“Careful what you wish for,” Marcie crooned in a sugary tone.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked my mom. “Two teenage girls, one ugly rivalry, and most importantly, one shared bathroom?”
To my disgust, Mom smiled. “Family: the latest extreme sport. After school, we’ll carry Marcie’s boxes upstairs, get her settled in, and then we’ll all go out for pizza. Nora, do you think you could ask Scott to help? Some of the boxes might be heavy.”
“I think Scott practices with his band on Wednesdays,” I lied, knowing full well Vee would throw an epic fit if she discovered I’d knowingly allowed Marcie and Scott in the same room together.
“I’ll talk to him,” Marcie piped up. “Scott is such a sweetheart. I can convince him to come over after practice. Is it all right if I invite him for pizza, Mrs. Grey?”
Hello? Scott Parnell? A sweetheart? Was I the only one hearing the absurdity in all this?
“Of course,” Mom said.
“I have to shower,” I said, looking for any excuse to flee the scene. I’d hit my maximum Marcie limit for the day and needed to recuperate. A daunting thought struck me. If Marcie moved in, I’d hit my limit by seven every morning.
“Oh, Nora?” Mom called before I’d reached the stairs. “The school left a message on the phone yesterday afternoon. I think it was the attendance office. Do you know why they’d be calling?”
I froze.
Marcie stood behind my mom, mouthing
“Uh, I’ll swing by the office today and see what they need,” I said. “The call was probably routine.”
“Yeah, probably,” Marcie echoed, wearing that haughty grin of hers that I hated most of all.
CHAPTER 12
SHORTLY AFTER BREAKFAST, I BUMPED INTO MARCIE ON the front porch. She was on her way out the door, chatting on her cell phone, and I was on my way back inside, looking for her.
“Your 4Runner is blocking my car,” I said.
She held up a finger, signaling me to wait. I grabbed her cell phone, ended the call, and repeated more testily, “You’re blocking my car.”
“Don’t blow a gasket. And don’t piss me off. If you touch my cell phone again, I’ll pee in your Cheerios.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“That was Scott on the phone. He doesn’t have practice today, and he wants to help move boxes.”
Great. I could look forward to arguing about this with Vee, who wouldn’t believe me when I said, “I
“As much as I’d love to sit here and shoot the breeze, I have class. So . . .” I gestured dramatically at Marcie’s 4Runner, which was inconveniently boxing in the Volkswagen.
“You know, if you need an excused-absence slip, I have a few extras. I work in the front office, and every now and then they find their way into my purse.”
“Why would you think I’d need an excused-absence slip?”
“The attendance office left a message on your phone,” Marcie stated, clearly unimpressed by my feigned innocence. “You skipped class, didn’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Okay, so maybe I need an excused absence from the nurse,” I admitted.
Marcie gave me a patronizing look. “Did you use the old ‘I have a headache’ excuse? Or maybe the classic: PMS. And what did you ditch school for?”
“None of your business. Can I get the excused slip or not?”
She opened her purse, scrounged around, and produced a pink slip of paper bearing the school logo. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t a reproduction. “Take it,” she said.
I hesitated. “Is this one of those things that’s going to come back to haunt me?”
“My, my, aren’t we suspicious.”
“If it seems too good to be true . . .”
“Take the slip already,” she said, waving it in my face.
I had the bad feeling this was a favor with strings attached. “Ten days from now, are you going to need something in return?” I pressed.
“Maybe not
I held up my hand. “Then forget it.”
“I’m only kidding! Yeesh. You are no fun. Here’s the truth. I was trying to be nice.”
“Marcie, you don’t know how to be nice.”
“Consider this a sincere attempt,” she said, and slapped the pink slip into my palm. “Take it, and I’ll move my car.”
I pocketed the slip and said, “While we’re still on speaking terms, I have a question. Your dad was friends with a man named Blakely, and I need to find him. Does his name ring a bell?”
Her face was a mask. Hard to tell if she’d had a reaction. “Depends. Are you going to tell me why you need to find him?”
“I have some questions for him.”
“What kind of questions?”
“I’d rather not share.”
“Then neither would I.”
I swallowed down a few unsavory comments and tried again. “I’d like to tell you, Marcie, really I would, but there are some things you’re better off not knowing.”
“That’s what my dad always told me. I think he was lying then, and I think you’re lying now. If you want my help finding Blakely, I want full disclosure.”
“How do I know you even have anything on Blakely?” I protested. Marcie was good at playing games, and I wouldn’t put her past bluffing right now.
“My dad took me to Blakely’s house once.”
I jumped on the information. “Do you have an address? Could ydre took meou find your way back?”
“Blakely doesn’t live there anymore. He was getting divorced at the time, and my dad temporarily put him up in an apartment. But I did see some pictures on the mantel. Blakely has a little brother. You know him, because he goes to school with us. Alex Blakely.”
“The football player?”
“The star running back.”
I was stunned. Did this mean Alex was Nephilim too? “Are Blakely and his brother close?”
“Blakely bragged about Alex the whole time I was there. Which was, like, stupid because our football team sucks. Blakely said he’s never missed a game.”
Blakely had a brother. And his brother was Coldwater High’s star running back. “When is the next football game?” I asked Marcie, trying to contain my excitement.
“Friday,
“Home or away?”
“Home.”
A home game! Blakely was presumably working around the clock developing prototypes—all the more reason he’d want to leave his laboratory for a few hours and do something he actually enjoyed. Chances were he’d surface for a few hours this Friday night to watch his little brother play football. Since Blakely was divorced, Alex just might be the only family he had left. Making it to Alex’s game would be important to him.
“You think Blakely is going to come to the game,” Marcie said.
“It would be really helpful if he did.”
“This is the part where you tell me what you’re going to ask him.”
I met Marcie’s eyes and lied to her straight-faced. “I want to know if he has any idea who killed our
