“I don’t see—wait.” My whisper gets urgent as the shape I’ve been looking at suddenly becomes clear. “Guys. There’s a foot.”
“A foot of what?” Malik asks.
“A person’s foot. On the floor, behind the couch.”
Caleb is still holding me. I peer down at Malik’s worried, upturned face, reflected moonlight obscuring his eyes behind his glasses. “Is someone, like, hiding?” he asks uncertainly.
“I don’t think so. Put me down.” Caleb drops me so quickly that I stumble when my feet hit the ground, and have to grab his arm for support. “It looks like whoever it is might’ve fallen or something, but I couldn’t see enough to tell.”
“We better check it out,” Caleb says. “Maybe the old guy hurt himself. Depending on what kind of lock he has, I might be able to pick it.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Malik asks. “We can’t break into his house at three o’clock in the morning!”
“Malik’s right,” I say. “We should call an ambulance.”
Malik bites his lip. “And then what? How do we explain why we’re here?”
“I mean . . . probably the truth, right?” I say.
While we were talking, though, Caleb was already mounting the front steps. Now he’s poised with one hand pressed against the door. “Guys,” he calls in a loud whisper. “It’s open.”
“What?” I make my way beside him and see that he’s right; there’s a shadowy sliver of empty space between the door and its frame. “Why would it be open in the middle of the night?”
“I don’t know,” Caleb says. He pushes lightly on the door, causing it to swing fully open with a loud, prolonged creak. “But it is.”
“Oh, hell. We need to leave.” Malik sounds full-on panicked now. “Somebody might still be inside. Caleb, don’t—Caleb!”
Too late. Caleb’s already inside, and with a resigned look over my shoulder to Malik, I join him in Mr. Murphy’s hallway. It’s dead silent inside the house, except for a loud ticking that’s probably the grandfather clock I saw in the living room. I take a deep breath, and the dust that tickles my nostrils almost makes me sneeze. A large, curving staircase is in front of me and a set of double French doors is to my right. I glance at Caleb, who’s standing stock-still beside me, then slip through the doors.
I blink a few times when my feet hit carpet, letting my eyes adjust to the brightness of the lights after the dimness of the hallway. I’m in the living room I’d just been looking into from outside. Same bookcases, same rug, same couch, same . . . foot.
“Right there,” I breathe.
Caleb’s hand grasps mine, squeezes once, and lets go. He stays beside me as I approach the sensible brown shoe. It’s Mr. Murphy, the rest of him hidden behind the couch. He’s facedown and perfectly still, dressed in a flannel shirt and the kind of chino pants my grandfather wears. Somehow, that’s what finally sets my heart racing as I kneel beside him.
“Mr. Murphy, are you okay?” I ask, reaching for his shoulder. Caleb helps me turn him over and—oh, god. His eyes are wide open but lifeless, his face pale and slack, and the right side of his head is covered in blood. I should scream, I think hazily, but my throat has closed to the size of a pinprick. I can’t push a single sound out. Caleb doesn’t speak either, and we sit in silence until I hear heavy breathing behind me and a loud, shocked gasp.
“Holy shit,” Malik says, sinking to his knees. His hands fly to his mouth and his body spasms as he retches. He manages not to throw up, but his voice is muffled by his palms as he chokes out, “He’s dead. Mr. Murphy is dead.”
“You never should have gone inside, Grace.”
My dad’s partner on the Owens Mills force, Detective Lisa Ramirez, rubs a hand over her face as she hands me a steaming cup of vending machine coffee. I know it’s going to taste horrible, but I take a long sip anyway because it’s four in the morning and I need the caffeine. “You should have called us as soon as you realized the door was open.”
“I know. I just—I wasn’t thinking straight,” I say.
Detective Ramirez makes an exasperated noise. “Apparently not. Playing drinking games and trespassing in the middle of the night? That’s not like you, Grace.”
“I wasn’t drinking,” I protest. Detective Ramirez quirks a brow. “I wasn’t. Give me a breathalyzer if you don’t believe me.”
She folds her arms and gazes at me for a few beats before relenting. “I do, actually. You seem perfectly sober. But this entire night is still a mess. I’d text your father if it weren’t so late.” She rubs her face again. “Or so early, I guess. Either way, he won’t be pleased.”
Story of my life, I almost say. Dad’s relentless drive toward perfection makes him an excellent cop and an impossible-to-please father. Detective Ramirez doesn’t need to hear that, though, so I stay silent and pour a healthy dose of sugar into my coffee. I look around for a spoon or a stirrer, but there’s nothing, so I swirl the coffee gently in my hand.
Detective Ramirez and I are in a small conference room with the door closed, and I haven’t seen or spoken to Caleb or Malik since we arrived. I understand the drill; the officers need to take our statements independently to collect as many perspectives as possible, and avoid having one person’s memory morph into everyone’s. Still, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone except Detective Ramirez. Or slept. I’m starting to feel the effects of both.
“Maybe it was a good thing, though?” I say. “Mr. Murphy could have been there for ages if we hadn’t found him. He lives by himself, doesn’t he?”
Detective Ramirez doesn’t answer, and I inch my chair closer to the table. “Did someone kill him? That’s what Malik thinks. Since the door was open and all. And because of the . . .” I take a gulp of my too-sweet coffee, grainy with all the sugar floating near the top. “Vase.”
We found it on the floor. Malik picked the heavy bronze vase up first, dropping it in horror when he noticed the dark red stain along one side. Caleb saved it from rolling beneath the couch before I snatched it away and put it carefully on a side table. “Evidence,” I reminded them. Malik just nodded, eyes wide, as Caleb continued checking Mr. Murphy’s wrist and neck like he’d find a pulse eventually if he kept trying.
Detective Ramirez sighs. “You know I can’t discuss that with you.”
“Was he robbed?” I press.
She ignores the question. “You’re here to give a statement and that’s it. So let’s review everything one more time, and then we can get you home.”
We spend another half hour going through the night in painstaking detail. I’m so tired that when I close my eyes to remember the layout of Mr. Murphy’s living room, I briefly fall asleep sitting up. Detective Ramirez raps her knuckles on the table, and I jerk awake. “All right,” she says. “That seems to be a sign I’ve kept you here long enough. Is there anything we haven’t talked about that we should? Anything you observed that surprised or confused you?”
“I mean, everything did,” I say, and she gives me a wry smile.
“Touché. Listen, we’re going to want fingerprints and a DNA sample from you for exclusion purposes, but you’re not eighteen yet, right?” I shake my head. “So we can’t do that without parental consent. We’ll call your dad once it’s no longer the crack of dawn, and bring you back after we’ve spoken to him. Also, it’s possible you’ll remember something new after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Maybe.” I slouch lower in my seat, my veins buzzing with the combination of exhaustion and caffeine. “Is Katie going to get into trouble?” I blurt out. “For, you know. Having alcohol at her party. Or will Malik, for drinking? Or all of us for trespassing, or—”
“None of that is our primary concern,” Detective Ramirez interrupts. “We’ll leave the disciplinary action to your parents.” I swallow audibly, and her tense expression softens a little. “You’re a good kid, Grace. In the scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal, and I’ll be sure to
remind Steve of that. Same for the rest of the kids who got pulled into this mess. Except one.” Her face hardens again. “This is the first time Caleb Manning has been in this station without being the cause of the problem.”
“He was helpful tonight,” I say.
“Mm-hmm.” She regards me in silence for a few seconds, a frown creasing her forehead. Then she leans forward, elbows on the table. “Can I give you some advice?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t take this as an opportunity to trauma bond with Caleb Manning just because you’ve been through an emotional night together and he has dreamy eyes.” I open my mouth to protest, but she holds up a hand before I can speak. “Save the denials, please. I’ve been doing this job for twenty years, and I can promise you this: the bad boy with a heart of gold is a myth. Caleb isn’t misunderstood, and he doesn’t have a tragic backstory that explains why he does the things he does. His mother is an accountant, for crying out loud.” She shifts in her cafeteria-style chair, her frown deepening. “He’s just a kid with no respect for authority who lacks a moral compass, and that’s why he keeps finding himself back here.”
“People can change,” I say cautiously, getting exactly the eye roll I expect in return.
“They absolutely can. And yet, they rarely do.” Detective Ramirez gets to her feet and gestures for me to do the same. “Come on, let’s find someone to give you a ride home.”
We exit the room into the hallway. Detective Ramirez wasn’t the only officer called in to deal with us, and the station is a lot more full than you’d expect for five in the morning. Malik is headed for the exit with his father’s arm wrapped around his shoulder. “I wonder if Mr. Roy would—” Detective Ramirez starts, clearly about to flag Malik’s father down about driving me home, but he pushes through the door before she can.
“Hey.” Caleb materializes in front of us, looking more rumpled and gaunt than ever. His leather jacket is draped over one arm. “You done?”
“Yeah,” I say, highly conscious of Detective Ramirez’s eyes on us.
“Want a ride?” Caleb asks, just as an officer sitting at a nearby desk calls, “Lisa! Bill Murphy’s next of kin is on the phone.”
“Shit, okay. Be right there,” Detective Ramirez says. She turns as Caleb shrugs his jacket on, and a blue card flutters out of his pocket and onto the floor. I step forward, covering it with my sneaker, before Detective Ramirez pauses and looks back at us. “I can get one of the officers to take you home in five minutes,” she tells me.
“Don’t worry about it. Caleb can drive me,” I say.
Her jaw ticks as her gaze flits between us. “Lisa,” the officer calls again.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I promise.”
She narrows her eyes at Caleb. “Drive the speed limit,” she bites out before turning away. “We’ll be in touch later today, Grace.”
“Okay.” I wait until she’s crossed over to the desk to take the call, then bend over and retie my sneaker. When I finish, I slip the blue card into my hand, and then into my back pocket. “Let’s go,” I say to Caleb.
I murmur good-byes to the officers we pass on the way through the front door. The moon is still a pale sliver in the sky, but the glow of pending sunrise brightens the horizon. Caleb leads me to the same beat-up Datsun he used to drive us to the station earlier tonight. He unlocks the passenger door and holds it open, and I slip inside without a word. “That was—” he starts, but I slam the door closed before he can finish. He crosses to the other side of the car, slides behind the wheel, and puts the key in the ignition. “That was messed up.”
“Shut up and drive,” I say tersely.
“The hell?”
“Do it.”
He does, and I don’t speak again until the station is a mile behind us and he’s stopped at a red light. Then I pull the card out of my pocket and shove it into his face. “Seriously, Caleb?”
“What? What is that?”
“This doesn’t look familiar to you?” His face is a total blank as I wave it in front of him. “It’s the Never Have I Ever card you pulled at Katie’s house. And what does it say?” I read it slowly, for emphasis. “Never have I ever had a one-night stand.”
“Yeah? So?” The light turns green, but there’s no one behind us. The roads are empty this early in the morning, hours before anyone needs to leave for school or for work. Caleb stays put, his eyes locked onto mine.
“So it’s supposed to say, Never have I ever spied on a neighbor. That’s what you told everyone it said at the party. Remember?” He doesn’t answer, and my voice rises along with my temper. “This card is the whole reason we went to Mr. Murphy’s house last night, isn’t it?”
“Well, that and—”
“Isn’t it?” I repeat.
“I guess, yeah.”
“There’s no guessing involved,” I snap. “This card is why you were able to leave your fingerprints on that vase for a legitimate reason, after screwing up what should’ve been a simple robbery.” Allowing Caleb—who, as I reminded him when he called me in a panic this afternoon, has fingerprints already on file with the Owens Mills police—to be excluded as a suspect. You can’t rely on just wiping something clean, not with today’s technology. I’ve heard enough smug speeches from my father about overconfident criminals to know that. “This card is your stay out of jail card, Caleb. Unless it says something it’s not supposed to. Something that doesn’t match everyone’s story.”
Understanding finally starts to spread across Caleb’s features, and I smack him on the shoulder with the card. He’s lucky he’s hot, because I would dump his ass otherwise. It’s exhausting being the one who has to do all the thinking. “So maybe don’t undo hours of my planning to clean up your mess by dropping it in front of the entire police station,” I finish.
“Shit.” Caleb laughs as he starts to drive again. “I didn’t even know I still had that.” He puts his hand on my knee and trails it upward, squeezing the inside of my thigh. “You’re a genius, babe. I would’ve been screwed without you.” His voice turns coaxing. “You know it was an accident, right? The guy surprised me. I only meant to take the money and run.”
“Whatever. Where is it?”
“Woods behind Katie’s house. You want to pick it up now?”
“No, leave it. We shouldn’t be seen there for a while.” I rip the Never Have I Ever card into tiny pieces before stuffing them back into my pocket. I’ll burn them when I get home, then go to bed for a few hours of oblivion before my parents hear about what happened—about what they think happened—and start freaking out. But I can handle them; I know exactly how to wring my hands over all my minor transgressions so that even my father’s interrogation will miss the major ones.
Detective Ramirez was right tonight about Caleb: he has no respect for authority and lacks a moral compass. I’ve known all of that since the first time we hooked up after my father arrested him last summer. It’s what drew me to him, actually. Because the thing is, I’m exactly the same.
I’m just a lot better at hiding it.
Like Before
by Maurene Goo
You are cordially invited to the baddest mother-effing sleepover to end all sleepovers.
When: This Saturday, 10 p.m. (So you guys can’t use dinner plans as an excuse to skip!)
Where: Pepper’s house & various other locations
Bring: Your sleeping bag, a headlamp, running shoes, dark clothes, Britt—your inhaler, Alma—leave your mouthguard at home
Why: Because you bitches have driven me to this
I met Alma and Britt in kindergarten.
“You’re my new wife!”
I looked up from the pile of ivy leaves and acorns I was assembling into a taco. The girl who had claimed me as her wife was sturdy but shorter than me, with curly brown hair almost the same color as her skin. Bright green eyes. Tiny turquoise studs pierced into her ears.
“What?” I asked, care
fully scattering some crushed eucalyptus leaves on top of the taco. For spice.
“I said you’re my new wife!”
Uneasy, I glanced around me. Any playground monitors nearby to protect me from this high-energy weirdo? “Who was your old wife?”
“Her.”
I followed the path from her commanding index finger to a knobby-kneed white girl doing a headstand against a springy metal frog. I knew her. We had taekwondo class together.
“Britt’s your old wife?”
The girl sniffed. “Yeah. But she wouldn’t let me swing first so I’m done with her.”
“Who says I’ll let you swing first?”
“Says me!”
“Who are you?”
“Alma! Who are you?”
“Pepper.”
“That’s not a real name.”
“You’re rude.”
“So?!”
I shrugged. “I don’t care. You have to have our babies, though.”
And that’s how Alma snared me. We got divorced shortly after. Like, fifteen minutes after. But you were never done with Alma. She was a force to be reckoned with. And for two shy little girls, like me and Britt, Alma was a godsend. The courage we needed to move through the world in a more significant way.
Eventually that dynamic balanced out somewhat. Alma made us stronger and we relied on her less. But the summer before senior year of high school, our friendship started to dissolve. I felt like I was about to lose one of my limbs. No, an organ. Something nestled deep inside my body, warm and reliable.
The rift started like a lot of arguments between Britt and Alma, with me trying to mediate. Then it was prolonged silences between texts in our group thread. Frantic gifs sent by me to ease the tension. And then . . . then Alma’s dad died. Something really broke then. Whatever finely spun thread was holding us together snapped. You’d think tragedy might draw Alma closer to her friends, but it made her so much more distant.
And then I got busy. Between college applications and being senior class president, I just didn’t have time to referee my best friends. And without me holding us together, we fell apart. Stopped being friends. I was always the glue. So it was up to me to save us.
Up All Night Page 2