The Cheerleaders(30)

On the quick walk over here, he and Tom seemed desperate to avoid the subject of my behavior inside the range. What are you doing for the Giants game tomorrow? Man, Beckham Jr.’s been lazy this year.

“Okay, I guess. I’ve been busy with dance team and stuff.” I hesitate, peeling the paper tie around my silverware into little strips. “Can I ask you something? Without you telling Tom?”

Mike’s eyes swivel to Tom at the salad bar. He sets down his bottle. “Depends on how much trouble you’re in.”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s about something that happened at school a while ago.”

Mike’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Do you know who Ethan McCready is?”

Mike nods and sips from his beer. Wipes away a wet spot on his upper lip. “Yep. I’m the one who interviewed him about that little list of his.”

“Is it true the whole thing was cheerleaders?”

“And the football team.” Mike’s face is grim. “What a mess. We had a lot of hysterical parents calling the station that week.”

“But he wasn’t charged with anything? He was just expelled?”

“There wasn’t anything to charge him with. He didn’t make any explicit threats. Didn’t have any weapons or shooter-worship stuff in his house.” Mike shrugs. “He didn’t have a lot to say about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had to question him about the list, and even he didn’t seem to know why he wrote it. I thought it was probably an attention thing.” Mike sips his beer again. “His mom had advanced cancer, no dad in the picture. Ethan wasn’t exactly rolling in friends. Some kids will do anything to get noticed.”

My right hand is still sore from clamping around the handgun. I massage the area between my thumb and index finger. “It’s a little weird that two of the girls on his list were murdered a week later, and he was never a suspect.”

Mike smacks his lips. “There weren’t any suspects because it was clear who did it.”

Mike was there when Tom shot Jack. Mike and Tom had only been riding together for a couple weeks when he followed Tom into Jack Canning’s house, because that’s what partners do. They have each other’s backs. No cop wants to see his partner get in trouble for making a snap decision.

Five years ago, I was terrified that Tom would get fired or go to jail. I prayed every night that Mike would help the truth come out. Back when I was so sure of what the truth was. That Tom was only shooting a killer.

I want to ask Mike if he still thinks about that day, but he’s had a haunted look on his face ever since I brought up the murders.

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” I say. “People at school were saying stuff, and I figured I’d ask you.”

Mike frowns. Scratches the corner of his mouth with a knuckle. “No, I see why it’s unsettling, considering the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

Mike sets his beer down. “Ethan lived around the corner from you. Tom used to complain about him wandering the neighborhood at night. You didn’t know that?”

I glance over at Tom, still trapped in conversation with the waitress. As if sensing me watching, he turns his head. Catches my eye. Frowns.

“No,” I tell Mike. “I had no idea.”





Rachel is in a mood when she picks me up Monday morning. I thought she would be over Coach reaming her out on Friday, but a weekend of stewing must have made things worse. She’s actually scowling as I get into the car.

I’m buckling my seat belt when my phone vibrates. I have a text from a number I don’t recognize, but it’s not Ethan McCready’s number.





As we back out of the driveway, a fine mist hits the windshield. Rachel smacks the handle that controls the wipers harder than she needs to. “So glad I straightened my hair this morning.”

I want to ask her if she’s aware that there are wars going on in other countries, but she might actually be angry enough to make me walk. Now I wish she’d stew quietly so I could fucking think.

I don’t know who would want to meet me in Mrs. Goldberg’s room. I’m about to tell the sender that they have the wrong number when another message comes through.





I exhale a little. I don’t know why, but Ginny’s message buoys me and carries me all the way to lunch.

Mrs. Goldberg’s door is open when I get there, and I spot Ginny at the same computer she was sitting at last week. I settle into the chair next to her.

“I found something I wanted to show you,” she whispers.

I follow Ginny’s eyes to the computer screen. She clicks on My pictures and scrolls down to a folder labeled Homecoming, which sprouts more folders: Prep, Parade, Game, Dance.

Ginny opens the Prep folder. The night before the football game is when everyone gathers in the school parking lot to add the final touches to the class floats.

She tilts the screen of the iMac so I can see what’s in the folder. A quick scan, and I feel my forehead furrowing. None of these people look familiar. Ginny points to a group of girls gathered around a giant Pac-Man head. One of the girls is ducking, wriggling away from a boy whose hands are covered in papier-maché goop.

I sit up straight. I know her. In one of the other photos snapped in the same scene, Susan Berry poses over the Pac-Man head, a yellow-dipped paintbrush in her hand. Lips closed, tight. Susan rarely smiled; even while she was cheering, she always wore the dutiful expression of someone who was performing a task and wanted to get it over with. These pictures are from five years ago.