Buzz Kill

  “I could never think that, Chase.” Well, not for more than a few minutes. Or maybe days.

  He also knew I wasn’t being completely honest, and he laughed—but not in a “ha-ha” way. “You ran away from me, Millie.”

  I couldn’t deny that, and we got quiet for a while. Then I asked a question that I wasn’t sure I wanted answered. “Did you, like . . . love her?”

  It was a huge question, and I barely got it out. My stomach twisted into knots as I voiced it. And there was really no right way to feel about Chase’s response. At least, it seemed that way to me.

  “We just went out a few times,” he said, shrugging—although I knew he wasn’t taking our talk, or his relationship with the girl named Allison, lightly. He finally looked at me again. “And that actually makes it worse, doesn’t it? I didn’t even like her that much, but being with me cost her her life.” He swallowed hard. “And then, when I started spending time with you, liking it—liking you—a lot . . . I felt like I was doing something incredibly wrong. I mean, how could I think I deserved to be with another girl? To kiss someone else, when Allison will never get that chance?” He rolled his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Millie, I don’t even know how to describe the guilt I feel every day. I really don’t. And yet, I wanted so badly to go to that dance with you, and kiss you . . .”

  I knew right then that Chase and I . . . It wasn’t going to happen. Even though I forgave him, he was a long way from being ready to have a relationship. Maybe he’d never have one—although I doubted that. I had a feeling that, as time passed, he’d find a way to not exactly let himself off the hook, but to live with what he’d done.

  And maybe, just maybe—even though I had this new dull ache in my chest—I could help him start to move forward.

  “Chase?”

  He faced me again. “Yeah, Millie?”

  “Maybe you could begin to atone . . .” That sounded too biblical. “Maybe you could start to do some good—honor Allison, even—by telling your story. To everybody at school.”

  Not surprisingly, Chase seemed skeptical. He arched one eyebrow. “What?”

  I shifted on the floor, curling my legs under myself so I could face him—and convince him. “Let me tell your whole story, in the Gazette.”

  He moved to face me more squarely, too, dislodging Baxter, who was asleep, even when his head sort of thunked on the floor. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Chase, everyone is already wondering what you did to get sent to Treadwell. Why don’t you answer their questions in the paper? Tell the truth, in black and white. Not only will it thwart Viv’s attempt to make you a pariah via rumors, but you can tell everybody how sorry you are. Discourage them from making the same mistake. Because we both know a lot of kids at Honeywell party and drive. I’m sure some of them have just been lucky so far.”

  Chase took a moment to consider this. A long, long moment. Then he nodded. “Okay, Millie.” He smiled faintly. “But don’t screw this up, Ostermeyer. Get the story right.”

  “I will,” I promised. “I’ll get it right.” Hesitating, I tried to decide how far I should push him. Then I added, “But first, before I do my official interview, there’s something else I think you should do.”

  He already seemed slightly less burdened, like even anticipating his confession had eased his soul just a tiny bit. He smiled again. “What’s that, Millie?” I could tell he thought I was bossy—but he sort of liked it. “What, exactly, do you think I should do?”

  Standing up, I offered him my hand to pull him up, too. “I’ll tell you when we get to school.”

  Chapter 85

  “I’m not sure about this, Millie.”

  Chase stood in front of his open locker, staring at the photo of the girl whose life he’d taken. I finally had a chance to really look at her, too. She was as gorgeous as I’d expected, with long, dark hair and delicate features. She looked like she’d have good manners, too, as I’d also guessed. You could just tell by the polite way she smiled for her formal portrait.

  How odd that she really was my competition—but in a way I’d never expected. She hadn’t taken Chase from me by using the right fork at some country club “luncheon.” She’d accidentally laid claim to him in a much more terrible—and irrevocable—way. A fact he confirmed by adding, “I’ve looked at her photo almost every day since the accident. It guarantees I’ll never become that person I was.”

  “Chase, that would never happen, even without seeing her picture.”

  I sincerely believed that he punished himself enough without seeing a ghost smiling at him every day. I was pretty sure he carried Allison’s image at the forefront of his mind.

  “I think it’s okay to take it down,” I urged him. “Keep it. But take it down.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Chase.” I said his name firmly enough to make him look at me. “I know this isn’t the same, but for a while, I used to keep this shrine to my mom on the desk in my bedroom. With her picture and all this stuff from her funeral, like the program and some dried-up flowers. After a while, I kind of wanted to take it down, but I couldn’t. And then one day, I spilled a blue raspberry Slurpee all over the whole thing, and had to throw most of it out. I kept the photograph—duh—but I didn’t make as big a deal out of it. And I certainly never forgot Mom. In fact, I think I could remember her better when I wasn’t always picturing her in a casket.”

  “Wow, Millie.” Chase studied my face closely. “I don’t know if that story’s the same at all. But you’ve definitely been through some intense things, too.”

  Although I would never argue with that, I shrugged. “It’s like Schopenhauer said, ‘Life is short, questionable and evanescent.’ In other words, stuff happens. To everybody.”

  Chase didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. He just kept watching me in the nearly empty hallway, where only a few other kids in farmer and cowboy costumes, for some reason, were wandering late after school. Then he finally said, with genuine appreciation, “Millie, you are undeniably fascinating.”

  Yeah, but it’s too late. It was too late about two years ago, when you crashed that car.

  “Chase, take down the photo. Put it someplace safe, at home. But take it down.”

  He didn’t say anything. But he did reach inside his locker and carefully removed the picture. Then, because he didn’t seem to know what to do with it, I held out my hand. “Here. I’ll put it in my backpack and give it to you later.”

  Chase gave me the photo, and, unzipping my pack, I tucked the picture into a book so it wouldn’t get bent or stained.

  “Why do you have your backpack, anyway?” he asked. “I don’t suppose we’re stopping by your locker to get your French textbook.”

  I was glad that he was already joking a little. “No.” I zipped up my pack. “We’re going to search Viv’s locker.” Slipping a strap over my shoulder, I added, “My inner pit bull/Doberman has been dozing for too long. It’s time to take off the leash and go on the attack.”

  Chapter 86

  “How did you figure out Viv’s combination?” Chase asked, watching me pop open her locker. “She’s a lot more complex than Mike.”

  “Well, if I’d had to guess, I would’ve ventured ‘six, six, six.’” I felt the back wall, in case there might be a secret compartment. Or a portal to Hell. “But I actually just heard her bark it to Mike a thousand times when she’d order him to run and get stuff for her at the end of French class. Luckily, he had a terrible memory and needed it repeated, over and over, while my powers of recollection”—I tapped my head with my index finger—“are pretty good.”

  “And yet, you can’t conjugate ‘demeurer’ after four years of study.”

  “I didn’t say I was perfect . . .” I lost my train of thought because a junior with the unfortunate name Philip Foos strolled behind us, wearing a flannel shirt, cowboy boots, and a bandanna around his neck. I followed his progress down the hall. “And what is up with the farmer duds? I kn
ow this is Amish country, but this is ridiculous.”

  Chase seemed confused, too—by my ignorance. “Millie, haven’t you seen the posters for the fall musical? Oklahoma! It starts on Saturday. That’s why the whole cast is here so late.” It must’ve been apparent that I was still clueless, because he reminded me, “Ms. Beamish has encouraged our class, every day for a month, to come see it. She’s directing.”

  “O-o-o-o-o-h, yeah.” I acted like I knew what he was talking about.

  Chase wasn’t buying it. “Did you not understand that, either? How are you not failing?”

  Maybe I was. A little bit. “Let’s just search this locker,” I said, resuming my perusal of Viv’s possessions. She also had photos inside her door. Of herself. Alone. Posing in different ways in her cheerleading uniform. I stepped back, in part because the collage was creeping me out. “You’re tall,” I told Chase, pointing to a shelf at the top of the locker, where, in mine, I kept inkless pens, an Einstein bobblehead, and a pair of socks. “Feel around up there. If she’s got something secret stashed away, it’s probably there.”

  He reached into the locker. “What, exactly, are we looking for?”

  “A cell phone would be great. But I know she keeps that glued to her icy palm.”

  Chase gave me a curious look. “Why her phone?”

  “Because when Viv was stinking up my backyard on the night my father got framed, she said something that made me believe she either was, or knew the identity of, the anonymous tipster. And I’m going to dig through her life until I find out what she knows—or did.”

  Chase pulled a pink plastic basket down from the shelf and handed it to me for inspection. “What’d she say, exactly?”

  I rooted through the contents of the basket—which essentially held Viv’s false face. Lipstick, gloss, blush, more gloss, more blush . . . Who wears all this stuff? I shoved the container back at Chase, signaling that he should put it back. “Viv called the tipster a ‘she.’ And something about the way she said it . . . I got the impression that she knows exactly who buried that stupid trophy in our yard.”

  “Un trophée? Avez-vous gagné quelque chose, Chase?”

  Both Chase and I turned around slowly to find that Mademoiselle Beamish—also wearing flannel, which was not a good look for her—had somehow stolen up behind us, even though she was wearing cowboy boots, too.

  Is she directing? Or playing the role of lonely, disturbed farmhand Jud Fry?

  “Um, no . . . I didn’t win anything,” Chase responded in English, probably to be polite to me. “We were talking about a different trophy.”

  Okay, I might’ve missed the gist of Ms. Beamish’s question, but I was smart enough to realize that she’d assumed Chase had won something—not me. Merci beaucoup, Mademoiselle!

  “Oh, goodness . . .” Ms. Beamish got pale and for once seemed to forget about speaking French. She rested her hand on a row of pearlized buttons running down the front of her western-style shirt and addressed me. “You’re talking about what they found in your father’s yard . . . It’s been on the news, of course . . . I’m so sorry!”

  “And it’ll be on the news again when my dad is exonerated,” I said. “So stay tuned.”

  “Of course he will be,” Ms. Beamish agreed. But her gaze darted to her prize student, in a way that told me she was humoring me, even though she repeated, with a shaky smile, “Of course.” Then she cocked her head. “But what are you two doing here so late? And why are you in Vivienne’s locker?”

  For a second, I wasn’t sure how she knew that. Then I looked again at all the pictures of Viv—not to mention a sweater that she always wore, which was hanging in there. And, most tellingly, a notebook that read, in big, black Sharpie-d letters, “Property of V. Fitch! Hands off!” Then I glanced at the photos of Viv again, including an eight-by-ten in which she was doing her best Great White impression, each tooth polished to perfection.

  “We’re catching a killer,” I muttered, sort of forgetting that Ms. Beamish was with us as I examined those teeth. And Viv’s dead eyes, in spite of her smile. “She knows something. Something big.”

  “Millie!” Chase’s sharp warning brought me back to reality. He shut the locker and took me by my shoulders, smiling at Ms. Beamish—but shoving me down the hall. “We were actually borrowing a book,” he told our teacher. “But Viv must have it at home. We’re leaving now.”

  “Au revoir.” Ms. Beamish gave us a wave—without moving from her post in front of the locker I hadn’t searched well enough. “Bonsoir.”

  “Well, that was a bust,” I said when we were outside in the chilly night. “A total bust.”

  We walked toward Chase’s car, which was parked on the street, and as he opened the door for me he reminded me, “Not entirely, Millie. Not for me. And we still have work to do. On my story.”

  I’d almost forgotten that, but I would never forget the next few hours. And when I was done talking with Chase, I thought we were both sort of spent. I was also confident that if he really had been my boyfriend, I wouldn’t have had to worry about any more secrets coming out.

  No, I could finally fully erase that question mark from Chase’s chest.

  If only I could’ve scrubbed him out of my mind and my heart, too.

  Chapter 87

  “I wish, every day, that I could change the past,’ Albright said. ‘Not because I served time for involuntary manslaughter, but because I can’t bring Allison back.’”

  Laura finished reading out loud and set the week’s copy of the Gazette on the cafeteria table. “Wow.” She shoved one finger under the lenses of her eyeglasses, swiping at her eyes, which had teared up halfway through the article. “I can’t believe that’s really Chase’s story. It’s so sad, for everybody.”

  “I think it took guts to come out like that,” Ryan added. “And I know something about coming out. He could’ve just kept lying low, riding out the year, even with the rumors. It can’t be easy to admit to manslaughter in front of the whole school.”

  “He’s doing an assembly on drunk driving, too,” I informed them. “Mr. Woolsey asked him to talk before the next dance, and Chase agreed. I guess he’s found a way to start redeeming himself.”

  “Millie?”

  I’d been twirling spaghetti around my fork, not hungry, because, in spite of helping Chase start to put his life back together, my father was still in big trouble and my heart was still broken. I knew that time would heal the really bad pain, but I couldn’t imagine ever finding a guy like Chase again. One who befriended little old ladies, and kissed me in a way that I’d felt down to my bare toes, and who made me want even a glimpse of him . . .

  “Millie?”

  I heard my name spoken again and looked up to find Laura watching me. “Are you okay with Chase, after all this? It’s a lot to swallow.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I feel,” I said. “We’re not really hanging out anymore.”

  So why did I give in to the impulse to turn around and find Chase at his regular table, alone as usual, nose in a book? I didn’t think kids were shunning him because of the stuff in the paper, though. I was pretty sure Chase still just believed solitude was best for him. One article wouldn’t change everything—including how he felt about dating me. He’d made that clear, telling me, at the end of the interview, “I think I should put some distance between us, Millie. I still don’t feel right seeing someone. I’m really sorry.”

  I turned back to my friends. “Besides, I have to focus on my dad now. He needs me.”

  “Is he really going to stand trial?” Ryan asked. “Because that seems crazy.”

  “Yeah, to me, too,” I agreed. “But it looks like there’s enough evidence to at least try him for Mr. Killdare’s death, between all the public fights they had, and Mr. Killdare having cancer, which—let’s face it—would’ve messed up Dad’s life if word had gotten out. Not to mention the fact that the murder weapon was in our yard.”

  I looked around for Vivienne and found her
at the cheerleaders’ table, drinking her daily Diet Coke and eating air so she wouldn’t gain a pound. But she had muscular arms, a calculating mind, and no soul . . .

  Viv must’ve felt me watching her. She met my eyes—and I once again firmly believed she could’ve committed homicide. Heck, she’d threatened me, just that morning, when the story about Chase had been printed. I could easily recall our entire conversation, verbatim.

  “You went behind my back to Mr. Sokowski.” Viv glares at me, slapping the paper against her hand. “I didn’t authorize this.”

  “It’s a good story—and Mr. Sokowski knows who his ace reporter is now.”

  Viv practically growls. “If you think you’ve helped your murdering boyfriend by telling this sappy tale, you’re sorely mistaken. He looks worse now.”

  She was wrong, though. Kids were talking about Chase, but they weren’t making up crazy stuff, and before long the whole story would fade away. Plus I’d made sure everybody understood how guilty he felt and why he preferred to remain aloof. Viv knew I’d smashed her rumor mill—and she was seething.

  “Is it really the weapon? The trophy?”

  I returned my attention to my own table, where nobody was shy about eating, to find Ryan opening a bag of Doritos, a worried look on his face.

  “Well, it was wiped clean before it was buried—meaning there weren’t any fingerprints or blood on it.” I watched Ryan and Laura carefully, wanting to gauge their reactions when I revealed something I hadn’t shared with anybody so far. “But they found these microscopic flecks of metal in Mr. Killdare’s wounds. Although, according to my dad’s lawyer, there’s not necessarily a positive match between the specks and the coating on the trophy.”

  The evidence might not’ve been conclusive, but I could tell that the news concerned Ryan and Laura. Just as it did me. Still, they were supportive friends, and both said, almost in unison, “It’s gonna be okay, Millie. It’ll work out.”

  I wished I could have believed them.