“Should I change clothes?” I asked, trying to hide my disappointment.
“No, you look great,” Slade said, and ushered me out to the pickup. I couldn’t help noticing that in the back were fishing poles and a cooler.
“Where are we going?” I asked once I was in the pickup.
“Fishing,” he answered.
We’d been dating for two years by then and I knew he was capable of playing practical jokes, so I went along with it. But when he drove to the dock and asked me to carry the poles down to the boat, I really began to wonder.
Soon we were motoring into the Sound, with the orange sun in the western sky, maybe an hour from setting. At one point Slade slowed the boat down and asked me to take the wheel, and I thought maybe then he’d do something to reveal the joke. But all he did was put two lines out to troll, and open two beers. Handing one to me, he said, “Happy birthday!” and took a big gulp.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Hell, yeah. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” he said.
“So … you decided to take me fishing?”
Slade’s face fell. “Don’t you think it’s beautiful out here?”
The water was calm and blue, and the air fresh and clear, so I said yes, it was beautiful.
“Well, I just figured maybe it was time to try fishing again,” he said.
Some girls would have gotten angry, but I just felt confused. After two years, this was how he thought I wanted to spend my birthday? But it was a beautiful evening and we were out on the water, so I decided to make the best of it.
We traveled west for about forty-five minutes and then Slade looked at the gas gauge and said he needed to stop for fuel at a nearby marina. We pulled into a slip and started fueling and Slade went into the boat’s cabin. By then the sun was close to setting and I sat in the boat, wondering how long he planned to fish.
When Slade came out of the cabin, he was wearing a jacket and tie and slacks. He offered me his arm. “Ready?”
“For what?” I asked, astonished.
“Your birthday.” He pointed down the dock to a restaurant at the water’s edge.
We had the best time, watching the sun go down and eating lobster. Slade had called ahead and arranged for a cake, and after dinner the waiters crowded around and sang “Happy Birthday.” Knowing that blue was my favorite color, Slade gave me a sapphire ring.
Later we cruised home under the stars. Slade had one hand on the boat’s wheel and his arm around me. It had gotten cooler and he’d draped his jacket over my shoulders. I was beyond happy. For the first time, I thought I knew what true love was.
Chapter 13
Sunday 7:36 A.M.
IN MY DREAM they are chasing me through the beer-kegger woods. Dakota, Mia, and the other kids, the police, the EMS squad, even Ms. Bernard, my French teacher from the fourth grade, who used to get angry when I chewed on the ends of my pens …
The sound of knocking wakes me. My heart banging like a drum circle, I sit up straight and look around. It takes me a second to remember where I am. My eyes go to the window and meet Slade’s. He’s peeking in.
Now it comes back—why I am sleeping on this cold floor instead of in my cozy, warm bed. It’s weird when you wake up from a bad dream and everything is still bad.
Tired and stiff, I get up and unlock the door. Cool, fresh air pours in as Slade enters with a brown paper bag and stares at my jeans. I look down and see why: there are ugly brownish stains on the thighs, stains we couldn’t see last night in the dark.
Katherine’s dried blood.
Our eyes meet. He frowns. “What happened to your face?”
I touch my face. In some places it stings. In others I feel the tiny ridges of scabs. “From running through the woods last night. I got scratched.”
His forehead bunches. Is he wondering if I’m lying? “You don’t think I got them from fighting with Katherine, do you?”
He shakes his head, slides into an old chair, puts down the bag, and grimaces as he massages his knee. “Chief Jenkins was on TV this morning. They want to talk to you. They’re calling you a person of interest.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs, as if he doesn’t know. But I have to wonder. “You think it’s a trap? Like they’re hoping that if I hear I’m a person of interest and not a suspect, I’ll just stroll through the front door of the police station and save them the trouble of looking for me?”
Slade scowls. “You really believe they think that way?”
“Yes.” I feel my heart twist. I remember the first time I tried to tell him that I wanted to break up with him. All I could do was stare at the computer screen with tears welling up in my eyes. And Slade, sitting on his bunk bed in Georgia with his laptop, asked what was wrong and I said that nothing was wrong and I’d merely gotten something in my eyes and it was making them tear. Of course he believed me, because I’d never lied to him before.
“And if they are telling the truth and I really am just a person of interest, then it’s not going to hurt if I stay away a little longer, right?”
He looks away and his mouth twists. I know him well enough to know there’s something else on his mind. So I ask, “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He hunches over, elbows resting on knees, his hands together, fingers knitted.
“Come on, I know you. Tell me.”
Our eyes meet. He heaves a sigh. “That picture of you with the knife, kneeling next to Katherine’s body? It’s all over the Internet—Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. And this morning, when Chief Jenkins was on TV, they showed a photo of you from the yearbook. There’s not a single person in this town who doesn’t know who you are and what you look like.”
It’s obvious that I’m their number one suspect. That “person of interest” stuff is pure bunk.
Each May, just before Memorial Day, the PACE program put on its spring performance. Last year it was scheduled for the Friday night after Slade had left for National Guard training, and as a result, I was feeling pretty down. When Jodie, who was probably the sweetest and most thoughtful of Katherine’s group, texted to ask if I needed a ride to school, I texted back that I didn’t think I was going.
A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Katherine—the first time she’d ever called me. Usually she just sent texts.
“You should come,” she said. “It’s always fun and the cast party is a blast.”
I felt my mood lift and instantly changed my mind. The mere fact that Katherine had made the effort to call and ask me to come was huge. She and Dakota were in the midst of the longest and biggest fight anyone had ever seen. Did it mean she intended to replace Dakota with me as her closest friend?
The performance was a revue, with skits and dances. Katherine and Zelda had choreographed a modern dance. Jodie did a funny monologue about a family in which everyone stole batteries from each other’s TV remotes and toys.
Afterward I went backstage for the cast party. It was the first time in weeks I’d seen Katherine and Dakota in the same room, but neither spoke or even looked at the other.
It turned out that the backstage gathering wasn’t the party Katherine had been talking about. The real cast party was where we all went next—at Alex Craft’s house, where the punch was replaced by beer, wine coolers, and hard liquor.
Usually at parties I didn’t drink more than a beer or two, but that night, because Slade had just left and I wanted to stop stressing, I let go and had a screwdriver. But the boy who mixed it made it too strong, so I went into the kitchen to add more orange juice.
I was looking in the refrigerator when I felt someone behind me. It was Dakota, holding what looked like a screwdriver in her hand. Smiling, she said, “Looking for the orange juice?”
I nodded. “Can’t find any.”
Dakota pressed in beside me and peered into the fridge. She pulled out a bottle of cranberry juice. “This will work.”
She poured some into our glasses and we raised them. �
�To summer, and no more school,” she toasted.
I didn’t think she’d meant it maliciously, but I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was dreading the end of school and the summer without Slade. Not wanting to think about that right then, I took a big gulp of my drink, even though it still tasted way too strong.
Dakota took a sip and asked, “Heard from Slade?”
I started to explain about the no-phone-calls rule and suddenly burst into tears. I’m sure it must have caught her by surprise, because I’m the last person anyone would accuse of being a drama queen. Dakota put her arms around me, and the next thing I knew, I was bawling on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” I sniffed, embarrassed.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to ask. I wasn’t thinking.”
When I calmed down, I went looking for a bathroom to wash my face. The downstairs bathroom was being used, so I went upstairs; only the vodka made me dizzy and I wasn’t sure which door led to the bathroom. The first one I tried was a bedroom and Jodie and Zelda were inside. They were sitting on the bed with their faces close, and when I walked in, they jumped apart and both turned red, making me wonder if they’d been talking about something they didn’t want me to hear.
I apologized for barging in, then found the bathroom and washed up. When I walked back out, the door to the bedroom was open and Jodie and Zelda were gone. Still feeling dizzy, I went downstairs and outside to get some fresh air. Alex’s parents had white wicker furniture on the porch and I sat in a wicker love seat. The air was cool and springlike, and pretty soon things stopped spinning and I began feel better. Then the front door opened and Katherine came out. “Want some company?” she asked, sounding sweet and concerned.
“Sure.”
She sat down beside me in the love seat. “How are you feeling?”
“A little better, thanks,” I said.
Katherine moved close and put her arm around my shoulders. She’d never done anything like that before. “You really love him.”
“I think so.”
“You just think so?” she asked.
“No, no, I mean yes, I really do.”
“It’s amazing, you know?” Katherine said.
“What is?”
“Just that you can be so sure. I mean, like, at our age. And you are sure, aren’t you?”
It was strange how she always seemed to know what was on my mind. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, yes, I’m sure I love him, but I’m not sure what I’ll do if he gets sent overseas for a long time. I won’t be seventeen until almost July. It feels too young to have to wait so long.”
“I can imagine.”
I turned and looked at her. “You can? Really?”
Katherine nodded sympathetically and hooked her light brown hair behind her ear. She was wearing ear knots with little green whales. “Sure. Like you said, we’re sixteen. How can we really know what we want?”
I looked into her eyes, which that night were unexpectedly kind and caring. “Can I tell you a secret?”
She nodded.
“Sometimes I feel like I need Slade more than I want him. Like we’ve been together for so long that I’m afraid of what life would be like without him.”
Katherine squeezed my shoulder. “I think you’d be fine.”
The front door opened and Dakota came out. When she saw Katherine and me, she stopped and stared, then spun around and went back inside, slamming the door so hard behind her I thought the glass might break. Beside me, Katherine sighed loudly, then said, “Sorry, I have to go.”
Chapter 14
Sunday 4:37 P.M.
I KNOW THE yearbook photo Slade was talking about. In it I’ve got shoulder-length blonde hair and a bright smile. A lot of that hair is now at the bottom of a brown paper bag, and what’s left on my head is jet-black and spiky. I’m wearing enough black eye makeup to pass for a raccoon, and I dyed and plucked my eyebrows until they were thin black slivers to go with my black lips and nails. Topping it all off is a thick, abstract Sharpie tattoo on the side of my neck. Thanks to the rubbing alcohol, it looks almost real.
The police scanner blurts on.
Female voice: “Bravo five-eleven, what’s your ten-twenty?”
Male voice: “Bravo five-eleven. Over by the train station.”
Female voice: “Go over to Kearn’s Deli. Ten-sixty-two on a possible sighting of person wanted for questioning.”
Male voice: “Ten-four.”
A 10-62 means to take a report from a citizen. I don’t think it’s paranoid to imagine that the person wanted for questioning is me. So that means someone thinks he or she saw me and has called the police to report it. Of course, it’s a mistake. No one’s seen me. No one … except Slade.
I feel my stomach knot, from both hunger and anxiety, and I rip out the seams of Alyssa’s jeans and resew them so they’re skinny, then rip the knees and a pocket before scrawling on them and the sneakers with black Sharpies. All this work keeps me busy until, despite my nervousness, I’m starving. Finally, stomach grumbling, I stand before the bathroom mirror and consider what I’ve created. Scratches hidden by makeup. Black hair, black eyes and lips, black clothes. Short of piercings, I am as punk as can be.
But now I have to leave this place, and if this disguise doesn’t work, I won’t be punk. I’ll be in jail.
If, as I suspected, Dakota was Katherine’s killer, I wouldn’t be totally surprised. I had learned that she was practiced at appearing to be things she wasn’t. I knew, for instance, that she could be fast and aggressive with boys, even if she pretended to be the opposite. Even though she was pretty, with shoulder-length auburn hair, a trim figure, and an unusually ample chest for a girl her size, she never talked about dating. And while lots of girls wore tight low-cut tops and flaunted their cleavage, she stuck to turtlenecks and blouses.
But Slade had told me what had happened while he and his dad had been doing the renovation of the Jenkinses’ kitchen. Dakota had taken a shine to one of the workers, a guy about Slade’s age. She started hanging around, finding excuses to talk to him, “accidentally” bumping into him, and dropping hints.
“What kind of hints?” I asked.
“Oh, you know.” Slade reddened slightly. “The kind of stuff a girl does and says when she’s interested. And she’d touch him, too, when she talked.”
“Your friend told you that?”
“Yeah. I mean, it was kind of weird. Not the kind of thing that happens a lot when you’re on a job.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, that’s where it got even weirder, because there’s this unwritten rule that you don’t mix business with pleasure, especially when it’s the daughter of the client. So at first the guy just tried to laugh it off, but the more he did that, the more insistent she got. Like once she set her mind on something, she had to have it. Finally the foreman had to take him off that job and put him on another one.” He paused for a second, then added, “But even that wasn’t the end of it. She got hold of his phone number and sent some text messages. You know, that kind of thing.”
“So … she was really aggressive?”
Slade nodded. It sounded strange. Not that a girl would do something like that but that the girl in question was Dakota.
“And?”
“Don’t really know. After that, I never heard anything more about it.”
Chapter 15
Sunday 4:42 P.M.
IN THE OLD EMS building, my hand trembles as I reach for the door. Who would imagine that going outside could be this hard? But I’m scared. What will happen if I get caught? Who’ll defend me? My mother has no money. She used everything she had on Sebastian’s defense and then had to declare bankruptcy. And despite all that, Sebastian is still in jail with an eight-to-fifteen-year sentence for aggravated assault. It would have been worse had it not been for the private defense lawyer paid for by his friend Jerry.
But I can’t hide forever, so
out I go. It’s early September and everything is still green and warm. I walk along the sidewalk toward town, looking straight ahead and taking determined steps. I remember something Jodie once said: A costume is the least convincing part of a role. It’s the acting that makes or breaks you. My only chance is to act like I’m just another punk with someplace to go.
It’s a good thing no one can hear the thudding of my heart.
First stop is the convenience store. As I walk in, my eyes go immediately to the newspaper stand by the door. On the front page of the local paper is a large slightly blurred color photo that I try not to focus on, knowing it must be one of the shots of me kneeling beside Katherine’s body. Above it in big thick black letters is the headline.
POLICE SEARCH FOR LOCAL TEEN IN MURDER INVESTIGATION
Sex Assault Considered Possible Motive
Sex assault? I want to pick up the paper and read it, but I can’t. Don’t look, I tell myself. Act normal. There are a few other customers in the store, but I don’t look at them, either. As I pull a prepackaged ham-and-cheese sandwich out of the refrigerated display and grab a soda, I consider what this unexpected development could mean. If it was a sex assault, then it couldn’t have been Dakota. But then who killed Katherine? Is it possible Slade was right? That it was just some random stranger?
But if they think it was a sex assault, why are they looking for me?
I head for the checkout, but as I’m paying, I notice the black-and-white monitor in the corner, where the walls meet the ceiling. And there I am on the screen with my new black spiky hair. I quickly look away, but not before a cold chill envelops me. I don’t know why the sight of me on the security monitor should freak me out more than the photo on the front of the newspaper, but it does. It’s like the picture in the newspaper was then and the monitor is now, so they have a record of me in disguise on video. Suddenly I just want to get out of there as fast as my feet can take me.
Blood on My Hands Page 5