Pushing Perfect(44)

The pharmacy was in the back corner of the crowded store, of course, and there was a line. Two, actually: one for drop-offs and one to pick up. I got out my phone and started playing games while I waited. The line moved slowly; there was only one person taking orders, and he was moving between the two lines. I kept my head down until I reached the front and heard the pharmacist say, “What can I do for you today?”

I looked up and saw someone I wasn’t expecting.

Justin.

I’d done a good job with my costume—it took him a second to realize it was me, and then his eyes widened in a way that probably mirrored mine. My head started whirling with so many different thoughts, I got dizzy. Did this mean Justin was Blocked Sender? Or knew who was? Or was he being blackmailed like the rest of us? Or was it possible that this was random? I had a million questions I wanted to ask him, but I had a job to do and a camera to avoid.

“Hi,” I said. “I need to fill a prescription.” My voice shook, and my hand started shaking to match as I handed Justin the piece of paper.

He’d recovered faster than I had. He reached out smoothly and took the paper, giving it a quick scan and a nod. No acknowledgment that we knew each other, which told me that randomness was off the table. I realized he had an assistant’s tag on, though that didn’t really clear anything up. “I’ll take care of this right away. Give me a minute.” He disappeared in the back; I could hear people muttering in line behind me, wondering why Walmart didn’t hire more staff for the pharmacy if it was going to get this busy.

Finally, he returned, followed by a much older man—I figured that was the actual pharmacist—who handed him a little orange bottle full of pills. Justin quickly stuffed it in a bag and stapled it closed. “Cash or credit?”

I noticed he hadn’t asked me for insurance. He knew I was coming. No, he’d been surprised to see me—he knew someone was coming, but not that it was me. This whole situation was getting weirder and weirder. “Cash,” I said, and gave him the money, which ended up being three hundred dollars for the thirty pills. Only half of what Raj had told me it was, back when I bought those pills from him, but that was the markup, I supposed. Even with the cheaper price I hoped I wasn’t going to have to do this often, because I didn’t have that kind of cash lying around. Three hundred dollars was already a big chunk of my savings from years’ worth of birthdays and allowance.

“You’re all set,” he said. “Next?”

“Um, thanks,” I said, then turned around and zigzagged my way back out of the Walmart as fast as I could. Once I was safely in my car, I put my key in the ignition and just sat there for a while, trying to process what I’d just learned. Yet another one of my new friends was somehow involved in all this.

It wasn’t a coincidence. It couldn’t be.

I waited until my hands felt under control and then drove to the Bayview Diner. It was just south of Redwood City, a few towns away from Marbella, but it might as well have been in a different world. The town wasn’t nearly as affluent, and the diner was literally on the wrong side of the tracks—it was made out of an old train car, and it wasn’t all that far from the train itself. The décor was all retro: Formica tabletops, leather booths that had once been shiny but now had holes with the stuffing popping out, waitresses who wore wrinkled pink dresses with white aprons. A waitress whose real name was definitely not PINKY, despite her name tag, pointed me to a table where Raj and Alex were already sitting. They must have come early—they had a big plate of cheese fries in front of them and were drinking shakes.

“How did it go?” Alex asked.

“That depends on your perspective,” I said. “I got my prescription no problem. From Justin.”

Raj almost choked on his shake. “I’m sorry, did you just say Justin was working at Walmart?”

Alex looked even more surprised than Raj. “He’s in on this too?”

“He was working the register at the pharmacy. His tag said he was an assistant. He’s the one who got the prescription for me.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Alex said. “He would have told me.”

“It was definitely him,” I said. “He didn’t acknowledge that he knew me, though. That has to mean he’s in on it too.” I paused to think. “He seemed surprised to see me, but he knew exactly what to do. He was waiting for someone. I don’t think he’s Blocked Sender, but I can’t be sure.”

“No,” Alex said. “Besides, Justin can barely work his cell phone. He wouldn’t know how to block his number.”

“Besides, he’s our friend,” Raj said. “If anything, he got roped into it. Just like us.”

“Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think,” I said. “Maybe he’s got a secret life where he’s an evil genius who knows how to hack phones. Maybe he’s not such a good friend.”

Alex looked skeptical. “People don’t usually do a great job of hiding their inner selves.”

I so totally disagreed with her I didn’t even know where to start, except not with myself. “What about serial killers? Or even just people having affairs? People hide stuff all the time. Big things. Fundamental things.”

“Okay, I get all that. But Justin hates hiding things. He came out of the closet when he was like five.”