“It’s over,” Dana scoffed. “Yeah. Right. Like it’s a one-time thing, like you’re not a guy who’s obviously started thinking with his—”
“Stop.” Milo’s voice was tight. “I’m willing to have this conversation with you, Dana, you know that I am, but we’ll do it later. Not now.”
I looked over to meet Calvin’s eyes. I’d once gone with Nicole’s family to an amusement park, and her parents had argued heatedly during the entire forty-minute drive. This felt a little bit like that.
In the backseat, Dana exhaled a very long, very beleaguered-sounding sigh. “So what happened in there, Bubble Gum?”
“Well, to start with,” I said, “Detective Hughes is dead.”
“What?” Calvin, Milo, and Dana all exclaimed at once.
“I knew something was really wrong,” Dana added.
“How did he die?” Calvin asked.
“The desk sergeant told me it was heart failure,” I reported.
Dana blew air out of her mouth, making a raspberry sound. “Yeah, right. Heart failure, my ass. Someone murdered him because he knew too much.”
I frowned. “You seriously think…?”
Dana’s face was grim. “The people who killed Sasha don’t mess around, Sky. If they thought Detective Hughes stumbled onto something that would exonerate Edmund Rodriguez and point attention toward them, killing Hughes would be as inconsequential to them as ordering a latte with lunch. And about as easy to do. A man his age? Make it look like he’d had a heart attack? I could do that. With the right drugs…?”
Calvin looked the way I felt. His face was a little gray, and he shook his head. “Man, I don’t know about y’all, but this is starting to get to me. I mean, if you’re saying this dude got killed because he knew the truth…? The truth that we’re trying to uncover here…?” His grip on the steering wheel was so tight that the edges of his chocolate-colored knuckles had whitened. “I’m just saying we might be in over our heads.”
I took a deep breath and told Cal and Dana what I’d already told Milo. “That sewage smell came back when I was in the station.” I crinkled my nose. “It was worse than any other time I’ve smelled it.”
“Any chance that Garrett Hathaway’s dad works for the police?” Calvin asked. “I mean, you didn’t see him in there, did you?”
I shook my head. “Wow, I didn’t think of that. I wasn’t looking for him,” I admitted. “I guess I could…”—I took a deep breath—“go back?”
“You don’t have to do that,” Milo said.
I turned to look at him. “Maybe it won’t be as bad, now that my stomach is empty.” As if on cue, it rumbled.
“I don’t want to go back there today,” Dana said. “Not after Milo’s foolishness. But maybe in a few days, if we don’t find any other leads.”
“Just let me know in advance,” I said, managing to sound braver than I felt, “so I can skip lunch.”
“Next time I’ll go in,” Calvin volunteered. “I won’t be able to smell Garrett’s dad, but I remember what he looks like.”
“We don’t have to go back for that,” Milo said. “If you drop me at the library, I’ll hop onto the Internet, see what I can dig up on Mr. Hathaway. If he’s a cop, it’ll be public record.”
“A cop who owns beachfront property?” I wondered. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Or it makes too much sense,” Dana said darkly. “If he’s working for the people who make Destiny…”
“Dude, you don’t have to go to the library. You could use my phone,” Calvin offered Milo.
“No,” Milo said. “Thanks. I might have to dig deep, and it’s too hard to do that and keep it untraceable. If I go to the library, I just need to switch computers every fifteen minutes and I’ll be fine. Plus I can take a shower while I’m there.”
There were so many homeless people in this part of Florida that the church-run library had opened a soup kitchen, a laundry, and a locker-room setup for the less-fortunate to use. To access their services, you had to attend a mandatory church program in their chapel or show your local church punch-card to prove that you’d gotten some God within the past week.
“You could take a shower…” At my house, I was about to say, but I substituted, “At Calvin’s.”
Cal looked at both Milo and Dana in his rearview mirror. “Absolutely,” he said. “Any time. My mom is cool.”
“Thanks,” Milo said. “But as long as I’m going to use the computers at the library…”
“I’ll take you up on that shower, Scoot,” Dana said. “The church library gives me a rash.”
“So…to the library, where we drop Milo,” Calvin said, “and then home?”
I turned around to find Milo watching me again as Dana nodded.
“Regardless of what Miles finds out about Garrett Hathaway’s father,” she said, “I want to get into that beach house.” She looked from Calvin to me. “And I want to do it soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
“It’s kind of like the Cold War détente,” Cal said.
“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked.
It was Wednesday morning, and we were walking through the school parking lot, getting ready for another day.
Milo had come over to Calvin’s house after his library research session, and he’d reported that Garrett’s dad, Richard J. Hathaway, did not work for the Coconut Key police department. He was a doctor—a plastic surgeon.
We’d also found out that the seeds that Milo had planted online—about the dog collar being found in the back of Edmund Rodriguez’s truck—had borne fruit. The police had confirmed the rumor. It was all over the news, so Dana now had the proof that she’d needed.
“I’m talking about you and Garrett,” Calvin said now. “Of course, he’s obviously the Soviet Union.”
“Obviously.”
“What I’m trying to say is that he saw you puke, after you saw him puke. And now there’s an agreement between you two, even if it’s unspoken.”
Calvin was right. We had both seen the other person upchuck. And now we both had dirt about an embarrassing incident. If one person leaked info about said embarrassing incident, the other person would go down too. In flames.
“Détente,” Cal said again, and grinned.
“I suppose,” I said. “Although I’m really not worried about people knowing I threw up. It happens.”
“Okay, I know you’re Miss Humble and all, but you can admit it. It was exceedingly embarrassing. I mean, if it was anything like what you did at the police station…”
I shook my head. “Whatever,” I mumbled. I really didn’t want to have to think about any of that right now.
But, as if on cue, Garrett pulled up in his dad’s zippy little car.
“Shee-it,” Cal muttered. I instinctively grabbed the arm of Calvin’s wheelchair before pointing to the band building.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s just go.”
“Hey!” Garrett called, slamming the door shut before striding toward us. I purposely didn’t look back as we walked. I was also breathing through my mouth just in case he smelled like sewage.
“Hey!” Garrett tried again, louder this time. “Did you get the e-vite to my party?”
I sighed. “What?” I asked, turning halfway around. I refused to actually have a conversation with the lamest asshole on the planet. But then I realized what he’d said—party—and I made myself turn all the way toward him. And smile.
Garrett smiled back at me. “I just wanted to know if you were coming to my party Friday night. Pops is out of town, so I’m having a little shindig at the ol’ beach house. It’s pretty exclusive, so… You’re welcome.”
I laughed out loud at his arrogance, and then played it off like I was coughing into my sleeve.
Cal slapped me on the arm. I knew what he was thinki
ng, because I was thinking it too.
This was our ticket into Garrett’s house. No B and E necessary.
We’d spent more than an hour with Dana last night, first learning that B and E was short for “breaking and entering,” and then planning a Mission: Impossible-style caper. I knew Calvin was as relieved as I was that we wouldn’t have to scale the outside of the house to the porch off the third-floor master bedroom to get inside. This way, we’d just waltz in through the front door, which was more my speed.
I smiled again at Garrett. “Yup,” I replied. “We’ll be there. All of us. I’ve got a coupla friends visiting from out of town too.”
Garrett’s grin didn’t drop, but his eyes got cold as he looked from me to Calvin and back. His teeth were gritted. “Oh. Okay. Awesome. I’m looking forward to it.”
“A-douche-indee!” I said gaily, hoping that he remembered.
He did. “Ama-douche!” Garrett responded. He looked at Calvin, whose mouth was open. He leaned in close to Calvin and lowered his voice, but my hearing was excellent so I heard him say, “It’s Botsmanian for I’m gonna steal your girlfriend, asshole.”
But Calvin just laughed and said, “I’m sorry, could you repeat the…Botsmanian, was it?”
“Ama-douche,” Garrett said. “Skylar taught it to me the day we went to the beach.” He winked at me and swaggered back to his car.
Calvin’s mouth was still open. He turned to look at me. “He honestly doesn’t realize that, phonetically, what he’s saying is…”
“Apparently not,” I said, watching as Garrett sifted through his backseat, no doubt organizing the homework assignments he’d bought and paid for online last night.
“You are my goddess,” Calvin told me.
“I’m your super-goddess,” I corrected him. I’d just agreed to spend the night of my seventeenth birthday at a super-douche-arama event.
Although, on second thought, Milo would be there.
“Heads up!” Calvin called out suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. He grabbed my arm, pointing at the school parking lot.
A delivery truck had rounded the corner, and somehow it had lost control. I watched in disbelief as the big, gray vehicle slid and spun, the driver clearly making an admirable attempt to stop the screeching tires from spinning.
And then I looked up to my right and realized that Garrett—completely unaware of the impending disaster—was directly in the out-of-control vehicle’s path.
“Garrett!” Cal yelled.
But as Garrett looked up and saw the coming danger, he had nowhere to go. The truck was sliding sideways toward him and his dad’s car. He was going to be sandwiched between two very large, very heavy pieces of metal in about a second and a half.
Without hesitating, I focused on Garrett and thought about how much I absolutely despised the things he’d done and said to Calvin. I let myself get really rip-roarin’ pissed, as I dug deep and seethed and raged and…
A nanosecond before the truck would have crushed him, Garrett was lifted up off the ground. He hurtled sideways into the air, over three parked cars, before landing with a not-so-graceful thud on the cement sidewalk.
And the truck slammed into Garrett’s dad’s BMW, rendering it two-dimensional, with a hideous screeching of metal on metal.
Teachers and students alike ran outside to gape at the wreckage. The driver of the truck was utterly disoriented but seemed mostly okay as he stumbled out of the driver’s side of his badly crushed vehicle.
Mrs. Iccavone, who taught first-year Latin, spotted Garrett on the sidewalk and screamed, “Someone call 9-1-1!”
“Garrett?” I was already on my way over to where he’d landed as Calvin followed me.
“Oh my God!” Mr. Tanner, the soccer coach shouted. “Is he okay?”
As I knelt beside Garrett, I could see his chest rising and falling. He was definitely knocked out—but he was also clearly alive.
“Everyone back up! Give him room!” Mrs. Iccavone used her outside voice, but no one listened to her. The crowd swelled around still-unconscious Garrett, pushing Calvin and me back, away from him.
“Ho. Ly. Crap,” Cal finally managed. He looked up at me. “What just happened?”
Dazed, I watched as an ambulance came barreling up the school driveway, its lights flashing and siren wailing. “I don’t know,” I said. “Can we find a place to…sit down? Or…”
“Sure,” Cal said, grabbing my arm and wheeling away from the crowd.
When we were far enough away, Cal looked at me. “You saved his life, dude.”
I nodded, stunned. I’d saved his life.
I had saved a life.
Cal held out his fist for me to bump. “Huge respect for saving the ungrateful douche-master. I don’t know if I would have been so generous.”
“You know you would’ve,” I replied. “So don’t pretend to be such a hard-ass.”
“Ah, crap!”
“What now?” I asked, looking around wildly—for what I wasn’t sure. Maybe a crashing private jet or stampeding elephants escaped from the zoo…
“Well, if Garrett is hurt,” Calvin said, “he most likely won’t have that party on Friday.”
I answered him without a pause. “Sprained ankles. Mild concussion. No worries.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “And I win the lottery. Please say that I win the lottery?”
“No, but Garrett’ll be back to school by Friday. The party’s still on.” I pressed my hand against my stomach as we went into the school. “God, I’m having really bad cramps.”
“Saving douche bags’ll do that to you,” Calvin said. “Ama-douche,” he repeated. “You might have crazy-ass, lifesaving superpowers, but girl, getting him to say that…? It was the highlight of my decade.”
“A-douche-indee,” I agreed.
Chapter Eighteen
You were right. 2 sprained ankles and a mild concussion. G’ll be back in school 2morrow. Dang.
I got the text from Cal later that evening around eight o’clock, while I was sitting at my desk zipping through another math assignment.
I set the phone down and ran my hand through my hair. I was on edge. Okay, I was beyond on edge. I was frazzled. After school, Calvin and I had tried to conjure Dana by wishing she would appear, but that didn’t work. We even tried homing in on her, but my mental magnet weirdly pulled me to I-75 south, and after a few miles, Cal turned around.
What was even more rattling tonight was the fact that, even though I never knew when it was going to happen, Dana had managed to meet with me daily since that first night at the cineplex.
But Wednesday was almost over. I sighed again and picked up my phone and typed: Still no word from D.
I redirected my attention for a moment to my homework until the phone beeped again.
M just stopped by.
Okay, so I’d be lying if my stomach didn’t do a mini-somersault. Which I completely ignored. Mom was at some PTA meeting so I wrote back: Great! Let’s do that HOMEWORK. Be there in five.
Before I even had a chance to stand, though, my phone rang. I answered it.
“Girl, if you seriously think I would let you waltz around in the dark alone right now, then you really are stupid.” Service was bad, and Cal sounded like he was calling from the moon, all distorted and echoey.
“Fine. Come get me,” I replied, “but do it fast. I don’t know how much time I have before Momzilla gets back.”
“Bow chicka woww-woww!” Calvin mocked porn music into the phone.
“You suck,” I said.
“Um, I am definitely not the one sucking,” Calvin started.
“Argh! Stop! Earmuffs! Lalalalala, not listening!”
Calvin giggled. “I’ll see you in a sec.”
I hopped away from my desk and raced to my closet. Sifting through my clothes, I found a pi
nk V-neck T-shirt. I rummaged through my drawer and pulled out my favorite comfy white cotton bra. Then, reconsidering, I threw it back and opted for a black lacey push-up I’d bought back in Connecticut. Not that I had much to push. I had never worn it. In fact, Nicole had bought it for me. According to my former best friend, every woman, at some point in her life, needed the help provided by a good piece of lingerie.
My skinny jeans were dirty, so I grabbed khaki capris—the ones that made my butt look curvier than it actually was—and shut the closet door. Glancing again at the ridiculous lace bra, I wondered if, with the help of good lingerie or not, I would ever be sexy.
As I dressed, I looked in the mirror. My hair was especially unruly today, red curls springing defiantly around my face. I attempted to smooth them down, but they popped back up. Frowning, I pulled my shirt over my head, and then took a banana clip and pulled all of my hair back. The flyaways were still there.
Plus, the bra was horrible and lumpy underneath the shirt.
Sexy. My ass.
Calvin texted his arrival with another porn-themed message: Good evening, miss. Did you order a pizza? Chicka-bow-bow!
Sighing, I concluded that the outfit would have to suffice.
I ran downstairs, refusing to acknowledge the fact that my heart had picked up some serious speed. I took a deep, calming breath, draped my oversized bag over my shoulder, and then flung the front door open.
And immediately collided with Milo’s very broad chest.
“Oh!” I heard myself exclaim as I hit him hard enough to make him lose his balance, and he grabbed on to me for a second. As we teetered there on the landing, I should have been thinking with dismay about the way my bag had exploded off my arm, its contents spilling all over the front steps.
Instead, oddly, an image popped into my mind—big and clear, like a high-def, 3-D movie. I was in it, but it took me a second to recognize myself.
I was in a room I’d never seen before, a room that was filled with flickering candlelight and flowers—gorgeous roses. My hair was down and it looked really great. And when I smiled, I seemed to glow. I’d never thought of myself as pretty, but suddenly I was.
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