“Yeah,” I said. “I never told you—I got to talk to Miles’s mom.”
I explained everything I’d learned from June. Then I told him about confronting Celia outside the gym, and about Miles being an obstacle.
“I think McCoy’s going to do something. But I don’t know when, or how. And I’m afraid that if I don’t figure it out, something bad will happen.”
“And you’re positive,” he said slowly, “that this is all actually happening?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m never positive of anything, Tucker, I’m just telling you what I know. But you said earlier this year that Celia and her mom didn’t get along, right?”
“I—well, I mean, I’ve seen them come into school a few times before, and I’ve heard things, but it’s not like I’m in with their family.”
“Well, look—even if I am making up parts of it, I know that something is going on. I know McCoy is messed up and I know he’s taking Celia along for the ride. And I feel like . . . like if I don’t do something about it, then no one will.”
Tucker was quiet for a moment. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but . . . I know where McCoy lives. You won’t find anything incriminating in his office or at school. If there is anything, you’ll find it where he lives.”
“Mr. Soggy Potato Salad,” I said, putting my hand over my heart. “Are . . . are you suggesting we break into someone’s house?”
Tucker shrugged. “Not to take anything. Just to look around.”
“Should I ask Miles to come with us? He has more experience breaking and entering than we do.”
“He knows about all of this?”
“If McCoy is really after him, I figured he could keep himself safer than I could alone,” I said. “Besides, he’s known about me since October.”
“Oh, well.” Tucker thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we’d be stupid not to ask him. His house is only a few streets away from McCoy’s.”
“What?”
“Yeah—McCoy lives in Lakeview Trail.”
Chapter Forty-one
Dad took me to school the next day. In the hallways, everyone stared at me like I’d imagined them doing all year. My hair had become a blight, just like at Hillpark; people saw me coming and jumped from my path.
I tried to perform my perimeter checks like usual, but by the time I’d left my locker, there were so many eyes watching me it became difficult to keep my panic down. The only good place was English, where Mr. Gunthrie seemed to have reined in the class so well they ignored me completely.
Miles ignored me, too. He sat with his head bowed, scribbling furiously in his notebook.
The lines he made were thick and dark, and covered whole pages.
In true Miles the Jerk fashion, he didn’t talk to me until I forced him to, when we were walking together toward the gym. It was the day of the one baseball game I’d been dreading all year—East Shoal vs. Hillpark—and part of the reason I’d decided to come back to school. The other part was a joint threat between my mother and the Gravedigger to burn me in the fires of hell if I stayed home. (I told Dad that; he said I might be exaggerating.) I had to face this. But before I could even think about it, I had to make sure Miles was okay.
I checked to make sure no one was around, then asked Miles, “What’s going on?”
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his eyes flicking back and forth over the empty rotunda. “I—sorry—I couldn’t think at all today. Everyone knows. They’ve been talking about it all day, and I can’t figure out how they know. . . .”
They knew about his mom. I grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his hair, holding it between both of mine. “What’s the worst they can do with it, right? We only have a couple months left.”
“It’s that they know,” he said. “I don’t like them knowing things about my mom, because they’re going to start making judgments. And will anyone even take me seriously anymore? What are they going to ask me to do now? Even if it’s ridiculous, I’ll have to do it—I can’t say no, because then I go from die-hard genius back to punching-bag nerd, and no one will be safe anymore. I won’t be safe anymore.”
I looked around again—just him saying he didn’t feel safe made me think McCoy was hiding around a corner with a lighter and a can of hairspray.
Finally he said, “My mom called me. Last night, at Finnegan’s.”
“How come?”
“My dad. He went up to see her. She told me not to visit anymore.”
“Miles . . .” I wasn’t good at comforting people. So I did what I’d done before, and dragged him into my plans.
“I think Celia told everyone,” I said. “Like she told them about me. And I think McCoy was the one who told her.”