by Kelley York
“Shit!”
“That’s what I said.”
She sits up and I roll out of bed to grab my pants and phone, answering it quickly. “H-hello?”
“Vic? It’s Callie. Is Autumn with you?”
Oh, I’d forgotten she had my number. “Y-yeah, she’s here. Hold on.” I turn and offer the cell out to Autumn and she snatches it.
“Hey? Yeah. I totally fell asleep and I think my phone is in my car… Thank God. You’re a lifesaver. I’ll go call them. Love you.” She hangs up while I’m pulling on a pair of pants and a shirt, and we both begin searching for our shoes. “Mom called Callie and she told them I was in the shower.”
Good save, Callie. “D-do you need to go home?” We had planned on going to Aaron’s today, but I don’t want her in trouble and grounded from seeing me altogether.
“I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes when I call home.” She opens my bedroom door and we make the mistake of stepping into the hall without thinking.
Which has us running right into my mom, who is still in her pajamas and is on her way to her room with a cup of coffee in hand. I freeze. Autumn freezes. Mom stares, looking shocked and confused. Guess it’s a good thing I thought to get dressed. “H-hey, Mom.” Do I introduce Autumn? As a friend, as a girlfriend…?
Autumn recovers first, although her voice is a little higher than usual with her nervousness. “Hi! You must be Ms. Howard. I’m Autumn.” She extends her hand, which Mom slowly takes out of pure reflex. “I was just coming to pick Vic up so we could go on a study date. Um, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Mom blinks slowly and withdraws her hand. “No, you didn’t…”
“We’re s-sort of in a hurry,” I apologize, ushering Autumn for the front door.
“It was nice meeting you!” Autumn calls, and we leave Mom behind, looking after us in stunned silence.
We hurry across the street and dive into the car. I can barely suppress a laugh. Autumn slumps into her seat with cell in hand. She grimaces at the sight of several missed calls on the screen, and dials home. Whoever it is answers on the first ring. “Daddy? Hey, I’m so, so sorry. I crashed last night and my phone was in the car…”
I can hear the vague outlines of a lecture from the other line, but no yelling. That’s a good sign. Autumn seems to be relaxing.
“Yeah, I understand. I know. I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll be home tonight.” She endures a few more minutes of talking to him before hanging up, then slouches down and sighs.
“Good?” I ask.
“Good,” she agrees. “One of the benefits of not being a troublemaker, I guess. When I do screw up, they aren’t as hard on me. Sorry if I got you in trouble with your mom.”
“Honestly, sh-she tends to not say anything when she feels awkward, and I’m pretty sure we made her feel awkward.”
“Not as awkward as it would’ve been if you’d still been mostly undressed. She would’ve thought I was taking advantage of you.”
That gets a snort out of me. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
She grins a little and starts the car. “So, I’ve got a little cash on me. I say breakfast before we go tackle this whole Aaron thing.”
I haven’t had a second to ask Autumn about last night and what it meant. But I guess our plan is still on.
I’ve been to Aaron’s a handful of times, always with Mom, and never for very long. I remember the first time I was there, and Aaron and his brother made themselves scarce and I was stuck talking to their mostly senile grandmother for twenty minutes while Mom chatted with Ruthie. Approaching his door, then, with just Autumn feels incredibly off. His car is out front, so we know he’s home. And it’s the only car, so I take that to mean at least his brother and Ruthie are gone for the moment.
We exchange glances before I ring the doorbell. My heart is already starting to pound. Maybe this is a bad idea. “W-what do we do if he denies it?”
“How can he deny it? We’ve got proof right here.” She waves her phone. “He can either tell us the truth, or we’ll go to the police. Simple as that.”
For some reason, I can’t wrap my head around it being that easy.
It only takes a minute for Aaron to answer the door. Any other day, I would say the startled look on his face was priceless. “What are you doing here?”
“We came to talk to you about something.” Autumn inclines her chin, trying to make herself look taller than she is. She’s good at looking down her nose at people even when she’s smaller than they are; I know this because it’s a tactic she used on me repeatedly the first few times we ran into each other. “Can we come in?”
Aaron glances between us, a wary crease forming between his brows. He seems to decide we aren’t a physical threat and steps aside to let us in.
His house isn’t much different than I remember it. Not that I remember a lot. Just enough that I know to head down the entryway and to the right where the living room is, and where Aaron seemed to have been in the middle of watching TV. He stays right behind us and flops onto the couch, arms flung over the back of it.
“So? What do you want?”
I hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s more apparent to me now that Autumn is trying hard not to lose her temper. I can sense it in the way she’s standing, in the way she has to take deep breaths before speaking. “We want to know what happened the night of the party.”
Aaron squints, mouth slightly parted, trying to figure out the meaning of that statement. “What?”
“The night C-Callie was raped,” I say patiently. “You know m-more than you’ve told anyone.”
He scoffs. “What makes you think that? I’ve told the cops everything I know.”
“No, you didn’t.” Autumn’s voice can’t hide the sharp edge forming around her words. “We have proof that you didn’t, so you can spill whatever you know now or we’ll take that proof to the police.”
The wary scowl on Aaron’s face smooths out and he looks simultaneously worried and confused. “You’re both fucking crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The cell is still in Autumn’s hand and she whips it up, turns it on, opens the photo we took of Aaron’s phone with the picture of Callie, then promptly shoves it in his face. “Stop screwing around, Aaron!”
Aaron jerks back like he expects she’s going to grind the phone into his face, both hands coming up as though to grab it. He comes just short of doing so as he realizes what it is he’s looking at. “Abject horror” is the term that comes to mind to describe his expression, and his voice is soft, barely above a whisper. “Where did you get that?”
“Can’t you tell?” Autumn hisses. “It’s from your cell phone.”
“What…?”
“I’m sure you remember a day where you came back from gym and found your lock missing, right?”
Aaron’s gaze flickers to Autumn, but only briefly before it’s back on the phone again. If I didn’t know any better, I would say his face has become extremely ashen in the last thirty seconds or so. Still, he insists, “That isn’t my picture.”
As though to prove it, he pulls his cell from his pocket and turns it on with shaky hands, opening up the folder with pictures from the party to scroll through them.
“It n-not being on there isn’t going to prove anything. You c-could have deleted it b-by now.” In fact, if he had even the smallest inkling that someone had been in his locker, he would have been smart to delete all the pictures from the party. Maybe we should’ve thought that through more.
Except seconds later, Aaron has the picture of Callie up on his phone, and any remaining semblance of color has drained from his face. “It’s here.”
“Congratulations. Now explain why it’s there.” Autumn lowers her own cell, still seething.
“I don’t… I don’t know.” Aaron slowly offers the cell out, helpless, eyes wide, as though giving it to us will somehow cleanse his hands of it. “I didn’t take that picture. I swear to God, I didn’t. It wasn’t the
re before.”
Ingenuous: innocent and unsuspecting.
If there is anything I gather from how small and helpless Aaron sounds and looks right now, it’s that one word. It makes me want to believe him. No…more than that, it does make me believe him. I wonder if this is how Autumn felt when she realized I wasn’t the rapist. Frustrated, because it puts us back at square one. “Was anyone else using your ph-phone the night of the party?”
“I don’t know,” he repeats. “I mean, I was drunk off my ass. I don’t remember. Someone may have taken it, I guess? But I don’t think that’s it.”
Autumn asks, “Why not?”
“Because I’ve looked at all these pictures since then.” Aaron lowers the phone, staring at it like it might miraculously give him some answers. “I’ve gone over them like a thousand times, trying to find some idea of who hurt Callie.”
“Have the police?”
Aaron falters. “Well—they…no. I gave them all the disposable cameras and they developed the pictures, but they never asked for my phone.”
Which doesn’t reflect all that well on Aaron, I have to say. If the cops had already checked out his cell, that might clear him, but… “Okay. Th-then how do you think it got there?”
“I don’t know,” he stresses, and I could swear that he’s close to tears. “Maybe someone planted it there. How do I know you guys didn’t?! You admitted to getting hold of my phone!”
A sharp laugh escapes Autumn’s mouth. “You think we did it? Get real.”
“No, I think he did it.” Aaron trains his suddenly sharp gaze on me and rises to his feet. The accusing stare is enough to make me want to scoot behind Autumn and hide, but I stand my ground. “He was a suspect. Of course he would do it! He would have had every reason to!”
“The lady doth protest too much,” Autumn says, not backing down or cowering away. She extends her hand to Aaron. He hesitates, but slowly places his cell in her palm so that she can look at the photo up close, studying it longer. “Look, we aren’t saying you raped Callie. We’re asking for you to honestly tell us if you’re covering for someone.”
Some of Aaron’s tension seems to ease out of him, though only slightly. His hands are balled into fists at his sides, and he seems to be thinking. “I don’t know anything.”
“You’re sure?” I press.
“I’m sure,” he snaps. But it isn’t convincing.
Autumn and I exchange looks, both of us knowing we aren’t going to get any more information out of him. She hands him back his phone. Without saying a word, we turn to leave.
Aaron starts after us worriedly. “You guys aren’t going to the cops, are you?”
“If what you say is true, then it won’t matter if we do because you have nothing to hide.” Autumn opens the front door and looks back at him. “Right?”
His expression is a mystery to me. Something trapped between worry and uncertainty and anger. For half a second, I think he might change his mind and suddenly decide to be honest with us; instead he says, “Right,” and watches us leave.
Back in the car, we slump into our seats with synchronized sighs.
“So,” I ask, “w-what now?”
“Now…I think we have to go to the police. I noticed something while looking at it.”
“What?”
“The time stamp in the file info. It isn’t immediately obvious, but you can look to see when the pic was originally taken and when it was last modified. I don’t think that photo came from Aaron’s phone.” She runs a hand through her wavy hair, eyes closed. I can tell she’s feeling as drained and at a loss as I am. “Maybe the police can track the source of that picture or something, if Aaron is telling the truth and someone put it on there.”
I consider this. “We should ask Mr. Mason. He might have a better idea.”
Autumn’s lashes lift and she stares off at nothing. “Yeah. That’ll work. But you didn’t tell Brett we were coming here, did you?”
“No,” I admit. “I d-didn’t want to bother him with it.” He’ll undoubtedly be unhappy with me for it, but I’ll have to explain to him that it was in his best interest. Even now, I don’t want to drag him into things, but I can’t exactly go over there to have a serious conversation with his father without him finding out about it.
There isn’t a point in wasting time. I give Autumn the directions to Brett’s place. Although I have a key, it feels rude to just walk in when I have company, so I knock. Mr. Mason will be home today; he does most of his work in his home office. After a moment, he just so happens to be the one who answers the door.
“Hey, Vic.” He glances at Autumn curiously, but his smile doesn’t waver. “Brett’s still asleep. He was out late last night at a study group. Come on in.”
“Actually, I c-came to talk to you,” I say, stepping inside. “If you have a minute.”
He blinks once, closing the door behind us. “I’m getting some things ready for court on Monday, but I can spare a bit, if it’s important.”
“It’s important,” Autumn assures him.
He glances at her again, and I figure I should probably introduce her. “Th-this is Autumn Dixon. She’s, um, Callie Wheeler’s best friend.”
An indescribable look passes over Mr. Mason’s face, and I think he’s probably worried for me, and confused, and maybe a little annoyed that I would be “fraternizing with the prosecution” or something like that. But as quickly as it was there, the look is gone and he’s all polite business again as he offers a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Dixon.”
She takes the offered hand and shakes it. “You, too. Just Autumn is fine.”
Mr. Mason ushers us into his office, where I take a seat in the chair I’ve sat in way too many times over the last several weeks. Autumn sits beside me, looking around in awe. It definitely feels like we’ve stepped from a pristine household into a law office. It should say something for how good Mr. Mason is that although he’s part of a law firm, he rarely has to go into his actual office except to meet with clients he doesn’t trust to have at home. Frankly, I don’t think I could work with people I was afraid of, but that’s just me. Mr. Mason is a unique sort of man.
“All right,” he says, removing his reading glasses and folding them neatly to one side. “What’s up?”
I look at Autumn and she looks at me, and I realize we’re both equally nervous because we’re aware that the way we came across this photograph could potentially get us into trouble. It was my idea though, so… “If w-we were to c-come across evidence regarding Callie’s rape, but did so in a not-very-moral way, would it still be usable?”
Mr. Mason squints, thoughtful. “I suppose that depends on the evidence and how you came about it. What did you do, Vic?”
“We had a hunch and went through someone’s cell phone,” Autumn says.
“Without this person’s knowledge?”
In unison: “Yes.”
He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, but I would almost say he looks more tiredly amused than annoyed. “We can work around that, I’m sure. Or rather, Callie’s lawyer could. I’m your defense, not the prosecution, so it doesn’t mean much to me.”
I start to reply when there comes a knock at the door and then it swings open. Brett pops his head inside. “Hey, Dad—” He pauses when he sees me. Or maybe it’s because he sees Autumn, and that sight in his house has to be a little weird. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you were here, Vic.”
“H-hey,” I greet.
Brett lets himself inside and wanders over. There isn’t another chair for him to sit on, so he leans against the desk instead, curiously eyeing us all. His hair is a mess and he’s in his pajamas, meaning he was, indeed, out late last night and probably just woke up. I wonder if he’s hungover or if he actually did go to a study group. “What’s going on?”
“Vic and Autumn were just telling me about some new evidence they came across in the case.” Mr. Mason looks to his son, as though wondering if he had anything to do with us d
igging through someone’s personal things.
“He didn’t know,” I’m quick to say, wanting to defend Brett.
Brett asks, “What kind of evidence?”
“We went through Aaron Biggs’s phone and found this.” Autumn holds her cell out to him with the picture of Callie on the screen. Brett’s perplexed expression quickly melts away, replaced by a pale-faced look of nausea. He quickly tilts his chin up.
“When did you do that?”
“A f-few days ago.”
“Were you planning on telling me?”
I knew that was coming. “I’m telling you now.”
Brett shoots me a scowl. “Sure, after you went and did it. What if you’d been caught? Why don’t you ever tell me anything anymore?”
Mr. Mason clears his throat. “That’s something the two of you can discuss later, when I don’t have a court appearance Monday morning to prepare for. Vic, I’m not sure whether this information is going to be useful or not, but I’d take it to the detectives.”
I’m pretty sure the numbers are saved in my phone, but… “W-wouldn’t it come better from you?”
“Not necessarily.” He raises his brows. “But if they need me, they have my phone number. Like I said, I’m not Callie’s lawyer. I’m yours. The prosecution is going to be the one interested in it.”
Fair enough, I guess. Considering that Brett is giving me dirty looks, I should probably go face the music where Mr. Mason won’t see it. Honestly, I wish Autumn wouldn’t see it, either, but that might be unavoidable.
We step out of the office and into the hall. Brett takes us to the living room, smooths a hand through his hair, and sinks onto the couch. Autumn is keeping right at my side and I remain standing, shuffling my feet awkwardly.
“It isn’t that I d-didn’t want to tell you—”
“Really? Because that’s what a lot of this feels like. You didn’t tell me about Aaron dragging you into the bathroom, or about them cornering you at your work, and now this? Did I do something to piss you off?” He doesn’t look at me. If anything, he seems to be trying his best not to look at me.
My spine stiffens. I really wish Autumn would wait outside, but she isn’t budging. “I’ve been trying to protect you, all right? I didn’t tell you b-because you’ve got all of this going on”—I sweep a hand out, gesturing to the coffee table, which is still home to college brochures I’ve seen him looking over the last several times I’ve been here—“and I wanted you to stay focused. The l-last thing I want to do is ruin your chances or g-get in the way.”