It turns out it’s a really bad idea taking all of Beth’s stash, because now who’s the dumb shit stuck with three shoeboxes full of drugs?
I need to get rid of the pills, fast. Especially with the cops looking into Mr. Werner’s death. But I have no idea how I’m going to get rid of them. The pills I can probably just flush down the toilet. Or can I? Would they clog up the toilet? Because the last thing I want is for the school to find a wad of ecstasy plugging up their drains. I very nearly do a Google search about it before I realize I can’t, because the second last thing I want is for the cops to look up my search history and find how to get rid of drugs.
So I put them in my wardrobe, and I stare at the wardrobe and wonder what I’m going to do with them—bury them, throw them in trash cans all over the city, dump them in the river—and then suddenly it’s morning, and I’m late for track. I go through the motions of the day, pretending not to notice when Beth ignores me at breakfast and lunch. When classes end, I go to Stacey’s room.
Stacey’s room is on the other end of Mather. Like Beth’s, it’s stuffed to the gills, but instead of clothes and knickknacks, hers is filled with what looks like the latest tech that the CIA would have in their lab.
There are three huge monitors crowding her desk, each one showing rows of numbers and code. Cans of opened Monster drink are littered around the desk. Her hard drive looks like it’s mutated—its casing is left open, innards of rainbow-colored wires and complicated hardware all in a tangle, spilling out in a knot of electronic intestines. A portable fan aimed at the hard drive is whirring at full speed. The place smells of stale dust and the sticky, artificially sweet stink of Monster. It’s all a bit overwhelming. I reach out without thinking and pick up a bright-orange pill bottle on the corner of her desk. Xanax. Oops. I didn’t mean to be a meddlesome auntie. I put it back quickly, hoping that Stacey didn’t notice me being nosy.
“Make yourself at home. Mi casa is your casa.” Stacey swings herself onto the bed and gestures at me to sit in her chair. I do so after checking to make sure there are no loose wires or gadgets or cans of Monster I might accidentally crush with my butt. Next to me is another computer tower, but this one is dead, no glimmering lights. It’s lying open, wires sticking out, and a small toolbox sits next to it on the floor, filled with pliers, wires, and other components I can’t identify.
“That’s my final project for comp sci,” Stacey says. She grabs an open bag of gummy bears from her side table and pops three in her mouth. “Want one?”
“No, thanks. Um, so.” I’m here for a different reason: the keylogger. But how do I bring it up? Last night, I wore down the carpet in my room pacing around, my mind racing, trying to come up with a plan to thwart the cops’ investigation. Now that I know the dealer is Beth, I can’t possibly hand her to the cops. Maybe I should, but I can’t. I still don’t know what to do yet, but one thing’s clear: I need to tie up all possible loose ends, starting with Stacey’s keylogger. “Danny inherited Mr. Werner’s laptop.”
There is a marked lack of reaction. Then Stacey says, “Uh-huh. And?”
And? I flap my arms. “And? That’s bad! He’s going to find the keylogger you planted.”
Stacey throws her head back and laughs. “And how’s he going to do that?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know any of this computer sorcery stuff.”
“Wow, computer sorcery stuff. Aren’t we tech-savvy?” She pops more gummy bears into her mouth.
Why is she so blasé about this? I want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her head flops back and forth. But then it strikes me: she doesn’t care because she doesn’t know there was foul play involved in Mr. Werner’s death. She doesn’t know the stakes. How do I make her see that this is a Very Important Thing without making her suspicious?
Okay. Think. “I just—um, you and I are friends now, and I don’t want things to get weird if Danny finds out you’ve been spying on his uncle.”
“Sure, I guess it’ll be a bit weird if he finds out. But he won’t, because there’s nothing linking me to the keylogger. Don’t tell anyone, but I used April’s ID to hack into Mr. Werner’s system.”
“April? As in our in-house IT support?”
“Yep. She has access to all the school’s computers. The teachers’ computers are technically school property, so she has access to all of them. If you received a computer from school, she has access to it as well, just by the way.”
My head spins. “Okay…but how did you get her to hack into Mr. Werner’s computer?”
Stacey laughs. “I didn’t get her to do shit.” She raises her hands and shrugs. “I may have sort of planted a keylogger into her computer.”
“Stacey!” I cry. This sounds bad. This sounds really bad.
“What? Hey, if she didn’t want people hacking into her computer, she should have better firewalls. I did it my first week here.”
“WTF, Stacey? What is this, like something you just do for fun? You go around hacking into people’s computers?”
“Sort of.” She laughs at my expression. “I mean, not just anyone’s computer. I’m not like that. I respect people’s privacy. Most of the time. I prefer hacking into systems. I even hacked into the school’s security system. Fun fact: I installed a motion detector at the entrances to Mather so in case someone ever tries to break in at night, I’d know. Or if someone sneaks out at night to hook up with somebody—”
“Okay, TMI. Go back to Mr. Werner’s computer.” I rub my face and try to work out this new piece of information. “You were telling me about using April’s computer to hack into Mr. Werner’s system, which means…”
“It means even if Danny were to somehow trace the hacks on Mr. Werner’s computer, it’ll just lead him to April, and he’ll just think it’s April doing her regular sweep across all computers for viruses or whatever. It won’t come back to me. Satisfied?”
“But.” I try to sort out my thoughts. “Didn’t you download files off Mr. Werner’s computer? Test papers and stuff? Won’t it look suspicious? There’s no reason why April would do that.”
Stacey bites the head off a gummy bear. “I guess,” she says, after a while.
Shit. My stomach sinks. I cover my face and moan.
“Oh my god, you are being so paranoid right now. So what if Danny finds out I snooped around in his uncle’s computer? What’s the big deal? I mean, I know the guy’s dead, but let’s face it, he was shady as hell.”
God, how do I make her understand how important this is? I’m so frustrated right now, I’m this close to reaching out and shaking her. “Look, can you please get rid of the virus on Mr. Werner’s computer?”
“Despite being a genius, I’m not a wizard, Lia. I can’t just snap my fingers and make the virus disappear.”
“What do you need to do to erase it?”
Another sigh. “I’ll have to write a program to do it. And I’m lazy.”
“Stacey!”
She laughs at me. “That look on your face. I’ll do it, you nong. I’ll have the program ready by tomorrow.”