Code of Silence: Living a Lie Comes With a Price (21 page)

“Which,” Hiro said, “should be all the proof they’ll need. All they’ll have to do is match the prints on the knife handle to the prints all over the letter.”

“Exactly,” Cooper said. “And just to make sure they don’t come back and ask for proof again, I’ll give them the clincher.”

Hiro gave him a sideways glance.

Cooper smiled and looked from one to the other. “When I left Frank ‘n Stein’s that night, I still had Frank’s keys.”

Gordy’s eyebrows went up as he nodded. “You locked the door.”

“So,” Hiro said. “You’ll write that you have Frank’s keys.” She pushed her hands in her pockets. “All they have to do is ask Mr. Stein and he’ll verify the keys are missing. That will prove you were really there,
in
the diner.”

“Then the cops can concentrate on finding the robbers.” Cooper glanced at Hiro. He hoped she’d smile at him. Show some support. Approval. Her face didn’t give him a clue as to what she was thinking. He still hadn’t straightened things out from last night. Then again, until the robbers got caught, how could he really straighten any of this out?

“If I were a cop,” Hiro said, “and I knew you were going to write another letter tonight, I’d stake out the library.”

Gordy whistled. “You think the cop asked for more proof just to set a trap?”

She reached up and held the police star necklace. “Could be.”

“Great,” Cooper said. He imagined himself dropping the letter in the book depository and police swarming in from all over. Or worse yet, maybe just a couple cops—wearing latex masks. “So we’ll pick a new drop spot.”

“Yeah,” Gordy said. “Throw ‘em off guard. Any ideas?”

Cooper shook his head. “But we’ll think of something.” He picked up his bike, crossed the bridge, and started walking toward the edge of the park like he was in no hurry at all. Gordy and Hiro did the same. Only when they reached Campbell Road did he mount his bike.

Cooper rode between the two of them as they headed back. They decided a slow ride would look less suspicious. Gordy struggled with it. Riding ahead, circling back. Getting ahead again. Cooper thought about taking this chance to talk to Hiro. To tell her he was sorry about last night. But the thought of writing the new letter kept getting in the way.

“I went to see Frank again today.” Hiro said it so quietly it almost sounded like she was talking to herself.

Guilt settled in immediately. She’d been to see Frank twice. He hadn’t even gone once.

“So you weren’t sick at all?” Gordy glanced at Cooper.

“Sick of worrying somebody is going to kill Coop, or one of us. Sick of the lies.” Hiro didn’t make eye contact with Cooper. “I didn’t feel like going to school.”

Cooper coasted to a stop. “And you think I did?”

Hiro braked and put one foot down. “I don’t know, Coop. It seems like lies aren’t bothering you much these days.”

Her comment stung. Who was she to judge him? She’d ditched them at school today. Wasn’t there to help. Maybe she deserved the way he treated her last night. “Your mom let you stay home from school even though you weren’t really sick?”

Hiro studied the pavement. “I just told her I was sick. And after she left for work I biked to the hospital.”

Cooper tried not to let his frustration show. “And they let you see him by yourself?”

“Yes.” She nodded, but had a distant look in her eyes like she was still in the hospital room.

Gordy was quiet, but after a moment, he whispered, “How did he look?”

She shook her head slightly, like she was forcing herself out of a daze. “The same.”

Cooper saw the scene in the reflection of Frank ‘n Stein’s window all over again. Frank getting beaten nearly to death. He pulled the baseball out of his pocket and picked at the stitches. “Did they say anything? The nurses?”

“Not to me. But they
act
like he’s going to get better.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They talk to him.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Whenever they came into the room they’d say things like, ‘Hiya, Frank. You’re looking good, honey. You ready to get up soon?’”

Cooper had it pictured in his mind. “Did he move or anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Whoa,” Gordy said. “Like he’s in a coma or something.”

Hiro tapped him on the forehead. “He
is
in a coma.”

Gordy’s face got red. “Well, yeah, I
know
that.”

Something surfaced in Cooper’s mind. Hiro was operating on her own now. She didn’t show up at school. She visited Frank. Doing everything without letting Gordy or him in on her plans. Wouldn’t the police want to question anyone that came to visit him? Had she even considered that before she went there?

“Maybe
I’ll
stay home from school tomorrow,” Gordy said.

“Great,” Cooper said. “So you’re going to ditch me too, eh?”

“
Ditch
you?” Hiro’s chin went up. “Is that what you think I did?”

“Yeah. That’s
exactly
what you did.”

“Look, I’m still sticking by that
stupid
Code of Silence. If I abandon you it will be more obvious than taking a day off school. I’ll break the Code and tell the police myself.”

Cooper felt his face get warm. Did she just give him a threat?

Hiro looked down at her feet. “I want to feel safe again. I pray
and pray for God to protect us. Then I go right back to living a total lie. How can God respect that? I don’t trust him enough to tell the truth?”

“The lies will stop.”

“Only when we come clean. But until then we’re
living
a lie. I was trying to tell you last night. This is too big for us. We need help. Because of the Code I haven’t told anyone except God. And how can I expect his help when I hide the truth?”

“You think it doesn’t bother me?” Cooper whispered.

Her head snapped up and her eyes bore into him. “Not anymore. Lie, lie, lie. That’s all you seem to do.”

“Really?” Cooper clenched his jaw.
Stop. Don’t say another word. Cool down before you say something you’ll regret.

“Yes,
really.
” She leaned forward. Like she needed to put every bit of her weight behind her words. “There was a time when you would have felt terrible if you lied. Now you don’t seem to feel anything at all.”

Her eyes. Cooper couldn’t get past her eyes. Something different there. Missing. The respect was gone. All he saw was disgust. Contempt.

Her look hit him in the gut just as real as when the robbers wailed on Frank. And it hurt with a kind of pain he’d never felt before.

How dare she say he didn’t feel
anything.
She had no idea how he felt. He opened his mouth to lash back. To sting her like she’d just done to him. He looked at his feet and clamped his mouth shut instead.

“Go ahead and say it, Cooper MacKinnon.” Hiro got in his face. Taunted. “You were going to say something. Get it off your chest.”

Get it off your chest. Get a chest. What was it with his chest?

Gordy stepped in, looking more ashen-faced than he did when the police car stopped at the park. “Hey, you two. C’mon, now. We’re all friends here. What do you say we go get something to eat?”

Cooper didn’t answer.
We’re all friends here.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? Maybe
that
was just another lie. Hiro let them down by ditching school. Going to the hospital. Making her own plans. Griping about the Code every time they got together. Some friend.

“C’mon, Coop,” Hiro said, her voice daring him. Egging him on. “You were ready to say something a minute ago. I want to know what it was.”

Gordy put a hand on Hiro’s shoulder. “Hey, I think we’d better—”

Hiro slapped his hand away. “I want to know what Coop was going to say.” She poked Cooper in the chest. “Let’s hear it, Coop. If you can do it without lying that is.”

“Is that all you think I do? Lie?” She didn’t get it. Didn’t see how he
had
to lie. “And what about you? What do you call what you told your Mom today about being sick? A little white lie? A half-truth? You say you’re sick of the lies, but you’re no better than me.”

Hiro’s mouth opened just a bit. Maybe she was surprised at what Cooper said. Maybe she realized for the first time that she really did lie to her mom. Cooper had no idea—and told himself he didn’t care. But when the tears welled up in her eyes, he knew he’d made a direct hit. He saw
his
pain in her face. And hated himself for doing it.

Hiro backed her bike away from them. Without another word she straddled it and headed down the street.

Her reaction twisted Cooper two ways. On one end, happy he’d scored a solid point. On the other a panicky desperation to apologize and make it right.

“Brilliant.” Gordy glared at him and shook his head. “Are you going to let her leave without patching this up?”

Why did
he
have to patch things up? He was trying to protect them all, wasn’t he? They’d made it safely this far because he’d made sure they stuck to the Code. It was the only real option they had. And a good one. Silence is golden, right?

“Call her back,” Gordy said.

Cooper watched her biking away. Her black braid beat a furious tempo against the middle of her back.

He fought the urge to call her back. He had a right to be steamed. To stall until
she
turned around and came back. Until she saw he was only trying to help.

“Coop.” Gordy’s voice hinted at disbelief. “She’s not going to come back.”

She stood on the pedals, picking up speed. Every second the separation between them grew farther. They were supposed to be
friends.
How did this happen?

“Hiro,” he called. Probably not loud enough.

She didn’t turn back.

“Hiro, hold on!” He shouted this time.

She must have heard him, but she didn’t turn. It was like last night. The roles were reversed this time. Now he knew how she must have felt when he rode away. He jammed the baseball in his pocket and held the bat against the handlebar.

“Let’s catch her,” Cooper said, mounting his bike.

A police siren immediately behind them nearly made him drop the bat. It only bleeped on for a second, but enough to freeze him in place. He turned just as a police car pulled over to the curb behind them. The door opened, and a patrolman stepped out.

“Can I talk to you boys for a moment?” The officer shifted his gun belt as he walked toward them.

Cooper glanced back toward Hiro. She was nearly a block away now. She had obviously heard the siren and stopped, with one foot down. She stared for a moment, then pushed off and rolled away.

She abandoned him again.

“Excuse me,” the police officer said. “Were you two playing ball in the park ten minutes ago?”

G
ordy thought about running. It was instinct—and stupid. Instead, he sat on the bike and watched the cop approach.

The policeman looked like he just walked out of an ad for a health club. Blonde buzz cut, baby face, and a chest that looked as powerful as the gun strapped at his waist.
M. Stryker
was engraved on a nametag pinned above his chest pocket.

Gordy imagined himself sitting on a stool with a bright light on his face with this guy interrogating him. In one minute he’d confess. To anything.

The officer stepped onto the curb and nodded toward Coop’s baseball bat. “You were just in the park. Right?” He towered over them. Gordy figured his head would only get to the guy’s shoulder. Coop might make it to his nametag.

“Yes, sir,” Coop said.

The policeman sized them up. Like he was wondering how either of them could have gotten away from desperate robbers.

Gordy did a little figuring himself. This guy seemed bigger than the goons at Frank’s.

“We were just knocking the ball around a little,” Coop said.

“I was watching,” Stryker said. “By the bridge?”

“Uh-huh.”

Gordy’s red sweatshirt was hard to miss. He was relieved Coop didn’t deny it.

“You swatted a couple of nice hits there. Why’d you stop?”

Coop shrugged. “We were just messing around a little. Have to get back to do some homework.”

That sounded good, but Gordy knew that was a lie. He kept his eyes on the cop’s eyes. To look at the ground now would send a signal. A bad one. He couldn’t mess this up.

The policeman nodded. “Where do you go to school?”

“Plum Grove.”

That seemed to interest him. “Seventh grade?”

Here we go. He knows. He knows.

Coop sat a little taller on the seat. “Eighth.”

Maybe he was asking some easy questions, calibrating his own “baloney detector.”
Stick to the truth, Coop.

“What were you doing down by the creek bed when I rolled up?”

“Looking for the ball.”

“It seemed like a funny place to play ball, with the creek right there. Why not use one of the diamonds?” He looked at Gordy this time.

Gordy shrugged. “We weren’t playing a game. Just knocking it around a little. There were only three of us.”

Stryker looked back at Cooper. “What happened to your friend? It looked like she rode off in a hurry.”

Friend?
Hiro
was
Coop’s friend, but something was definitely changing.

Coop looked down. “She’s mad at me.”

No half-truth there. “Totally steamed,” Gordy said. He couldn’t figure this guy out. Was he stalling until backup came? Maybe Detective Hammer himself? Or maybe he just had to ask enough questions until he decided whether or not to haul them in.

“Why is that?”

“I’m trying to figure that out,” Coop said. “We were having a
good time. Then she said something that got me frustrated. So I guess I said something not so kind back to her.”

“Like reminding her how she lied to her mom,” Gordy said.

The policeman cringed. “That will do it.”

Cooper let his hands drop to his sides like the situation drained all the strength out of him. “She got all upset and rode off. I was just going to go after her and talk to her when you pulled up.”

“Probably best to let her cool down a little.”