by Kelley York
“Oh, I’m sure they did. But what about everyone’s phones? Aaron’s brother just put out the cameras because he thought it’d be cool to develop them afterward and see people acting like idiots, but plenty of people were snapping pics with their cells. There were, like, seventy people at that party. There’s no way the police could’ve confiscated everyone’s phones, right?”
“They went through mine,” I point out.
“You were a primary suspect. They didn’t check mine; I’m willing to bet they didn’t check Aaron’s or his brother’s.”
Good point. I worry at my lower lip. Aaron wouldn’t be dumb enough to have taken any incriminating photos and kept them on his phone, would he?
Brett sighs. “Not that I have any idea how to go through his stuff without him noticing, and it’s not like the cops are just going to issue a search warrant based off of something we say.”
Very slowly, the rust is falling off the hamster wheel and it’s moving a little faster as I begin to formulate the first solid plan since Autumn and I decided to solve this. “Leave it to me. I think I got this.”
Chapter Fifteen
I say nothing more about Aaron or his phone. While I’m not expecting to find anything like pictures on it, I think if he is covering for someone or if he did it himself, he might have something that he keeps with him. A text message, a note, a letter—anything that might point us in the right direction.
This is information I keep to myself when we arrive at school Monday morning and run into Callie and Autumn. Callie’s normal skirts and tank tops are absent and instead she’s in jeans and a flannel over a T-shirt, like she wants to protect herself. She holds herself straight-backed and chin up, but I can tell by the way she keeps flickering her gaze to the ground that she’s aware people are watching her and murmuring. That’s the girl who was raped at that party.
“Welcome back, Callie,” Brett says.
She turns her smile to him. “Thanks.”
Autumn links her arm with mine despite that I’m trying to walk to my locker and she’s shuffling backward as I shuffle forward. “It was boring without you last night. Maybe I should sneak you into my house and have you live in my closet.”
“There are so many jokes I could make about coming out of the closet,” Brett teases, but his attention is still worriedly on Callie. “Do you want me to walk you to class?”
Callie glances at Autumn and me and says, “Sure, that’d be nice.” She doesn’t sound like she thinks it’d be nice, but she’s trying to be casual, like this is no big deal.
When she and Brett are out of earshot, I ask, “How is sh-she doing?”
“Better than I thought she would, actually.” Autumn releases me so I can get into my locker. “A little nervous, but I think she’ll be okay.”
I nod. “D-did you know she and Aaron Biggs used to date?”
“Of course.” Her head tips. “You didn’t? It was only for a few months. It never got serious.”
“So you don’t think he…?”
“Do I think Aaron raped her?” Autumn sighs. “I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but ultimately…no. I don’t think so. He’s a bad actor and an even worse liar.”
“But do you think he could know something about who d-did?”
That makes her pause. She leans into the lockers, worrying at her lower lip. “I don’t know. It’s possible. He might cover for one of his friends, maybe.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Or rather, what Brett was thinking, and I’m inclined to agree the more I dwell on it. “C-come on, I’ll walk you to class.”
Even as we fall into step down the hall, her eyes are glued to my face. “What’re you planning, Vic?”
Simple enough: “To go through his stuff and s-see what I can find. If I can figure out how.”
Autumn quiets until we round the corner, and then keeps her voice down so no one overhears. “He has gym right after lunch.”
Gym. That’s right; during gym, it’ll be the one time he’s without his phone and backpack because they’ll be in his gym locker. But— “How do I get past his lock?”
“I don’t know about you guys, but hardly any of the girls in my gym class bother with locks in gym. It could be worth a shot.”
That’s true. Brett always used his lock, but I didn’t because I could never remember the combination or which way to spin the dial. There’s also the issue of not knowing which locker is Aaron’s. We aren’t assigned gym lockers because no one leaves their things there all the time. You go into the locker room, pick one to use for the day, and make sure not to leave anything in it for the next class to find.
“Okay,” I say slowly, stopping outside of Autumn’s classroom. She peers at me.
“Please don’t get yourself into trouble.”
The sincerity in which she says this is both warming and amusing. “Hey, I’m only in t-trouble if I get caught.”
Autumn and Callie join me for lunch. Which is nice, because I would’ve been eating alone otherwise. I had assured Brett he should go eat with some of his other friends because I wasn’t feeling particularly social.
Callie looks tired but digs into her food. If anyone is picking lethargically at their meal, it’s me. Mainly because the butterflies in my stomach have stolen my appetite. For as confident as I’m trying to play it off, there are about two hundred ways my plan could backfire in my face.
I don’t say anything about it in front of Callie. I don’t want her involved. If we find something, I’m not sure I want her there to see it immediately. If we don’t…well, I don’t want her discouraged. So I just glance at Autumn a few times and return the smiles she gives me while Callie chats aimlessly about her top picks for college, and when I’ve had enough of pretending to eat, I dump the rest of my food and tell the table I have to get to class early to talk to my teacher.
No sooner have I stepped into the empty hall, though, than Autumn follows me right out. “I’m coming with you.”
I glance back. “What about Callie?”
“She promised me she’d be okay getting to her next class.”
I don’t have time to stop and talk this out with her. I’m on a timeline that requires me to do this carefully because if I don’t, I’m ten times more likely to do something stupid and ruin it. “It’s t-too dangerous. I’ve got it.”
She latches hold of my hand and draws me to a halt, determined annoyance on her face. “Uh, excuse me? I’m not going to let you risk yourself for my best friend while I sit back and twiddle my thumbs. Besides, we can search through things faster if there are two of us.”
There really isn’t time to argue. I need to be at the boys’ locker room before the end of lunch bell rings, so— “Okay, okay.”
For some reason that I’m not going to question, Autumn doesn’t let go of my hand. I quickly tug her along and we slip outside, across the quad and past the library to the gym. Mr. Mackey is the boys’ gym teacher and we make it a point to duck down and inch beneath his office window so we aren’t seen. When we get to the door, I whisper for Autumn to wait while I make sure no one is inside.
Thank God junior year was the last time I had to take gym. I did not miss the musty, stale smell of a sweaty locker room or feeling obligated to shower in front of a bunch of other guys. Either that, or risk being made fun of for putting clothes on while still sweaty from running laps.
I take a quick walk around, peering between all the rows of lockers and checking the bathroom stalls. Then I poke my head back into the hall to say, “All clear,” and Autumn slips inside with me.
“Ugh, it smells like something died in here,” she whispers.
We crowd into one of two enclosed bathroom stalls and shut the door. Autumn makes a face, but without complaint sits on the back of the toilet with her feet on the seat while I stand. Here, I can get a bit of a view of the locker room. Maybe I won’t be able to tell exactly what locker Aaron uses, but I can at least see which aisle he’s in and t
hat should narrow it down.
Assuming we don’t get caught first.
The final lunch bell rings, which means it’s only a few seconds longer before the locker room door bursts open and guys start pouring in. The sudden influx of voices and laughter puts me right on edge. This is a horrible idea. What’s worse is that I dragged Autumn into this mess with me.
She nudges me in the back with her foot and I glance at her. She just smiles in a way that simply says, Too late to back out now.
I twist back around and peer between the small gap where the wall of the stall meets the door, and squint in my search for Aaron, praying no one calls me out for being a pervert or something.
He’s a bit late, but I spot Aaron coming through the door and making his way toward the back of the locker room with Patrick. I catch only a sliver of a glimpse of the general area of their lockers and decide that’ll have to be good enough. I pull back and look to Autumn with a thumbs-up.
Now it’s a waiting game. Again. Waiting for everyone to get dressed. Waiting for them to file back out of the room and into the gym. Even then I give it another extra minute to ensure there aren’t any stragglers before slowly, cautiously, opening the door and peering out. Quiet and empty, I think.
“See if the door locks,” I whisper. Autumn darts to the door and begins messing with the push bar. I know there’s a way to latch it, but hell if I know how.
Meanwhile, I make my way toward the last row of lockers and scan them. Three with locks. Three without. I start at the end and make my way down, opening each of the unlocked ones long enough to see if I recognize Aaron’s neon-orange backpack. When I reach the last door and still haven’t found Aaron’s, I swear under my breath.
Autumn comes up behind me. “What is it?”
“It’s one of these, but they’re locked.”
She narrows her eyes, goes to the first lock, and begins spinning the combination dial.
“W-what are you doing?”
No answer. She inputs a combination that, of course, doesn’t work, and moves to the last locker. No point in bothering with the second one since it’s a key lock. This time when she puts in the combo, it clicks open with ease.
I stare. “How…?”
Autumn smiles sheepishly at me. “He’s in first-period computers with me. He carries his lock in the outside mesh pocket of his backpack, and it looks just like mine, so I figured if he did use it, we’d know the combination to get in.”
I examine the lock she hands me. It is, in fact, a generic silver-and-black combo lock. Probably 75 percent of the student body uses them. I could kiss her for being so smart and sneaky.
She opens the door and drags out the orange backpack. I reach back in to check the pockets of his jeans, making a slight face. When was the last time he washed these?
“Here’s his phone.” Autumn tosses the cell to me and, thankfully, it doesn’t require a password to get in. I take a seat and start swiping through his text messages, skimming over pointless conversations in search of something meaningful. When that yields nothing, I switch to his pictures, scrolling through dozens he’s taken in the last few weeks. He’s definitely not someone who skimps on taking photos, which could be a very good thing for us. They’re all organized by folder: bb game, lake, school, kev’s bday, lakehouse…
“Ugh, he hoards candy wrappers like they’re going out of style,” Autumn mutters, pulling out his binder to flip through it. “Anything?”
“Not yet.” But as I open the folder titled parties and see the collection of pictures Aaron took the night of the party, my stomach starts to turn.
Most of the photos are slightly blurry, thanks to crappy indoor lighting and shaky, drunk hands. Some of them are screenshots with captions that I’m guessing he received from other people and saved, images of screen grabs of Snapchats. There’s a picture of Brett holding the phone and taking a selfie of Aaron, himself, and two guys I don’t recognize. Probably college kids.
The only picture that gives me pause is of a crowd near the stairs, and in the background, barely visible, is me. Scaling the steps with Callie sagging against me. It’s blurry enough that it could be called into question who the two people are, but come on. I recognize the shirt I was wearing, and how many other guys helped drunk girls to a room that night?
Discouraged, I’m about to give up until I get to the end of the photo reel and my heart stops in my chest. I nearly drop the phone.
Autumn jerks her head up, quickly leaning over to see. “What is it?”
Her hand immediately goes to her mouth.
We’re staring at a dark photo, but it’s very evident that the set of long legs we’re looking at belongs to Callie Wheeler.
Callie, lying on the bed where I left her.
The picture doesn’t show her face, but there’s no mistaking that it’s her. You can even see the wastebasket I left at her bedside in the corner of the photo.
“Oh my God,” Autumn whispers.
I can’t even manage that much. Thankfully, Autumn’s brain is still functioning. She whips out her own phone and takes a picture of Aaron’s, showing his cell with the picture of Callie on it. Her hands are trembling and it takes three tries before she gets one that isn’t out of focus.
“What d-do we do?” I ask.
Autumn opens her mouth to try to say something and the words won’t come. She shakes her head, turns, and runs out of the locker room.
I make quick work of shoving everything back into Aaron’s bag and locker, phone included. We have the evidence we need to do…whatever it is we’re going to do, but that isn’t on my mind just yet. Autumn looked three seconds away from crying or screaming and I need to make sure she’s okay.
It doesn’t dawn on me until I’m jogging outside onto the empty basketball courts after her that I still have her lock in my hand. Aaron is going to notice that. Of course, he’d also notice if he went to unlock it and his combination wasn’t working on Autumn’s lock, so this seems like the lesser of two evils.
Autumn is seated out on the bleachers facing the football field, head bowed, hands clasped behind her neck. I approach slowly, cautiously taking a seat on the bench below where her feet are rested so that I can look up into her face.
“Autumn?”
“Sorry,” she murmurs, not opening her eyes. “It just…caught me off guard, I guess. I mean, I was prepared for it but I wasn’t, you know?”
“To b-be fair, neither of us was anticipating that.” We had figured that if we found anything, it would be incriminating texts or something. Not a picture of Callie taken likely moments before she was raped.
When worded that way, it makes my stomach heave. No wonder Autumn needed to sit down.
“I don’t know what to tell Callie.” She sits up straight and draws in a ragged breath. She isn’t all-out crying, but there are tears in her lashes and it makes my chest tighten.
“I’m n-not sure. The truth?”
Autumn groans. “That her ex-boyfriend is guilty? It’s going to break her heart.”
I sit back a little and turn on my phone to look at the picture again, holding the screen at an angle so she doesn’t have to see it. “M-maybe someone else took it?”
“Are you saying that because you believe it or because you’re trying to make me feel better?”
“Anything is possible.” I try to smile but it comes out weak. There’s nothing about the picture that would indicate it isn’t one Aaron took. Why would anyone else have his phone? Why would anyone else send this to him if they took it? Or rather—why would he keep it if someone had sent it?
Autumn props her face in her hands, gazing out over the football field. “Maybe we should confront him directly first.”
“What?”
“Just to see what he says. If he’s called out on it, he could confess, and we can talk him into going to the police.”
I shake my head. “Seems like a bad idea.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs. “But I think if we take this
to Callie, she’ll try to talk to him directly. I know her. Rather than subject her to that, I think we should take the step for her. Can we ask Brett? He’s dealt with Aaron before.”
“I d-don’t want to drag him into it.” I avert my gaze. Brett would help in a heartbeat, I know he would. Just like he cornered Aaron that day in the parking lot. That’s part of the problem; his loyalty to me has gotten him in trouble before, and this close to graduation, this close to him getting accepted into a great college…I can’t pull him down into something that might ruin his chances.
No, the person with nothing to lose is me, so— “I’ll do it.”
Autumn frowns and nudges me with her foot. “We’ll do it together. Stop leaving me out of things. I’m tougher than I look, and you’re…well…”
I frown. “I’m what?”
Her eyebrows lift and I can tell she’s trying to choose her words carefully. “You’re… Oh, hell, Vic. You’re not a violent guy, let’s face it. I’ve seen you try.”
On some base level, that statement irritates me. But I can’t say she isn’t right, either. I’m not a fighter, nor do I handle confrontation well. Brett was always the one who charged headfirst into things while I trailed along like a silent shadow. So maybe between Autumn and me, we can handle Aaron as a pair.
“A-all right. We’ll talk to him together. But where? How?”
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I mean, he’s always with his friends at school. Maybe we need to go to his house? If we can get his address.”
“I c-can get it.” When she looks at me curiously I explain, “Office assistant. I can sneak onto the computer to look him up.”
“Nice.” Her gaze flickers to her phone on the bench beside her and it seems to be a solemn reminder of what she has on there, and how difficult this is going to be to keep from Callie. How do you look someone in the eye, knowing the person who hurt her is someone she cared about and trusted?
Chapter Sixteen
Sometime during fourth period, Mom texts to tell me to come home after school. The request leaves me feeling slightly nauseous the rest of the day, even after I have Brett drop me off. Mom never tells me to come straight home unless she has bad news or she’s pissed at me for something. Given that we haven’t spoken since I found out about my dad three nights ago, my sensation of dread is only multiplied.