It only took me four rooms (two more than usual) before I found Zack. He hadn’t even bothered to lock the door, the idiot.
“Really?” I said, when I walked in and discovered him sitting up in bed in front of a large plasma--screen television, playing video games and vaping. “I could have been anyone—-your mother, your father, the police chief. He’s downstairs, you know. Is it really wise of you to be partaking at the current time?”
Zack peered at me through weed--reddened eyes. “This is e--juice. Who the hell are you, and what do you want?”
“That is not e--juice, and as a minor, you better have a prescription for it and your parents’ permission. Otherwise you’re in violation of California health and safety code and could lose the right to operate your vehicle. All your vehicles.”
This information caused him to lower the e--cigarette and swallow, hard.
“My name is Suze Simon,” I went on. “And as much as I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m here to rescue you. Now get up, before Mark Rodgers comes in here and kills you.”
Nueve
IF I HADN’T believed Mark’s version of what had happened that night on Rocky Creek Bridge, I did when I saw the expression that flashed across Zack Farhat’s face when I said Mark was coming to kill him.
Sheer panic. For a second, he lowered his hands to the king--sized mattress and began to push himself up from in front of the plasma screen, as if to go with me.
Never had I seen a more guilty--looking individual, someone who’d known he’d done wrong and had been expecting what was coming to him. Zack—-a strong, dark, handsome boy—-was accepting his fate like a man.
Well, this is good, I thought. Not what I was expecting, but good . . . the first good thing to happen all day, as a matter of fact. Maybe things are starting to go my way.
Of course I thought too soon. It didn’t last. Why would it?
Because a split second later, Zack seemed to realize something through his drug--induced haze, and froze. The panic left, and was replaced by a look I recognized, because I’d seen it before on the faces of a hundred guys just like him.
Nope. Never mind. No win for Suze. This guy thought he was smarter than me. He thought he was smarter than everyone.
Well, why not? He’d already killed two -people and gotten away with it. All he had to do was stick with his story, and he was home free.
Or so he thought.
He lowered himself back against his bed.
“Wait,” he said, drawing the word out so that it had about five syllables, in true stoner form. “Mark can’t be coming here to kill me. He’s dead.”
“You’re right about the last part,” I said. “Not so right about the first. Mark’s dead, but he’s not very happy with you for killing him, and Jasmin, too. See, that’s why minors aren’t supposed to smoke that stuff unless they’re under a licensed physician’s care. It makes them forgetful.” I hit him in the forehead with the flat of my hand on the word forgetful. “And also stupid.” I hit him again on the word stupid.
“Ow.” He ducked and crawled to the far side of the bed so he’d be out of my reach. “Stop that. What are you talking about? What makes you think I had anything to do with—-?”
“The deaths of Mark Rodgers and Jasmin Ahmadi? Oh, gosh, Zack, I don’t know. Maybe that?”
I pointed to a far wall of his room, opposite a pair of French doors that led out to a balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean (which for once didn’t look so pacified, thanks to the storm). Taped to the wall were dozens—-maybe even a hundred—-photos of Jasmin, including the one from her headstone, which must have been one of her senior photos, since there were other equally posed photos of her in the same outfit, smiling confidently into the camera.
Only instead of sending these photos out with her graduation announcements, her grieving family had apparently sent them to her friends and family with an announcement of her death.
Zack had artfully arranged these particular photos in a large heart shape around a single photo of the two of them arm--in--arm from what appeared to have been a Halloween party, since he was dressed as a tiger and she a bunny rabbit (I estimated it was a party circa fourth grade, possibly the last time Jasmin had willingly allowed herself to be photographed beside him, at least on nondigital film).
Beneath this display Zack had lit a number of votive candles on a small table, and also laid out a copy of what appeared to be their school yearbook, open to a page showing Jasmin’s prowess on the track team.
Oh, yeah. This guy wasn’t a creeper at all.
“If that’s not a shrine,” I said, “I don’t know what is.”
“So?” Zack looked sullen. “What’s so weird about that? She was my cousin, and she died. That’s what -people do when someone they love dies.”