After a series of answers that varied from “I don’t know” to “I don’t remember,” and to “I was kind of wasted” to “I didn’t see anything freaky,” Drew said, “I wish I could help. I know it would be the right thing to do. Really, I do get that. But I don’t know anything.” He paused and surveyed the room. “There were a couple of kids dressed up as Occupy protestors. Tim and Ken or something like that. Maybe they know something. I’ve seen them around at school.”
Annie wrote down the names. “Did they cause any kind of trouble?” she asked.
“Nah. They drank some beer and, if anything, bored a couple of girls.”
“Did everyone get along that night?” she asked.
“Yeah. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Not for a party. A couple of guys got into it over something, a girl, a car, I dunno. No one punched anyone. Brianna asked me to get them out of there, and I did. They said something about Bree being totally mean, but I didn’t argue. Sometimes she is. She even accused me of having a thing for Olivia— totally ridiculous. Olivia is so not my type.”
“When was the last time that you saw Olivia?”
Drew fidgeted with the drawstring of his hoodie. “I hardly saw her at all. She was talking with her friends from Port Gamble—the Ryan twins, Colton James, and Beth Lee, the girl she’s been living with. They didn’t look like they were having much fun. Especially Beth. I think she had plans to come to the party with Olivia, but it didn’t happen. Whatever. It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“Olivia was supposed to go with Beth?”
Drew nodded. “Yeah, but I picked her up at the Lee house early. Bree asked me to.”
“Was Olivia all right when you got there?”
“To be honest, not really. I’m not sure what it was about. I didn’t ask.”
“If you didn’t talk to her about it, what makes you think something was wrong?”
“She was mad at somebody, all right. That’s totally for sure. She said something along the lines of ‘If looks could kill, I’d be a dead girl.’”
Annie’s pulse quickened. “Kill? Did somebody threaten her?”
Drew shrugged again. “Honestly, it was pretty much a joke. We laughed about it on the way over.”
“What else did she say?”
“Nothing. She said nothing. Can I leave now?”
Annie stood and indicated the door. “Thank you, Drew. I know this has been hard.”
Drew grinned. “Not that hard. You should try going home late from a party and having my old man question you. That’s hard. Being questioned about a murder? That’s cake.”
Chapter 5
THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN at Kingston High usually saw a mix of nerdy boys bragging about the awesome pranks they’d played on some unsuspecting sap (frequently involving dog poop in a paper bag, toilet paper decorations, and stealing candy—bowl and all—that trusting neighbors left on their front stoops), dorks with taffy stuck in their braces, and weight-watching teachers complaining that they ate their entire leftover stash of Fun Size (or rather, ton-size) Snickers and were now beyond sorry for doing so.
Not this year. Not by a long shot. The morning after Brianna’s party, Kingston’s gleaming halls were abuzz with decidedly sinister talk. The news started off with a text message from Beth to Hayley and Taylor:
BETH: OMG! OLIVIA WAS KILLED LAST NIGHT.
HAYLEY: WTF?
TAYLOR: JOKE?
BETH: NO. POLICE CAME. KILLED AT BRIANNA’S. DON’T KNOW
DEETS. MOM IS CRYING. I AM 2. THIS IS MY FAULT.
TAYLOR: NOT UR FAULT.
BETH: I SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT HER. SHE WZ MY
RESPONSIBILITY. I SHOULD HAVE BROUGHT HER HOME. I
SHOULDN’T HAVE FOUGHT W/HER.
HAYLEY: WHAT HAPPENED TO HER? OVERDOSE?
BETH: WORSE. STABBED.
TAYLOR: HOLY C.
That was followed by a Twitter post, a Facebook firestorm, and mass texting from and to nearly every kid who went to Kingston High School. While many didn’t know her personally, they all had heard what happened and knew who she was: Olivia Grant, the British girl:
KID WITH ASPERGER’S: SHE HAD A NICE SMILE.
JEALOUS GIRL: SHE WAS PRETTY, IN AN OBVIOUS, UNORIGINAL
KIND OF WAY.
HORNY BOY: SUCH A WASTE OF HOTNESS.
TEACHER’S AIDE:
Hayley and Taylor stood by their lockers, feeling sick and scared. They had learned the news by text as soon as Beth and her mother had been awakened by police to say that their houseguest would not be coming home. Beth’s text was confirmation of what Taylor and Hayley’s nighttime silent chatter had been about: something very, very bad had happened. The circle on the windowpane hadn’t been a circle, but the letter O.
O for Olivia.
As other students went about their preclass business with the almost electric energy that gossip creates, Hayley and Taylor reviewed everything that had happened the night before. The party. The drinking. The argument.
“Things like that don’t happen here,” Taylor said.
“You sound like a dimwit who claims that the serial killer next door was nice. Things like this do happen here. They happen everywhere, Taylor,” Hayley responded.
“I guess you’re right,” Taylor said.
“The question is, who could have done this to Olivia?” Hayley asked.
“No idea,” Taylor said, stowing her swim-team duffel bag in her locker. She stopped and scanned the crowd in the halls. She waited to see if she picked up on anything weirder than usual in the jostling group of high schoolers. Nothing. “The one thing that really scares the crap out of me is that whoever did it is probably someone we know.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Hayley said. “We sort of knew everyone who was there. Brianna bragged that hundreds of kids were coming, but really, I’d be surprised if more than fifty were there.”
Taylor did a quick mental count. “Forty, I’d say.”
“Anybody could have done it—but who did, and why?” Hayley asked. “I don’t think I’m going to learn a single thing in class today.
Can’t concentrate.”
“You, me, and the rest of the school.”
It was then that the first text message came through to both twins’ cell phones. Neither teen recognized the texter’s handle or the phone number the message came from:
CASE FILE #613-7H: I KNOW WHO KILLED HER.
The girls read their screens in disbelief. Time froze in the tiled halls of Kingston High. The air stopped moving. It was like a lid had been dropped over them and they were completely and utterly alone.
“Who do you think sent this?” Taylor whispered, an edge of panic in her voice.
“Could be anyone,” Hayley said, looking around. “Maybe it’s him—her killer.” She pressed her palm into her stomach. She was sure she was going to hurl and that would not be something she would want to ever, ever do at school.
“What should we do? Should we tell someone? Should we text back and find out what they want?”
“No. Remember Dad’s rule about texting strangers.”
Hayley rolled her eyes at her sister. Their crime-writer dad, Kevin, had drilled it into them in fifth grade when they got their first cell phones. It was a cardinal rule, though the specific number—as he actually and annoyingly numbered his rules—she couldn’t recall just then:
“Never respond to someone you don’t know. By your answering him, the creep knows that the message was received and could get more aggressive.”
“You’re right,” Taylor said. “It’s better not to tell anyone and hope Text Creeper doesn’t text us again . . . the freak. And as much as it unnerves me to get his—”
“—or her,” Hayley interrupted.
Taylor nodded. “Right. As much as it unnerves me to get his or her texts, we need to figure out who killed Olivia.”