Dead Set (Aspen Falls Novel)

by Melissa Pearl

  Lucas had briefly entertained asking Blaine for help with this but quickly nixed that idea, too. He’d been less than receptive to discussing the case when they’d met at Lulu’s and had even shown a little aggression, which was not like the Blaine he knew. Lucas made a mental note to touch base with his friend soon, not about the case, but simply because he was concerned about him. They were friends—better than friends, actually. If Lucas wanted to get all sentimental, he’d say Blaine was the closest thing he had to a brother. And he was pretty sure Blaine felt the same way about him. Blaine had Nate, of course, but his grumpy-ass half-brother never acted like one.

  Lucas was going against traffic as he pushed his way into the school, weaving in between students pouring out of the building. He was at least armed with one concrete piece of information, thanks to Alaina: Noah’s class schedule.

  His ultimate goal was to find and talk to Jack and Hannah, but he figured he could also swing by classrooms and see if he could get anything useful from Noah’s teachers.

  He pulled out his phone and looked at the screenshot of Noah’s schedule. Alaina had forwarded it to him. He enlarged it, noting the classroom numbers and his own location in the building. The computer science room was the closest, so he figured he’d start there. Noah had liked video games so maybe he’d formed a closer relationship to that teacher.

  Lucas pivoted in the direction of the classroom and then stopped. A girl with short pink hair was walking by at a fast clip, her thick black boots landing with a resounding thump with every step she took.

  He hesitated for just a moment.

  How many girls with pink hair attended Aspen Falls? It wasn’t like they were in a hip urban neighborhood in the cities.

  “Hannah!” he called.

  She turned.

  He smiled.

  She looked around, trying to figure out who had called her name.

  Lucas approached her, his posture and expression casual. “You’re Hannah Sears, right?”

  Her eyes, thick with eyeliner, narrowed as she looked him over. “Who the hell are you?”

  Lucas stuck his hand out. She ignored it, clutching her books more tightly to her chest. She wasn’t wearing a coat. She wasn’t wearing much of anything, really. Black leggings that clung to her long, supple frame, and a thin white T-shirt that clearly showed off the hot pink bra she was wearing underneath. Lucas knew the dress code policy at the high school and wondered how in the hell she’d gotten away with wearing that to class.

  “My name’s Lucas,” he said with an easy smile. “I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

  “What are you, a cop or something?” Her voice was laced with derision.

  “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Not a cop.”

  Her glare only intensified and she spun around, ready to leave him in the dust.

  “I have some questions about Noah.”

  She faltered.

  And then slowly, she turned back around. Her expression had changed to one of uncertainty.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “You were friends, right?”

  “Why?”

  She was guarded, and rightfully so. Some strange man had just appeared out of nowhere, asking her questions about her dead friend.

  “I’m just curious,” Lucas said. It was a shitty non-answer, but he wanted her to be the one to share information, not him.

  “Bullshit.” Her lips flattened into a thin line. It made her look older, harsher. “Who are you, and why are you asking questions about Noah?”

  Lucas shoved his hands in his pockets. “His family asked me to,” he admitted. “They’re pretty torn up over what happened. They just want some answers, you know? About why he…why he did it.”

  Hannah clutched her books tighter and shifted her gaze so she was looking at the floor. It was standard school flooring, linoleum streaked with dirt and salt, but she locked in on it as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

  “We used to be friends.”

  Her voice was so low Lucas almost didn’t hear her.

  “Used to be?” he echoed.

  She nodded.

  “What happened? Did you guys have a falling out, or did you just drift apart?”

  She still wouldn’t look at him. “I don’t know. We weren’t super close to begin with. We had a few classes together, and we sometimes sat together at lunch. That was pretty much it.”

  “Did he have other friends?” Lucas asked. “People he was closer to?”

  “His gaming friends,” Hannah responded. “But they were all online.”

  Lucas thought about this. Hannah was one of the only people who’d written a personal note in Noah’s yearbook.

  “So you hadn’t fought or anything?” he asked. “There was nothing that changed the nature of your relationship.”

  She looked up then, her lip curled in disgust. “We didn’t have a ‘relationship.’ Geez. We were friends. Casual friends. That’s it.”

  He held up a hand. “Okay, okay. Did he have any enemies that you know of? Was he mean to anyone? Anyone mean to him?”

  Her chuckle was harsh. “Mean to him?” she sneered. “This isn’t middle school. You think there’s like a classroom bully or something? How naïve are you?”

  Lucas’s temper flared. He was growing tired of her attitude.

  “Maybe cut the attitude?” he snapped. “Your friend is dead. Dead. And I’m trying to figure out what was so damn miserable in his life that he thought killing himself was the only way out.”

  Hannah reared back as if she’d been slapped.

  Good, Lucas thought.

  When she looked back at him, her expression was softer, more vulnerable. “Noah was one of the good guys, okay? In a school full of assholes, he was a good guy.”

  It was probably the most honest answer he was going to get from her. And he realized he probably wasn’t going to get much more. Hannah had known Noah, had liked him, but they had never been close. His death was probably as much of a mystery to her as it was to Noah’s family.

  She shuffled her feet and suddenly her mask of indifference and haughtiness was firmly back in place. “We done?”

  Lucas nodded. “One more thing, though,” he said, remembering the other students he was looking for. “Any idea where I might find Carmen Garcia?”

  Her brow wrinkled. “Carmen moved to Texas like two years ago.”

  Lucas hadn’t considered that possibility. There went one of the names on his very short list of people to talk to.

  “What about Jack Whitman?”

  “You said one more thing.”

  “I know,” he said, trying to keep his irritation in check. “Last one, I promise. Jack Whitman.”

  She scowled. “Why do you want to talk to him?”

  He wasn’t going to tell her that this was the only other person who had really written in Noah’s yearbook.

  “What do you mean?” he said instead.

  Her scowl deepened. “He’s the biggest asshole jock in this school.”

  15

  Thursday, March 22nd

  3:20pm

  Lucas knew exactly where to find Jack Whitman.

  Hannah told him Jack played both football and basketball before she’d taken off down the hall.

  Lucas flashed back to his conversation with Connor, the manager of the JV team. Classes had just ended, which meant players would be suiting up and heading to the gym for practice.

  He walked in that direction.

  Jack Whitman wasn’t hard to find. Lucas recognized him right away. He was tall, easily one of the tallest kids on the team, and carried himself with the confidence most good-looking high school kids did. He swaggered a little on the court, dribbling the ball casually as he talked to one of his buddies.

  Lucas surveyed the gym and didn’t see any coaches. He had a couple minutes, max, so he trotted out onto the court.

  Jack gave him a dismissive glance. He was even better looking up
close. Short blond hair, green eyes, a smooth complexion that most teens would kill for.

  “Jack Whitman?”

  Jack eyed him, trying to keep his curiosity from showing. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”

  Lucas stuck his hand out for the second time in ten minutes. Jack stopped dribbling and offered his own hand. His grip was firm.

  “Lucas.”

  Jack arched his brows. “No last name? What are you, Drake or something?

  “Drake?”

  Jack laughed and looked knowingly at his friend. “Dude doesn’t even know who Drake is.”

  His friend, slightly shorter, with longer brown hair and matching brown eyes, snickered.

  Lucas clenched his jaw. He wasn’t in the mood for more high school bullshit. He stared down the kid, which was a little hard to do considering Jack had a good four inches on him. Bulk and muscle, though? Not so much. But height-wise, he practically towered over Lucas.

  “Tell me about Noah.”

  Jack cocked his head. “What?”

  “Noah Dans.”

  “What would I know about that loser? Besides the fact that he offed himself.”

  The friend snickered again.

  “Hey, smartass.” Lucas’s tone was sharp. “You wrote in his yearbook.”

  Jack bounced the ball slowly, his hand connecting with the moving ball even though his eyes were still locked on Lucas. “So what?”

  “So it sounded like you were a friend.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  Lucas shot his hand out and knocked the ball across the court. “I’m the guy standing in front of you asking a question, dammit.”

  Jack’s expression hardened, his eyes like ice. “We weren’t friends.”

  “No? Why did you sign his yearbook, then?” Lucas whipped out his phone and showed Jack the picture of his inscription.

  Jack smiled, a cruel one that only served to further fuel Lucas’s irritation with the kid.

  “I was just messing with him,” Jack said. “You wanna know how many times he texted or snapped me last summer, looking to hang out? At least twenty. Even when I never answered back, he just kept sending me texts. Pathetic.”

  Lucas’s arm twitched, and he had to make a concerted effort to keep his hand at his side so he wouldn’t lash out and punch the kid in the face.

  Hannah Sears was right.

  Jack Whitman was an asshole.

  Lucas took a deep, steadying breath, trying to stay calm. He’d never been very good at that part of his job. “You know anything about how he died?”

  Jack glanced at his friend. They both were smirking.

  “He offed himself, man,” Jack said. “What else is there to know?”

  “Do you know how?” Lucas demanded.

  “Nope. And I don’t give a shit. One less loser at this school, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Lucas grabbed Jack’s jersey and yanked him close. The kid might’ve had a few inches on him, but he was no match for Lucas’s strength. Or his anger.

  “A kid is dead, asshole,” Lucas seethed. “And you may have played a part in that. You think this is a fucking joke?”

  Fear flitted through Jack’s eyes. “Hey, man, I was just kidding.”

  Lucas didn’t loosen his hold on him, and Jack licked his lips nervously. His friend looked like his feet were cemented to the floor, and the other players who’d arrived early to practice had drifted to the far side of the court, anxious to avoid getting involved in whatever was going down.

  “Noah died with a rope around his neck,” Lucas said, his voice deadly soft. “Swinging from his closet door. His mom found him.” He stared at Jack, who was looking at him, wide-eyed. “Tell me what part of that you find funny.”

  Jack licked his lips again. “None of it, man. Look, I’m sorry. I was kidding, alright?”

  Lucas forced his fingers to unclench and the jersey slipped out of his grasp.

  Jack immediately sprang back. He still looked scared, but he managed a half-scowl.

  “I’m not done with you,” Lucas told him.

  But Jack, free from Lucas’s grip, had already started across the court to retrieve the ball Lucas had knocked out of his hands.

  Lucas watched him for a minute, until a heavyset middle-aged man appeared, whistle poised in his mouth and clipboard in his hand. Connor, the kid from the other day, was on his heels, his nose buried in his own clipboard.

  “I am not done with you,” Lucas repeated under his breath as he spun and stalked out of the gym.

  Jack Whitman was the kind of kid who gave high school jocks a bad name. Cocky, arrogant, completely full of himself, and with zero respect for anyone. Based on what he’d said about Noah, he was also a first-class bully.

  But still, despite all this, Lucas had a hard time trying to connect him to Noah’s death. The kid had been genuinely uninterested in Noah’s suicide, hadn’t even flinched or blinked when Lucas mentioned his name. There were tells he could usually spot: eyes shifting away, flushed skin, a nervous tic that hadn’t been there before. Jack had exhibited none of these.

  Lucas made his way back down the hall, heading toward the computer science room, his original destination. He focused on his breathing, trying to get his temper under control.

  Jack could’ve just been a good actor, he thought. Maybe he was as big of a star on the stage as he purportedly was on the court and on the field. But Lucas had his doubts. His intuition was still telling him that this kid wasn’t lying. Especially because he hadn’t bothered to lie about what a shithead thing he’d done to Noah.

  Lucas found the classroom he was looking for and peeked inside. A man in a checkered button-down was sitting at a desk, his eyes focused on the laptop he was furiously typing away at.

  Lucas knocked once on the doorframe and the man looked up. He was probably in his early thirties, with balding brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. His facial hair was thick, both a moustache and beard, and Lucas thought it was probably to compensate for the lack of coverage on his scalp.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “You’re Mr. Ripley?”

  The man nodded. “Dean. Dean Ripley.” His fingers had gone silent on the keyboard.

  “Name’s Lucas McGowan.” He stepped inside the classroom. “I’m actually here on behalf of the Dans family.”

  Dean’s expression clouded. “Oh?”

  Lucas took another step closer. He glanced around the room. It was pretty sparse as far as classrooms went. No posters on the white walls, just an industrial clock that ticked loudly in the silence. There were no desks in the room, only long tables pushed against the walls, the surfaces covered with computers positioned a few feet apart. Colorful cords snaked behind the tables, creating a labyrinth of wires. Lucas wondered how they weren’t a safety hazard.

  “You had Noah in your computer science class, right?”

  “I did.”

  “Good student?”

  Dean hesitated.

  “Great knowledge of computers,” he finally said. “Abysmal effort.”

  Lucas nodded. “More interested in playing video games than the science behind them?”

  Dean shrugged. “No idea. He wasn’t a very talkative kid.”

  Lucas felt a stab of disappointment. He’d hoped this might be the teacher Noah had opened up to…if there had been one, that is.

  “So you didn’t know him well?”

  “Not at all,” Dean admitted. He adjusted his glasses, pushing them back on to the bridge of his nose. “He wasn’t a bad kid, wasn’t disruptive. He showed up for class on time, and he turned in his assignments. But it was always minimal effort.”

  Lucas knew what he was talking about. He’d been that kid through much of his own high school career, more focused on hockey and getting ice time than any classes he was being forced to take.

  “You said you were here on behalf of the family,” Dean said. “You an uncle or something?”

  “No. A family friend.”
<
br />   He nodded. “I was sorry to hear about what happened. I wish I would’ve known he was struggling.”

  “No outward signs?”

  Dean shook his head.

  Lucas tried not to let his disappointment show. He didn’t know what he’d been hoping for, but it wasn’t this.

  “Thanks for your time, man,” he said to the teacher. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  The man waved his hand. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

  Lucas left the classroom and reached for his phone so he could pull the schedule up again. Noah’s English class was nearby, just one hallway over. M. Coates was listed as the teacher, and he wondered if he or she would still be there. The school required all teachers to keep office hours, but some opted to do them in the morning.

  He found the English class, peeked through the open door and saw a woman with her back turned to him. She was loading books and folders into an oversized book bag. He cleared his throat and she turned around, a stack of folders still in her hand.

  They both froze.

  “Lucas.”

  He forced a smile. The woman standing in front of him was the same woman who had hit on him three weeks earlier while he played pool at Shorty’s. She’d watched him finish a game before challenging him to one of her own. She’d drained a couple of beers during their match and had made it clear exactly what she’d wanted to happen after they finished.

  “Mariah.” His smile strained his facial muscles. “I didn’t know you taught here.”

  He didn’t know much of anything about her, really, except that she wore mint-flavored lip gloss and that her hands tended to roam freely when she kissed someone. He’d found that out firsthand when they’d said goodbye at the tavern.

  “It’s why I moved to Aspen Falls,” she told him. “Joanna Klein left mid-year. Her husband was reserves but got called up. They moved to Florida.”

  “And you’ve been here how long?”

  She brushed a lock of brown hair off her shoulders. “A couple of months now.” She smiled expectantly. “So, what brings you here?”

  Not you, he thought.

  It wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive. She was. Any fool could see that. Her hair was as lush and thick as her curves, and her almond-shaped eyes were sexy as hell. She was flirty, fun…there was nothing off-putting about her. But Lucas just wasn’t interested. He’d felt nothing, zero chemistry, when she’d pulled him in for a hot and heavy goodbye kiss that night at Shorty’s, when she’d run her hand down his stomach, trailing her fingers against the rough fabric of his jeans, and whispered, “Come home with me tonight.”