Pushing Perfect(33)

I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true, but last night had made me think that maybe she was right. “I don’t want to get him involved.”

“You’re assuming he isn’t already. If this Blocked Sender person is after you and me, who’s to say he’s not after other people, too?”

She had a point. “He’s never said anything about it to you, though, has he?”

She shook her head.

“Let me think about it,” I said. “I’m supposed to wait for instructions, anyway. I don’t want to do anything until I know what Blocked Sender actually wants me to do.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“And besides, we’re acting like it’s a given that I’m going to do it. Did you just decide to do what he asked right away?”

Alex looked over at me, brows pulled together. “It never occurred to me not to. Not if it meant my parents would find out. Or the police. Blocked Sender never said who he’d tell, but none of the options were good.”

That was true. “Who would do this to me? To us?”

“Good question. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I haven’t been able to come up with anyone. I’ve kept the poker thing pretty quiet—a few friends know, but that’s it, and I can’t imagine anyone would tell.”

“I started making lists. But I got stuck too.”

“Can I see? If we talk through it, maybe I can think of something you didn’t.”

I got my notebook out of my bag. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

We started with the first category, the people who knew I was getting Novalert from Raj. “I think this list is probably longer than what you’ve got here,” Alex said. “If you include people who knew Raj was selling Novalert in general.”

“Well, it has to be a longer list, unless you took the pictures.” I wasn’t really asking, but I was curious what she’d say.

“No, that was when I was with Bryan. But if we’re going to be all logical about this, like I know you are, it makes sense to consider me. Now, Raj is in the pictures, so he can’t be the one who took them, but he might have told someone else. Or set up a camera somewhere.”

“I thought about that. It’s partly why I don’t want to talk to him about it yet. Or ask him for more Novalert.”

“It’s just hard to imagine, though. He’s usually good about this stuff, so it’s not likely that it’s him, but I don’t know where he actually gets it, or how, so there might be other people involved.”

“Prescription pads,” I said. “He steals them from his parents.”

Alex tilted her head, nodded. “Got that out of him already, did you? Wow.”

“We were just talking, and it came up. I don’t even remember how.”

“Well, I still don’t think he’d run around telling people in general, but I’m sure there are other people who know. And it might be that someone was taking pictures at the party and put the pieces together, then told someone else.”

This was starting to get really scary. I’d thought this was all between me and Alex and Raj, but now it turned out anyone could know about it. How had I been so clueless? How could I not have realized what a big risk I’d taken? For someone who was supposed to be smart, I really was an idiot. “So anyone at the party could have taken the pictures,” I said, pointing to my second list. “Those are the people I know. But there were a ton of people there. Is there any way to narrow this down?”

Alex read the names I’d listed, but before adding more names, she looked at my third list, in all its forms. “People who’d want to hurt you, people you’ve hurt . . . are you sure these are the right questions?”

“I assumed it was personal. Do you think that’s wrong?”

“I don’t really know. It was different when I thought it was just me—someone knew what I could do, and they figured out how to make me do it for them. Now that you’re involved, though, it doesn’t really make sense. I mean, it’s not like we’ve been hanging out that long. Not long enough for someone who has something against me to also have something against you.”

“So we need to think about it more practically,” I said, feeling even dumber than I already did. Practical thinking was supposed to be my specialty. “This is really about someone using us to help them get what they want.”

“I get what he wants from me,” Alex said. “I basically taught him how to hide money.”

“You said wants,” I said.

“What?” She looked down at her hands.

“You didn’t say wanted. You said it was over, but then you said wants. For someone who’s a professional gambler, your poker face kind of sucks.”

She paused. “Well, I do only play on the computer. I haven’t had to hone my physical skills. But you’re right. It’s not over. I send money, too. Every month. A cut of my winnings.”

I understood the pause now. “Alex, that’s really serious. That’s illegal.”

“So’s everything else,” she said.

“I know, but money seems worse. I don’t know why, but it just does.”

“Maybe all of this is about money,” she said. “Squeezing it from as many people as possible, however he can.”