Pretty Little Devils (17 page)

They turned on the news. Breona's death was at the top of the local broadcast.

“Police are investigating the grisly death of Brookhaven High School's beloved head cheerleader, Breona Angelina Wu,” the news anchor announced.

Hazel realized that Lakshmi's report had been one hundred percent accurate. Someone had killed Breona in brutal fashion.

And the police had taken Matty away for questioning…

“Matty didn't do it. He couldn't. He was with you,” Ellen said, reading Hazel's thoughts.

“He wasn't with me all night,” Hazel said. “Maybe until two-thirty.”

“Haze, you know him,” Ellen insisted. “He's just not that kind of guy.”

Then why did the police arrest him?
Hazel wondered.

She buried her face in her hands.

“When he freaked out on the field, I thought Sylvia was overreacting.” Hazel took a shaky breath. “But maybe she was right. Maybe he has problems.”

“Stay calm,” Ellen said, giving Hazel a reassuring pat on the back. “Brandon told me their fight was totally not a big deal.”

“Brandon told you?” Hazel looked up. “You guys have been talking?”

Ellen's eyes went wide for a moment. “Don't tell Sylvia!” she squeaked.

Hazel rolled her eyes. “I think she has bigger things to obsess about right now. So, you know that she was just being manipulative, right? Trying to break you guys up?”

“Of course.” Ellen shook her head. “But what else is new?”

“Wait. I don't understand. If you know about it, why do you guys put up with it?” Hazel asked.

Ellen picked up her mug. “The thing is, Sylvia has helped all of us at one time or another. We owe her. And besides…” She took a sip of her cocoa. “What would any of us be without the group? The PLDs as a whole are greater than the sum of its parts.”

Hazel could barely believe what she was hearing. It was clear that Sylvia had them all under her thumb.

Was she as trapped as the rest?

“Listen, Ellen,” Hazel said. “There's something else you should know.”

Ellen cocked her head innocently. “What?” she asked.

“Sylvia and Brandon—they were hooking up for a while.”

Hazel watched Ellen's expression. For a moment it looked like she was about to crumble.

“I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised,” Ellen whispered.

“Really?” Hazel asked.

Ellen shook her head. “Brandon has always been kind of weird around Sylvia. And the truth is, she does this kind of shit all the time.” She paused. “That doesn't make it hurt any less.”

Hazel put a comforting hand on Ellen's shoulder. “I don't think you have to worry about it now. Brandon put an end to it. He really likes you, El.”

“Really?” Ellen gazed up, hopeful.

“Absolutely,” Hazel reassured her.

“It's just—it's weird that he never mentioned anything about it. Like he wanted to keep it a secret or something.”

“He probably just didn't want to hurt you,” Hazel said quickly.

Ellen gazed into the distance, thinking. She frowned. Seconds ticked by in silence. “It's okay,” she finally decided. “I know where his heart really is.”

Hazel smiled. “You know he—” She was interrupted by the ring of her cell phone. She rummaged through her purse, pressed talk, and put it to her ear.

“Haze,” Sylvia said. “I heard.”

“Heard what?” Hazel asked.

“About Matty. The police. A bunch of kids saw it happen.” Hazel heard typing in the background. “There's something you should to read,” Sylvia continued. “It's in the student files. I'm e-mailing it to you
now
.”

“I'm out,” Hazel said, throwing Ellen a glance.

“Well, you need to get home,” Sylvia said. “You need to see this. Now.”

“But—”

“Look, just do it,” Sylvia said curtly. “It's important.”

“What did she want?” Ellen asked once Hazel had hung up the phone.

Sylvia's words echoed in her head.
Real friends tell each other everything.
She wondered what Sylvia could have found out about Matty.

“She left me an e-mail,” Hazel said. “I—I should go home anyway. My parents will be wondering.”

Ellen shrugged, like she was a little hurt, but she didn't press. Hazel grabbed her keys.

 

Hazel entered her house and let the front door slam.

“Hi, honey,” her mother called from the kitchen. “We're having that chicken you like so much.”

“Great,” she said flatly, heading straight for the stairs. “I have homework.”

“Okay. I'll call you when it's ready,” her mother replied cheerfully.

She must not have heard about Breona yet,
Hazel thought.
She wouldn't be so calm otherwise.

She trudged up the stairs and down the hall. Corey was in his room, but she didn't say hello. All she wanted to do was slip under the covers and try to forget everything.

After changing out of her wet clothes and throwing on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, Hazel sat down at her computer. She powered it up and logged on to her e-mail.

Hazel took a breath and clicked on the subject line.

Hazel braced herself and scrolled down. Part of Matty's file had been pasted in the e-mail.

Hazel read it again.

Hazel remembered Matty's explosion on the football field. His anger on the night of the dance. She shuddered. She'd been alone with him in the car after that. How could she have let herself trust him?

“Hazel…Hazel, did you hear me?” Her mother was calling her.

“What, Mom?” she yelled back, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs.

“I said, you have company,” her mother hollered.

Hazel shot bolt upright as her bedroom door slowly swung open.

Matty. He was
here
.

He was dressed in black, his hair dripping from the rain. His chest was heaving. Hazel saw a wild, desperate look in his eye.

…prone to violent outbursts…

Matty came toward her. She stood up to cover the e-mail on-screen, then clicked off the monitor.

She turned to face him, her shoulders tensed. “What do you want?”

“Just hear me out.” He held his hands out in front of him but continued into the room. “It was no big deal. They asked me some questions and let me go. They didn't have any
proof
.” He smiled wryly. “So they had to release me.”

Hazel stared at him. Mute.

“I saw you in the parking lot as the police car was pulling away,” he explained. “I know it looked bad. But they let me go, Hazel. I had nothing to do with it.”

He came closer, reaching his arms out to touch her. Hazel stepped to the side, slowly backing away.

“I was going to call. But I had to get to you. I was freaking out.” He took another step toward her. “I found out how Breona died.”

She took a breath and stepped back again; she was nearly against the wall.

…restraining order…

“Someone stabbed her,” Matty said, his dark eyes boring into her. “Hundreds of times.”

“You. Need. To. Go.” Hazel forced the words from her frozen chest.
“Now.”

Matty scowled. “What? Why? You think
I
did it? Are you crazy?” he demanded, growing louder.

“Get out of here,” she rasped. “Please.”

He gave her a long, hard look, then turned and stomped back down the stairs. She heard the front door open, then slam shut.

Hazel sank onto the bed, exhaling. It was all so confusing. She knew Sylvia was a manipulator, but it was all right there in Matty's file—and in the angry expression she'd seen on his face. What was happening? Matty couldn't have killed Breona—could he?

T
here were officers all over Brookhaven High. Some wore khaki San Diego Police Department uniforms. Others wore street clothes. Those were the detectives—or so Hazel assumed. Her life had become a crime-scene television show—only there was no sound track, and no one seemed to know who'd done it.

Walking down the hall, she scanned the crowd for Matty.

She pushed her way through the crush. Everyone seemed to be swept up in a swirl of tension—all tight, scared faces, hunched shoulders. Some people were talking too loudly; others were silent. School as they had known it was over forever.

Hazel paused a moment in front of her locker, remembering the day she caught Matty taping his green carnation to her door.

She thought of his smile…how flustered he had been. Was that the face of a brutal killer?

Then she thought of Breona's freak-out.

Breona, who was gone.

Hazel's cell phone went off, ripping her out of her heavy thoughts. She checked the ID—Sylvia.

“Yes?” Hazel answered.

“Did you do this?” There was a brief silence, then…

“Bad babysitter.”
It was a metallic voice, just like the chip on Charlie Pollins's door.

“No!” Hazel cried. “What is it? Where is it?”

“In my locker. It goes off when I open the door.”

“Oh my God.” Hazel stared at her locker. She hesitated for a moment, then she worked the combination and pulled.

“Bad babysitter!”

It was a harsh, rough voice. The same one from the prank calls? Hazel backed away.

“This isn't your prank, Hazel?” Sylvia demanded.

“No!” Hazel cried, her eyes still glued to the open door.

“Then who did it?” Sylvia demanded.

“Why are you asking me?” Hazel asked.

“Because Charlie Pollins does this kind of thing. With those chips,” Sylvia said impatiently. “It had to be one of us. Who else would have access to Charlie?”

Hazel didn't have to think hard. Only one other person she could think of had access to Charlie. The same person who had made his missing-pet posters. The same person who played video games with him till late at night.

Matty Vardeman.

 

Everyone bought chicken noodle soup for lunch, as if solid food were too much to deal with. It was salty, and Hazel couldn't shake the image of huge vats of chicken feet simmering away in a factory someplace. She put down her spoon and sipped a bottle of water.

Sylvia looked around their table. “The voice chips. Give it up. Who did it?”

Everyone stared at everyone else.

A ripple went through the cafeteria as the doors by the diversity mural opened. Three police officers, Detective Fullerton, and Clancy strode in.

“It had to be one of us, right? Who else has our locker combinations?” Megan whispered.

Hazel watched as the authorities slowly made their way through the lunchroom.

“Those wouldn't be hard to get,” Sylvia answered without turning her head. “There's a list, right? Of all the combinations? People like Mrs. Sharma have access to them. She probably gave the list to Lakshmi—who sold our combinations to the highest bidder.”

“Maybe Lakshmi did it herself,” Megan ventured.

“No, she's not that smart,” Sylvia said contemptuously. “Whoever did this used Charlie's voice chips. So if it wasn't one of us, it was someone close to us.” Sylvia's voice dropped to a low growl. “Attending our parties…pretending to be our friend.”

Hazel remained silent.

The PLDs turned as one of the detectives strolled by their table.

“They're going to ask us about the drugs in Breona's locker,” Ellen whispered, her voice high and nervous.

“Why? No one asked us about the drugs before,” Sylvia pointed out.

“They're going to talk to us eventually,” Carolyn agreed. “Someone is going to tell them how much we hated her.”

“So?” Sylvia said. “We didn't kill her.”

“We talked about payback,” Ellen ventured.

“To each other, hello?” Sylvia sounded extremely irritated, as if she couldn't believe how dense Ellen was. “We didn't kill her, Ellen.”

“True.” Ellen exhaled slowly. “So why do we all feel so guilty?”

Sylvia turned a cold eye on her. “
We
don't.” She looked at the others. “Do we?”

Hazel spoke up. “Whoever killed her was a total psychopath.”

“A psychopath. Like someone who had a restraining order taken out on them?” Sylvia asked, giving her a look.

Hazel's stomach clenched. Beads of sweat collected on her forehead.

“We should tell them about the voices in our lockers,” Ellen said, eyeing the police officers. “Show them.”

Everyone looked at each other, then at the cops.

“Okay, okay, I confess,” Carolyn said, half raising her hand. “I did it.”

Everyone stared at her in total disbelief.

She grimaced at her soup and pushed it away. “The voices in the locker. I planned it forever ago, and Charlie called me and told me they were done. I already paid him, so…” She shrugged.

“That…is in
amazingly
poor taste,” Sylvia said icily.

“Dude, you have totally got balls,” Megan said. “I swear, that is one of the greats!”

“You're nuts,” Ellen said. “It was so inappropriate!”

“That's what makes it so fabulous,” Megan argued. “It's
so
wrong!”

Sylvia sighed like a mother of wayward children. “You never cease to amaze me,
mes petites
.”

“Hey, we're not the pretty little
angels
,” Megan said. She turned to Carolyn. “So, the scary phone messages, the e-mails? That was you too?”

“No.” Carolyn's smile faded. “I just did the voice chips.”

“Well, it's time to confess,” Sylvia told the group. “The game is over. Prank caller, come out, come out, whoever you are!”

There was dead silence.

The detectives retreated from the cafeteria, done with their intimidation.

The lunch bell rang, and the PLDs pushed back their chairs.

 

As they walked into the quad, Josh appeared out of the crowd. He gave Sylvia a quick kiss. Hazel noticed rings under his eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “I just left Kim's office. The police wanted to talk to me, but my parents said no, not without them and a lawyer present.”

“Good,” Sylvia told him, reaching up and tousling his hair. “Smart.”

He frowned. “But doesn't that make me look guilty?”

“No,” Sylvia replied. “It makes your parents look like they're not idiots.” She took his hand, swinging it back and forth. “Everyone is acting like they killed her. Why would they ever think it was you?”

“Sylvia,”
he protested, then sighed and shook his head, reddening. “You know why. Because of…the three of us. You know.”

Sylvia stared at him. “Oh my God, you're kidding,” she said. “They think you killed her?”

“I don't know,” he said, his voice shaking. “But if they talked to me, chances are they're coming for you too.”

Hazel wondered, Would they? Would they question Sylvia Orly? And if so, what kind of skeletons would they find in
her
closet?

Hazel kept her eyes out for Matty again as she walked to chemistry lab. She concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other—on breathing, on not falling apart.

Lakshmi was waiting for her just inside the door.

“So what's up? Did Sylvia say anything about the info I gave you?”

Hazel couldn't believe her ears. With everything that was happening, Lakshmi
still
hungered to be in with the cool kids. It was twisted, and it mortified Hazel; she din't want to be a person of this much importance anymore.

“Lakshmi, I—I need to sit down.”

“The police are questioning everybody,” Lakshmi announced, following Hazel to her lab stool. She looked pointedly at the empty chair that had been Breona's. “I heard that the policeman who found her body vomited on the spot.”

“God!” Hazel cried. She raked her hands through her hair and put her elbows on the lab bench. “How can you even go there?”

“I'm only telling you what I heard,” Lakshmi whined.

“Why?” Hazel asked.

Lakshmi blinked rapidly. “
You
know,” she replied.

“Take your seats, please,” Ms. Carpentier called to the class.

Lakshmi went back to her own table. Hazel sat down and opened her textbook, but she couldn't listen to Ms. Carpentier's instructions. She just fuzzed out…stopped.

She had no idea how long she stayed there, just staring at the chalkboard. The next thing she knew, Ms. Carpentier was beside her.

“Hazel, do you need to talk with someone?” the teacher asked in a whisper. “The school counselor, perhaps?”

Hazel licked her lips, trying to decide how to reply.

“This must be so difficult for you,” Ms. Carpentier said. “I know you had words with her, but you must not blame yourself under any circumstances.”

The teacher went to her desk and opened a spiral book. She wrote something down and tore off a slip of paper.

She returned with a slip that said,
COUNSELING REFERRAL
.

“I'm going to recommend that you talk to Ms. Clasen. A lot of the students are going to her for grief counseling. Just go down there and make your appointment. They'll give you a tardy pass for your next class.”

She handed Hazel the form. “Do you want someone to go with you?” she asked. “Maybe Lakshmi?”

“No,” Hazel said quickly. She wouldn't be able to stand it. “I'm fine. I'll go alone.”

She hurried into the hall, hanging a right to get to the administration building, and walked across the quad by the front gates of the school. She thought she could see people staring at her, and she kept her eyes down, imagining their whispers.

There goes a PLD. They hated Breona. They wanted her dead.

Hazel found Sylvia waiting for her at her locker.

“I'm calling an emergency meeting at Carolyn's,” she said. “No one's home, so we'll have some privacy.”

Hazel rubbed her forehead. “Sylvia, please don't tell them about Matty's file.”

Sylvia examined her manicure pensively. “I
do
have a bit of a dilemma,” she said. “It's important information.”

Hazel gave her a pleading look.

“Well, they already know he's under suspicion. I guess we don't have to tell them the rest,” Sylvia agreed.

“Thank you, Sylvia.” Hazel's voice cracked and she let out a low sob.

“Don't cry.” Sylvia pulled her into a tight embrace. “We're here for you. I'm here. I won't tell them, all right? Forget the meeting—we'll keep it between us for now.”

 

The next morning was another rainy mess. Hazel had forgotten her umbrella again, and this time she had no defense against the weather. As she passed by the front entrance, something caught her eye. She stopped

Piles of rain-soaked flowers, candles, stuffed animals, and notes had been left by students. The ink was running down the largest note, which read,
WE LOVE YOU, BREONA
. A lot of the tributes were signed by people trying to wrangle some social cred—pretending they loved and missed someone who never even knew they were alive. There were photos of Breona in her cheerleading outfit and dressed for a formal.

“She had a dog,” Hazel murmured to herself, studying a shot of Breona with her arms around a tiny Yorkie. She thought of Sylvia's dog, Asterix, and frowned. Something about this picture confused her.

Something about it didn't make sense.

At lunch Hazel was the first to arrive at the PLD table. She set her stuff down and went off in search of hot soup. She wasn't hungry, but she was getting shaky from not eating. She had only picked at her food at dinner, and everyone had been too busy talking about the murder to notice.

As she reached the serving line, she felt someone's gaze on her and turned her head. Across the room, Matty was standing against a window, staring at her.

She looked away.

Tight-lipped, she got her soup. She set it on her tray and managed to pay for it and get it to the PLD table without losing her mind.