Or actually.
I meant to turn the numbers Cooper gave me over to Mrs. Macauley so she could pass them along to Eli. But I kept thinking about her terse text: I’ve informed Eli, but he asks that you don’t involve yourself further. Would Eli even take me seriously? He’s the one who first mentioned the car accident as suspicious, but he’s spending all his time trying to keep Nate in the juvenile detention center. He might consider this nothing but a pesky distraction.
Anyway, I’m just scoping things out. That’s what I tell myself as I enter Eastland High’s parking lot. They start classes forty minutes before we do, so I can still get back to Bayview in plenty of time for the first bell. It’s stuffy in the car, and I lower both front-seat windows as I pull into an empty spot and turn the car off.
Thing is, I need to be doing stuff. If I don’t, I think about Nate too much. About where he is, what he’s going through, and the fact that he won’t talk to me. I mean, I understand he has limited communication options. Obviously. But they’re not nonexistent. I asked Mrs. Macauley if I could visit, and she told me Nate didn’t want me there.
Which stings. She thinks he wants to protect me, but I’m not so sure. He’s pretty used to people giving up on him, and maybe he’s decided to do it to me first.
A flash of red catches my eye, and an ancient Camaro with a shiny fender parks a few spaces away from me. A short dark-haired boy gets out and hauls a backpack from the passenger seat, looping one strap over his shoulder.
I don’t intend to say anything. But he glances my way as he walks by my window and before I can stop myself I blurt out, “Hey.”
He pauses, curious brown eyes meeting mine. “Hey. I know you. You’re the girl from the Bayview investigation. Bronte, right?”
“Bronwyn.” Since I’ve already blown my cover, might as well go all in.
“What are you doing here?” He’s dressed like he’s waiting for a ’90s grunge comeback, in a flannel shirt over a Pearl Jam T-shirt.
“Um …” My eyes skitter to his car. I should just ask, right? That’s what I came for. But now that I’m actually talking to this boy the whole thing seems ridiculous. What am I supposed to say? Hey, what’s the deal with your oddly timed car accident at a school you don’t go to? “Waiting for somebody.”
He wrinkles his brow at me. “You know people here?”
“Yeah.” Sort of. I know about your recent car repair, anyway.
“Everybody’s been talking about you guys. Weird case, huh? The kid who died—he was kind of weird, right? I mean, who even has an app like that? And all that stuff they said on Mikhail Powers. Random.”
He seems … nervous. My brain chants ask ask ask but my mouth won’t obey.
“Well. See ya.” He starts to move past my car.
“Wait!” My voice unsticks and he pauses. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“We just were talking.”
“Right, but … I have an actual question for you. The thing is, when I said I was waiting for somebody? I meant you.”
He’s definitely nervous. “Why would you be waiting for me? You don’t even know me.”
“Because of your car,” I say. “I saw you get into an accident in our parking lot that day. The day Simon died.”
He pales and blinks at me. “How do you—why do you think that was me?”
“I saw your license plate,” I lie. No need to sell out Luis’s brother. “The thing is … the timing was weird, you know? And now someone’s been arrested for something I’m sure he didn’t do and I wondered … did you happen to see anything or anyone strange that day? It would help—” My voice catches and tears prick my eyes. I blink them back and try to focus. “Anything you could tell me would help.”
He hesitates and steps back, looking toward the stream of kids funneling into the school. I wait for him to back away and join them, but instead he crosses to the other side of my car, opens the passenger door, and climbs inside. I press a button to raise the windows and turn to face him.
“So.” He runs a hand through his hair. “This is weird. I’m Sam, by the way. Sam Barron.”
“Bronwyn Rojas. But I guess you know that already.”
“Yeah. I’ve been watching the news and wondering if I should say something. But I didn’t know if it meant anything. I still don’t.” He gives me a quick sideways glance, as though checking for signs of alarm. “We didn’t do anything wrong. Like, illegal. As far as I know.”
My spine tingles as I sit up straighter. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and my buddy. We had the accident on purpose. A guy paid us a thousand bucks each to do it. Said it was a prank. I mean, wouldn’t you? The fender barely cost five hundred to fix. The rest was pure profit.”
“Someone …” It’s warm in the car with the windows up, and my hands gripping the steering wheel are slick with sweat. I should turn the air conditioning on, but I can’t move. “Who? Do you know his name?”
“I didn’t, but—”
“Did he have brown hair and blue eyes?” I blurt out.
“Yeah.”
Jake. He must’ve gotten away from Luis at some point after all. “Was he— Wait, I have a picture in here somewhere,” I say, fumbling through my backpack for my phone. I’m sure I took a picture of the homecoming court in September.
“I don’t need a picture,” Sam says. “I know who he is.”
“Really? Like, you know his name?” My heart’s beating so fast I can see my chest moving. “Are you sure he gave you a real name?”
“He didn’t give me any name. I figured it out later when I saw the news.”
I remember those first few stories, with Jake’s class picture next to Addy’s. A lot of people thought it wasn’t fair to show him, but I’m glad they did. I have the homecoming picture pulled up now, and I hand it to Sam. “Him, right? Jake Riordan?”
He blinks at my phone, shakes his head, and hands it back. “No. That’s not him. It was someone a lot more … closely involved with the whole thing.”
My heart’s about to explode. If it wasn’t Jake, there’s only one other boy with dark hair and blue eyes involved in the investigation. Closely involved, no less. And that’s Nate.
No. No. Please, God, no.
“Who?” My voice isn’t even a whisper.
Sam blows out a sigh and leans against the headrest. He’s quiet for the longest seconds of my life until he says, “It was Simon Kelleher.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Cooper
Wednesday, November 7, 7:40 p.m.
These murder club meetings are becoming a regular thing. We need a new name, though.
This time we’re at a coffee shop in downtown San Diego, crammed into a back table because our numbers keep expanding. Kris came with me, and Ashton with Addy. Bronwyn’s got all her Post-it notes on a bunch of manila folders, including the newest one: Simon paid two kids to stage a car accident. She says Sam Barron promised to call Eli and let him know. How that’ll help Nate, I have no idea.
“Why’d you pick this place, Bronwyn?” Addy asks. “Kind of out of the way.”
Bronwyn clears her throat and makes a big production of rearranging her Post-it notes. “No reason. So, anyway.” She shoots a businesslike look around the table. “Thanks for coming. Maeve and I keep going over this stuff and it never makes any sense. We thought a meeting of the minds might help.”
Maeve and Ashton return from the counter, balancing our orders on a couple of recyclable trays. They hand drinks around, and I watch Kris methodically open five packets of sugar and dump them into his latte. “What?” he asks, catching my expression. He’s in a green polo shirt that brings out his eyes, and he looks really, really good. That still seems like the kind of thing I’m not supposed to notice.