The Fruit of My Lipstick (22 page)
“Thanks, Jeremy.” I took a slow, cleansing breath.
“You’re friends with Travis, right?” He nodded. “Is he still friends with
Lucas?”
Jeremy grinned, and for the first time, I noticed he had dimples
on either side of his mouth. Shani must be an idiot to treat him the way she
did.
“Are you kidding? Travis has a Ph.D. in aggravation. Lucas wants to
kill him half the time.”
“My kind of guy. Listen, Lucas has a bracelet of
mine—knotted silk cords with a jade bead. I gave it to him for luck and he won’t
give it back. Do you think Travis could look for it?”
Jeremy shrugged.
“Sure.”
“Good. I’ll just hang around in the common room while he finds it.
Lucas goes to Palo Alto on weekends, usually. And I bet he will this weekend,
too, because finals will be over.”
“Okay. Give me your cell number. I’ve
never tossed a room before. This could be fun.”
“There’ll be no tossing,”
I warned. “I don’t want him to know a thing. I just want my bracelet
back.”
“You’ll get it back, don’t worry,” Jeremy said as the first of the
students began to trickle in. “Score one for the good guys.”
AT TWENTY PAST six that evening, when I was practicing my harp piece
for Chamber Ensemble, my iPhone chimed.
“Hey,” Travis said. “Jeremy told
me you wanted to know when Mr. Olympics left the
building.”
“And?”
“He went to some lame presentation at the
university with the Science Club. Won’t be back until nine or so.”
I
grinned even though he couldn’t see me. Better to get this over with sooner
rather than later. “Thanks, Travis. I owe you.” I told him what the bracelet
looked like. “Don’t disturb anything, so he won’t know you were looking. I’ll
wait in the common room. I hope Mr. Milsom isn’t around.”
“According to my
spy on the janitorial staff, Milsom is in the staff room having after-dinner
herbal tea with Tobin. I think something’s going on there.”
With a snort,
I said, “The only people who don’t know something is going on are Tobin and
Milsom.”
“I’ll find the bracelet and meet you downstairs.”
When my
phone chimed again, I sank deep into the easy chair and answered it as if I
didn’t have a care in the world.
“Hey, it’s me,” Travis said. “What’d you
say it looked like, again?”
“It’s made of black silk cords, all knotted in
a pattern, with a green jade bead in the middle. Looks Chinese.”
Duh.
“It’s not here, then. I’ve been over his side twice.”
It had to
be there. The only other alternative was that Lucas was wearing it. But I didn’t
want to think about that. “I’m coming up.”
Travis laughed. “Your funeral.
Meet you at the door.”
I’m sure the Lord doesn’t condone breaking and
entering, but in spite of that, He made sure the corridor was empty. It had to
be a God thing. What else could explain the complete absence of students right
after dinner? Travis let me in and we ran to his and Lucas’s room.
Unlike
mine and Lissa’s, this room looked like something out of a movie from the
forties. They had no chandelier, but on the plus side, their floor was a nifty
checkerboard of black and white marble. Lucas probably threw pajama parties
where each person got to be a chess piece. Woohoo. Geek fun.
But I
couldn’t waste time looking at the scenery or I’d lose my nerve. I began my
search in a clockwise direction, starting to the left of the door. Dresser.
Wardrobe. Desk. Nothing. Bed. I ran my hands under the mattress and found
nothing but a magazine. Floor.
Backpack. I searched all the pockets.
Nothing. Then I reached into the main part, feeling along the
bottom.
Aha!
With a yank, I freed my bracelet from its ignominious
prison at the bottom of all his junk, under his heavy textbooks. The cretin.
Showed you what he thought of my gift. As I pulled it out, a gray folder came
with it, hit the floor, and disgorged Scantrons all over the rug.
“Oh,
no.” Hastily, I gathered them up. Then I focused on the top one, dated March
26.
Wait a minute. These weren’t his old tests. Teachers didn’t return
them—all we got were printouts. And March 26 was tomorrow.
I flipped
through them. Math: bonehead, regular, and AP. Chemistry. Physics. All dated
March 26 and 27.
“Travis.”
“Yeah?” He leaned in the door from where
he’d been keeping an eye on the corridor outside.
“Come and look at this.”
When he hunkered down beside me, I said, “What do these look like to
you?”
He scanned them. “Uh-oh,” he said softly. “I have a bad feeling
about this.”
“Has it been Lucas?” I said in a high voice that didn’t sound
like me at all. “All this time, has it been him selling these?”
Travis
fanned through them. “Why didn’t I know?”
“What about me? I was going out
with the guy.”
“He’s smooth, I’ll give him that.” He got up, leaving me
still holding the condemning evidence. “So what now?”
“We have to tell
someone. Milsom. Right away.”
“Would that be before or after I get you out
of the dorm?”
I looked up. “You can tell him when he does the lights-out
check. We can’t wait. The ones on top are for tomorrow’s tests.”
“How’m I
going to say I found out? That I was rifling through my roommate’s
stuff?”
“Just say you were looking for a pen,” I said impatiently. “Or
that I asked you to find the bracelet. Which I did.”
“I feel pretty weird
about ratting him out.”
I stared at him. “Would you rather flunk all your
classes?”
“No, duh. But maybe there’s some other explanation. Maybe he
found them on someone else and was holding them until he could get them to a
teacher.”
“You’re reaching.”
“We should at least ask him. What if it
wasn’t him? I mean, I’m not above giving the guy a hard time because he’s such a
dweeb, but we’d be accusing the next freaking physics medalist and probably
getting ourselves expelled if we’re wrong.”
I nibbled at my lower lip.
There was a chance—okay, a really slim one—that Travis could be right. And with
the Carly disaster fresh in my mind, I couldn’t afford to go around saying
things I didn’t have proof of.
I looked at the Scantrons in my hands.
Well, more proof, anyway. Some link between these sheets and the people they
were going to. Because in my search of this room, I hadn’t found anything
like—hello?—money. Or e-mail printouts. Or a sticky note saying “I need illegal
help.”
Either Lucas had something really sophisticated going on here, or
he was innocent. And I was in no position to go pointing fingers a second
time.
“All right,” I said at last. “We’ll ask him before we do anything.
Rewind—
you’ll
ask him. I wasn’t here, and you haven’t seen me since
English class yesterday.”
“Deal. Come on. Let’s get you out of
here.”
I stuffed the folder in the backpack and stashed it under the bed,
the way it had been. Then I slipped my bracelet on my wrist and tiptoed down the
corridor after Travis. Once I was out of the boys’ dorm and heading back to my
own, innocent and fancy-free, I expected to breathe easier. Instead, my breath
came faster and faster until I found myself running for the safety of my
room.
Lissa looked up as the door slammed behind my back, and her eyes
went wide. “What happened? Couldn’t Travis find it?”
“No. It’s
Lucas.”
“Did he come back?”
“No. He’s the guy. The one selling the
exam answers. I think.”
Her jaw dropped.
“
What?
”
Breathlessly, I told her about the backpack, the folder,
the plan Travis and I had worked out. But even before I finished, she was
shaking her head.
“It’s not going to work. If you ask Lucas about this, of
course he’s going to lie. If those answer sheets were in his backpack, he’s the
one. Open and shut. You have to tell someone right now.”
“But there’s
no . . . what do you call it?” My mind blanked. “Like on
CSI
.” Then I
had it. “Chain of evidence. No link between him and people like Rory
Stapleton.”
Slowly, Lissa’s gaze swung from me to her laptop, sleeping on
the desk. “Rory Stapleton. That’s it.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked
anxiously. “Lissa, focus. You have to help me figure this out.”
“I am.
Right now.”
LMansfield
Question for you.
RStapleton
I heard you might have more than that for me.
Shot any videos lately?
LMansfield
Ha ha. Rumor has it
you might know where a person can get help with Bio before the exam
tomorrow.
RStapleton
Never trust rumor.
LMansfield
So you don’t know? Too bad.
RStapleton
I never said that. What’s it worth?
LMansfield
Meet me outside after the Bio exam. I’ll show
you.
RStapleton
Yeah? Can I bring my camera?
LMansfield
Bring your whole computer. Who do I contact?
RStapleton
It’s $1.5K a pop and you IM Source10.
LMansfield
Who’s that?
RStapleton
Duh. That’s the point. No one’s supposed to know.
LMansfield
Then who do I pay?
RStapleton
Source10 at PayPal.
LMansfield
Slick.
RStapleton
And
you didn’t hear it from me. See you tomorrow.
LMansfield
You
will. XO
“Not.” Lissa hit Send with a vicious poke of her
finger.
“Wow,” I said on a long breath. “Source10, huh? How’d he get a
school ID, I wonder?”
Lissa looked at me over the fashionable black
rectangles of her glasses. I was one of the few at school who even knew she wore
them. “He hacked the teachers’ exam database. How hard would it be to hack the
mail server?”
“Good point.” I pushed my hair behind my ears. “I’m really
out of it. I think I’m in shock. To think that my boyfriend—”
“Ex-
boyfriend.”
“—could be capable of something like this. It’s
unbelievable.”
“Maybe not so much. Think about it. The guy spends nearly a
whole term basically tearing you down to nothing, just for his own amusement.
What kind of arrogance does it take to do that? It’s not much of a leap from
there to selling answers.”
Arrogance was right. The kind that had no place
in a Christian guy. Had that all been fake, too? Was it all part of a colossal,
blind conceit that believed it was too smart to get caught?
I pulled back
my sleeve and looked at my bracelet. Caught by my gift. If it hadn’t been for me
being so stubborn about getting it back, Lucas would probably have gotten away
with it and gone on to triumph in the Olympiad. A cheater would be a hero with a
medal on his chest.
Lissa was still at the computer. “I’m not done
yet.”
LMansfield
I hear you can help people.
Source10
You heard wrong.
LMansfield
Rory Stapleton told me you could. And I’m going to flunk Bio if I don’t get
help.
Source10
Get your roommate to help.
LMansfield
We’re not talking right now. She’s responsible
for what happened to Carly.
Source10
No.
LMansfield
Look, just because we have to room together
doesn’t mean we’re friends anymore. And I have the money.
Source10
No.
LMansfield
Chicken.
Source10
What?
LMansfield
Rinse and repeat.
Source10
You’ll squeal like a pig.
LMansfield
If you get caught, I’ll get caught. No one’s
talking. You’re safe.
Source10
Fine. $1.5K to me at
PayPal. Locker #254 30 min before class.
LMansfield
:)
A
FEW MINUTES BEFORE
ten o’clock that evening, someone knocked on our door. Lissa had finally calmed down and was studying in bed, wearing her blue flannel pajamas with the flamingoes on them. That girl’s sleeping wardrobe is as extensive as her daytime one. I was still dressed, so I got up to answer it.
Ms. Tobin stood there. “Miss Chang, would you please come with me to the headmistress’s office?”
At lights-out? Did these people not sleep? “Why?”
“Come with me, please. It’s urgent.”
And then I knew. Travis had changed his mind and gone to Milsom when he did the lights-out check, and since I was the only other witness, they needed to talk to me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Lissa, touching the jade bead on my bracelet to reassure myself as I followed Tobin down to the first floor. She showed me into Curzon’s inner office and closed the door behind me.
“Where’s Travis?” I asked Ms. Curzon, who sat behind her huge desk, her fingers steepled in front of her lips.
“In his room, studying, I imagine,” she replied. “At least, the optimist in me would like to think so.”
I stayed silent, puzzling this out.
“And why would his whereabouts matter to you?”
Man, this lady clearly didn’t watch
CSI
. “I thought you’d want to talk to us both together, that’s all. Get all the facts at once.”
“Was he in on this with you?”
Careful
. I didn’t want to implicate Travis when he’d put himself at risk to let me into the dorm. “I asked him to help me. But it was all my idea.”