From the Desk of Zoe Washington(22)

Authorities said Hernandez and Johnson knew each other through school, and classmates believed the two were dating. A witness reported seeing Johnson exit Hernandez’s apartment building the afternoon of her death.

Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. What happened to Lucy was so horrible. I couldn’t read any more.

“He sounds guilty,” Trevor said.

“I know,” I said. “But maybe the witness got it wrong. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding.”

“Maybe,” Trevor said, but he didn’t sound too convinced.

I went back to the search results and clicked on the next article. That headline read, “UMass Student Murder Suspect in Court.” This article had more pictures. In one, Marcus was wearing an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs holding his hands in front of him, and a police officer walked beside him. It was hard not to see him as a criminal when he was in that jumpsuit. In the photo, his eyes were pointed toward the floor, and hair dotted his chin and upper lip, like he hadn’t gotten to shave. This is probably what he looked like right now, only older. Maybe he even had a full mustache and beard now.

In a low voice, I read a few lines of the article. “Marcus Johnson faced a judge in court today. The eighteen-year-old is accused of murdering his former classmate Lucy Hernandez in October.”

Lucy’s picture was in the article, too. The way she was posed, and with the blue fading background, it looked like a yearbook photo. Her wavy brown hair flowed past her shoulders, and she wore a black sweater, silver dangly earrings, and a silver necklace with a key charm. I wondered who gave her the necklace, and if it meant anything. She looked happy in the picture, probably excited to be graduating from high school.

She was alive, and then she wasn’t. I swallowed hard as my stomach churned.

“You look like you’re gonna throw up,” Trevor said.

“It’s just . . . that’s her,” I said.

“Yeah. She was pretty.”

I stared at her picture for a few more seconds, memorizing her features. “I know.”

Then I forced myself to go back to the article. It said Marcus pleaded “not guilty.” There was a picture of Marcus standing next to his lawyer, Anthony Miller. He was white, shorter than Marcus, and had a bald spot on the top of his head. His gray suit and tie made him look like a lawyer, plus the way he stood there with his hands clasped in front of him, all serious, as he focused on the judge.

I glanced at the clock on the bottom right of the computer screen. “I have to go back downstairs and meet my grandmother in a minute.”

“Okay,” Trevor said. “I guess I’ll head back to the kids’ floor.”

We got up and went down to the library’s main floor. I couldn’t believe we were walking together, like we were friends again.

“I won’t tell anybody anything,” Trevor said. “I can help you, if you want, with whatever you’re doing with Marcus.”

“Maybe.”

We said goodbye, and Trevor skipped down the steps to the children’s floor.

I made my way to the circulation desk, where I found Grandma holding a couple of mystery novels.

She looked at my empty hands. “You didn’t find anything to check out?”

I shook my head. “Not this time.”

When Grandma was done checking out her books, we walked toward the library’s entrance. I thought about what the articles said. They made Marcus sound guilty, even though he said he was innocent. But Grandma said things aren’t as simple as black-and-white. What if the truth wasn’t either?





Chapter Fifteen


An hour after Grandma and I got home, I heard the familiar squeaky sound of Trevor’s storm door. He was back from the library.

Talking to Trevor at the library felt so normal, like we’d never gotten in a fight at all. It was a relief to be able to talk out loud about Marcus with somebody other than Grandma.

I went outside, Butternut following behind me. I found Trevor sitting on his side of the porch steps, holding his new library book.

“Hey.” I sat down across from him, on my side of the steps. Butternut found a patch of sun and lay down on it.

“What’s up?” Trevor flashed a quick smile.

“How was the rest of the library?” I asked.

“Good. I hung out on the computers after you left.”

“Nice.”

After a long pause, I said, “I’m ready to tell you why I’ve been mad at you.”

Trevor put his book down. “Okay.”

I took a deep breath. “It started when you joined the basketball team.” That was at the beginning of the sixth grade, last year. Trevor had always said that he wanted to join the team when he got to middle school, and that’s exactly what he did.

“You’re mad that I joined the team?” Trevor asked. “You knew I was going to.”

“I didn’t think you’d start ignoring me.”

“I didn’t,” he said.

“Yes, you did. You didn’t talk to me as much at school.”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “I had to talk to the guys on the team, too. And you were hanging out with Maya and Jasmine. You were the one ignoring me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.