Spam fills us in on her brothers’ ages—eight, ten, eleven, thirteen, and fifteen—and their various antics. She’s the oldest. We bonded in fourth grade over the fact that I didn’t have my mother and neither did she. Though hers just walked out one day and never came back.
When we were young, we used to pretend our mothers had very important jobs as princesses. They couldn’t just go to work in the morning and come home at night. A princess had to work the whole time and they had to do it for a lot of years. One day our moms would be promoted to queens. Then they would come back and take us to live with them and we would become the new princesses.
Around sixth grade, we grew out of the princess stage. Since then, Spam has refused to talk about our mothers at all. “Live in the now” is her motto.
I wish I could.
A light tap comes from the back door. It’s Sydney. Instead of inviting her in, Rachel grabs her purse and blows me a kiss, saying she won’t be late.
I can’t help thinking Rachel is intentionally keeping Syd and me apart—not a good sign.
14
Written documentation is so critical that my personal notebook is part of the official evidence in every case I work on.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
Spam scoops up the new equipment and charges up the stairs toward my room. I follow, even though my mind is still focused on what’s up with Rachel and Sydney.
Spam sits at my desk and silently plugs in cables and powers up the laptop. Tapping keys, she focuses on linking everything together. The silent treatment combined with the tight pinch to her mouth suggests she’s in a bad mood.
I perch on the edge of the desk.
“Spam, what’s wrong?”
“I’m going to ask you the same question.” She swivels the chair to pin me with a hard look. “I looked at the print you sent me. You do realize the love of your life was stalking you in your own bedroom.”
“I never said he was the love of my life.”
“Yeah. But you act like it.” She goes back to pecking at the keys. “And it’s affecting your judgment.”
“Just because the print is a basketball shoe doesn’t mean it’s Journey’s. And, for the record, I’m not in love with him.… I just find him interesting.”
She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a folded piece of paper, and slams it on the desk. “Then maybe you’ll be interested in this.”
I unfold the paper. It’s an order form from the athletic department of Copper South High School—our school—for forty pairs of white Michael Jordan classic AJ1 basketball shoes, in various sizes. I scan down the list and see it: Journey Michaels, size 11.
“How did you get this?”
Spam’s gaze is drawn to an imaginary spot on my ceiling. “You remember when my dad’s store donated a bunch of computers to the school, right?”
“Of course. The library would still be in the dark ages if it wasn’t for your dad’s store.”
“Yeah, so we set up the system over there and part of the maintenance agreement is that he checks it every now and then. To make sure they don’t have any viruses or anything.”
I happen to know that Spam’s been hacking her father’s computer security walls since she was ten. I gasp. “You can spy on everything our school does on computer?”
She gives me puppy dog eyes. “I don’t. I wouldn’t. I only did this to save your life,” she adds, reacting to my widening gaze.
I roll my eyes because what I know is that in third place—right behind Spam’s dream jobs of hacker and professional gamer—is working for TMZ, the online gossip site. She’s addicted to drama. “Saving my life is a little extreme, even for you.”
“Okay. Fine. Don’t focus on that,” she says. “The point is he and his shoes were in your bedroom.”
“Wrong. Anyone on the team could’ve been in here, or even anyone with the same shoes. We don’t know every person in Iron Rain who owns these shoes.” I scan down the order form. “Look. The school ordered four pairs in size eleven. One of them was Principal Roberts. Why don’t you accuse him of being in my room?”
Spam pushes a few keys on the keyboard, bringing up Skype. Melodic beeps signal she’s calling someone. Within a few seconds, Lysa’s face appears on my screen.
“Did she listen?” Lysa leans into the camera.
“What do you think?” Spam shakes her head.
“You guys were talking about me?”
“Yes,” Lysa says. “And now we’re trying to talk some sense into you.”
I flop down on the end of my bed. Spam adjusts the angle of the laptop so that we’re both visible on Lysa’s monitor.
“What I need is your support and help finding Miss P’s killer.”
“Whoa. See? Right there. That’s the crazy train,” Spam says.
Lysa agrees emphatically. “Right. You are not a police officer or a detective. You need to stand down.”
My face twitches. “Stand down? Lysa, you’re not a hostage negotiator, either, but you’re trying to sound like one.”
“I’m trying to talk some sense into you.” She makes a grumpy face.
“Here’s some sense. We’re really good at this stuff and we do it for silly things like Cheater Checks. Why would we not give our best for Miss P?”