Wow. I had expected more of a fight, especially given the short length of time I'd known Blake, but the deaths of my four friends in under a year put things into perspective. My parents only had to deal with me having a boyfriend. Tilly's, Gigi's, Courtney's, and Josh's parents had to deal with never seeing them again.
"Thanks, Mum. That means a lot to me."
"Will you promise me one thing?"
"Of course," I replied, taking a sip of tea.
"Tell me when you two are together. I don't want secrets."
My gut bunched with guilt. Of course she was talking about when and if we became an official couple.
"I will," I replied, the words burning on the way out.
Mum left shortly after and I'd never been so glad that she had to work before. I hated lying to her, but I couldn't exactly say that I'd slept with Blake. There were things she just didn't need to know.
Throughout the day, Blake and I texted about spying on my friends. He promised he would pick me up in a rental car. I waited in the front hall for him. I loved that through all of this craziness, I could still get excited over a boy. It felt so normal.
A car outside beeped its horn and I knew it'd be him. I grabbed my keys and went outside. All excitement I felt turned to sheer disbelief as I saw what Blake had rented.
"Are you serious?"
Leaning his arm out of the car, he replied, "What?"
I gestured to the bright-red convertible. "We're supposed to be inconspicuous."
"Ah, but I figured they would never expect to see us in a flashy car. We'll be more inconspicuous in this than some sad, old Focus." He tapped his head as if he'd thought of something deeply clever.
Really now.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. This can't be happening. "I genuinely don't know what to say to you, Blake."
"Thank you, maybe?"
"I'm not thanking you for being idiotic," I replied and got in the car. "Bloody hell, can you at least put the roof up?"
"Later. Wanna pretend we're Bonnie and Clyde?"
"Sod off," I replied, sighing in discouragement and throwing my bag on the backseat. "What do you think we're going to find?"
"Probably about as much as we've found already, which is bugger all, but what choice do we have? Everything is ten times more serious now. We can't just sit back and wait for the police to figure out what happened. Pete's dead, and we don't know how far the murderer is going to go," he said.
I wasn't sure if I believed one of my friends would or could kill me. They all had their issues with Josh and Courtney, but as far as I knew, I'd never pissed any of them off--not enough for one of them to want to end my life. Would that matter though? Someone was obviously messing with me by sending text messages, and I wasn't sure why or what I'd done.
"Do you really think they would want to kill us?"
"I'm not willing to take that chance, Mackenzie."
I shook my head. "We're discussing this as if we're talking about deciding on a day's outing."
"Would you prefer me to panic?"
I rolled my eyes. "No."
"Kenz, this is all we have left. We find who's done it or end up six feet under...or, third choice, be wrongfully imprisoned. I don't know about you, but I don't fancy option B or C. Like you said, there will be time to grieve later. Right now, we fight. OK?"
"OK," I replied. That was what I'd been doing all along, only now I was trying to prove Blake and myself were innocent, rather than Megan, Aaron, and Kyle. Out of all of them, Blake was the only one I was one hundred percent sure was innocent. And I hated that.
"Let's drive to Megan's--you need to direct me, by the way--and check out what's going on there first. Please remember we're here to catch a killer, so keep your hands and lips to yourself for the next few hours."
I rolled my eyes again. At least he could still keep it light. "Take a left at the end of the road and get your head out of your arse."
Blake's smirk lit up his whole face. I loved carefree Blake. I settled in to spy on my friends and hopefully keep Blake in check for a while too.
*
"This isn't as fun as I thought it'd be," Blake moaned, reclining his seat and throwing his arm over his forehead. We'd been parked outside of Megan's for no more than fifteen minutes. I felt like a copper trailing a suspect.
"And you expected what?"
He shrugged with one shoulder. "Megan carrying a suspicious-shaped black bag or a rolled-up rug. A truckload of Rohypnol being delivered."
"You'd make a rubbish detective."
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, sorry, do you know who the murderer is, then?"
"That's not the point. I'm looking beyond the obvious."
"The obvious being Aaron?"
Sighing, I looked out of my window and back at Megan's house. Blake was exasperating. "Who had the time to drug our drinks?" I turned my body back and pulled his arm away from his eyes. "Why're we assuming it was the drinks that were drugged?"
"You think it could have been the food?"
"Maybe. We all helped to cook."
"We also all got drinks at some point in the evening too."
"Yes, I know, but the food is still a possibility. There were only two people who finished up cooking the dinner." My mind reeled with the new possibility.
"Who was that? Aaron and...?"
I gulped. "And Josh."
Blake stilled, and I waited for his reaction. After a minute, he frowned. "A murder/suicide? How could Josh stab himself like that? And it doesn't explain Pete."
"Perhaps that was random. You know Pete, always shouting his opinions down at the pub. Maybe he pushed someone too far and they snapped. Maybe someone used Josh's and Courtney's murders to cover up Pete's. Come on, it's a possibility."
Pete was punched once for telling someone they were a "tosser" for supporting the wrong political party. He spoke his mind and didn't care who he offended.
"You're asking me to believe my brother murdered his girlfriend and then himself?"
The cogs in my head turned and possibilities slotted into place. "What if Josh found out about Kyle and Courtney?"
"Then wouldn't it make more sense to kill Kyle than kill himself?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. His mind was obviously messed up. Blake, it could have happened. Call Wright!"
Closing his eyes, he groaned. "No, Mackenzie. Remember Lawrence? We were wrong about him." We think we're wrong about him. "I don't want to do anything that'll make it seem like we're desperate to divert the police."
"But we are desperate."
"We don't want Wright to know that. We need to think it through first."
"OK," I replied, feeling myself deflate. "Then we'll go to Wright, yeah?"
"Let's just see how tonight goes and talk it through some more. We'll go tomorrow if we need to." He smiled at me and looked out of the window. "Hey, hey, hey," he said in a rush and nodded to Megan's house. She ran to her car, ripping the door open. "Now, where's she off to in a hurry?"
"Start the car!" I hissed as Megan sped off.
He peeled off the side of the road and we followed Megan to the churchyard. Who would be in a flustered rush to come here?
Deep in the graveyard, I saw exactly why she'd raced over. Kyle was waving his hands around, shouting something that I couldn't hear. He stumbled and arched his back, drunk and clearly angry. My heart plummeted.
"Oh God, what's he doing?" I shoved the car door open and leaped out. Blake's footsteps were right behind me as we ran toward Megan and an angry Kyle. Blake spat out a swear word as he gained on me. It was a stupid thing for me to have done since we were "undercover," but I couldn't not go to my friends when they clearly needed help.
"Kyle!" I shouted.
Megan was already with him, and she was the only one to look up. Kyle clawed at the ground like he hadn't heard me.
"I don't know what he's doing," Megan said. "He called me ranting about what a slut Courtney was and that he wanted to dig her up!
" I froze in shock. That wasn't Kyle. He didn't say things like that. Hell, he didn't even think things like that. "I don't know what to do, Kenz."
"I hate her," Kyle spat, taking a few steps toward me. It was the first time in my life that I was actually scared of him. I had no idea what he would do.
Blake stepped between Kyle and me and Megan. "Calm down. So Courtney picked Josh. Man up and stop acting like a little bitch about it," he growled.
I wanted to kick Blake. He couldn't have given tact a shot?
"You don't have a clue!" Kyle roared. "You pathetic loner, you don't have a clue what it's like to love someone. The only person you care about is yourself."
That's not true, I wanted to insist but remained silent.
"What?" Megan said. "What the hell is he going on about? You were with Courtney, Kyle?"
"Kyle, that's enough!" I yelled, ignoring Megan's confusion. The cat was out of the bag and she'd catch up. "What's wrong with you? You've lost it. How much have you had to drink?" His eyes were bloodshot and he was noticeably stumbling, which was unusual for him--unless he was drunk off his face. We absolutely needed to implement a no-drinking rule because this was getting out of hand.
"She chose him, Kenz. How could she choose him?" His eyes narrowed and his lip curled in fury. "It's all her fault. It was all her fault."
"Kyle, don't," Megan said. Her voice was weak and she sounded as if she had just been kicked in the stomach. "Courtney's dead. Her death wasn't her fault, and you shouldn't talk about her like that."
I was with Megan on that one.
"I don't care!" His eyes were fierce and distant from being so worked up. "She deserved it after what she did to me. Everyone's going around saying how they didn't deserve to die, but they both deserved it!"
"They deserved death?" Megan repeated in shock, both appalled and heartbroken as she looked at Kyle. I was too. My stomach turned at his words. That was just disgusting.
Kyle squeezed his eyes closed. "I want her back. I want her with me." His shoulders hunched over, defeated. "I love her."
I stepped forward, wanting to comfort him but was stopped by Blake's arm. Kyle narrowed his eyes at him. "Oh, piss off. Kenzie's my best friend! I'm not going to hurt her." I could see by the way Blake's eyebrow twitched that he was thinking Courtney was someone he loved and he was saying horrible things about her. Blake didn't trust Kyle one bit, and right then, I wouldn't have been willing to leave my life in Kyle's hands either.
"It's OK," I muttered, gently pushing Blake's arm down. Kyle wouldn't hurt me--at least not in public. Blake made no attempt to stop me again, so I walked to Kyle and wrapped my arms around his waist. I was hyperaware that I could be hugging a murderer, but at that moment, he was just my lost, heartbroken, messed-up friend. "You're going to be OK," I whispered. We all were. We had to be.
Kyle gripped me so tightly his fingers bit into my skin. I felt how badly he was hurting and it was heartbreaking. "I don't know what I'm doing," he sobbed. "I can't think straight. She's gone." His legs gave way and we dropped to the ground with a soft thud. "What am I going to do?"
"I don't know," I whispered, shuffling so he wasn't on top of me so much. I hadn't figured the "after" part out yet. Eventually, we would all have to face up to what had happened and deal with it, like we did when Gigi and Tilly died. I would have to let the good memories back in and accept they were gone. I didn't know if I was strong enough to do that all over again.
"It hurts," he hissed and gripped me tighter. "I can't... God, I can't..."
"Shh," I whispered, rubbing his back and choking as my throat clogged up. "We'll get through this just like we did when Tills and Gigi died."
Megan knelt beside me. "But this isn't the same, Kenz. Tilly and Gigi were an accident. This," she said, shaking her head, "this was deliberate."
"We can't just give up," I replied, sobbing. "We have to stick together. I know this is harder, but we can get through it. I need you both. Aaron too." And Blake, I added silently. Especially Blake. But now was not the time to include him--not when my friends were still banking on Blake being the killer.
"You're right. Why don't you come back to Kyle's with me and we can talk about all this stuff? Maybe we can figure it out together," Megan said.
Behind us, Blake scoffed. "You mean so you can try to find a way to pin it on me."
I turned around, giving him my full attention. "That's not what she meant."
Kyle pushed off the ground and scowled. "The hell it isn't! We all know you had a problem with your brother."
Folding his arms over his chest, Blake grinned sarcastically. "We all know you had a problem with my brother, and since he was getting in the pants of the girl you love, I think your motive shoots you to the top."
"Stop!" I yelled, standing up and holding my arms out between them. "You guys have to stop this."
"Why are you always defending him?" Kyle spat.
"Because he's in the exact same position as us. Just because we didn't know him before doesn't--"
"Mackenzie," Kyle said, cutting me off. "We don't know him now."
I sighed sharply. "Then trust me, Kyle."
"You're shagging him," Kyle sneered, stumbling back a step.
"No," I lied. I had slept with him. "You need to go home. I'm not talking to you when you're like this."
"Whatever," he mumbled, walking toward the parking lot in a wonky, alcohol-fueled line.
Kyle refused to get in the car with Blake, so I helped Megan get him into her car and she took him home. I got back in the stupid flashy sports car and closed my eyes. "Is it Kyle?" I asked Blake as he turned the engine on.
"I don't know. He's mad, but he seems more self-destructive rather than murderous. Wanna check Aaron before I take you back to my place?" he replied.
"I'm going back to yours?"
"Yeah, my mum's still a mess, and I don't know how to handle women upset, you know that."
I shook my head. "Fine. I'll text my mum to tell her where we are. Aaron's next. Wright tomorrow."
"You think we'll find anything at Aaron's?"
"What're you expecting? Aaron to be carrying a suspicious black bag or a rolled-up rug?" I replied.
"Ha-ha," he said flatly. "Buckle up."
I did just in time for him to step on the accelerator, pinning me to the back of the seat. We arrived at Aaron's far too quickly, because Blake was mental behind the wheel, and parked a little way down the road.
"Can I talk to you about something?" I asked.
"I think it was Aaron in the kitchen with a knife."
I rolled my eyes. It was so hit-and-miss whether Blake would take what I had to say seriously or not. "You know one day you'll have to deal with what happened to your brother too, right?" Blake's defense was to joke around and make light of every situation. It was probably something he had done his whole life. I could picture him joking about what a crap mum he had even though it must have left its mark.
"Sure. Not looking forward to your breakdown, I have to say."
"Because you don't do hysterical women."
"No, because I don't want to see you upset," he said quietly.
"Oh."
He smirked. "Not what you expected me to say, huh?"
"Nope, not really."
"I'm not a complete arsehole, you know."
"Oh, I know. No, not a complete one."
"But seriously, what did you want to talk about, Mackenzie?"
I licked my lips, debating if this was a good idea or not. But I didn't have anything to lose. "I've received a couple messages."
His eyes locked onto mine. "No number, cryptic shit?"
My spine straightened. "You had them too?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Sighing, I leaned closer and handed him my phone. "Show me yours."
"Mackenzie, I'm all up for--"
"Don't finish that sentence, Blake. Show me the messages you received."
I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers. He dropped his phone in my palm, already looking at my messages. I read the ones he had received.
Did you tell the police just how much you hated Josh?
You're not fooling anyone.
I looked up at Blake, but he was still engrossed in my messages. Who did the sender think Blake was not fooling?
Poor Uncle Pete. He should've kept his nose out.
I placed my hand on my neck, feeling warm. What kind of person would send a message like that? Blake may not have been close to Pete, but he was still family.
Go to the police and Mackenzie will be next.
I shuddered and put Blake's phone down, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn't want to see more. Now I was being threatened?
"Do you think Megan, Kyle, and Aaron have been getting these too?" I asked. My heart thudded and my hands trembled. Someone would hurt me. They'd threatened to hurt me!
He shrugged. "I think at least two of them have."
"Come on, do you really think whoever it is wouldn't text their own phone too?"
"Worth you asking. Their reaction might give away a clue."
"Yeah, maybe." I bit my lip and handed his phone back.
"Mackenzie, what you just read on there..."
"We don't need to discuss it."
"No one is going to hurt you."
I hope not. Giving Blake a smile, I pulled myself together. This was not the time to freak out.
Blake tapped my knee. "Aaron's door!"
Someone in a hooded black jacket and dark jeans was talking to Aaron on his doorstep. They exchanged a few words and then Aaron retreated back inside.
"Bloody druggie," Blake muttered. "Well, I think it's safe to say Aaron would know where to get Rohypnol."
I wanted to run to Aaron, flush whatever he'd just bought, and slap him until he saw sense. There wasn't a thing I could do if he wanted to spiral though. All I could hope was that he'd snap out of it. Josh's and Courtney's deaths had clearly brought back all he'd felt when he'd lost Tilly. But he wasn't going to be able to smoke away his guilt over their relationship. Not forever.
Even though I couldn't deny what I'd just seen, I still felt a stab of honor. I wanted to defend Aaron. "I thought you said weed and Rohypnol were two completely different things and we shouldn't--"
"Yes, Mackenzie, but how many people do you know that do a bit of weed dealing like that? And own nice, flashy Range Rovers like that? Which, by the way, total cliche. It's the drug dealer's car of choice."
"I don't know any drug dealers. Drugs don't appear in my world."