"Well, if I am," I said, "it's because you're making me. Following me around all the time. Showing up at school. Badgering me. Well, I had nothing to do with finding that girl in San Francisco. Nothing!"
Special Agent Johnson raised his eyebrows. "I wasn't aware a girl in San Francisco had been found," he said mildly. "But thank you for letting me know."
I eyed him. "You . . . you aren't here about Courtney Hwang?"
"Contrary to what you apparently believe, Jessica," Special Agent Johnson said, "the world, much less my job, does not revolve around you. Jill and I are here for something quite unrelated to you."
The door to the guidance office opened, and Special Agent Smith came in.
"Well," she said. "That was exciting. The next time, Jessica, you feel the need to plunge your fist into a girl's face, please do it when I'm not around."
I looked from her to Special Agent Johnson and then back again.
"Wait a minute," I said. "If you two aren't here because of me, what are you here for?"
The door to the guidance office opened yet again, and this time, Mark Leskowski walked in, looking bewildered and strangely vulnerable for a guy who, at six feet tall, probably tips the scales at one eighty.
"You wanted to see me again, Mr. Goodhart?" Mark asked.
Mr. Goodhart glanced at Special Agents Johnson and Smith.
"Uh," he said. "Yes, Mark, I did. Actually, these, um, officers here wanted a word with you. But before you meet with him, um, officers, can I just have a word with you?"
Special Agent Johnson smiled. "Certainly," he said, and he and Special Agent Smith disappeared into Mr. Goodhart's office, and closed the door behind them.
Incredible. More than incredible. Indescribable. I punch Karen Sue Hankey in the face and get summoned to the guidance office for disciplinary action, only to be forgotten about?
What's more, my two archenemies, Special Agents Johnson and Smith, show up at Ernest Pyle High School, not to give me a hard time, but someone else?
Amber Mackey's murder had done a lot more than rob us of Amber. It had turned the universe as I had once known it upside down and backward.
This became even more apparent when Mark Leskowski—quarterback, senior class vice-president, and all-around hottie—smiled down at me—me, Jessica Mastriani, who's spent almost more time in detention than she has in class—and said, "Well. We meet again, I guess."
Oh, yeah. Call the Pentagon. Someone's gone and created a new world order.
C H A P T E R
6
"So Mark Leskowski said to me. "What are you in for this time?"
I looked at him. He was so beautiful. Not as beautiful as Rob Wilkins, of course, but then what guy was?
Still, Mark Leskowski was a close second in the dreamy department.
"I punched Karen Sue Hankey in the face," I said.
"Whoa." He actually looked impressed. "Good for you."
"You think so?" I asked. I can't tell you how good it felt, having the approval of a guy who looked that good in a pair of 505s. Seriously. Most of what I did on a regular basis, it seemed, Rob didn't approve of. Primarily because he was afraid it was going to get me killed, but still. He didn't have to be so bossy about it.
"Heck, yeah," Mark said. "That girl's such a wannabe, it hurts."
My God! My feelings about Karen Sue exactly! And yet somehow, when expressed through a set of such masculine lips, they seemed to have more validity than ever.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, she is, isn't she?"
"Is she! I'll tell you what. Amber used to call her the Klingon. You know, because she was always clinging onto the rest of us, trying to get in with the in crowd."
His mention of Amber snapped me back into reality. What was I doing? What was I doing, sitting on an orange vinyl couch in the guidance office, lusting after Mark Leskowski? He was being pulled in for questioning by the FBI. The FBI! That was some serious stuff.
"So," I said, my gaze darting toward the glass window in Mr. Goodhart's office door. Through it, I could see Special Agent Johnson speaking rapidly. Mr. Goodhart was Mark Leskowski's guidance counselor, as well as mine. Mr. Goodhart had all the Ls through Ps.
Mark noticed the direction of my gaze and nodded. "I guess I'm in some trouble now, huh?"
I said carefully, "Well, you know. If they're bringing in the FBI …"
"They always do," he said. "In cases of kidnapping. Or at least, that's what Mr. Goodhart says. Those two in there are the regional operatives."
Special Agents Johnson and Smith, regional operatives? Really? It had never occurred to me that Allan and Jill might actually have homes. I had always pictured them living out of skanky motel rooms. But of course it made sense that they lived in the area. I heaved a shudder at the idea that I might one day bump into one of them at the grocery store.
"They are classifying what happened to Amber as a kidnapping/murder," Mark went on, "because Amber was . . . alive for a while before she got killed."
"Oh," I said. "Shouldn't you … I don't know. Have a lawyer, or something?"
"I have one," he said, looking down at his hands resting between his thighs. "He's on his way. My parents, too. I thought I had explained it all to the sheriff, but I guess … I don't know. I'm going to have to do it again. With those guys."
I followed his gaze. Now Mr. Goodhart was speaking to Special Agent Johnson. I couldn't see Special Agent Smith. She was probably sitting in my chair, the one by the window. I wondered if she was looking out at the car wash, the way I always did when I sat there.
"I just don't get it," Mark said, staring at a spot in the center of the coffee table between us, at a brochure that had I'M AN ARMY OF ONE written on it. "I mean, I loved Amber. I would never hurt her."
I glanced at the secretary. She was totally listening, but she was pretending not to, seeming to be very absorbed in a game of Minesweeper. She would click a button on her keyboard if Principal Feeney wandered this way, and the computer game would disappear, to be replaced by a spreadsheet.
I should know. I had spent enough time in this office.
"Of course you wouldn't," I said to Mark.
"The thing is," he said, raising his gaze from the Army brochure and looking at me with soulful brown eyes. "I mean, it isn't like we weren't having problems. Every couple has problems. But we were working them out. We were totally working them out."
I'll say. At least if what Claire Lippman had told me was any indication. He and Amber had been the Make-out King and Queen of that little barbecue, anyway.
"And then, for this to happen . . ." He let his gaze drift away from me, toward the clock on the wall behind me. "Especially when everything else was going so great. You know, we have a real shot at the state championship this year. I just …"
I swear, as I was sitting there, looking at him, I noticed an unnatural glimmer in his eyes. At first I thought it was just a trick of the flourescent lights overhead. And then it hit me.
Mark Leskowski was crying. Crying. Mark Leskowski. A football player. Crying because he missed his dead girlfriend.
"And there are going to be scouts, you know, from all the major universities," he said, with a barely suppressed sob. "Checking me out. Checking me out. I have a solid chance at getting out of this Podunk town, of going all the way."
Or maybe it was because his football scholarship was going down the drain. Whatever the reason, Mark was crying.
I flung a startled glance in the secretary's direction, because I did not know what to do. I mean, I have never dealt with crying football players before. Suicidal brothers, sure. Homicidal maniacs who wanted to kill me, easy. But crying football players?