Dead Ringer (18 page)

Laura

Laura picked her cellphone up off
her bed and silenced it for what had to be the tenth time that night. She knew
she should just block Charlie’s number at this point, but she was curious to
see just how many times he would call.

Laura knew it wasn’t entirely fair to shut out Charlie
without any explanation, but she figured he knew why she went radio silent, and
the truth was she still didn’t know what to say. She trusted him, but he lied.
She wasn’t interested in the dozen excuses he’d probably offer. Dishonest
people like Charlie did not deserve a girlfriend, especially one that had been
trying to help him solve the very mystery he was lying about.

The letter from Sarah made it clear that someone was out to
get Charlie for a good reason, giving Laura even more justification to avoid his
calls. Laura looked down at her phone as the most recent call finally went to
voicemail. She would listen to it later. Right now she had to prepare for another
nerve-racking conversation with Becca.

It would be the second one in two weeks. The day after Laura
saw Becca’s bike parked outside Charlie’s house, she’d decided to say
something. That creepy action crossed the line, as far as Laura was concerned,
and even though she herself was currently furious with Charlie, the torture he
was enduring had to stop. If the person terrorizing Charlie was Becca for
whatever insane reasons, so be it. She’d gone to
The Chronicle’
s office just
before the end of lunch when she knew she’d find Becca scarfing down the last of
her meal.

“Why were you parked outside Charlie Sanders’ house late
last night?” Laura demanded.

“You saw me,” Becca replied. Laura was surprised by how
totally unaffected she was by the question. It was like Becca knew she’d be
found out by Laura and had just been waiting for the moment.

“I did, and I thought it was messed up. What were you doing
there?”

“It’s complicated,” Becca said. There still wasn’t an ounce
of guilt in her voice. She seemed more sad than nervous.

“Try me,” Laura said.

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” Becca said.

“Well, I don’t care. If you’re messing with Charlie, then I
need to know
now
.”

Becca took a deep breath. Laura could tell that she’d struck
a nerve with her last line. Becca was quickly shifting from sad to
mad
.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that!” Becca said. “You
don’t know me! You don’t know what I’ve been through! And you definitely don’t
know what Charlie Sanders did to me!”

“Then tell me!” Laura fired back. “Let me help!” Becca’s
face went from fiery to flat. She was done arguing.

“I need you to leave the
Chronicle
office, please.”

“Excuse me? We’re in the middle of an important
conversation.”

“No, we’re not,” Becca said. “You’re screaming at me, and
I’m done. I’m in charge in here, and I’ll get gladly call Principal Hayden if I
need help keeping this office safe.”

Laura stood up and grabbed her backpack off the desk. “I’m
trying to be your friend,” she said.

“No, you’re not,” Becca replied. “You’re trying to be
Charlie’s girlfriend.”

Laura kept playing that conversation over and over in her
mind. That was a Monday afternoon, and the last day that Becca came to school
that week, and she didn’t return any of Laura’s calls or emails. According to
the main office at school she was out sick, but Laura knew how easy that was to
fake. Becca was hiding.

If she was going to get the truth out of Becca, then Laura
needed to switch tactics. She needed to earn her friend’s trust again. Luckily
she knew the exact way to Becca’s heart.

Every morning before school for the rest of that week she
picked up a French-toast bagel with salted butter from Eli’s Hot Bagels in town
and dropped it on Becca’s front porch with a note telling her to feel better
and call if she needed anything. The French toast bagel was an Eli’s original,
and Becca counted it among her favorite things in the entire world. Then, every
night, she left another care package filled with one of Becca’s favorite foods.
Tuesday night was the Godfather sub from Bay Cities Deli; on Wednesday she left
a cookie-cream-pie sandwich from Baby Cakes with peanut butter on the top,
Snickerdoodle on the bottom and lemon frosting in the middle; Thursday featured
a hot slice of pizza from D’Amore’s, Becca’s favorite spot in town; and Friday
would have been the black-and-white shake from Jersey Freeze with rainbow
sprinkles, but just before Laura left school to go pick it up, Becca texted.

It didn’t sound like a message from a guilty person who knew
she was about to be found out, but Laura didn’t want to make any assumptions.
Maybe Becca was as conniving as Charlie.

Becca arrived around eight thirty with a Ziploc full of
chocolate-chip cookies.

“Hi,” she said as she walked into the living room. “Your
house is so…perfect.”

“Thanks,” Laura said. “I wanted you to meet my parents, but
they went out for sushi without me, again. Not so perfect…”

“I hear that,” Becca said. “My dad and I don’t have the best
relationship. Here.” She handed the bag of treats over. “I made these with my mom
today. They’re sea salt- and caramel-infused.”

“Wow,” Laura said, smiling. “Thanks! I’ll go get us some big
glasses of milk, and we can eat these on the couch.”

“Okay,” Becca said. She walked slowly past Laura and folded
herself into the big sectional in the room. Laura realized that Becca looked like
a shell of the girl she was a week or so ago. There was no fiery personality
behind her eyes and she wasn’t talking with the same loud energy that she had when
they first met. Laura’s first instinct was to say that Becca was acting guilty—head
down and eyes averted—but the more she watched, the more she realized
that Becca seemed sad.

 “So, I can’t believe Principal Hayden shut down
The
Chronicle
after the Sarah Castro-Tanner letter,” Laura said when she joined
Becca on the couch. “We were hacked. We obviously had nothing to do with it. He
has to know that, right?” She figured they might as well get right into it,
especially since it didn’t look like Becca was up for a long conversation.

“Yeah,” Becca said. “That’s what I want to talk to you
about.”

“Oh.
The Chronicle
closing? Is there anything we can
even do?”

“No. Not about the paper. About Sarah.”

Apparently this was going to be easier than Laura thought.
Becca wanted to talk about the very thing that Laura was dying to ask.

“Okay,” Laura said. “You can tell me anything you need to.
I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m not even talking to Charlie right now.”

“Good,” Becca said. “He’s an evil asshole. What he did to
Sarah should get him thrown in jail—him, that bitch Amanda, and their
little minions.” Suddenly the old Becca was back.

“Do you think they did more than just harass her, though?”
Laura asked. This felt like the moment to find out exactly what Becca knew.

“
More?!
” Becca yelled. “Is that not enough? Is it not
enough to torture someone until they’re so scared and miserable that they go to
their school principal to beg for help? You obviously don’t know how that can
affect a person, or their family.” She put the cookie she was holding down on
the couch and started to angrily pick at a loose string on her sweater.

“No, no,” Laura said. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry. I
just feel like someone must think Charlie and his friends did more, or they
wouldn’t be trying to ruin them with this article thing and that picture at the
dance.”

Becca’s face shifted from angry to surprised, as if
something just clicked inside her brain. She turned to face Laura and looked
her directly in the eyes.

“You think I did this,” she said.

It was a statement, not a question, and that made it difficult
for Laura answer. She had two options. She could be honest and say yes, or she
could waver and say maybe. Right now, Laura wasn’t in a wavering mood.

“Yes,” Laura said. “I do.”

Becca nodded slowly, mulling over that news. After an
awkward moment she finally looked up at Laura, and her eyes were filled with
tears.

“I came here to confess something to you that’s really,
really hard for me to talk about,” she said, “but now I don’t know if you
deserve to know my secret.”

“Wait. That’s not fair,” Laura said. “I didn’t know that.
All I know is that you have access to some stuff that has been used on Charlie
and
that I saw you sitting on your bike outside his house. Put yourself in my
shoes, Becca.”

That seemed to calm Becca down for a moment. She reached
back for her cookie and took another deep breath.

“I’m gay” were the next two words that came out of Becca’s
mouth. They were the absolute last two words that Laura expected to hear.

“Oh,” Laura said. “I didn’t realize that. Thank you for
telling me.”

“I’ve wanted to for a long time,” Becca said, “but almost
nobody knows, and I feel safer that way for now.”

“That makes sense,” Laura said, but couldn’t stop herself
from asking what felt like the most important question. “But what does that
have to do with Charlie?”

“When everything happened with Sarah Castro-Tanner—everything
that
Charlie
did to Sarah happened—I was in love with…someone for
the first time.”

“Do you feel comfortable telling me who?” Laura asked after
a few seconds.

“Sarah’s younger sister, Lexi.”

Laura was able to stop herself from screaming out what was
on her mind this time, but only because it was a jumble of random words that
didn’t make any sense.
Lexi Castro-Tanner.
The younger sister in Sarah’s
story hadn’t factored into Laura’s thinking much at all. She
had never
for a moment considered the possibility that Becca might know Lexi, let alone
have been in love with her. Plus, Laura had absolutely no idea that Lexi might
be a lesbian. “Was Lexi your girlfriend?” Laura asked.

“Yes,” Becca said, “But no one knew. Neither of us was out
then. I’m still only out to my family—no one at school knows. And Lexi—”
Becca stopped herself. The sadness was back in her face now. “I don’t know if
Lexi is out now. She wasn’t then, but I haven’t spoken to her in almost two
years.”

“Since Sarah died,” Laura said, finally starting to make
sense of it all. Becca nodded. “Lexi broke up with you?”

“Not officially. She just drifted away. She was totally destroyed
when Sarah died. She couldn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t know how to help
her, but she didn’t want help then anyway. She just wanted to get out of this
town as fast as she could.”

“So that’s why the family moved to wherever they live now?”

“Yeah. Morristown. It’s not far actually. Every once in
awhile I think I see Lexi out somewhere, but I’m too afraid to go up and check if
it’s actually her. I…I just can’t… She broke my heart, Laura. I know it wasn’t
her fault, but she just disappeared and never said good-bye.”

Laura watched as tears gathered in Becca’s big, dark eyes.
Before this moment, she couldn’t imagine Becca crying over anything, let alone
love. Laura felt terrible about Becca’s pain, but she tried to remind herself
that this didn’t answer the question about what Becca was doing in Charlie’s
driveway. Laura had to somehow segue to that fact, and as sensitively as
possible.

“So is this why you’ve been out of school lately?” Laura
asked. “Has it just all hit you? Are you finally mad at Lexi for hurting you?”

“No. It wasn’t her fault. Lexi’s heart was broken, too.”

“Sarah broke her heart by doing what she did?”

“If that’s what you believe,” Becca said. Now there was an
edge to her voice.

“What do you mean?” Laura asked.

“Well, I believe that
Charlie
broke it when he did
what he did to Sarah. Now that I know he and his friends were to blame I can’t
even be inside the same building as him. I’m going crazy. I sat outside his
house that night trying to figure out how I could ruin his life.”

“But…you’re not sending him the messages he’s been getting
about Sarah?”

“No. I wish I was,” she said passionately. “I wish I knew
whatever info this person seems to have so I could help them take him down. He
doesn’t deserve anything that he has, and I can’t believe you don’t see that,
Laura. You can’t be with him. You’re better that that!” The fiery Becca was
back.

“Well, thank you,” Laura said. “Charlie and I are definitely
taking a break right now until I know more about whatever happened between him
and Sarah.” Just as she said those words, Laura had what now seemed like an
obvious thought. “Wait. Lexi.
She
must know more about Sarah’s story.
None of the articles ever mentioned her side of the story. Maybe we could—”

“No, Laura. I’m not getting in touch with Lexi.”

“But what if she could help? What if she knows more about
Charlie?”

“I need to remind myself that it’s not about that. It’s over
with Lexi. If I’m ever going to move on, I have to stop obsessing.”

 “Right,” Laura said slowly. “I’m sorry. That makes
sense.”

“Anyway,” Becca said. “I know that was a lot to unload on
you, but I didn’t want to lie anymore. And I’m really sorry that I blew up at
you so many times without explaining why.”

“I understand. All this stuff going on is really scary, for
all of us,” Laura said. “But do you think the two of us can move on from this
part of it, at least?”

“Yes,” Becca said, “Please.”

“Good, because I just decided I’m going to have a
Friendsgiving party on the Friday night after Thanksgiving. I’d love if you and
the whole paper staff would come—even if we technically don’t have a
paper.”