At least, I didn’t think so.
Too much had happened too quickly. I was still waiting for Preston to roll up in his car and tell me a big funny story about his adventures in Vegas. I hadn’t completely wrapped my brain around the possibility that something bad had happened to him, let alone the possibility that someone else had hurt him and was setting me up to take the fall.
But then I remembered how weird Pres had been acting at the overlook. He was upset about something going on with his family. Bad thoughts started to creep in. “What if someone hired Violet to get close to Preston online? People are speculating about his dad getting tapped as Secretary of Labor. Maybe the FBI is right and some political nutjobs snatched him.”
Parvati went quiet for a second as she mulled the possibility over in her head. “Did Pres have any enemies of his own that you know of?”
“He told me he owed Jonas Jacobsen money, but according to Jared that was a lie.” I raked a hand through my hair. “Everyone else worships Preston, don’t they?”
“Pretty much,” she agreed. “If someone took him, his parents will get a ransom request.” She paused. “But the FBI guys are still going to pounce on you once they find the blood in your trunk. I’ll charge the phone and then drive somewhere and turn it on just long enough to look at the recent calls and texts. But you need to get rid of your car, or find someplace to hide out until we can figure out what really happened.”
I couldn’t just get rid of my car. Was I supposed to tell my parents that someone stole that twenty-year-old rust bucket? Even if I wrecked it or ran it off a cliff, the agents would still find it unless I set it on fire or something.
The idea of skipping town until all of this blew over was majorly appealing, but if the feds pulled Preston’s body out of a back alley or some crazy bitch’s apartment in Vegas, I was going to blame myself. “Screw that. I haven’t done anything wrong. If I split I’ll look totally guilty.”
“And if you stay you’ll look guilty, and you’ll go to jail. I’ve heard my mom talk about stuff like this. Your parents won’t be able to make bail on kidnapping, Max. Or worse. We’re talking six figures, minimum.”
Worse. Like murder. The agents had decided I was guilty of something from the moment someone had lied about Preston and me arguing, if not earlier. They’d see my trunk, test the blood, and arrest me. I’d never figure out what happened to Preston from inside a jail cell, and they might not waste time looking for other suspects once they had me.
“Plus they probably know about your assault charge,” she added. “I’m sure that’s not helping matters.”
“The lawyer told me that couldn’t be used against me,” I protested.
“Probably not in court, but that doesn’t mean those guys won’t judge you because of it.”
My assault charge. Technically assault and battery, but what a bunch of bullshit. It happened a couple years ago. Amanda was playing outside after school and I was supposed to be looking after her, but I was inside watching TV instead. I remember I had just found out I had to retake American History in summer school, so I was really pissed off. I peeked out at my sister during a commercial and saw these two boys out in the street hollering at her—calling her a freak. Just as I opened the door to get her safely inside, one of the boys picked up a crushed aluminum can and threw it at her. What kind of epic douchebag throws stuff at a little girl with a disability?
Props to my sister, though, because instead of running away to safety, she picked up the crushed can and threw it back. Then she screamed a word that Darla would definitely not approve of and grabbed a loose clod of dirt and threw that too. I was beside her in an instant, chucking the first thing my hands closed around, which unfortunately was a rock.
My aim was a little better than Amanda’s.
Ben and Darla were furious when the cops came around to arrest me. Turned out my aim was so good that one of the little thugs had to get five stitches. I thought my parents were going to leave me locked up until my trial date. But once they shut up and let Amanda tell them what had really happened, they got me out the same day. I still got a lecture about violence, but Ben couldn’t keep from smiling throughout the whole thing. He might as well have high-fived me and taken me out to dinner.
After that day I was Amanda’s freaking idol. She was kind of my idol, too. The only thing that sucked was that the public defender said I might get tried as an adult, since I was sixteen and obviously knew what I was doing. (It probably didn’t help that the kid I hit was eleven.) She said if I pled guilty I’d just get community service and probation since it was my first offense. If I pled not guilty I might end up going to jail.
So of course I pled guilty, and now a couple of asshole FBI agents probably thought I was the kind of loser that got my jollies beating up little kids. They’d use that info to paint me as some unstable whack job who jacked his rich, popular friend. Who cares if they didn’t have a motive? Crazy kids committed random acts of violence all the time, didn’t they? My brain was finally catching up to Parvati’s. If I let them take me in, I was done for.
I started flipping through the possibilities of where I could go and what I could tell Ben and Darla so they wouldn’t worry. Unfortunately, I wasn’t coming up with much.
“Maybe I’ll head to Vegas,” I said. “See if I can locate this Violet chick. If you find her number on Pres’s phone you can text it to me.” I glanced down at my own phone. “I have to pick up my sister in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll get Amanda,” Parvati said. “The teachers have seen us pick her up together plenty of times. I’ll just tell her your parents needed extra help at The Triple S.” She hopped off the couch. “Going to Vegas is a good idea if we can figure out for sure where Pres went. Otherwise it’s just a waste of an entire day. Give me a few hours and I bet I can con my way into Preston’s room. I’m sure the FBI took his laptop, but he keeps an external hard drive hidden away. There might be information on it.”
“What am I supposed to do for a few hours?” My heart started banging out a drum solo in my chest. I didn’t know how long it took to get a warrant, but I had a feeling I’d be seeing McGhee and Gonzalez again soon. Maybe I could clean my trunk. Can you even clean blood off fabric? You can’t, can you? It’s one of those things that shows up under those cool purple lights you see on TV. And trying to clean it would only make me look more guilty. Maybe I could just rip the upholstery out of the trunk. Maybe I could set the car on fire.