choice left.”
I gave her a hard look, hunkering my eyebrows down over my eyes. “Right. Now that Sydney’s gone.”
“Wait-what’s with the eyebrows?” she said. “What are you trying to say?”
“Did you kill Sydney to clear the field to Connor?” I asked point-blank.
Quinn’s eyes went big. “Me? No. God, no! She killed herself. Over the guilt from ratting me out to the VP.”
“I thought you said overachievers didn’t kill them-selves,” I pointed out, repeating what she’d told me in our first interview.
Quinn shrugged. “Well, I’ve had some time to think about it. And I think she did. I mean, I was her best friend. She must have felt really bad about what she did. Look, are we done? Because we only have fifteen minutes left of lunch and I gotta eat.”
While I would have liked to grill her further, I honestly didn’t know what else to ask. Plus, I intended to stuff as much meat-ish loaf into my own mouth in fifteen minutes as I could.
So I watched Quinn walk away, then grabbed a tray and contemplated what she’d told me as I wolfed down my lunch.
Everyone seemed to have a different theory for why Sydney had killed herself. Guilt, depression, or, as Raley thought, teen statistic. I had to admit, Sydney’s life had been a bit of a mess. But even so, I kept going back to the fact that people who kill themselves usually do it after the secret meeting they’ve set up, not before. If Sydney really had committed suicide, why not wait until after meeting with me? It just didn’t make any sense.
Unfortunately, by the time I was dumping my tray and heading to sixth period, I was no closer to an answer. I was just pulling my chem book out of my bag when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I looked down at the readout.
It was Nicky Williams. I raised an eyebrow. He was the last person I’d expected to hear from.
“Nicky?” I answered, leaning against a bank of lockers outside Mrs. Perry’s classroom.
“Hey. I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. Talk away.”
“No.” I could hear him shaking his head. “In person. They may be listening in.”
“They?” I asked.
“The cops. Look, one of them came to see me after you did yesterday. He said I was obstructing justice, hampering an investigation, all kinds of legal stuff like that.”
Raley. I wondered what the chances were he’d found Nicky out on his own and not by following me to the mall.
“Anyway,” Nicky went on, “I’m ready to talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know about the test answers as long as you keep my name out of it. Once it’s printed in the paper, the cops will leave me alone, right?”
I shrugged. It was possible.
“Where can we meet?” I asked. “Are you at school?”
Again I could hear rustling as Nicky’s head shook back and forth in the negative. “No. School’s too dangerous. Someone might see us. Tonight. Meet me at Oak Meadow Park. Eight p.m. By the train.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I knew the park well. It was on Blossom Hill Road just down from the junior high we’d all gone to, and not only completely deserted after sunset but completely dark. Usually not a combo I was a big fan of, but I was willing to go just about anywhere to get this story. Which was exactly what I promised Nicky.
“Eight p.m. Oak Meadow. I’ll be there.”
Chapter Twelve
THE REST OF THE DAY WENT BY IN A BLUR OF HOMEWORK assignments, boring lectures, and one pop quiz in trig. And as much as Sydney’s Twittercide was on my mind, another event was slowly pushing its way to the forefront: my date with Chase.
I still wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about it. Chase was nothing like the guys I’d gone out with before. Cole Perkins was my first real boyfriend. We’d gone out freshman year, but things had fizzled when Cole decided my making out with him in his bedroom when his parents were out of town meant we were soul mates. And I’d decided I wanted a soul mate that didn’t kiss like a golden retriever. After Cole I’d dated Josh DuPont who, while scoring a ten on the hot-o-meter, had ended up cheating on me with the president of the Chastity Club and dragging me headfirst into a murder investigation, after which he’d switched schools to avoid the gossip mill and hadn’t been seen since. To say I didn’t have great luck in the guy department was like saying Ryan Seacrest didn’t have great luck in the height department: total understatement.
A fact that left me with an uneasy feeling in my stomach about having pizza with Chase. Chase and I were so different that it had honestly taken me some time before I’d come to see him as a genuine friend. Putting him into the role of something more than a friend suddenly sounded like dangerous territory. Territory that left a weird sensation running through my stomach. Nervous. Anxious. Kinda like I’d eaten a bad Tuesday Taco.
Sam had to meet with her SAT tutor again after school, but as soon as she was done, she came straight to my house.
“Whoa,” she said, walking into my room. “What happened?”
I looked around. Clothes littered every surface, jeans mixing with skirts mixing with capris, and T-shirts, and sweaters, and boots, and me in the middle of it all, trying on my tenth outfit since school had let out.
“I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I’m not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I’m not. I’m totally not thinking about him, and I don’t want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don’t want him to think that I’m not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I’m not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help!”
I paused and took a deep breath, realizing I’d forgotten the importance of oxygen during my plea.
“Okay.” Sam walked in and put her book bag down on the bed. She stood in front of me, doing a slow up and down with her eyes. “I think we can fix this. First thing’s first. Your hair.”
“Hair?” I squeaked out. “Oh, fluffin’ fudge. I didn’t even think about hair!”
Two hours later I’d done the one thing I’d sworn I would never do again-let Sam dress me to go out. Though I had to admit as I checked out the results in the full-length mirror on my closet door I might not have been wrong in doing so. She’d advised on a mid-thigh white denim skirt over a pair of gray leggings. She’d paired that with a long, lean gray tee with rhinestones at the neckline and a lightweight, three-quarter sleeve cardigan. And, while I was a respectable B cup, the push-up bra Sam had insisted on made my boobs stand at attention, giving me cleavage to rival that of any member of the cheer squad. On my feet were a pair of silver three-inch heels that I could almost walk in without wobbling, which Sam had pulled from her own closet. Overall, I had to admit I looked pretty dang hot.
A thought I held on to with a two-fisted grip as I walked the mile from my house to the Pizza My Heart downtown, that taco feeling churning in my gut with every step.
By the time I finally hit the pizza place, I could feel blisters forming on my heels, and my feet were sweating so badly that I feared the effect of my hotness would be overshadowed by my need for Odor-Eaters.
I paused outside the restaurant. Pushed a couple stray strands of hair off my face. Did a quick breath check. Tried to remember how confident I’d looked in my bedroom mirror. Then pushed through the doors of Pizza My Heart at exactly six o’clock for my dinner with Chase.
The place wasn’t huge, and I spotted him right away. He was standing at a table in the back of the restaurant. His back was to me, but his spiky hair was unmistakable. It was mussed into a softer look than usual, kind of tousled like he’d been out in the wind for a while. He wore a black T-shirt, jeans that were somewhere perfectly in the middle of tight and low slung, clinging just enough to hold on to his hips but not so tight that he looked like a cast member of
I did another deep breath thing as I approached.
“Hey,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
