Bad Hair Day, page 8
part #2 of Kate Grable Series
Dad’s downstairs, and it’s after curfew. Maybe I can sneak outside?
His reply came within seconds: Meet me on your roof.
I had to read it twice. Evidently, my boyfriend had hidden reservoirs of insanity, because my roof wasn’t tops on my list of places to hang out. Yes, my dormer window opened right onto the shingles, and yes, Aaron had helped us clean out the gutters a little over a month ago. And yes, he’d made some comment about meeting up there sometime to stargaze, but I hadn’t taken it seriously. Apparently, I’d been wrong.
Well, I wasn’t about to argue, particularly since he’d just spent a long time in the car with Elle. I didn’t realize how long until I glanced up at the clock midway through washing my hands. He’d been gone for two hours. I’d lost track of the time in the lab. And the shower. During my brief bathroom break, I’d used up enough hot water to melt the Arctic Circle.
It didn’t take a math whiz to figure out something didn’t add up. A half hour to Ottawa Pointe. Five minutes to drop Elle off, assuming he didn’t just slow down and shove her out the window, which was what I would have done. A half hour back. Even if he’d gone five miles under the speed limit, even if he’d stopped to go to the bathroom, there was no reason it should have taken two freaking hours to drop her off.
I threw on a hoodie and stomped up the stairs, fully intending to catapult my boyfriend off the top of the house. When I climbed out the window, my socks caught on the rough surface of the shingles. The fact that I’d forgotten to put shoes on only made me angrier. All I’d wanted was to be in the Future Doctors of America program. I’d been looking forward to it for months. And now where was I? FDA mentor accused of murder. Friend in the hospital. Boyfriend developing crappy tendencies. And nothing to show for all my lab work but a pile of broken glass.
So when Aaron climbed up the trellis, I let him have it.
“Why weren’t you back sooner?” I demanded, practically spitting the words in his face.
He completely ignored me. Instead, he hoisted himself up onto the roof one-handed and gave me my second giant to-go cup of the night, hot to the touch. Then he reached into his shirt and pulled out a white paper bag.
“Lucky I didn’t spill it on the way up,” he said. “I asked them to brew you a fresh cup, because the first one they gave me tasted like something died in it. And then on the way out of the Grabbit Quik, I ran into my neighbor, and she wouldn’t stop talking about her new Pomeranian.”
I felt instantly, terribly guilty. I tried to stammer out an apology, but he rode right over me. I wasn’t sure if he didn’t notice my wenchiness, or he was just kindly giving me a way to extract my foot from my mouth with some semblance of grace.
“There’s a muffin in there too, if you’re hungry,” he said.
The muffin was almost too much to take. I settled myself precariously on the slanted roof, sipped my coffee, and debated trying to kick myself in the butt. I wasn’t sure it was possible to get a good quality self-butt-kick, and I really didn’t think I should try it two stories off the ground. Not with Aaron here to watch me fall. I didn’t have much of a chance of keeping him as it was, not with my amazing twin powers of idiocy and jealousy.
Maybe I should call it jidiocy.
All this ran through my head while I drank my coffee and Aaron played with the end of my braid. I knew I should say something witty and alluring, or throw myself into his lap and make him forget all about Elle. But I’d had way too much to process today. Too much death, even for a med geek like me.
“You okay?” he asked. “No offense, but you’re acting kind of strange.”
It would have been too easy to take offense, but I was tired of being a drama queen. So I told him everything. I tried to stick to the facts, but I still got a little emotional. In retrospect, so many things could have gone wrong, and that above everything else scared the bleep out of me.
“Wow,” he said when I was done. “So what now?”
“Well, I came home to analyze the hair and blood, right? I’m not set up to sequence DNA, and I wouldn’t have anything to compare it to anyway, so I know I can’t ID the culprit, but at least I could give us something to go on. Knowing the attacker is a Caucasian male is better than nothing, right?”
“Makes sense to me.”
“But I can’t even prove that.” My words came out clipped and whiny. I was a genius, right? I should have at least been able to generate data that made sense. “I’ve got to do the analysis all over again.”
“Why?”
“Well, unless you know somebody with mutant hair, freakish strength, and magnetic blood, I think I got something wrong.”
“Mutant—what?” He ran his hands through his hair the way he did when he was thinking hard. I barely restrained myself from stripping down to my underwear right there; it was just that sexy. But I was wearing my Sci FIVE! underwear. Sci five: like a high five, only geekier. Because sure, I was a reformed geek on the outside, but inside? I really hadn’t changed, and I had no intention of doing so. This plan sat pretty well with me except at times like now when I realized that geekdom and sex appeal don’t exactly go well together.
“Tell me about it,” I said, pulling my mind out of the gutter. “I must have made some mistake. Because the hair isn’t human. And I discovered that the blood has metal in it, because the pellet got stuck to my desk magnet. So either I contaminated it, or …”
“It’s probably a werewolf. Or maybe a magnetic Yeti.”
“Har har. You’re so funny.”
“Not kidding, Kate. It’s the only theory that really explains your findings. Mutant hair. Funky blood. The most logical explanation is that you’re looking for something not entirely human.”
“Yeah, but even if that weren’t completely rat-in-a-coffee-can insane, it still doesn’t explain the metal.”
“Maybe he overdosed on red meat? Lots of iron? It seems like a werewolfy thing to do.”
“I don’t believe in werewolves,” I said emphatically. “Or Yeti either. And I only believe in viral zombies, not voodoo ones. I’m looking for scientifically probable explanations, not wackjob conspiracy theories.”
My brother opened his window and stuck his head out, grinning like an idiot. “Did someone say werewolf?”
I attempted to snort at him derisively, because it was so like Jonah to get all worked up about some gamer-geek thing when we had a medical mystery to solve. Unfortunately, I forgot to swallow the coffee first. It shot right up into my sinuses, scorching my nose hairs and nearly causing my eyeballs to fly out of their sockets.
So then I did the choking and coughing thing. It got even more blazingly attractive when Jonah handed me a tissue through the open window and I horked caffeinated snot all over it.
“You okay?” asked Aaron.
“I’ll survive,” I replied, even though I still wasn’t entirely sure.
“So do you really think it could be one?” Jonah climbed out the window and slid halfway off the roof before he managed to stop himself. Nearly gave me a freaking heart attack. “A werewolf, I mean?”
“Don’t fall off, you idiot,” I croaked. “And I thought you were supposed to be doing research on our victim, not daydreaming about lupine shape-shifters. This is serious, Jonah.”
“I know. And I’ve got some intel for you.”
“Then what are you dorking around for? Spill it,” I ordered.
“Is Aaron up to speed here?” he asked. Aaron nodded. It kind of surprised me that they got along so well, but they had pretty much saved each other’s lives, so I guess they were inclined to like each other. Besides, they didn’t hang out much. Jonah was great in small doses.
“So let’s see,” he said. “I ran into a couple of members of the Clan of Awesome online tonight. Actually, I didn’t run into them per se; one of my tanks knows a healer from C of A. They’ve cosplayed together a couple of times. It’s all just a matter of cultivating connections, you know.”
“Cos-what?” I asked.
“Cosplay. Dressing up in costumes like—”
“I don’t want to know.” I sighed. “Get to the point.”
The geek speak hurt my brain, and massaging my temples didn’t seem to help. Aaron slipped an arm around my waist and pulled me close, which only served to agitate me further. I mean, it was nice, but it wasn’t exactly calming.
“You are so impatient.” Jonah shook a finger at me but had the good sense to stop when I glared at him. “All right. Holly had a twin brother named—get this—Herbie. He went to school somewhere else. I also found out that she was a waitress, lived on her own, and was getting her nursing degree at the community college. She spent most of her spare time playing Roargan Kross. The only person in the Clan of Awesome who met her IRL was her boyfriend.”
“IRL?” said Aaron.
“In real life.” Jonah flipped through a sheaf of scribbled notes. “The boyfriend played a Wyvern half-breed wizard with spiky blue hair and a leather trench, if that tells you anything.”
“It doesn’t,” I said. “You don’t happen to know anything useful about him, do you? I can’t exactly tell the cops to put out an APB on a Wyvern whatever.”
“His character’s name was Lucern. My contact didn’t know his real name, but I’ve got some feelers out.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath and let it out slow. So someone had killed Holly and her brother. Had they seen something? If so, why hadn’t she gone to the police after he’d come up missing? And why hadn’t their parents reported it? I had plenty of data, but I couldn’t put it together in a way that made sense. “Thanks,” I added belatedly.
“Lunatic gamer werewolves,” Jonah said. “If that’s not the coolest thing ever, I don’t know what is.” He practically vibrated with excitement. I was beginning to think my brother had a secret lupine fetish. It frightened me.
“I’m still not convinced,” I replied.
“Dude, don’t you listen to yourself? If you put your huge hairy guy together with your rabid animal, you get a werewolf. Didn’t you see the Twilight movies?” He put a fist on his hip and wagged his finger at us. The sight scarred me; I squeezed my eyes shut and wished for a self-lobotomizer. It didn’t work.
“No,” Aaron said. “I did not. And I’m proud of that.”
“Well,” my brother said, “you should. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I snapped. “We’re trying for scientifically feasible explanations, Jonah. Not some stupid fairy tale.”
Jonah put his other fist on his hip and started sliding off the roof again. He grabbed his window and held on tight. “Excuse me. You’re the one who cured the zombie virus. Maybe you should think about that before you write me off.”
“Excuse me.” I was about to really tear into him when Aaron scooted between us and held up his hands. I immediately backed off, only not physically because I would have toppled over the gutters. I bet Elle didn’t pick infantile fights with her brother. She was probably too busy gallivanting around her house in teeny cami pajamas right now, making plans to steal my boyfriend. My only consolation was that if there really was a serial killer on the loose, she’d be one of the first to go. The girls in teeny camis never make it.
“I think,” Aaron said, “we should consider every theory, no matter how far-fetched. And since it’s getting late, maybe we should hold off on killing each other and plan what we’re going to do next.”
He was so logical. It made me want to jump him.
“I need to talk to Bryan,” I said, shaking off that thought. “Maybe he saw something. But there’s no way it’ll happen tonight. I guess it’ll have to wait until after we get back to school. Damn it.”
“I’ll keep digging into Holly’s background. After I do my algebra homework.” Jonah whooped and pumped his fist a few times before he scampered back in through the window. Apparently, he was one of those lunatics who got drunk on adrenaline. And he needed a real girlfriend. Desperately.
“What do you want me to do, Kate?” Aaron asked.
I wanted him to profess his undying love. But I asked him to drive me to the hospital after school the next day instead.
“Sure,” he said.
He slipped his arms around me from behind, pulling my head back to rest against his chest. I could hear his heartbeat and smell the clean cotton of his shirt. Hundreds of questions bombarded my brain; it was embarrassing that so many of them centered on our relationship when I should have been more worried about the serial killer. One of the major drawbacks of being a teenage girl. Really, if I could have transplanted my brain into a fancy robot, life would have been much easier.
And I would have been able to fly, which would be really cool.
“Hey. What are you thinking about?” Aaron murmured.
“Um …” I pulled away reluctantly. “Just trying to figure out how to convince the authorities that these cases are connected. If I could get Dr. Burr out of jail, that would be nice.”
He frowned. “You don’t ever rest, do you?”
“Not really.”
He took me by the shoulders. The kiss was so soft and gentle that it shouldn’t have made my blood pressure shoot up into hypertension territory, but it did anyway. I pushed him back onto the shingles, scraping my forearms but not really caring. My mouth pressed against his, and now the kiss wasn’t so gentle anymore. His hands were on my hips; I practically plastered myself to his torso. We hadn’t gone any further than kissing, but suddenly I wanted to. Very badly.
“You should go inside,” he said softly.
“That would be responsible,” I agreed.
“Yeah.”
“And warmer.”
He laughed, pulling me close. The steam from our breath curled together, and we managed to find a way to stay warm for a little while longer.
When I woke up the next morning, the light was all wrong. Not that I have anything against light in general, except that it wasn’t supposed to be blazing out my eyeballs at this point in the day.
“Aw, crap!” I yelled, sitting bolt upright and checking the clock. It was indeed very late. I’d have to skip washing my hair, but maybe if I got dressed fast enough, I’d be able to grab a cup of coffee.
I threw something on and thundered down the stairs while trying to line up the buttons on my shirt correctly, but that was a lot more difficult than it sounds. So I really wasn’t looking where I was going when I ran smack into my father in the hallway and nearly knocked him on his back.
“Sorry, Dad!” I grabbed his shoulders like that would keep him upright. “I woke up late because of the whole thing with Bryan, and I’m just so tired, and I can’t get this stupid shirt buttoned right, and …”
And then, I’m not proud of it, but I cried. It had nothing to do with the shirt. It was just that I couldn’t stand one more thing going wrong.
Dad handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose with humiliating volume.
“Tell me what happened with Bryan.” He sat on the stairs and patted the spot next to him. I curled up next to him, and he put an arm around me.
I told him everything, except for the bits where Aaron and I made out on our shingles, because even I have limits. It felt good to get things off my chest, even though I knew it meant I’d be late to catch the bus, and Mrs. Gilbert would be upset, and maybe she’d find out about Dr. Burr being in police custody. It was only a matter of time before the cops released his name. But those things didn’t seem so important right now. Why was I rushing off to a mentorship program when I had no bleeping mentor?
“So how is Bryan doing?” Dad asked when I was done talking.
He was taking things awfully well. Then again, he was used to my status as the go-to person for various medical complaints. I’d spent half of Thanksgiving dinner on the phone with my aunt. She’d been convinced Uncle Jimmy was having a heart attack, but it turned out that he’d just had food poisoning from a bad can of Spam.
Personally, I couldn’t believe I was related to a Spam eater, but that was beside the point.
“I don’t know.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve, and he handed me another tissue. “I’ll try to text Rocky on the way to the FDA program. Can you drive me?”
“Or …,” he said thoughtfully, “I could drop you off at the hospital and you can go visit him yourself. I’ll call the school office and let them know you’ll go to your program after that, and you can catch the school bus back to classes when you’re done. I know this program means a lot to you, pumpkin, but you’re not going to be able to concentrate until you know your friend is okay. I know I wouldn’t.”
I considered it for about a half a second. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’ll do. Thanks, Dad.”
He ruffled my hair. I endured it, just this once. He’d earned it.
After some texting back and forth, Rocky had agreed to meet me in the hospital lobby. It took some careful maneuvering to make it through the revolving doors with a travel mug of coffee, a plastic bag containing a change of clothes for her, and my overstuffed backpack, but I managed. Rocky was slumped on one of the uncomfortable-looking sofas by the front doors.
“Thanks for coming,” she said, bounding to her feet.
“Are you okay? Is Bryan okay?” I demanded, shoving the bag at her. “And here’s some clean clothes. I know you didn’t go home last night.”
“You are officially the best friend in the history of the universe.” She hugged me. “Let’s go upstairs so I can change. And he’s better than expected. A lot better. That’s what I wanted to show you.”
“What do you mean, he’s better?” A jolt of fear ran through me. I really hoped I hadn’t conducted a completely unnecessary surgery on one of my friends. If I had, I’d never forgive myself. But then I thought about how Bryan’s neck had felt like someone dropped a bowling ball on it from a second-story window, and I realized there was no way I’d overreacted. I really had to stop flipping out so much.
“I can’t tell you,” Rocky said. “You’ve just got to see for yourself.”
