Player

by DeLuca, Laura

  “You would never have believed me,” Josh said sullenly. “I know Lily wasn’t suicidal. Can’t you at least investigate it?” Josh pleaded, turning his attention back to Detective Gibula. “Just to be sure?”

  “We already investigated,” Detective Gibula replied gruffly. “All her friends from school said she’d been depressed about her boyfriend. She even mentioned him in the suicide note. It was an open and shut case.”

  “I’m afraid our son was her boyfriend,” Josh’s father said. “It appears that his callous disregard for other people’s feelings has finally come back to haunt him. All of this drama is his somewhat irrational response to his own guilt.”

  “Steven, try to have a little compassion for God’s sake!” his mother reprimanded, and shook her head in reproach.

  “Oh, I see,” the detective said. His hard eyes softened ever so slightly. Even the fat cop wasn’t as big of a jerk as Josh’s own father. “I understand how you must feel. It isn’t your fault that Lily died. And trying to make a suicide look like a murder isn’t going to make things any easier for you.”

  “This has nothing to do with me feeling guilty. I’m going to feel just as guilty either way!” Josh told him. “Lily’s own brother doesn’t believe she killed herself. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  Detective Gibula tried in vain to cover a belch as he scratched his balding head. He seemed unfazed by the untimely bodily function, and continued to shift things around on his desk as he spoke. “Mr. Grant isn’t handling his sister’s death well. He’s mentioned murder too. I’m going to ask you the same question I asked him. Why would anyone want to kill Lily Cavalier?”

  “These notes make it sound like they did it because of me,” Josh said softly.

  Detective Gibula laughed at his presumption. He actually guffawed, his large belly bouncing with each ungraceful movement. Josh’s parents weren’t laughing though. They both looked mortified as they lingered in the doorway, listening to the conversation.

  “A jilted lover? And to get even, they killed one of your girlfriends?” Detective Gibula asked, still chuckling. “Kid, if you believe that, you have a pretty high opinion of yourself. You’re a good looking guy, all right, but do you really think you’re worth killing for?”

  “You think this is one big joke, don’t you?” Josh fumed. “Well, I didn’t think it was very funny when someone slipped rat poison into my migraine prescription.”

  The detective abruptly stopped snickering, and turned to Josh’s parents with a serious expression. “Is there any truth to this rat poison thing? Whether it’s connected to Lily Cavalier or not, if someone is running around spiking people’s medication with rat poison, that’s a serious problem.”

  “Josh definitely had food poisoning, but—”

  “But we doubt very much that anyone is to blame for that, unless it’s Josh himself,” Steven interrupted his wife. “But that’s our problem, not yours. I think we’ve wasted more than enough of your time for one day, officer.”

  “Kid, you have a wild imagination, and I’m sure we could go back and forth like this all day,” the detective said. “But your father is right. I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with you right now. I have a job to do.”

  “Part of that job should be finding Lily’s killer!”

  Josh tried to make a dramatic exit, but he practically tipped over his chair when he stood up. He was prepared to storm out of the office, but Detective Gibula called him back. Josh would have liked to ignore him, but his parents were blocking the only exit, so he was forced to turn around. He looked at the cop’s double-chinned face with an unhappy frown.

  “Josh, just so you know, if I did believe Lily Cavalier was murdered, you would be my number one suspect.”

  His voice wasn’t threatening. In fact, it sounded flat and uninterested. Like he was stating a simple fact that everyone present should already be aware of. Josh snorted and pushed past his father to get out the door.

  Josh’s parents remained silent until they had passed the front desk of the police station. He noticed a few of the younger policeman pointing and snickering as they made their way through the station. They must have overheard his conversation with the detective. His father noticed it too, and it only fueled his fury. He was able to control himself until they were safely out of earshot, but once they reached the parking lot, he couldn’t contain his anger any longer. He let loose with a ferociousness Josh had never encountered before.

  “Joshua, do you have any idea how insane the stunt you just pulled is? Do you realize lying about a murder case is a federal offense? Do you want to ruin your life? Are you trying to make all our lives miserable? Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking when I decided to have children at all!”

  “Sometimes I wonder too!” Josh spat back. “It isn’t as if you actually give a damn!”

  “Josh, I know your father and I have been putting in a lot of hours at the hospital,” Robin said calmly. “But it doesn’t mean we don’t care about you.

  “A lot? I barely remember what you look like half the time!”

  “So this is all about getting attention!” Steven shouted. “I knew that was the problem. You know, Josh, you aren’t a child anymore. You’ll be leaving for college next year. This kind of behavior is absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Whatever! My whole existence is ridiculous as far as you’re concerned! Everything I do is wrong. Nothing is ever good enough!” Josh fumed. “And the one time I really, really need you to stand by me, you can only make accusations. Well, you know what, Dad—screw you!”

  “All right, Joshua, that’s enough!” His mother intervened. “There’s no reason to be disrespectful.”

  Josh snorted and kicked the gravel of the parking lot.

  “No, Robin, that’s fine. Let Josh have a temper tantrum if he wants to. Let him prove me right. In the meantime, Josh, your driving privileges have been suspended. And consider yourself grounded.”

  “What? But I didn’t do anything! Mom?”

  Josh’s mother shook her head sadly. “I have to agree with your father, though it’s for different reasons. You haven’t been yourself lately and I think we need to get to the bottom of it before we can let you have the freedom you’ve been used to.”

  “Give me the keys to the Mercedes,” Steven said, and held out his hand expectedly.

  “But Dad. . . .”

  “Now!”

  Josh grudgingly pulled the keys from his pocket, and gave them to his father. He rode back to his house with his mother. Once they got home, he ran up the stairs to his room without a word to either of his parents. He refused to come down for dinner, even though he was actually starting to feel hungry for the first time since the whole rat poison incident. No amount of coaxing from his mother could convince him to come out.

  Josh was furious. Lily had been murdered and no one seemed to care. The police were no help. His parents were beyond useless. But his resolve only strengthened as he spent half the night staring at the ceiling, thinking things through. There was a murderer on the loose, and Josh wasn’t going to rest until he stopped them.

  Chapter 15

  Josh passed Bryan in the hall the next morning and they agreed to meet in the yearbook room during their lunch period. Josh spent a lot of time there, downloading and cropping photos for the annual publication. He was the only student who had his own key, so he knew they would have absolute privacy.

  Bryan didn’t want to wait that long. He tried to convince Josh to skip school for the day, but the last thing Josh needed was to give his parents another reason to keep him under house arrest. Still, he was just as anxious as Bryan to compare notes, and he struggled through morning classes.

  When he got to the chemistry room, Josh silently took his place next to Rosa. He met her worried gaze as Mr. Watson handed out their supplies for their lab assignment and tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he knew it didn’t really touch his eyes. He had too much on his mind to be lighthearted.


  “Josh, what’s going on?” Rosa asked as she lit their Bunsen burner. “I was worried when you didn’t come to school yesterday.”

  “I went to Lily’s funeral.” He sighed. “I would have called you last night, but my parents took my cell away.”

  “What? Why?”

  Josh rubbed his temples. He was getting a migraine again. Worrying about a murderer wasn’t helping to decrease his stress level. Even though his mother had given him a fresh bottle of codeine, he had no intention of using them. “It’s a long story, but it basically boils down to the fact that my father’s a total jerk who should never have procreated.”

  “What happened at the funeral?” Rosa asked. She seemed relieved to change the subject. She had met Josh’s father. She knew death was a safer topic. “Did Bryan say anything to you?”

  “Bryan said a lot of things to me.”

  Rosa misunderstood. “Whatever he said, I hope you aren’t blaming yourself for what happened to Lily.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Josh explained. He leaned in a little closer, and kept his voice low so the kids at the next Bunsen burner wouldn’t overhear. “Bryan thinks Lily was murdered.”

  “What?”

  Rosa actually dropped the beaker she was holding. The glass fell to the ground with a crash, shattering into a million tiny shards. Several students snickered, and Mr. Watson peered at them over the rims of his thick glasses. He scratched his graying beard as he handed Josh a dust pan and ordered him to clean up the mess. Once the glass was safely deposited in the wastebasket, Josh and Rosa were finally able to resume their conversation.

  “Josh!” Rosa hissed. “You can’t really think that Lily was murdered. That’s insane!”

  Josh slammed his pencil down onto the desktop. “You sound just like my parents and that moron Detective Gibula,” he complained.

  “Detective? Oh God, please tell me that you didn’t go the police. Not without some kind of proof!”

  “I thought I did have proof.”

  Josh told her about the second note that had shown up in his mailbox. She chewed her lower lip nervously as she listened, not quite sure what to make of it all. She was a little more willing to consider the possibility of murder when she realized it was connected to the rat poison, which she had witnessed firsthand.

  “Wow, this is really scary,” Rosa admitted, and swallowed hard. “If they got away with murder once, what’s to stop them from trying it again?”

  Josh realized that Rosa had a good point. He was so busy trying to prove that the first murder had happened; he never gave a thought to the possibility of a second attack being in the works. If they kept with their current pattern, it seemed logical that the killer would strike again. Which meant Rosa, as well as the other girls, could be targets.

  “I’m so sorry, Rosa,” Josh told her, and took her hand. “As if dating a reformed player wasn’t bad enough, now I might have put you in danger.”

  Her face drained of color. “Do you really think someone would try to hurt me?”

  “I really don’t know,” Josh admitted. “But we shouldn’t take any chances. Just be extra careful. Try not to go anywhere alone for a while. I don’t want to scare you, but I’d rather have you scared than turning up dead.”

  “No, I’m glad you told me,” Rosa replied, her voice controlled. “I’ll keep my pepper spray handy at all times. But don’t you think you should warn Elena and the other girls too?”

  “You’re right.” Josh agreed. “They should know what’s going on. The only problem is, I don’t think they’re going to believe me. I’ll be lucky if I can get them to listen to me at all.” Josh fingered the small scab on his cheek, and wondered what Jasmine would do if he dared to approach her. Probably something that would make him permanently sterile.

  “Do you have any idea who might be doing it? You were so sure that Bryan was the one who poisoned you,” Rosa said thoughtfully. “That hardly seems likely now.”

  “No, it couldn’t have been him,” Josh confirmed. “As for who did do it, that’s a question that Bryan and I are going to try to figure out together.”

  “You and Bryan together?” Rosa asked dubiously. “Just yesterday you were sworn enemies. Now you’re an investigative team?”

  Josh shrugged. “We have a common cause.”

  Rosa still seemed unsure about Josh’s new comrade, but they didn’t have long to ponder it. Just a few minutes later the bell rang, ending the class. Josh realized that they had scarcely gotten further in their lab work than turning on the Bunsen burner. Getting a low lab grade seemed trivial in comparison to a possible murderer on the loose, so he didn’t worry about it for long. Instead, he kissed Rosa’s cheek, and promised to call her if he wasn’t able to get out of the house. After all, he was grounded.

  Josh’s next class ticked by with devastating slowness. His mind was whirling with whodunit scenarios, and he couldn’t concentrate on schoolwork at all. When the period was finally over, Josh dashed through the crowded hallway to the yearbook room to meet Bryan. He unlocked the door and sat down at his editor’s desk in front of the computer monitor. Bryan wasn’t there yet, so he pulled his digital camera out of his backpack and plugged it into the computer. He had never downloaded the photos he had taken of the cheerleaders. Instead of wasting time, he figured he might as well get some work done while he waited.

  “You like taking pictures, huh?”

  Bryan stood tensely in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He ran his hands nervously over his buzzed hair. He scanned the rows of old yearbooks on the bookshelves in the corner, some of which dated back to the seventies, instead of making eye contact. Josh was just as uneasy, and started to shuffle around the piles of photos that were spread around his work area, pretending to put them into some kind of order.

  “Yeah,” Josh responded flatly. “It’s always been a passion for me. I want to be a photo journalist.”

  Bryan nodded, but he was through with small talk, and they fell into an awkward silence. There was still some tension between them. They had been enemies. Now they were trying to be friends. More than that, they were trying to be partners. It wasn’t easy to accomplish such a dramatic shift in roles, especially when teenage testosterone was a factor.

  Instead of looking at each other, they both stared at the full frontal shot of Elena that had popped up on the computer screen. Her pompoms were prominently displayed along with an insincere smile. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and silver butterfly earrings sparkled against her salon tanned skin. It was a perfect shot of the captain of the squad.

  “You believe me, don’t you? About Lily?” Bryan asked suddenly. “Somehow I knew you would.”

  “Yes, I believe you,” Josh said. “But I still don’t understand why you would trust me with such a big secret. I thought you hated me.”

  Bryan sat down in the chair beside Josh. “I did hate you. It wasn’t just because of Lily either. I’ve always been a little jealous of you. You’re one of those guys that seems to have it all, you know? You’re captain of the wrestling team. You’ve got a flashy car, tons of money. But I really hated that you were with Elena. I . . . I kind of have a thing for her.”

  “You have a thing for Elena?” Josh had to chuckle. Bryan was hardly Elena’s type. He didn’t have a car at all, let alone an expensive one.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s completely hopeless,” Bryan said with a sad laugh. “Why would she want to go out with me when there are guys like you around? And I know she’s . . . well, she’s your typical snooty rich girl, but she has a good side. Last year when I had my appendix out, she was really nice to me. Did you know she was a candy striper?”

  “I found out this weekend when I was in the hospital,” Josh told him. “It was definitely a surprise. I never imagined her as the bed pan changing type.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bryan said. “Back up for a second. You were in the hospital this weekend? Why?”

  It was a go
od chance for Josh to tell him about the rat poison and the notes, so Josh dove in. Bryan’s face turned a disturbing shade of green as the story unfolded, and Josh was glad he was sitting down. When he got to the part about his visit to the detective, the peaked look changed to one of absolute disgust and anger.

  “I could have told you how the police would react,” Bryan said scornfully. “They’re just looking for the easy way out. They’re nothing but a bunch of lazy bums, especially that Detective Gibula. He sits on his fat ass all day dunking his donuts in his coffee.”

  Josh nodded. At least they agreed on something. It was a start.

  “But we don’t need them,” Bryan continued. “We’ll figure this out on our own. But where do we start?”

  “We should probably start wherever they found . . . wherever Lily. . . .” Josh wasn’t sure how to end the sentence, especially when he saw Bryan grimace.

  “I found her,” Bryan revealed, after he took a moment to collect himself. “In the garage. I haven’t been in there since that day, but I think I can handle it if I’m not alone. We can do it today, after practice. In the meantime, I think we need to make a list of suspects.” Bryan was thoughtful for a minute. “Let’s start with the other girls you broke up with. There’s Elena, that new girl Nadine, and what’s the name of that girl in Williamstown?”

  “Jasmine.” Josh told him. “But I really don’t think any of them are capable of murdering someone.”

  “They all had a motive,” Bryan told him seriously. “The same motive that was implied in those notes you got. It’s all about anger and jealousy, and who else meets those criteria better than these girls?”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right.” Josh relented with a sigh. “They’re suspects. But who else?”

  “Now, don’t get angry,” Bryan said, and gave Josh a nervous glance. “But I think your new girlfriend is a suspect too.”

  “Rosa?” Josh exploded. “Are you crazy?”