You’re Next

by Kylie Schachte

  Ick.

  “What are we looking for?”

  “She said to double-check all the drawers and books. It’s a page from one of those Moleskines.”

  “What?”

  “You know, black leather notebook? You see all those hipster kids carting them around.”

  “You keep a diary, Berger?”

  “Yeah, you know me. I don’t know why Detective Richmond hasn’t asked me to the prom yet.”

  Drawers open and slam. I just have to wait until they leave. There’s no reason for them to come in here. If only my racing heart would believe that.

  My phone buzzes again. Shit. I stab at the Ignore button, trying not to rustle the papers in my arms. The noises in Ava’s room pause.

  “You hear something?”

  Fuckfuckfuckfuck. I bite down on my gloved hand to vent some frustration.

  “You spooking on me?” the other officer asks. “Let’s just find what Richmond wants and get out of here.”

  Once the search sounds resume, I pull my phone out and silence the volume. The call was from Mom. That can’t be good.

  Moments later, a text: Heard what happened. So sorry for that poor girl. R u ok? I’ll come home if u need me.

  The words punch the air out of me, but I clench my teeth and shove my phone back in my pocket. I’ll deal with her later.

  “I’ve got nothing. You?” one of the cops says.

  “Same. Why are we even bothering with this? Kid was mugged, she got shot. Over and done.”

  “I’m starving. Let’s go back to the car. Cho and Eckman should be here any minute to take over.”

  I relax an inch, but then the other guy says, “Go ahead, I’ll be right there. Gotta take a leak.”

  Oh, no.

  I stop breathing as he stumps into the bathroom. He stands about thirty inches from me, a shadowy silhouette against the shower curtain. Zipper unzips, grunt of relief, and then the sound of urine hitting toilet water.

  I do not know what kinds of liquids this man consumed, but new universes are born and die while he pees. Finally, the waterfall turns to a piddling stream and dribbles out. The zipper schwicks up. The cop’s shadow looms closer for a second, and all my internal organs freeze. He exits, slamming the bathroom door behind him. He does not wash his hands.

  The tension runs out of me. I’m an exhausted puddle of goo in my dead almost-girlfriend’s shower. I text Cass: About to head out. All clear?

  A couple seconds later: You’re good

  I clamber out of the tub and catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look ridiculous in Cass’s GRRL hat, but there’s a brittle, haunted expression on my face. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I know that look well.

  I book it out of the house.

  Outside, the pre-storm wind freezes the smell of Ava’s perfume out of me, and my legs nearly buckle with relief. I shove the papers in my backpack and reseal the police sticker over the door.

  Cass starts the car as soon as I’m in. I pull her stupid hat off. There’s a cold slick of sweat across the back of my neck. All the fine little hairs stick to my skin.

  Cass keeps glancing in the rearview mirror. “Are we being followed?”

  I shake my head. It gets the whole rest of me shaking, too. I slump against the window and shut my eyes. The glass is cool against my warm, damp forehead.

  “You get anything?” Cass asks.

  I keep my eyes closed. “Not sure yet. Some papers. Cops interrupted me and I had to hide.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Some casual sexism and a very full bladder.”

  “Not even going to ask.”

  For a second, I consider telling her about the text from my mom.

  I’ll come home if u need me.

  A stupid, little-girl kind of hope twists in my chest. An automatic reaction: I want my mommy. That part only lasts a second.

  Another two-year-old memory resurfaces. I was standing in my kitchen. My mother, still wearing her bathrobe, sipped her coffee at the kitchen table, her chin slumped in one hand.

  “Oh, come on, are you really this lazy?” I asked. “Is this the example you want to set for your daughter?” I bounced on the balls of my feet, testing my laces. I had been running every morning that summer, and my legs felt strong and ready to go.

  “You’re going to have to do it without me today, kid. Too early. Too hot.”

  Annoyance flared in me, but I kept my tone light and teasing. “Sloth is a sin, you know. A deadly sin. We’re talking about the fate of your soul here.”

  She snorted, and it turned into a yawn. “How’s this? We both skip the run and get ice cream instead. Gluttony and sloth—the perfect combo.”

  I felt it again: the fight instinct rising inside me. “I can’t. Track tryouts. Four days away. Remember?” She knew how important those tryouts were to me.

  She waved that off. “Oh, please. You’ve been working so hard. One day off won’t kill you.”

  “Come on,” I nudged. “Getting out the door is the hardest part, right?” I smiled, but it was too shiny. My face muscles twitched and pulled, trying to figure out what the right friendly-daughter expression was. Not too sullen. Not too fake.

  Running was the last thing we had left that was ours. No Olive, no Gramps. Mom and me.

  And she was going to bail.

  She gave an apologetic smile, but it was only for show. “You go. Ice cream after, okay? And I’ll run with you tomorrow, I promise.”

  I found Lucy’s body on that run. Mom and I didn’t go running the next day. I didn’t try out for track. I never went running again.

  I stare at the screen, my fingers hovering over the keypad. I have to say something.

  I can’t picture Mom in the house anymore. What would having her home even mean? There’s about seven landfills filled with emotional bullshit that we need to work through, but neither one of us is really capable of that.

  And then there’s the real truth: it took her three days to bother to contact me after I found another dead body. She only offered to come home because she knew I’d say no.

  I text her back:

  It’s very sad, but I’m okay. You don’t need to come home

  Back at my house, I pull the crumpled stack of papers out of my pack. Cass sucks in a little breath of anticipation.

  “The diary page?” she asks. I’d told her all about the cops’ conversation on the rest of the ride home.

  I flick through the pile, but nothing sticks out. “Let’s go through all of it. Maybe it’ll turn up.”

  We sit on the floor and each take a stack to sort.

  A perfume ad.

  A boarding pass to Miami.

  An outline for a paper about The Scarlet Letter.

  Ava’s room looked like she had only stepped out for a minute. Her scent was everywhere. The same nail polish stain I remember from last summer was still there on her comforter. My dumb heart had raced every time I glanced toward the doorway, waiting for her to come back.

  This kind of work is more manageable. For the first time today, my head is almost quiet. Nothing but the mindless swish-flick of paper sliding against paper and Cass’s even breathing.

  A set of history notes on the Franco-Prussian War, dated two years ago.

  A couple leftover flyers from a “Dorsey for Senate” campaign event back in October.

  Cass breaks the silence. “Are we going to talk about the other night?”

  My hand stills on a minutes sheet from the Human Rights Club.

  I close my eyes, but all I see are those three bloody holes in Ava’s chest and abdomen.

  I flip to the next page in my pile: a French test on the subjunctive. Ava got a 93.

  Cass chooses her words carefully. “I can’t even imagine what it was like, seeing her die. I don’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry’ sounds stupid, but I didn’t know what to say after Lucy, either, and we kept not talking about it, and… I don’t want us to do that this time. I need to talk about
it. Ava is dead, and I know I didn’t know her as well as you, but I’m so sad for her, and I can’t stop thinking about it, and—” She breaks off, sucking in a shuddering breath.

  I’m holding an events calendar for a coffee shop. I smooth a wrinkle in the corner of the page. My hands shake, and the crinkle of paper fills the entire room.

  I could tell Cass about how I can’t stop hearing Ava’s last, wheezing breaths, or even something as basic as the stuff with my mom.

  “Flora.” This time it sounds like a plea.

  I look up. “I can’t.” After the intimate stillness of Ava’s room, the only thing that’s keeping me together is the task at hand. The pile of paper in front of me. If I start talking, I might fall apart.

  Cass’s eyes search mine, and I force myself not to turn away, even though a swarm of ants is marching up my spine.

  “Okay,” she says finally. “If you’re not ready, that’s okay. Just… how can I help?”

  When we were little, I was Cass’s protector. I was the first kid to talk to her when she was the new girl in second grade. In middle school, I made Sarah Neumann cry because she made fun of Cass’s poem in English.

  But then a girl named Lucy MacDonald was murdered when we were fourteen.

  I wasn’t surprised when, one by one, I lost all my friends. We’d never been that close anyway. Everyone else wanted to think nice things about Lucy for a little while and then forget, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t forget the way Lucy looked when I found her. When she stopped being a person and became a body.

  I was surprised that Cass was the one to snap first. Some older guys had taken to harassing the creepy, obsessive freshman (me) in the hallway. One of them had me backed up against a locker, and he was saying he knew just what freaky girls like me wanted when Cass tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, and she hauled off and punched him in the face.

  When high school started, Cass had wanted to join French Club and band and maybe field hockey. People liked her. She never would have ditched me, but part of the reason I wanted to try out for track in the first place was so that I’d have something of my own.

  The thing is, Cass is the one who really lost all her friends, back then. Even when I had other people to sit with at lunch, they all basically belonged to her. But in the end, she chose me.

  “I’m sorry.” I keep my eyes glued to the piece of paper in my hands.

  “For what?” Cass sounds genuinely surprised.

  “Being such a crap friend.” I smooth my thumb over the wrinkled edge of the page again and again. “I know it sucks.”

  “Flora, cut that shit out,” she says.

  I open my mouth, but she holds her hand up. “No. Listen. Do you think I do these investigations with you for the money, or out of loyalty to you?” She pulls her bleached hair into a sloppy ponytail. “You’re my family. If you’re going through hell, I’m coming with you. But that’s not the only reason I’m here. What happened to Ava is wrong, and I want to help. If you think I’d rather be hanging out with Megan Prince or Shelby Tang doing my nails, and I’m only here doing something meaningful out of some twisted sense of obligation, then you are even dumber than I thought.”

  “I know that,” I insist, and it’s true. She could have walked away when everyone else did.

  As always, she sees right through me. “Flora, all your baggage? It’s not too much for me. I can take it. Just don’t shut me out, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”

  I don’t want to, but there’s that dark door inside me. If I open it, all the nightmares I’ve kept hidden will come pouring out. Cass might be here because it’s the right thing to do, but I do this because I will never, ever forget the endless warm fountain of Ava’s blood beneath my hands. The way Lucy’s body looked, beaten beyond recognition. How can I let anyone in there, even Cass?

  She’s still staring me right in the eye, her expression fierce.

  “I won’t shut you out,” I tell her. “I promise.”

  She nods slowly. “Good.” Cass shifts her attention back to the pile of papers in her lap, flipping to the next page. “I know it’s hard for you to talk about right now. But when you’re ready—” She freezes.

  I sit up straight. “What is it?”

  Her eyes skim the page in front of her. “I found something.” She hands me the paper. It’s a typed letter with “New York University” emblazoned in purple across the top.

  “‘Dear Ms. McQueen,’” I read under my breath. “‘We are pleased to inform you…’ Oh.”

  It’s an acceptance letter. It hits me, again. All the things Ava will never get to do.

  I swallow. “Well, Ava was a senior. She probably got a few of these.”

  “It’s early decision.” Cass looks at me like I’m supposed to know what that means. “Oh, honestly. You’re aware we’re juniors in high school, right? College is imminent! You need to know all of this stuff, like, tomorrow. Early decision is binding. If you get in, you have to go.”

  Huh.

  She adds, “NYU is really expensive. One of the top ten priciest schools in the country.”

  “Okay, what’s with the college obsession?” Cass is smart. She’s a good student. But she’s never been Miss 4.0 GPA, Look at My Volunteer Work and National Honor Society Merit Badge.

  She looks at me like I’m nuts. “College is the way out. Haven’t you thought about this stuff?”

  I shrug. “Not really.” And it’s true, I haven’t. Kind of been a bit preoccupied.

  Her eyebrows climb even higher. “We hate this town. We’ve been going to school with the same people since second grade, and now we have the chance to go anywhere. We could live in California, or some huge, totally anonymous city. We could study abroad. Don’t you want any of that?”

  I do. I really do. She’s right, I have been wanting to get out of Hartsdale for as long as I can remember, but college has always seemed so distant. Meanwhile, Cass has been plotting her escape without me.

  I look back at Ava’s acceptance letter in my hands. It feels impossible to think about that future life, beyond this place and everything that’s happened to me here. Especially right now.

  I read the letter again. Ava’s mom is a librarian. Her dad is an accountant at a small paper in Whitley. Neither one of those jobs is getting anyone rich.

  I look back at Cass. “Okay, so NYU is expensive. You think she needed money?”

  “It’s at least a possibility. She could have gotten a loan, or a scholarship or something, but it’s worth looking into.”

  There’s an old saying that there are only three reasons to kill: passion, power, or money.

  My eyes catch on something at the bottom of the page. Log-in credentials for the NYU student portal.

  I grab my laptop. Cass crowds close to read over my shoulder. Her hair brushes my cheek as I pull up the website and type in the username and password.

  The page loads.

  Welcome, Ava McQueen!

  Cass and I breathe in.

  Along the right side of the page, there are tabs for Courses, Grades, Student Life.

  Tuition.

  I click.

  The page loads. My eyes try to take everything in at once, and then it all fits together.

  Fall term tuition: Paid in full. Spring term tuition: Paid in full.

  Cass and I breathe out.

  “Well, that rules out a loan,” she says.

  “How come?”

  “You wouldn’t pay for the whole year up front with loans. What if she had to drop out? She’d still be on the hook to pay the money back. Same for a scholarship. I guess she could have had a rich aunt who coughed up the whole amount all at once?”

  It seems like reaching for an explanation. Then again, the alternatives are just as weird.

  I don’t know what to think. Even with all the confusing stuff between us, I thought I knew Ava. The picture of her is so distinct in my head.

  But how did she get her hands on so much cash? What was she int
o?

  “Ava needed money,” I say finally. “She obviously got it. Now she’s dead. That’s a pretty clear sequence of events.” It’s a heavy thought, and neither one of us has anything else to say for a moment.

  The sudden, angry buzz of Cass’s phone makes both of us jump.

  Her mouth goes small when she reads the text. “My mom wants me to come home for dinner.”

  “Why?” Cass’s mom never cares about normal stuff like that.

  Cass tosses her phone aside. “God knows. I guess it’s finally sunk in that a girl I knew was murdered, and she feels like she needs to be ‘there for me.’ As long as nothing urgent comes up at the office, of course.”

  Cass’s mom is the managing editor at Maison magazine. She’s always off ordering people around on a photo shoot or traveling to some artisan furniture maker’s studio in Provence. Cass’s dad is a hedge fund manager who once contemplated purchasing a sleeper couch for his office in the city. Most nights, Cass has dinner either with us or with Netflix.

  She chews the inside of her cheek. It’s there on her face, too. That reflexive flutter of pleasure that her mom cares, followed by anger that her mom thinks she can just jump in and play parent for a minute, then flutter away as soon as something more interesting comes along. It’s a look I’ve seen on Cass’s face a thousand times, and it always makes my heart twist.

  “Use me,” I offer. “Tell her I’m having a nervous breakdown. She’ll believe it.”

  She gives me a rueful smile. “Nah. Gotta save that one for when it inevitably happens.”

  We laugh, but there’s an edge to it.

  Cass closes her eyes like she has a headache. “It’s easier if I go. Let her do the Mom thing, so she can go back to leaving me alone. Besides, I should practice a little more tonight.”

  Her phone buzzes again. She glares at it like it’s personally offended her.

  “‘When will you be here?’” she reads, doing a high-pitched impersonation of her mom. “‘Need help in the kitchen. Found a new recipe for vegan buffalo wings. Yay!’”

  “That sounds positively horrifying,” I say.

  Cass looks miserable. “I better go. Who knows what kind of unholy creation she’ll concoct if I leave her alone in the kitchen? You’ll be okay here?”