I was also praying neither Brooks nor Dex could tell I was holding my breath until I was sure there wouldn’t be a ringtone.
“Where’d you get that?” Dex asked while I pretended to be searching the food court for a hint of sound.
“Uncle Paul,” I said with a shrug, then hung up. “He wanted to make sure any news got through, so he gave me a new phone.”
“Who are you related to? Seriously?”
“Just Uncle Paul,” I said, turning to Brooks to add: “No answer, sorry.”
Dex was practically salivating. My phone wasn’t the prepaid from-the-drugstore piece of trash I was used to. It was a gift from one of the companies with a buy-in on Uncle Paul’s game—a beta version of a model that wouldn’t hit stores for another three months. They were hoping he’d give them special consideration on an app or something to increase their audience base. (I’m sure the company suits would have passed out if they knew Uncle Paul had handed their Next Big Thing to his teenage niece, who then dragged it around the city on her quest to skirt the line between misdemeanor and felony.)
I slipped the phone back into my pocket, and for once I was fairly sure hormones had nothing to do with why Dex was staring at my backside. He looked like a starving man forced to sit at a banquet with his hands tied. At Lowry, he had a well-polished suit of social armor in place—no different from making sure his tie sat straight—but in the open, when he didn’t have to conform to a set way of acting, the desire for things he couldn’t have showed. It made the moment uncomfortable enough that I was happy to join in on a physical, if pointless, search where we had to split up to cover more ground.
We came up predictably empty in the food court. We scoured the shelter’s area and all of the bags and boxes of toys, but of course there was nothing there, either. Brooks’ final, desperate idea was to backtrack the route he’d taken from his car to the charity tables, which led us through a large department store with one of the main parking entrances.
“I’ll go right,” I said, turning toward the nearest cashier.
Dex and Brooks divvied up the left side and center of the store, and we split for the time it took to ask if anyone had turned in a phone.
“Sorry, honey, haven’t seen it,” said a woman in a lavender suit. “I can give you one of our gift bags if it would make you feel better.”
I shook my head. All I needed to feel better was to breathe. When we entered the store from the mall, that familiar air compressor scent that used to ground me had only made me think of the unit in Claire’s hospital room, so it was a relief to pass the cosmetics counter, where competing trails of perfume beat it back.
“I got nothin’,” Dex announced when we met on the other side of the store.
“Me either,” said Brooks, and when he looked to me for better news, I just shrugged, twirling my gold bird necklace on the end of its chain the way I always did when I got nervous. “Maybe I left it in the car,” he said.
Brooks headed for the door but ended up bouncing off a six-and-a-half-foot twig with shaggy black hair before he made it out—Brucey.
Brucey mumbled sorry as he jostled past us and shoved his hands in his pockets. It was a very specific physical tic that no one aside from one of his friends would recognize. Just like only Tabs or I would know the version of Brucey standing there in that store compared to the one Brooks and Dex had seen earlier. He’d ditched his jacket, and with his hair drawn forward, there wasn’t a face to be seen, much less remembered.
“You didn’t,” I mouthed as he pushed his hair out of his eyes.
He danced his eyebrows up and down, grinning back.
I was about to warn Brooks what was coming when—
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!
The store’s alarm started screaming as soon as he put one foot out the door and his pocket passed the sensor.
Brooks froze, confused by the sound, having no idea what had triggered it or the flashing lights on top of the door panels. People stopped to stare at him while a pair of mall cops with store badges popped out of a door camouflaged into the wall. I took a step back and did my best to look like I didn’t know what was going on.
“What’d I do?” Brooks asked one of the mall cops.
“Empty your pockets, son,” he said.
“Sure, but I didn’t—” Brooks shrugged and reached into his pockets. I knew the exact moment he realized he was sunk, because his face bleached whiter than Brucey’s. When he pulled his hands back out, there was a necklace dangling from his fingers.
“You’re going to need to come with us to the security office,” the mall cop said before turning to me and Dex. “Are you three together?”
“Yeah, but—” I started.
“We just bumped into each other.” Dex cut me off. “We go to school together.”
“Turn out your pockets,” the guard ordered.
We did as he said, pulling everything out for security to see, but there was nothing of interest to them.
“Names?”
“D—”
“Daley.” Dex cut me off again. He took my sleeve and pulled me toward the mall exit. “We’ll get out of your way, sir. Let’s go, Daley.”
“And what about you?” the mall cop asked.
“Courtney D’Avignon, and that’s all you get to ask—remember your right to remain silent,” Dex said to Brooks.
The guard watched us until we had cleared the security scanners. When they didn’t go off again, he lost interest and set his focus back on Brooks.
“I didn’t take anything,” Brooks said.
“You can tell us about it in the back; we’ll need a statement to give the police. Are you seventeen?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then we don’t need your parents.”
The mall cops flanked Brooks, marching him toward the back of the store while everyone they passed stopped and stared. He glanced back over his shoulder; the easy confidence I was used to seeing on his face disappeared, replaced by wild-eyed panic.
I wondered if that was how Claire’s face had looked when she stood in front of her mirror that last day. Had her eyes been so hollow in the moment before she cut into her own skin, or had she looked at herself and seen fear so deep she couldn’t run from it?
“We should get out of here,” Dex said. I had stopped just outside the door and he was getting nervous.
“Why did you lie about our names? Courtney and Daley could get in trouble.”
“Courtney’s mom works for the biggest law firm in the state; no one’s going to get near him. Daley’s grandfather’s in Congress. Wherever they are, it’s not here, and they most likely have witnesses to say so. Now let’s go before someone wonders why we’re still lingering.”
He headed for the mall’s main doors, but I hung back. The thrill of knowing Brooks was finally getting to experience the smallest fraction of the misery he’d inflicted on others lasted only as long as it took me to realize that at seventeen, he could be locked up and out of my reach.
“What about Brooks?” I asked.
“Brooks’ old man is made of Teflon—nothing’s going to stick.” He started walking again. “Are you coming?”
“I don’t bail on my friends.”
“Suit yourself, but do you really think he’d do the same for you? If you change your mind, I’m at the fairgrounds. Ask for me at the front gate; they’ll let you in for free.”
Dex sped up to a lazy jog until he was out of sight. As soon as he was gone, Brucey came out of hiding, grinning like the idiot I suspected he’d become.
“I did good. I did good.” He started doing a stupid dance right there in the middle of the mall. “That’s two points for me and none for you. I think I’m better at this whole revenge thing than you are.”
“Brucey!” I slapped him as close to the back of his head as I could reach. I’d do worse than that to Tabs if I found out Brucey had escaped while she was on another bathroom run. “Shoplifting was not part of the plan! Observation and
information—not incarceration!”
At the rate he was going, my long-term-vengeance scenario would be over in a matter of days. Shoplifting was nothing in the course of someone’s life. Brooks might even get it taken off his record when he turned twenty-one, assuming the charges stuck at all. After that, he would get to live like nothing had ever happened. He deserved worse.
“I improvised—modified Wookiee-prisoner gambit,” Brucey said.
“English, Brucey. I don’t speak Star Wars.”
He held his hands out in front of him, wrists together like they were handcuffed.
“I confess,” he said. “Take me away and go bail out the bad guy.”
“You got him arrested so you could turn around and get him unarrested?”
“He’s not arrested yet.”
“They’ve probably already called the cops; you’ll get arrested if he doesn’t.”
“They can’t arrest me. I never left the store with their property—all I did was move it to a new location within the store itself. That’s not theft; I’ve checked. Besides, they know me here.”
“Define ‘know.’ ”
“I might have used a certain store or two to perfect my pickpocketing skills, and I might not have been so good at it the first few times out. They won’t even question it if you tell them I took something. All I have to do is claim I panicked; Dr. Useless will back me up. That’s the beauty of a compulsive diagnosis—it’s compulsory. Don’t you know I can’t help myself?”
Dr. Useless is the psychiatrist Brucey’s parents make him see because, so far as they know, his habit of “reallocating resources” (his pet name for picking pockets) is something he does subconsciously. According to her, he feels helpless in his own life, so he reaches out to take the things he knows he can’t have otherwise.
Brucey’s got the exact wording framed on his wall between the street signs he stole when we were in seventh grade. There should really be a law that says any shrink treating a patient should have to have a higher IQ than said patient. Brucey’s been leading Dr. Useless down trails of false diagnoses since he was eleven and discovered he could look up symptoms online. He considers it real-life experience at Method acting.
“Tell the rent-a-cops you saw me bump into your guy and that I confessed to taking the necklace. The Omen gets released, and you’re his new hero.” He stuck his hands out farther and shook them at me. “Just do it. You don’t have time to think about it. Oh, and Casanova’s phone is in my back pocket. I’m done with it, so you can tell him someone turned it in at customer service.”
“Please tell me this at least worked in the movie,” I said as I shoved him back into the store.
“I did mention it was modified, didn’t I?”
Tabs was right. We were all going to end up in jail.
16
The door to the mall’s security office stood slightly open to the hall. One of the mall cops sat at a desk with some kind of form pulled up on his computer. The other was on the phone, most likely calling the real police. Brooks was in a chair beside the desk, scowling straight ahead with his fingers clenched around the edges of the seat. His face kept waffling between red and white as anger and fear fought for control of his complexion.
“What’s your name?” the mall cop asked.
“My dad’s attorney is Ryland Hamilton. His office is in the Briars. I’ll give you his phone number.”
“Your name, son. I have to fill out the form.”
“My dad’s attorney is Ryland Hamilton. His office is in the Briars. I’ll give you his phone number.”
“How about your address?”
“My dad’s attorney is Ryland Hamilton. His office is in the Briars. I’ll give you his phone number.”
“Which display did you get the necklace from?”
“My dad’s attorney is Ryland Hamilton. His office is in the Briars. I’ll give you his phone number.”
Brooks was pretty good with the whole name, rank, and serial number act. I wondered how often he’d needed Ryland Hamilton from the Briars to bail him out before things actually escalated to a point that required bail.
“You aren’t doing yourself any favors, kid,” the mall cop said, exasperated. “You aren’t a minor, and this store prosecutes shoplifters. You look like a decent young man, well-off.… Was it a dare? Is that it? You thought it would be fun? Or you wanted to see if you could pull it off? If you tell me what happened, I can word it so things aren’t so bad.”
“My dad’s attorney is Ryland Hamilton. His office is in the Briars. I’ll give you his phone number.”
“Fine, kid. Have it your way, but this isn’t—”
I knocked on the door before he could finish his useless attempt at intimidating the devil.
“Excuse me,” I said.
“Is there a problem, miss?” the mall cop asked. “I’m in the middle of … Oh, you’re the girl who was with him, aren’t you?”
“Yessir,” I said, nervously slurring my words.
“Good, then you can tell me his name. Your friend is refusing to see sense.”
“His name’s Brooks,” I said. “But he didn’t take the necklace.” The mall cop sat up straighter and gave me his full attention. Brooks gave me the most pathetically hopeful face I’d ever seen. Brucey was brilliant. I was about to hand Brooks his life back. “I was standing right next to him; he didn’t take it.”
“I know you want to help him out, but lying isn’t—”
“She’s not lying,” Brooks snapped. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Brucey, get your kleptomaniac keister in here.”
Brucey slunk in, the personification of shame with a capital “S” to match the crooked bend of his spine. He shuffled his feet, forcing me to push him the last few steps to get him all the way through the door. His acting skills had definitely improved (hopefully without too much loss of property to anyone else).
“Brucey took the necklace, not Brooks. He dropped it in Brooks’ pocket when they bumped into each other near the door.”
“Bateman?” the mall cop asked.
“Hi, Officer Ward,” Brucey said. He kept his eyes on his hands and picked at his fingernails. “I didn’t mean it. I was walking toward the door and the necklace was just there in my hand. I panicked. I ran into that guy and stuck it in his pocket when we separated.”
“Bateman, you know you’re not supposed to come here anymore. I thought the store made that clear the last time this happened.”
“I know,” Brucey said; he managed to widen his eyes enough for a pleading effect. “But I came with my friends. I thought I could handle it, Officer Ward, but I screwed up. I’m sorry. Please don’t call my mom.”
“You know I have to, Bateman.” The mall cop’s voice and manner had softened considerably, more so each time Brucey called him “Officer.” “Take a seat, son.”
Brucey bowed his back even farther, with a resigned sigh, and headed for an empty chair near the wall. His posture when he sat was carefully constructed: hands in his lap, toes turned in, hair falling in stringy cords to hide his face. He held it until the mall cop looked away, then brushed his hair back, grinned at me, and made a shooing motion with his hands.
“Does this mean we can go?” I asked.
“Leave me a contact number, but other than that, both of you can get out of here.”
Brooks scribbled his phone number down on the notepad beside the computer and headed for the door. He held it open for me and slammed it when I was clear.
“You okay?” I asked.
“They could have at least apologized.” He ran his hands over his hair, then did it again and again. What I had taken for an anger-fueled calm in the office now seemed like something else entirely. He couldn’t stay still, but fidgeted with his hands and clothes and hair the whole way down the hall and out of the store. The pale cast to his face hadn’t changed.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I’m
sorry about Brucey.… It wasn’t an accident. He did it because of me.”
“You told him to get me arrested?” Brooks stopped and stared at me, a bit of the edge creeping back into his features.
“Nothing like that. He’s … well, Brucey’s weird. He’s like the overprotective big brother I never wanted, and that was his idea of a high-five. He likes you; he wanted to see how you’d react.”
“What’s he do if he doesn’t like someone?”
“Forgets to confess.”
“Terrific.” He gave me another one of those puffed-out laughs like in class, only this time it was a dark sound, more tears than laughter. “My dad’s not going to believe that.”
“But they didn’t call your dad,” I said. “You didn’t give them your name.”
“I gave them Ryland’s. Dad’s the only one of his clients with a teenage son. If they called him, he’ll call my dad. Which means that Dad will be waiting for me when I get home.”
“I could go with you and explain what happened if you think it would help. I sort of need the ride anyway. Tabs took my car.”
The rest of my plan solidified the second he accepted my offer. If Brooks’ dad was that easily swayed to disappointment or disapproval of his son, then it wouldn’t take much to inflict maximum damage. If I was lucky, his dad might even cut him off, so he’d get to see what it was like to live like one of the people he thought he could throw away. Maybe a taste of life without a safety net would do him some good.
Maybe it wouldn’t. I didn’t really care.
17
Brooks’ house was definitely the home of someone who belonged at a place like Lowry. Green ivy ran up two exterior walls of a mansion that would have swallowed Uncle Paul’s as an appetizer, as though the grounds were trying to reclaim the stones by pulling them down. Dense, dark clouds blocked any direct sunlight, creating the illusion of twilight in the middle of the day, and a chill wind twisted around my throat with the feel of a tightening cord. The closer we came to the front door, the slower Brooks moved.
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