Get Even, page 26
The hall that led into the rehearsal room was filled with actors, sporting the various gang uniforms from the movie The Warriors. There was a group in striped shirts and denim overalls, another in shiny purple vests and feathered pimp hats, and still another in orange gis.
Peanut stood in front of a mirror in the rehearsal room, staring dejectedly at her reflection. She was wearing a pin-striped baseball uniform, complete with stirrups and matching cap. The costumer pinned the pants to be hemmed below the knee, while Mr. Cunningham looked on appreciatively.
“Why am I dressed like Derek Jeter?” she asked.
Mr. Cunningham made a note on his clipboard. “You’re a member of the Baseball Furies gang,” he said, without looking up. “Don’t you remember the film?”
Peanut grimaced. “Am I going to have to paint my face like a mime?”
“Yep.”
Peanut’s eyes met Olivia’s. “I hope your costume isn’t this heinous,” she said.
“Sleeveless denim vest and camo pants,” Olivia said.
Peanut sighed. “Figures. You’ll probably look ridiculously hot in it too.”
“Mr. Cunningham,” Olivia said, changing the subject. “Do you know where Margot is? I wanted to run the final scene with her.”
“She’s in my office.” Mr. Cunningham looked at her quizzically. “But she told me you didn’t need any more coaching.”
“She did?”
Mr. Cunningham nodded. “This morning. She told me specifically not to schedule any sessions for you.”
“Oh.”
Olivia wandered out of the rehearsal room and back into the wings of the theater. Margot clearly did not want to talk to her. And did she blame her? At the end of the day, she’d wounded Margot in a way that did not deserve forgiveness.
“Psst!” someone hissed from the darkened wings behind her. “Olivia.”
“Bree?” Olivia said, turning around.
“We need to talk.” Bree grabbed Olivia by the arm and dragged her to the corner, behind the curtain that lined the back wall of the theater.
“We shouldn’t be seen together,” Olivia said.
Bree snorted. “It’s a bit late for that. Did you get another envelope last night?”
Olivia hesitated. Was there any point in keeping it a secret? “Yeah.”
“See? Whoever’s behind this already knows who we are and how we’re connected.”
Olivia peeked behind the curtain. “What do you want?”
“It’s time we played a little offense,” Bree said, her eyes gleaming. “Fight back against whoever’s been pulling our strings.”
“Fight back?” Olivia dropped her voice. “Turn yourselves in or else,” she quoted. “What do you think that means, Bree, huh? This guy is a lunatic. He’s already killed two people. What makes you think he won’t come after one of us next?”
“Don’t get hysterical.”
“Hysterical? There are cops stationed in every hallway. I was patted down on my way to rehearsal. Father Uberti’s getting an armed escort back to the rectory every day after school because they think he might be the next victim.” She felt her voice getting higher and higher as the panic set in, but she didn’t care. “If the cops can’t stop him, what makes you think I can?”
Bree pursed her lips. “I have a plan. All we have to do—”
“We?” Olivia shook her head. “DGM is finished. Besides, what if Margot’s right? What if the person sending all those clues is one of us?”
“Do you really believe that?”
Olivia couldn’t look Bree in the eye. “I . . . I don’t know.”
“All I’m saying,” Bree continued, “is that we can’t let this anonymous tipster go on murdering people. The best way to avoid that ‘or else’ is to call him out.”
“I . . .” Olivia’s voice trailed off. She looked around the theater. This was her home; this was the place she felt the most alive. Not with DGM. Once they graduated from high school, all of their missions would be a distant memory, and Olivia’s real life of theater could begin.
But she had to get that far.
“I can’t,” she said at last, stepping out from behind the curtain. “I’m done.”
FIFTY-TWO
LOGAN’S VOICE SOUNDED FARAWAY AS HE RECITED THE OPENING of act 2, scene 4.
“Now, good Cesario,” he said. “But that piece of song, that old and antique song we heard last night.”
“The song” made Margot think of the Bangers and Mosh concert, which made her think of Coach Creed’s murder, of Ed the Head and his skeptical attitude toward Logan, of Olivia and how all of Margot’s illusions about their friendship had been shattered in one horrid moment.
“Hey,” Logan said, placing a hand on her knee. “Are you even listening?”
Margot shook herself, discarding the anger. “Where were you?”
“Never mind.” Logan squeezed her knee through her jeans. “I think I’m good enough.”
Margot sighed. “I’m sorry. I was—”
“Reliving Sunday night?”
“Yes.”
“Look, I’ll make it up to you,” Logan said quickly, misinterpreting her mood.
This guy could be anyone. Ed the Head’s words lingered in her mind.
“Another date,” Logan added. “A better date. One without dead bodies.”
Margot smiled, despite herself. Coach Creed’s death was far from hilarious, but the way Logan was trying to cheer her up made her smile. Like it was his fault someone had been murdered outside the club that night.
“You don’t have to,” she said, feeling guilty about even suspecting Logan might be involved in the murders. “Take me out again, I mean.”
Logan tossed the hair out of his face and leaned closer. “I know I don’t have to. I want to.” He pecked her quickly on the cheek. “I have to be onstage in five. See you at the break?”
Margot was still smiling after he disappeared from the office.
It didn’t last long. “Hey, Margot.”
Bree leaned against the door frame.
“I have a coaching in five minutes,” Margot said coldly.
“Good, then you have four minutes to talk.” Bree stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “Did you get an envelope last night?”
“Turn yourselves in or else,” Margot recited. “You have until opening night.”
“We need to do something.”
Margot shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“This murderer, whoever it is, is controlling us. Dictating our actions. He sends us anonymous clues, and we all react. And so far we’ve been taking it because we were more concerned with keeping our secrets. News flash, this guy already knows our secrets. In fact, he knows things about us no one is supposed to know. Secrets time is over.”
Margot stared at a giant promo poster for Chicago box-framed on Mr. Cunningham’s wall. Bree had a point, however crudely made.
Margot tilted her head to the side. “Where do we start?”
“Why are you calling me?” Kitty snapped before the first ring had been completed. “We have a strict rule against contact by phone.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bree said. Why was Kitty so paranoid? They had bigger things to deal with. “Did you get another envelope last night?”
“Obviously,” Kitty said. Bree had never heard her so irritated. Kitty was usually the calm one.
“Okay,” Bree said, leading her toward what should have been a logical conclusion. “Don’t you think we need to talk about it?”
Kitty sighed, a loud, audible grumbling kind of exhale that was meant to transmit annoyance. Message received.
“Margot and I,” Bree said quickly, hoping the implication that Margot was with her would capture Kitty’s attention, “we think it’s time to fight back.”
“We’ve been fighting, Bree. We’ve been fighting the system for two years, and where did it get us? Vilified, hunted, possibly framed for murder, and now targeted by a serial killer.”
“What do you want to do, then? Turn yourself in?”
Bree thought that might spur Kitty into action, but as she waited for Kitty to say something, the silence seemed to last an eternity.
Margot’s eyebrows pinched together as her lips silently formed the words “what’s going on?”
“The most likely answer,” Kitty said at last, “is that one of us is behind the envelopes.”
“And the murders,” Bree said. “That’s what you’re saying, Kitty. You’re saying one of us is a killer.”
Again, silence.
So much for their fearless leader. Bree couldn’t hide the disappointment in her voice. “I guess we’re on our own, then.”
“Bree,” Kitty said.
“Yeah?”
“Be careful.”
Bree clicked off her phone and shoved it back into her pocket. “Kitty’s out,” she said simply.
“So I gathered.”
“You going to bail too?”
She firmly expected Margot to drop out. She’d taken the hardest hit in the last week, reliving the pain of a seventh-grade humiliation so horrific it had driven her to attempt suicide. It made sense if Margot wanted out, and of all of them, Bree wouldn’t have blamed her for ejecting.
“Logan,” Margot said quietly. “Rex and Amber, Theo, Christopher Beeman, or . . .” She paused and glanced up at Bree.
“Or John,” she said. She needed to be open about the possibility, even if she refused to believe he was a suspect.
“Or John,” Margot repeated. “Whoever it is, we need to stop them before they kill anyone else.”
A wry half smile crept across the right side of Bree’s face. She could have hugged Margot. “It’ll be hard with just the two of us.”
“We’ll need help.”
“Yeah? You got someone in mind?”
Margot nodded. “Meet me in the computer lab at lunch tomorrow.”
FIFTY-THREE
BREE WAS ALL SMILES AS SHE SAUNTERED BACK TO THE theater. Olivia and Kitty might have been out, but at least Margot was willing to fight. It felt so much better to have a plan than to lay low and hope that their anonymous friend would stop killing people and leave them alone. Nope, Bree was taking matters into her own hands. For the first time in days, she was in control. She felt so giddy she practically skipped as she rounded the corner into the back entrance of the theater.
Where she ran smack into John.
“Hey!” she gasped, the wind momentarily knocked out of her.
“Hey.”
He was in costume, or at least Bree hoped so. He wore a black biker’s vest, completely open with nothing underneath, and low-slung black jeans barely held in place by an enormous silver belt buckle. A leather headband crowned his black hair, making him look like a cross between Tonto and Jimi Hendrix, and his wrists were bound with matching leather cufflets.
“How are you?” Bree said. She tried to keep her eyes on his face, but they kept drifting south. Despite two years of friendship, she’d never seen John with his shirt off. Though skinny, he was more muscular than Bree would have guessed based on his almost total lack of physical exertion, and there was a trail of dark brown hair below his belly button that disappeared into the hip-slung pants, igniting an absolutely inappropriate feeling deep within her.
“I’m good,” he said. “And you?”
Bree forced herself to focus. John was a suspect. She had to remember. “Good.”
John turned to leave. “Yeah, well, I’ve got to get back to the dressing room.”
“John, I think we need to talk.”
He paused, but didn’t face her. “About what?”
About what? That was such a loaded question. Bree had about a million things she wanted to talk to him about, but all she could manage was—
“Stuff.”
Stuff? Really? Bree’s face burned.
“Stuff? Really?” John asked.
Damn, was he inside her head?
Bree opened her mouth to clarify her brilliant statement, but no words came out. She was desperately trying to keep her eyes above John’s equator, failing miserably, and her brain was getting all jumbled in the process.
What is wrong with you?
“Look,” John said with a heavy sigh. “What do you want, Bree, huh? Do you want things to be like they were between us? Because that isn’t going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because things have changed. Can’t you see that?”
“What’s changed? You’re still my best friend in the whole world. Hell, you’re my only friend.” It felt so pathetic when she said it out loud like that.
“I’m not your only friend,” John said quietly. Something about the icy calmness in his voice caught her off guard.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, John shook his head. “You accuse me of keeping secrets from you, Bree. But are you any better? Haven’t you been doing the exact same thing?”
Bree swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said automatically. She’d lied about DGM for so long it was second nature.
John turned away. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Bree clutched his hand. She felt like she was losing him forever, and the panic almost blinded her. “I’ll be a better friend, John. I promise.”
“I don’t want a better friend.”
“Huh?”
John set his jaw. “And I can’t be your consolation prize.”
What a mess. Something had changed, shifted in her brain and her heart. But how could she even explain that to John if she wasn’t sure what it was?
“I care about you,” she said.
Dear God, that sounded lame.
John looked at his hand still clasped in her own; then his eyes traveled up her arm to her face. She gazed into his eyes, framed by that ridiculous seventies headband. He wasn’t her geeky best friend anymore. He was something more. Something she’d been yearning for without even knowing it.
“You care,” John said softly. “But not enough.”
“That’s not true!” Bree blurted out. “I—”
“John!” Amber came tearing up the aisle into the lobby. Like John, she was in costume. Also a seventies monstrosity, but significantly more on the streetwalker side. She wore high-waisted short shorts with a white patent leather belt and a pink, midriff-exposing halter top that tied together between her boobs. Her sky-high crushed-velvet platform sandals made her lean legs look about ten miles long.
“John,” she repeated, grabbing him possessively by the arm without even a glance in Bree’s direction. “I’ve been looking for you.”
John didn’t shake her off. “What’s up?”
“Mr. Cunningham wants to sign off on your costume.” She leaned back and scanned him from tip to toe. “If you want my opinion,” she added, “meow.”
“Ew.” Bree couldn’t help herself. The idea of Amber looking at John with anything even resembling a sexual interest made Bree want to throw up.
Amber casually looked Bree up and down, assessing her outfit. “Wow,” she said with a laugh. “Thrift-store dress and jeans? Couldn’t make up your mind this morning?”
Bree curled her lip. “It’s so I can be stylish and comfortable when I kick your ass.”
“Stylish?” Amber said, her hand languidly stroking John’s arm. “Try again.”
Instead of coming to her defense, John turned toward the theater. “I’ll talk to you later, Bree,” he said. Then he marched back down the aisle with Amber hanging off him like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Bree watched them go, John’s words from Sunday night ringing in her ears. After tonight, nothing will be the same.
He’d been right on more levels than perhaps he’d known at the time. She realized with a stabbing pain somewhere between her heart and her spleen that if Amber was all over the new rock-star version of John, then half the girls in school would be too. He was no longer Baggott the Faggot, but one of the cool kids. Like Shane. And it was only a matter of time before he forgot about Bree entirely.
Bree bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. Just when she realized that John was more than a friend, she’d lost him forever, and she’d have to stand idly by at school while he dated someone else—Cordy or God forbid Amber—and pretend like it wasn’t ripping her heart to pieces.
Worst of all, it was entirely her fault. She’d spent so much time denying that there was anything between them, ignoring the very real connection she felt with John because she’d labeled him as a friend. She’d hurt him in the process, and now he could never forgive her.
Bree swallowed and took a deep breath, forcing the self-pity back to the depths of her mind. There was one thing she could do, one way she could still protect John, even if he was lost to her forever.
Find the killer before he struck again.
FIFTY-FOUR
ED THE HEAD CROSSED ONE FOOT OVER HIS KNEE AND LEANED forward, resting his pointy chin on his hand. “Tell me again why I’m giving up my lunch, the most profitable fifty-five minutes of my day, to be holed up in the computer lab with you?”
“After all the money I’ve made for you in the past year,” Margot said, organizing papers on the desk in front of her, “I’d think you’d be elated to do me a favor.”
“I already did you a favor, remember? And you stiffed me on payment.”
Margot thought of Logan, eating lunch in the quad by himself. “It’s not a concert,” she said with a shrug. “But consider this a lunch date.”
Ed the Head stretched his legs in front of him. “I guess it’ll do in a pinch.”
Margot had had a difficult time lying to Logan about why she needed to be someplace else at lunch. But with the opening of Twelfth Precinct in just over twenty-four hours, Don’t Get Mad was running out of time. She and Bree had to act immediately if they were going to prevent another murder, and she didn’t want to get Logan involved in what they were about to do. It was too dangerous.
“Are we waiting on someone?” Ed the Head asked. “Or are you just relishing my presence too much to get down to business?”
