“Do you want to run to the Dairy King and maybe get shakes?” Tyler asked.
Kinley blinked, and Mr. and Mrs. Green exchanged hopeful looks, like they were hoping Kinley and Tyler had potential. It was the kind of look they usually gave each other about Jacob, when they were happy or proud, like, Look at our amazing favorite son and all the amazing, fantastic things that he does.
It drove Tyler crazy.
In any case, it had been a long time since Tyler had seen anything like it directed at him.
And all it took was the hottest, most manipulative, smartest girl that he’d ever met. A girl he was secretly afraid he was no match for.
Kinley ducked her head a little bit. “Yeah, sure,” she said, her voice small.
“I think that would be fun,” his mom said, glowing so much she was practically blinding everyone in the room.
Jacob made a choking sound behind them.
Everyone ignored him. For once.
“You two have a great time!” his father called, and his parents did this weird giggling thing and shut the door behind them as Tyler and Kinley walked out and climbed into Kinley’s car. For a second, Tyler felt like his life had transitioned to a 1950s television show. Milk shakes and dates that were practically parent-chaperoned.
And murder.
“I take it you don’t have girls over often?”
Tyler actually felt his face heat up. “I don’t really have anyone over. Life of a delinquent and all.”
Kinley smiled.
He loved when she smiled.
Ugh. What was wrong with him? He knew she wasn’t the shining star of an individual that she pretended to be. She was what his grandmother called slick. She was an evil genius.
And she never, ever got caught.
And that, he had to admit, was sort of hot.
“Do you really want to get milk shakes? Or is that some lame metaphor for making out or getting high?”
Tyler laughed. “Nah. Let’s indulge my parents’ fantasies about how good and wholesome we are and get milk shakes.” He smiled, a little deviously. “I want chocolate mint.”
“No way!” she said. “Chocolate mint is my favorite!”
“Seriously?”
She turned onto Main Street. “Ugh. No way. I like strawberry. Are you kidding me with the mint? That’s like saying, ‘Ruin my chocolate with a side of VapoRub, please.’ Gross.”
Tyler laughed. Under any other circumstances, he could really have fun with her.
Under any other circumstances, they could rule the world. With his underworld knowledge and her badass intelligence? They’d be unstoppable.
A few minutes later, Kinley was licking strawberry ice cream off of her straw and Tyler was scooping out messy spoonfuls of chocolate mint, and he felt almost normal. Like someone who really did these things with no ulterior motives.
Except he had one.
“Kin,” he said. “It wasn’t our fault.”
“What wasn’t?” She dipped her straw back into the shake.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
She hesitated. “I—I could have moved, Tyler. I saw him falling and I could have moved. But I just let him stumble back and trip over my shoe. I didn’t move.” She swallowed hard. “Why wouldn’t I move?”
“It all happened really fast, Kinley. You didn’t mean to kill him. But he was a jerk to you, right? So yeah, you let him trip over your shoe. But that wasn’t you trying to murder him, was it?”
She shook her head, and her eyes were a little wet. “I’d never hurt anyone.”
He put his hand, cold from the milk shake, on hers and gave it a squeeze. “I know, Kinley. And that’s why you and me . . . that’s why we’re going to get out of this.”
“How?” she asked. She rubbed her eyes, smearing her mascara.
“Your little recording devices gave me an idea of how we can actually fix this. For real.”
“I’m listening.” Kinley paused. Strawberry ice cream glopped from her straw back into her shake.
“We’re going to get everyone together. And we’ll record them. Bait them, if we have to. And then we get their confessions. Their spoken, no-bullshit confessions.”
“And, what? We just send it in to the cops and that’s it?” she asked. “You don’t think that’ll put us into the spotlight too?”
“We can get them on tape confessing and send it in anonymously. But we won’t be the ones saying we did it. We’ll know the recording is on. They won’t.”
Kinley shifted uneasily. “So we’re just being silent during the whole thing? Is that it? Don’t you think they’ll just accuse us, too?”
“Kinley, do you want to be the ones associated with the crime or the ones on a tape confessing to actually killing him? We’ll have their voices on tape saying they killed him. Don’t you think that’ll stand for something?”
Kinley was quiet. A drip of melting shake landed on her tank top, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“So . . . what? We do this? And if the heat gets turned up on either one of us, we use it?”