An unfamiliar part of my chest squeezes up into a ball. But I quickly shake off the feeling and force myself to keep moving toward my table, lest anyone notice I’ve paused in the middle of the caf like some sort of psycho.
It’s really great Paige is making a friend, I tell myself. Maybe she’ll finally leave me alone. And she could do worse than Jessie Colburn. She’s very pretty, and if you count “I want to tap that ass” as a compliment, then at least half the football team agrees.
Bianca is so busy loudly recounting the story of the eating contest to the other squad members, who lean in intently as if (a) they haven’t heard the story three times already, and (b) they really want to know exactly what color Jarrod’s vomit was that she doesn’t notice me slip into my spot next to her.
I peel the cellophane back from my caf sandwich, trying to block out Bianca’s voice, but the puke talk filters in anyway, and a childhood memory plays out in my head. I find myself unexpectedly smiling.
“Hey, Bianca,” I blurt out. “Remember that time my mom said that if we ate all our food we’d grow big and strong? And we thought it’d help us grow big boobs too, so we sat in my basement eating until we couldn’t stop puking?”
Bianca cuts me a glare. “No, that doesn’t ring a bell,” she says through her teeth.
Now that it’s out, I realize Bianca’s probably mortified that I mentioned the memory that just moments before had me smiling. I should back off, but for some reason her denial inflames me. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Remember it was just after your brother said some girls never grow boobs, and we were so scared we’d be those girls that we scarfed down that whole can of cake icing that was expired by a month?”
Bianca gives me her back and faces her audience again. “So anyway, as I was saying—”
The overhead speakers crackle, and Mrs. Malone’s sharp voice comes over the intercom. “Would Indigo Blackwood and Paige Abernathy please report to my office? Thank you.”
The cafeteria calls out “Oooh” in unison, like we’re in third grade or something.
“Isn’t that your weird neighbor who won’t leave you alone?” Bianca asks. “What’s going on?”
Great. I’ll only hear about this for, oh, the next century.
I shrug noncommittally before getting up. Paige meets me in the middle of the cafeteria. Neither of us says a word on the way to the office, but tension radiates between us in waves. Cops. It has to be cops. We left the scene of an accident, after all. And maybe it wasn’t a suicide. Maybe it was a murder. And I took evidence! I realize with alarm, remembering the note.
The secretary, Mrs. Fields, an approximately one-hundred-year-old woman with a puff of silver hair and round spectacles, glances up from a file she’s reading as we approach.
“Ms. Blackwood and Ms. Abernathy?” she asks in her pinched little voice.
“Yes,” I answer for the both of us.
“Right this way.”
Mrs. Fields leads us to the principal’s corner office, where, through the door’s glazed window, I can just make out the silhouettes of three figures.
Mrs. Fields knocks on the door but doesn’t wait before cracking it open. “They’re here.”
Mrs. Malone and two men I’ve never seen before swivel to face us.
If I’d run into them under any other circumstances, I’d never have guessed they were policemen. The taller of the two men wears his long, steel-wool hair slicked back in a ponytail that falls halfway down his back. His features—from his pointed chin to his slender nose to his pale blue, slanting eyes—give him the appearance of a wolf. The other man, short and muscular compared with his partner, has what looks like a burn covering three-quarters of his hairless head and extending over his right eye, making it droop as though his face were melting. In fact, the only thing that looks policeman-like about the two of them is their sleek black suits.
“Thank you, Mrs. Malone,” Mr. Wolf says to our principal, in such a way as to dismiss her.
Mrs. Malone applies a false smile I’m all too used to seeing around the halls of Fairfield High. “I’ll just be right outside if you need anything.” She shoots Paige and me a warning look before pulling the door closed behind her.
Mr. Wolf indicates for us to sit in the wooden chairs across from the big desk. After that, there’s about thirty seconds when no one says a thing. Which doesn’t seem like that long, but things start to get really awkward after the ten-second mark. Paige and I shift in our chairs as Mr. Wolf saunters over to Malone’s desk and picks up a snow globe, turning it over in his hands. Scarface takes a seat in the principal’s chair and thumps his boot-clad feet up on the desk, dry mud crumbling off the soles. He pulls a package of Marlboros out of the breast pocket of his suit, slides one out, and presses it between his lips.
Paige sits up straighter. “Hey, this school is nonsmoking.”
“Paige!” I cry, incredulous. If I’m in trouble, the last thing I need is her getting me on their bad side.
The cop flicks his lighter. The cherry of the cigarette flames as he sucks in a breath, then exhales right in Paige’s direction.
Paige wafts the smoke out of her face with dramatic arm-sweeping gestures. “I don’t care who you are, you can’t—”
“Excuse my partner’s rudeness,” Mr. Wolf says now examining the snow globe close to his face. “You can dress him up, but you can’t take him out. Know what I mean?”
Scarface laughs, a barking, unkind sound.
I haven’t had many encounters with policemen in the past, but this isn’t going down as I’d imagined.
“You girls saw something pretty frightening yesterday, didn’t you?” Mr. Wolf sets down the snow globe and picks up a picture frame holding a photo of two blond children—probably Mrs. Malone’s kids.
I’m about to answer when Paige cuts in. “How did you know that? I mean, we didn’t leave our names with anyone, so how did you know where to find us?”
“Shut up, Paige,” I say, elbowing her in the ribs.
“What? I’m just wondering. If he can blow smoke in my face, I can ask a question, right? And since I’m asking, you didn’t tell us your names. Isn’t that part of an interview?”
Mr. Wolf ’s thin lips curl up in an amused smile, revealing a row of crooked teeth. “We have ways of knowing … things, Ms. Abernathy. Cute kids.” He sets the picture frame down and starts ruffling through papers on the desk.
“You didn’t answer my last question,” Paige says.
“That’s right,” he says. “My name is …” He looks up, as if considering his response, and then levels his eyes on me. “Mr. Wolf.”
A gasp falls out of my mouth.
“And this,” he continues, giving me a knowing grin as he gestures to the other cop, “is my partner, Scarface.”
My heart thrums like a bird in a cage, a cold damp slicking my palms. “H-how did you do that?”
“Do what?” Paige asks.
I can’t say it aloud—that he’s read my mind. It sounds too implausible. Too ridiculous. But it has to be true. That can’t have been a coincidence.
“We’re wasting time, Frederick,” Scarface says.
“Shhh, I think I’m on to something here.” Mr. Wolf, or Frederick, or whoever he is, rubs the stubble on his chin, assessing me.
Scarface removes his feet from the desk and sits up straight. “There are at least a dozen more people who saw Bishop die who still need to be dealt with.”
Dealt with? What is that supposed to mean?
“Patience, Leo. Patience.” Frederick drums his index finger on his chin, and Scarface/Leo crosses his arms like a child who’s been put in time-out.