Witch Ways (9 page)

Why had we moved to different places? If we all loved each other, why couldn’t we live together? Then I realized they had moved, and I hadn’t. So, they had to be the ones to answer those questions.

My phone buzzed with a text from Bree.

“MOM ASKED UR UNCLE IF YOU COULD HELP AT GAME. HE SAID YES.”

I sipped my chocolate. If I went to India with Mom, I’d miss everything, like football games. Bree’s mom helped with the booster club because Bree’s sister, Candace, was a cheerleader and Josh was a running back. I knew Candace and Josh were both counting on scholarships to help them get into college. Which meant Bree and I helped at the tailgate party before every home game.

“
COOL. THANKS
,” I responded. And just like that, I knew I could never spend my high school years in India, or anywhere other than Woodinville. Not if I could help it.

While Bree braced herself on crutches near the buns and condiments, I manned the barbecue. Smoke rose from the grill, keeping me warm. Near the goal post, the Woodinville Seagulls warmed up, jogging in place and throwing their knees high in the air. I looked for Josh’s number. All the players looked the same to me in their blue and white uniforms and helmets. The bright lights lit up the dark night sky. We were busy until after half-time.

Bree giggled at something, and I turned to see her chatting with Dylan.

He looked toward me, and his smile widened.

I really didn’t want to smile back, but I couldn’t help myself. I bent over the hamburgers, turning my lips down and trying to stay mad. I’d been at Faith Despaign for a whole week, and he hadn’t smiled at me once. He could be smiley here all he wanted, so why not at school where it mattered?

I flipped over a burger and it broke in half. Bugger.

“Hey,” Dylan said. “How about a hotdog?”

“That’s four dollars.” Without even a tiny smile, I looked him in the eye and tried to sound professional and official.

His smile faltered. “Is there ketchup and stuff?”

I motioned behind me. “Over there.”

He gave me a puzzled look.

I responded by lifting my chin in the air and searching the field for Josh’s number nine.

“Hey,” Dylan turned to Bree. “I just heard the other team is going to try a naked bootleg. We should tell Josh.”

“What’s that?” Bree giggled. “Sounds sketch.”

“I don’t know, but I bet Josh does.” Dylan pointed to the field. “How sketch can it be? Those guys are clothed and padded up the A.”

“How would you know what their plays are?” I asked. “Isn’t that something the other team would keep secret?”

“The guy that just got kicked out of the game is a good friend of mine.” Dylan said this as if Bree and I had been paying attention to the players on the field, which, of course, we hadn’t. “He just sent me a text, ‘cause he hates the coach.”

“We have to tell Josh!” Bree said.

“I’ll do it.” I wanted to be the one who told Josh. After he came and drove me home in the rain, it seemed like the least I could do. Glancing down at the grill, I decided I couldn’t leave. Although, watching Bree chat up Dylan, I really wanted to.

Lincoln sat on the cooler where the booster stored the soda, his feet swinging and kicking. He looked bored out of his mind.

“Hey, Lincoln,” I called him over and bent down so I could whisper in his ear. “Go and tell Josh the Raiders are going to do a naked bootleg.”

“A naked boot?” His lip curled. “What’s that?”

“Naked bootleg. It’s a football thing.” I pointed at Josh standing on the sidelines. “He’s number nine. Got it?”

Lincoln folded his arms, debating. “Why should I?”

“Because you want Josh to go to college so you can have his room.”

Lincoln rolled his eyes. “Shows what you know. I won’t get his room. There’s a whole lot of people in line ahead of me. Penguin has a better shot of getting Josh’s room than I do.”

True. “How about I’ll buy you a soda?”

Lincoln narrowed his eyes. “And a Butterfinger?”

“Sure,” I said. “But you better hurry. Who knows when they’ll start naked bootlegging it?”

Smiling, I watched Lincoln run for the sidelines, dodging through the packs of teenagers and adults. A whistle blew. The Seagulls called a time out and number nine traded places with number seven.

Oh no.

I handed my spatula to Dylan. “Watch the burgers!”

I took off across the parking lot, and through the crowd. “Lincoln! Wait up!”

I couldn’t see him. Where was he?

The cheerleaders shook their pompoms and kicked their legs. Newspaper people armed with cameras around their necks milled on the sidelines. The refs looked red-faced and sweaty, despite the brisk autumn night. I spotted Josh only a few feet away. He was huge in his pads and gear. Behind the bars of his helmet, he looked like an alien. Our eyes met and I read questions in his.

“Josh!” Lincoln whisper-yelled from the sidelines.

“Lincoln?” I called out. I heard him, but I couldn’t see him.

But then I did.

He dashed through the throng of players and onto the field. “They’re going to naked bootie!” Lincoln yelled at the top of his lungs.

“What the hell?” boomed number twelve.

“Get off the field!” the ref yelled.

“Naked bootie! Naked bootie!” Lincoln squawked as Mr. Henderson strode onto the field, picked up his son, threw him over his shoulder, and carried him away.

I slunk back toward the burgers, wondering how soon Josh would know the whole naked fiasco was my fault.

I wanted to disappear, or at least go home. I knew I could make it there without getting lost.

“Hey, Evie!” a familiar voice called.

I turned to see my friends from Hartly. “Hey, Mia. Hi, Carl. How’s everything?”

I tried to sound interested while they rattled off the latest Hartly gossip.

“We really miss you,” Mia said.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I miss you guys, too.”

“I can’t believe they kicked you out,” Carl said. “No one believes you intentionally set fire to the science room.”

I shrugged and twisted my mouth in a scowl.

“Where are you sitting?” Mia asked.

“I’m with Bree, flipping burgers.”

They looked over to where Bree and Dylan stood by the grill. Bree balanced on her crutches, leaning toward Dylan. Dylan looked manly in charge of the barbecue.

“But I’m going to go home now,” I added.

Evan looked around. “Do you have a ride?”

“No, I’ll walk. It’s not too far.”

“By yourself? In the dark?” Mia asked.

“Sure, why not?”

“Didn’t you hear about the murder?” Carl asked.

“The what?” As far as I knew, there hadn’t been a murder in Woodinville for my entire life.

“Loony Laurie—you’ve seen her,” Carl said. “She scrounges through the trash, collects soda cans and water bottles and stuff.”

“Loony Laurie?” I repeated.

“Yeah, she always wore that bright orange parka, even in the summer,” Mia said.

Memories of Lauren Silver flashed in my mind—orange parka, high heels, fishnet stockings. “How . . . oh, gosh. That’s so awful.”

Mia grabbed my shoulder. “You can’t walk home by yourself.”

“So the police don’t know . . . anything?”

Carl shook his head, studying me with narrowed eyes. “You really don’t look so good.”

I touched my forehead. “I want to go home.”

“I’ll take you,” Dylan Fox said.

I hadn’t even seen him standing behind me.

He jingled his keys and grinned at me. “I can go. You want a ride?”

“Oh, me, too.” Bree hobbled toward us. “It won’t be any fun here without Evie.”

Dylan flashed Bree a look I couldn’t decode. Impatience? Frustration? I didn’t get it. Dylan Fox had ignored me every day at school, but now he wanted some one-on-one time? Maybe he was just being nice.

Didn’t matter. I wanted to go home and Dylan was offering a ride. I could choose to walk, but not with Bree—it would take forever for her to crutch-hop the ten blocks.

“But what about the burgers?” I asked.

Bree pointed at the twins. They stood behind the grill, arguing. Lincoln sat on the soda cooler, shooting me poisonous death stares.

“They don’t need us around,” Bree said, laughing.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” I asked Dylan. “I really can walk.”

“I can’t,” Bree said, resting her hand on Dylan’s arm.

Dylan smiled down at her, and I tried to decipher that, too.

Nope. Still wasn’t reading him.

Dylan flipped his keys. “’K. Bree, wait here while Evie and I go and get the car.”

“Or, you could give me a piggy-back ride.” Bree smiled. “That would be faster and easier.”

For who?
I wondered.

Bree watched Dylan with hopeful eyes.

“Sure.” Dylan turned his back to Bree and bent down. “Hop on.”

But hopping with one leg was obviously really hard for Bree. I had to help. Finally, when she was securely attached to Dylan—both arms circling his neck, one leg curling around his waist while the other stuck out in front of her like a pink-casted jousting stick—we headed across the parking lot.

The crowd in the stadium roared when the Seagulls made a touchdown. I waited for the hoopla to die down before I asked, “Did you hear about the murder?”

Bree shot me a funny look. “I’m more worried about Josh murdering Lincoln. What made him run onto the field like that?”

“I did.”

Dylan and Bree stopped. They both gaped at me.

“It’s true.” I nodded at Dylan. “You said something about the naked bootleg and I wanted to repay Josh—”

“Repay him? For what?” Bree asked.

I bit my lip. Lauren was dead. Murdered. Josh knew I went to her house.

Accidentally burning down the science room was one thing.

Murder was another.

I knew I had absolutely nothing to do with Lauren’s murder, but I could see how someone could jump from arson to murder to troubled teen. I started walking a lot faster.

Once home, it didn’t take me long to boot up my computer and Google Lauren Silver. I cradled a cup of cocoa in my hand, but I still shivered as I read the report I found on the What’s Happening in Woodinville website.

Lauren Silver, a 48-year-old woman, died Saturday in her home at 67 Old Barn Road, in Woodinville, according to the Fairfield County Sheriff’s Department.

A neighbor, who has chosen to remain anonymous, discovered Silver’s body when she went to complain about the activities of Silver’s cat. Because of an empty bottle of sleeping pills found beside the body, the death was first ruled a suicide, but circumstantial evidence is now pointing toward murder.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Woodinville detective desk. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call the Woodinville Crime Stoppers.

Lauren Silver starred in numerous Broadway productions, such as
Paint Your Wagon
,
Mousetrap
, and
A Lady in Red
. Silver also had minor television roles in
General Hospice
and
Days of Our Existence
. Before her Broadway career, Ms. Silver was a leading lady at our very own Thornhill Theater.

There was a picture of her with permed hair, red lips, and heavy mascara. The photo couldn’t have been taken in the last decade. It made me sad to look at it, because the pretty, smiling woman in the photograph looked nothing like the Lauren I had met. Beside her photo was a picture of her house on Old Barn Road, same blue tarp on the porch, same torn screen door.

I spilled my cocoa on my lap when I spotted Court’s red tennis shoes on the porch. I shut down the computer. I didn’t even bother to change my clothes. I grabbed my black jacket, pulled the hoodie over my head, shoved my feet into a pair of boots, and retrieved my phone from its temporary jail. I turned it on to check its battery and was grateful when I saw it still had juice. I headed out the door, praying Uncle Mitch would still think I was at the game.

Hopefully, anyone looking at those shoes would think they belonged to Lauren Silver. Or maybe they would think Court had thrown the shoes away, or had given them to the Helping Hands, or had left them at a park, or the beach, and somehow, somewhere, Lauren had found them and taken them home.

But what if Court’s name were somewhere on the shoes? What if the police went to Court’s house to ask about them? And what if Court said “I lent them to Evelynn Marston?” Which would be true. Court wouldn’t have a reason to lie. She wouldn’t think Evelynn Marston, almost convicted arsonist, would have had anything to do with Lauren Silver’s death.

I tucked my hands in my pockets and headed for the train station. I now knew I could follow the tracks and they’d lead me to Old Barn Road. I could use the navigation on my phone if I got lost. In the dark. Alone.

No. I couldn’t worry. Wouldn’t worry.

I checked the time—10:37 p.m. I glanced back at the house. All the windows were dark. Uncle Mitch’s car was in the garage. He was in bed.

I looked over at the Hendersons’. Light blazed from the windows. I wished I could ask Bree to come with me. I thought about Josh. Would he remember picking me up from Lauren Silver’s house?

The wind cut through the trees, and pulled at my hair. I tried to keep my curls tucked into my hoodie, but they blew around my face. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the night, and I found the deserted train station. If I stayed on the tracks, at least I wouldn’t wander into a patch of poison oak, ivy, or . . . what about wolves? Or murderers?

Why would anyone kill Lauren? She looked harmless—crazy, but harmless. And from what I remembered, it didn’t look as if she owned anything worth stealing. I followed the tracks into the woods. The trees and brambles muffled any noise coming from the road or town. Leaves and twigs snapped and crunched beneath my boots.

Somewhere, a dog howled, making me wish I had brought Scratch. But he had never enjoyed walks. Even the two blocks to Hartly wore him out. But since I wasn’t a bulldog, I could walk for miles. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

A light shone through the trees.