Dread starts spreading through me: my stomach aches, my lungs compress, even my mouth has a horrible taste. For almost two weeks I’ve been questioned and scrutinized, whispered about and judged. I’ve had to deflect questions about Simon’s allegations with police and teachers, and watch their eyes harden as they read between the lines. I’ve waited for another shoe to drop; for the Tumblr to release a video of me accessing Mr. Camino’s files, or for the police to file charges. But nothing’s felt quite so raw and real as watching my class picture appear over Mikhail Powers’s shoulder on national television.
There’s footage of Mikhail and his team in Bayview, but he does most of his reporting from behind a sleek chrome desk in his Los Angeles studio. He has smooth dark skin and hair, expressive eyes, and the most perfectly fitted wardrobe I’ve ever seen. I have no doubt that if he’d managed to catch me alone, I’d have spilled all sorts of things I shouldn’t.
“But who are the Bayview Four?” Mikhail asks, staring intently into the camera.
“You guys have a name,” Maeve whispers, but not quietly enough that Mom doesn’t hear.
“Maeve, there is nothing funny about this,” she says tightly as the camera cuts to video of my parents’ offices.
Oh no. They’re starting with me.
Honor student Bronwyn Rojas comes from a high-achieving family traumatized by their youngest child’s lingering illness. Did the pressure to measure up compel her to cheat and take Yale out of her reach forever? Followed by a spokesperson from Yale confirming that I have not, in fact, applied yet.
We all get our turn. Mikhail examines Addy’s beauty pageant past, speaks with baseball analysts about the prevalence of high school juicing and its potential impact on Cooper’s career, and digs through the particulars of Nate’s drug bust and probation sentence.
“It’s not fair,” Maeve breathes into my ear. “They’re not saying anything about how his dad’s a drunk and his mom’s dead. Where’s the context?”
“He wouldn’t want that, anyway,” I whisper back.
I cringe my way through the show until an interview with a lawyer from Until Proven. Since none of our lawyers agreed to talk, Mikhail’s team tapped Until Proven as subject-matter experts. The lawyer they speak with, Eli Kleinfelter, doesn’t look even ten years older than me. He has wild curly hair, a sparse goatee, and intense dark eyes.
“Here’s what I’d say, if I were their lawyer,” he says, and I lean forward despite myself. “All the attention’s on these four kids. They’re getting dragged through the mud with no evidence tying them to any crime after weeks of investigation. But there was a fifth kid in the room, wasn’t there? And he seems like the type who might’ve had more than four enemies. So you tell me. Who else had a motive? What story’s not being told? That’s where I’d be looking.”
“Exactly,” Maeve says, drawing out each syllable.
“And you can’t assume Simon was the only person with access to the About That admin panel,” Eli continues. “Anybody could’ve gotten into that before he died and either viewed or changed those posts.”
I look at Maeve, but this time she doesn’t say anything. Just stares at the screen with a half smile on her face.
I can’t stop thinking about Eli’s words for the rest of the night. Even when I’m on the phone with Nate, half watching Battle Royale, which is better than a lot of the movies Nate likes. But between Mikhail Powers Investigates and our trip to the mall on Monday—which I’ve been thinking about nonstop in those spare moments when I’m not thinking about going to jail—I can’t concentrate. Too many other thoughts compete for brain space.
Nate was about to kiss me, wasn’t he? And I wanted him to. So why didn’t we?
Eli finally said it. Why isn’t anyone looking at other suspects?
I wonder if Nate and I are officially friend-zoned now.
Mikhail Powers does serial investigations, so this will only get worse.
Nate and I would be horrible together anyway. Probably.
Did People magazine seriously just email me?
“What’s going on in that big brain of yours, Bronwyn?” Nate finally asks.
Too much, and most of it I probably shouldn’t share. “I want to talk to Eli Kleinfelter,” I say. “Not about you,” I add when Nate doesn’t reply. “Just in general. I’m intrigued by how he thinks.”
“You already have a lawyer. Think she’d want you getting a second opinion?”
I know she wouldn’t. Robin is all about containment and defense. Don’t give anybody anything they can use against you. “I don’t want him to represent me or anything. I just want a conversation. Maybe I’ll try to call him next week.”
“You never shut off, do you?”
It doesn’t sound like a compliment. “No,” I admit, wondering if I’ve killed whatever weird attraction Nate might’ve once felt toward me.
Nate’s silent as we watch Shogo fake Shuya’s and Noriko’s deaths. “This isn’t bad,” he finally says. “But you still owe me finishing Ringu in person.”
Tiny electrical sparks zip through my bloodstream. Attraction not dead, then? Maybe on life support. “I know. That’s logistically challenging, though. Especially now that we’re notorious.”
“There aren’t any news vans here now.”
I’ve thought about this. Maybe a few dozen times since he first asked me. And while I don’t understand much about what’s going on between Nate and me, I do know this: whatever happens next won’t involve me driving to his house in the middle of the night. I start to tell him all my excellent practical reasons, like how the Volvo’s noisy engine will wake my parents, when he says, “I could come get you.”
I blow out a sigh and stare at the ceiling. I’m no good at navigating these situations, probably because they’ve only ever happened in my head. “I feel weird going to your house at one in the morning, Nate. Like, it’s … different from watching a movie. And I don’t know you well enough to, um, not watch a movie with you.” Oh God. This is why people shouldn’t wait until their senior year of high school to date. My whole face burns, and as I wait for him to answer, I’m deeply thankful he can’t see me.
“Bronwyn.” Nate’s voice isn’t as mocking as I’d expected. “I’m not trying to not-watch a movie with you. I mean, sure, if you were into that, I wouldn’t say no. Believe me. But the main reason I invited you over after midnight is that my house sucks during the day. For one thing, you can see it. Which I don’t recommend. For another, my dad’s around. I’d rather you not … you know. Trip over him.”
My heart keeps missing beats. “I don’t care about that.”
“I do.”
“Okay.” I don’t fully understand Nate’s rules for managing his world, but for once I’m going to mind my own business and not give my opinion about what does and doesn’t matter. “We’ll figure something else out.”
Cooper
Saturday, October 13, 4:35 p.m.
There’s no good place to break up with someone, but at least their living room is private and they don’t have to go anywhere afterward. So that’s where I give Keely the news.
It’s not because of what Nonny said. It’s been coming for a while. Keely’s great in a dozen different ways but not for me, and I can’t drag her through all this knowing that.
Keely wants an explanation, and I don’t have a good one. “If it’s because of the investigation, I don’t care!” she says tearfully. “I’m behind you no matter what.”
“It’s not that,” I tell her. It’s not only that, anyway.
“And I don’t believe a word of that awful Tumblr.”
“I know, Keely. I appreciate that, I really do.” There was another post this morning, crowing about the media coverage:
The Mikhail Powers Investigates site has thousands of comments about the Bayview Four. (Kind of a dull name, by the way. Would’ve expected better from a top-ranked newsmagazine.) Some call for jail time. Some rail about how spoiled and entitled kids are today, and how this is another example of that.
It’s a great story: four good-looking, high-profile students all being investigated for murder. And nobody’s what they seem.
The pressure’s on now, Bayview Police. Maybe you should be looking a little closer at Simon’s old entries. You might find some interesting hints about the Bayview Four.
Just saying.