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know what he was talking about. "When I dropped you off. Your parents looked
kind of & mad."
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"They weren't mad," I said. "They were concerned." And about Douglas, not me.
Because Douglas hadn't been home. He had been off somewhere, alone....
"Oh," Mark said. "Well, anyway. I just wanted to make sure you were, you
know, all right. That was pretty terrific, how you found Heather and all."
"Yeah," I said, noticing Ruth coming toward us. "Well, you know. Just doing
my job, and all. Listen, I gotta "
"I was thinking," Mark said, "that maybe if you aren't doing anything this
weekend, you and I could, uh, I don't know, hang out."
"Yeah, whatever," I said, though truthfully, the thought of going to see
Japanese anime with Skip was a lot more appealing than "uh, I don't know,
hanging out" with Mark. "Why don't you give me a call?"
"I'll do that," Mark said. He waved at Ruth as she went by, studying us so
intently she nearly barked her shins on her own car's bumper. "Hey," he said
to her. "How you doing there?"
"Fine," Ruth said, unlocking the driver's door to her car. "Thanks."
Mark opened his own driver's side door, reached inside his car, and pulled
out a duffel bag. Then he closed the door again and locked it. At our glances,
which I suppose he perceived as curious though in my case, it was merely
glazed he went, "Football practice," then shouldered the bag, and headed off
in the direction of the gym.
"Jess," Ruth said when he was out of earshot. "Did I hear that correctly? Did
Mark Leskowski just ask you out?"
"Yeah," I said.
"So that's how many people who've asked you out today? Two?"
"Yeah," I said, climbing into the passenger seat after she unlocked it from
the inside.
"Jeez, Jess," she said. "That's like a record, or something. Why aren't you
happier?"
"Because," I said, "one of the guys who asked me out today was, up until
recently, a suspect in his own girlfriend's murder, and the other one is your
brother."
Ruth went, "Yeah, but isn't Mark off the hook now, on account of what
happened to Heather?"
"I guess so," I said. "But...."
"But what?" Ruth asked.
"But . . . Ruth, Tisha says they all knew about that house. Almost like . . .
they're the ones who hang out there."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning it must have been one of them."
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"One of who?"
"The in crowd," I said, gesturing toward the football field, where we could
see the cheerleaders and some of the players already out there, practicing.
"Not necessarily," Ruth said. "I mean, Tisha knew about the house. She didn't
say she'd ever been in there partying, did she?"
"Well," I said. "No. Not exactly. But "
"I mean, come on. Don't you think those guys could find a nicer place to
party? Like Mark Leskowski's parents' rec room, for instance? I mean, I hear
the Leskowskis have an indoor/outdoor pool."
"Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Leskowski disapprove of Mark's friends bringing their
girlfriends over for a quickie in their rec room."
"Puh-lease," Ruth said as we cruised out of the parking lot and turned onto
High School Road. "Why would any of them kill Amber? Or try to kill Heather?
They're all friends, right?"
Right. Ruth was right. Ruth was always right. And I was always wrong. Well,
almost always, anyway.
I guess I didn't really believe in spite of what Tisha had told me, about all
of them knowing about the house on the pit road that they'd actually been
involved in Amber's murder and Heather's attack. I mean, seriously: Mark
Leskowski, wrapping his hands around his girlfriend's neck and strangling her?
No way. He'd loved her. He'd cried in the guidance office in front of me, he'd
loved her so much.
At least, I think that's why he'd been crying. He certainly hadn't been
crying about his chances at winning a scholarship being endangered by his
status as a murder suspect. I mean, that would have been just plain cold.
Right?
And what about Heather? Did I suppose that Jeff Day or someone else on the
team had tied Heather up and left her in that bathtub to die? Why? So she
wouldn't narc on Mark?
No. It was ridiculous. Tisha's theory about the deranged hillbillies made
more sense. Maybe the cheerleaders and the football team parried in the house
on the pit road, but they weren't the ones who'd left Heather there. No, that
had been the work of someone else. Some sick, perverted individual.
But not absolutely not my brother.
I made sure of that, the second I got home. Not, of course, that I'd had any
reason to doubt it. I just wanted to set the record straight. I stalked up the
stairs my mother wasn't home, thank God, so I didn't have to listen to any
more lectures about how unsuitable it was of me to sneak out in the middle of
the night with a boy who worked in a garage and banged once on Douglas's
bedroom door. Then I threw it open, because Douglas's bedroom door doesn't
have a lock. My dad took the lock off, after he slit his wrists in there and
we had to break the door down to get to him.
He's so used to me barging in, he doesn't even look up anymore.
"Get out," he said, without lifting his gaze from the copy ofStarship
Troopers he was perusing.
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"Douglas," I said. "I have to know. Where were you last night from five
o'clock until eight, when you came back to the house?"
He looked up at that. "Why do I have to tell you?" he wanted to know.
"Because," I said.
I wanted to tell him the truth, of course. I wanted to say, Douglas, the Feds
think you may have had something to do with Amber Mackey's murder, and Heather
Montrose's attack. I need you to tell me you didn't do it. I need you to tell
me that you have witnesses who can verify your whereabouts at the time these
crimes occurred, and that your alibi is rock solid. Because unless you can
tell me these things, I may have to take an after-school job working with some
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