One of Us is Lying(71)
“I think I hear something,” she says, peering through the peephole. She opens the door a crack and steps aside to let Cooper in. Addy leads him toward the fireplace but nearly goes flying when she trips on an extension cord. “Ow! Damn it, that was loud. Sorry.” She settles herself next to Bronwyn, and Cooper sits beside her.
“How are things?” Bronwyn asks Cooper.
He rubs a hand over his face. “Oh, you know. Livin’ the nightmare. My father won’t talk to me, I’m getting torn apart online, and none of the teams that were scouting me will return Coach Ruffalo’s calls. Other than that I’m great.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bronwyn says, and Addy grabs his hand and folds it in both of hers.
He heaves a sigh but doesn’t pull away. “It is what it is, I guess. Let’s just get to why we’re here, huh?”
Bronwyn clears her throat. “Well. Mainly to … compare notes? Eli kept talking about looking for patterns and connections, which makes a lot of sense. I thought maybe we could go through some of the things we know. And don’t know.” She frowns and starts ticking things off on her fingers. “Simon was about to post some pretty shocking things about all of us. Somebody got us into that room together with the fake cell phones. Simon was poisoned while we were there. Lots of people besides us had reasons to be mad at Simon. He was mixed up in all kinds of creepy 4chan stuff. Who knows what kind of people he pissed off.”
“Janae said he hated being an outsider and he was really upset nothing more ever happened with Keely,” Addy says, looking at Cooper. “Do you remember that? He started hitting on her during junior prom, and she caved at a party a couple weeks later and hooked up with him for, like, five minutes. He thought it was actually going somewhere.”
Cooper hunches his shoulders like he’s remembering something he’d rather not. “Right. Huh. I guess that’s a pattern. Or a connection, or whatever. With me and Nate, I mean.”
I don’t get it. “What?”
He meets my eyes. “When I broke up with Keely, she told me she’d hooked up with you at a party to get rid of Simon. And I asked her out a couple weeks after.”
“You and Keely?” Addy stares at me. “She never said!”
“It was just a couple times.” Honestly, I’d forgotten all about it.
“And you’re good friends with Keely. Or you were,” Bronwyn says to Addy. She doesn’t seem fazed at the idea of Keely and me getting together, and I have to appreciate how she doesn’t lose focus. “But I have nothing to do with her. So … I don’t know. Does that mean something, or doesn’t it?”
“I don’t see how it could,” Cooper says. “Nobody except Simon cared what happened between him and Keely.”
“Keely might have,” Bronwyn points out.
Cooper stifles a laugh. “You can’t think Keely had anything to do with this!”
“We’re freewheeling here,” Bronwyn says, leaning forward and propping her chin in her hand. “She’s a common thread.”
“Yeah, but Keely has zero motive for anything. Shouldn’t we be talking about people who hated Simon? Besides you,” Cooper adds, and Bronwyn goes rigid. “I mean, for that blog post he wrote about your sister. Addy told me about it. That was low, really low. I never saw it the first time around. I’d have said something if I did.”
“Well, I didn’t kill him for it,” Bronwyn says tightly.
“I’m not saying—” Cooper starts, but Addy interrupts.
“Let’s stay on track. What about Leah, or even Aiden Wu? You can’t tell me they wouldn’t have liked revenge.”
Bronwyn swallows and lowers her eyes. “I wonder about Leah too. She’s been … Well, I have a connection to her I haven’t told you guys about. She and I were partners in a Model UN competition, and by mistake we told Simon a wrong deadline that got him disqualified. He started torturing Leah on About That right after.”
Bronwyn’s told me this, actually. It’s been eating at her for a while. But it’s news to Cooper and Addy, who starts bobbing her head. “So Leah’s got a reason to hate Simon and be mad at you.” Then she frowns. “But what about the rest of us? Why drag us along?”
I shrug. “Maybe we were just the secrets Simon had on hand. Collateral damage.”
Bronwyn sighs. “I don’t know. Leah’s hotheaded, but not exactly sneaky. I’m more confused about Janae’s deal.” She turns toward Addy. “One of the strangest things about the Tumblr is how many details it got right. You’d almost have to be one of us to know that stuff—or spend a lot of time with us. Don’t you think it’s weird that Janae hangs out with us even though we’re accused of killing her best friend?”
“Well, to be fair, I did invite her,” Addy says. “But she’s been awfully skittish lately. And did you guys notice she and Simon weren’t together as much as usual right before he died? I keep wondering if something happened between them.” She leans back and chews on her bottom lip. “I suppose if anybody would’ve known what secrets Simon was about to spill and how to use them, it’d be Janae. I just … I don’t know, you guys. I’m not sure Janae’s got it in her to do something like this.”