People Like Us(78)

I’m fairly let down when Spencer walks in instead. “Have everything you need?”

“Actually, I was wondering if I could borrow a new set of sheets?”

He blushes. “Oh. Sure, yeah.”

“Thanks.”

He disappears into the hallway and comes back with a mismatched top and bottom flannel sheet set and pillowcase, and we work together to make the bed.

“We totally made out here,” he says with a juvenile grin.

“That’s a collective we, right? You and all the ladies of Easterly.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah. All.” He places the pillow at the head of the bed and sits on the floor with his legs crossed. “You were the cutest, though.”

“Agreed.” I sit on the bed and draw my knees up. “You may pour.”

He takes a bottle of vodka and carton of lemonade and mixes my favorite drink in two equal portions and sets them in front of us. I choose the one in a Care Bears glass, leaving him with Snoopy.

“Before we begin, I would like to bring up a past game foul. The night we met, when we played, I said ‘I never killed a person’ and you drank.”

He rolls his eyes. “You did, too, and you never killed anyone either.”

My eyes fill up unexpectedly. “I told you my story.”

“I’m sorry.” He leans over and hugs me. “I drank as a joke. I thought we both did.”

“No jokes tonight. We’re playing for truth.”

He clinks my glass. “May the worst player win.”

I open to the point. “I never killed Jessica Lane.”

No drink.

“I never killed Maddy Farrell,” he hits back.

“I never slept with Jessica Lane.”

He drinks. “I never slept with Brie Matthews.”

I raise an eyebrow.

Spencer looks relieved. I kind of want to punch him.

“I never slept with Maddy Farrell.”

He takes a sip. “You know all this.”

“Lie detectors always ask control questions.”

Spencer stirs his glass. “I never still love someone in this room.”

We stare at each other. He takes a sip and I dip my pinkie into my glass and taste it.

“It’s complicated,” I say. “I never had sex with Jessica in this room.”

He puts his glass down. “You don’t want those details.”

“I want all the details. That’s why we’re playing this game. You were one of the last people to talk to her. The police just don’t know it. There’s no way they could.”

“No, I didn’t have sex with Jessica in this room. My turn. I never heard of a suspect besides me, you, and Greg.”

I drink. “They aren’t serious suspects. Greg thought it might have been Brie for about five minutes because Jess and Brie didn’t get along first year.”

“Oh, I would have loved that.”

“And Brie thinks it’s my friend Nola. Which is also possible but I don’t like it.”

“Why possible? Why don’t you like it?”

I sigh. “It’s possible because Tai and I were bitches to Nola her first year, so she has a sort of motive for framing me. The killer also set up a blog threatening me if I didn’t get revenge on Jessica’s behalf for this prank we all pulled on her a couple of years ago. But Nola was one of the targets, she has zero connection to Maddy, and she’s also been a really good friend while the campus has decided all at the same time to get back at me for every shitty thing I’ve done to every student. Which adds up to a lot. I have a few things to atone for.”

“Not murder, though.”

I glare at him.

“Double checking.”

“I never let a loved one off easy because I wanted them to be innocent,” he says softly.

I drink the entire glass down and get up. “You made your point.”

He takes my hand. “Katie, I’m being serious. It’s not just about Todd. Why didn’t you come to me sooner if you actually thought I could have killed Jess? You mentioned Maddy to me, but you went out of your way to avoid talking about Jessica, and I think it’s because you really thought I might have done it, and it was your fault for telling me to get rid of her and then vanishing into the night. Todd, then me, now Nola. Is there any chance Brie’s right? As much as I hate to say those words?”

I sit again and rest my chin on my hands. The vodka shot straight up to my brain, and the lemonade is making my mouth feel sticky. “Brie made her best argument, and all she could really say convincingly was that Nola was motivated to frame me. Not that she actually killed Jessica or Maddy.”

Spencer shrugs. “You’re just as smart as Brie and Nola’s your friend, right? What do you think?”

“I think there’s no evidence.” I pause. “I went home with her and she acted a little weird around her family. She lies a lot. Fights with her parents. But so do most of the people I know. I’ve met killers. No one else gets it. There are no obvious tells. It’s not always a certain kind of person. It’s not someone who’s more or less loved. It’s just something someone decides to do. Or it’s an accident. Anyone could be a killer under certain circumstances. That’s what no one else gets.”