“Jesus, Lia. Are you okay?”
The concern in his voice stabs through my heart. Surely he can’t be faking that. It’s so convincing. He really does care about me. Which makes this even worse somehow, that he’s not just a monster, that there is a part of him that’s true. “Yeah, listen, I don’t really want to talk about it right now. I just—” I falter. Now that I’m right here, standing right in front of Danny, everything I thought I could just say falls apart. Every word I come up with sounds ridiculous.
“What’s up?” Danny says, moving closer to me, reaching out to hold my hand. I flinch away, and he frowns.
How do I broach the subject?
Stacey. Yeah. I lift my face and look him in the eye and say, “Stacey’s awake.”
And there it is. I thought I was prepared for it, but in the beat of silence that follows, the glimpse of rage that I catch in Danny’s eyes breaks me in two. I want to beat him, punch that beautiful face of his and shriek at him until he tells me everything.
He smiles and says, “That’s great. I’m happy to hear that.”
I stare at him. How does he manage to look so innocent? What’s truly lurking underneath that warm smile? “Did you hear about Mandy?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve just been playing Fortnite.”
“No one’s messaged you?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. I put my phone on silent mode.”
“Then how did you get my messages?”
He suddenly looks shy. “I may have put you on my favorites list, so my phone beeps whenever you message.”
Before, this would’ve made me melt. Now, it just makes me want to vomit all over his face.
“So, the meet?”
“It was interrupted because the cops came and arrested Mandy for drugging the drinks at Sam’s party.” Again, I stare hard at him, not daring to blink for fear of missing any minuscule reactions.
Danny’s mouth drops open. His eyes widen. Then they narrow. He starts to say something, stops, closes his mouth. Eyes go wide again. This goes on for a while, then he finally says, “Whaaa?”
Such a great actor. It makes my skin crawl. Actually, it makes me want to rip off my skin and fling it at him. I can’t back off now. I need to forge ahead. Tear that mask off. “But Mandy didn’t do it, did she?”
“Huh? She didn’t?”
“No, because she never even knew she had drugs in her locker.”
Danny’s eyebrows crash into each other. This reaction is at least genuine. “I don’t get it. You just told me she did.”
“No, I said she got arrested for it. But she didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I planted the drugs in her locker.” Boom. There it is. My breath comes out all ragged. The truth didn’t come easy; it came up clawing and ripping at my windpipe, fighting to stay inside.
“What?”
“I—she was spreading all these lies about me, making it seem like I have something to do with Mr. Werner’s death, and I don’t know—I got so angry, and I had to get the cops off my back, and so I looked for the drug dealer and I found them and I stole the drugs, then I thought—you know, this will shut Mandy up for a bit, so I planted the drugs in her locker and called the cops, but when they came, there were no drugs. Mandy looked so confused. She couldn’t have been faking it.” It’s all coming out now, and there’s no stopping the torrent. And now it’s down to him to fill in the rest.
Danny blinks and shakes his head. Runs his fingers through his hair. “I don’t understand. Wait, but. The drugs don’t belong to—” He stops and shakes his head again, like he needs to clear it. “Why’re you telling me all this?”
“Because I know you did it, Danny.” The words come out as a harsh whisper. “I don’t know how you got your hands on those drugs, but you did, and you drugged Stacey. Why?”
Danny laughs, a horrible, cracked sound. “You’re talking crazy. You’re not thinking straight. Is it ’cause you’re so sad about the meet? Come on, we can talk about it.”
“Stop talking about the fucking track!” I snap. “Just tell me why you did it. You drugged Stacey and then got your parents to close up the investigation, didn’t you? I overheard Henderson talking to them. She was so grateful.”
This time, it hits home. Danny blanches. He tries to smile, but it doesn’t stick. It falls away, leaving him looking tired and broken and—
He frowns, looking at me in a different light. “Why were you so scared of what Mandy was telling the cops? I mean, sure, she spread all those rumors about you, but so what? It’s not like you had anything to worry about—”
I swear I’m about to puke up my heart. “Stop trying to change the subject. Why did you do that to Stacey?”
Danny ignores the question and cocks his head to one side. I feel something shift behind his gaze, like a dark beast lurching awake. “When my uncle died, you stopped eating. You used to be all about food, and then…”
Shit. I take a step back.
“Did you have something to do with—” He chokes on the next words. Gives a weird little laugh that doesn’t sound like a laugh at all.
I can’t take this anymore. “Why did you do it?” I scream it so hard, the words rip us apart.
Danny laughs, and now it sounds deranged. “Why? Why do you think? Because she killed my uncle! Everyone here’s out to get Uncle James. First there was Sophie, ranting about him, she had a whole freaking vendetta out against him, and I had to take care of it, and then there was Stacey, and you, and what the hell is wrong with you girls?”
“Wait.” I blink, trying to sort through the jumble of words he’s just said. “Sophie?” Something dark unfurls deep in my belly. “What do you mean, you had to take care of it?”
He gives another one of those cracked laughs that sends goose bumps sprouting down my arms. “Oh, I thought you’d figured that one out too, Miss Nancy Drew.” He snorts bitterly. “When my parents cut me off, I had to earn money some way, just to get by. I tried to get into the drugs business—it’s so lucrative here, isn’t it?—but I didn’t know how to get in. The Draycott dealer didn’t want any partners. I didn’t even know who it was. So, in the end, I just bought a bunch of drugs from the online shop and I cut them with other stuff to bulk them up a bit, earn some money doing that.”
“Cut them…what?” I whisper. No, this can’t be real. I’d solved it. I’d discovered Draycott’s drug dealer, and it was Beth. There wasn’t supposed to be more than one dealer.
Danny shrugs. “It’s not a big deal, god.” He sneers at me. “Always such a suck-up, aren’t you? God, can’t believe I thought I was in love with you at one point. Sophie caught me dealing, and she wasn’t gonna do anything about it at first, but when she got expelled because of Uncle James, she decided to take some revenge. Told me she was going to expose me as a drug dealer unless I dug some dirt up on Uncle James. You know what would’ve happened if she’d exposed me? That selfish bitch. Just because she’d thrown her life down the drain, she wanted to take me down with her.”