I shook my head. “You?”
“Nope, but I’ll try again tonight. By the way, Kelsey missed practice yesterday, too, but she seems to be fine today.”
He gestured down the hallway where the debate team co-captain stood with her group of friends. Her high-pitched laugh grated on my nerves, but I managed to ignore it long enough to check out her posse. If she wasn’t the one who trashed Richard’s locker yesterday, then chances were good that someone in her group of friends did. All of them were part of that self-righteous, cross-wearing, “I’m better than all of you because I’m best buds with Jesus” group. All of them probably considered Richard to be a deviant who was destroying the moral fabric of this country because he was gay. And a few of them might have the balls to target him. But which ones?
Kelsey must have spotted Richard because her upper lip curled into a sneer when she looked in our direction. I waited for her to say something to her friends, but she flipped her hair over her shoulder and led them in a handholding prayer right before the bell rang.
Even though the facts so far went against it, my gut told me she was the one behind the notes in Richard’s locker. But until I had evidence, she’d get away with her hate crime.
The situation nagged at me the rest of the school day. I could confront her, but I’d never get my evidence. And if I called her out on my blog, she’d simply refute my argument with a simple “I was home sick those days.” No, I needed to expose her and her hypocritical nature in the clearest way possible, in a way that would leave her no defense.
The logistics of it all were still rolling through my mind when I arrived at Brett’s house. I knocked on his bedroom door and was greeted by a cheerful “Come in.”
My heart skipped with joy, and I opened the door to find Brett out of bed and sitting at his multi-screen computer station. “Feeling better?”
“Tons. I haven’t had any pain meds at all today.” He reached for his crutches to stand, but I motioned for him to stop. “I’ve been trying to catch up on everything I’ve missed.”
“Here’s a bombshell for you. Richard and Sanchez have actually formed some sort of mutual respect for each other that borders on friendship.”
“Not surprised. Sanchez isn’t that bad of a guy once you get to know him.” He turned back to the computer and started typing. “By the way, if I said anything yesterday about—”
“Your drug-induced confessions are safe, Brett.” I placed a kiss on his cheek. “I’m just relieved to see you up and about today.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his lap. “Mum said you came by every day to check on me.”
“What can I say? I’m taking this whole girlfriend thing very seriously.”
“I—” He started to speak, and even though his sentence ended abruptly, I didn’t miss the fear in his eyes.
“Say it,” I ordered in a tone that allowed no arguments.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against mine. “Most of the girls at school were only interested in me because of who I was on the field, and I was a little worried you’d—”
“That I’d dump you because of this?” I asked, pulling back and unsure if I should hug him or slap him.
He gave me a sheepish smile. “I should’ve known better, but I haven’t been thinking clearly for the last few days.” His gaze drifted back to the computer screens. “So much to think about.”
“Well, I’m not superficial like some of those other girls, and you were the one chasing me, not the other way around, so I think it’s safe to say I don’t give a damn about who you are in the school’s social hierarchy. I’m here because of who you are when we’re alone together like this.”
His eyes darkened, and he gave me that look he always wore right before he kissed me.
Only now, instead of locking lips with me, he slid me off his lap until I was standing next to him and scooted in closer to the computer. “It’s safe to say things are a little crazy right now.”
“What can I do to help?” I asked, not willing to be shut out.
“Nothing.”
Men and their stupid pride.
“Fine, but maybe you can help with a small problem now that you’re not half-asleep.”
He stopped typing and turned to me. “I don’t know how helpful I am now, but shoot.”
I told him about Richard’s locker and my suspicion that Kelsey was behind it, along with the speed bumps that I’d run into. “I really want to out the person behind it.”
“Technically, it’s a hate crime, as you mentioned before, and the person could be prosecuted under the laws here in Washington.” He did a quick web search and pulled up the statute. “Since they destroyed school property, it would be considered a felony offense.”
Some malicious part of me jumped for joy at the idea of Kelsey locked behind bars.
“I’m surprised Principal Lee hasn’t just reviewed the security camera footage,” Brett continued.
“You mean there’s film available?”
“Yeah.” Brett spent the next ten minutes typing and flipping through window after window until a grid of gray scenes from the halls of Eastline High filled his screen.
“Did you just hack into the school’s security system?” I asked.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” He enlarged each view until he found the one he wanted. “That’s Richard’s locker, right?”
I recognized the Vote Summer Hoyt for Homecoming Queen poster that was a few feet away. “Yeah, that’s his.”
He highlighted the camera’s name and spent another couple of minutes clicking through more windows. Finally, he came to a screen showing Monday’s date at 17:00 hours. Richard’s locker hadn’t been trashed, and the halls were empty.
“We’ll just fast-forward until we catch them.” Brett made one final click and rocked back in his desk chair.
I stood behind him and watched the screen. Darkness fell over the hallway, and I held my breath, praying I wouldn’t miss the culprit. Then, at 05:37 hours on Tuesday morning according to the time stamp, a single light appeared in the hallway. Brett slowed it down to real-time speed, and a shadowed form appeared on screen.
Whoever it was wore a dark hoodie and kept their back to the camera, but it appeared to be female rather than male based on the size and shape. We watched as she spray painted the word on his locker and then taped the stack of notes around it. My veins burned with fury as I watched, holding my breath every time I thought I might catch a glimpse of her face.
But she never once turned toward the camera while she worked.
When she finished, she stood back, her hands on her hips, and seemed to assess her work with pride.
My hand curled into a fist. That mother-fucking bitch!
I was on the verge of wanting to punch something when she finally turned around enough for us to see her face.
Brett froze the screen, and I sucked in a breath.
There, on the screen, was Kelsey Buchannan.
Brett snipped the image and attached it to an email and addressed it to me. “There’s your proof.”
I was too busy jumping up and down. We’d caught her! And now, I was going to make sure she got everything that was coming to her.
I wrapped my arms around Brett’s neck and kissed him on the lips. It was more of a spontaneous gesture, but when I tried to pull away, a pair of strong arms wrapped around my waist and held me there. The simple peck deepened into a longer kiss that left me giddy and glowing and almost dizzy from the intensity of it all. All my fears about Brett pushing me away vanished. He wanted me there, in his arms, and I savored every sensation, from the varying pressure of his lips to the firmness of his hand against the small of my back. When Brett finally ended the kiss, I was sitting in his lap and gulping for air as quickly as he was.
“We make a good team,” I murmured.
“I always suspected that.”
His sister Sarah’s voice echoed from down the hall, and panic flashed across his fa
ce.
I knew the drill by now. The last thing he wanted was a member of his family to walk in on us together. I hopped off his lap, tripping over his cast in the process.
He winced, and my breath hitched. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean to hurt—”
“I’m fine,” he said through clenched teeth as he reached for his injured leg. “My fault.”
“I have to get used to sidestepping that cast for the next few weeks.” I rocked from foot to foot until he let go of his leg. “How long do you have to wear it?”
“Six to eight weeks.” He drew in a deep breath and exhaled, releasing the pain that tightened his face with it. “Maybe one day I’ll show you the before and after X-rays.”
Images of the grotesque angle of his foot and the blood pooling around it flashed through my memory, and I shook my head. “I’ll pass.”
He turned back to the computers and started closing all the windows. “Please keep my hacks out of this.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Superman.” I gave him another kiss on the cheek. “In the meantime, this Lois Lane has a blog post to write.”
I was almost out the bedroom door when he said, “Hey, Lexi?”
“Yeah?”
He gestured to his cast, then rubbed the back of his neck. “I, um, won’t be driving for the next few weeks, and I wondered if you’d give me a ride to and from school.”
“I don’t know,” I teased. “We’re coming awfully close to violating rule number one.”
“But think of the gas we’ll save by carpooling,” he countered with a grin. “Besides, our schedules are the same, and we live so close by.”
“We’ll have Taylor in the mornings.”
“I can live with that.”
I should’ve known by now that Brett never gave up until he got what he wanted. This was no exception. “I’ll be here at 6:45.”
“Perfect.” He turned back to his screens, and I slipped out of the room.
Chapter Sixteen
I almost left Taylor behind Thursday morning. She was having yet another eyeliner emergency that threatened to make not only me late, but Brett as well. And I didn’t want him to be late on his first day back. Taylor continued to complain about the lack of a mirror when I ordered her to the backseat of my Prius.
Brett was waiting outside with his backpack and crutches. But instead of going to the passenger side of my car, he headed toward his 4Runner.
I opened the door and got halfway out. “What are you doing?”
“Getting into my truck.” He tossed me a set of keys. “There’s no way I’m fitting in your car with this cast.”
“Sounds good to me,” Taylor said behind me right before she dashed from my car to his.
Part of me wanted to stomp my foot and tell them both no. If I was driving them to school, I was going to drive my car. But as I sized up my passenger seat, I realized Brett had a point. Plus, we were already running late as it was. I didn’t have time to argue.
I turned my car off and climbed into the driver’s seat of Brett’s 4Runner. “Are you sure you trust me enough to drive your SUV?”
“My parents do,” he replied in a way that seemed to settle the argument for him.
It took me a couple of blocks to get used to driving it. I might’ve gotten the hang of it faster if my sister hadn’t kept going on and on about Homecoming the entire trip.
Taylor dashed off the second I threw the 4Runner into park, and I went around to help Brett with his things.
“Thanks.” He took a deep breath and turned to the school like a man about to be put on trial for a crime he didn’t commit. For a minute, he remained silent, watching the students, rocking back on his crutches as though he were contemplating climbing back into his SUV.
“Do you want me to take you home?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nope, we’re already here, and I know how you hate to be late.”
I followed him through the parking lot, noticing how he kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and his expression hard. He ignored the students who called out to him. The fixed intensity of his gaze never wavered as he kept swinging forward on his crutches in determined silence. I dashed ahead of him to get the front door, and he didn’t even acknowledge me.
As soon as we were inside, a couple of his teammates halted him with cheerful conversation, but I didn’t have a chance to gauge his reaction to them.
“Ms. Wyndham, in my office, now.”
I turned to find Principal Lee standing a few feet away, looking every bit as pissed off as a diva who’d been upstaged.
I didn’t need to ask why. I’d set my blog post to go live at 5:37 a.m. this morning on purpose. The screen shot Brett had snipped and sent to me was at the very center of my post, along with pictures of Richard’s locker and Kelsey’s yearbook photo from last year. I’d also included links to her Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram accounts, which contained enough anti-gay sentiments to seal my case.
I hoped Kelsey liked orange jumpsuits.
Only this time, I’d decided to reveal my post to a select few. Even though I’d published the post on The Eastline Spy like always, I’d password protected it and sent a link with the password to just two email addresses.
Principal Lee and the local police tip line.
On the public side of the blog, I’d scheduled a public post to go live later today mentioning Richard’s locker, but keeping Kelsey’s name out of it. I wanted to see what would come of my exposé before publicly destroying her.
I gave Principal Lee a saccharine smile and led the way to his office while I prepared my defense. The last time he’d called me in there because of a blog post, he demanded to know who my informant was. I’d refused to name Brett then, just like I wouldn’t name him now.
I didn’t wait for permission to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk. I knew the drill by now.
Mr. Lee turned on his monitor, and The Eastline Spy filled the screen. Then he sat and glared at me as though I’d crumble under the intimidation of it.
Instead, I crossed my legs, placed my hands on my lap, and mimicked my sister’s best innocent expression.
Less than a minute went by before he lost it. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t suspend you.”
“Um, because I’ve done nothing wrong,” I replied with a healthy dose of sarcasm. The only thing he could get me on was tapping into the security cameras, and even then, he’d have a hard time proving it and defending his actions.
“You interfered with what has now become a criminal investigation.”
I pulled out my phone and pressed the record button. If I heard him correctly, I may have found my next blog post. “You said what has now become a criminal investigation. Was it not one before?”
His eyes narrowed, and his voice grew steely. “Put your phone away, Ms. Wyndham.”
“Why? Scared I’ll find out the truth and broadcast it?”
“You are becoming a major pain in my side.”
I gave him that fake sweet smile again. “You saw what I did to your predecessor, Mr. Lee. Would you expect anything less?”
“You have no respect for authority.”
“On the contrary, I do, but only if they deserve respect.” I nodded toward the screen. “Richard Wang’s locker was defiled with hate messages two days ago. Under the state’s malicious harassment laws, that’s a felony offense. Tell me, when did local enforcement become involved? Was it the day of the incident? Or was it only after my blog post brought it to the police department’s attention?”
Principal Lee eyed my phone and said nothing. He was already exercising his right to remain silent, it seemed.
“The school has security cameras throughout the grounds. And as you can see, it was very easy to identify the culprit from the footage.”
“Which you somehow illegally obtained.”
“Illegally? How so?”
“That footage is from a secure network,” he said, pointing to the screen.
“Obvi
ously not that secure if my source could easily obtain access to it.”
He leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of his mouth like an evil villain from a spy movie. “Ah, yes, your anonymous source. Is this the same one as before?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” I pointed back to the screen. “Was the footage turned over to the local law enforcement at the time of the incident? And if so, were they unable to catch the person because they were lazy? Or incompetent?” I waved my phone in front of me. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Law enforcement currently has the footage,” he replied in a clipped manner.
“And when did they receive it?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“Come now, Mr. Lee, you have no idea what a pain in your ass I can really be.”
“Watch your language.” He grabbed the edge of the desk and pulled his chair forward until his elbows rested on the top, and he leaned toward me. “Why are you insisting on making trouble for yourself?”
“Because if you’d done your job in the first place, I wouldn’t have to do it for you.” I nodded at the screen again. “I started The Eastline Spy three years ago to expose the wrongs within this school. And though I applauded your attempt to form a student-run committee to combat bullying in the hallways, I suspect you didn’t do anything more than ask the custodian to remove the paint from Richard’s locker. You just wanted to sweep this incident under the rug and forget about it. You made no effort to catch the person behind it.
“I just proved how easy it would’ve been to find out who did it,” I continued. “What did you do?”
Again, I was answered by stony silence and a glare that indicated every single one of my assumptions was probably correct.
I rose from my chair. “I’m glad the police are involved, Mr. Lee, but I don’t know if Richard will want to press charges against Kelsey or not. It’s his call. In the meantime, I’d hate to be late for class.”
“I’m counting down the days until you graduate.”
“That makes two of us.” I stepped out of his office and gave Mrs. Davis a little wave before I ventured into the hallway. A mixture of victory and disillusionment waged inside me. I’d gotten the culprit. I’d exposed her. And in doing so, I’d also exposed the continuing hypocrisy of the administration.
The Queen B* and the Homecoming King Page 14