out. She’s not supposed to talk about patients—there are serious rules about privacy.”

The waitress paused at my table again. “Anything else?” She wanted me out of there. I’d been sitting at her table for more than an hour. I shook my head, and she slid the check closer to me. “I’ll be back in a minute in case you need change.”

“I gotta go. I’ll come by tomorrow, and we can talk.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.