Modern Monsters (Entangled Teen) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Autumn doesn’t stay as late as I’d like her to. After her slipup the night before, we both figure it’s best for her to get home while her parents are still awake so they don’t think she “accidentally” slept over at Callie’s place again. Still, when she tells me good-bye at the door, I feel like her sudden absence takes all the joy out of the room. Everything else in my life might be bizarre right now, but Autumn is the one bright thing I have to hold on to. My silver lining.

Getting to bed at a decent hour is probably a good thing anyway, considering I have to be at work bright and early. Not that it matters how early I show up, because like always, Amjad is already there, awake and alert while I’m still rubbing the sleep from my eyes and trying to remember even riding my bike from home to here.

“Good morning, Victor,” he greets.

I grunt in response, dropping my backpack behind the counter with a yawn. I’m on autopilot, heading into the back to clean up and restock any empty items on the shelves. Credit to Amjad for waiting until I’m done and somewhat more coherent before he says, “A Mr. Craig Roberts came by for you.”

I freeze at the end of the candy aisle, stomach dropping. “W-what did he want?”

“He said he wanted to discuss the article he wrote.” He’s peering at me intently and I want to sink into the linoleum and hide.

“Oh,” I say uselessly.

“Is everything all right, Victor? Is he bothering you?” A frown is tugging at his heavy brows.

“N-no. I mean…I don’t know. What did you t-tell him?” What am I supposed to say to that?

Amjad
hmph
s and looks down at his coffee, dumping a plastic container of creamer into the Styrofoam cup. “He writes a bad article then comes to see you. He is a very self-assured man. I told him to never come back or I would file for harassment.”

All the blood seems to drain from my body to pool at my feet, because I’m positive I’m going to pass out. I stand there stupidly, staring at Amjad as he stares at his coffee. He read the article. He saw it in the paper. I’d ignored the fact that he might, despite knowing he always reads the paper with his morning coffee, but…

“Y-you knew…?”

He lifts his gaze. “Of course I knew. The police came to talk to me.”

My legs are going to give out. I brace a hand against the end cap. “But you…didn’t say anything to me.”

“You did not want to talk about it.” His head tilts.

My pulse is racing. Am I going to get fired? “W-what did the police want?”

“Your mother told them you work here sometimes. They wanted to know what kind of a boy you were.” He shrugs. “I told them you were very reliable, and a good young man.”

My gaze doesn’t leave Amjad’s face. What can I say to that? I was so afraid to let him know. Not just out of fear of losing my job, but fear of him shunning me. Of letting him down. “You k-knew it wasn’t girl problems.”

“It sort of was.” He smiles a little. “If someone comes here to bother you, you tell me. I will take care of it.”

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and take a few deep breaths. “Thank you.”

His smile widens into something warmer and friendlier. “Since we are being honest now, what about this girlfriend of yours?”

I shake my head and circle around the counter to take a seat nearby him. I almost say,
She’s not my girlfriend
, but…she is, isn’t she? We sort of danced around the subject, but that’s the only conclusion I can come to. “What about her?”

“She is pretty. Smart?”

“V-very.”

“Treat her good, then.” He sips his coffee and pats me on the back. “A good boy deserves a good girl.”

I can’t help but smile, though I think he’s got it wrong. Maybe I’m a good guy, but Autumn is a
great
girl. And I’m still not entirely convinced I deserve her.

This is all Amjad says on the subject. He doesn’t prod me for information or make me go into detail about any of it. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, so in retrospect I feel dumb for not having brought it up sooner. Maybe I could have avoided more of the headache with Craig Roberts.

Through the day, Amjad acts no different from normal. He tells me about his date and how well it went, that he’s likely to go out with her again next weekend, and how he never really thought he’d be interested in another woman after his wife passed away. We each dip into the lotto tickets and take one, which results in me winning a whole five dollars and Amjad winning a free ticket.

Halfway through my shift, the door chimes with the entrance of a customer—which has happened plenty already—but this time, the face I see is a familiar one.

Aaron stares at me from the other side of the counter, mouth twisted uncomfortably. He’s come in here plenty with his brother and grandma, so it isn’t a surprise that he knows I work here. But we are watching each other blankly, both waiting for the other to say something, and I feel Amjad noticing something is wrong because he speaks up for me. “Can I help you?”

It breaks Aaron’s focus on me and he looks away, holding out a few bills. “Twenty on three, please.”

Amjad takes the cash and Aaron leaves. I watch through the window as he pumps his gas, gets into the car, and sits there. Waiting? He could be. He doesn’t seem to be playing on his phone or doing anything, and the car isn’t even on. He’s just…sitting.

“Friend of yours?” Amjad asks, squinting outside.

“Mom’s b-best friend’s son. We go to school together.” I turn away, taking a deep breath. The last thing I need is a repeat of what happened the other night with Patrick and his friends.

“Should I ask him to leave?”

“No. I got it.” Not that I want to, but Amjad is right here and I’m sure he’ll watch out for any signs of trouble.

Taking a deep breath, I head outside and over to Aaron’s truck. He glances at me through the driver’s side window, then inclines his chin toward the opposite door. I hesitate, then circle around to open it and get in. I don’t close the door behind me because too many horror movie scenarios of people getting locked inside a car hurtling down the freeway to imminent death are playing in my head. “What is it?”

Aaron doesn’t look at me. Rather, he’s staring down at his phone. At the picture of Callie from the night of the party. “I really liked her, you know.”

My spine goes rigid, and a heavy knot of dread forms in my gut. I don’t say anything.

“We weren’t together that long, but she was just…really cool, you know? Sweet and funny and great to be around. The night of the party, I got drunk enough that I even told Brett I was thinking about trying to ask her out again.”

If this is a confession, I don’t know if I want to hear it. This isn’t something Aaron should be saying to me; he should be saying it to the police. “Aaron—”

“Shut up. Let me finish.” He runs a hand roughly through his dark hair, exhaling. “When I found out what happened, I was just…so pissed. At first I was mad at her. Like, I thought she’d slept with some guy after she gave me this big speech when we broke up about not being ready for shit like that, you know? Then it really hit me what happened, that it wasn’t her fault, and then I just…really wanted to kill whoever did it.”

All the air comes whooshing out of my chest through my mouth. “So you really didn’t do it?”

He casts me a scathing look. “No, I didn’t fucking do it, you idiot.”

“S-sorry—”

“I
care
about Callie. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.” Aaron looks away again, and this time I sense a hesitance in his gaze that I can’t place. Like he’s struggling to say something but can’t.

“But?”

“But Patrick made a comment about the whole thing that hasn’t been sitting right with me. He said, ‘No girl comes to a party wearing lace underwear not expecting to get laid.’ At first, I thought he was just being an asshole. It’s the type of thing he’d say.”

Even hearing the comment secondhand makes my stomach turn. I slowly draw the door closed, not wanting anyone else at the pumps to overhear us. “Then what m-made you think differently?”

Aaron twists in his seat and holds his phone out to me, the screen inches from my face so that I have to pull back to even see it clearly. He says, “Look at it.”

I avert my gaze automatically. Yes, I’ve seen the photo, but I haven’t studied it in depth. It made me feel wrong. At his prompting, I force myself to look, to really look. Yes, I noticed the long line of her legs and the mess of blankets around her, the trash can that I placed beside the bed halfway in frame… But if I look closely enough, I notice the way her skirt is hiked up over her hip, and the underwear beneath—

I push the phone away and close my eyes.

“You see it, right?” Aaron presses anxiously. “I’m not crazy? Am I thinking too much about it?”

I’d be wondering the same thing. Aaron could be making things up, and yet I don’t think he’d have come here to talk to me if he were. I don’t think he’d sound so distressed, so scared. Though scared of what, I have no idea. Maybe the idea that he’s been hanging around the person who raped a girl at his party? That could freak anyone out.

“Should I go to the police?” he asks. “I have no idea what to do.”

“I called them y-yesterday,” I mumble, looking out the window, trying to think. Brett would know what to do. “They haven’t returned my call yet. Do you have Patrick’s address?”

He blinks. “Well, yeah. But—you’re not gonna go talk to him yourself, are you?”

I shrug. Alone? No. I wouldn’t have a way to get there. Waiting for the detectives to call might be smarter, but something is gnawing at my insides, making this feel urgent. I can’t wait for them. I can’t sit around and beg for them to hurry up with their protocol and rules so something can be done.

“D-don’t worry about me. I can handle it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Autumn picks me up from work with a grim look on her face, which only gets grimmer as we drive the distance to Patrick’s home and I explain to her what Aaron told me.

She says, “He could be lying.”

“I d-don’t feel like he is, though.”

“If you say so. You’re the people-reader.”

Ha, I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job at reading into anything. More like I’m going in circles while grasping blindly for answers.

“Did you text Brett?” she asks.

“Called him. He didn’t answer.” Which means he’s probably sleeping, or out with his family, or working on his college applications. Any number of things. But at least this time he can’t be mad at me for not trying to include him.

We pull up outside an apartment complex called Villa del Rio, and I instruct Autumn that we’re looking for apartment 205, according to Aaron. We find a visitor’s parking spot and get out, and we don’t even scale halfway up the steps to his place before Autumn is nudging me and pointing to the basketball court nearby.

“Isn’t that him?”

Yeah, that would be Patrick Maloney, in shorts and a tank top, doing layups. Thankfully by himself. He isn’t going to be happy to talk to us. Aaron might be loud and likes to run his mouth, but Patrick is the one who didn’t think twice about cornering me in the bathroom or showing up at work prepared to kick my ass. Aaron will seem like a cakewalk compared to this.

We walk to the court and stop at the edge where grass gives way to blacktop. Patrick’s water bottle and backpack are slouched on the ground near our feet. Patrick does three more layups before he glances our way, and then does a double take and turns to glare in our direction.

“What are you doing here?”

I shift from one foot to the other. “Just came to t-talk, if you have a minute.”

“What could I possibly have to say to you?” he drawls, turning away and taking another shot—which he easily makes.

“It’s about Callie.” Of course Autumn goes straight for the point. Where this is concerned, she has no patience for not getting right to the point. “We heard about something you said and wanted to ask you a few questions.”

Patrick falters in his dribbling, so briefly I almost wonder if I imagined it. But he stops, ball between his hands, and stares at the net thoughtfully. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Can we see your phone?”

His gaze flickers briefly to his backpack. “Why the hell would I let you see my phone?”

“Because if you have nothing to hide, then it shouldn’t be a problem.” Autumn tips her chin up, arms crossed.

He turns to face us. Bounces the ball to make a profound
smack
against the blacktop. “I don’t have anything to hide, and for that reason, I don’t have to show you shit. It’s my phone. None of your business.”

We aren’t going to get anywhere this way. I foresee it escalating with the two of them until Autumn is throwing him to the ground and beating his face in with the basketball. The only way to—maybe—make headway is to flat out ask him: “H-how did you know what Callie was wearing that night?”

Okay, so worded stupidly, but I tried. Patrick gives me a cockeyed look. “What?”

Autumn grips my arm tightly. If she speaks, she’s going to yell. Or cry. I don’t want either of those things to happen. “Her underwear,” I snap. “You made a comment to your friends. You knew what she was wearing under her skirt. How?”

As the words leave my mouth, Patrick’s hard glare dissipates and his mouth downturns a fraction of an inch. He isn’t irritated anymore. Or at least, he looks more worried now than anything else.

“Fuck off,” he says, and his voice is hoarse and the words sound forced.

“We can’t help you if you w-won’t talk to us,” I say. Never mind that I have no interest in helping Patrick if he had anything to do with Callie’s assault, but if it makes him talk…

Patrick shoves a hand over his shaved head and puts his back to us, taking a shot at the basket. The ball cracks against the rim and bounces clear off to the side, into the grass. “I don’t have anything to talk about.”

“Yeah?” Autumn stoops down, snatching up Patrick’s backpack and beginning to go through the pockets. He whips around at the sound, snarling, and reflex has me throwing myself between him and Autumn. We’re close enough in build that I’m hoping he doesn’t have any idea that I can’t defend myself in a one-on-one fight, but I’ll die trying before I let him lay a hand on Autumn.

Autumn locates his phone in the front zipper pocket and turns away as she swipes through the photos on it, and I’m observing the color draining from Patrick’s face.

She goes still. When she turns around, her eyes are pinched shut and not a word comes out of her mouth. She simply holds the phone out for me to see, and I don’t need to look closely to tell that the images—
images,
plural—are all of Callie passed out at the lake house.

I turn to him slowly. Patrick looks ready to bolt. “I didn’t do it. I
swear to God
, I didn’t do it.”

I take a few steps forward until I’m only a foot or so away. “If you d-didn’t do anything wrong, then there’s nothing for you to be worried about. Either you did it, or you know something about who did.”

He studies me, close enough that every bead of perspiration is visible, close enough that the way his pupils have dilated is extremely obvious. His fingers curl and uncurl, fidgeting, and each deep breath is ragged through his nose.

“Patrick,”
I say.

Something in his expression crumbles, just a little. “I just took the pictures. That was all. I was drunk off my ass and he told me to take the pictures, and that if I told anyone, he’d make sure I was the one who went down for it. But I
swear
, I never touched her.”

If I cared more about how he was feeling, I would put my hands on his shoulders or try to make him feel better. Frankly, he’s lucky Autumn hasn’t ripped his throat out and I haven’t hit him. “Wait a second, calm d-down.
Who
told you to take the pictures?”

He opens his mouth but the words won’t come out. They catch somewhere in his throat between his guilt and his fear, and I’m worried he’s going to grab the phone and make a run for it. Maybe he realizes that no matter how he answers, the police are going to be at his doorstep.

Autumn says, “Patrick,
who told you
to take the pictures?”

Patrick slowly sinks down to a crouch, head bowed, hands laced behind his neck. When he looks up, his eyes are glassy.

And he says, “Brett.”