I'll Stop the World (57)

He cracked the window open and pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. “Want one?” he said, holding the box out to Bill.

“It’s nine a.m., Pat. Class is in session.”

“I opened the window.”

As Pat lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, Bill eyed the desk drawer that held the Bacardi. If only it weren’t nine o’clock in the morning during a school day, he’d be pouring himself a drink. He leaned back in his chair, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes until he saw spots, trying to think through what to do next.

It hadn’t taken long for Andy to crack. As soon as Pat had shown him the tests, the truth had come pouring out. Andy wasn’t a bad kid, but he’d quickly become overwhelmed by the increase in the amount of work for high school as opposed to middle school. Someone had told him about a way to buy tests, so he’d scraped together the money to purchase three. He wrote down all the answers on a piece of paper he hid in his shirtsleeve, and until this morning, he thought he’d gotten away with it. Two of the other tests he’d already gotten back with A-plus results. His face when he saw his failing history grade had made Bill wonder if he was going to burst into tears.

Andy didn’t know who he’d bought the test from. He knew who’d told him about the system, but that person had never purchased a test; they just knew how it worked. Apparently, it was a pretty widely known secret among the students at the school: Put an envelope in locker 247 containing the money, your locker number, and which classes and tests you need. The next day, either the test appears in your locker or your money is returned to you.

“Do we tell the faculty?” Pat asked, blowing a stream of smoke out the open window. “Sounds like it’s practically every class.”

Bill shook his head. “Until we know who it is, we need to keep this between us. We don’t want to risk them finding out we know. We’ll tell the rest of the faculty once we have a name.” And maybe, if he was lucky, they could get this wrapped up before the mayoral debate this weekend. More support for public schools was one of Diane’s biggest campaign platforms. If news of a school-wide cheating scandal came out right before the debate, Bill just knew Gibson’s people would have a field day with it, adding to Veronica’s already overflowing plate of stress.

“Andy could tell someone. Warn them we’re looking.”

“He’s not going to. Did you see that kid’s face? He won’t be going anywhere near that locker for a while. And he definitely isn’t going to want word to get around that he’s the one who told the teachers about it.”

“So what do we do then?”

Bill sighed. “I think we need to set up a sting.”





Chapter Thirty-Three


ROSE

Rose tapped her pencil against her desk. She’d finished her homework in the first ten minutes of study hall, leaving her with nothing to do for the next half hour. At the front of the classroom, Mr. Shaw hunched over his desk, a red pen in his hand and a stack of papers in front of him.

When Rose had first walked into the classroom at the beginning of the period, Mr. Warren had been there, talking quietly with Mr. Shaw. The guidance counselor’s brow had been furrowed, like their conversation was a matter of life and death. If only he knew what he should really be worried about.

It felt a little ridiculous to be sitting in study hall right now knowing that unless she and Justin solved a mystery that hadn’t even happened yet, Mr. Warren would be dead by the end of the week.

Rose was jolted out of her fog by a note sliding onto her desk. You okay?

She turned to see Lisa peering at her concernedly over her calculus textbook and gave a small smile. Just a lot on my mind, she jotted underneath Lisa’s handwriting before passing the note back.

Lisa’s eyes darted to the door; then she looked at Rose with raised eyebrows, her question clear. Want to get out of here?

Rose nodded, and Lisa’s hand shot up. “Mr. Shaw, may Rose and I please go to the library?”

He grunted his assent, and a minute later, they were both out the door, each clutching a bright-pink hall pass.

“What’s going on with you?” Lisa whispered once they were in the hallway.

Rose sighed. As much as she yearned to talk about it, there was nothing she could safely say without sounding insane. “Nothing,” she said.

“Uh-uh,” Lisa said, shaking her head, sending her painted green earrings swinging. “Something is up. You have some guy show up out of the blue, that no one has ever heard of, who you’ve apparently been writing letters to for long enough that he decided to come visit you?”

“He just had some free time, that’s all.”

“Why would you keep a pen pal a secret?” Lisa pressed. “Why haven’t I ever seen any of his letters? Have you been hiding them? It’s just the two of us now. You can tell me if something’s going on. I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Nothing’s going on,” Rose insisted. “Maybe you just didn’t notice. You’ve been really busy lately.”

Lisa paused in the door of the library, frowning slightly. “You still could’ve told me.”

Rose shrugged. “I just didn’t think it was that big a deal.” She knew it was a little mean to imply that it was Lisa’s fault she didn’t know about Justin, when the reality was that neither had Rose until a few days ago. But she couldn’t help it. Sure, Lisa couldn’t have known about Justin, but there were plenty of other things she’d missed.