CHAPTER TEN
There’s nothing like Gulliver striding through the land of the Lilliputians to get a girl to start worrying about herself. Roxy’s invasion of Kiddie Land isn’t at the level of the cops taking Max in for questioning on a murder case.
But nobody likes to be fired.
Tonight I’m assigned to the kiddie version of the Hurricane. It’s actually pretty lame, unless you’re thirty-six inches tall, the minimum height requirement. The ride ended a minute or so ago and everybody cleared out except for the little guy in the lead car.
“C’mon, Johnny.” A skinny girl about ten years old stands beside the car, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Time to get out.”
Johnny sits tight. He’s a tow-headed kid with chubby cheeks and big eyes. He can’t be more than four or five. “No! Want to go again.”
This is the least favorite part of my job. With Roxy approaching to sack me, though, the upside is I won’t have to deal with difficult kids much longer.
“People are waiting, bud,” I tell Johnny. “If you want to ride again, you have to go to the back of the line.”
Fat tears roll down his cheeks. I wonder if he’s related to one of the DQ Twins.
“Tell you what. You can wear my Kiddie Land hat while you wait.” The ball cap is orange and ugly. Roxy dictated that every Kiddie Land ride operator must have one on at all times. “Sound good?”
Johnny thrusts out his lower lip, thinks a moment, then takes a hat. He looks better in it than I do, even though the hat is about two sizes too big. He’s heading for the back of the line when Roxy reaches me.
“I saw you give that kid your hat.” Roxy will probably use a pattern of insubordination as grounds for firing me. I brace myself. She gives a short nod. “Well done.”
“What?”
“You handled that exactly right, Jade. I’m glad you’re part of the Midway Beach Carnival family.”
She doesn’t care that I think she’s an evil, lying bitch? Well, if she’s not going to get into what happened at my house, neither am I. “Gee, thanks.”
She flashes her teeth in what could pass for either a smile or a snarl. “Everything going okay tonight?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I heard some cops were around earlier. Know what they were doing here?”
The theme song from Halloween, with its repetitive single notes, sounds on my phone. At my most suspicious, I downloaded the snippet of music and set it as a text tone for Max. Relief hits me hard. If Max is texting, he’s not under arrest.
“I have no idea,” I lie.
“Having cops around makes people nervous.” Roxy chomps down on her gum. I’m starting to hate the smell of wintergreen. “Like the carnival isn’t a safe place to be.”
“Some people feel safer when the police are around.”
“Naive people.” Roxy stares at me hard, her eyes like twin black beads. “Keep up the good work, Jade.”
When she’s gone, I make sure all the riders are strapped in and start the roller coaster. As soon as the ride’s under way, I get out my phone, much more interested in finding out what Max has to say than in analyzing why Roxy didn’t fire me.
Not enough evidence to hold me, his text reads. Turning in early. Talk tomorrow.
Is this some kind of joke? It’s so early that Kiddie Land’s still packed with children who probably go to bed at eight o’clock. I text Max back with a reminder there could be a Ringer out there that we need to find. There’s no reply.
After the carnival shuts down for the night, I talk Becky into driving past Max’s place. His white pickup is in front of the duplex and the place is dark, as though he really is asleep. Pounding on his door needs to wait until the next morning.
At a little past nine a.m., after sneaking out of the house to avoid my mom and Uncle Landon, I rap my fists against the cheap wood. When there’s no answer, I pummel the door harder.
“I’m coming already,” Max calls in a loud, agitated voice. He pulls open the door and scowls at me. “What?”
His brown hair is mussed, locks of it falling across his forehead. He wears a rumpled T-shirt and boxer shorts, and his skin has that rosy quality like he just got out of bed. My irritation at him fades. He must have been exhausted if he slept for twelve straight hours.
“What kind of way is that to treat your girlfriend?” I put a hand on my hip. “Don’t I get a good morning kiss?”
I’m teasing. Sort of.
He rubs at his bleary eyes. “As much as I’d like that, trust me, you don’t want one until I brush my teeth.”
He opens the door wide to admit me into the duplex and then disappears into the bathroom to take care of his morning breath. The living area is spotless aside from a crumpled fast food bag on the kitchen table. I hardly have time to snoop around before Max emerges from the bathroom. His hair’s combed, but he’s still in his boxers. I feel myself blush even as my eyes dip. His leanly muscled legs look good. Really good.
“How ’bout that kiss?” he asks with a typical Max grin.
Heat floods my face. “First we’ve got things to talk about.”
He laughs softly. “Okay, talk first, kiss later.”
That’s not what I meant. Precisely. It’s an effort to get my mind back on track. Oh, yes. The cops. The insinuation. The interrogation. “What happened at the police station last night?”
Max leans back against a wall and crosses his feet at the ankles. His dark coloring is in stark contrast to the white wall. “I told you in my text. The cops didn’t have enough evidence to hold me.”
“Why did they pick you up in the first place?”
“They say they have an eyewitness who saw me leave the hotel room.” He sounds matter of fact. “They leaned on me hard, but I didn’t admit to being there.”
“I didn’t tell them!”
“I never said you did.”
“We need to find out who it was.” I have a half-formed plan to pump Officer Wainwright for information. He’s already proven he has a big mouth.
“I already know,” Max says. “One of the cops had some paperwork in front of him when he was questioning me. Turns out I’m pretty good at reading upside down.”
“Who was it?”
“Maia Shelton.”
“Maia? Are you sure she’s the eyewitness?” It seems like she would have mentioned something about that when we were at the mall. “You know what a big gossip she is. Could she have reported something somebody told her?”
“Could be.”
“We need to talk to her. Right now.” I flick my eyes over him. “As soon as you get dressed.”
A soft growling noise comes from Max’s stomach. “I need some cereal first.”
“You get dressed,” I tell him. “I’ll pour.”
The cereal box is on the kitchen counter, and the milk is in the refrigerator. I find a bowl in the cupboard and cart everything to the kitchen table. The crumpled bag I noticed earlier is from a fast-food restaurant that’s open until two a.m. during the summer months for those midnight cheeseburger cravings. Beside the bag is a receipt. I pick up the receipt, check out the time and date stamp and curse myself for being so trusting.
“Did you find the cereal?” Max comes out of the bedroom in shorts and a T-shirt, his step faltering when he notices me standing stiffly beside the table. “What’s wrong?”
“What did you do last night after the cops let you go?” I demand.
“I already told you. I came home and crashed.” He’s an adept liar. He even looks me in the eyes while he spins his tale.
I hold up the receipt. “It’s got a time stamp, Max. You picked up food right before midnight last night.”
He winces and rubs the side of his nose. “It’s not the way it looks.”
“If it looks like you lied to me, then it’s exactly how it looks.”
Max says nothing.
“Aren’t you going to explain?”
“I want to, but I can’t.” He comes across the
room and reaches out, touching my cheek. “Just trust me, okay?”
I knock his hand away. “How do you expect me to trust you when you lie to me? How can I even be sure you didn’t kill Bigelow?”
“Because you know me, Jade.” He gazes deep into my eyes, as though he’s willing me to believe in him. “You know what kind of person I am deep inside.”
“How would I know that?”
“You just do,” he says.
My chest feels tight, and it’s suddenly hard to draw in breath. The walls of the duplex seem like they’re closing in on me. I’ve got to get out of here and away from Max. “I changed my mind. I’m going to Maia’s alone.”
I bang out the door, surprised that he doesn’t follow me and spew more lies. I hop on my bike and pedal furiously for the two miles to Maia’s house, thinking that Max is wrong. All I know about him for sure is that his story about being a missing person checks out with the Greensboro police. He could have made up everything else.
It irks me that, despite everything, I do trust Max about one thing. Not for a second do I believe he had anything to do with Stuart Bigelow’s death.
Mrs. Shelton answers the door when I reach Maia’s house. In a short white tennis skirt and a sleeveless hot-pink razorback shirt, she looks tan and fit. She gives me a bland smile. “Can I help you with something?”
“Hey, Mrs. Shelton. It’s me, Jade.”
Her delicate brows knit together.
“Jade,” I repeat. “You know, Maia’s friend since the first grade.”
“Oh, Jade. Yes, of course. You kids grow so fast, it’s hard to keep up.” She acts like she hasn’t seen me in years instead of a few weeks ago. “You must be here to visit Maia.”
“That’s right. Can you get her for me?”
“I would, dear. But I think she’s still sleeping.”
It’s past ten o’clock. Maia, though, is one of those rare teenagers who never stays in bed past eight a.m. Becky and I got so annoyed at being awakened by texts last summer that we staged an intervention. Maia had the perfect solution: Put your phone on vibrate at bedtime.
“Can you check for me? I really need to talk to her.”
Mrs. Shelton glances at her watch. It’s not a Rolex but it looks sleek, silver and expensive. On her other wrist is a diamond tennis bracelet. “I’m running late or I would. How about you check for yourself?” She steps back to let me inside the house, then picks up her paisley tennis bag and water bottle. “Hope you girls have a nice visit.”
Mrs. Shelton hurries down the sidewalk on her cute white and pink tennis shoes. From the back, she looks more like a teenager than a woman who’s at least forty. Maia says her mom spends all her time working out, shopping and going out with friends. Mrs. Shelton did so well in the divorce settlement she’ll never have to work another day in her life.
The inside of the house smells like furniture polish and air freshener. It’s quiet, like nobody’s home. My sandals make soft thudding noises on the tiled floor as I cross the foyer to the carpeted stairs. On impulse, I turn my cell phone to vibrate in case I get an unexpected call. It belatedly occurs to me that’s illogical. If Maia’s asleep, I intend to wake her. What difference would it make if a ringing phone did it for me?
Maia’s bedroom is on the second level. The carpet looks so pristine that I take off my shoes before I start the climb. When I reach the top step, so as not to freak her out, I call, “Maia. It’s Jade.”
She doesn’t respond. The door to her bedroom is closed like she really might be asleep. Tough. I need answers more than she needs sleep. I rap on her door three times. “Maia? Are you in there, Maia?”
The answering silence is absolute. Cracking open the door, I peek inside the bedroom.
My retinas feel like they’ve caught fire. I’ve told Maia this before, but I’d never be able to sleep in a room with a red accent wall. She laughed and said the red wall goes great with her black furniture. The bedspread she ordered online is shot through with both colors. Her bed is neatly made, matching black and red pillows leaning against the headboard. There’s a sickly sweet smell that could be from the dying chrysanthemums on her black lacquer dresser.
“Maia?”
The bedroom has an en-suite bathroom. The door’s open. Like the bedroom, it’s empty. Had Maia taken off this morning before her mother was up and around? Had she even slept in her bed last night? But surely her mother would notice if Maia hadn’t come home. Wouldn’t she?
I’m about to leave the room when I remember Maia’s walk-in closet. I can’t think of a single reason she’d hide in there but open the door anyway. The closet, of course, is empty. I’m about to turn away when something catches my eye at the back of the closet between a gap in the clothes. Something on the wall. Frowning, I switch on the closet light, venture forward and push back the hangars for a better look.
It’s a photo collage of Hunter. Most of the pictures appear to be a few years old, as though they were taken around the time Maia and Hunter were dating. In every photo, Hunter’s face is crossed out in black magic marker with an X.
At the mall, Maia let it slip that Hunter broke up with her instead of the other way around. That would explain the chill coming off her whenever Hunter’s in the vicinity. It doesn’t begin to explain the disturbing collage.
I rearrange the clothes the way I found them, and my fingers come away marred by white powder. Frowning, I notice some of Maia’s clothes have a sprinkling of the same powder. My mind connects the dots between the photos of Hunter and the white powder and reach an inescapable conclusion.
It’s cocaine.
I’m about to taste some like they do in the movies, but I have no idea what cocaine actually tastes like. I raise my eyes to the shelf above the clothes, expecting to see a plastic bag of cocaine, perhaps with a hole. There is no bag, but there’s a black plastic jar with white powder dusting its sides. The printing on the jar is front and center: eRATicate.
Rat poison.
“Oh, no, Maia,” I whisper. “You didn’t.”
It sure looks like she did, though. Max theorized that the Black Widow had poisoned Hunter. The theory made sense only up to a point. The Black Widow doesn’t have a motive.
It turns out Maia does.
Loyalty holds me back from calling the police and telling them of my discovery. I’ve known Maia forever. She should at least have the chance to explain before the heat comes down on her.
I back out of the closet, eager to get away from the ugly proof hiding there. Before I can talk to Maia, I’ve got to find her. I search the house for clues and find a note on the kitchen table that Mrs. Shelton must have overlooked.
Moving in with Dad. I’ll pick up the rest of my things later.