The Cheerleaders(77)

“Alexa Santiago and Sharaya Tompkins! And for the boys…”

I tune out, my stomach sinking. Rachel looks absolutely crushed.

During our pep rally routine, she turns the wrong way when we’re changing formations and collides with Kelsey G.

After practice, when Alexa asks what time we’re getting to float building later, Rach mumbles an excuse about cramps and says she’s not going. I wait until I get home to text Alexa that I’m not going either, so the worst thing she can do is send me a picture of herself giving me the middle finger.

Alexa will get over it; she always does. But I can’t stop thinking about Rachel, and how every day it feels like I’m letting her slip away from me. When Ginny picks me up at six, she asks me what’s wrong.

“Just bullshit with my friends,” I say.

Ginny doesn’t reply; as if sensing I don’t want to talk about it, she turns the radio on. My parents think I’m going to float building, so I have Ginny make a right out of my driveway as if we’re going to school, just in case anyone is watching from my house.

We—or Elizabeth Lewis, rather—are meeting Carly at the Orange County Community College student activity center, where there’s a coffee shop.

“Are you sure we should confront her?” I say to Ginny as we pull into the parking lot. “This has the potential to get ugly.”

“I know.” She chews on a hangnail. “I brought this.”

She dips a hand into the V-neck of her shirt and emerges holding a small purple whistle. “My mom gives these out at the sexual assault prevention class she holds at the hospital every month.”

I don’t tell her that the whistle is a small comfort. The cars in the parking lot are sparse, and I wish that Carly could have met us earlier, when more people would be around.

At 6:30 on the dot, a Volkswagen pulls into the parking lot. Carly gets out of the car. Holds her keys over her shoulder and locks it.

“There.” I point to the Volkswagen. “That’s her. Let’s go.”

Ginny and I climb out of her mom’s car and follow her, darting between cars. I signal for Ginny to go around the SUV blocking our view of Carly. I run around the other side, cutting Carly off.

“Hi,” I say.

Carly Amato jumps back. “What the fuck?”

“We just want to talk to you,” I say. “Ten minutes. Please. And you’ll never see us again.”

Carly shoves a hand into her bag, and I shrink back into the car behind me. Squeeze my eyes shut, bracing against a shot of pepper spray to the face. But she pulls out her vape stick and puts it to her lips.

“I’ve got nothing to say.” Carly blows smoke through her nostrils.

“You were friends with Juliana,” I say. “So why did you say you barely knew her?”

“You don’t get it,” Carly says. “I did a lot of stuff I regret in high school. I have my life on track now, so excuse me if I have a problem with you two digging up old shit.”

“We know you hung out with Allie’s boyfriend and his best friend,” I say. “You introduced them to Juliana, didn’t you?”

“So what if I did?” Carly’s eyes dart between Ginny and me, like a hamster’s. “What does it even matter?”

“It matters if Allie’s boyfriend or his friend drove a pickup truck.”

Carly’s lips part. “Why?”

“Because someone saw Juliana get out of a pickup truck the night she was killed. Someone else heard her yelling, ‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’?”

Something flashes in Carly’s eyes. She swallows. I glance at Ginny.

“Carly,” she says. “We don’t care if you did drugs. We just want to know who really killed Juliana.”

Carly folds her arms across her chest, burying her hands in her cardigan. “That big creep next door killed Juliana.”

“You don’t believe that,” I say. “We just want the name of the guy who drove the pickup truck.”

“Fuck no. I bought from one of those guys. I saw him beat the shit out of a kid who told his parents he bought Oxy from him.”

I balk, even though I’m not sure why anything surprises me anymore. “You bought pills from your cheer coach’s boyfriend?”

“Not him. His friend.” The small of Carly’s throat twitches. “She attacked me, you know. Allie. She thought I was screwing her boyfriend. I would have loved to throw it in her face that his best friend was pulling in thousands selling pills.”

“This guy. Did Juliana buy from him?” I ask.

“Juliana didn’t do drugs.” Carly takes another pull from her vape. “She didn’t want to hang out with him anymore once she found out he was selling. We were hanging out one night, just drinking, the four of us. He had to stop to do a deal, and Juliana kind of freaked.”

“And you didn’t think to tell anyone this when she was murdered?”

Carly snorts. “Who the hell would believe me? These were Hamilton guys.”

“Hamilton?”

“The college. Preppy and rich and shit. And I didn’t have any proof that they even knew Juliana. Aside from the party where I met them, we never hung out with them in public or anything.”

A blood vessel under my right eye pulses. “What are their names, Carly?”