Dead Girls Don't Lie (26 page)

I lock my eyes on his. I’m done playing games with him; it’s time to get some things out in the open and see what his reaction is. “Are you sure
they’re
the ones who are dangerous? What do you know about the things that are missing from my bedroom? Or about the pictures in the darkroom?” I lean closer, breathing into his ear, “What do you know about ‘making the cut’?”

His eyes get hard, but I see fear behind them. He smiles as
he turns toward his motorcycle, still holding onto my arm. “I’d be happy to take you home, Jaycee.” I don’t understand what he’s doing until I see the crowd around us. He leans closer and whispers, “Stay out of it. You don’t want to end up like her.” He tugs on my arm and says out loud, “We need to go now.” Evan starts walking, dragging me with him, but before we get to his motorcycle, he runs into a wall of people, Father Joseph at the center.

Father Joseph puts his hand on Evan’s arm. “I promised her dad I’d make sure she got home safely, so I think she should go with me.”

Evan looks from Father Joseph to the group of people gathered around us. He slowly lets go of my arm. “Sure. I need to get back to work anyway.” He looks at me with a smile that’s loaded with malice. “I’ll see you later, Jaycee.”

After he leaves the crowd dissipates, and I’m left standing with Father Joseph. He says, “Let me take you home.”

I glance through the trees, toward the old house, where Eduardo is waiting. I’m afraid, but now more than ever I need to get to the end of this. “No. I’ll be okay. I’d rather walk.”

He hesitates, opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but then nods. “Be careful.”

“I will,” I answer.

Chapter 28

Approaching the old house, even in the daylight, is creepy. I creak up the front porch and peer into the windows. It looks exactly the same as it did the last time I was here. I don’t see any sign of Eduardo anywhere; maybe I misread what he was trying to tell me.

I leave the porch and walk around the side of the house. The front of the house is bare, but this side is tagged with graffiti. I get my phone out to take a picture of the symbol so I can compare it to the one on the note that was in my window.

Before I can push the button, someone grabs it out of my hand. “Bad idea.” I wheel around to face Eduardo, completely freaked out. He turns the phone off. “You don’t want to be caught with that on your phone.” It’s the same thing Manny said to Rachel on the video.

In a heartbeat the adrenaline rush turns from fear to anger, anger toward him. I reach for my phone. “Why not? You wear it on your skin.”

He holds the phone out of my reach. “That’s different, boba.”

I glare at him. “I found out what that means, ‘boba.’ I’m not stupid.”

“Oh really? Then what are you? Not smart.”

“I got a 4.0 all last year—”

“Not books, boba, street smarts. You trust people too much.”

“You mean like following a gangbanger to a deserted house and letting him take my phone and turn it off?”

“Something like that.” He turns my phone over in his hand. “Where did this come from?”

I avoid his eyes. “My dad gave it to me, to replace the one I handed over to that detective.”

“He win the lottery?” He smirks. My face burns red. He knows I’m lying. “If you were a Mexican, you’d get thrown in jail for having this, based on suspicion alone. If you have brown skin and can afford this phone, you must be a drug dealer.” The chip on his shoulder comes out again. What did Rachel say? He hates white people and this town, and probably even fuzzy yellow kittens.

“Did you have anything important to tell me, or are you just going to give me your attitude again?” It irritates me that Eduardo acts like the whole world is out to get him.

He hands me back my phone. “Where did you really get this?”

I avoid his eyes, hating how transparent I am. “I told you—”

He shakes his head at me. “We won’t get anywhere if we lie to each other.”

“Fine,” I say, staring directly into his eyes. “A friend gave it to me.”

“A friend?” He looks at me skeptically. “Someone who wants to keep track of you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The Cempoalli all had the same kind of phone. Phones with trackers on them. When I left the gang, I threw mine away.”

I look down at the phone again, but Skyler wouldn’t do something like that.

“So is that from your
novio
?”

“Yes. Skyler gave me the phone, okay.” I stare him down. “Why do you care?”

He shakes his head again. “You shouldn’t trust him, boba. I worked on their farm. I saw things—”

“You mean between hits on your joint? Skyler told me you got fired for smoking pot.”

“And did he tell you that his dad fired most of the workers that day? All the illegals, not just the ones who were smoking. That it was after most of the crops were already harvested? That he didn’t pay anyone?”

I swallow and think about the migrants that Dad took to Spokane, people who worked all season and didn’t get paid. “Skyler isn’t like the rest of them.”

“You can believe that if you want to, boba.”

I study the circle in front of me, thinking about Evan’s threats, the negatives from the darkroom, and Rachel trying to get information from the football team. “What if this wasn’t made by one of the Cempoalli?”

“What?” He stares at me, his eyes burning through me.

“What if it was someone else?”

“Why would you say that? What did you find? Rachel’s journal, do you have it?”

I’m sorry I said anything. “Look, I don’t know anything yet. I’m still trying to figure some things out.”

He looks suspicious. “Like what?”

I think about everything I’ve learned about Manny and Rachel and the football team. “I don’t know yet. But …” I’m thinking of what Rachel told me to do,
work with Eduardo, trust him
. But she also said she couldn’t give him everything because someone might get killed.

“But what?”

“It’s kind of hard when I’m doing this all by myself.” It comes out in a rush of frustration.

His expression doesn’t change. “You shouldn’t be doing this at all.”

“But I am. We’re in this together, so get used to it.”

“Okay then. I have something to show you.” He points to the house. “Inside.” I see the challenge in his eyes. He doesn’t think I’ll come with him. He’s right, the last place I want to go with him is in the old house.

I hesitate. “You know how to get inside?”

He nods. “I’ve been living here ever since I got fired because of my tattoo. Before that I was living with the migrants.”

“You live here?” I think he’s making a joke or being sarcastic until I see the tired, dejected look on his face. “You sleep here?” He nods. “Why? Why don’t you just go live with your uncle, wherever he is?”

“I made a promise.”

“But you can’t
live
here. It’s old and there’s no running water or bathroom or—”

“You know of a better place?”

“Maybe you could stay with us. I know Dad would …” But I can’t finish that sentence. I don’t think even Dad would be willing to let Eduardo stay with us.

“Forget it.” The hardness comes back into his face.

“But why would you want to live where Manny died? Doesn’t that …”—I search for the right word—“freak you out?”

“It gives me a chance to look around, see if there is anything that might help me find out what happened.”

“And you’ve found something?”

“One thing.” He looks around. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

I follow him to the back of the house, to another door with a padlock, but when he pulls on the metal plate it’s attached to, the whole thing comes out of the cracked wood. He pushes his way inside. “Here it is.
Mi casa es su casa
.”

The windows are so dusty that the house is almost as dark as it was that night. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. The room is just like I remember it, a big mirror on one side, the window with curtains on the other, but I’m on the opposite end of where I was then. Glass still covers the floor. The only indication that Eduardo has been staying here is a small pile of clothes in one corner, a rolled-up sleeping bag stuffed behind the couch, and … I move closer, a pile of … library books?

They’re set on a little black table by the entryway, underneath the red circle. My stomach turns with nausea, even though I’m sure the paint smell is only in my memory. I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow a few times.

“Are you okay?” Eduardo is standing beside me. I’m surprised at the concern I hear in his voice. “Maybe you should go—”

“No, it’s fine.” I try to sound brave, but my face in the mirror across the room shows only terror as I reach to touch the symbol. I put my hand over a smudge on the side, left by my hand when I touched it before. It all feels surreal, this room has existed in my nightmares for so long, but right in front of me is solid evidence that I was really here that night.

Maybe someone else left evidence too.

I set my backpack down on the floor and go to the curtains, to the place where I saw the person with the 18 on his back. I move them aside and even get down on the dusty floor, looking for … I don’t know what.

“This one isn’t right.” I look up, startled at the sound of his voice in the quiet room.

“What?”

He traces the circle with his finger. “The symbol is messed up.”

“I know. I touched it when it was wet. When I was here before, the night I came with Rachel, the night Manny died. I got scared and backed into it.”

“No, not that. The symbol in the center is reversed.” He traces an eye-shaped marking with lines through it. “The dot is supposed to be above this, not below it.”

I stand up and go to him. “Are you sure?”

He looks at me like I’m asking the stupidest question ever. “I’m sure. Whoever made this didn’t know what they were doing. No Cempoalli would ever make that mistake. It’s the Olmec symbol for twenty. We use it because there were twenty original members of the gang.”

Twenty? That was the number I saw carved into someone’s chest on the negatives at Skyler’s house. If 20 is a Cempoalli number like 18 is one for the 18th Street Gang, “Would Manny wear a number that represented the Cempoalli?” I say the last question out loud.

“What do you mean?” Eduardo says.

“For the football team, is there any way Manny would have picked a jersey number that represented the Cempoalli, something like twenty?” Eduardo looks like he’s thinking about it. “I mean, I know he was kind of betraying them, going to the police and everything, but—”

“Yes. He would have chosen the Cempoalli number for his football jersey.”

“But why?”

Eduardo shakes his head. “You wouldn’t understand. Even though we left them, even though we can’t ever go back, they’re part of us.” He touches the symbol on his back. He looks so sad, so lost. For the first time it occurs to me how hard it must have been for him to leave his home, his family, even his gang, to come here. His best friend was murdered, and now he’s living in an abandoned house, all alone.

I touch his arm. “You can’t stay here, it isn’t safe. I’ll talk to my dad—”

He pulls away, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.” He slides something halfway out of his shirt, something black and shiny.

My heart stops as I realize what it is. “You have a gun?”

Eduardo looks nervous, like he shouldn’t have shown me.

“Where did you get that?” I hiss.

He laughs, full of bravado. “Hick town like this? Everyone has a gun and nobody locks their doors. It’s a gangsta’s paradise. If you want I could get you one too.” His face gets serious. “That might not be a bad—”

“Are you crazy?” I back away from him. “No. No guns.”

He pulls the gun out in a smooth motion, like it was something he’s done before. He turns it over, admiring it, and, I think, enjoying my reaction to it. “You’d change your mind if you knew all your enemies had them.”

“I don’t have any enemies,” I say.

“Are you sure about that?” The way he says it, combined with the look on his face, makes my blood go cold.

I think about the note, and what was taken from my room, and the look Evan had on his face when he left Araceli’s house, but I answer, “I’m sure.”

He walks back to me, still holding the gun. “You should take this. I could show you how to use it.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know how to use it, I just—”

My phone buzzes. I pull it out of my pocket and the note comes too. Eduardo picks it up. “What is this?”

“A note. I think Manny wrote it to Rachel.”

He reads it over, and I can see him struggling to keep his emotions in check.

“What does it say?”

“He says, ‘If something happens to me, don’t cry, forget you ever knew me.’”

“Why would he tell her that?”

“Because he knew if they caught up with him, if the Cempoalli found out that he was talking to the feds, they would kill him and anyone who was important to him.”

I think about the video. “But he thought he was safe; he thought he was going to have a normal life. He was going to play football.”

Eduardo nods. “Because he trusted Agent Herrera, but he was wrong. No one can keep us safe.”

I glance down at my phone because I don’t know what to say to him. I have a message from Skyler.

file attached. best I can do. in deep.

“What’s the file?” Eduardo says, and I realize he’s over my shoulder.

“It’s the coroner’s report on Manny. I asked Skyler to—”

“You told your boyfriend?” Eduardo bursts out.

“He can help us. He has access to things like this report. He will—”

“He has access to it because his brother is the sheriff, which means he will tell him everything you’ve found out. How could you be so stupid?”

“Skyler won’t say anything to Eric, he—”

“Let me see it.”

I hand over my phone, and he opens the file. His face goes pale as he looks at whatever is on the phone. He slams it down on the table, making the books jump.

“What did you see?” I ask, breathless.

“Nothing I didn’t already know. They gutted him.”