Killer looks, p.2
Killer Looks, page 2
"Wait—don't answer that."
Okay, I wasn't stupid. I knew where babies came from, and I knew at some point my mother and father had to have done the deed in order for me to exist. Since then, however, Mom and Dad had divorced and moved 300 miles away from each other, and neither ever had to have any physical contact with another human in that way again.
"You know what a lot of people your age do to fill their time?" I asked. "Hobbies. You could take up gardening. Or painting. Or knitting," I suggested.
Mom shot me a look. "Knitting? Exactly how old do you think I am, Hartley?"
"What? Lots of people knit. It's a great way to pass the time."
Mom shook her head. "Look, I'm not saying I'm ready to get married or jump into anything serious, hon. But I would like to get out and meet some people my own age. Okay?"
"Some men, you mean."
"Yes."
I looked from Mom to the photo. Well, on the upside, at least with this as her first impression, she wasn't likely to get too many offers.
* * *
Once I helped Mom upload her profile photo to the dating site (Though I drew the line at helping her come up with a "flirty" headline. Shudder.), I escaped to my room. Since I hadn't heard back from Sydney yet, I scrolled through her most recent tweets. Apparently being grounded gave her a lot of free time, as there were at least a dozen an hour.
It also appeared, as I read them, that being grounded forever was really depressing. Each tweet was sadder than the last, starting out that morning with:
My life sucks (posted with a crying emoji)
To that afternoon where she'd disintegrated to:
I have nothing left 2 live 4
Drama much? Then again, Sydney did thrive on school social events like Homecoming, and she had been in a shoo-in for Queen, so maybe her life really was suckish right now.
An hour later I was still waiting for a response and was beginning to fear that maybe Sydney's parents had decided to take away her laptop too. I was just about to give up and see what kind of plant-based dinner Mom might be cooking up, when a reply finally popped in.
what do u want to know?
Yes! I quickly typed back, how did u get the cheats 2 the test?
A moment later her reply came in.
can't say.
Crap. Though if she hadn't told the vice principal how she got the answers, even under threat of losing the Homecoming title, I knew the chances she'd tell me were slim. Still…
i want 2 print ur side of things. it's unfair u were suspended. u deserved to be hc queen.
This time there was no pause.
i know! totally unfair!
can we meet? 2morrow after skool?
i'm grounded
This I knew. But I also knew that Sydney lived on Wild Oak Court, which backed up to the Los Gatos Creek Trail. Conducting an interview through her back fence wasn't totally ideal, but if I met her there after school, at least it meant she wouldn't have to breach her grounding perimeter.
I typed my plan to her, and almost immediately I got a reply.
k. c u then
I grinned. Now that was what even Chase would have to call real reporting.
CHAPTER TWO
The next day I was so antsy to tell Sam about my meeting that as soon as the fourth period bell rang, I dashed toward the cafeteria. Stacks of trays and tubs of chocolate milk lined one wall, while rows of tables and benches filled the room. The floors were gray linoleum, the walls dull beige, and posters advertising our upcoming Homecoming Dance were plastered over every available space. I grabbed my tray, loaded up on pizza sticks, an apple, and a carton of milk, and quickly found Sam sitting near the back of the cafeteria.
With her boyfriend, Kyle Lowe.
I hesitated.
Okay, here's the thing—I liked Kyle fine. He was a cool guy. I had nothing personal against him. But lately something was happening to Sam whenever she was around him. She was turning from a normal, rational, sixteen-year-old girl into a cartoon character with little pink hearts floating out of her eyes. Suddenly she was saying things like "my wittle wuvvy" and "I gots to has you," getting so cutesy and grammatically incorrect it verged on embarrassing. I had yet to find a kind way to tell her that this whole lovey-dovey thing was getting out of control.
Sam looked up, saw me contemplating my seating options, and waved me over.
Then turned to Kyle and rubbed the tip of her nose to his in a nose kiss.
Oh boy.
I made my way to their table and plopped my tray down, trying not to look as Kyle nose kissed her back.
"Look what I made us," Sam said right away, shoving her wrist toward me. On it was a pink friendship bracelet made of braided thread. In the middle was a pattern of a red heart.
"Very cute," I said.
"I made Kyle one, too," she told me, pulling his wrist out for inspection along with hers, which was adorned in a blue bracelet with the same red heart. "See? We match."
"Very…matchy."
She grinned. "Thanks."
I loved her enough that I didn't tell her it wasn't exactly a compliment.
"So, did you get ahold of Sydney last night?" Sam asked.
I nodded, digging into my pizza sticks. "Yeah. I'm meeting her after school."
"Meeting who?"
Chase suddenly appeared at my side, dropped a tray on the table, and straddled the bench next to me. "Who are you meeting?" he asked again.
I paused. Truth was, I didn't really want to spill who I was meeting with until I knew if she had anything useful to tell me. Even worse than not getting a unique story out of Sydney would be the look on Chase's face if he knew I didn't get a unique story.
But before I could weigh my options, Kyle blurted out, "She's got an exclusive with Sydney Sanders."
I shot him a look. But really, I should have known better. Kyle loved gossip like most people loved air.
"Really?" Chase gave me a quizzical face, one eyebrow raised.
Since the cat was out of the bag, I nodded. "Yeah. I'm meeting her after school."
"But she's grounded."
"I have my ways." I winked at him, doing my best secretive-reporter-type, all-knowing smile.
I'm not sure I pulled it off, as his other eyebrow headed north.
"You think you can get Sydney to spill how she got the cheats?" Sam asked.
I shrugged. "I dun—" I stopped myself just in time from saying the forbidden words. "I'm going to try," I amended.
"What about Lipkins?" Chase asked.
I gave him a blank look.
"Mr. Lipkins? Your interview today?"
I did a mental facepalm. In my excitement over the exclusive with Sydney, I'd totally forgotten about my appointment with Mr. Lipkins. I looked up at the clock on the wall. I only had fifteen minutes before the end of lunch.
"Shoot. I gotta go," I said, shoving a pizza stick into my mouth and grabbing my book bag.
I could have sworn I heard Chase call something like "good luck" behind me as I jogged toward the Precalculus room.
Mr. Lipkins was sitting at his desk, a red pen hovering over a stack of papers. He was an older guy, slim with thinning hair that was going gray at the temples. What was left of that hair was slicked back from his forehead in a way that said he'd stopped paying attention to current styles decades ago. He had a bushy mustache that matched the salt and pepper up top and twitched intermittently like a nervous tic. His eyes were stuck behind thick glasses, and his clothes looked like they'd come from the Goodwill bargain bins. Brown corduroy pants, black tennis shoes, powder blue short-sleeved dress shirt. A perpetual smear of ink stained the heel of his right hand, presumably from smudging words on the white board.
Even before the cheating bust, Mr. Lipkins had garnered a reputation for being one of the toughest teachers on campus. Sam had taken his Precalculus summer school class and swore it took ten years off her life.
"Mr. Lipkins?" I asked, approaching his desk.
He looked up, blinking at me from behind his bifocals. "Yes?"
"Hartley Featherstone," I said. "From the Herbert Hoover High Homepage?"
He nodded. "I know who you are. You're late. I usually leave at lunch."
Due to budget cuts, our school could only afford a set number of full-time teachers who received benefits. The rest had to make do with part-time status, taking only four periods a day each.
"Have a seat," he said, indicating a desk in the front row.
I did, pulling out my phone and setting it to record.
"What's that for?" Mr. Lipkins asked.
"It's to record the interview. Just so I don't forget any important points."
He frowned. "What's wrong with taking notes, huh? Your hand broken or something?"
"Um. No. I just… This is easier."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "Easier, huh? Technology has made your generation so lazy."
I cleared my throat, not sure I had a response for that. Instead, I put my phone away and took out a piece of binder paper and a pen.
"Um, I wanted to talk to you about Sydney Sanders."
He nodded. "Another lazy kid."
"You caught Sydney cheating, correct?"
Mr. Lipkins nodded again. "That's right. One of the other students alerted me to it—saw her copying down the letters. Sydney thought she was so clever. Can you believe she actually tried to tell me it was trendy to paint letters on your fingernails?"
I grinned, making sure I wrote that quote down. "So, she tried to convince you she was innocent?"
"Tried being the key word," Mr. Lipkins emphasized. "Poor thing's about as sharp as a sphere."
I blinked at him.
"Because a sphere is completely round without any angles or edges," he explained.
I nodded. I knew. It was just the first time I'd heard geometry used in a simile. "So you caught Sydney, and she denied it. At what point did you realize that Quinn was involved as well?"
"About the time we hauled Sydney down to the vice principal's office. When her parents showed up, she said the whole thing had been Quinn's idea."
I raised an eyebrow. Ouch. Giving up your best friend like that was cold. "And did you confront Quinn?"
He nodded. "Sure did. When I told her Sydney had spilled everything, she was about as discreet as a set of real numbers."
"She confessed?" I clarified, trying to read between the lines of his math-speak.
He nodded. "She said that it was her idea but that Sydney had gotten the actual answers and painted both their nails with the letters."
"How did she get the answers?"
Mr. Lipkins threw his hands up. "How should I know?"
"They didn't say?"
He shook his head. "No. They wouldn't tell us how they obtained the answers, so they were both suspended. The administration is looking into it." He leaned in. "Honestly? We'll probably never know."
Not necessarily. In fact, I hoped to answer that very question this afternoon when I talked to Sydney.
"Tell me about the test," I said, switching gears. "How hard would it be for Sydney to steal the answers?"
"Very. I have four different exams for each section we study. I rotate them every four years so that no one student is ever taking a test that anyone else on campus has ever taken. Meaning, no upperclassmen can give answers to lowerclassmen. No test ever goes home, even corrected ones. Before the start of every exam, all cell phones are collected to prevent anyone texting answers across the room. I tell you, I spend more time trying to make test answers secure than I do teaching."
I bit my lip. I had to agree, he'd devised a pretty good system. "Where are the tests kept?"
"Teachers' lounge, down the hall. All master copies of tests are kept in a locked file cabinet."
I'd been to the teachers' lounge once before, making copies for Mrs. Perry's periodic table of elements take-home quiz. The Xerox machines were old, the tables and chairs were scarred hand-me-downs, and the gunmetal gray file cabinets were bordering on rusted through. I was no expert, but I had a feeling that anyone with a paperclip could have broken into them and easily copied the test answers. At least, anyone bold enough to sneak into the teachers' lounge in the first place.
"How would Sydney know which test you were going to give out?"
Again, he shrugged. "I told you, I rotate them. I suppose someone could figure out what year we were on by asking around."
I nodded. "Just one more question. Are you planning to implement any new anti-cheating measures in light of this incident?"
He nodded vigorously. "You bet I am. From now on, I will inspect everyone's hands before I give them a test. Turning me into a warden more than a teacher," he mumbled. "Are we finished here?"
"Yep. Thanks for your time, Mr. Lipkins," I said, getting up from the desk.
He nodded my way then pulled a sandwich that looked soggy and limp from a battered paper bag next to his desk.
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for him.
* * *
The next two periods dragged so slowly that I thought I actually saw the hands of the clock going backward at one point. My mind was completely on my interview with Sydney, only halfway listening as Mrs. Blasberg explained inverse functions and Senorita Gonzales conjugated verbs. By the time the bell rang, I was practically vibrating with the need to get out and only stopped at my locker long enough to swap my books for homework before heading off campus.
The Los Gatos Creek Trail snaked behind the football field, down toward a row of condos below, and then all the way through town toward the heart of the valley. According to Google Earth, Sydney's house was situated just over a mile from the school, across the street from Vasona Lake Park.
By the time her back fence came into view, the midafternoon sun had created a fine layer of sweat at the nape of my neck. I stepped off the trail and carefully set my backpack down in the grass as I tried to peek over Sydney's fence. Tried, because the fence was at least six feet tall and I topped out at about 5'2". Even on tippy-toe, I couldn't see a thing.
"Sydney?" I called, doing something between a stage whisper and an indoor voice.
No one answered.
"It's Hartley," I called again.
I put my ear to the wooden fence, listening for a reply.
Nothing.
I squinted between the slats, but someone had done a crack job of installing the thing. I could only make out the tiniest sliver of the backyard beyond—just enough to see the blue waters of a pool and a pair of deck chairs.
I looked around for something to give me a boost. On the ground was a collection of rocks, but none looked big enough to stand on. On the other side of the trail sat a large oak tree.
I called out to Sydney one more time.
"Hey? Sydney? It's me. Hartley."
No answer.
Fine. Tree it was.
I quickly crossed the trail to the oak, narrowly missing a biker clad in bright yellow and black striped spandex that made him look like a bee. The tree was thick, tall, and definitely sturdy enough to hold all 100 pounds of me. The only problem was the lowest branch was a good four feet off the ground. I grabbed on to it and pulled my feet up onto the trunk, but they immediately slipped back down, causing my palms to scrape against the branch and depositing me on my butt on the ground.
Ouch.
I picked myself up, trying not to be embarrassed as another biker went by. This time I was able to scramble my legs up high enough to lock them around the branch above me. I hung there a minute, like a pig on a spit, before I gathered enough strength to pull my torso up and around to the top side of the branch.
I gave myself a two count to catch my breath then carefully stuck my foot in the fork of the branches and moved a little bit higher. Once I was high enough that I was starting to get a little dizzy, I scooched out onto a limb that was overhanging the trail.
Sydney's backyard was still a ways away, but from there I could at least see over the fence. I craned my neck to get my target in view.
What I'd seen through the sliver had been accurate. There was a large pool taking up most of the backyard with a couple of loungers set beside it. I saw a pink beach towel laid out on one, with a glass of some amber liquid with ice cubes in it sitting on a table next to it. Signs that someone had been in the yard recently.
I turned my attention to the swimming pool…
And then I saw it.
I gasped out loud and had to hold on to the tree branch with both arms to keep myself from falling as a scream erupted from my mouth.
There, floating in the center of the sparkling blue pool, was Sydney Sanders.
Facedown.
CHAPTER THREE
The first thing I did was run. Okay, actually, the first, first thing I did was scream, lose my balance, flail my arms in the air like some kind of uncoordinated bird, and then slide down the side of the tree and land on my butt.
Then I ran.
I grabbed my backpack and raced down the pathway as fast as I could, blind panic spurring me on until I reached the bridge where the bike trail connected with the main road and logic started to seep into my brain.
I grabbed my cell and dialed 9-1-1, trying my best to keep my voice from shaking out of control as I described what I had seen at Sydney's place. The dispatcher talked to me in annoyingly calm tones (hadn't she heard the dead body part!?) until a police cruiser pulled up to the side of the road and motioned me inside.
I then told my same shaky story to the uniformed officer as he drove me around the block, circling to the front of Wild Oak Court, where Sydney's house squatted in the center of the cul-de-sac. It was a one story, stucco building painted in a gray-blue with bright white trim. A picket fence enclosed the yard, and a couple of orange trees overburdened with fruit flanked the front doors.
Already I could see two more cop cars parked at the curb. A wooden gate sat just to the right of the house, leading to the backyard beyond. Another uniformed officer stood sentinel beside it, arms crossed over his chest, eyes scanning the street for anyone daring to breach the perimeter.
