Pushing Perfect(47)

Alex had leaned forward while Raj was talking, the angry expression slowly leaving her face. “We’re hardly in a position to judge you, Raj.”

“But what I did was so much worse than anything either of you have done.”

“Your family obviously loves you a lot, to make this kind of sacrifice,” I said. “I understand why you don’t want them to find out, but they’d forgive you.”

“Maybe my parents will. Especially now that I’ve discovered I share their love of science. But my sister never will. Anyway, I think Kara’s right that our secrets are all in the same family, pardon the pun, and it seems clear that Justin’s are not. That changes things. I don’t think he’s our Blocked Sender, though.”

I wasn’t so sure. Not yet, anyway.

“I don’t think so either,” Alex said. “I don’t know about the boyfriend, though. This has to be about him in some way. We’ve been teasing him about it all year and he’s never slipped. Not once.”

“Do you think the boyfriend might be Blocked Sender?” I asked.

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said. “We’ve got to catch Blocked Sender in the act.”

“How are we supposed to do that? I’m not about to stick around in the library after I drop off the pills. Blocked Sender’s not stupid.”

“I could do it,” Raj said.

“That won’t work. Blocked Sender knows that you and I know each other. Remember the pictures? But we don’t know how much he knows about us as a group.”

“We should assume he knows everything,” Alex said. “It’s safer that way.”

“That means none of us can be there, then,” Raj said.

“Exactly,” Alex said. “This is where I get to be helpful, finally. We’re going to watch the pickup from the comfort of my bedroom.”

“What, you’re going to set up a video camera?” I asked. “That’s not exactly inconspicuous.”

“Oh, my dear Luddite Kara, you have no idea what changes the world has brought. Cameras have gotten super tiny—didn’t you see that thing on YouTube where a squirrel picked one up and climbed a tree? It was adorable. We’ll hook something like that up in the library.” She was getting excited.

“Wouldn’t we have to go back and pick it up later?” Raj asked. “And aren’t they quite expensive?”

“We can stream it. They’re so cheap we wouldn’t even have to go back and pick it up if we didn’t want to.”

My shoulders finally unclenched. I was grateful to have a friend who was so much smarter and savvier than I was. “You’re a genius,” I said.

“Hardly. But at least we’ll know who’s doing the pickup. If it’s Justin, we’ll need to have a very different conversation than we did today.”

“And if it’s someone else?” Raj asked.

“We’ll either have another member of our little Scooby gang, or we’ll learn who Blocked Sender is. Either way, we’ll know more tomorrow than we do now. And isn’t that the point?”

The point was for all this to be over, and we were nowhere near it. But this was a start.





18.


Monday morning came way too fast. Alex, Raj, and I met at lunch in the cafeteria to walk through our plan; Justin knew enough to stay away, at least for the day. Alex brought the camera with her and showed me how it worked—it was just a little square with some adhesive on the back, so I had to find a shelf or a spot on the wall with a good line of sight and stick it there. It was so tiny that no one would notice it. Or so I hoped.

I got a bathroom pass during study hall, clutching my stomach to make clear that I was planning to be gone a while, then headed to the library. The high school’s librarians were mostly recent library science grads from local universities, hipsters with thick bangs and glasses with equally thick frames who would rather have been working in an archive. The library’s checkout system was completely automatic, so the librarians just sat around looking bored and waiting for people to come in for help with research projects. They smiled at me hopefully when I came in and then ignored me when I walked right past them.

The library contained a broad expanse of open space in the middle, filled with tables where students could study, though right now they were deathly quiet. I headed toward the back right, where signs informed me I could find the fiction section. There were three copies of The Mystery of Edwin Drood in the back; I’d had to look up the book online to learn that Charles Dickens had written it. Ironically enough (or maybe purposefully?) it was a book about drugs and murder. All three copies looked relatively new and untouched, especially as compared to the surrounding books—there must have been twenty copies of Great Expectations, all battered, as were the copies of David Copperfield. They’d probably been assigned for an English class.

I didn’t want to end up on camera myself, so I decided to drop the pills right away. I pulled out the center copy of Edwin Drood and placed the bottle of pills behind it. I could see why Blocked Sender had chosen the spot; the bookshelves were lined up in rows, so while the Dickens books were on a shelf that faced a wall, there was a shelf of books behind them that shielded the back of the bookcase from the rest of the room. It was a private little spot. I replaced the book, leaving it sticking out just a little so it would be clear to Blocked Sender where I’d been, without it being obvious to anyone else.