“Are you sure? Look again.” She pushes the phone nearer to my face.
I can’t help it. I cringe, as if she’s showing a picture of a dismembered body. I recover quickly and plaster a smile on my face, but it’s too late. She’s caught the flinch, knows that the scent of guilt is on me. Her eyes are fixed on mine, a slight crease on her forehead. She doesn’t like me.
“C’mon, Mendez, the kid doesn’t know shit. No offense, kid,” Detective Jackson says. He doesn’t even bother looking at me. Why can’t HE be in charge of this investigation?
I should strive to sound like a clueless teen. “Oh, totally none taken, like, not even a little bit.” Was that convincing? “I mean, like. Like. You know.” Wow, speaking like this is a lot harder than it looks. Detective Jackson is convinced I’m a total moron, at least. He snorts and turns away from me, shaking his head a little.
Detective Mendez sighs. She doesn’t buy the clueless airhead bit. “If you hear or remember something, call me, okay?” She hands me a card. “Anytime at all. I mean it, Lia. In the meantime, don’t leave town.”
I watch them walk off and approach Danny’s family. What are they telling them? Danny meets my eye for a second, but his dad says something and his gaze flicks away. The world is slipping from my grasp, and I can’t let it. Not now that I have so much to live for. I can’t lose it all. I need a way out of this. I need a—
I need a fall guy. Mandy keeps coming at me, the cops are closing in, and I need someone to take the heat off me.
Someone who’s already doing all sorts of illegal stuff. Someone the cops would be happy to catch. Someone who deserves to be put away.
Someone like Draycott’s drug dealer.
The thought is a fire lit under me. On top of Mr. Werner’s cheating business, there’s also a drug dealer on campus, and they basically caused Sophie’s death. I know Grace said the stuff the Draycott drug dealer sells are clean, but who can tell for sure? And also, Sophie probably wouldn’t have gotten into drugs in the first place if they weren’t so readily available on campus. I’m going to hunt down the dealer, and I’m going to serve them on a platter to the police.
Chapter 22
I think most clearly when I’m running, so after I leave the funeral, I head straight for the track, where my mind competes with my legs to see which one can sprint faster.
Okay. So there might be a murder investigation. Which is bad. Really bad.
But there is conveniently also a drug ring. I’m going to find out who’s involved in the drug ring and hand them over to the cops. Drug dealers are known to often kill people, so it would be easy to believe that the dealer probably killed Mr. Werner as well. Right? Right. That way, the cops will stop sniffing around the school; plus, they’ll see me as a good, helpful kid. Maybe.
Only problem is: How? If the cops aren’t able to find out who’s involved in the drug ring, how am I supposed to do it?
Okay, think. Think.
Thiiiink.
Hmm.
This Shakespeare-worthy inner monologue goes on for a while. In fact, it goes on for the rest of my run. I finish on surprisingly wobbly legs and stagger back to Mather for a hot shower. I’m just drying myself when it comes back in bits and pieces, the drunken, horrible memory of Grace telling me about an online shop in a Vegas toilet, music pulsing all around us.
My hair still dripping, I hurry back to my room. Inside, I pace a bit with closed eyes, trying to remember the words Grace had written on my hand that night. There was an online shop. Blue-something. Blueberry—nope. Blueseed. Yes, that’s it. I’ve heard of it, though I’ve never checked out the site.
I open my laptop and type in the address. It’s basically Etsy 2.0, a place where individual sellers can sell their handiwork. And it’s huge, boasting over half a million sellers. Okay. Now the seller’s name. God, what was it? It was something incredibly dumb, like Whee, or Yahoo. I try both and get nothing. Wat? No. Woo-hoo? I’ve typed in woo when the search box auto-completes it to Woot. That’s it. I hit Enter, and I find Woot1212’s shop.
The shop is—well, to be perfectly honest, it’s a bit crap. Only five items on sale, and they look like the kind of cheap trinket you can get for two cents in China. And yet, Woot1212 has made—wow—over a thousand sales. Gee, I wonder why. I click on the first item. A necklace with a tiny Coke bottle pendant. Right, that would be cocaine. And the Mary Jane key chain is weed, and the healing crystal’s got to be crystal meth, and—
Healing crystal.
No. No, no, it can’t be. Many people have healing crystals. You see them all the time on TV. This is a coincidence. They’re literally as common as like, cell phones, literally. Literally can’t think of anyone who literally doesn’t have a healing crystal. Stop saying literally. Stop saying what I think you’re saying. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can’t unsee it.
I can’t unsee those crystals all over Beth’s room. And how she’s mentioned a part-time job and being desperate to earn some money to prove her parents wrong. And I keep remembering that time at Mr. Werner’s funeral, when the cops came to speak to me and Beth looked absolutely terrified, and I can’t forget it. My insides are curling up tight, my cheeks are hot, and I want to scream at someone. At everyone. At the entire world. Why? Why the shit, Beth? Why, why, why—
I barely register walking out of my room, making my way down the hallway. A couple of girls walking by say hello, and I blink in a daze. And then, quite suddenly, I’m at Beth’s room. My hand lifts. Knocks.
“’Sup, Li? This is a nice surprise,” Beth says, grinning at me, dimples on full assault.
I follow her in. Then I say it. I just drop it like some atomic bomb. “You’re the drug dealer.”
It’s like someone’s hit the pause button. I’m pretty sure we both stop breathing, the air around us crystallizing into sharp-edged shards.
And then Beth opens her mouth and laughs. “Very funny, Lia.”
“I know you’re the drug dealer.”
“Hey, please, lah, auntie.” Beth throws her hands up. “What drugs? You hit your head, is it?” She laughs again, and I need her to stop because it’s the worst laugh in the history of laughs, a laugh that’s brittle with fear.
I pick up a purple healing crystal from her makeup table. “I saw your online shop, Woot1212.”
“Wait, what? Put that down okay, that one is for my chi, very important one, your chi.” Beth jumps and snatches the crystal from me.
I look around her room, at the constant mess it’s in, all these expensive clothes and purses strewn everywhere, the Miu Miu sunglasses and Prada bags, and—
Something clicks into place. Before Beth can stop me, I fling open her wardrobe. It’s only got a few items of clothing, but behind the dresses and shirts are stacks of handbags and shoeboxes.