Get Even (8 page)

SIXTEEN

MARGOT HASTENED DOWN THE HALLWAY WITHOUT A BACKWARD
glance. The last to leave the computer lab, she waited a full two minutes after Kitty’s exit before she slipped out of the room, and she was halfway across campus before she slowed her pace.

As cool and collected as she’d tried to appear in front of the girls, Margot was freaking out on the inside. Ronny had been murdered, and even if she hadn’t been the one to take a baseball bat to his head, what if by choosing him as the next DGM target, she’d unwittingly signed his death warrant? Wouldn’t she be just as guilty as the murderer himself?

Margot kept her eyes glued to the floor as she hurried to her locker. The hallways were filled with students eating lunch, but the usually boisterous mood was significantly subdued. Cliques huddled closer than usual and spoke in hushed tones, and Margot couldn’t help but think that everyone was staring at her with suspicion in their eyes.

You’re being ridiculous.

There were exactly six students at Bishop DuMaine who even knew her name. She was invisible at school, a ghost who moved through the hallways with anonymity, and she estimated her chances of being a named suspect in the investigation at approximately 572:1. No one even gave her a second thought, let alone suspected her of being involved with DGM.

She rounded the corner to her locker and stopped short at the sight of someone leaning against it. No, she was wrong. There was one person who suspected her.

Ed the Head.

“Dude,” he said, eyes wide. “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” Margot elbowed him aside and dialed in her locker combo without looking at him.

“Are you mental?”

The panic of Ronny’s murder washed over her afresh. “I heard the announcement.” Why couldn’t he leave her alone?

“How can you be so casual?”

Margot gazed at him coolly. “It has nothing to do with me.”

Ed the Head shoved his arm across her open locker, barring her from retrieving any books, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Margot, we’re talking about murder, and your friends in DGM are at the top of the suspect list.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Margot swallowed hard and tried to keep her breathing steady. She couldn’t let him see her fear.

“Look.” Ed’s voice softened. “Personally, I don’t give a shit about Ronny. Cruel? Maybe. But he’d only been at school for like a hot minute and he’d already stiffed me on a half-dozen Snickers bars, joined up with the ’Maine Men, and I caught him face raping Olivia Hayes outside the boys’ locker room. Kinda hard to mourn his loss.”

Margot had to appreciate his bluntness.

“But shit just got real. I mean, maybe you should tell them to just turn themselves in? Let the police figure it out?”

Margot looked up at him sharply. “I do
not
have any connection to DGM.” For some reason, she desperately needed him to believe her. “It was a guess about the assembly, based on their previous exploits. An educated guess. Don’t think I’m their secret keeper all of a sudden just because I predicted their last move.”

“Sorry.” Ed the Head dropped his eyes to the floor, suitably chastised. “I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Margot took a deep breath and tried to center herself. “I’m going to be late to class.”

Ed leaned forward and his usual mask of cocky glibness fell away for a second. “Be careful, okay? There’s something rotten in Denmark.”

Margot nodded. She’d never seen Ed the Head drop the clown act before, and she realized that despite their business arrangement, he actually cared about her. No one at Bishop DuMaine cared about her, and Ed’s moment of kindness touched her so deeply she wasn’t even tempted to correct his misuse of the
Hamlet
quote.

“Right.” Ed the Head straightened up, his old self again. “Watch your back. That’s all I’m saying. Because if anything happens to you, my earning potential at this school is going to take a serious nosedive. Speaking of, I’ve got new odds on the murder investigation. Three to one they never find out who did it. You in?”

“Am I ever?”

“Touché,
mon frère
. I am considerably”—he snapped and gave Margot two finger pistols—“out of here.”

Margot pressed her head against the open door of her locker and closed her eyes. She’d been careless to let Ed the Head have a glimpse into her association with DGM. Unless he was significantly stupider than she gave him credit for, Ed didn’t buy her proclamations of innocence for a nanosecond. While he couldn’t know she was directly involved, Ed believed she had some connection to DGM. She just prayed he’d keep that hypothesis to himself.

It was so unlike her to trust anyone with anything. But she’d needed his help to dig up dirt on Amber Stevens, and she’d been blinded by hatred where that goal was concerned.

Margot sighed. There was nothing she could do about it now. The best way to protect herself was to find out who actually killed Ronny before the police and Father Uberti uncovered the truth about DGM. She pulled her calculus textbook out of her locker, grunting with the weight of the college-level tome, and froze.

A large manila envelope tumbled to the ground.

She stared down at the yellowish brown envelope on the tile floor. A white address label had been printed with her name, centered on the front. The print-and-peel label was the standard one inch by two and five-eighths, thirty to a sheet. The font was Times New Roman, also standard, and the envelope appeared to be the generic brand sold in every office supply store.

Margot gingerly picked up the envelope, handling it with care as if it were made of porcelain, and examined the back side. It had been sealed with a single piece of tape, meticulously positioned dead center on the flap.

Who would go through the trouble of leaving this envelope in her locker? And why?

There was only one way to know. Margot forced her finger under the flap and broke the seal.

Inside was a photograph.

Margot clenched her jaw so fiercely she thought she might crack a tooth. It had been years since she’d laid eyes on that photo, years since the humiliating image of her twelve-year-old self had made life no longer worth living. And yet she remembered every nuance of the image, because she had seen it every single day of her life for the last four years, burned into her memory. Eyes open or closed, she saw that image, like the single dot of light branded into your retina after looking directly at the sun.

It had been taken from outside her house four years ago, long after sunset, when the light from her bedroom window cast an orangey glow on the large sycamore tree. Her bedroom, less austere and more childlike, her stuffed animals and toy shelves not yet replaced by bookcases packed to the brim with academic texts. Her bedspread of bright flowers instead of plain gray, and the walls covered with teen idol photos instead of framed certificates of merit.

Even the girl in the photo was a different Margot. She stood in the middle of her room, dressed only in a training bra and panties. A roll of fat blossomed from either side of her belly button, her lumpy thighs looked like overstuffed sausages, and her bubble butt was so enormous and out of place, it looked as if it was artificially enhanced.

Twelve-year-old Margot held something in her hand, a roll of plastic wrap, which she was twisting around her midsection.

That photo had made Margot the laughingstock of junior high. It had almost killed her.

So why had someone left it in her locker?

SEVENTEEN

BREE PLUGGED HER IPOD INTO THE CENTER CONSOLE OF
Mrs. Baggott’s minivan and scrolled through her playlists. It was safer to focus on picking out a song than to just sit there, trying to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened when in reality all she could think about was a douchey seventeen-year-old bludgeoned to death in his bedroom. Bree had been in that room just hours before. It was as if she’d ventured too close to death and now it haunted her, tainting every moment of her day.

“Would you play something already?” John sprawled on the middle bench seat, head propped up on his backpack, munching on Smartfood while he perused his newest comic book. “The silence is oppressive.”

“I’m looking for the perfect hiding-in-your-mom’s-minivan-while-we-ditch-sixth-period-gym soundtrack.”

“We’re not hiding,” John said, flipping a page. “That new kid is dead, and F.U. and the cops think DGM is involved, which means the ’Maine Men will be on the lookout for the two of us.” He lowered his comic book. “I don’t know about you, but Baggott the Faggot is simply not in the mood for his adoring fans this afternoon.”

“I don’t blame you.” Bree landed on her favorite Bangers and Mosh song—“Bangin’ Love”—and cranked the volume.

John groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?” Bree smiled innocently. “It’s a great song.”

“A great song I played until my fingers bled last night.”

At the mention of rehearsal, Bree perked up. “You going again tonight?”

“Yep,” he said. Then, as if he could read her mind, “But Shane won’t be there. He’s got an audition for the school play.”

“Oh.” Play auditions? She pictured Shane surrounded by a bunch of pain-in-the-ass girls like Amber and Olivia. He’d be trapped in that theater for fourth period every day, sitting all by himself in rehearsals, bored and snarky.

This was an opportunity. Maybe if Bree joined the drama class, he could get to know her and realize how freaking perfect they were for each other. . . .

“Stop daydreaming about Shane and change the damn song already.”

Bree started, irritated by the fact that he could read her so well. “Fine.” She paused “Bangin’ Love” and searched for something else that would needle him, pausing at a New Wave playlist she’d recently created for just such an occasion.

John arched an eyebrow at the opening synth line, stark and lonely. “Seriously?”

“Relax and let it happen,” Bree said as the drum track kicked in, so utterly eighties it made Bree want to wear an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt and leg warmers.

“Why are we listening to this?” John asked.

“Cuz it’s awesome.” Bree sang along with the vocals. “
And if I had to walk the world, I’d make you fall for me.”

“This blows.”

“Come on. You’re supposed to be the open-minded musical genius. How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”

“You think I don’t know this song?” John cleared his throat. “‘The Promise’ by When in Rome. A one-hit wonder from the British New Wave scene of the eighties. ‘The Promise’ was their biggest hit in the U.S., charting in 1988.”

Bree stared at him. “You’re like a music savant or something.”

“It’s what I do.” John cracked open an energy drink.

“It’s a little—” Out of the corner of her eye, Bree saw a pack of blue-shirted ’Maine Men turn the corner of the gym and wander into the faculty parking lot. “We’ve got bogies, ten o’clock.”

John flattened himself against the bench seat while Bree crouched behind the headrest. Looking like a gaggle of overgrown Smurfs, four ’Maine Men strode purposefully into the parking lot as if hunting for something specific. They scanned the lines of cars; then, satisfied that there was no one to harass, they marched back inside.

“Clear,” Bree said, unpretzeling her body.

John rolled onto his side to face her. “So where were you at lunch?”

Bree picked up her iPod and pretended to search through its contents. She’d known this question would be coming and she’d prepared an answer, gone over the delivery in her mind, trying to make it sound credible. But she didn’t want to look at John while she lied to him. “I had an appointment with Mr. Niemeyer.”

John snorted. “Since when do you actually show up for appointments with your guidance counselor?”

“Why would I lie about going to the guidance counselor?”

“I was worried you’d been hauled into Father Uberti’s office.”

Bree chuckled. “Yeah, right. F.U. won’t risk the wrath of Senator Deringer without proof.”

“Don’t be too sure,” John said. “This is a murder investigation. The rules have changed.”

A chill passed over Bree. Murder. Someone had deliberately and intentionally killed Ronny. She remembered the creak of the door and the faint patter of footsteps outside his bedroom. Had she been in the presence of a killer without knowing it? And if so, would he come after her next?

“I’ve been thinking,” John said, pushing himself upright with sudden energy. “If it’s not us perpetrating these crimes on douchebag humanity, then who is it?”

“
If
it’s not us?” Bree smiled. “You mean
since
it’s not us.”

John shrugged. “Sure.”

Bree didn’t like John’s body language.
Sure?
Could he possibly believe, even for a second, that Bree was involved?

“Whoever it is,” John said, staring out the window, “they’re smart.”

Thank you.
“So that rules out Rex’s brain trust.”

“Not necessarily.” John leaned forward. “What better way to gain insider information? I mean, think about it. That dance-recital footage of Tammi Barnes last year? You and I wouldn’t have known anything about it. But someone from Tammi’s inner circle might have.”

Like Olivia
. “Okay,” Bree said, playing along. “Let’s say it
is
one of them. I know the rich bitches aren’t the sharpest arrows in the quiver, but don’t you think someone would have figured it out by now?”

The right side of John’s mouth quirked into a half smile. “If there was only one person involved, sure. But my guess is that DGM is a group. Three, maybe four members. That way, no one person would be the source of all their information, or responsible for every aspect of their pranks.”

“You’ve thought
way
too much about this.”

“If you’re accused of a crime you didn’t commit, you get curious about who’s really to blame.”

A wave of guilt passed through her. It was, after all, partially her fault that John was a suspect.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, and Bree stretched her arms over her head. “If F.U. had you working for the ’Maine Men,” she said with a yawn, “this case would be solved by now. Maybe we should get you one of those polo shirts and you can crash their next meeting?”

“Hell no,” John said, sliding open the van door. “If I did know who was involved with DGM, Father Uberti would be the last person I’d tell. I’d want to give them a hug, that’s all.”

John locked the minivan with the key fob as he walked toward the school. Students were already pouring out of the side door as Bree fell into step beside him. “Or join them.”

“Nah,” John said. “They don’t need Prime Suspect Number One hanging around. I’m pretty sure F.U. thinks I’m a killer at this point.”

Bree laughed. John couldn’t hurt a fly.

“I’ve gotta hit my locker,” he said. “Meet you at the bus stop?”

“Okay,” she said to no one. John had already bounded off down the hall.

Bree couldn’t help but sigh as she wove through the crowded hallway toward her locker. She’d known for a while that John had a man crush on DGM and their antics, but she hadn’t realized exactly how much energy he’d spent contemplating their identities.

Bree shook her head as she dialed in her locker combination. If John really started to dig around, would all of DGM’s carefully planned subterfuge hold up to his scrutiny? Maybe Kitty and Margot were right. Maybe she
did
need to keep a close eye on him, in case he decided to ramp up his investigation.

The idea of spying on her friend made her nauseous: not only would she be betraying his trust, but in doing so, she was implicitly admitting that he was some kind of threat to DGM. But the idea that both of them could be implicated in a crime of which they were totally innocent was even worse than jeopardizing their friendship.

Bree reached into her locker to grab some homework. If spying on John was a way to keep him safe, it was a risk she had to take.

As she stood on her tiptoes to grab a binder in the back, she saw something that wiped all thoughts of John from her mind: a manila envelope with her name on it, carefully placed on top of her history textbook.

Bree was damn sure the envelope hadn’t been there before lunch.

Which meant someone had been in her locker.

With a trembling hand, Bree picked up the envelope and broke the seal.

A crumpled piece of notebook paper fluttered out into her open palm. It was soft and wrinkled, as if someone had balled it up and thrown it away, then changed their mind and reclaimed it from the trash, and it was covered in frantic, almost manic handwriting.

Bree scanned the scrawled words and her heart nearly stopped.

DGM

Dare Go ’Maine

Dare God and ’Maine

Damn God and ’Maine

Damn Good Men

Do Good Men

Do Good and Mad

Do Get Mad

Don’t Get Mad!!!!!!

The last was punctuated with a half-dozen exclamation points, underlined several times, and circled, just in case the writer didn’t remember which version he liked the best.

Worst of all, it was a handwriting Bree recognized only too well.

It was John’s.