Spies and Prejudice (8 page)

“Totally was. What’s he helping you with anyway?”

I stare at the inside of my locker, letting my eyes settle on the triangle of dirt in the back corner. I can’t keep the truth from Jason forever. He’ll drag it out of me sooner or later anyway. “You promise not to say anything? Not even to Mary Chris?”

“Him? You’re going out with Drew Mattingly?”

“No! Is that all you ever think about? I told you, we’re just friends.”

“Friends who check each other out as they walk away.”

“Stop.”

Jason finally settles down, holding his hand over his heart. “Okay. I won’t say anything. I promise.”

“Drew’s going to help me find out if my mom was murdered.”

“What?” Jason looks as thrown as I feel. “Your mom might’ve been murdered?”

I nod. “I think so. I found a death threat in with her things.”

“Whoa.”

“That seems to be the general consensus.” The bell rings, and people rush by us, but Jason and I stand frozen.

“What are you gonna do?” Jason asks.

“I think Mary Chris’s dad has a document that might give us more information. I’m going to look for it tonight. Will you cover for me?” “If Mr. Moss has something, why don’t you just ask Mary Chris for it?”

“I don’t know. I feel weird about it. I can’t ask Mare to spy on her own father.”

“But you can spy on your best friend’s father?” Jason looks skeptical.

“Something like that.” It’s not like I want to involve Mary Chris’s family. I just want to know the truth. I need closure.

Jason looks over my shoulder and grins. “Your other boyfriend’s here.”

“What?” I spin around. Tanner leans against a row of lockers
across the hall, his arms crossed, watching me. Waiting. I turn my back on him.

Jason winks. “That’s my cue to leave.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s for your own good.” Jason walks away before I can say anything to stop him.

I should follow. Take evasive action. But why? I have no reason to run from Tanner Halston.

I take my time closing my locker, doing my best to ignore the pounding in my chest. I spin the combination lock a few times more than is necessary. I don’t need to look to know that Tanner closes the distance between us. I just know.

When I finally turn around, he is right there. I stand up straighter, in a futile effort to feel less small. I have to look up to make eye contact.

“Where were you today?” he asks.

“Hi to you too.”

Tanner blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“The proper greeting is ‘hi.’ You could also go with ‘hey,’ ‘what’s up,’ or ‘how’s it going.’ You should at least say hello before you give someone the third degree.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Isn’t it?”

Tanner leans a shoulder on the locker next to mine. “Maybe.”

He smiles and I’m not ready for it. My hands shake against my thighs. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s none of your business where I was, or who I was with?” I emphasize that last part, a not so subtle reminder that I was with Drew today.

Tanner’s smile is gone in an instant. His eyes search my face like he’s looking for a way to get inside my head. I concentrate on keeping him out.

“I guess not,” he finally says. Then he puts his hands in the pockets of his perfectly faded jeans and walks away.

I watch him until he disappears around a corner. I sag back against my locker and close my eyes until my pulse evens out to normal levels. What was that? I don’t get nervous. It’s a professional hazard. I should be able to handle a smile from a good-looking boy. Correction. An arrogant jerk.

Swooning at guys is Dead Presidents’ territory. Not mine.

By the time I get home, Lulu’s already managed to convince Dad to take her for a walk. Dad grabs the jowl towel as he walks in the door and wipes the lines of drool from her chin. He skips the small talk. “Berry, you think you’ll be okay if I head up to Palm Springs for a few days next weekend?”

“I’m sure I’ll survive.” The fact is, Dad is gone a lot at night. Cheating husbands tend to like the cover of darkness. “Big case?”

His cheeks redden. “Actually, it’s a personal trip.”

I try to ignore the knot that forms in my chest and constricts. “Shauna?”

He wipes at Lulu’s chin without looking up. “She has a condo on a golf course. And I could use a few days away.”

I manage to stop myself from telling him to stay home, that I need him after all. That someone might have threatened Mom and I’m not sure what to do about it. “Are you sure about this?” I say instead, giving him an out.

“I am. I know it seems sudden. It was a surprise to me too.”

It does seem fast, despite the eight years leading up to it. Because of it. “It’s fine, Dad. It’s about time you went out and had some fun.” My brain believes this statement completely. It’s just going to take a while to convince my heart.

“I could say the same thing about you. It wouldn’t kill you to get out more. And not for work.”

“I hang out with my friends.”

“Building spy gear at Mary Chris’s house doesn’t count.”

“We’re going to Homecoming next weekend.” It’s not even a lie. Mary Chris is making me go in exchange for the new portable scanner she’s building for me.

Dad smiles so big, that I’m actually glad it’s not a lie. “You’ll need a dress, right? Shauna wants to take you shopping Saturday.”

“Please don’t make me go.” It’s one thing for Dad to date her. It doesn’t have to involve me. The less I know the better.

“You’ll go. It’ll be fun.” Dad gives me the look that says there will be no further argument on this.

A direct attack isn’t going to work. “So I was in the storage unit today.” I let the sentence hang in the air, waiting to see if Dad takes the bait.

“Saturday,” he says, not letting me distract him.

“I found this box of Mom’s work papers.”

I finally have him. Dad looks worried. “Why would you want to look through those?” He tries to keep his voice even, but it raises at the end.

Does he know? He doesn’t look me in the eye even though I’m
staring at him. He has to have seen the threat. He packed the boxes. “Did you know that Mom received a death threat before she died?”

Dad’s face goes from worried to angry in about two seconds. “What are you talking about?”

“It was in her papers. There was a note.”

Dad’s hands are shaking. His fingers tremble as he covers his mouth with his hand. Oh no. Did he not know? What am I doing to him? I take it back. I’ll go shopping with Shauna Waterson. I’ll let her buy me a ridiculous dress and I will smile and laugh and pretend I’m the kind of girl who loves being stuffed into a tube of taffeta.

When he drops his hand all I see is fury in his eyes. “You went through her things? You should have asked me. Her work was confidential.”

“I know. But I found—”

“Stop. Right now.”

I close my mouth.

Dad walks past me into the kitchen. I stand frozen in the living room. Afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.

He comes back with a bottle of water and takes a sip. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Berry, but you have to promise me you will let this go.”

“What? But what if something bad happened to her?” What if this was not her fault? Not mine.

He shakes his head. “It was an accident. It had nothing to do with that note.”

That note
. He did know. “You don’t know that.”

Something flashes behind his eyes. In a second I’m taken back to
that horrible year when I didn’t have a mother or a father. The pain is back on his face, only this time, I’m the one who’s putting it there. This is coming out all wrong.

He blinks. When he looks at me again, there’s a wall in place. “You think I haven’t turned over every stone? There’s nothing to find, Berry. You have to promise me that you will not try to chase this down.”

“But what if it’s true? It can’t be a coincidence that someone threatened her and then she’s dead? What if the person who killed her is still out there?”

Dad looks like I’ve punched him the gut. He actually winces. “It’s a dead end. I’ve checked it out. The police checked it out.”

The police? “The same police who decided she killed herself? You don’t believe that? You never believed that. How can you trust them on this?”

Dad’s face is bright red.

A new panic floods me. “You don’t believe she killed herself.” As if saying it will make it true. “You told me you didn’t.”

Dad doesn’t answer. Water splashes from the lip of the plastic bottle in his hand.

“Tell me.”

He turns his back on me. “You have to let this go, Berry.”

I don’t miss that he doesn’t reassure me. All these years I’ve felt guilty for never fully believing that she didn’t leave us on purpose. All these years I thought I was the only one who didn’t have faith.

M
ary Chris doesn’t say anything about my puffy eyes as I sit on her bed. Oscar, her Himalayan cat, comes off the windowsill and lies across my lap, purring even before I scratch under his chin.

I’m still shaken by the fight with my dad, but I keep it to myself. Mare has already done her penance for being my friend. She stayed with me in the weeks after my mother’s death when I didn’t know how to do anything but cry. She stayed with me during the months afterward even though I sleepwalked through school and forgot the meaning of the word “fun.” She never even mentioned the fact that I went from Barbies to grocery lists to covert surveillance in the span of a year. That’s the thing about Mare, her love is unconditional.

Not that I deserve it.

Tonight, I’m going to sneak into her father’s office and look for the letter from my mom. I need to know what exactly my mom was doing for Moss Enterprises, and why Mare’s dad was concerned
about the letter getting out. Someone threatened my mom, and despite what my dad said, I can’t let it go.

I ask Mary Chris about the scanner she’s building for me. “Can you make it look like a cell phone?”

“Probably. Why?”

“In case I get caught.”

Her eyes get thoughtful. “Since when are you worried about getting caught? Whatever you’re up to can’t be good. Is it legal?”

“Obviously.” I grin.

She laughs. “Fine. What else?”

Oh, right. I’m planning to sneak into your father’s home office tonight and find out what he had to do with my dead mother. I bite my lower lip. Not until I know exactly what Mr. Moss has to do with anything. Maybe we can laugh about it later, but for now, I need to do this on my own. “That’s it. How soon can you have it?”

“A week maybe?”

“Works for me.” After eight years, a week is unlikely to make much of a difference.

Mare pulls the technical drawings for the glasses-cam from her desk drawer. “It’s all done. I’ve been talking to my dad about getting a patent.” She stops and sets the documents on her desk. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

I shake my head. “I got into an argument with my dad.”

Her forehead crinkles. “About work?”

“Yeah.” Sort of. “He wants to take me off a case.”

“Which one?”

“It’s a new one.”

Mare is silent for a minute. The quiet magnifies the sounds of Oscar’s purrs, and I wait for Mare to figure out that I’m not ready to talk about this one. She will. She always knows when to let me be.

She flips open a laptop on her desk. “I hope you don’t mind I invited the guys over to watch a movie tonight.”

I don’t have to ask who the guys are. Instead, I use the opening to bring up the subject of Drew. “Is it okay if I invite someone too?”

“Jason’s already coming.”

“Not Jason. Drew Mattingly.”

Mare’s mouth falls open, but she snaps it shut. “Drew Mattingly. Huh.”

“He’s a friend.”

“What about Tanner?”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe you guys would go out or something.”

“Jason said the same thing. Did you guys go completely insane and forget to tell me?”

Mare laughs. “Yeah. About that charismatic voice in my head that keeps telling me to date, and, you know, have a social life.”

I toss a pillow from the bed to her desk. “In case you haven’t noticed, Tanner’s kind of stuck up.”

“You should give him a break. Ryan says Tanner’s been homeschooled all his life. McHenry is his first real school experience. It’s a big adjustment.”

“Really?” How did I not already know this? Oh yeah. I don’t want anything to do with him.

“Try to be nice to him, okay?” It’s what Mare always says about whatever stray she’s brought under her wing.

I try.

I bite my tongue when Tanner glares at Drew the entire time I’m introducing him. I even smile when Tanner suggests that everyone watch some lame action movie with zero plot and a lot of pointless car wrecks. At least we won’t have to talk to each other.

I make sure that Drew is sitting next to me as we settle in for the movie. I’m going to sneak off to go to the bathroom, and Drew is supposed to ping me if anyone leaves the room.

Jason sits on my other side. I owe him one. With Mary Chris and Ryan taking occupancy of the love seat, Tanner has no choice but to take one of the beanbags on the floor.

Mary Chris turns down the lights to make it seem more like a real movie theater. Mr. Moss spared no expense on the giant flat screen and surround sound, so the effect is pretty close. Better, since we can relax on the couch and talk as loud as we want.

As the movie starts, Tanner sprawls on the beanbag. He stretches his legs out in front of him and puts his hand behind his head for support, completely at ease in the dark. His chest rises and falls in time with his breathing. He laughs at something on the screen. His laugh is unguarded, completely transforming him. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh before.

I want to hear it again.

“What do you think?” Drew whispers in my ear. “About ten more minutes?”

“Huh?” I forgot about Drew. And the plan. What is wrong with me? “Yeah. Perfect.”

I spend the next nine minutes watching the minutes tick down, trying to focus on the task at hand. I try not to notice when Tanner shifts to his side, keeping my eyes fixed on my watch. One minute left. Tanner’s laugh rolls up and down my spine. His laugh. No one else’s.