on his brother’s bed. “I don’t feel too good.”
I scanned the rest of the folder’s contents and dragged the whole thing into the trash. But Brian’s mentioning the police had gotten me to thinking. They had all sorts of labs to recover data, didn’t they? It’s not as though anything that was deleted was permanently gone. I knew that because we’d paid some guy a thousand bucks to recover my Vanderbilt essay in the fall. So the police would get thepictures no matter what. Unless I took the laptop. But Brian wouldn’t let me, and even if he did I’d have incriminating evidence in my possession. Or…“Shit!”
“What? Oh no. God, god, oh god.”
A good portion of a two-liter bottle of soda, all over the laptop. A Sprite lagoon with letter lily pads, an ice cube perched on the P . The screen clicked dark, with a sound like an old TV shutting off. When Brian lifted the laptop, fluid literally poured out. His arms sagged, the laptop spraying droplets on the carpet. “You did that intentionally.”
“It was an accident,” I protested, purposely lame-sounding, like I’d done something we should totally be laughing about.
“God,” he said, placing the laptop back on the desk and ducking into the bathroom to grab toilet paper. “Who the hell cares, anyway? Do what you want. He’s dead. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“If the police haven’t gotten to the laptop yet,” I said as he sopped up Sprite, “they’ll assume it was always broken. Just play along. And in the meantime, we’ll find out who really did it. Because Maya couldn’t have. And you do really care, don’t you?”
Brian shrugged. But I knew he cared about finding his brother’s killer, no matter what shit Jefferson had put him through. If I were him I wouldn’t be so sure that the police wouldn’t think the computer had been sabotaged, though. But that was his issue. Brian wouldn’t let them link it back to me; I’d make sure of that.
I did a visual scan of the rest of the room, looking for possible evidence. But Jefferson had already done the work for me, by keeping his secret life so under wraps from his parents. He’d covered his own tracks before I’d ever gotten there.
16.
A s I left Brian’s, I figured I’d head back to school, so I’d be waiting in front when my dad came to pick me up. As I walked I pulled my phone out of my purse; it had been chiming the whole time I was at Brian’s. Each call was bound to be yet another stodgily concerned message from Cheyenne, and I wasn’t ready to deal with her. But I hadn’t expected three missed calls from my dad. Heart pounding, I listened to his messages. School had called and informed him I hadn’t been in classes for a second day in a row.
I texted him to meet me in the school parking lot, and there he was, leaning against his car door, foot thumping. I was streaming excuses when I was still three parking spaces away. “I ran into Jefferson’s brother on my way to first period, and he was so sad, his parents had made him go to school, and he couldn’t deal, so we hung out and talked about stuff. Dad, I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
A family meeting was declared as soon as we got home. Dad led me back into the dark, foreign den. Mom poured me a club soda. I thought the conference would be about how important it was that I go to school (I had a few defenses ready, a couple of them borrowed from the Maya playbook), but as soon as I’d taken my first sip Dad opened with this:
“The police are treating Jefferson Andrews’s death as a murder investigation. Which makes it all the more important that we find your sister. Primarily to make sure she’s okay, but also because if she’s skipped town, it makes it look like she was in some way involved, and we need to plan how to handle it.”
I suspected my skipping school would not make the afternoon’s agenda.
“A detective called here this morning. They want to talk to Maya. I asked them if it was
I scanned the rest of the folder’s contents and dragged the whole thing into the trash. But Brian’s mentioning the police had gotten me to thinking. They had all sorts of labs to recover data, didn’t they? It’s not as though anything that was deleted was permanently gone. I knew that because we’d paid some guy a thousand bucks to recover my Vanderbilt essay in the fall. So the police would get thepictures no matter what. Unless I took the laptop. But Brian wouldn’t let me, and even if he did I’d have incriminating evidence in my possession. Or…“Shit!”
“What? Oh no. God, god, oh god.”
A good portion of a two-liter bottle of soda, all over the laptop. A Sprite lagoon with letter lily pads, an ice cube perched on the P . The screen clicked dark, with a sound like an old TV shutting off. When Brian lifted the laptop, fluid literally poured out. His arms sagged, the laptop spraying droplets on the carpet. “You did that intentionally.”
“It was an accident,” I protested, purposely lame-sounding, like I’d done something we should totally be laughing about.
“God,” he said, placing the laptop back on the desk and ducking into the bathroom to grab toilet paper. “Who the hell cares, anyway? Do what you want. He’s dead. Nothing’s going to change that.”
“If the police haven’t gotten to the laptop yet,” I said as he sopped up Sprite, “they’ll assume it was always broken. Just play along. And in the meantime, we’ll find out who really did it. Because Maya couldn’t have. And you do really care, don’t you?”
Brian shrugged. But I knew he cared about finding his brother’s killer, no matter what shit Jefferson had put him through. If I were him I wouldn’t be so sure that the police wouldn’t think the computer had been sabotaged, though. But that was his issue. Brian wouldn’t let them link it back to me; I’d make sure of that.
I did a visual scan of the rest of the room, looking for possible evidence. But Jefferson had already done the work for me, by keeping his secret life so under wraps from his parents. He’d covered his own tracks before I’d ever gotten there.
16.
A s I left Brian’s, I figured I’d head back to school, so I’d be waiting in front when my dad came to pick me up. As I walked I pulled my phone out of my purse; it had been chiming the whole time I was at Brian’s. Each call was bound to be yet another stodgily concerned message from Cheyenne, and I wasn’t ready to deal with her. But I hadn’t expected three missed calls from my dad. Heart pounding, I listened to his messages. School had called and informed him I hadn’t been in classes for a second day in a row.
I texted him to meet me in the school parking lot, and there he was, leaning against his car door, foot thumping. I was streaming excuses when I was still three parking spaces away. “I ran into Jefferson’s brother on my way to first period, and he was so sad, his parents had made him go to school, and he couldn’t deal, so we hung out and talked about stuff. Dad, I should have told you. I’m sorry.”
A family meeting was declared as soon as we got home. Dad led me back into the dark, foreign den. Mom poured me a club soda. I thought the conference would be about how important it was that I go to school (I had a few defenses ready, a couple of them borrowed from the Maya playbook), but as soon as I’d taken my first sip Dad opened with this:
“The police are treating Jefferson Andrews’s death as a murder investigation. Which makes it all the more important that we find your sister. Primarily to make sure she’s okay, but also because if she’s skipped town, it makes it look like she was in some way involved, and we need to plan how to handle it.”
I suspected my skipping school would not make the afternoon’s agenda.
“A detective called here this morning. They want to talk to Maya. I asked them if it was
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