Social Suicide (11 page)

I WAS FROZEN TO THE SPOT, NOT SURE WHAT TO
do. Run to Nicky’s aid? Make a citizen’s arrest of Figure Two? Call for help?

Being that there were a lot more rocks lying around for Figure Two’s convenience, I decided on option three and pulled my cell from my pocket. I backtracked toward the street as I dialed 911, all the while keeping one eye on Nicky’s prone form.

Which meant I wasn’t watching where I was walking, which meant I tripped over a stick on the ground and stumbled to catch my balance.

Figure Two’s head snapped up.

Oh, fluffin’ fudge.

I turned and ran blindly through the trees toward the road again, phone to my ear, though I was only halfway listening to it ring on the other end. The other half of me was completely engrossed in panic. After what seemed like an eternity, someone picked up.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency, please?”

“I
(pant)
just
(pant)
saw someone killed!
(pant, pant)
”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t understand you. Can you please slow down?”

“No! The killer heard me trip!”

“Ma’am, can you give me your location?” the operator asked, her voice annoyingly calm.

I paused as I reached the gate again, the bright lights of passing cars on the other side a small comfort. I sucked in a large gulp of chilled air and stopped to catch my breath, listening behind me for any sound of footsteps.

I heard nothing but my own Doberman-esque breathing.

“I’m at Oak Meadow Park at the corner of University and Blossom Hill,” I told the dispatcher.

“I’m sending someone out to your location now. Please stay on the line with me until they get there.”

“Okay,” I whimpered. “But hurry. I think they killed Nicky.”

“Don’t worry. Help is on the way,” she said. And even though I knew there was nothing she could do from the other end of a phone call, her voice did make me feel a little less alone.

I managed to hop back over the gate to the street side, and sat down on the curb to wait for help, one ear listening for any sign of the killer, one listening to the dispatcher who continued talking in smooth, even tones.

After ten cold minutes, my butt was numb, goose bumps were permanently embedded in my arms, and the red and blue lights of a police cruiser pulled down Blossom Hill. I jumped up and waved my arms madly at the guy behind the wheel, who pulled to a stop in front of me.

I’d never been so relieved to see law enforcement in my life.

After I explained what I’d seen, the cop grabbed a flashlight from the front seat and disappeared into the park.

I waited alone on the sidewalk again. I was just starting to worry that maybe Figure Two had done the officer in, too, when an ambulance pulled to a stop at the curb behind the police cruiser.

Two paramedics got out, then grabbed a stretcher from the back. One of the guys pulled a pair of wire cutters from the back of the van, making short work of the locked gate, then they wheeled the stretcher down to the field.

Stretcher not body bag.

Did that mean that Nicky was still alive? That he was okay? That maybe I’d just watched an assault and not a murder?

I hugged my arms around myself, anxiously waiting for that stretcher to come back. While Nicky was a cheater and a liar and had basically threatened my best friend, I still found myself quietly chanting, “Please be alive, please be alive,” as I shifted from foot to foot on the sidewalk.

A couple minutes later, the officer climbed back up the hill, his form bobbing through the trees as he approached me.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

The officer shook his head, and I felt myself sag with relief.

“He’s hurt. How badly, it’s hard to tell right now. But the paramedics are doing all they can.”

All they can. That wasn’t the most positive phrase. I was about to ask more when another car came around the corner, lights flashing red and blue. Apparently in addition to paramedics, my officer had called for backup. Unfortunately, as the car pulled to a stop at the curb, I recognized that backup.

Tall, red-haired, round-bellied. And the one thing that could make my night worse.

Detective Raley.

I briefly contemplated running again, but since blisters were already bruising my heels, I nixed that idea, instead drawing myself up as tall as I could while he approached.

“Hartley,” he said.

“Detective Raley.”

He took a deep breath, staring off into the tree line. “Why is it that whenever anything criminal goes on in this town, there you are?”

“Great reporter’s instinct?”

He shot me a look. Clearly his opinion differed on that one.

“All right, let’s hear it,” he said, pulling a notebook and pen from his back pocket. “What were you doing here?”

I pursed my lips together, not sure how much to tell him. Best-case scenario: Nicky was unconscious and certainly not talking to me tonight. Worst case: He was never talking to anyone again.

“I was meeting Nicky,” I finally confessed.

“Why?” he asked, bushy eyebrows frowning.

“I was interviewing him for the school paper.”

“About what?”

“Stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“School stuff.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Yes.”

He gave me an expectant look. “Well?”

“Oh, did you mean, ‘will I be more specific’? Because ‘can’ implies an ability. I have the ability to be more specific, but if you’re asking if I have the intention of complying with a request to be more specific, then what you really mean is ‘will I be more specific.’”

I watched Raley grind his back teeth together, his nostrils flaring. If I’d had to guess, he was employing some sort of anger management technique and mentally counting to ten.

“Okay, will you please be more specific, Hartley?” he asked, his teeth still cemented together in a grimace.

“Sure. What was the question?”

A vein bulged in Raley’s forehead, and I was pretty sure he was one blood-pressure point away from a full-blown aneurysm.

“Did you see who hit Nicky?” he asked instead, changing gears.

“Kinda.”

“Christ,” he muttered under his breath. “What does ‘kinda’ mean?”

“It means I saw someone hit him on the head, but I couldn’t see who did the hitting. It was really dark and the guy was keeping to the shadows.”

“Guy?” Raley asked, jumping on the word. “So it was a male you saw?”

I bit my lip. “Honestly? I’m not sure. Maybe.”

Raley sighed, flipping his notebook shut. “So you didn’t really see anything?”

I bit my lip. “Sorry,” I said, sincerely meaning it. Maybe if I had gotten a good look, we’d both have our killer now.

“Okay,” Raley said, resigned to my status as the worst witness ever. “I’ll have someone drive you home.”

Considering the blisters were growing to astronomical proportions, I got in the car. (Besides, it wasn’t like he gave me much choice.)

The first uniformed officer drove me home in silence, though the second he walked me to the front door, it was clear someone had called ahead to Mom.

“Oh, Hartley!” She tackled me in the foyer, grabbing me in a hug so tight I felt it rearranging my internal organs.

But honestly? After the night I’d had, I needed a spleen-displacing hug. I wrapped my arms around her middle and hugged back. After a long comforting moment, Mom pulled back to look at me.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked, her eyes searching my person for visible scars.

I nodded, putting on my bravest face.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry,” Mom said, hugging me again.

Okay, so my bravest wasn’t all that brave at the moment.

I sniffled, getting myself under control as the uniformed officer gave Mom a quick rundown of what had happened. When he was done, Mom looked about as aneurysm-close as Raley had.

“God, Hartley, the park after dark? What were you thinking?”

Which was totally unfair. I mean, it’s not like I knew I was going to witness a near murder. But, instead of arguing, I opted for the answer that would get me upstairs, in bed, and most important, out of these heels, the fastest.

“Sorry.”

“A deserted park?”

“Sorry.”

“You could have been killed!”

“Sorry.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

I shrugged. “Super-duper sorry?”

Mom rolled her eyes. “It’s late. Go upstairs. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

I nodded, gladly making my escape.

The next morning, true to her word, Mom cornered me before school, giving me a lecture on leaving the house after dark as she virtually force-fed me a plate of vegan bacon and I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Egg-Whites.

And, as if the SMother wasn’t enough, by the time the first-period bell rang, I’d gotten two dozen texts asking if it was true that (A) Nicky was attacked in front of me (yes!), (B) I’d gotten Nicky attacked (no!), and (C) there would be a Sydney tribute before the homecoming game (which I’m pretty sure was sent to me by mistake, since Ashley was on the homecoming beat).

By lunch, everyone had heard the news about Nicky, but there was one person who I knew would have the real deets. The instant I reached the cafeteria, I zeroed in on Drea, who was taking her tray of Tuesday Tacos to a table near the back.

“Drea,” I called, hailing her as I approached.

She looked up. Then shot me a death look. “You!” she yelled, pointing one finger my way.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Uh, me?”

“Because of you and your nosiness, Nicky’s in the hospital.”

Honestly? It was more because of Nicky’s cheating-ness, but I decided this was not the time to point that out.

“Is he going to be okay?” I asked instead.

She sat down and popped the top on her chocolate milk. “Maybe. He has a skull fracture. And a concussion.”

I cringed. “That sounds bad.”

She nodded, her eyes turning red with the effort not to cry and ruin her mascara. “It is. He was unconscious for a long time, and now they’re keeping him in the hospital for a couple days for observation. And I can’t even see him,” she said, a sob escaping.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting a hand on her arm. “Listen, Nicky was at the park last night because he had something to tell me. Something about the test answers. I think he was going to tell me where he got them. Did he say anything to you about it?”

Drea shrugged. “He said he was going to meet you, but he didn’t say why.”

“Did he tell you where he got the answers?”

She shook her head. “No. He said he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get me in trouble in case he ever got caught. He was protecting me,” she said, breaking down in a sob again.

“Have you talked to Nicky since the attack?”

She nodded. “Once. But he’s not supposed to be on the phone very long. He needs to rest.”

“What did he say? Who attacked him?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t tell me.”

I pursed my lips together. “Look, Drea, this is a matter of life and death,” I told her, not being entirely overdramatic. “I need to talk to Nicky and find out what he knows.”

Drea pulled out her cell and scrolled through menus. “They’re only letting family in to see him, but I can give you the number I have to call his room.”

“Perfect.” I grabbed my own cell, typing in the number as Drea recited it.

I thanked her and stepped outside before hitting Send.

Four rings in, a woman answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. I wanted to speak to Nicky?”

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Hartley. We’re friends from school,” I said, stretching the truth just a little.

“I see. Well, this is Nicky’s mom, and I’m sorry, Hartley, but Nicky isn’t taking any calls right now. He’s been through quite an ordeal and needs his rest. I’ll tell him you called and that you’re thinking of him.”

“It’s important!” I protested.

“Thank you for calling,” she said. Then hung up.

But I wasn’t giving up that easily.

I slipped back into the cafeteria, scanning the rows of tables for Sam. I finally spotted her near the center of the room, seated next to Kyle. They were feeding each other bites of taco shell from Sam’s plate. Which in itself was cute enough to be slightly nauseating, but they had taken it over the top with their outfits today. Sam was wearing a pink T-shirt that said, “I like Boys,” and Kyle was wearing a baby-blue one with the word “Boy” in the center.

I tried to ignore the oozing cuteness and made a beeline toward their table.

“Hey. I need your help,” I said, plopping down next to Sam.

“Dude!” Kyle said. “Everyone’s been tweeting about Nicky. Sucks.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s kinda what I need help with.” I quickly filled Sam and Kyle in on what had happened the night before.

“Someone clearly didn’t want Nicky to talk to me,” I finished.

“Just like they didn’t want Sydney to talk to you,” Sam pointed out.

“Whoa. Déjà vu, dude,” Kyle said.

“Which is why we need to get to Nicky and fast,” I agreed. “If he really was hit by the person behind stealing the test answers, chances are the guy—”

“Or girl,” Sam put in.

“—will come back for him.”

“So how are we going to do that?” Kyle asked. “Didn’t you say his mom isn’t letting him on the phone?”

I nodded. “We need to talk to him in person.”

“How?” Sam asked.

I pursed my lips together. “We go to the hospital.”

Sam shook her head. “But if his mom won’t let Drea see Nicky, what makes you think she’ll let us?”

“She won’t,” I agreed. “Which is why we need to sneak in. And that’s where you come in.”

It took a series of texts to Sam that spanned sixth and seventh periods to convince her that sneaking into a hospital room was not an offense that would go on her permanent record and ruin her chances at Stanford. By the time school got out, she was 90 percent on board with my plan, which was just enough to get her on the bus that ran down Los Gatos Boulevard to the hospital.

Fifteen minutes later, we were hiking our book bags onto our shoulders as we pushed into the lobby. Immediately we were assaulted with the smells of disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, and latex gloves. I swallowed down the unpleasant memories of booster shots and penicillin the scents conjured up and made my way toward the room number Drea had supplied.