“Nothing,” Ava muttered.
Mackenzie tugged on the handle of a drawer and found that it was locked. She crouched in front of it, fiddling with the pick.
“This one’s tricky,” she muttered, shaking the shim in frustration.
Outside the door, someone whistled the melody to “Low Rider” off-key. The girls froze. A set of keys jingled musically, and something scraped in the keyhole.
Ava’s eyes widened in the dark. “We have to get out of here.”
“I’ve almost got it!” Mac jiggled the pick one more time, and the drawer slid open.
The doorknob on the door jerked back and forth without turning. The keys jingled again as someone looked for the right one. Ava dug her fingernails in Mac’s arm. “Come on!”
“Look,” Mac murmured.
The drawer had all the contraband from the past year inside. A Nintendo DS sat atop a comic book. A pearl-handled penknife, a Zippo, and a little silver flask were next to it. Ava dug through it, an anguished expression on her face.
“There’s nothing here,” she mumbled. “Nothing even remotely suspicious.”
There was another rasping sound in the keyhole. Mackenzie jerked Ava away by the back of her shirt and ducked under the office desk just as the door swung open.
Randy, the school’s hippie janitor, stood in the doorway. His head was cocked, and he looked around as though he could sense someone was there.
Mac pressed her lips together, trying not to breathe. Her heart pounded fast in her chest. What was he doing here so late at night? If Randy caught them here, digging around in Granger’s office, he would tell Granger for sure. And then Granger would tell the cops.
Slowly, Randy walked toward the office. His footsteps thudded against the floor. His whistling had stopped. Mac couldn’t see him, but she sensed he was standing in the doorway. She closed her eyes and tried not to move. Ava clutched her hand tightly. Mac was almost positive she could hear Randy holding his breath, assessing the situation.
But then he breathed out. She sensed him turn, and the footsteps started up again. There was the metallic clang of a trash can knocking against the big trash bin he pushed around school. Moments later, there were more footsteps, and the door eased shut.
Slowly, Mac stood and stared at the empty classroom before them. As soon as she knew it was safe, she darted toward the door, eager to get the hell out of there. That had been close—too close. With the cops already onto them, one wrong move could be the end of everything they’d all worked so hard for—graduation, college, Juilliard. One wrong move and their perfect lives would be over.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SATURDAY MORNING, PARKER SAT IN Elliot’s office, her hands gripping her knees. The room smelled faintly of a cinnamon candle, and a New Age song heavy on the wind chimes and didgeridoo tinkled faintly out of hidden speakers. The therapist offered Parker a gentle smile from across the room.
“So,” he said, “how has this week been?”
“Trying,” Parker admitted.
“Can you tell me why?”
Parker shut her eyes. “There have been a lot of police at school. It’s awful.”
“Have any of them spoken to you?”
She tensed. “Why would they talk to me?”
Elliot held up two palms. “I assumed police officers talk to everyone in a case like this.”
Parker let her hair fall around her damaged face and twisted her mouth. Way to go, idiot, she thought. Way to make yourself look super guilty. Why don’t you just confess what you did?
She cleared her throat. Elliot was sitting across from her so patiently. She almost felt like she could tell him everything. She needed someone to listen, and she wanted it to be him. But then she thought of the other girls. They’d vowed to keep their secret.
“The police did talk to me, yes,” she mumbled.
Elliot tented his fingers together. “Did they ask you about your relationship with Nolan?”
Parker raised one shoulder. “Actually, they didn’t.” The detective had gone through each girl’s motives one by one, but he’d barely looked at Parker. “Maybe he felt sorry for me,” she muttered. For all she knew, he remembered her from when her dad was arrested.
Elliot crossed his legs and leaned forward. “Did you want him to ask you about Nolan?”
“No,” Parker said quickly. But then she glanced at the ceiling. “Maybe.”
“Is that because you want them to know what he did? That he was kind of responsible?”
Parker peeked at him. Tears began to fill her eyes, thinking how Nolan wouldn’t even look at her when she’d returned to school after her time in the hospital.
“I just wish he would have said he was sorry,” she said. “We wouldn’t have been friends after that, but I could have let it go.”
Elliot nodded thoughtfully. “Have you ever considered forgiving Nolan?”