People Like Us(38)
“We found your shoes behind the ballroom. The ones you claimed to be changing in your room at the time of the murder.”
The time of the murder.
When Brie left us outside the party, I did mean to go back to my room to change. But everything was ruined and wrong. My head was blurry from the prosecco and my heart felt gigantic and painful in my ribs and I just wanted to bury myself in ice until it all went away. I walked barefoot down the lake path toward Old Road, pressing the cold mouth of the bottle to my lips, dialing Spencer’s number, not really expecting him to pick up. And then he did, and he said this horrible, shocking word I will never be able to scrape out of my mind.
He said, “Jess?”
Then he said, “Be there in five.”
Now, as Detective Morgan looms in front of me, I’ve never been more spooked in my life. If I weren’t so terrified of my parents’ reaction, I would call them immediately. But they would flip. Then suddenly the thought of my parents flicks a little switch inside, and the other Kay, the Kay I’ve been trying to kill, sparks and ignites. I stand abruptly and look down at Detective Morgan, at her ratty brown hair, the one yellow front tooth that doesn’t match the others, her ugly, smug smile with those thin paper lips.
“Is your life actually so pointless that you have nothing better to do than to harass seventeen-year-old girls?”
Her smile fades, and her mouth literally drops open.
“You’re delusional if you think you’re going to intimidate me into a false confession. How many murders are committed by teenage girls, statistically? How many by pervy old men or jealous ex-boyfriends? Why don’t you start looking at some of them and stop stalking me, bitch.”
I storm out of the room and head outside. I’m going to be late for my first class, but I don’t care. If I don’t run this off, I’m going to explode.
11
I avoid Brie all day. I’m not prepared to face her yet after learning that she set Spencer up with Jessica. It’s a double gut punch. The fact that she would do that to me is bad enough. But that she acted for weeks like nothing happened makes my brain pulse until I feel like it’s going to crack my skull.
Instead, I prepare for our first soccer practice since Jessica’s death. I show up early to try to give Nola a bit of last-minute coaching, but she’s late. Maddy is just finishing up field hockey practice at the adjoining field, and I wander over to chat while I wait.
She looks surprised to see me. “Kay. I didn’t know you were holding practice today.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. You’ve seemed distracted lately.” She sprays her face with a water bottle and then rubs it vigorously so her skin turns bright red.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not a hundred percent committed to winning.”
She grins. “So nothing’s changed, really.”
I pick up a field hockey stick and swing it. When I was a kid, my parents put me in softball and I sucked. I struck out, threw short, and couldn’t catch. The only thing I could do was steal bases, but since I rarely made it to first, it was pretty painful. I hated sports altogether until the day Todd dragged me into the backyard with a soccer ball and challenged me to get it away from him using no hands. It took a while but I was determined, and eventually something clicked.
I smile at Maddy. “Nah. Nothing ever changes.”
She looks behind me and her expression freezes. “Oh dear Lord.”
Nola has finally shown up, dressed completely inappropriately in a pair of tiny black terry shorts and knee-highs, black Converse, and a white T-shirt with the words I DO SPORTS printed on it in stark lettering.
“Awesome.” I jog over to Nola.
Maddy follows and sits on the bench to watch. “This should be fun.”
“You’re going to freeze,” I tell Nola, unzipping my hoodie and handing it to her. I have a long-sleeved T-shirt under my jersey and I’m still going to be shivering until I run a couple of laps. I start to do some stretches and she watches me uncertainly and tries to mimic me, and then gives up and launches into her own stretch routine.
“Revisited the website?” she asks.
“Actually, I’ve been sidetracked by the murder investigation. The police detective paid me another unfriendly visit.” And then it hits me. When Detective Morgan warned me about lying to the police, she called me Katie.
I grab my bag and dig my phone out of it.
Nola performs a practice kick. “Soccer!”
I consider for a moment, and decide that after all we’ve been through, I can trust Nola with the original Jessica email. “Come here.” I show her the email as we start a slow lap to get some distance from Maddy.
Nola hovers over my shoulder and reads out loud. “‘At the risk of sounding cliché, talking to the police would not go well for you.’ Acknowledging that it’s cliché doesn’t negate the fact that it’s cliché.”
I take a moment to choose my wording carefully. “There was an incident where I witnessed a crime, and for whatever reason, the police didn’t believe my story. It was the worst. I had to be interviewed over and over and over.”
Nola gasps. “Jessica knew about it.”
I nod. “Somehow.”
“And no one else would know that about you,” she says doubtfully. But she stops and looks around the field, as if someone might be watching us right now.