“Investigative services?” I ask. “I thought you didn’t do group projects.”
“This isn’t a group project,” he says. “It’s a case.”
Across the room, Night lifts his head, snapping his jaw in an epic yawn. Without warning, he darts forth like a streak of black lightning and dive-bombs my bed in the most ungraceful way possible. I give him a playful shove. “I’m not made of Snausages, you oaf!”
Franklin laughs.
“My dog,” I explain. “He’s, like, mauling me. Night! Cool out!” I ditch the iPad and rearrange my legs under ninety pounds of German shepherd. Night puts his head in my lap, not budging, and I lean back against the pillows, closing my eyes.
When I called Franklin tonight, it was just to get a few pointers, some ideas on how to investigate a hacker. I never expected him to get involved—I’m not even sure he realizes what he’s signing up for.
“You really want to partner with a known philanderer and narc?” I ask. “Your credibility could take a hit.”
“I’m getting a story out of this, love.” Franklin’s voice is kind but matter-of-fact. “Exposing injustice. Setting the record straight for all concerned. It’s what I live for, Veronica.”
“Faith,” I say. “Dark slayer?”
“Sorry. You have to be Veronica so I can be Keith.”
“Keith? Shouldn’t you be all, rah-rah Sherlock Holmes?” I laugh. “You turncoat! You’re a traitor to your nation.”
He gasps indignantly, and I picture his sharp brown eyes, the crazy curly hair. A mad, eccentric genius awash in the glow of his computer screen. “No Keith, no Veronica, no investigation.”
I scratch Night’s belly. “You won’t let it go, right?”
“Not likely, sweetheart.” His accent has gone noir. “We’re gonna solve this crime, see, and nail the perp to the wall, see.”
Night sighs in my lap, and for the first time since the scandal broke, I feel a shred of hope that we might actually solve this thing. That I might actually get my best friend back.
“Here’s the deal,” I say. “I’ll give you Keith and Veronica, and your story, and you promise to never do that accent again.”
Franklin laughs. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves an investigation, Veronica.”
LONE GUNMAN THEORY SHOT TO HELL
Narc! Narc! Narc! Narc! Narc! Narc! Narc!”
The maroon-and-gray corridor grew a mile overnight, and the chant echoes endlessly as I walk to homeroom. No one touches me, but they’re throwing wads of wet paper and gum, shooting rubber bands and nasty glares. Their catcalls intensify as I pick up the pace, and the electronic click-click of a dozen cameras reminds me of Jayla, swarmed and flashbulbed on her way to some celeb hot spot.
“Narc! Narc! Narc!” from my left. “Slut! Slut! Slut!” from my right, this one led by Quinn and Haley. Olivia isn’t chanting, but she’s behind them, arms folded, her delicate face twisted into a scowl.
“Slut! Narc! Slut! Narc!” The rhythmic cheer ping-pongs from one side of the hall to the other, swirls into a new refrain. “Slarc! Slarc! Slarc!”
Bouts of laughter roll and froth like waves as I zoom past my locker. There’s a fresh batch of posters, and though I’d love to stop and shred them, stopping means facing the mob. It means looking them in the eyes as they call me names and throw erasers at my head. It means letting them see me cry.
Definitely not on my bucket list.
I walk faster still, almost at a jog, ignoring the masses and the spitballs in my hair. Ellie’s homeroom is a few doors before mine; we see each other as I pass. Our eyes lock.
She breaks the connection and drops to the floor, digging in her bag.
I offer a belated smile anyway.
This ends tonight.
Cole’s making a list of party attendees and Griffin’s using her feminine wiles to interview the guys, including Paul St. Paul, even though he’s still nursing his broken heart. Jayla’s on the case at home, alternating her teen boy fan mail review with careful scrutiny of the Juicy Lucy page for potentially incriminating commentary. Franklin and I are meeting at lunch to review the evidence.
Not even spitballs can chase away the hope, and four minutes into homeroom, when I discover that an HD video of me cowering beneath the hallway slarc attack has already popped up on the Juicy Lucy page, it only steels my resolve.
• • •
With just three weeks until graduation, most teachers have given up on wireless device discipline, and I spend my morning classes examining party photos on my iPad, re-creating the events in a list for Franklin.
By lunchtime I’m ready to rock, and finding Franklin bent over his keyboard in the computer lab is like watching the sun rise after a tornado-black sky.
“Prepare to be wowed,” I announce as I drop into the chair next to him. “Or at least mildly impressed.” I flip open the iPad cover to reveal my starter report.
“E-mail that to me?” Franklin asks. “We should centralize everything. It’s an encrypted file,” he explains when he sees my freaked-out face. “I’m the only one who can access it. Promise.”
“What about the NSA?”
Franklin considers the question, then shakes his head. “Highly probable they’ve got more interesting scandals to investigate. And fear not, Veronica.” He continues typing. “I won’t print anything in the Explorer that makes you uncomfortable. You have my word.”
Satisfied, I tap his e-mail into the iPad, send the notes into space. An instant later, he enters a password on his keyboard, and the file pops up on his monitor.
He scrolls through my report. “You left the cabin first thing that morning?”
“I wanted to bail before anyone else woke up,” I say. “Didn’t want to be there for the ‘best night of my life’ stories and hangover commiseration.”
“Precisely why I skipped prom,” he says.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my idea of a good time either.” I tell him about Ellie and the Rent-a-Princess gig. “I know how it looks, but I wasn’t plotting to hook up with my best friend’s—”
“Hey.” Franklin’s steady gaze is unchanged. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Lucy. We’re a team. Can you trust me?”
It’s a simple enough question with a simple enough answer. Yes, I can trust him. He’s trustworthy, and he’s been nothing but decent since this whole thing started—even before it started. We’ve never hung out, but Franklin’s just a good guy. No cliquey allegiances, no drama. Smart but never superior. Everyone likes him.
Still, it’s been a long time since I let anyone in. Ellie, at the mermaid play. And Cole, because when you fall that hard for someone, trust is part of the package. The last person I got close to was Griffin, and I haven’t even let her in a hundred percent.
Franklin’s waiting patiently, fingers resting on the keyboard.
Still, I don’t answer.
He swivels his chair toward me, our knees almost touching. “I know it’s difficult,” he says softly. “But we’ve got to review the evidence. Notes, photographs, Facebook comments. It’s embarrassing for you. But I mean it, love. No judgments.”
My chest fills with fear, but he’s right. We can’t really investigate this if I don’t open up. I have to share the evidence. Let him in. Show him my scars, admit my mistakes.
Last summer, Cole invited me, John, and Ellie on a camping trip with his dad. Ellie’s not a roughing-it kinda girl, but she put on her game face. Each day, we took short walks in the woods, played cards, and read books beneath the trees. At night we roasted marshmallows and sang camp songs, and then Ellie and I snuggled in our sleeping bags in the girls tent, trying to outscare each other with ghost stories.
On the fourth day, Cole’s father went on a solo hike, and Cole led the rest of us on a trek up Mount Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado. We started before sunrise and hiked all morning. Halfway up, Ellie and I were falling apart. Ellie’s knees ached, and I peed on my hiking boots, and at each step above tree line we str
uggled for breath, desperate to turn back. But Cole and John encouraged us onward, and when we finally reached the summit, we were like the literal walking dead.
Out of nowhere, Ellie threw up her arms and shouted, “Girl power! We made this mountain our bitch!” She launched herself at me in a triumphant embrace, and the two of us laughed and cried, singing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” at 14,440 feet above sea level.
Then we saw lightning in the distance, a freak storm, a crack of thunder as the clouds shifted over the sun. Cole was all, “Time to go!” We hightailed it down the mountain, chased by thunder and rain, not daring to stop until we got back to camp.
It was the most challenging, exhilarating, and terrifying thing ever.
Until right now.
“I trust you,” I tell Franklin. “It’s just . . . I haven’t told anyone about that night.”
Franklin turns back to the computer, pulls up the #scandal album on the Miss Demeanor page. “It’s okay. Just pretend it isn’t you. Be objective. Ready?”
“I’m ready.” I have to be. I have to solve this. For me. For Ellie. For another breathless rendition of “I Will Survive.”
Franklin clicks on the photo of me and Cole in bed. I was expecting it, but it still takes my breath away, a rush of guilt and desire and the memory of everything that happened, photographed and not. I close my eyes, trying to decide how much to share, how much to bury.
I muster just enough nerve to explain my argument with Cole after the kiss, all the words that led us to his bedroom, to Cole telling me they’d broken up.
“And after the discussion, you turned in?” Franklin asks.
“First Cole went downstairs to check on things. I asked him to tell Griffin I was crashing and to get my phone.” It’s coming back to me now, flashes and pieces knitting together. “I left it outside on the deck.”
My eyes are still closed, but I hear Franklin typing.
“The picture of you—of the subjects—kissing on the porch,” he says, “there’s a silver phone on the railing behind them. Is that yours?”
“Yes.”
“Was that the last time you had it in your possession?”
“Yes. But I told Cole where I left it and . . .” Memories are coming faster now, fog lifting. Cole’s words echo.
Trying to set your phone alarm . . .
“No. He brought my phone upstairs,” I say. “It was after I’d gotten into bed. He came in, locked the door . . . there was a flash. He said he was setting the alarm so we could leave early, but . . . yes!” I open my eyes. “Look for a random shot of the dress at the end of the bed. He took it while he was messing with the alarm.”
“Saw it,” Franklin says. “You said he locked the door. . . . Was it unlocked in the morning?”
“I don’t know. Cole opened it first. He was up just before me.”
Franklin taps his lips with a pen. Typing, writing . . . there’s no note this boy isn’t prepared take. “If what you say is accurate,” he says, “that leaves three possibilities. One, you or Cole intentionally set the camera timer and took the pictures yourselves. Ludicrous.”
I’m not the one who slept with my best friend’s boyfriend and posted pictures. . . .
I blink away the image of Margo’s intern in her STAFF shirt. “Totally ludicrous. Two?”
“When Cole thought he set the alarm, he inadvertently set the photo timer. But that still means you posted the pictures yourselves, or another person later stole the phone and posted the pictures that you took.” He shakes his head. “Scratch that—the simplest explanation is usually the right one. That leaves option three. Most simply, someone saw you in bed, saw the phone, saw an opportunity, and took it.”
“For Miss Demeanor,” I say.
“Right,” he says. “But why would someone go to the trouble? Even if he or she broke into Cole’s room and took the pictures with your phone, that still leaves a lot of steps.” He sticks the pen behind his ear, counts down with his fingers. “Photographing the other party guests. Realizing that the phone was linked to your Facebook account. Deciding to upload everything the next morning—presumably sober by then. That level of plotting indicates revenge, not just a simple prank. Someone had it out for you.”
“But the lock. It’s a slide bolt from the inside.” I scootch closer to the monitor for another look at the image of me and Cole, scrutinizing every shadow, every pixel. . . . “The wings! There was a pair of pink fairy wings on the bed. I sat on them earlier and made a joke to myself about squishing my fairy godmother.”
Franklin laughs. “Fairy godmother? Good Lord.”
“Seriously. After I changed out of the dress, I draped it over the footboard with the wings. The composition looked funny. Like, a fairy tale gone naughty. I kind of wanted to sketch it.”
Franklin leans over my shoulder and points to the monitor, the place on the photo where the wings should be but aren’t. “Here?”
“They’re gone. Even if they fell on the floor, I would’ve seen them in the morning when I grabbed the dress. Look.” I click through the photos and find the one that Cole took accidentally, the bed with the dress hung over it. Sure enough, wings. Pink and glittery.
“The cabin was quiet when I got up,” I say, still piecing it together. “I stayed in the clothes I slept in. Went to the bathroom, used some mouthwash . . . I went back and sat on the bed to put on my boots. No wings.”
“Could someone have gone in while you were in the bathroom? Where was Cole?”
“He was already downstairs. I was in the bathroom, like, two minutes. I was in such a hurry to get home. I’m telling you, the place was silent. Cole and I were the only ones up, other than Spence, who’d left way earlier. He had to take Prince Freckles back to the stables.”
“What happened next?”
“I looked around the dresser for my earrings, and . . . hat! Hat!” I bolt out of my chair, excitement flooding my limbs. It’s like a legit investigation now, like we’re actually fighting for truth and justice. “When Cole and I first went in, 420’s hat was there, but it was gone in the morning.”
“Maybe you just thought you heard Cole locking the door.” Franklin grabs his pen again, pokes at his curls. “Maybe it was something else?”
“I heard it slide and click. I’m sure. When he came back, I was very, like, focused. Everything was amplified.” I drop back into my chair.
“A bit shaky,” he says. “It’s possible you don’t recall the exact order of events. To be fair, you were on the piss.”
“On the . . . what?”
“Drunk,” he explains. “Right?”
“Not drunk, but not sober. Still.” I’m not shaky on this part. When Cole came back, he opened the door, closed it, locked it, changed clothes, set the alarm, got into bed. The alarm never went off because the phone was stolen in the middle of the night. Same with the wings—they’re in the before picture, but not the one with me and Cole in bed, which means someone removed them before that photo was taken.
I recap it again for Franklin.
“But you’re insisting no one could’ve gotten past the lock,” he says.
“Right.” The hat, the wings . . . My eyebrows shoot up with the realization. “They were already in. Must’ve been in Cole’s closet when we got there and waited until we fell asleep before sneaking back out—420 and . . . I don’t know. One of the fairies.”
“You’re saying they hung out in a closet the entire time? Without making a sound?”
“It’s a walk-in,” I say. “And it’s the Fosters’ vacation place, so it’s not like Cole’s got it stuffed with clothes. There’s room. And we passed out right away.”
At least, for a little while.
“Who was wearing wings that night?” he asks.
“Like, everybody. I think the only girls not wearing wings at prom were me, Griff, this one chick dressed like a troll, and Kiara. Kiara wasn’t at the party, anyway.” My neck burns, but I shake it off. Hopefully Ash reinstated her by
now.
“Do you think whoever was in the closet took the photographs? Stole your phone?” Franklin’s wearing Griff’s baby veal face. I don’t blame him; this story’s getting weirder by the second.
“No . . . I guess not. If they were worried about getting caught, they wouldn’t stop to take pictures. Their mission was to get out without getting busted. And 420 doesn’t exactly have the brain cells of a criminal mastermind.”
“Another dead end.” Franklin rubs his eyes.
“Maybe, but if they were in there until we passed out, they might know if anyone else showed up, either trying to get in or just, like, skulking around the hall. And they can at least confirm the fact that Cole and I didn’t . . . that while they were in there, things stayed totally . . . platonic.” Totally platonic. It’s a stretch, and the words are black-coffee bitter on my tongue, but I press on. “And they probably left the room separately, just to avoid suspicion. If anyone snuck into the room between their exit times . . .”
“Good point,” Franklin says. “They might’ve seen something.”
“One way to find out.” I gather my stuff, prepping for my first official interrogation. “Can you meet after school for a debrief? I’ll see if Cole and Griff can come.”
“Definitely. But . . . you’re sure 420 will talk? How well do you know him?”
“We’ve had some deep conversations, me and the old four-two-oh.” I roll my eyes, but it’s my first lead. I’m not giving up so easily. “Plus, I have evidence of his little scandal. Doubt his burner friends would go all high fives on him for hooking up with a sparkly fairy girl. He’ll talk.”
Franklin raises an eyebrow. “Blackmail? Didn’t know you had it in you, Veronica.”
“Don’t think of it as blackmail, Keith. Think of it as graymail. Superlight gray. More like pale blue.”
DELIVER US FROM (E)VIL
Report from the boy front.” Griff barges into the computer lab after school and drops her stuff on a chair. “Did I just say ‘report from the boy front’? Don’t answer.” She pulls her blond waves into a loose knot and continues in a determined breath. “News flash: A boy didn’t do this.”