SHEP: We’re all close. There’re no problems in the group.
DET. ARCHER: Okay, okay…let’s talk about last night. So y’all got plenty of booze for a huge crowd. Whose idea was the party?
SHEP: John Michael always has a party here after the Battle of the Paddle game.
DET. ARCHER: Yeah, the big game. We had a lot of calls the last several weeks about pranks getting out of hand. You know anything about that?
KATE: He fidgets around in his chair. Studies his hands.
SHEP: Nope.
DET. ARCHER: Nope? That’s funny. There was a man in here a couple of weeks ago. Wanted to press charges for some damage to his daughter’s car. And then there was something about a smoke bomb going off in the junior hall. They all claim a group of seniors were behind the pranks. Some are even saying that picture of those three girls had something to do with the prank war. Know anything about any of those events?
KATE: He leans forward, elbows resting on his knees.
SHEP: No. And what does any of this have to do with what happened to Grant this morning?
DET. ARCHER: Let’s move on. What time did other people start arriving at River Point?
KATE: He leans back and shrugs his shoulders.
SHEP: I guess around seven. People were pretty much coming and going all night long.
DET. ARCHER: How many people were here, would you say? Were they all seniors?
SHEP: I don’t know. Maybe fifty. Maybe seventy-five. It was a mix of people from all grades.
DET. ARCHER: Anybody fight? Any trouble?
KATE: Shep shakes his head. Doesn’t look at him.
DET. ARCHER: That’s funny. Grant had some marks on his face that didn’t have anything to do with the gunshot wound. Looks like someone beat the hell out of him a few hours before y’all went hunting. And, looking at your knuckles, it seems like you might have been the one to deliver those punches.
KATE: Shep clenches his fists, in and out.
DET. ARCHER: What were you fighting about?
KATE: Shep’s eyes go straight to the detective. He looks like he doesn’t want to answer.
DET. ARCHER: Shep, don’t make it worse than it has to be. You’ve got marks on your knuckles and he has marks on his face. When we ask other people at the party, what are they going to tell us? It’ll look a whole lot better if you explain it to me first.
KATE: Shep shuffles around in his seat. He grips the armrest of the couch.
SHEP: We had a disagreement.
DET. ARCHER: What kind of disagreement? Was he messing around with your girl?
SHEP: You could say that.
DET. ARCHER: I did say that. Would you say that?
SHEP: Yeah, I would.
DET. ARCHER: Help yourself out, Shep. Tell me why y’all were fighting about your girlfriend.
SHEP: She isn’t my girlfriend. Just a girl I really like. There was some…confusion. Our numbers got mixed up and she thought she was talking to him instead of me. When I asked him about it, he laughed. Said now that I had primed her up, he’d happily step in and close the deal for me. So I punched him.
DET. ARCHER: Hell, I’d punch him, too. So what’s her name?
KATE: Shep shakes his head, looks down at the floor.
SHEP: Just a girl. It’s over. It doesn’t matter who she was.
UNKNOWN VOICE: Parents are here. No more questions without a lawyer.
DET. ARCHER: Come on, Shep. You can answer one more before you run off to Daddy. Maybe the fight had you so upset, you weren’t paying close enough attention this morning when you went out hunting. Maybe you were distracted and saw some movement in the woods. Maybe you thought Grant was the buck you were hunting. Is that what happened?
SHEP: I want a lawyer.
OCTOBER 4, 8:15 A.M.
KATE: I’m nervous about going to River Point. I won’t know anyone there.
GRANT SHEP: You know me
Reagan texts me she’s on the way over with our costumes, but I’m having trouble getting off the couch. Where I’ve been since I got home from work. I’ve replayed the conversation with Shep in the park a thousand times in my head. I’ve thought about his interrogation video almost as much.
He and Grant got in a fight that night. Over me. Those are the marks across his knuckles I saw the other night. Marks he got when he hit Grant. Because of me.
But why didn’t he tell me that they fought when we were at the park? It seemed like he was telling me everything else, so why leave that part out? What else is he leaving out?
I hear a loud honk outside our duplex, so Reagan must be here. I rush outside to help her get everything out of the car before she has a chance to lay on the horn again.
“Mr. Wiggins is going to leave another nasty note on the door,” I say when I meet her at the back of her trunk. Reagan knows it drives my neighbor crazy when she honks the horn.
Reagan rolls her eyes. “Screw Mr. Wiggins.”
My eyes get big when I get a good look at what’s in the trunk. “What are we wearing?”
“Oh, just you wait and see,” she says as she pulls several bundles of fabric out of the trunk.
She hands them off to me, then pulls out a few more bags before we head back inside. Once we’re in my room, she starts laying everything out on my bed.
Reagan holds one of the outfits up. “This one is mine.” It’s two pieces. The top is long sleeved and looks like it will fit her like a second skin. The dark blue fabric is sheer except for the swirling black and deep purple beaded sections that will cover her chest. The short skirt is made of jagged strips of silky fabric that seem to change colors from dark blue to black as she moves it back and forth.
“Reagan, that is gorgeous. You’re going to look stunning.” And she will. “But what are you?” I ask.
She drops her outfit on the bed and grabs the one closest to me. “Just wait. Look at yours.”
She holds up the other outfit. It’s identical to hers, but where hers is dark, mine is light. The sheer top is the color of honey, with gold and bronze beading while the skirt changes from pale yellow to a light orange when she shakes it.
“We’re Day and Night,” she says, with a huge smile across her face. “Or really, the goddess Nyx and the goddess Eos. But no one is going to get that, so we’re just going to say Day and Night.”
I’m stunned by her creativity. And her abilities. “You have to put these in your portfolio.” I reach out and touch the fabric. “They belong on a runway.”
Reagan blushes and shakes my compliment off. “Let’s get this on you and hope to God it fits.”
When we’re both dressed, we spin around in front of the mirror that’s attached to my closet door, and the strips that make up the skirts twirl with us.
“I’m glad there’s a built-in bra. Not gonna lie, I was a little worried when you held this top up,” I say.
Reagan winks and spins around again. She’s wearing black tights and tall black boots, while I’m wearing cream tights and a pair of her tall, light tan boots. I’m so lucky we are the same size, because there is no way I could ever afford shoes like this.
Even though my skin is covered from head to toe, I feel sexier than I would if I was in one of those awful sexy nurse or sexy pirate or sexy…anything costumes the stores sell.
“We look badass,” I say.
“I told you, we’re going out with a bang. Now it’s time for hair and makeup.”
I sit down on the chair in front of my dressing table while Reagan opens up her tackle box of cosmetics and starts working her magic.
She’s drawing some swirly design in gold paint starting at the corner of my eye and moving toward my temple. I’m mesmerized by her steady hand.
“So I think you need to make a move on Josh tonight,” I say. “Send him a clear message that he’s no longer in the friend zone. And this is the perfect outfit to do it in.”
“Quit talking or I’ll end up smearing this down your face.”
I’m quiet
while she finishes my makeup, but when she moves to my hair, she asks, “So what was that about today, with Shep?”
Truthfully, I’m surprised she waited this long to ask me. I kept expecting her to show up at Stone’s office all afternoon.
I can’t lie to Reagan. She’s my best friend.
So I tell her everything. I tell her just how hard I fell for Grant…then about finding out it wasn’t Grant, just a sick prank.
It’s a while before she says anything.
She curls the last long piece of my hair and pins it up with the rest. “Oh, Kate…why didn’t you tell me earlier how you felt about Grant, I mean, when you thought it was Grant? I knew you were upset, but I didn’t know how bad it was for you.”
“I don’t know. This has really messed me up. I mean, I’ve been mourning Grant for weeks. And then I find out it wasn’t him. But when I look at Shep, he’s still a stranger to me. I’m so seriously screwed up right now.”
I take a deep breath. “And now I can’t quit thinking about how different things could have been. What if I hadn’t seen Grant at the game with that girl? I would have met up with Shep, thinking I was going to meet up with Grant. Would I have been mad? Or would we have laughed over Grant’s prank? Or what if Grant had never switched the numbers? What if I’d known it was Shep all along? The what-ifs are killing me. Not to mention, Shep is one of four boys who could have killed Grant. This whole thing is a nightmare.”
Reagan leans down, hugging me from behind, and it’s like a weight has been lifted off my chest now that I’ve said the words aloud. I should have talked to her about this before now.
When she pulls away, she asks, “So what are you going to do about Shep?”
I shake my head. “I can’t do anything about him. I can’t even think about him without my head spinning. I asked him if he did it. You know, shot Grant. He told me no.”
Reagan’s forehead scrunches up. “Do you believe him?”
I shrug. “I would have believed the boy who texted me in a second. I don’t know if I believe Shep.”
Reagan cocks her head, not having to point out that it’s the same person.
Rolling my eyes, I say, “I know. I told you I’m screwed up right now.”
Reagan puts her hands on my shoulders and looks at me in the mirror. “Be careful. No one knows for sure what went on in the woods that morning.”
So true. Even after all this time, we know next to nothing about what happened. And for some reason this makes me think of Lindsey and how she acted so weird when I said basically the same thing at Rhino. She talked to him just before he was shot. Is it possible she knows something?
• • •
I grab my camera out of my bag as soon as I get out of Reagan’s car.
Reagan shakes her head. “For now, put the camera away and let it all go. You’ve been too stressed-out lately. And it totally clashes with your outfit. Let’s have fun, okay? Plenty of time to take pics later.”
I drop the camera back in my bag and nod. “You’re right.”
We head for the far side of the parking lot, where most of the student body is tailgating before the game. There are burgers cooking on grills and music blasting and booze hidden in Styrofoam Sonic cups. This is what I need.
And most everyone is dressed up in costume. We find our group of friends, who are dressed like Minions, and Reagan and I strike a pose in front of them.
“Whoa,” Mignon says. “Don’t know what y’all are supposed to be, but damn.”
“You two are the only ones who show up in couture Halloween costumes!” Alexis squeals. “I love it!”
“I’m Night and she’s Day,” Reagan says as we twirl around like we practiced in the mirror.
Josh and his group of friends notice us and move a little closer.
Even though our costumes are identical except for the colors, Josh only has eyes for Reagan.
I give her a nudge and she moves toward him. “What do you think?” she asks.
“I think nighttime is my favorite time,” he says, his mouth turned up in a cute smirk.
They sit down side by side and I want to do a little cheer.
“They just need to hook up already,” Josh’s friend Mark says, as he takes the empty seat next to me.
I laugh. “So it’s that obvious to y’all, too?”
“You could say that.”
We hang out a while, talking to people that pass by our little spot, laughing at some of the costumes. Mark flirts with me and it’s nice to feel like a normal girl instead of obsessing about Shep, like I have for most of the day, or Grant, like I have for the past few weeks.
“Y’all coming to the party at my house after?” Max Oliver asks as he drops down on the ground next to Reagan. We’ve known him forever, and parties at his place are always a good time.
“Yeah, we’ll be there,” Reagan says.
Mignon and Alexis quickly start talking about who will be there, while I just sit back and listen, taking it all in.
By the time we make our way to the stands, it’s dark. As my friends fight their way through the crowd to the student section, I stow my gear bag behind the table where they sell T-shirts and other school-spirit paraphernalia, taking only my camera with me down the steps to the field.
I hate shooting the games. I’d much rather be in the stands with my friends than stalking the players as they move on and off the field. It’s chilly out, and the wind blows straight through the sheer material of my top. I get the first group of shots I need from the players, bouncing around, trying to keep warm, then turn my attention to the cheerleaders.
They’re wearing their regular uniforms, but their hair and makeup make them look like zombies. Julianna notices me and gathers the girls into a quick formation so I can grab a couple of images of them before moving to the student section to capture all of the costumes.
Scanning the crowd through my viewfinder, I snap a pic of Taylor, a girl in my English class, who wears a cow-print vest, pigtails, and exaggerated freckles. Maybe she’s that cowgirl from Toy Story. Oh, yeah, there’s “Woody” right next to her. A few spaces down is a group of girls wearing gray T-shirts, each with a different day of the week printed on it, and a shark hat. What the heck are they supposed to be…ohhh…they’re Shark Week. Now that’s clever. I take several shots of them, and they pose for me once I’m spotted.
Moving on, I see a few superheroes, a group of what I’m guessing are sexy kittens, and some zombies that look way scarier than the cheerleaders’ version.
And then I spot Shep. He’s sitting with the other River Point Boys toward the top of the bleachers. They weren’t tailgating earlier, but then again, I’m not sure they even know that’s what we do here.
They’ve kept to themselves all week, and now they’re here at the game. Why?
Shep watches me and I watch him.
Click, click, click. I fire off a few quick shots, then study him through my zoom lens. It’s different looking at him now that I know the truth. His features are softer somehow, or maybe that’s because I’m trying to see him in a different light. He gives me a hesitant smile, and his hand goes up, like he’s going to signal me again; maybe he wants to talk, but then his face changes. His forehead scrunches up and he stands, staring at something behind me. I drop my camera and notice that whatever it is has a lot of people turned that way.
I spin around and know instantly what’s got everyone’s attention.
There’s someone in a mask with a blond wig. He’s wearing the uniform from St. Bart’s, except there is a huge red stain across the chest.
He’s dressed up as Grant Perkins.
I glance back at Shep and see all four of the River Point Boys moving down the row, trying to get to the bleacher steps. They look pissed.
The guy in the costume is close to where I’m standing, and I can feel the anger building inside of me. He’s stumbling around, grabbing his chest, and people in the stands are both horrified and fascinated. It’s like a tenni
s match, with everyone’s eyes moving back and forth between him and the River Point Boys.
I grab his arm and it takes everything in me to pull him in the opposite direction, down a set of steps that lead away from the bleachers and out of sight. I’m not sure why I’m intervening, except somewhere deep in my heart and mind, Grant lingers, and it kills me to see this person mocking him.
I yank off the mask and it’s Mark.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I say. Pulling the blazer off of him, I take all the pieces that make him “Grant” and shove them in a nearby trash can.
“What?” he says in an annoyed voice. “It was a bet. Couldn’t pass it up. And it’s just a joke. Lighten up.”
I push him in the chest and he almost falls over backward. “Well, it’s a horrible joke. You’re making fun of someone who’s dead!”
“Why do you even care?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I don’t. Mark rolls his eyes and walks away, shaking his head. I drop down to the ground, the adrenaline leaving me as fast as it came.
A minute late, the River Point Boys bound down the other stairs and skid to a stop when they see me.
“Where is he?” Henry growls.
Logan scans the area while he chews on his bottom lip. Shep is quiet, standing toward the back of the group, his eyes never leaving mine.
“He’s gone,” I answer.
“Who was it?” John Michael demands, his hands balled at his sides.
I shrug and we have a standoff of sorts. Finally, they turn away and go back the way they came; Shep is the last one to leave.
When I finally feel like my nerves are under control, I head back to the stadium. Scanning the crowd, I search for any sign of the River Point Boys, but they’re gone.
The rest of the game drags on, and by the time we get to the party at Max Oliver’s house, I’m exhausted.
Thankfully, there’s a fire pit in the backyard, so Reagan and I dash to get a seat up close.
“So maybe I should have made us some jackets to go with these outfits,” she says.
I hold my hands out, trying to soak up as much warmth as I can. “You think?”
The rest of our group pulls up chairs, and it doesn’t take long until I’m toasty.
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