One of Us Is Next(64)

“Noooo!” moans a guy in a vintage concert T-shirt, stumbling into me as his drink sloshes onto the floor. “Party foul!” He grabs my arm to steady himself and adds, “Don’t try that at home.”

“Is Nate here?” I ask loudly. The guy cups his hand around his ear like he can’t hear, so I raise my voice even more. “IS. NATE. HERE.”

“Upstairs,” the guy yells back.

I hesitate, looking for a coatrack or someplace else where I could leave Nate’s jacket, but there’s nothing. So I head up the staircase, pressing against the wall to avoid people going up and down. I’m almost at the top when the girl who slid down the banister grabs hold of my shirt and hands me a cup full of beer. “You look like you need to catch up,” she shouts into my ear.

“Um, thanks.” She’s looking at me expectantly, so I take a sip. It’s warm and sour. The narrow hallway is crowded with people, but I don’t recognize any of them. “Do you happen to know where Nate is?”

The girl gestures to a closed door at the end of the hall. “Being antisocial, like always. Tell him to come out and play.” She reaches over to ruffle my hair. “You’re cute, Nate’s friend, except for this. Grow it out. Makes you look like you’re in high school.”

“I am in—” I start, but she’s already sliding down the banister again.

I reach the door she pointed me toward and hesitate. I don’t know if Nate’s going to hear me knock, but I can’t just go in, right? What if he’s with somebody? Maybe I should leave the jacket on the floor and get out of here.

While I’m debating, the concert T-shirt guy from downstairs suddenly appears beside me. He slams into Nate’s door, pushing it open and leaning into the room. “Come to my fucking party, Macauley!” he yells. Then he spins around and runs back toward the stairs, cackling. I’m alone in the doorway when Nate, who’s sitting at a desk in the corner of a small room, turns around.

“That wasn’t me,” I say, lifting my hand in greeting. I’m still holding the cup of beer.

Nate blinks at me like I’m a mirage. “What are you doing here?” he asks. At least, I think that’s what he says. I can’t really hear him, though, so I step into the room and close the door behind me.

“You left your jacket at Until Proven,” I say, crossing toward the desk so I can hand it to him. “I told Eli I’d drop it off. Maeve told me where you live.”

“Shit, I didn’t even notice it was gone. Thanks.” Nate takes the jacket from me and tosses it onto the foot of his unmade bed. Other than that his room is relatively neat, especially compared to the rest of the house. Japanese movie posters cover the walls, but there’s not much else here besides the desk, the bed, a low dresser, and an open terrarium containing a large, yellow-brown reptile. I jump when it scratches one claw against the glass. “That’s Stan,” Nate says. “Don’t worry about him. He barely moves.”

“What is he?” I ask. He looks like a miniature dinosaur.

“Bearded dragon.”

God damn it. Even Nate’s pet is cooler than mine.

“So you made it through the obstacle course downstairs, huh?” Nate asks.

“Is your house always like this?”

Nate shrugs. “Only on weekends. They usually clear out by ten.” He leans back in his chair. “Hey, you have any update on Maeve? She said you were going with her to the doctor today, but that’s the last I heard from her.”

“Nothing yet. She doesn’t think she’ll hear till Monday at the earliest.” I shove my free hand into my pocket with a rush of guilt. Instead of feeling jealous of Nate like usual, I should thank him for being a better friend to Maeve than I was. “I’m glad you convinced her to tell her parents. I didn’t even know. I feel like a jerk.”

“Yeah, well, don’t beat yourself up about it. Nobody knew,” Nate says, tapping the pencil he’s holding against the desktop in front of him. The desk is empty except for a battered laptop, a stack of books, and two pictures—one of a kid posing with two adults in front of what looks like a Joshua tree, and the other of Nate and Bronwyn. She’s behind him, her arms around his neck while she kisses his cheek, and he looks happier in the picture than I’ve ever seen him look in person. Nate’s eyes linger on the photo, and I start to feel like an intruder. I’m about to back away when I catch sight of his laptop screen. “Are you doing…construction homework?” I ask.

“What?” Nate looks down with a short laugh. “Oh. No. I’ve been helping your dad document cleanup work at the mall site where Brandon Weber died. We have to take pictures of everything for the investigation.” He gestures to the screen. “These are bugging me, so I keep looking at them.”

“Why?” I ask, curious. My father won’t tell me anything about the site investigation. The pictures on Nate’s computer don’t look like much. Just piles of shattered wood on a rough cement floor.

“Because of what’s not there, I guess. There’s not all the debris you’d expect when a well-constructed landing crashes down. Some of the beams don’t even have any joists so, like, how were they supposed to stay up in the first place?” Nate narrows his eyes at his computer. “But the beams have holes like joists used to be there, so…if you were totally paranoid, you’d almost think somebody messed with the landing.”