Dangerous Boy (22 page)

“Yeah, they’d be on microfiche,” he says, pointing to the machine across the room. “We don’t switch to digital until we get the new computer system in next year. Gray cabinet next to it houses the film. Most recent in the front of the top drawer, so last spring would only be a couple folders back. Copies are ten cents each. Pick up your prints here.”

I nod, turning away. Perfect.

“Haven’t seen you in here before,” he says, eyeballing me. I swallow.

“Yeah, um, usually I eat lunch with my, um, boyfriend.” I nod in Adam’s direction, trying not to grimace at the mere idea of Adam being my boyfriend. Ick. I should have convinced Bick to come down here instead; at least that’d almost be believable. Then again, he still has faint, fading bruises on his face, so maybe we’d look more suspicious. “But, see, we have a bet going. About, uh, who was prom queen last year.”

The librarian gives us this half-bored, half-annoyed look, as if to say
kids these days.

“Anyway, thanks!”

I spin around and walk away as slowly as my legs will allow. “That was close,” I mutter to Adam. “I thought he was going to ask us for student ID or something.”

“Miss!” the guy calls out, and I freeze, my lungs stuck somewhere in my throat as I turn back around. “You forgot this,” he says, holding up the pen I’d been tapping on his counter.

“Oh, uh, thanks.” I scurry back, grab it, and then rejoin Adam over by the microfiche. I don’t even think it’s my pen, but I am not about to argue and raise more questions.

“Remind me to never let you become a secret agent,” Adam says, shaking his head. “That was terrible.”

“Whatever,” I say, opening up the gray cabinet next to the microfiche machine. “I can’t even believe they still use one of these things.”

“Old habits die hard?”

“I guess so.”

I gather the seven folders that cover the previous school year.

“What are you looking for, exactly?” Adam asks, sliding another chair over as I settle down in front of the machine.

“I don’t know yet. I guess I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Well, you’d better hurry.”

I shuffle through the film, glancing up at him. “Why? It’s not like we’re going to make it back to EHS in time. We have all day.”

He glances up at the clock. “Not if we’re students here. Unless you want our cover blown, we probably have twenty minutes. Whenever that bell rings, we need to leave for our supposed classes.”

His warning sends a wave of nerves through me. Somehow I’d forgotten that fact. “Good thing you’re here,” I say.

Adam smiles ruefully and turns to the screen as I slide the first bit of film onto the panel.

“It’s upside down and backward,” he says.

“Obviously. It’s not like I’ve even used one of these things before. It’s prehistoric.” I slide the film out and invert it, then push it back in.

Cedar Cove Buzz
emblazons the screen. A handful of articles about an upcoming student election, prom ticket prices, and changes to the cafeteria menu greet me. My eyes search every corner of the film, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. I rein in my worry and slide the sheet out, setting it next to the machine.

“Next,” I say, holding my hand out.

He slaps a new sheet of film down and I stick it into the machine, my heart plummeting as I see the first headline, then scan the rest of the page. All it’s got is as an article about the Mathletes’ returning senior members, an op-ed about the aging coaching staff, and a student-written poem.

I deflate.
Please don’t let this whole thing be for nothing. Five hours in the car, the assignments I’m going to have to do for Adam, skipping school…all to dig into Logan’s past. Logan, my boyfriend.

But I know I’m on to something. I can practically feel it, dangling just out of my reach. I can’t stop until I know what happened here. Logan and Daemon fled this town for a reason. If I can uncover it, I’ll know why he lied about Daemon.

“Next,” I say.

Ten minutes later, I’m growing panicky. We have to pack up soon and I have nothing. The next sheet has something about the semester’s standardized testing and another stupid cafeteria menu.

“Next,” I say. We’re almost a full year back now, to last fall.

I slide the black-and-white page into the screen and my heart slams into my throat as the picture comes into focus.

Logan’s face greets me.

“So, there he is,” I announce. “We found him.” I look over at Adam, trying to steel my nerves for whatever this story is going to say.

But his expression is one of confusion. “Uh, Harper, not exactly.”

“What?”

“Look at the headline,” he replies, his voice as hard as stone.

I look down slowly and that’s when I see it. Above Logan’s picture. I can’t bring myself to read it aloud.

Adam does it for me. “Student
Trent Townsend
paints the sophomore homecoming float,” he says, slowly, deliberately, as if he’s even more baffled than I am. His jaw drops, and he turns to stare at me.

We fall silent. I’m frozen, staring at Logan’s face, grainy in black and white as my fingers tremble against the microfiche machine.

“So one of them is really named Trent,” Adam finally says.

I turn to him. “The question is, which one?”

I
slam the passenger door to Adam’s car, on the verge of tears. One way or another, Logan lied.

Again.

“So, do you think it’s Logan or Daemon who is really Trent?” Adam asks, trying to get me to do more than just sit there dejectedly in my seat.

“I dunno,” I respond. It’s too hard to think. I feel sick to my stomach.

Adam pats me on the shoulder. “Well, my guess is that since Logan’s actually enrolled in school, he probably had to use his real name, so it’s probably Daemon who is Trent.”

I bet that’s true. He couldn’t be at Enumclaw using a false name, could he?

Adam stares out the windshield, chewing on his lip. At least he’s on board with my investigation now, instead of acting like it’s stupid. “Have you tried to Google Daemon’s name?”

“Yeah. And I got nothing,” I say, unable to even fake a
neutral voice. “Absolutely nothing.” I’m crushed and embarrassed and confused, and I feel so entirely pathetic I just want to crawl into the backseat of the Samurai and curl up with a blanket over my head for the rest of the day.

“Not even a Facebook page, an old news story, Twitter?”

I shake my head. “No. Logan’s got a Facebook page, but Daemon doesn’t. Unless he’s Trent…
Oh
,” I say, finally getting what Adam’s saying. “If his real name is Trent, I wouldn’t find anything under Daemon.”

Adam chews on his lip and stares out the windshield. “So that means the picture of ‘Trent,’” he says, using air quotes, “is probably ‘Daemon,’” he says, using the air quotes again.

“Yeah.” I slide further into my seat, propping my knees up on the dashboard. “How did I get to this point? That I’m playing private investigator on my own boyfriend?”

Adam shrugs. “I dunno. Can’t say I saw it coming myself.” Adam gives me
the look
. “And if you can’t trust him, what’s the point?”

“I don’t know. I just feel different around him. He
gets
me.” I frown, blinking away the threat of tears. “It probably doesn’t even matter. I told him off on Friday and we haven’t talked since.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Adam says, in his softest voice. I wonder if he can actually hear my heart breaking.

I swallow, but it does nothing about the lump in my throat. “Maybe he has a really good reason for all this.”

“Don’t you think if he had one, he would have offered it up by now? It’s all more than a little suspicious.”

I sigh deeply and turn back to the window.

Turns out that driving to Cedar Cove didn’t give me any answers.

Just a whole new set of questions.

Back at home, I slide my laptop across my bed. I burrow into my thick comforter, lean back on a few pillows, and click the computer on.

Dad’s still outside, fighting the falling darkness to finish the green-chop, gathering up grass to bring in and feed the cows. It’s time consuming but he does it every chance he gets. The grass in the field is free. The alfalfa truck is not.

Maybe we can’t afford to just buy hay all the time or hire a bunch of help, but I wish my dad would just take an afternoon off somehow. Come inside and watch a movie with me. Ask me how my day was.

Act like I exist. After he had such a strong reaction at the hospital when I broke my collarbone, I kind of thought it might be a wake-up call. But it wasn’t. He didn’t even stay until I was done, and by the time Logan brought me home, he was working out in the barns.

My computer finally boots up and I pop open Google, input
Trent Townsend
, and sit back, my stomach in my throat as I hit “enter” with shaky fingers. As my computer fetches the results, I close my eyes.

I want to know, but then again I don’t. I have this overwhelming feeling that I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, about to jump.

I open my eyes, and my vision swims with headlines.

C
EDAR
C
OVE
S
TUDENT
E
XPELLED FOR
H
ARASSMENT

C
EDAR
C
OVE
T
EEN
C
HARGED WITH
A
SSAULT

C
EDAR
C
OVE
H
IGH THE
E
PICENTER OF
V
IOLENCE?

I think I’m going to be sick. My room spins around me as I stare at the monitor, my fingers trembling on the keyboard. I’m afraid to click on anything. I’m staring for so long, in the growing darkness, that my phone ringing terrifies me so much I leap into the air, narrowly saving my laptop from flying across the room.

Willing my racing heart back under control, I reach for my cell.

Adam.

I click it on and put it to my ear, wondering belatedly if my heartbeat will be heard over the phone.

“I don’t want you talking to him,” Adam says.

“Did you—”

“Trent Townsend, Google result number six. Click it.”

I pull my computer back onto my lap and push the screen back. With a shaky hand, I click on number six.

“I can’t read it,” I choke out.

“I’m coming over,” Adam says. I can hear him moving around, like he’s throwing on his shoes or a jacket or something.

“No, don’t do that. I’m fine,” I say. “I just need time to sit and think.”

“What is there to think about?” Adam asks. “The guy is fucked up. You’re probably right and he did run Bick off the road—”

“You can’t tell him that,” I interrupt. “Bick would fly over there in a second to confront him, and you know that wouldn’t end well.”

“What are we supposed to do with all this? We know he’s dangerous. We can’t just sit around and ignore it. What about the roses, Harper? He’s targeting you too.”

I nod, the lump in my throat rendering me unable to speak. “I know—”

“I’m picking you up in the morning,” Adam says. “We’ll figure out how to keep you safe. We’re probably going to have to go to the cops.” He pauses. “You should tell your dad.”

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Fine. Whatever.”

“I’m serious. He needs to know what’s going on with you. And if you get any more roses or notes, don’t touch them. Put them in plastic bags or something. We might want to give them to the police.”

Suddenly I just want this conversation to be over. “Okay, okay. My dad’s out doing the green-chop but I’ll tell him in the morning.”

“I know you think I’m overreacting, but I just want to be sure nothing happens to you. So promise me you won’t leave the house without me.”

“Okay. Okay. I promise.”

I click the phone off and slide deeper into the blankets. I pull the thick quilt up to my chin and then curl in around my pillow, willing the gaping black hole in my stomach to go away.

How much of what Logan’s told me has just been a bunch of bull? Even when he told me about Daemon, he lied. He gave me a false name so I wouldn’t know the full extent of what had happened in Cedar Cove. Why didn’t he tell me what
really
happened? Why’s he so desperate to hide the truth about his brother?