You'll Be the Death of Me(36)

“Who is it?” I ask.

Ivy turns the paper so it’s facing me. “Mateo Wojcik,” she says.





CAL


The sun slips behind a cloud outside, darkening our corner of Crave Doughnuts as Ivy pins Mateo with her gaze and asks, “Why would Ms. Jamison circle your name?”

“No clue,” Mateo says.

He looks like he means it, but the thing about Mateo is—unlike Ivy, the guy can lie. Or he could, anyway, back when we used to hang out. Ms. Reyes is one of those super-involved moms who’s always up in your business, and Mateo was constantly blocking her. We weren’t trying to get away with much—just normal kid stuff, like watching movies we shouldn’t and eating too much junk—but he’d never get caught.

“She circled you, Charlie, and Boney,” Ivy points out.

“Yeah. I saw.” Mateo shrugs. “I don’t know why.”

I should say something, but I can’t focus. I’m still fixated on the “D” card that was in Lara’s day planner. It wasn’t addressed to her by name, but I can’t convince myself that it wasn’t hers. Whoever gave it to her knows her well enough to be familiar with her favorite painting, which isn’t nearly famous enough to be sold in every random card store the way that, say, Monet’s Water Lilies are. You’d have to really search for it. It’s the kind of thing I would have done, if it had ever occurred to me to send Lara a card.

    Love you so much, angel. Let’s make it happen. Half of my brain is making excuses for why those words probably don’t mean anything, and the other half is frantically analyzing who D might be. There’s something pressing against the edge of my subconscious, whispering that I already know the answer, and it’s frustrating as hell because I don’t.

At least, I don’t think I do.

I glance at the list in Ivy’s hand; there’s not a D to be found in any of the circled names. Still…Boney, Charlie, and Mateo all have what Lara would probably call “interesting faces.” My jealousy from this morning flares up again as I imagine Lara sketching Boney in her studio. And maybe Charlie, and…ugh.

Please not Mateo.

“Oh my God,” Ivy says in a low whisper, eyes huge. “What if this is her kill list?”

“What?” I blink, startled, then flush when I realize what completely different tracks our minds were running along.

Ivy tilts her head toward Mateo, oblivious to my confusion. “Why are you on here? What does Ms. Jamison have against you?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I told you, I’ve never even taken her class.”

“There must be something,” she insists. “Some connection between you and Charlie and Boney. Are you and Charlie friends? Or acquaintances, or—anything?”

    “No,” Mateo says. My eyes flick between them like I’m watching a ping-pong match, and I get the same feeling that the D card gives me: I’m missing something. “Maybe the list doesn’t mean anything,” Mateo continues. “Maybe it’s some kind of school thing, and it’s just a coincidence that Boney’s name is on there.”

Ivy frowns. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Because it’s not only the list. It’s also the fact that she’s a blond woman, and she uses the studio on Tuesdays—”

“But she wasn’t there,” I protest, even though I’m no longer sure who I’m trying to convince. Ivy and Mateo, or myself? “She had a ceramics class.”

“A ceramics class,” Ivy repeats, her voice flat.

“Yeah. That’s what she told me.”

“Oh, is that what she told you?” Ivy’s lip curls. “Well, I guess that’s that, then. We’ll just take her word for it, since she’s such an honest person.”

“She showed me.” I pull out my phone and scroll to the picture of the green bowl, holding it up to Ivy. “She texted this from her class, when we first got to Garrett’s.”

“Pssh.” Ivy barely glances at it. “She could’ve had that saved on her phone. Or grabbed it off an image search.”

“Why would she lie about something that’s so easy to check?” I counter.

Ivy arches her eyebrows. “And did you check?”

“I don’t mean me,” I say defensively. “Since when am I in charge of alibis?”

She opens her mouth to answer, but a ringing phone cuts her off. The sound is coming from somewhere in our booth, but it’s not mine. Ivy doesn’t reach for her bag, so it’s clearly not hers, either. We both look toward Mateo, expectant.

    He pales as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black case that’s…ohhh. My pulse quickens as I recognize the phone I took from Lara’s studio, thinking it was Ivy’s.

The one that probably belongs to Boney.

“Answer it!” Ivy says. Mateo just keeps holding the phone gingerly, like he’s afraid it’s going to explode. I pluck it out of his hand as Ivy leans against me for a look at the caller’s name. She gasps, and I almost drop the phone.

Charlie.

I swipe to answer and say, “Hello?” I don’t mean to do it, exactly, but somehow the word comes out in Boney’s signature drawl.