He shrugs as he slides in beside me. “I only do the things that need to be done well. Besides, you’ve got Chinese sisters, right? Is it really that much of a stretch?”
“They’re Korean,” I say, as the SUV’s doors lock with an ominous click. “And if you know that much about my family then you know no one can afford to pay any ransom, so what exactly do you guys want with me? Are you going to kill me like you killed Preston?”
The driver glances back at me in the rearview mirror, his expression disturbingly neutral. He pulls the SUV out of the lot.
“We didn’t kill Preston.” Uncle chuckles as he slides the gun back into his pocket. It looks a lot like the gun Parvati gave me. I wonder what happened to that, anyway. It was wrapped in my clothes in the backseat of her mom’s car when we got arrested. I bet the feds have it. Gonzalez is probably testing it against the ballistics report of every unsolved crime on the books.
“I apologize for my impatience,” Uncle continues. “I just didn’t want a large number of people to see us together.” He gives me a brief smile. It looks all wrong on his face. “We’re not going to hurt you, Max. We just want to debrief you.”
“Debrief me?”
He nods. “We needed you out of jail so we could speak privately. My name is Langston, and that’s Marcus.” He gestures toward the driver. “We work for Senator DeWitt.”
I cough and nearly swallow my gum. “DeWitt paid my bail? Why would he do that?”
Langston doesn’t answer, so I keep thinking out loud. “I’ve only spoken to Preston’s dad twice in my life. He must really think I’m innocent.” Unless, of course, he really thinks I’m guilty and decided to hold his own trial, presided over by a couple of thugs with guns.
“The senator doesn’t believe you’re a killer.” Langston strokes his well-trimmed goatee. “And he’s unconcerned about the money, since he’ll get it back eventually. He trusts that you won’t do anything foolish like try to run away again.”
I finish the thought in my head: But we’ll come find you if you do. The SUV turns onto the main road that leads out of Vista Palisades. “Where are we going?” I ask. Langston doesn’t answer. Houses and strip malls whiz by. People walk their dogs along the cracked sidewalks. Kids with giant backpacks head home from school.
Too bad no one can see me through the tinted glass.
“We’re just going for a drive.” Marcus turns on the radio. Classical music has never sounded so creepy.
“I need my phone.” I tap one foot, rapidfire, against the SUV’s floorboards. “My parents are going to worry.”
“We only need a little of your time. It’s better if your parents think you’re still in jail for the time being.”
“Yeah, that would work, except my mom’s probably planning on visiting me two more times in the next hour,” I say. “At least. She’s having a little trouble dealing with things.” It feels weird to call Darla my mom, but now doesn’t seem like the time to explain my entire history to Langston.
He tosses the phone back to me. “Fine. Tell her you don’t know who bailed you out, that you’re with friends, and you’ll be home later.”
Except I don’t have any friends anymore. “Great,” I say, knowing that explanation won’t be enough for Darla. Hopefully she’s still at work. I dial my number again, expecting the babysitter. It goes straight to voicemail. Ji and Jo are probably doing their lethal tag-team screaming act. I leave a quick message assuring everyone I’m fine and that I’ll explain everything when I see them. Luckily, Ben and Darla are about as low-tech as it gets and don’t have caller ID. They won’t be able to call me back and demand more information.
“So who are you guys?” I ask. “Like private investigators or something?”
“Sort of.” Langston crosses his legs at the ankles. He’s wearing shiny black shoes with white wingtips, like something you might see on a golf course.
Marcus weaves his way through a neighboring suburb and turns onto the interstate. I lean against the window and watch the highway fly by. We’re heading toward L.A. In front of us, a dump truck spits occasional bursts of sand and gravel onto the road. My mind starts doing that hamster-wheel thing again. How bad would it look if word got out that Senator Remington DeWitt had bailed the leading suspect in his son’s murder out of jail? He has to have an agenda. But what is it?
“What do you guys want to know?” I ask. “Where’s Senator DeWitt?”
“The senator and his wife just returned from dealing with things in Las Vegas,” Langston says. “Due to the politically delicate nature of Preston’s murder, the DeWitts have tasked Marcus and myself to follow up on some leads.”
“They think Preston’s death was politically motivated?” I fiddle with my seat belt.
“Let’s just say they know you aren’t responsible.”
“I wish they’d tell the feds that.”
Langston smiles slightly. “The FBI means well.” He pauses. “But Senator DeWitt hasn’t made them privy to all of the pertinent facts. Some of the relevant information is too classified.”
Something pings hard against the front windshield. I flinch, even though it was probably just a pebble from the truck in front of us. “So why am I here if I’m so innocent?”
“We need to make sure we know everything that you know. We’re gathering information to track down the real killer.”
I nod. “What if I can’t help, though? Are you going to toss me back in jail?”
Langston’s smile widens. “You knew to go to Las Vegas. Tell me about that.”
There’s something about him that makes me want to talk. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel like I can talk to Parvati anymore. Or because I’m so hurt by her lies that I finally care more about finding the real killer than about protecting her. I tell Langston about the cover story, how Pres and I pretended to go camping. And then about snatching Pres’s hard drive. I don’t tell him it was Parvati who took it. I’m not sure I could even bring myself to say her name right now.
“Did he ever mention Violet Cain to you before?”
“He mentioned a girl named Violet when he asked for the cover story. He said he played online poker with her. I thought it was weird, Preston meeting chicks on the internet. He could’ve dated almost any girl at school.”
“But didn’t Preston despise most of his classmates?”
It was true. That was probably the main reason Pres and I stayed friends after he enrolled at Vista Palisades and basically took over the school. He might have excelled at playing Mr. Popularity, but beneath the surface he was a loner, just like me. Just like Parvati. A lot of kids think high school represents the best years of their lives, but others recognize that it’s mostly irrelevant bullshit, and that life doesn’t even begin until afterward. All of us belonged to the second group, but Preston had always done an excellent job of pretending.