One of Us is Lying(67)

Mary has a hand on my arm. She doesn’t want me to talk. She doesn’t have to worry. I couldn’t if I tried.

Disclosing information about sexual orientation violates constitutional rights to privacy. That’s what Mary says, and she’s threatened to involve the American Civil Liberties Union if the police make Simon’s post about me public. Which would fall into the category of Too Little, Way Too Late.

Detective Chang dances around it. They have no intention of invading my privacy. But they have to investigate. It would help if I told them everything. Our definitions of everything are different. His includes me confessing that I killed Simon, deleted my About That entry, and replaced it with a fake one about steroids.

Which makes no sense. Wouldn’t I have taken myself out of the equation entirely? Or come up with something less career-threatening? Like cheating on Keely with another girl. That might’ve killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.

“This changes nothing,” Mary keeps saying. “You have no more proof than you ever did that Cooper touched Simon’s site. Don’t you dare disclose sensitive information in the name of your investigation.”

The thing is, though, it doesn’t matter. It’s getting out. This case has been full of leaks from the beginning. And I can’t waltz out of here after being interrogated for an hour and tell my father nothing’s changed.

When Detective Chang leaves, he makes it clear they’ll be digging deep into my life over the next few days. They want Kris’s number. Mary tells me I don’t have to provide it, but Detective Chang reminds her they’ll subpoena my cell phone and get it anyway. They want to talk to Keely, too. Mary keeps threatening the ACLU, and Detective Chang keeps telling her, mild as skim milk, that they need to understand my actions in the weeks leading up to the murder.

But we all know what’s really happening. They’ll make my life miserable until I cave from the pressure.

I sit with Mary in the interrogation room after Detective Chang leaves, thankful there’s no two-way mirror as I bury my head in my hands. Life as I knew it is over, and pretty soon nobody will look at me the same way. I was going to tell eventually, but—in a few years, maybe? When I was a star pitcher and untouchable. Not now. Not like this.

“Cooper.” Mary puts a hand on my shoulder. “Your father will be wondering why we’re still in here. You need to talk to him.”

“I can’t,” I say automatically. Cain’t.

“Your father loves you,” she says quietly.

I almost laugh. Pop loves Cooperstown. He loves when I strike out the side and get attention from flashy scouts, and when my name scrolls across the bottom of ESPN. But me?

He doesn’t even know me.

There’s a knock on the door before I can reply. Pop pokes his head in and snaps his fingers. “We done in here? I wanna get home.”

“All set,” I say.

“The hell was that all about?” he demands of Mary.

“You and Cooper need to talk,” she says. Pop’s jaw tenses. What the hell are we paying you for? is written all over his face. “We can discuss next steps after that.”

“Fantastic,” Pop mutters. I stand and squeeze myself through the narrow gap between the table and the wall, ducking past Mary and into the hallway. We walk in silence, one in front of the other, until we pass through the double glass doors and Mary murmurs a good-bye. “Night,” Pop says, tersely leading the way to our car at the far end of the parking lot.

Everything in me clenches and twists as I buckle myself next to him in the Jeep. How do I start? What do I say? Do I tell him now, or wait till we’re home and I can tell Mom and Nonny and … Oh God. Lucas?

“What was all that about?” Pop asks. “What took so long?”

“There’s new evidence,” I say woodenly.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

I can’t. I can’t. Not just the two of us in this car. “Let’s wait till we’re home.”

“This serious, Coop?” Pop glances at me as he passes a slow-moving Volkswagen. “You in trouble?”

My palms start sweating. “Let’s wait,” I repeat.

I need to tell Kris what’s happening, but I don’t dare text him. I should go to his apartment and explain in person. Another conversation that’ll kill some part of me. Kris has been out since junior high. His parents are both artists and it was never a big deal. They were pretty much like, Yeah, we knew. What took you so long? He’s never pressured me, but sneaking around isn’t how he wants to live.

I stare out the window, my fingers tapping on the door handle for the rest of the ride home. Pop pulls into the driveway and our house looms in front of me: solid, familiar, and the last place I want to be right now.

We head inside, Pop tossing his keys onto the hallway table and catching sight of my mother in the living room. She and Nonny are sitting next to each other on the couch as though they’ve been waiting for us. “Where’s Lucas?” I ask, following Pop into the room.

“Downstairs playing Xbox.” Mom mutes the television as Nonny cocks her head to one side and fastens her eyes on me. “Everything okay?”

“Cooper’s being all mysterious.” Pop’s glance at me is half shrewd, half dismissive. He doesn’t know whether to take my obvious freaking out seriously or not. “You tell us, Cooperstown. What’s all the fuss about? They got some actual evidence this time?”