Authors: Gretchen McNeil
Get Even (15 page)
COACH MILES BLEW HER WHISTLE WITH A FEROCITY THAT
froze the entire Bishop DuMaine varsity girls’ volleyball squad in their tracks. Kitty snatched the scrimmage ball in midair and spun to face her as she blazed across the court.
“Annabelle!” Coach Miles said. “If I ever see you half-ass a kill like that, I’ll bench you for an entire match, you hear me?”
Annabelle’s beet-red face flushed even deeper. “Yes, Coach.”
Coach Miles swung around to the scrimmage team on Kitty’s side of the net. “And, Zoe, I have no idea what you thought you were doing with that last dig. The goal is to keep the ball in play, not launch it into orbit. Come on, guys. It’s only Tuesday. I’m not used to seeing this much lazy ball handling so early in the week.”
Kitty knew Coach was right, but her approach to motivating her players wasn’t exactly what Kitty would have done in her place.
Two short blasts on the whistle signaled a change of drill. “Accelerations,” Coach Miles said. “Eight balls.”
The entire team groaned in unison and skulked to one side of the court for the hated drill. Coach was about to throw the first balls, when Mika walked into the girls’ gym with Theo Baranski close behind.
Coach Miles tooted on her whistle again. “Water break. Ten minutes.” She pointed at Kitty. “Wei, come with me.”
“Coach, this is Theo,” Mika said, her hand on Theo’s shoulder. “He’s interested in the team manager gig.”
Coach Miles examined Theo up and down. “You’re the first in and the last out,” she said curtly. “You’re on the bus for every away game, and I expect stats on my desk first thing the next morning. Can you handle that?”
“Yes, sir!” Theo barked.
Kitty bit her lip to keep from smiling as Theo’s eyes grew wide, instantly realizing his mistake.
“I mean, ma’am,” he squeaked.
“Sir is fine,” Coach Miles said. She pointed at the two girls. “Get him up to speed.”
Theo hustled after Kitty and Mika as they strode to the athletic lockers across from the main gym. He had to take three steps for every two of theirs.
“All the team sports keep their equipment in these lockers,” Mika explained. “Volleyball, basketball, soccer, water polo, whatever.”
“Coach Miles is kind of a hard-ass about keeping the equipment organized,” Kitty added. “If you can manage that, you’ll be golden.”
They gave Theo a tour of the locker, explained the setup for practice versus home and away games, then stopped by Coach Miles’s office to retrieve copies of the team rosters and schedules.
Theo took prodigious notes throughout, scribbling away in a pocket-size spiral notebook. He seemed eager to do a good job, motivated by the luxury of avoiding Coach Creed in sixth-period PE, and soaked up everything Kitty and Mika spilled out. By the time they ducked into the main gym where the team played their home matches, Theo had picked up enough of the lingo to anticipate what they were going to say. It was kind of adorable.
As they started to leave, the far door of the gym opened and the varsity boys’ basketball team meandered in, sweating like they’d just spent an hour in the weight room.
“Kitty!” She jumped at the sound of Donté’s voice. “Hey, Mika,” he said, jogging up to them. He took Kitty’s hand. “What are you doing here?”
Kitty gestured to her new recruit. “Theo Baranski, this is Donté Greene. Theo is going to be the volleyball team manager this semester.”
“Right on, man.” Donté held out his fist to Theo, who, with a look of delighted surprise, readily returned the bump. “Don’t let these ladies run you ragged. They’re a tough bunch.”
“Please,” Kitty said. “We’re way less demanding than those divas on the boys’ basketball team.”
“Kids,” Mika said, cutting off their banter. “You guys have plans tomorrow night?”
Donté glanced at Kitty. “Not that I know of. What’s up?”
Mika dropped her voice. “There’s a meeting at the Coffee Clash. Kind of an organizational thing.”
What was Mika up to? “Organizing for what?”
Mika glanced from side to side, then leaned closer to Kitty and Donté. “For an on-campus rally. We’re going to protest the way old F.U. and his ’Maine Men have been treating the students around here.”
Theo was at Mika’s side in the blink of an eye. “Can I come?” he asked eagerly.
Mika’s face lit up. “Of course. Everyone’s welcome.”
“Thank you,” Theo said. “I’ll do whatever you need. Paint signs, recruit people. You name it.”
Mika turned to Donté and Kitty. “What about you guys?”
“Count me in,” Donté said.
Kitty swallowed. She had a DGM meeting scheduled for tomorrow night, and that wasn’t something she could change even if she wanted to. “I can’t,” she said. “I have a family thing.”
“Can’t you get out of it?” Mika pleaded.
Kitty shook her head. “Sorry.”
“How about Friday night?” Mika pressed. “We’re doing some prep work after Ronny’s vigil.”
Mika wasn’t going to let her out of it. Dammit. She’d be on F.U.’s blacklist if she took a leadership role with this rally, but Mika would be suspicious if she avoided it.
“That’ll work,” Kitty said, forcing a smile. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Mika grinned. “I knew I could count on you guys. I organized one of these in junior high to try and get the school to change their mascot so we didn’t have to wear a stupid fighting Jesuit on our jerseys.”
Fighting Jesuits? Kitty recalled the photo of Bree with the cropped-out image of Christopher Beeman.
“Where did you go to junior high?” Kitty asked.
“St. Alban’s,” Mika said.
With the exception of the article about Christopher Beeman going AWOL from Archway, there were no other hits on him when she’d Googled his name. Was it possible that her best friend knew him?
“We played against you guys,” Donté said, stroking his chin. “Helluva blowout each year.”
Mika pursed her lips. “Yeah, but the girls’ volleyball team rocked.”
“Hey,” Kitty began, hoping she didn’t sound as anxious as she felt. “Did you know a student at St. Alban’s named Christopher Beeman?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kitty saw Theo start.
Mika scrunched up her face, trying to remember. “Short, kinda chubby, thick glasses?”
Kitty had no idea. “I think so.”
“I didn’t really know him,” Mika said, shaking her head. “He left in sixth grade. Suddenly, I think.”
“Got it,” Kitty said. She stole a glance at Theo, whose ruddy face seemed to have blanched several shades paler. Mika might not have known Christopher Beeman, but apparently Theo did.
The squeak of athletic shoes and the thundering of a half-dozen basketballs signaled that the varsity team’s practice was under way. Donté glanced over his shoulder, then squeezed Kitty’s hand. “Gotta go. We still on for Saturday?”
“Absolutely,” she said, wresting her gaze away from Theo.
“Sweet.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek, while Mika prominently rolled her eyes.
“Thanks for taking me in,” Theo said as they walked back to the girls’ gym.
“No problem,” Kitty said. “We need a manager, so it’s win-win.”
“Coach Creed has it in for me,” Theo said bluntly. “I think he blames me for what happened at the assembly.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Kitty said. “He can’t hold you responsible for DGM.”
Theo shrugged. “Father Uberti threatened to expel me if I didn’t tell him everything I knew about DGM.”
“See?” Mika said, throwing her hands in the air. “This is what I’m talking about. Creed bullies students right and left, and Uberti doesn’t do jack about it. Then he blames the victim. Total bullshit.”
“Even if I knew anything about DGM, I wouldn’t have told him,” Theo said with a grin. “They’re the only ones who’ve ever stood up for me.”
“Is that why you confessed to the murder?” Mika asked.
Kitty watched Theo. She was curious about him, touched and saddened by his confession to Ronny’s murder, as if it was the only way to show his gratitude for what DGM had done.
Theo nodded. “I just wanted them to know how much I appreciate them.”
“But what if you’d gone to jail?” Kitty asked. The idea that someone would have voluntarily suffered on her behalf made her sick to her stomach.
“My parents have a security system,” Theo said. “The kind that monitors all the doors and windows. My dad had the records pulled up immediately and it showed there was no way I could have left the house that night during the time Ronny was killed.”
“It’s a good thing your parents had that,” Mika said, pausing at the girls’ restroom. “I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit. Glad to have you on board, Theo.”
Theo and Kitty continued back to the gym in silence. She was about to bring up Christopher Beeman again when Theo beat her to the punch.
“I could have killed him,” Theo said, suddenly pensive.
“Ronny?”
Theo nodded.
“But you said—”
“I mean,” Theo interrupted, “that I could have if I wanted to.”
Kitty remembered the list Bree saw in Ronny’s room. Theo’s name was on that list. What connection did he have with Ronny? And could it possibly have anything to do with Christopher Beeman?
“Did you know him?” she asked.
“Not really,” Theo said, without elaborating.
Theo reached the door to the girls’ gym and paused. Then he turned and looked Kitty directly in the eye. “He wanted something from me. Something I knew.”
What could Ronny have wanted from Theo?
“Ronny DeStefano was not a good person,” Theo continued. “And I’m not sorry he’s dead.”
Without another word, he yanked the door open and disappeared inside, leaving a stunned Kitty in the courtyard.
MARGOT STARED OUT THE WINDOW OF THE LOCAL BUS AS
it lumbered through the streets of western Menlo Park. She passed tree-lined parks and fancy houses with highly manicured lawns, but she didn’t see any of it. The only image before her eyes was a photo of a twelve-year-old Amber Stevens posing outside Margot’s bedroom window.
The mystery of who had sent her the photos paled in comparison to that of the identity of the photographer. Peanut and Jezebel were the prime suspects—they’d been Amber’s toadies since junior high. Wendy Marshall and Christina Huang were just as horrible, though a year ahead of them. Rex went to a different school, Tyler and Kyle hadn’t morphed into mindless sychophants yet, and Olivia didn’t start hanging out with Amber’s crowd until eighth grade.
Would Ed the Head be able to help? She certainly hoped so. While she could still hate Amber for putting her through three years of junior high hell, apparently there was someone else who deserved Margot’s enmity. Someone else who deserved revenge.
“Atherton Avenue,” the bus driver cooed in a chipper tone more appropriate to a conductor on the Disneyland Railroad than public transit.
Margot forced thoughts of Amber and the photograph out of her mind as she hopped off the bus and trekked up the street to the public library. She had more important things to worry about.
Margot was a familiar fixture at the West Menlo branch; other than home, it was the only after-school destination preapproved by Margot’s parents. The librarians all knew her by name, all recognized that she was a diligent, hardworking student who wasn’t there to cause any trouble. She’d earned a reputation as someone who could be trusted to, say, borrow the keys to the special collections room without damaging, stealing, or otherwise defacing the contents therein.
Which meant she could get away with murder.
Margot winced.
Horrendous choice of words, subconscious.
Perhaps not so ironically, murder was the reason Margot had spent three out of the last five afternoons parked at a table in the far corner of the main reading room, her back to the wall, poring through the personal computer files of Ronny DeStefano.
“Why hello, Margot,” Mrs. Shi said with a beaming smile as Margot approached the circulation desk. “How are you this afternoon?”
“Tons of research to do today,” Margot said, laying the honor roll student routine on thick.
Mrs. Shi clicked her tongue in concern. “They do load you up so at Bishop DuMaine.”
Margot nodded. “
And
my Stanford extension classes.”
“My, my.” Mrs. Shi patted Margot’s hand. Her elderly skin was tissue-thin. “You need to make sure you have a little fun, too, dear. Can’t be all work and no play.”
Margot forced a smile. “I’m volunteering for the theater production at school. That should be fun.”
Mrs. Shi winked at her. “And an excellent place to meet cute boys, yes?”
Margot blushed. She didn’t even need to fake it.
“Now, what can I do for you?”
Margot tried to look suitably embarrassed. “I hate to ask this, Mrs. Shi. . . .”
Mrs. Shi leaned forward with a conspirator’s grin. “Yes?”
“Would it be possible to get into the special collections room? I know it’s like the third time in a week, but I desperately need to double-check my notes against the Filoli archives. I’ll be sure to leave everything as I found it.”
Mrs. Shi winked again as she reached into her pocket and retrieved a set of keys. “Our little secret.”
The library was one of Margot’s favorite places in the world. A converted manor house with a modern wing added on for the lobby, study hall, and computer lab, the bulk of the library’s collection was housed in a series of winding interconnected rooms stretching from the old wine cellar to the slanted-roofed servants’ quarters. Part haunted mansion, part M. C. Escher print, there were areas that could only be accessed by rickety spiral staircases, adjacent rooms with no connecting doors, and nooks and crannies that looked as if they hadn’t been fully explored since World War II.
As a child, Margot would wander off from her parents and instantly find herself happily lost in a labyrinth of books.
The special collections room was actually an alcove bored into the bedrock next to the wine cellar, accessible only by a metal spiral staircase that shook precariously when used. The special collections room was locked 95 percent of the time behind a thick glass door, except when the special collections librarian kept brief office hours every other Thursday. There really weren’t any books of note in the collection, so it was a rare occasion that someone actually requested access, and Margot guessed that no one else had gone through the collection in over a year.
Which made it the perfect hiding place.
Immediately after Ronny’s death, Margot realized two things: (a) being caught in possession of the stolen contents of his hard drive was as good as an admission of guilt, and (b) said hard drive might be even more useful than she’d expected. If there was a clue as to why Ronny was killed, it might be on his computer. That said, she couldn’t exactly keep it in her bedroom. So she came up with the perfect plan: the special collections room.
The pungent aroma of moldering wood hit her the moment she unlocked the door. As usual, the room was empty, but Margot locked the door behind her anyway.
She kept the stark overhead lights off as she padded across the room, just in case there was a library patron perusing the infrequently visited yearbooks and city council records housed in the wine cellar. She had chosen her hiding place carefully. A bookshelf in the corner held tomes of livestock records from the estate that used to encompass most of the area, massive old ledgers with six-inch-thick spines crammed onto each metal shelf. Margot squeezed her arm between the bookcase and the stone wall, and her fingers immediately found what they were looking for: a magnetic box, attached to the back side of the second-to-last shelf.
Margot was just about to pry the box from the metal shelf when she froze. Outside the glass door, something moved.
It was just a flash, a half second of shadow and light, but in that moment, Margot could have sworn she saw a figure peek into the special collections room, then disappear back into the wine cellar.
Margot fought to keep her nerves in check. Even if someone
was
out there, they wouldn’t be able to see her in the darkened interior of the room.
Unless they’d followed her down there.
She inhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the glass door, waiting to see the figure again. One minute. Two minutes. There was no motion except the steady rise and fall of Margot’s chest.
Margot needed to get a grip on her paranoia. She’d imagined it, obviously. She was tense and stressed and her brain was on alert.
She shook her head and pried the magnet from its prison, then grabbed a couple of boring volumes on the Filoli estate for cover and hurried upstairs without looking back.
After three days of searching, Margot wasn’t particularly optimistic that she’d find anything of value on Ronny’s computer. So far, his personal files contained the most comprehensive collection of pornographic photos, videos, manga, erotica, and product site screen grabs than she’d imagined possible. The pursuit of sex seemed to have occupied at least 75 percent of Ronny’s brain. She’d been through all of his files and downloads, forcing herself to scan through increasingly graphic thumbnails, just to make sure she didn’t miss anything important, and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized she only had about thirty thousand personal emails left to sift through before she could call Ronny’s hard drive a bust.
Two hours of tedious school and family emails later, Margot’s diligence was finally rewarded. An email response to Ronny from a friend named Chris.
From: [email protected]
Dude, that’s crazy. Old Creed turned up at your dad’s alma mater? What are the odds? I doubt he’ll be there for long. Only a matter of time before they fire his ass. If he couldn’t cut it at Archway, no way some fancy prep school will put up with his bullshit. Maybe we can hurry that probability along like last time? BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA.
Margot went rigid in her chair. Based on the evidence before her, not only did Ronny know Coach Creed from their mutual time at Archway Military Academy, but Ronny might even have had a hand in getting Creed fired from that position.
Which gave Coach Creed a strong motive for murdering Ronny DeStefano.
Margot had blown the investigation wide open.
Fingers tearing across the keyboard, Margot executed a keyword search for all emails from [email protected]. There had to be more information about how and why Coach Creed was fired from Archway. Three hundred and forty-seven emails and chat logs popped up right away. Margot’s hands trembled with excitement as she scrolled down to the oldest email, dating from Ronny’s eighth-grade year. She was about to double click on the file when her cell phone buzzed.
Incoming text from her mom.
I’m almost there, mija. Be outside in the parking lot in five minutes.
Margot stared at the thumb drive. Maybe she should take it home with her and comb through the emails during the “reading for pleasure” portion of her evening schedule? The temptation was intense: it would be Saturday’s library study session with Logan before she got a chance to access the files again. But even the .05 percent chance of her room being searched for a connection to Ronny was a risk not worth taking.
With a heavy sigh, Margot ejected the drive and trudged it back down to the special collections room with the untouched research books. At least she’d have a solid lead to share with the girls at tomorrow night’s meeting, but the 347 emails to and from the mysterious Chris would have to wait until the weekend.