“How often do they back up?” Henry said.
“To comply with federal laws, corporations have to back up their data for disaster recovery on the regular,” Digby said. “So if there were an earthquake or flood or whatever, they could restore and immediately get going again. Perses still puts tapes into a cold-site storage, right? They haven’t started using the cloud?”
“I don’t think so. My parents haven’t said anything,” Felix said. “They would’ve mentioned converting to the cloud . . . probably . . .”
“Wait. We’d have to steal thousands of tapes, wouldn’t we?” Digby said. “Google uses something like fifty thousand tapes per quarter.”
“Well, number one, Perses isn’t Google—they wouldn’t have even one percent of that information,” Felix said.
Digby said, “But even one percent is still, like, hundreds of tapes—”
“And, number two, I know for a fact that Perses backs up in silos. They go department to department and my father’s is happening soon, because he complained about it recently,” Felix said. “A hundred and eighty-five terabytes per tape . . . it shouldn’t be a crazy number of tapes.”
“How soon will it be?” Digby said.
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “I could ask—”
“No, don’t,” Digby said. “He’ll know something’s up.”
“I could check my dad’s email,” Felix said. “Look for alerts.”
“Better,” Digby said.
“How’s that better?” I said. “What if he gets caught reading his dad’s emails?” I noticed that Digby was studiously avoiding making eye contact with me.
Digby said, “Felix.”
“Yes?” Felix said.
“Don’t get caught,” Digby said.
“Okay,” Felix said.
“Wait. You can break into his email account?” I said. “Why can’t you just break into his work—”
“I don’t have to break into his email account. I know his phone’s four-digit passcode. I wait until he charges it and then I open his email app,” Felix said. “I’m excited. Pulling off a heist is number five on my bucket list.”
“Wait,” Sloane said. “Won’t those tapes be hard to steal?”
“The servers back up on a schedule and believe it or not, the tapes are sent to storage using normal couriers. The data of almost four million Citibank customers was left in the open because they shipped their data tapes through UPS, and UPS lost them.” To Felix, Digby said, “That’s what you’re thinking, right? Take them while they’re being moved?”
Felix nodded.
“And you’re sure they haven’t changed that?” I said. “Seeing as how now they know how easy it is to steal?”
“Felix, can you find out?” Digby still wouldn’t look at me.
“Yeah. I’ll try,” Felix said
“Well, this is quite a Sunday. Basically, we went from talking about one crime . . .” Sloane pointed at Henry. “To planning a whole new crime.”
“And does either of those crimes involve drunk driving home from a night of underage drinking at a lakeside party?” Cooper said.
We all jumped. None of us had even heard the front door open. Cooper walked into the kitchen dressed in his cop uniform. My heart still instinctively flip-flopped at the sight of the shiny shield pinned to his chest. He’d been dating my mom since the end of last year and had been living with us for months, but Mike Cooper would always be, first and foremost, a cop. And, more specifically, my arresting officer.
“There were three separate calls out to that party last night,” Cooper said.
“No, don’t worry. No drunk driving,” I said. “Sloane’s driver brought us home last night.”
“Oh, so that’s your car out there?” Cooper said.
“What? Is Hince here already?” Sloane looked out the window and shook her head. “Where? I don’t see him . . .”
“There.” Cooper pointed out the window. “I assume those private security–looking guys bird-dogging the house are here for you.”
“Uh, Zoe,” Sloane said.
I joined them at the window and saw de Groot’s two security guys—the ones I thought of as Taller Guy and Shorter Guy—sitting in a black SUV pretty much directly across the street from my house.
“Most people just hire swolled-up gym freaks who can barely move, much less actually fight. But that little guy”—Cooper pointed out the window at Shorter Guy—“might actually mean business. Are they not here with you?” He turned from Sloane to look at me. I tried not to crack under Cooper’s stare but Sloane looked uneasy. “Something I should know?”
I emptied my head of all the incriminating thoughts that might have played across my face.
“Because there’s also the matter of your football coach getting busted with a big ol’ bag o’ drugs. Busted by Musgrave,” Cooper said. “Harlan Musgrave? Do we need to talk about that?”
“Who, me? I’m shocked. Shocked.” Digby took Sloane’s plate and filled his mouth with a forkful of her eggs. “Drugs in school? Shocking.”
“Because I know Harlan Musgrave.” Cooper laughed. “He’s not smart enough to uncover a drug operation.” And then Cooper pointed at Digby. “But you are.”
Digby just smiled back and kept eating Sloane’s eggs.
“When did you have the time to do it? With your school, job, internship . . .” Cooper said.
“I didn’t. And even if I did have the time, do you think I’d waste it helping that creep Musgrave?” Digby said.
“Internship?” I said.
But Digby was still ignoring me.
“Huh. I guess they’re lost,” Cooper said, looking out the window. De Groot’s men had pulled out maps and made a show of pretending to be searching through them. I suppose the three of us lined up at the window looking right at their car wasn’t exactly subtle.
Cooper walked to the coffeemaker, poured himself a cup, and sighed. “If I weren’t so exhausted, I’d work on you kids a little more about those steroids.” Cooper pointed at Henry and said, “I don’t think it’d take much work to crack this one.” And then he went upstairs.
When we heard the bedroom door close upstairs, Henry said, “He’s right. I can’t lie for beans. I’m busted.”
“Calm down, Henry,” Digby said. “You won’t have to lie. They’re not even going to ask you about it.” He took a bite of Sloane’s toast and muttered, “I hope.”
Sloane stepped away from the window and said, “But what about those guys?”
“Don’t worry about them,” Digby said. “They’re here for me.” He brought the plate of food over to the window, tapped on the window with his fork, and waved when Shorter Guy looked up.
“What?” To me, Sloane said, “And you’re not worried? They’re outside your house.”
I thought about it. “No,” I said. “I think they’re just here to watch.”
“‘To watch’?” Sloane said. “Seriously, you guys?”
Digby shrugged and nodded.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know,” Sloane said. “You two live weird lives.” She got a text message and looked out the window. “Oh, here’s Hince now. Anybody need a ride?”
Felix raised his hand and started to follow Sloane and Henry out of the room. Before he left the kitchen, though, Felix said, “Digby, I will never forget that you changed my life. The bullying was so bad, I was basically ready to give up on regular school. But if you ever endanger my family with another piss-poor plan like that—ever—I will end you.” And then he left.
Digby finally looked at me and said, “He could do it too.”
I grabbed Digby’s arm as he walked away. “You aren’t staying?”
“I should get going,” he said.
“You’re mad,” I said. “Because I told Felix.” Digby just stared at the f
loor. “You want me to say sorry.”
“But you won’t,” he said.
“Because I didn’t do anything wrong. He had a right to know,” I said. “And if your priorities weren’t so messed up—”
“Hold on. You’re making me sound like I’m some ruthless deviant,” Digby said. “I was just using all the tools in my toolbox.”
“That’s all we are? Tools?” I said. “Is that what you tell yourself to make things easy when the time comes for you to turn on us?”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Digby said. “You know what I mean. And if we’re talking about turning on people—”
“You mean telling Felix? Give me a break. That was the decent thing to do,” I said. For a second, I wondered if he had a point. I wasn’t a hundred percent on solid ground lecturing him on loyalty when I was sitting on quite a few secrets myself. “And anyway—isn’t this a much better plan than the one you came up with on your own? Like you said—use all your tools.”
“So you want me to say thank you,” Digby said.
“But you won’t,” I said.
And then he walked out the door.
FIVE
I woke up from a night of crummy sleep, still obsessing that Digby had gone radio silent. I debated starting a text fight with him so we’d at least be talking. And then there was the problem of the post-party blowback I knew I was going to face in school. But eventually, I got acclimated to the swirling vortex of dread in my stomach and I propelled myself out of bed and got ready to go.
I was just about to leave when Cooper came in from work.
“Hey, Mike, do you know where Mom is?” I said. “She left yesterday morning before we got up, and I don’t think she came home last night.”
The series of weird expressions Cooper wrestled with before he finally found his straight face reminded me of his having once said that they never let him go undercover.
“She had a work thing,” Cooper said. “Came up suddenly.”
“On Sunday? And it lasted all night?” I said. “What kind of all-nighter emergency comes up for a community college English professor on a Sunday?”
“She said it was complicated,” Cooper said. “That she’d explain later.”
I couldn’t tell from the way Cooper was acting whether he actually knew where she was and was covering for her or if Cooper himself didn’t know where Mom had gone and was trying to cover up his embarrassment. Either way, I was just as happy when he ran up the stairs and saved us from having that awkward conversation.
* * *
• • •
I didn’t know how I should dress for my public shaming. After trying on basically everything in my closet, I’d settled on a combination of shapeless and mud-colored clothes I hoped would help me blend into the walls. It didn’t work, though.
The staring and snickering started on my way up the walk to the main entrance. Not absolutely everyone I walked past was in on the joke but enough people looked my way that I was sure the students who weren’t yet in the know would be looped in soon. I’d be trending by lunch.
I put on headphones and listened to an old favorite as I fixed my eyes before my feet and walked head down to my locker. It was a relief not to hear what people were saying. With the world on mute, the song’s lyrics felt even truer. Faces look ugly when you’re alone.
* * *
• • •
After just four months basking in the warm sunshine of Austin’s and Charlotte’s and Allie’s companionship, being back out in the cold was brutal. I felt profoundly alone walking between my classes.
I spent the morning watching everyone talk about me. I experienced some small, petty things—like when some idiot waggled his tongue at me as I walked past and when a girl laughed at me when I passed a worksheet back to her in class—as face-melting humiliations. But I knew the worst was yet to come.
Lunch. That would be when the truly creative would shine.
I kept my new routine of pulling on my headphones the moment class was dismissed. When lunch rolled around, I gritted my teeth and added a book to my armor. I joined the chow line and read the same patch of text over and over until it disintegrated into a meaningless blur of print.
I succeeded in drowning out the world until I had to move my headphones off my ears to order my food. It was then that I heard one of the kids ahead of me say, “Can I get some cole-slut—oh, snap—I mean, coleslaw, please.” And then he and his friends all turned and laughed at me.
I put my headphones back on and hastily muttered “Pizza” even though I could see it was covered in slimy roasted peppers that would make me gag.
“Damn it,” I said. I walked away from the counter, determined to get a grip.
Old Me would’ve slunk away and eaten in the library stacks. But Old Me was long gone. And so, as painful as it was to be stared at, New Me sat my butt down at a sparsely populated table of assorted randos and tore into my disgusting pizza.
I was so deep into my act of looking at ease, I didn’t notice that someone was at my elbow, talking to me, until he pulled off one side of my headphones and yelled, “Wake up, Miss Webster.”
It was Musgrave, looking intense as usual.
“We need to talk about our problem,” he said.
“Problem?” I said. I had so many problems I needed time to figure out which one he meant.
“That your notebook is still in police evidence,” Musgrave said. “Do you understand what kind of crapstorm there’ll be when they find that notebook and you and I end up telling different stories about how it got in Coach Fogle’s bag of steroids?”
I didn’t feel like engaging but I had to point it out. “Actually, that bag technically belonged to a guy named Silkstrom. Ex-student who did the actual dealing . . .” I said. “Though he did work for Coach Fogle.”
“What?” he said. “It isn’t even Fogle’s? What?”
His voice had a hysterical edge that pierced the dull lunchtime buzz.
“Listen, shouldn’t we . . .” I gestured at the dining room around us, where people were starting to turn and stare.
Musgrave said, “Music room. Ten minutes.”
* * *
• • •
Even though I didn’t get an answer when I messaged Digby to meet me, I was disappointed anyway when I walked into an empty room. But I didn’t have long to dwell on that, because Musgrave arrived and got right into it.
“I still cannot believe you left your notebook in the bag,” Musgrave said. “That was dumb.”
“‘Dumb’? You mean like clocking in five days a week right next to Fogle and not realizing he was dealing drugs?” I think we were both surprised by how aggressive that came out. “There was a lot going on at the time. It was an accident that my notebook got in there.”
“Accident?” Musgrave’s eyes narrowed. “Or maybe you two planted those drugs on Coach Fogle?”
“That’s not what happened,” I said.
“Why don’t you tell me how this did happen? From the beginning.” When I didn’t speak up, Musgrave said, “You’ll tell me the story if you want me to sell this as my bust.”
Where to begin. Should I tell him we’d accidentally stolen Silkstrom’s bag during a failed fake drug deal we’d arranged in order to flush out whoever was selling to the kids on the football team? Or should I keep it simple and stick to our story of finding the bag and then using it to carry my stuff and forgetting to unpack my notebook before handing it over to him? I wished Digby were there. But he wasn’t, so I made a judgment call.
“Look, we realized Coach Fogle was selling when we found the bag he left in the locker room. We took it to report him. I was holding a bunch of books at the time and one of them must’ve fallen in when Coach chased us,” I said. “That’s it. Whole story.”
“‘He left it in the locker room’?” Musgrave gri
maced as his monkey brain processed that. “Are other faculty involved? Were other students involved?”
“Like I said, we just found the bag,” I said. “I don’t know anything more.”
“Well, even the greenest public defender would be able to use the notebook to mud up the case and get Fogle sprung,” he said. “And if your name”—he pointed at me—“is anywhere on that notebook . . .”
I thought hard about whether my name was written anywhere in the notebook, and while I was pretty sure it wasn’t, I also couldn’t say I was a hundred percent sure people couldn’t figure out whose it was by reading closely. The thought made me wince.
Musgrave noticed my face drop and said, “Then you need to disappear that notebook.”
“It doesn’t have my name on it,” I said. “And, anyway, why can’t you go get it?”
“I told you. I am not getting caught tampering with evidence,” Musgrave said. “You go get it.” He pointed at me again. “Your mother’s dating Cooper—”
I said, “Let’s leave Cooper out of it.”
Musgrave said, “Well then, what?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said.
Nothing shuts up a bully like giving him what he says he wants.
“You can do it?” Musgrave said.
I didn’t know exactly what I was promising but I nodded anyway. “I should get going. Lunch is almost over,” I said.
“Fine. But that notebook better be gone before I give my official statement or I’ll tell them a CYA story instead,” Musgrave said.
“When are you giving your statement?” I said.
“My lawyer and I are going into the DA’s office on Thursday,” Musgrave said.
It crossed my mind that CYA story meant Cover Your Ass and that it would have to be a pretty big story to cover that angry man’s ass. And that made me laugh.
“You kids think everything’s a joke,” Musgrave said. “I cannot wait until I’m out of here and far, far away from you morons.”
Me too, Musgrave.
* * *
Trouble Never Sleeps Page 4