The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove

Kate leaned in to whisper. “But Baxter’s not at school today,” she said. “And now the juniors are saying he might have had something to do with what happened.”

“I’m sure it’s purely speculation,” I said, knowing full well that Tracy Lampert never speculated.

Kate shook her head. “No, they’re talking about this video Baxter was filming that night. The juniors said J.B.’s in a lot of the footage on the DVD, and if the cops get a hold of it. .”

She trailed off, but my overactive imagination kicked right in. Kate had been there when Baxter was egging J.B. on from the library balcony during the keg stands. If he had a DVD full of J.B. footage, who could blame those brilliant juniors for putting the pieces together?

“Where’s the DVD now?” I asked.

Kate shook her head and blew her nose. She didn’t know anything else.

It was time for a more reliable source of information. I stood up on a chair to get a better aerial view of the room. With so many small groups of students-turned-mourners clustered together, the auditorium looked like a convening of witches.

Finally, in the back corner, I spotted Tracy and her minions. They were huddling up around someone so closely that I couldn’t quite make out. . Mike. Well, two birds, one stone. I hopped down from the chair and started to beeline toward them. But then I heard the infamous triple gavel rap of Principal Glass. He was calling us to order.

I know delusions of grandeur are not unusual in high school, but usually they’re limited to quarterbacks with God complexes — not the faculty. But after our last principal was hauled away on house arrest, Palmetto was blessed with the kind of temporary fill-in whose big dreams of sitting on the Supreme Court were smashed after, oh, the fifth time he failed the South Carolina bar exam.

It was obvious, as Principal Glass stood behind the podium in his tweed and his toupee, that lording over a bunch of high school kids with a gavel was his small way of coming to terms with his life’s shortcomings.

“All sit,” he boomed into the microphone, rapping the gavel until everyone lowered the pitch of their gossip to at least a whisper. I was still a good five rows away from Mike and Tracy. Too far. I had to get there before the assembly started.

“I suggest you find a seat.”

Ms. Cafiero had appeared out of nowhere to thwart me again. I was losing patience for this lady fast, but when I considered the likelihood of making it past her with both my earlobes intact, I gave up and sank into the nearest seat.

To my left was June Rattler (of the unforgettable tuba-blowing Palmetto Court poster), and to my right was Ari Ang (the Anger of the mysterious green beaker). Ugh. I could not have special-ordered a lowlier crew for gossip potential.

“A great tragedy took place this weekend, as some of you may know,” Principal Glass began, waving the gavel with that this-is-gonna-be-a-long-one air.

Thirteen minutes into the world’s most transparent speech about the sanctity of life, I was at the end of my already frazzled wits. Everyone knew that the administration at Palmetto (called the “fishbowl” for the glass walls around their cluster of offices) had only ever seen J.B. as a thorn in their collective thigh.

If Principal Glass had known anything about the school he was “running,” he would know that Palmetto was a place that fed, cleansed, and healed itself on the therapeutic powers of the rumor mill. If we were going to get past J.B.’s accident, it was going to happen in whispered corners in the hallways, not under the bang of Glass’s gavel.

“In conclusion,” he droned, “I must stress the importance of carrying on with our daily lives.” By now, he had to raise his voice over the rustling of students taking their cue to grab their bags.

“Which is why I remind you that the Nutritional Fair will still take place at lunch today.” Louder still, he shouted, rapping his gavel as the room began to clear out, “And don’t forget to cast your votes for the Palmetto Prince and Princess today. We will mourn the loss of Justin Balmer, but we will carry on as a school.”

That last tidbit of advice fell on an almost empty auditorium. It was probably for the best — even though Palmetto Court and J.B.’s death were scarily intertwined in my brain, I didn’t exactly want the rest of the school to relate.

Back in the crowded hallway, I raced to find Mike.

“Thank God,” I said, wrapping myself in his arms. “What’d you hear from Tracy?” I blurted.

Whoa. That was not the first thing I meant to say.

“I mean — how are you?”

Mike looked at me strangely.

“Didn’t you get my texts?” he asked. “We need to talk.”

Crap. I closed my eyes. Ever since that second text from my dad yesterday, I’d been deleting all my text messages, sight unseen.

“I’m sorry,” I said, pressing my face into his chest. “My phone’s been. . acting up. I didn’t—”

I stopped stammering when Mike put his hand on my shoulder.

“Nat,” he said. It was then that I noticed he was trembling.

But Mike could bench-press more than anyone at school. He broke three state football records as a JV player. Not once, in all our years of watching horror movies, had I ever seen him flinch. If my life depended on it, I would have sworn that Mike King didn’t know how to tremble. But now, his navy sweater quaked, and I left my head there, as if there were a way for me to absorb his panic. I lifted my head up and tried to smile up at his brown eyes. Then I took his broad, strong hands in mine and held them to my heart.

“Baby,” I said, “look at me. Hold me. Listen to me. We don’t even know if what happened was our fault.”

Mike swallowed hard and shook his head. I held his chin in place between two fingers and whispered, “We have to hold it together, at least until we know more. I know there’s a lot on our plates right now. Once we win Palmetto, we have to focus on the coronation speech. There’s the student body to thank and—”

“Coronation? Are you kidding? That speech is the least of our worries,” Mike said through clenched teeth. “Nat, I’m freaking out.”

“The coronation speech is not the least of our worries,” I huffed, as quietly as I could. “Don’t you see? It’s more important now than ever that we keep up the pretense that everything is okay.”

Mike glanced around the hallway. “We shouldn’t talk like this out here.”

I watched him eye the janitor’s closet behind us and saw the quick nod he did when he was making an impulse decision. He opened the door and pulled me inside.

But. . we always went outside under the bleachers or to our secret waterfall above the Cove to talk. We didn’t duck into dank janitorial closets with blinking red EXIT lights and empty garbage cans. Everything about this moment was wrong.

“What happened when I was in the car?” Mike asked, closing the door.

“Nothing—”

“Nat,” he interrupted.

“I may have loosely tied him to the tree.”

Mike pressed his forehead to the wall, away from me.

“Did you give him anything? Any drugs?”

“Of course not,” I said. “What do you think I am?” I was starting to get defensive. “In fact, I took some pills off his hands. He should probably thank me that when the cops found him, he was clean.”

Mike whipped around.

“What did you take?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Whatever was in his pocket. I just stuck it in your jacket. I was cold. I forgot about it. I mean, I have your jacket right he—”

Before I could even unzip my backpack all the way, Mike had grabbed his jacket from it and was rummaging through the pockets. When he yanked out the little orange bottle, he looked at me wide-eyed.

“What?” I asked — as if playing dumb might undo my mistake.

Mike crouched under the blinking red light to examine the label.