“Nineteen.” His eyes were an unusual yellowy green, like a cat’s, but wide and frightened.
“Oh, okay, good. You’re legally an adult under federal law. Have you been advised of your rights?”
“He signed a waiver,” Dan said, sliding a piece of paper toward her. Melanie glanced at it and nodded.
“I understand you were taken into custody on an outstanding warrant for fraud?” she asked.
“I was hacking. I sent out a game. If you were stupid enough to play it, it would invade your PC and steal some personal data. I didn’t ever do anything with the information. I was just, like, punking on people. Like, for kicks.”
“Unfortunately, it turns out that’s a federal crime, Trevor. You skipped out on your warrant, which makes it worse. Plus, when these agents arrested you, you had a distribution quantity of ecstasy in your possession,” Melanie said.
“Yeah, okay. A small amount, but enough to sell.”
“Twenty pills. Not nothing. So you’re facing some serious charges. Which gives you an incentive to talk to us, to get a more favorable plea offer. Now, have the agents explained what we’re interested in?” she asked.
“Yeah, they just told me Whitney Seward hot-loaded last night.”
“You hadn’t heard?”
“No. I’m not much for reading the papers. I told these guys what I know about Whitney. She was hooking up with this total psycho club-owner dude, like, old enough to be her father. Now, he moves product. That’s where you should be looking.”
“Jay Esposito?” Melanie asked.
“Expo. Yeah. He owns nightclubs and sells heavy-duty drugs. My thing is strictly like X or K-”
“Meaning ecstasy and ketamine?” Melanie asked.
“Right. Club drugs, you know? Go down easy, don’t fuck with your head too much. But Expo moves the real McCoy. We’re talking H. Not that Whitney Seward messing with hayron surprises me in the least. That girl was constantly pushing the envelope, looking for the next jones.”
“Brianna Meyers, too?”
“What about Brianna?” Trevor looked blank. Melanie glanced over at Dan, who shook his head almost imperceptibly. He hadn’t broken the bad news to Trevor yet.
Melanie looked Trevor in the eye. “I’m sorry to inform you that Brianna Meyers OD’d last night also.”
Trevor swallowed hard. His strange eyes welled up. “Did she…did she die?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Jesus. I didn’t know that.” He fell silent, his face reddening. Tears began to slide down his cheeks.
“Uncuff him,” she instructed Bridget. Melanie stood up, got a box of Kleenex from a side table, and handed it to Trevor. Shoulders heaving, Trevor rubbed his wrist, then pulled out some tissues and pressed them to his eyes with both hands.
“Are you okay to talk, Trevor?” she asked, resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment.
“Yeah, okay. I had no idea.” He took the tissues away and shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
“Did you know Brianna was using heroin?” Melanie asked gently, settling back into her seat.
“No. She wasn’t. I mean, you can tell me that, but I don’t buy it.”
“You were dating Brianna?” Melanie asked.
“I’ve known her since nursery school, but dated, no. We’re like BFFs.”
“BFF?”
“Best friends forever. It’s only since she started hanging with Whitney that things got weird with me and Bree. Whitney had Brianna pretty brainwashed. She only let me hang with them if I paid for shit, and it was at the point where Brianna was going along with her on that.”
Melanie waited as Trevor blew his nose and wiped his eyes some more.
“What kind of stuff did they want you to pay for? Like, drugs?” she asked.
“No. I mean yes, but not only. Just everything, you know? Whenever we went out. My parents are divorced, and my dad’s a dentist, which doesn’t rate shit on the Upper East Side. So I start saying no, because I really couldn’t afford it, and Whitney goes, ‘Oh, Trevor, I used to like you when you gave me money, but now you bore me,’” he said, adopting a high falsetto. “The fucking bitch, I’m glad she’s dead,” he added, wadding the Kleenex into a ball in his fist, though his tears were still flowing. Melanie fed him a few more from the box, until he got himself somewhat under control.
“We’re trying to figure out where they got the drugs that killed them, Trevor. Tell us anything you know. About Carmen Reyes, too,” she said.
“Carmen? The custodian’s daughter? What’s she got to do with it?” Trevor asked, sniffling, his eyes and nose still streaming.
“She was there last night when they did the drugs, and now she’s missing. We’re wondering if she’s involved somehow,” Melanie said.
“You’re messing with me!” He sat up straighter.
“No. Why?” she asked.
“Carmen’s this, like, uptight priss. They just use her to cheat on tests and shit because she’s a nerd, but they weren’t friends. If Whitney scored some hayron, she would never share it with Carmen. She didn’t owe Carmen favors like that, see? Carmen owed her, ’cause Carmen was a nobody and Whitney was the man.”
“So you didn’t know Carmen Reyes to be involved with drugs?”
“No way. That surprises me. But then again, I barely knew the girl. She wasn’t part of the scene, you know?”
“What about Brianna and drugs?” Melanie asked.
Trevor smiled fondly through wet eyes. “Aw, y’know, me and Bree’d smoke weed and shit. I mean, we been doing that since we were ten years old. But it was all pretty mellow. Get high, watch old movies, and order takeout from this Szechuan place on First Avenue. That was our thing.”
“Just marijuana? Brianna wasn’t doing any other drugs, as far as you knew?” Melanie asked.
“Once in a while, I’d get her to do a hit of X so, you know, maybe she’d blow me or something.” Trevor shrugged, blushing and looking down at the table.
“I thought you said you weren’t dating.”
“Oral sex isn’t dating. It’s just a way to pass the time.”
Melanie raised her eyebrows. Kids today. She was gonna lock Maya in her room until the chiquita turned twenty-one. Make that forty.
“Seriously,” Trevor said, noticing her reaction. “Holbrooke girls are pretty fast that way. They’ll blow the delivery guy instead of giving him a dollar for the tip, but since most of ’em don’t, like, actually fuck anybody, they pretend to be all virginal. It’s kinda bogus, when you think about it. You heard of rainbow parties?”
“No.”
“It’s where every girl wears a different-color lipstick, and they all suck off some, like, football player or-”
“Trevor, we really need to focus in on what you know about these three girls and heroin, okay?” Melanie said.
“Right. Okay.” He nodded, wiping his nose.
“Tell me what you know about Whitney’s relationship with Jay Esposito,” Melanie prompted.
“Like I said, Whitney was hooking up with him.”
“Hooking up. You mean sex?”
“Yeah. Now, Whitney was no virgin. And, like, recently she made a buncha trips to Puerto Rico with Expo. She started getting Brianna into it, too. I got weird vibes about what they were up to, but Brianna was holding back on the details.”
Dan shot her a glance, and Melanie instantly caught his meaning. Trips to Puerto Rico. Supposedly Esposito was moving heroin from Puerto Rico to New York. Could there be a connection?
“Whitney Seward went to Puerto Rico with Jay Esposito?” she repeated.
“Yeah. A few times. More than a few.”
“Did she tell you anything about the trips? Why they went, where they stayed, what they did there? Anything?”
“I mostly heard about it from Brianna. She was jealous because Whitney always had a great tan and a lot of money. See, money was a problem for all of us.”