"Explanation, please," Ruth said.
"It's really very simple," I said. "Amber Mackey got pregnant—"
"Pregnant!" Ruth cried.
"Pregnant!" her twin brother echoed.
"Pregnant," I said. "And she told Mark she wanted to keep the baby. In fact, Amber wanted him to marry her, so they could raise their child together, be a little happy family. That's what they were talking about that day at the quarry, when Claire said she saw Amber and Mark keep going off together, alone. Amber's pregnancy."
"Right," Claire said. "Only a pregnant girlfriend was not part of Mark's plan for the future."
"Far from it," I said. "Getting married, or even paying child support, was going to totally mess up Mark's football career. It was, in his book, 'unacceptable,' So, near as we can figure it out—and he hasn't confessed, mind you—Mark beat Amber up, in the hopes that she'd change her mind, and left her somewhere—probably in his trunk. They're checking it for fibers now. When that didn't manage to convince Amber to see things his way, he killed her and tossed her body into the quarry."
"Okay," Ruth said. "I can see all that, I guess. But what about Heather? Wasn't Mark with you when Heather disappeared?"
"Yes," I said. "He was. That was the point of Heather's attack. Mark was starting to feel the heat, you know, with the Feds breathing down his neck, so he figured if another girl got attacked at a time during which he had a rock-solid alibi, he'd be in the clear."
"And what's more rock-solid," Skip said, "than the fact that he was with the FBI's friend, Lightning Girl."
"Right," I said. "Well, more or less. And you know, it worked. When Heather disappeared, no one suspected Mark."
"Except you," Claire pointed out.
"Well," I said, a little guiltily. "I didn't exactly suspect Mark." Quite the opposite, in fact. I'd been convinced no one as hot as he was could be a criminal. Stupid me. "But that house … I knew there was something up with that house. So when I started asking around about it, Mark got scared again and had Jeff Day—the same guy who'd kidnapped, and then later beat up, Heather—make some threatening phone calls. And then, when that didn't seem to be working, Mark and Jeff broke into Mastriani's, poured gasoline all over the place, then lit a match and burned the place down."
At least according to Jeff Day, who'd started crying like a baby the minute the cops arrived, then spilled his guts like a squashed caterpillar.
"Mark's biggest mistake," I went on, "was enlisting the help of someone like Jeff Day in getting him out of his little jam. I mean, on the one hand, it makes sense, since Jeff is used to taking direction from Mark, on account of Mark being the team quarterback and all. But Jeff needs a lot of direction. He was always coming up to Mark and asking him what to do … especially right before the first class of the day, homeroom."
"Where Mark sat in front of me," Claire said. She was taking her role as victim very seriously, and waved her arm, the one with the IV in it, as much as possible, to bring attention to her infirmity. "So of course this morning, when he and Jeff were whispering before the bell rang, something about the way they looked … so sneaky . . . triggered something. I just knew. I can't say how I knew. I just put two and two together. But you can't go to the police, you know, with a hunch. But I figured I could go to Jess—"
"But when she tried," I said, "Mark caught her. And she was so startled—"
"I ran," Claire said gravely. "Like a startled fawn."
I wasn't so sure about the fawn part. Claire was kind of tall for a fawn. A gazelle, maybe.
"But Mark went around the side of the building," I said, "and caught up with her, and—"
"—hit me right back here," Claire said, touching the back of her head, "with something heavy. And when I woke up again, I was in his trunk."
"My guess is he was going to take her to the house on the pit road," I said, "and do to her what he'd done to Amber...."
"So what," Ruth asked, "is going to happen? To Mark, I mean?"
"Well," I said. "With the help of Jeff's testimony—which I'm sure he'll give in exchange for a reduced sentence for his part in the whole thing—Mark's going to prison. For a long time."
Which was really going to mess up his plan for getting drafted right out of college by the NFL.
Before anyone could say anything in reply to this, Claire's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Lippman, came back into the room.
"Oh, thanks, kids," Mrs. Lippman said, "for keeping our baby entertained while we were gone. Here, Claire, a mint-chocolate-chip shake, just like you asked."
Claire immediately lost all of the animation she'd had when talking to Ruth and Skip and me. Instead, she fell back against the pillows, and let her head loll a little.
She was really milking this for all she was worth. Well, she was in the drama club, after all.
"Thanks, Mom," she said weakly.
"Well, uh," I said. "We better go."
"Yeah," Ruth said, slipping off the windowsill. "Visiting hours are up anyway. Bye, Claire. Bye, Dr. and Mrs. Lippman."
"Bye, kids," Dr. Lippman said.
But Mrs. Lippman couldn't let it go with a simple good-bye. No, she had to come over and give me a big hug and call me her little girl's savior and tell me that if there was anything—anything at all—she or her husband could do for me, I needed only to ask. The Lippmans—along with, surprise, surprise, Heather's parents—were starting a Restore Mastriani's Fund. I wished that instead they were starting a Pay Off Karen Sue Hankey's Medical Bills Fund, so that Mrs. Hankey would drop her suit against me.
But beggars can't be choosers, I guess, so all I said, as Mrs. Lippman attempted to squeeze the life out of me, was, "Uh, you're welcome."
Barely escaping with my ribs intact, I followed Ruth and Skip out into the hall.
"Whew," Ruth said. "Now I know where Claire gets her sense of the dramatic."
"Tell me about it," I said, scrubbing Mrs. Lippman's lipstick off my cheek, where she'd kissed me.
"Should we stop by and see Heather?" Skip asked as we made our way to the elevators.
"They released her already," I said. "Broken arm, couple of busted ribs, and a concussion, but otherwise, she's going to be all right."
"Physically," Ruth said, punching the button marked DOWN. "Mentally, though? After having been through what she went through?"
"Heather's pretty tough," I said. The elevator came, and we all got on it. "She'll be back out there, shaking her pompons, in no time."
"Yeah, but what is she going to shake those pompons for?" Ruth wanted to know. "I mean, without Mark and Jeff, the Cougars don't have much of a chance of making it to State. Or anywhere, for that matter."
"Well," I said. "There's always the basketball team. None of them, as far as I know, have murdered anyone lately."
"So, Jess," Skip said, as the doors opened to the hospital lobby. "How does it feel to be a hero? Again?"
"I don't know," I said. "Not so great, really. I mean, if I'd have been able to figure it out sooner, I might have saved Amber. Not to mention Mastriani's."
"How did you figure it out?" Ruth asked. "I mean, how'd you know Claire was locked inside Mark's trunk?"
It was a question I knew I'd get asked eventually, though I'd been hoping against hope to avoid it. How was I going to explain that for a moment, I'd been Claire, inside that trunk? And all because she'd dropped her sweater … a sweater I'd just returned to her, by the way.
"I don't know," I lied. "I just … I just knew is all."
Ruth looked at me sarcastically. "Yeah," she said. "Right. Just like this summer, with Shane and the pillow. I get it."
Ruth got it, all right. I just hoped nobody else did.
"What pillow?" Skip wanted to know.
"Never mind," I said. "Listen, you guys, I better get home. My mom's having a big enough cow as it is, what with the restaurant, and now Douglas and this job thing. Not to mention Karen Sue's lawsuit—"