The girls had looked at Julie. As much as she wanted to take part, it so wasn’t her. But she took a deep breath. “Where do we get the Oxy?”
At that moment, a shadow fell over her. Parker shot her friend a warning look, and Julie wrenched around in her seat to gaze up at Mr. Granger. For a moment, Julie was sure their teacher had heard everything. Sometimes, he had this way of sitting in on conversations as though he were a fly on the wall. Julie, like all the other girls, was flattered and a little unnerved by his attention—he was so good-looking and charming, and he had a vast, impressive knowledge of amazing films. But that day, he’d stared down at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
But then he’d said, “So how’s the discussion going over here, ladies?” And given them a big smile.
Now Julie swallowed, her throat dry. “He did come over right at the end of our conversation,” she said worriedly to Ava.
“Maybe he did hear everything,” Ava said.
“So how do you think this went down?” Julie thought aloud. “Granger slipped upstairs and gave Nolan more Oxy after we left? And how? Shoved it down his throat and made him swallow?”
“Maybe Nolan woke up after we left,” Ava suggested.
“And you think Granger was watching us the whole time? Like he heard our conversation in class and decided to, like, piggyback off our plan?”
“Why would he pin it on us?” Parker asked. “I mean, he doesn’t seem like that bad a guy.”
“Uh, hello?” Ava interrupted. “Didn’t you just hear my story?”
“True,” Julie said. “But what did we do? Why would Granger have it out for us? Was it simply out of convenience? Is he that much of a psycho?”
“You should go to the cops with this,” Parker said firmly.
“I can’t go by myself!” Ava shrieked. “You have to come with me. I already talked to Caitlin and Mackenzie—they said they’d come, too. I’ll even pick you up.”
“No!” Julie almost screamed. Parker looked at her warningly. “I mean, I’m not home. I’ll just meet you at the station.”
Twenty minutes later, she and Parker pulled into the parking lot of the police station. The asphalt was cracked and uneven, and she stepped into a deep puddle as she got out of her car, soaking her sneakers. They ran toward the awning outside the glass double doors, where Mackenzie, Ava, and Caitlin were already huddled together.
Ava’s face was swollen from crying, her makeup smeared. Caitlin had an arm around her shoulder and looked nervous but determined. Julie’s hands clenched slightly, a hot rush of anger toward Mr. Granger spiking through her.
“Are you okay?” she asked Ava fiercely.
“Fine.” Ava looked miserable. “I’m just . . . pissed off. And scared.” She glanced at the others. “I think he realized I’d seen his phone.”
Julie glanced around, half expecting Granger to be sitting in the parking lot, staring at them. But there were only rows and rows of police cars.
She turned toward the door. “Let’s go,” she said. “You need to turn this asshole in, Ava.”
She led them into the station. It was nearly nine, and the waiting area was almost empty. A young officer with a dramatically waxed mustache sat alone at the desk, snickering at something on his computer screen. When he saw them, he raised an eyebrow.
“What can I do for you, ladies?” He leaned over the desk, looking them all up and down. Julie dug her nails into her palms. The last thing Parker needed was some idiot in uniform staring at her.
Julie jutted a finger at Ava. “She needs to talk to someone about the Nolan Hotchkiss murder,” she said, her voice ringing clearly through the room.
The cop stared from one to the other of them, gulping like a landed fish. But before he could recover, a deep baritone spoke from farther back behind the desk. “Send them back, Deputy.”
It was Detective Peters—the one who had been going from classroom to classroom questioning the kids. He’d come to Julie’s calculus class, and she’d masked her handwriting as best she could, hoping it looked nothing like the happy, bubbly letters she’d penned on Nolan’s face.
Silently, the deputy opened a little gate in the desk to let them through. He led them into a large interrogation room with venetian blinds across a big one-way mirror. Julie felt Parker stiffen—the farther they got from an escape path, the tenser she got. Julie touched Parker’s arm comfortingly, willing her to relax.
They sat down on uncomfortable folding chairs on one side of a rectangular table. The detective sat across from them. The room smelled faintly moldy, like something moist had gotten into the heating vent. A large poster showing Mount St. Helens exploding hung on one wall.
“Sorry to make you sit in interrogation. My office isn’t big enough for all of us.” Detective Peters smiled and leaned back slightly in his chair. “Now, what did you want to tell me about?”