Covert

by Natasha Preston

  I gestured to the car - a bright red convertible something. "This! We're supposed to be undercover."

  "Ah but I figured they would never expect to see us in a flashy motor. We'll actually be more undercover in this than some boring Focus." He tapped his head as if he'd thought of something amazingly clever.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "I genuinely don't know what to say to you, Blake."

  "Thank you maybe?"

  "I'm not thanking you for being stupid," I replied and got in the car. "Can you at least put the roof up?"

  "Later. Wanna pretend we're Bonnie and Clyde?"

  "Just drive," I replied, sighing in discouragement and throwing my backpack on one of the tiny back seats. "What do you think we're going to find?"

  "Probably about as much as we've found already, sweet FA, but what choice do we have? Everything is ten times more serious now. We can't just sit back and wait for the police to find out. Pete's dead, and we don't know how far the murderer is going to go to protect themself."

  I wasn't sure if I believed one of them would kill me or not. They all had their issues with Josh and Courtney but as far as I knew I'd never pissed them off, not enough for any of them to want to end my life. Would that matter though? Had it gone past who they cared about now? Would they kill me to save themselves? And Blake, they didn't know him and they didn't like him.

  "Do you really think they would want to kill us?"

  "I'm not taking that chance."

  I shook my head. "We're discussing this as if we're talking about deciding on a day's outing."

  "Would you prefer me to panic?"

  I rolled my eyes. "No."

  "Mackenzie, this is all we have left. It's find who has done it or either end up six feet under or be wrongfully imprisoned. I don't know about you, but I don't fancy option B or C. Like you said before, there will be time to grieve later. Right now we fight. Okay?"

  "Okay," I replied. That was what I'd been doing all along, only now I was more trying to prove Blake and myself were innocent, rather than Megan, Aaron and Kyle. Out of all of them Blake was the only one I was one hundred per cent sure about now.

  "We'll drive to Megan's - you need to direct me, by the way - and check out what's going on there first. Please remember we're here to catch a killer so keep your hands and lips to yourself for the next few hours."

  I rolled my eyes. "Take a left at the end of the road and get your head out of your arse." His smirk lit up his whole face and he was carefree Blake.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "This isn't as fun as I thought it'd be," he moaned, reclining his seat and throwing his arm over his forehead.

  "And you expected?"

  He shrugged with one shoulder. "Megan carrying a suspicious shaped black bag or a rolled up rug. Truck load of Rohypnol being delivered."

  "You'd make a shit detective."

  He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and raised his brow. "Oh, sorry, do you know who it is then?"

  "That's not the point. I'm looking beyond the obvious."

  "The obvious being Aaron?"

  Sighing, I looked out of my window and back at Megan's house. Blake was exasperating. "Who had the time to drug our drinks?" I turned my body back and pulled his arm away from his eyes. "Why're we assuming it was the drinks that were drugged?"

  He frowned. "You think it could have been the food?"

  "Maybe. We all helped cook."

  "We also all got drinks at some point in the evening too."

  "Yes, I know, but it's a possibility and there were only two people who finished up the dinner." My mind reeled with the new possibility.

  "Who was that? Aaron and...?"

  I gulped. "And Josh."

  Blake stilled, and I waited for his reaction. After a minute, he frowned. "A murder/suicide. That doesn't explain Pete though."

  "Perhaps that was random. You know Pete, always shouting his opinions out down the pub. Maybe he pissed someone off and they snapped. Maybe they used Josh and Courtney's murder to cover up Pete's. Come on, it's a possibility."

  Pete was punched once for telling someone they were a 'fucking idiot' for supporting the Liberal Democrats and that they should be supporting Labour. And there was the time that he snubbed Mrs Jackson's choice of name for her son. Angel. He said not only was it a girl's name, but it only belonged on a stripper. I thought it was cute.

  "You're asking me to believe my brother murdered his girlfriend and then himself."

  I gasped. "What if he found out about Kyle and Courtney?"

  "Then wouldn't it make more sense to kill Kyle?"

  I shrugged. "I dunno. His mind was obviously messed up. Blake, it could have happened. Call Wright!"

  Closing his eyes, he groaned. "No, Mackenzie. Remember Lawrence? We were wrong about him." We think we're wrong about him. "I don't want to do anything that'll make it seem like we're desperate and looking for anything to get us out of it."

  "We are desperate."

  "We don't want him to know that. We need to think it through a little more first."

  "Okay," I replied. "Then we'll go to Wright, yeah?"

  "Let's just see how tonight goes and talk it through some more. We'll go tomorrow if we need to." He smiled at me and looked out of the window. "Hey, hey, hey," he said in a rush and nodded to Megan's house. She ran to her car, ripping the door open. "Now, where's she off to in a hurry?"

  "Start the car!" I hissed as Megan sped off. The idiot was too busy watching he was slow doing the following part.

  We followed Megan to the churchyard and parked behind a tall transit van. Why was she here? And she rushed too, desperate to get here as soon as possible. For what?

  Deep in the graveyard I saw exactly what she was in a rush to get to. Kyle was waving his hands around, shouting something that I couldn't hear. He stumbled and arched his back, off his face and clearly angry about something.

  "Shit, what's he doing!" I shoved the car door open and leapt out. Blake's footsteps were right behind me as we ran towards Megan and an angry Kyle.

  "Kyle!" I shouted. Megan was the only one to look up; he didn't even seem to hear me.

  "I don't know what he's doing," Megan said. "He called me ranting about what a whore Courtney was and that he wanted to dig her up!" I froze in shock. That wasn't Kyle. He didn't say things like that; he didn't even think things like that. How messed up had the affair made him? "I don't know what to do, Kenz."

  "She's a bitch," Kyle spat, taking a few steps towards me. It was the first time in my life that I was actually scared of him. I had no idea what he would do either. Why was I always the one people expected to fix things? Because you're always trying to fix everything, my mind in Blake's voice, told me.

  Blake stepped between Kyle and me and Megan. "Calm the fuck down. So she picked him. Man up and stop acting like a little bitch about it." Tactful! I glared at him, but he didn't see me.

  "You don't have a clue!" Kyle roared. "You pathetic loner, you don't have a clue what it's like to love someone. The only person you give a shit about is yourself."

  That's not true.

  "What?" Megan said. "What the hell is he going on about? He was with Courtney?"

  "Kyle, that's enough!" I yelled, ignoring Megan's confusion. It was obvious now so she would catch up on what she had missed. "What's wrong with you? You've lost it. How much have you had to drink?" He was noticeably stumbling, which was unusual for him, unless he was off his face, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  "She chose him, Kenz. How could she choose him?" His eyes narrowed and his lip curled in fury. "It's all her fault. It was all her fault."

  "Kyle, don't," Megan said. Her voice was weak; she sounded as if she had just been kicked in the stomach. "Courtney's dead. It wasn't her fault and you shouldn't talk about her like that." I was with Megan on that one.

  "I don't care!" he shouted, his eyes fierce and distant from being so worked up and drunk. "She deserved it after wha
t she did to me. They both deserved it!"

  "They deserved death?" Megan yelled, looking at Kyle both appalled and heartbroken. I was too. My stomach turned at his words. You weren't supposed to continue hating someone you cared about when they were dead. Why couldn't anyone else see that?

  Kyle squeezed his eyes closed. "I want her back. I want her with me." His shoulders hunched over, defeated. "I love her."

  I stepped forward, wanting to comfort him but was stopped by Blake's arm. Kyle narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh, piss off. She's my best friend! I'm not going to hurt her." I could see by the way Blake's eyebrow twitched that he was thinking Courtney was someone he loved and he was speaking that way about her. Blake didn't trust Kyle one bit; that was clear.

  "It's okay," I muttered, gently pushing Blake's arm down. I knew Kyle wouldn't hurt me. Blake made no attempt to stop me again, so I walked to Kyle and wrapped my arms around his waist. I was super-aware that I could be hugging a murderer, but at that moment he was just my lost, heartbroken, messed up friend. "You're gonna be okay," I whispered.

  Kyle gripped hold of me and cried into my neck. "I don't know what I'm doing," he sobbed. "I can't think straight. She's gone." His legs gave way and I fell to the ground with him, unable to hold his weight up on my own. "What am I going to do?"

  "I don't know," I whispered, shuffling so he wasn't on top of me so much. I still hadn't figured that part out yet. Eventually, I would have to face up to what happened. I would have to let the memories back in and accept they were gone. What I wanted to do was to carry on burying it like I was now.

  "It hurts," he hissed and gripped me tighter. "I can't..."

  "Shh," I whispered, rubbing his back as if he was a small child. "We'll get through this just like we did when Tills and Gigi died."

  Megan knelt beside me. "But this isn't the same, Kenz. Tilly and Gigi was an accident. This," she said, shaking her head, "was deliberate."

  "We can't just give up," I replied. "I understand what this is, but we have to stick together. I know this is harder, but we can get through it. I need you both. Aaron too." And Blake, I added silently. Now was not the time to include him when they were still so sure it had to be him.

  She nodded. "You're right. Why don't you come back to Kyle's with me and we can talk about all this stuff. Maybe we can figure it out together?"

  "You mean find a way to pin it on me," Blake said from behind us.

  I looked up at him. "That's not what she meant."

  Kyle snorted, raising his tear stained face. "The hell it isn't! We all know you had a problem with your brother."

  Blake's eyebrow raised, and I knew where he was going. "We all know you had a problem with my brother and since he was in the pants of the girl you love, I think your motive shoots you to the top of the suspect list."

  "Alright, stop!" I yelled, squeezing my eyes closed, exasperated. "You guys have to stop this."

  "Why are you always defending him?" Kyle spat, pushing himself to his feet.

  "Because he's in the exact same position as us. Just because we didn't know him before doesn't--"

  "Mackenzie," he said, cutting me off. "We don't know him now."

  I sighed sharply. "Trust me then, Kyle."

  "You're screwing him," Kyle sneered, stumbling back a step.

  "No, I'm not screwing him." But I had and I was minutes from doing it again last night. "You need to go home. I'm not talking to you when you're like this."

  "Whatever," he mumbled, walking towards the car park in a wonky, alcohol fuelled line.

  Kyle refused to go in a car with Blake so I helped Megan get him in her car and she took him home. I got back in the stupid flashy sports car and closed my eyes. "Is it Kyle?" I asked Blake as he turned the engine on.

  "I don't know. He's mad, but he seems more self-destructive pissed off, and not murderous pissed off. Wanna check Aaron before I take you back to mine?"

  "I'm going back to yours?"

  "Yeah, my mum's still a mess and I don't do hysterical women, you know that."

  I shook my head. "Fine I'll text my mum again. Aaron's next. Wright tomorrow."

  "You think we'll find anything at his?" he asked.

  "What're you expecting, Aaron to be carrying a suspicious shaped black bag or a rolled up rug?" I replied, using his words from earlier.

  "Ha ha," he said flatly. "Buckle up."

  I did just in time for him to step on the accelerator, pinning me to the seat. We arrived at Aaron's far too quickly and parked a little way down the road. "Can we run through everything again?"

  "Everything?" he questioned.

  "Motives and suspicions."

  "I think it was Aaron in the kitchen with a knife."

  "You know one day you'll have to deal with this too, right?" Blake's defence was to joke around and make light of the situation. It was probably something he had done his whole life. I could picture him joking about what a crap mum he had, even though it must have left its mark.

  "Sure. Not looking forward to your breakdown I have to say."

  "Because you don't do hysterical women."

  "No, because I don't want to see you upset."

  "Oh," I replied, my mouth popping open.

  He smirked. "Not what you expected, hey?"

  "Not really."

  "I'm not a complete arsehole."

  Narrowing my eyes, I replied, "No, not a complete one."

  "Okay so we have Megan. Now she had that weird liquor, an earlier walk into the woods, slept alone upstairs and has been overly hysterical the whole time. Her motive is her lesbian affair - which I support fully, by the way - with Gigi."

  I rolled my eyes. Typical man. "Yeah, and Kyle. Handled the food a lot and did probably more drink runs than the rest of us, though I can't really remember. His motive is jealously and anger over Courtney, obviously. Aaron uses drugs, apparently! He left with Megan, brought alcohol, too, and had an equal go with the food and drinks. His motive is the same as Megan's but his is weaker, I think. Or Megan's is. She didn't love Gigi."

  "So she says. Your motive is--"

  "Don't! I don't want to go there. I didn't do it and you know it."

  "Hey, I'm just playing fair here."

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Please, Blake. We both know what my motive would be. I can't talk about what happened again."

  He nodded once, understanding just how hard it was for me to even think about what I had done. "Alright. Well we both know mine too. Shall we move on to Josh?"

  "Okay," I whispered. "Josh could have found out about Kyle and Courtney. He had the most opportunity to spike the food and drinks since he was hospitality master. That's all we really have on him."

  "Wait, where was the knife?"

  "I don't know. The police had it but they never said where it was found," I replied.

  "If it was more than a short throw away it couldn't be Josh. The blood was only in that area." Spreading as I remembered it. "He couldn't have taken it or thrown it too far if he was bleeding out."

  Blake was right.

  "So if it wasn't in the kitchen he couldn't have done it and it was one of them." He nodded. "Why hasn't Wright mentioned that? Surely he would have asked about that?"

  Blake's frown deepened. "Or the clothes. Whoever did it had to have blood on them. Where are the clothes? Don't mention the knife to him actually. If he's not telling us, it's for a reason."

  "So if one of us slips up and mentions where it was he would know. I mean only the killer would know where it was, right?

  "Hmm, you're not just a pretty face."

  "I'm gonna ignore that. So we know everyone has a motive and opportunity but we have absolutely no evidence to prove any of it."

  "That about sums it up," Blake replied, nodding once. "Aaron's door!"

  I looked over and saw a guy wearing a black hooded jacket and dark jeans standing talking to Aaron. He handed something to him and Aaron handed something back in return. My breath caught in m
y throat.

  "Bloody druggie," Blake muttered. "Well, I think it's safe to say Aaron would know where to get Rohypnol."

  How fast was Aaron spiralling? I wanted to run to him, flush whatever he'd just bought and slap him silly. I couldn't though. His downfall could be guilt.

  "I thought you said weed and Rohypnol were two completely different things and we shouldn't--"

  "Yes, Mackenzie, but how many people do you know that do a bit of weed dealing like that? And own nice flashy Range Rovers like that? Come on, that's the official drug dealer's car."

  "I know none. Drugs just don't appear in my world." He smiled sarcastically and nodded towards Aaron. I added, "That I knew of."

  "This is pointless. Driving this around was fun but we're not undercover cops. Let's take the car back and head to mine," he said.

  "Today was a total bust."

  Blake stroked the steering wheel. "I enjoyed driving this."

  "Oh, I stand corrected," I replied sarcastically. As long as he had fun in the car it doesn't matter that we found nothing!

  He flashed a boyish grin. "Tomorrow we'll speak to Wright about your suicide theory."

  "Our suicide theory."

  "It'll be ours if it's right. At the minute, it's yours. Now," he said, wiggling his eyebrows, "let's chill on my bed and I'll let you take advantage of me."

  Chapter Twenty

  Since Blake and I had spoken about the possibility of a murder/suicide, I couldn't stop thinking about it. If no one really could have got in, or did get in, then it was my only hope of it not being one of my friends.

  Why would Josh have killed Courtney though? If he knew about her affair then he would have done something to Kyle, too. Josh wasn't the type of person to leave something like that. He would see it as weak if he did. He always had to be the big man. If he knew someone else had been with Courtney he definitely would have done something. Kyle would at least have had a black eye.

  "I just don't get it," I said into the phone to Blake.

  "To be fair you don't get any of it. Don't yell because neither of us does."

  I ignored him. Half because I couldn't be bothered to bicker about it and half because I knew he didn't mean to make it sound like I was stupid. "If it was Josh there had to be a reason. I mean you don't kill your girlfriend and yourself because you're bored."

  "Well, normal people don't."

  "Blake," I said slowly. He was going off track, again. "We need to find out Josh's motive."