Nearly Found (4 page)

I instinctively stepped away from it, my heel connecting with the porch step. The message looked identical to the handwritten notes TJ had left for me last semester. The ones that always foreshadowed his next kill. “Newton’s law of inertia. Where did you get that?”

“Someone left it on my desk.”

“In what class?”

“Not at school.” Jeremy looked anxiously at my trailer and lowered his voice. “I found it on the desk in my bedroom.”

“Don’t look at me. It’s not like
I
put it there!”

“You’re the only one besides Anh who knows how to get in my house!”

“For crying out loud, Jeremy! You keep your spare house key under a plastic rock in your front flowerbed. Everyone in Belle Green probably knows how to get in your house. Vince lives across the street. He’s been watching you lock yourself out since you were twelve.”

I snatched the note from his hand. “This would be just like Vince too. He toilet papered my trailer in July, left a flaming bag of dog shit on my front porch in August, and drunk-dialed me last weekend pretending to be the police. I wouldn’t put it past Vince to have a little fun at your expense too. For that matter, I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”

Saying it out loud, it all made more sense. After TJ had confessed, the media had run all the details of the story. From the scientific riddles TJ placed for me in the
Missed Connections
of the newspaper to the handwritten clues he left in indelible blue ink. Reporters dug up as much dirt as they could find on my father—the crimes he’d committed, how he’d left TJ’s dad to take the fall alone, and how I’d been searching for him in the personal ads. They had broadcast it all on TV, because motives (as Gena explained to me) make for a great story. And I suppose the same was true in high schools too.

Jeremy pushed his glasses up his nose. “I got the flaming bag too, Leigh. I already knew that was Vince. I watched him scoop the poops out of his own yard! This is different.”

But it wasn’t different. Sure, the letters were written with the same blue ink. And the handwriting was a pretty close match. But it wouldn’t be hard for Vince to mock up a phony message just to freak Jeremy out. No harder than it had been for him to create a fake e-mail account in TJ’s name.

“Why are you here, Jeremy? What do you want me to do? Commiserate with you? Do you want me to feel sorry for you?” I pointed at the spray paint on my trailer. “These games, these stupid pranks! This isn’t anything new! The only reason my mother probably called this time is because . . .” I almost choked on the words. “Because this piece of shit trailer belongs to your father!”

I raced up my porch steps just as the door flew open and Jeremy’s dad came out, pushing past me with a wad of rent money in his hand. “I expect the place painted this weekend. And don’t bother sending receipts for reimbursement. Your rental agreement clearly states—”

“I know what my contract says, Jason.” My mother sounded tired. Like she’d had enough of his bullshit. She leaned against the doorframe wearing jeans and an old T-shirt. Her glasses slipped down her nose, making it seem like she was looking down on him. I wondered if this is what Jeremy and I would look like in ten years. Like two people who knew too much about each other to ever be friends again.

Jeremy hunched in on himself as Mr. Fowler descended the steps. He grabbed Jeremy hard by the arm and shoved him toward the BMW. “I told you to wait in the goddamn car.”

My mother put her arm around my shoulder.

“That man hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve known him. I don’t know how Jenna lives with him. If I was her, I’d have taken that poor boy and left that son of a bitch years ago.”

I turned to look at her, surprised by the bitterness, the depth of her loathing. My mother, who didn’t believe in leaving when things got tough, who’d stuck it out in this crappy neighborhood in our crappy house with her crappy job after my father left, believed—all the way to her core—that Jenna and Jeremy would be better off without a husband and father. Without Jason Fowler’s job or his money or his house. We watched as the BMW pulled away, Mr. Fowler shouting while Jeremy melted into the interior. Between Jeremy and me, I wasn’t sure which one of us had more reasons to feel ashamed.

T
HE COMPUTER LAB
was bustling on Friday morning, everybody out of their seats and clustered in groups, talking about their weekend plans. I sat down behind my computer and logged in, doing my best to tune out the chatter about homecoming court nominations and football games and whose parents were out of town, leaving their houses ripe for a kegger.

The second bell rang.

“Take your seats, everyone,” Mr. Hurley said. There were a few groans and protests from around the room as the class settled in. “Your assignment for the day has been posted. We are short an assistant today, so please be patient with your questions and I will do my best to get to everyone.” Jeremy wasn’t standing at the front of the class. Eric’s chair was empty too. I sighed, and opened my e-mail.

A ball of paper hit the side of my head. I turned in Vince’s direction. He was red-faced, laughing into his hand, pretending to read his screen. The girl next to him kicked him under his seat, but she was laughing too. Mr. Hurley was bent over someone’s keyboard at the front of the room, his back to us. I sunk in my chair and ignored the fading giggles.

Two new messages. One from Mr. Hurley, outlining today’s assignment.

And one from TJ Wiles. My eyes skipped cautiously back to Vince, but he was leaning into the aisle, whispering to his friends.

I opened the e-mail.

“Things are already in motion,” it said. I scrolled down, but that was all it said.

Eric plunked down into his chair and dropped his backpack beside him. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Did I miss anything?”

“Nothing worth worrying about,” I muttered, deleting the message.

I clicked open the assignment from Mr. Hurley and skimmed it. “We’re supposed to write a program that converts decimals to fractions using Euclid’s algorithm,” I explained. “It’s due next Wednesday.”

“Hey,” Vince called out, raising his hand to get Mr. Hurley’s attention. “This looks like math. This class is supposed to be an elective. I didn’t sign up to take any extra math.”

Mr. Hurley straightened and turned to the back of the room. “You’re free to drop the class, Mr. DiMorello. I hear there’s still an opening in first period Interpretive Dance in the gym.”

A roar of laughter filled the room. Blood rushed to Vince’s cheeks and he slouched with his arms crossed, glaring daggers at his screen.

“I can handle the math part,” I offered Eric.

“I’m not worried about the math,” he said defensively.

I lowered my voice. “Well, I’d rather not do the programming part, if it’s all the same to you.”

I started at Vince’s voice close behind me. He held a folded twenty dollar bill over my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “Hey, Boswell, how about a couple bucks for some help with the assignment?”

Anger boiled up in me. “Something tells me you don’t need any help finding your way around a computer.”

Mr. Hurley turned in our direction and Vince slipped the money in his pocket. “Whatever, trailer trash.” Vince turned to Eric, like he’d just noticed him sitting there. “How about you, carrot top? We’re neighbors, right? You live in Belle Green?”

Eric didn’t answer.

“You any good at math?” The corner of the twenty was sticking out of the pocket of Vince’s jeans, and Eric’s eyes drifted to it.

“I do a little tutoring,” he muttered. “Twenty an hour.”

“What do you get for doing someone else’s assignment?”

“Suspension,” Eric said coolly.

Vince made a face. He grabbed a hall pass from a hook on the wall and slipped out the door.

“I’m impressed,” I said. “You really know how to handle him.”

Eric shrugged. “I’ve lived around assholes like Vince my whole life. He’s only out for himself. Do business with a guy like that, and you’re bound to get into trouble.”

He started typing lines of code, his keystrokes heavier than usual, like maybe Vince had gotten under his skin as deeply as he’d gotten under mine. I tore a sheet of paper from my notebook and scribbled out a sequence of equations. I handed them to Eric as the bell began to ring.

• • •

I called Reece from my locker as soon as seventh period was dismissed. He picked up on the first ring.

“Is it Saturday yet?” he asked longingly. “You have no idea how badly I miss you.”

“Come pick me up,” I said, practically bouncing on my toes. “My mom’s working tonight. We can go to my place and make ramen noodles and pretend to study.”

He growled, frustrated. “I wish I could. I’m working the late shift at Nico’s tonight.”

“I can come with you. I can grab a booth and do some homework or something.”

“Friday nights are busy. I won’t have time to hang out. We’ll spend the whole day together tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at ten.”

I sighed. “Bring me a cannoli?”

I could hear his smile through the phone. “With extra chocolate sauce and two spoons. I promise.”

• • •

I woke on Saturday morning to the sound of a car door slamming. I jumped out of bed and peeled back my curtain, hoping the sound of the car door had been the Benz. Maybe Alex had let him borrow it. But no one was there.

I checked my phone. It was almost eleven a.m. Where was Reece?

One new text message.

Didn’t want to call and wake you. Can’t make it today. Left you something on your front porch.

My shoulders slumped like someone had just let all the helium out of me. I trudged to the front door and threw it open, half expecting a soggy chocolate cannoli with one lousy spoon. Instead, I found a bouquet of wild daisies—the kind that grew in the weeds behind my trailer. Next to it was a paint can, wet gray paint still dripping down its side, the same gray color of my trailer. Anchored under the edge of the can was a note, scribbled on the back of a gas receipt.

I miss you. Picked up an extra shift at Nico’s.

Working a double. I’ll call you tomorrow.

RW

I descended the porch steps with the daisies. The whole side of the trailer was repainted, and the graffiti was gone.

I looked up the street, but his bike was nowhere in sight. Sunny View Drive was empty, except for the man standing in front of one of the streetlight poles, staring at one of Lonny’s flyers. Only I had the weird feeling he was really looking at me. I crossed my arms over my pajama top, feeling a little creeped out.

A white van slowed at the stop sign at the corner. When it eased forward again, the man at the streetlight was gone. I was still staring at the place where he’d been standing when the van pulled up beside my trailer. Butch got out, swinging a paint can in his hand.

“Oh,” he said with a look of surprise, and maybe a little disappointment. “I guess your mom didn’t need any help after all.” He set the can down and rubbed his shiny, shaved head, admiring Reece’s handiwork. “Did you do this?”

“Not hardly. It was Reece,” I said, tucking the daisies behind my back.

“Is Reece this boyfriend your mother’s told me so much about?”

“What do you mean?” Butch had my full attention. “What is Mom telling you?”

“Everything.” He grinned, watching the color rush to my cheeks. “Hey, Leigh.” Butch took my chin in his hand. He was the closest thing I’d had to a father figure since my dad left. He tasted like love and worry and pride. “It sounds like Reece is a good kid. But if he’s an informant . . . if he’s ratting his buddies out to the cops . . . that’s a dangerous line to walk. I’ve known good men who’ve been killed for a lot less. And I don’t want you tangled up with the wrong people. It would destroy your mother if anything ever happened to you. Just . . . be careful, okay?”

Butch had never met Reece. He’d never seen us together. He couldn’t know that I tasted all the same things when Reece touched me too. “Reece is careful. He would never do anything to hurt me.” I held on tight to the sagging daisies in my hand. “He promised. You’ll see.”

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING
, I got to the computer lab early to finish an assignment I hadn’t done over the weekend. I peeked my head in the door and heaved a sigh of relief. I had the room to myself, at least for a while. Or at least, I’d thought I did.

Jeremy ambled in after me and set his backpack down with a hard thunk. He sat on the teacher’s desk and frowned at me, adjusting the rolled cuffs of his long sleeves. He pulled them just low enough to cover the darkest part of the fading bruise his father had probably left on his arm Thursday night.

I turned to my screen and began typing, biting my tongue. He didn’t want my help or my concern anymore.

I logged into my e-mail account. One new message.

From TJ Wiles. “I can’t be stopped so easily.”

Damn Vince and his stupid friends. I gritted my teeth and fired off a reply. “Who is this?”

My message bounced back. “This user does not exist.” Exactly what I thought.

Jeremy heaved an exasperated sigh. “Do you seriously think Vince DiMorello has physics formulas just floating around in his big meathead?”

“Excuse me?” I started at the sound of Jeremy’s voice and looked up from my computer.

“This note I found in my bedroom,” he said, waving it at me again. “I know you don’t care, but I do. I want to know who broke into my house and put it there.”

I clicked
DELETE
with a little too much force, making Jeremy flinch. “I already told you my theory.”

Jeremy chewed on his thumbnail. “It couldn’t have been Vince.” I wasn’t sure if Jeremy was talking to me or to himself. I kept typing, so Jeremy raised his voice. “Spray paint and toilet paper is his MO. Not physics formulas. He’s an idiot. A total moron.”

“Anyone can Google a formula.”

“He’s too lazy for that.”

“Got something to say to me, Fowler?”

Vince stood inside the door of the computer lab.

Jeremy tucked the note close to his body, but I was certain Vince had already seen it. His eyes narrowed on it. He grabbed Jeremy by the neck and pinned him to the whiteboard. “If this is your idea of some kind of joke, it isn’t funny, Fowler!”

I leaped from my chair. “Let him go!” I pulled at Vince’s shoulders. It was like trying to move a boulder.

Vince gave Jeremy a last shove, then dropped him to the floor. He reached into his shirt pocket and tossed a folded slip of paper at Jeremy’s feet. The paper leached heavy blue ink.

Vince waved a thick finger back and forth between me and Jeremy. “I know it was one of you! What the hell is this supposed to mean anyway?”

Jeremy rubbed his throat and pulled himself to his feet. I reached down to pick up the note. It was eerily similar to the one in Jeremy’s hand.

F = ma

“Where did you get this?” I asked Vince.

He looked first at me, and then at Jeremy, like he wasn’t sure if he should say. “Someone left it in the front seat of my car. It was there this morning when I left for school.”

If it wasn’t Vince, then who’d broken in to Jeremy’s house?

“Show him,” I said to Jeremy.

Jeremy hesitated. “Someone left this in my bedroom Wednesday night.”

Vince took it. His face crinkled, confused.

Jeremy shot me an I-told-you-so look.

“They’re Newton’s Laws of Motion,” I explained. “Jeremy’s note is the mathematical representation of the first law. Basically, it says that an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. Your note represents the second law, which gives the exact relationship between acceleration, force, and mass.”

Vince and Jeremy shared the same expression my tutoring students used to wear when I’d completely lost them.

“You know, the idea that it takes more force to move an object if it has a greater mass? Like the two of you. You guys are the same height, but your mass is way different. I would need to apply a lot more force to push Vince than to push you.”

Jeremy’s face reddened and he shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I get it. But that doesn’t answer the question of what it means.”

“The first two laws have to do with inertia and . . . momentum . . .” My voice trailed off. I had a nagging feeling, like an itch in my brain.

I can’t be stopped so easily.
Had the e-mails been empty threats? Or had they been something more?

Vince jerked his chin at me. “So what did your note say?”

The question shook me from my thoughts. “What?”

“You said these are the first two laws. So that means there are more, right?”

Vince was right. And the nagging itch burrowed deeper under my skin. “I didn’t get any note. Unless you count those stupid e-mails you keep sending me.”

Vince made a face. “What are you talking about? I didn’t send you any e-mails.”

“Sure. Whatever. Because you wouldn’t have any reason to send me e-mails during computer lab pretending to be TJ just to mess with me!”

“Oh, you want to play that game? Fine. How do we know it wasn’t you who wrote the notes? I’ve seen you digging around under that fake rock and letting yourself into Fowler’s house before. Maybe
you’re
the one who’s messing with us.”

“This from the guy who spray painted my trailer last week?”

“That doesn’t count. I was inebriated.” He shoved Jeremy’s note at him. “That still doesn’t answer the question of which one of you broke into my car.”

I took a deep breath and tried not to think about strangling him with a computer cable. As much as I hated him, and as much as didn’t want to feel like I owed Jeremy anything, I was just as curious as they were to figure out who was behind the notes.

“Did you lock your car last night, Vince?”

“I always lock it.”

“Was your window smashed?”

He recoiled. “No.”

“Could someone have jimmied the lock?”

“No. It would have triggered the alarm. What are you getting at?”

“Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is often correct. Who has your spare key?”

Vince hitched his thumbs in his pockets, shifting from foot to foot. “What spare key?”

I stood with my arms crossed, waiting.

Vince stared back, with nothing to say.

Jeremy checked his watch. “Well, we have a few minutes before class. Want to hit the vending machines?” he asked me.

We started toward the door. For a split second, everything felt right and familiar between us. Like all this time, we’d just needed a common enemy to bring us back together, even if it was probably just a ploy on Jeremy’s part to get Vince to talk.

“Fine!” Vince yelled before we reached the hall. “I keep a spare. Big deal. No one knows where it is.”

“You’ve never used it?” I asked.

“No, it wasn’t for me. It was for . . .” Vince’s mouth clamped shut, trapping the rest of his thought between tight lips.

“It was for who, Vince?”

He didn’t answer.

“Do you want to figure this out or not?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “It couldn’t have been him anyway.”

I didn’t like the look on Vince’s face. I couldn’t quite tell if he was shaking off a thought, or if that thought had made his whole body shudder. I touched his forearm. Felt the hair rising from the goose bumps on his skin. Vince DiMorello was scared, and it left a horrible familiar taste in my mouth.

“The spare belonged to TJ, didn’t it?” I was certain of it.

He winced and jerked away. “He was the only one who used it. He kept stuff in my glove box. Stuff he couldn’t keep in his locker or his uncle’s trailer. Pain meds for his knee, Oxycontin and shit he’d bought on the street. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this. TJ’s in prison. And Powell Ridge is like four hours away. I’ve heard the place is like fucking Alcatraz. I doubt he’s allowed to talk to anybody.”

“Who else knew about the key?” I asked.

“No one.” Vince blinked hard and looked away.

“Emily Reinnert,” Jeremy said. Vince’s face flushed. “She was dating both of them. She would have known about the key.” Jeremy was right. It made perfect sense. Emily was TJ’s accomplice and girlfriend. She’d been so closely involved with him, she’d been a key witness in his trial in exchange for a reduced sentence. She had also been cheating on him with Vince. It had been one of the final straws that had broken TJ, when Jeremy had shown him photos of Vince and Emily kissing.

“No,” Vince said firmly. “It couldn’t have been Emily. She’s on house arrest. She can’t go anywhere without her parents or the police knowing about it.”

The first bell rang. Students began filtering in. Vince was still eyeing me suspiciously.

“When you figure out who else knew about the spare key, you’ll know who was behind this. Meanwhile, there’s no reason to freak out. The notes are bogus. They don’t make any sense. Someone’s probably just screwing around.” I sat down at my computer, wishing I believed that.

“I’m still not convinced you didn’t have something to do with this, Boswell,” Vince said, making heads turn. Jeremy and Vince stood beside each other, staring at me with dubious expressions. Last year, everyone ignored me. Now it seemed like everyone was watching, like they all knew my father had created the monster that TJ had become and it was only a matter of time before I did something wrong too.

“You’re not the only one,” I muttered.