The Deadly Sister (12 page)

M
y parents kept saying it was a good idea for me to go to school, but each time I went it worked out pretty much like I predicted—that is, horribly. That night I closed myself in my room and spent a few cathartic hours on the phone. First I tried Maya, but of course there was no answer. So instead I spent the evening talking to Cheyenne. I got her to agree to skip the first half of the next day and go to the mall with me. Our plan worked fine until my mom went to get her hair done at Salon la Floride and found me and Chantal chatting at the highlighting station. She started yanking out foil, had the assistant rinse out my hair, marched me out of the mall, and insisted on delivering me to school in person. (With, I might add, some crazy-looking hair.)

My heart started fluttering as we approached Xavier High. I couldn’t put together a coherent argument for why I couldn’t go into school, nothing that my mom would buy; my protests sprayed out, like juice from a bludgeoned fruit. “I don’t want to go. I really can’t. By tomorrow I’ll be better, I promise. But I can’t today. I’m tired; I can’t face everyone. They’re going to think I’m ugly and crazy and guilty and they’re going to ask me all over again about Maya and
Jefferson and Brian and it’s just horrendous so don’t make me go in.”

What was the precise reason for my anxiety? Plain old nerves, maybe. My father had made the police promise not to reveal the source of the pictures, but I still felt like my nasty secret was written on my face, and it was only a matter of time until someone noticed it.

At one point my huddling against the car door freaked out my mom enough that she pulled over. Between us, resting on top of the parking brake, was a wax bag containing two toasted coconut donuts and a vanilla iced coffee. My mom knew my favorite comfort food and had stopped by a drive-through on the way. She’d gotten over her anger and was back to being wonderful. But I couldn’t figure out how to make her see the scale of the torment in my mind. It zapped me whenever my thoughts left perfect center, like an electrified floor surrounding a mouse.

“What
is
it, Abby? Is this about Brian?”

“It’s not just Brian. I can handle people one-on-one, but I can’t stand to find out what specific little nasty things people have to say about Jefferson and Maya and me and Brian and all of it, you know?”

Mom rested her head against the leather steering wheel cover. “I think you’re traumatized by the fact that your sister’s still missing, and you’re finding it hard to put your anguish into words. But you have to let life get back to some semblance of normality.”

“Mom! I think this counts as extenuating circumstances.
Maya’s
missing
.” I’d heard her tell my dad last night that she hadn’t been able to do any cleaning or cooking and that they’d have to hire a maid until their little girl returned. If my mom wasn’t letting her own life return to normal, why should I be expected to? But she was definitely right that the way things were now couldn’t continue for much longer.

“It’s already Friday; the weekend will be here before you know it. Returning to school will be like diving into a cold pool. It’ll be fine once you start swimming. Just get in, already.” She seemed very satisfied with that metaphor. She continued to repeat it. Her red bangs shivered every time she did.

“Fine,” I said.

“You have plenty of great friends looking out for you. Today’s going to be easier than you think. I’ll pick you up after and we can get manicures.”

I nestled the donuts and coffee into my schoolbag. “What you can do is make an appointment so I can get this horrendous half dye job fixed. But later. I’ll get a ride after school. Thanks, Mom.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Madame Rutman was both mournful and ecstatic when I showed up halfway through French.
“Bonjour, Abigail! Classe, levez-vous! Répétez, s’il vous plaît: ‘Bonjour, Abigail!’”

After my riotous reintroduction, I slinked to my seat, kept my head low, and did my best to concentrate on subjunctive
conjugations. I’ve never written down more and understood less. When the bell finally rang, I was the first out, and hovered in a dark spot at the end of the hallway, where Cheyenne had fourth-period Spanish. I glanced through the window. They were finishing a quiz, and of course she was working on it overtime.

While I was waiting, Rose came whizzing out of a nearby door. She nearly crashed into me. “Oh,” she said, checking me out as I hovered in the darkness, “that’s creepy.”

“I’m waiting for Cheyenne.”

“I’m sure you are. You guys should really work on expanding your circle of friends. Was she helping Brian, too?”

I did a mental inventory of the books in my hand. French workbooks were way too light to bother throwing—why couldn’t I have had fourth-period history? “You’re freaking obsessive, you know that?” I said.

“There sure are a ton of obsessives around, aren’t there? Like your sister. I’m wondering if she and her goth boy hatched some plan. Everyone’s saying he killed his brother with one of those creepy weapons on his wall. That he drew hundreds of pictures of it. But wouldn’t he need help? If Maya didn’t do the deed, then maybe she held his dagger for him or something.”

“Brian’s not goth. He’s not even emo.” What exactly was I trying to accomplish with
that
line of argument? I’ve always been terrible at fighting. I tried again. “You’re pointing a lot
of fingers. Getting pretty loud. Accusing everyone in sight except for one person.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who, you?”

“No. You.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and I watched her expert transition from bitch to victim. It was really amazing. “You monster,” she said softly, looking around for someone to rescue her. But we were at the end of the hallway. There was no one.

The door to the Spanish classroom opened and Cheyenne barreled out. “Abby!”

“Hey.”

“Hey, Rose!”
Cheyenne said, making a fist.

Rose turned martyr and fled down the hall.

We watched her run, flip-flops kicking out awkwardly. “She’s really fragile, you know,” Cheyenne said drily. “We should be more careful with her.”

I nodded. “Yep. But let me tell you, it was fun while it lasted. Wanna pretend we don’t have any classes fifth or sixth period?”

“You got it. Rocking highlights, by the way.”

We started toward the front doors. I pointed at the hallway clock dramatically as we passed under. “Eleven-thirty on Friday. Know what that means?”

“Wait, don’t tell me.” Cheyenne stayed quiet for a long time. She hated when she couldn’t meet a challenge. “Damn. I have no idea.”

“Sixty-seven hours exactly since I talked to the cops. Deadline’s almost up. The search for Maya’s about to go federal.”

“Sounds heavy,” Cheyenne said. “But I don’t know what that means. What do the federal police do differently?”

I paused. Actually, I didn’t really know. Now that Brian was everyone’s favorite suspect, would there still be warrants and unannounced visits and total chaos for my family? Or had my giving those drawings to my mom gotten Maya off the hook? Even if that was true, I shuddered to think about the costs. I’d betrayed Brian. But I couldn’t bring myself to voice any of that to Cheyenne. “What it does mean,” I said, “is that I start ducking every time I see a police car.”

“You,” Cheyenne said, “have turned into a bad, bad girl.”

She was joking. But it was so not funny.

A vice principal was posted by the front entrance to catch skippers, but he smiled at us and held open the door. No way sweet girls like Abby and Cheyenne would be truants. We waved and walked outside. As soon as we did, though, I saw a certain car in the front lot and froze.

It wasn’t a cop car. But it was the one thing that could make me pray for cops.

Keith and Blake were lounging against an old Cadillac, smoking and watching the school entrance. I remembered Keith’s text message from yesterday, how he’d demanded to see me, how I’d blown it off. They leaped to their feet as soon as we stepped out of the doors. I watched Blake’s hand go to
an inside pocket of her leather jacket and start to pull something out.

“Whoa,” Cheyenne said, “isn’t that…?”

“Yes,” I said. “Back into the school. Now.”

Once we were back inside, the vice principal nearby, my heart rate slowed. “Okay,” I said. “We’re going out the back way, by the driver’s ed course.”

“What do they want with us?” Cheyenne asked as we power walked.

“No idea. You want to go find out?”

We exited through the back entrance, stood in the shadow of a balcony, and scanned for Blake and Keith. Nothing, until…“They’re over there,” Cheyenne whispered. And sure enough, the same old Cadillac pulled up at the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Keith and Blake watched us through the window. “What do we do?” Cheyenne asked.

“We run.”

I immediately took off across the field, Cheyenne yelping and running to catch up to me. I risked a look over at the car and saw Blake climbing the fence. But Keith pulled her back to the far side. I held out a hand for Cheyenne to stop.

Keith and Blake yelled something at us that I couldn’t make out. Finally, they threw up their arms in disgust, got in the car, and sped away.

“What was
that
about?” Cheyenne asked.

“I’m glad not to know, I think.”

“Me, too,” Cheyenne said, looping her arm through mine.

We wandered off, alert to any signs of Blake and Keith,
and wound up at Ernie’s cavernous gas station. We sat out of view around back and wolfed down the donuts my mom had bought me, which by now had greased through their waxed paper bag. “Rose is totally hysterical, isn’t she? I mean that in the crazy way, not the funny way. Bitch needs to center.”

“She
did
just lose her boyfriend,” I pointed out.

“Sure, Abby, that makes sense, hurl textbooks at the girl and then defend her later. I
knew
it wasn’t Maya, by the way.”

“You did not!” I said, indignant. “You were the most suspicious thing ever.”

“Oh, please. I was being
emotionally pragmatic,
sure, about the
reality
of the
situation,
but I never
really
believed it.” She took in a gaping mouthful of donut and waited for the gummy clot to clear her throat. “When’s Maya coming back?”

“I don’t know if she knows Brian’s the prime suspect,” I said. “I haven’t been able to reach her recently.”

“Have you tried everything?”

I nodded.

“Did you know that Jefferson messed around with Donna Meadows, too?” Cheyenne continued. “Same story as usual. Flowers and romance and pledges of devotion, and then the sudden cruel drop. That was back when they were freshmen. Somehow she kept it quiet all this time. Embarrassed to be part of the trend, I guess.”

I knew all about Donna Meadows and didn’t feel like chatting about Jefferson. But I could sense how much Cheyenne wanted to talk, so I barreled in: “Drug dealer, sociopath, brother destroyer, valedictorian blackmailer, allaround punk. Do you think he got away with it all just because he was so hot? Remember that picture you took at the beach for Rebecca’s bat mitzvah? That was eighth grade—he was just
fourteen.
And damn. You could see those three old ladies in the background, staring at his back muscles. They bought him a beer. A beer!” I had started getting nervous—Cheyenne was staring at me something heavy.

“What do you mean, ‘valedictorian blackmailer’?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Brian told me. Don’t worry about it. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“You mean, you’re believing the guy who killed his own brother over your best friend?”

“No. Who cares? You don’t even know what he told me, anyway.”

“I can just imagine what Brian Andrews would have told you, Abby.”

“You’re not mad at me, are you? Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not,” she said, ticked.

“Don’t
worry
about it. Please.”

“I know. I’m not trying to say Jeff wasn’t a total ass to me.
I’m jittery these days, that’s all. There’s enough going on without people spreading extra crap about me.”

“Look,” I said, sighing, “I know you didn’t
kill
him. Let’s move on. You got your BlackBerry? I want to see if Maya’s online.”

Cheyenne handed it to me. Maya wasn’t online, so I sent her a Facebook message. I left it a bit vague, in case the police were monitoring somehow.

To: Maya Goodwin

From: Abby Goodwin

Hey. What’s going on? Dumb question. A lot, huh? I hope you’re hidden somewhere good. What are you doing with yourself? Watching a lot of TV? Getting panicky all the time? I am, just worrying about you. I’m keeping Mom and Dad in order (they seem pretty fine, actually, considering you’re missing and all. I mean they miss you, of course, but it’s not like they’re TOTALLY falling apart. Not COMPLETELY). Anyway, the big news is that Brian’s all but the confirmed killer. I know, killed his own brother. At least that’s what everyone’s saying. Look, you were the only person there that night who’s still alive. Now that Brian’s in custody, people are a whole lot more likely to believe you. If you know that you didn’t kill him, then come back! The truth will wash itself out.

I miss you. You know what’s real and what’s not so what are you afraid of? I get that this is a total 180, but everything’s changed now that Brian’s caught.

The phone beeped, and I passed it to Cheyenne. “What does that mean?”

“Low battery. You’ve got a little while, but you’d better finish up.”

“Okay.”

Cheyenne headed around to the station’s front door. “I need more donuts. But we’re at Ernie’s, so year-old Entenmann’s will have to cut it. Want anything?”

“Get me some of those little powdered ones. Let me hold on to your phone, though. I want to see if Maya tries to IM. Maybe she only logs on during the day or something.”

“That’s a stretch,” Cheyenne said, “but fine. See you in a sec.”

Ugh. More donuts. But eating bad made me feel good. I worked my hand under my shirt, running my fingertips along the side of my abdomen. I used to do that all the time, until Cheyenne basically staged an intervention about it. It’s not like I’ve ever had an eating disorder; I just like to check whether I feel muscle or cool, limp fat. I’d thought no one noticed me doing it. But Cheyenne had, so I try to abstain when she’s around.