“Oh, man.” Alex arched her back in a catlike stretch and yawned. “What’d your g-ma do this time? Use the hair dryer as a toaster?”
Darby laughed at the word g-ma. Alex gave him a wink in the rearview mirror.
“It was the kitchen cabinets again, all of them,” Makani said. “I found them wide-open this morning. That’s two days in a row and the fourth time this month. She needs to go to a sleep clinic, but I don’t know how to convince her.”
“Ever wonder what she’s looking for at night?” Darby asked.
“A book on self-defense for her granddaughter,” Alex said.
A loud rap on the window behind Darby made him shriek. They jumped in their seats. When they realized who it was, Darby and Alex goggled at Makani.
Makani’s skin flushed with heat. “Let him in, let him in.”
The locks weren’t automatic, so Alex leaned over to open the door. Ollie popped in beside her with a blast of cold morning air.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Three sets of eyes blinked at him. Somehow, Makani had already forgotten that his hair was pink. She’d been picturing him last night in bed as a blond.
He glanced between Darby and Alex with visible nervousness. “I thought . . . Makani would have told you?”
“She did,” Darby said, though he still sounded baffled.
Alex smiled like a witch in a fairy tale. “We know everything.”
The undertone of Ollie’s skin began to match his hair as Makani continued to gape. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
The pink bloomed until his entire head became a single color. It was the rare moment in which she could read his expression with complete certainty: Ollie wanted to rewind this video until he was out of the car and safely back on the other side of the lot. His hand crept toward the door handle. “You said you wanted . . . to hang out.”
“I did.” Makani shook her head before changing it to an emphatic nod. “I did.”
She felt her friends staring at them with wide, soap-opera eyes as she emerged from the stupor of confusion. For the first time, Makani realized that Ollie’s appearance and demeanor weren’t merely acts of rebellion. They were armor for his shyness. It must have been so difficult for him to have approached her—without the protective barrier of his phone and in the company of her friends, no less.
Makani infused her next words with as much kindness as possible. “You just caught us off guard. That’s all.” And then she flashed him her fullest, most high-wattage smile. A long time ago, she’d been known for it. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Darby said. Because he was good like that.
“Next time,” Alex said sharply, “bring doughnuts.”
Ollie risked a glance at her.
“I like the ones with chocolate frosting,” she said.
Ollie settled back into the version of himself that he shared with the rest of the world. His eyebrows rose slightly, and his voice flattened. “Who doesn’t?”
“Makani likes maple. Darby likes plain glazed.”
Ollie jokingly booed his response, which made Alex kick the back of Makani’s and Darby’s seats. “See? I’ve always told you, you’re crazy.”
It was an olive branch, of sorts, and Makani was able to breathe again. Until Alex refocused her attention.
“So, Buscemi,” Alex said. “What’s the inside scoop?”
Ollie’s eyebrows rose a little further.
“Steve Buscemi played Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs.”
“I’m familiar with it,” he said. “But the character wasn’t named after his hair color.”
Alex didn’t care. “What’s the scoop, Buscemi?”
He seemed wary by her vagueness. “About . . .”
“Haley.”
He shifted. Almost imperceptibly. “Why would you ask me about her?”
Alex punched his shoulder, and Ollie grimaced, unused to her intense style of questioning. “Your brother is a cop,” she said. “So, what are the police saying about her case?”
Darby sighed. “Ignore her. She has no tact.”
Ollie rubbed the offended shoulder. “Chris doesn’t discuss his work with me.”
“But he does give you the very personal and private phone number of our dear friend Makani Young?”
“Alex,” Makani warned. Sometimes it was difficult to be Alex’s dear friend.
Alex scooted closer to Ollie, ignoring his physical discomfort. The knees of her ripped fishnets pressed against his thighs. “Just tell us this. Was your brother at the scene?”
Ollie forced his body into a wider position, which forced Alex back to her side. “Actually.” His voice remained measured. “It should have been the sheriff’s jurisdiction, because it happened out of city limits. But her dad’s a hunting buddy of Chief Pilger, so he contacted him directly. The whole department was called out an hour later.”
Makani imagined dozens of uniformed officers storming the cornfields. “The whole department?”
“The whole department is five people,” Ollie said.
“Is it true about her throat?” Alex asked. “Three slashes in a smiley face?”
Makani fought the urge to scold her again.
“Worse,” Ollie said. “Five deep cuts. The eyes of the smiley were Xs.”
Darby shuddered. “Like . . . dead cartoon eyes?”
Ollie nodded once. “The killer probably took a lot of pleasure in the act. Her vocal cords were slashed. The police think it might have been intentional.”
Miniscule hairs rose on the back of Makani’s neck. Dead cartoon eyes.
But Alex straightened as she recalled a favorite theory. “They think the killer was angry because Haley could sing? That it was someone who was jealous of her talent?”
“Or,” Ollie said, “maybe she said something that she shouldn’t have said.”
“Drugs.” Darby bounced as he turned toward the backseat. “It’s always drugs. Maybe she stumbled across someone’s meth lab and was going to rat them out!” And then he immediately looked appalled with himself for encouraging the conversation.
These same opposing energies—guilt and curiosity—were also twisting inside Makani, but Ollie only shrugged. “They don’t know much of anything yet. And there wasn’t any evidence left behind. At least, none that they’ve found so far.”
Curiosity won. “Was she . . . was Haley . . . violated?”
“No,” Ollie said.
“Thank God.” Makani and Darby said it together. Makani was relieved that Haley hadn’t suffered through that, too.
“She was found in bed, but it doesn’t look like the killer physically touched any part of her,” Ollie said. “Or that she touched him. The police aren’t even sure if the person was male. She didn’t have any bruises, and there wasn’t anything under her fingernails—no skin or fibers snagged from scratching or fighting.”
Makani considered this. “So, Haley was taken by surprise.” “
Maybe. Or maybe she knew her killer.”
“Or maybe both,” Alex said, and they all nodded like sages. She crossed her arms, triumphant and smug. “I knew you’d have insider information.”
The wrinkles deepened in Ollie’s brow. “That’s all I know. Seriously. And you’re aware that you can’t tell anyone any of this, correct?”
“Please.” Alex brushed him off. “The only people I’d tell are already in this car.”
Darby reached into the backseat and squeezed Alex’s chipped-black, nail-polished hands. “I love you, too.”
Something else was bothering Makani. “How do you know all this if your brother doesn’t discuss his work with you?”
Ollie shrugged. “Overheard conversations.” But when she didn’t look convinced, he added sheepishly. “And . . . I read his files when he’s asleep.”
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.
Alex scooted back toward him. “Does Haley’s dad have an alibi?”
“I
have no idea,” he said.
“Sure you do.”
“I told you that’s all I know.”
“Okay, so find out.”
Ollie finally laughed, glancing at Makani. “Yeah. Sure.”
Laughter was the best response whenever Alex was this relentless. Makani dared to feel a cinder of hope. Through the windshield, two fragile-looking girls passed by carrying a bundle of white balloons. Tears streamed down their cheeks.
“Are they in the musical?” Makani asked.
“I don’t think so,” Darby said.
Makani’s heartbeat stumbled with an uncomfortable realization. “Did any of you guys bring something?”
Ollie and Alex shook their heads as Darby removed a sheet of cardstock folded in half from his backpack. He’d drawn a heart on the front of it with a glittery red pen. “I made this last night, but I left room for your names, if you want.”
Always reliable, Darby had remembered. Alex fished out a ballpoint and scribbled her name beside his. She offered the card and pen to Ollie. Taken aback—perhaps even touched—he printed his name at the bottom in small capital letters.
Ollie held out the card and pen to Makani.
As she stared at the glittery heart, guilt oozed through her brain’s every fold and crevice. She’d never spoken to Haley when she was alive. Makani hated gossip, yet she’d been speculating about the girl’s life and dissecting her death as if they were seated at the table of one of those murder-mystery dinner parties. She didn’t deserve to sign the card, because it had never occurred to her that Haley might need a card.
“Makani?” Ollie sounded concerned.
Her vision swam as she accepted the card and pen. She signed because her friends were watching. The signature felt fraudulent.
They abandoned the car and joined the crowd. As Darby placed their card atop the mound of depressing tokens, Makani wondered who would collect these gifts, and when. Would Haley’s parents feel pressured to bring everything home, or would it all stay here so long that the cards and posters and teddy bears became weather battered, only suitable for the landfill?
Students from every social group paid their respects: the drama and choir geeks, of course, but also the athletes and academics, the gamers and techies, the FFA and rodeo kids. Multiple youth groups prayed together as a single unit. The student-council president handed out flyers for a candlelight vigil, while the burnouts hovered along the edges, stoned and uncomfortable, but needing to mourn with the rest of their community.
Meanwhile, Makani pretended to be upset for the same reasons as her classmates. She pretended that the local news van, parked near the flag at half-mast, hadn’t broken her into a sweat. She pretended that she was cold when she put up the hood of her hoodie and angled her face away from the cameras. She pretended to belong.
Despite unbelieving glances from the student body, Ollie rejoined them at lunch. Makani had invited him, but she was still astonished when he sat down, cross-legged, beside her. He was making an effort. It lifted her mood, even though the ensuing conversation was awkward. Ollie ate his sandwich in silence. Makani could only hope that her friends would be as patient with him as they’d been with her.
At least his presence released her from being the third wheel. Darby and Alex had never purposefully treated Makani like a charity case, but she was still the intruder on their decade-long best friendship. It didn’t matter that this new fourth wheel was shaky. Makani felt steadier with Ollie there, because he was there for her.
He didn’t stay. With ten minutes left in the period, he mumbled an excuse and took off for the library. His exit was so hasty that Makani didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. She shot an apologetic look to her friends and then chased after him.
“Hey. Hey.” Makani grabbed his sleeve. “Are you okay?”
Ollie searched for an excuse. “Yeah. I just . . .”
“No worries. I get it.” And Makani was pretty sure that she did. Sometimes the pressure of a situation was too much, and you just had to run.
Ollie fidgeted with the zipper of his black hoodie. He glanced at the mostly male group of gamers and techies sitting nearby on the ground—staring at them, whispering—and narrowed his gaze. They stopped talking. He turned back to Makani and nodded.
She rolled her eyes.
He smiled.
Her confidence resurged. The anxious fog slipped away. She smoothed down his sleeve where she’d grabbed it and looked up at him through her dark lashes. “So, what are you doing after school today?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Giving you a ride home?”
Makani flashed another smile as she strutted away. “Good answer,” she called out. It was the perfect parting line. Until the jerks beside them had to ruin it. “Good answer,” one of them mimicked, and the others laughed.
Makani stopped. “Excuse me?”
Rodrigo Morales, a shortish guy with intense eyes and enormous headphones draped around his neck, seemed startled to be called out. His recovery was quick. “I’ll give you a ride home, sweetheart.”
“Ugh,” one of his two female friends said.
“She’s right.” Makani crossed her arms. “Ugh.”
“Oh, I can give you both a ride,” Rodrigo said with misplaced swagger, and the other female threw a hamburger bun at his head.
“That’d be the only thing worse than walking,” another friend said drily. His name was David, and he was a scrawny senior in an oversize T-shirt with a bright green Minecraft Creeper on it. The whole group burst into howls of laughter.
“Aw, shut up.” But Rodrigo’s embarrassed anger was directed at David, and it prompted a volley of outrageous insults between them.
Makani wasn’t sure when Ollie had returned to her side. She was grateful that he’d noticed and was willing to help, but she was even more grateful that Rodrigo had already forgotten. They glanced at each other, self-consciously.
“See you later?” she said.
“Later,” he agreed.
She escaped to the other side of the quad and inclined her head in the gamers’ direction. “What do you see in that guy, anyway?” she asked Alex, who’d been harboring inexplicable feelings for Rodrigo since August.
Alex shrugged. “What? He’s cute. And he’s really smart.”
“He’s immature.”
“He’ll grow up.” She grinned and added, “I’ll help him.”
“That requires speaking to him first,” Darby said.
“We speak. We speak to each other all the time in physics.”
Darby scoffed. “Like yesterday, when you blasted him for miscalculating that one equation? That had to be the first answer he’s ever gotten wrong.”
“Thus, the blasting.”
“Poor Rodrigo.” Makani’s curls bounced as she shook her head. “It’s hard being the unrequited crush of Alexandra Shimerda.”
“I’m telling you, there’s something between us.”
Darby patted her leg condescendingly. Alex slapped his hand away, but they were laughing as the bell rang. Its shrill waves reverberated off the flat buildings, and they groaned as they collected their belongings.
Makani tossed her empty soda-fountain cup into the recycle bin. “Darby, I won’t need a ride today. Ollie’s taking me home.”
Darby paused, mid-putting on his backpack, to exchange a look with Alex.
That was all it took. Makani’s jaw clenched. She was the third wheel again, and it was clear that the first two wheels had been talking about her. “What? What?”
For once, Alex was reluctant to speak. Darby cleared his throat for the delicate attempt. “It’s just . . . you haven’t lived here as long as we have,” he said. “We don’t know if Ollie really almost drowned, or if he really sleeps with the lowlifes at the Red Spot, but there’s definitely something . . . not right there. Not since his parents died.”
Alex tugged on her skirt’s frayed hem. “We don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hurt again,” Darby said
.
Makani’s hands trembled. “You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you,” he said.
“So, what? A fucked-up thing happened to him, and then maybe he made some mistakes. But maybe he didn’t. And if he did, who cares? Does that mean he doesn’t deserve a second chance?”
Alex took a step back. “Whoa. Where’s this coming from?”
Makani shoved her hands in her pockets and balled them into fists. “He’s driving me five minutes to my front door. I’ll be fine.” She wasn’t sure if they could hear her as she stormed away, or if she even wanted them to hear her. She rephrased it, wrapping the words around herself against the chill of the October wind. “I’m fine.”
CHAPTER SIX
Ollie held open the passenger-side door of the Crown Vic. The gesture was sweet and old-fashioned. “I feel like I’ve done something bad,” Makani said, patting the cruiser’s frame as she climbed in.
Ollie gave her a wry smile. “Now you know how I always feel.”
It was a truth land mine—the exact reason why they were drawn to each other, told in the form of an obvious joke—but since Makani was the only one who recognized it, she kept the unintentional epiphany to herself. She watched him walk in front of the hood and then around to the driver’s side. The way his body moved reminded her of something else old-fashioned: Rebel Without a Cause. James Dean was never so pale or so pink, but Ollie walked like a cool guy who was still deeply unsure of himself.
The interior of the car was clean and empty. The upholstery in the front was cloth, but the backseat was vinyl. Probably so that officers could clean up more easily—sweat, vomit, urine, blood. The steel-mesh divider had been removed, and there were no special radios or computer equipment, only a short handle beside the driver-side mirror that controlled a spotlight. Everything else looked normal, but she felt apprehensive. Her memories of the police were not fond.
Ollie tossed his bag into the back and slid inside.
“So, have you?” she asked. “Done something bad?”
It was meant to be a flirtatious continuation of their joke, but it didn’t come out sounding that way. Warnings from her friends rattled in her head. She wondered which of the rumors about Ollie might be true, at least partially, and felt guilty for snapping at Darby and Alex. She’d have to send them an apology text later. Maybe even a reconciliatory hairy ass.