Dead Girls Don't Lie Page 7

  “You didn’t get my text about coming early?” he says.

  I freeze. “You sent me another text?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Only if you sent me something you don’t want the police to know. They have my cell phone now.”

  The whole time we’ve been talking he’s been kicking the ball back and forth between his right foot and his left, but as soon as I say “police” he stops and his dark skin goes a shade lighter. “You gave your phone to the police?”

  “No. The FBI,” I say slowly, watching for his reaction.

  He gets even paler. “FBI?”

  “There was some special agent from a gang task force at Rachel’s house yesterday.” I tug at one of the goal posts to straighten it, avoiding his eyes. “He asked me some questions and he took my phone.”

  “You talked to the feds?” He says it like I’m a traitor. “You gave them your phone? With Rachel’s message?”

  “Yes … I mean no.” His reaction is making me more nervous. “Yes, I talked to them. Yes, I gave them the phone, but I deleted the message, like you told me to.”

  “Did he have a warrant to take your phone?” He sounds scared, as if Agent Herrera’s having a warrant for my phone would be a bad thing.

  “No, I was just trying to cooper—”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t cooperate with them. You can’t trust them. You can’t trust the police, the feds, anyone.”

  “Except you?” I’m trying to sound ironic, but I’m not sure he catches it.

  “Except me.” His voice is so serious that it scares me.

  I finish straightening the posts and stand to face him. I’m not sure where this is going. “So, you want to talk? Okay, let’s talk.”

  He looks back at the church. “Not here.”

  I roll my eyes, but his need for privacy makes my stomach clench. “No one in the church can hear us.” He shakes his head. I’m not sure how to handle this situation, or if I should be alone with him. I point to the far end of the field. “I’m supposed to set up an obstacle course for the kids out there. Help me with that and we can talk.” He looks around the empty field and then nods. I head for the shed next to the church. “Bring the soccer balls.”

  In the safety of the shed I take in a breath, contemplating what Eduardo could possibly want to talk to me about. I grab an armload of spikes with flags on the end and a stack of orange cones. Eduardo is heading down the field, a ball in each arm, dribbling the third one between his feet. I stop and watch him, wondering if I’m being stupid or paranoid. He kind of saved my life in the lake. I would have probably figured out I was in shallow water before I drowned, but still, he came in after me, or maybe he was already there. Maybe he was watching me. That thought sends chills down my spine.

  Whatever he’s here for, at this point being friendly is probably my best option. “Do you play soccer?” I say when I catch up to him.

  “No,” he says flatly. He drops the balls from his arms but continues dribbling the other one between his feet, like it was a nervous habit. “Why do the feds have your phone?”

  “Because I had Rachel’s number, which apparently not even her mom had.”

  “Why did you tell them you had her number?” He eyes me suspiciously.

  “Because they asked. Because they’re trying to figure out what happened to her, and I thought I should help.” Not exactly the whole story, but it sounds more noble than my getting a text from Rachel and then deleting it. Except to him, I don’t think it sounds noble at all.

  “The cops are idiots. They don’t want to find out what really happened. They just want to find some Chicano to pin it on.” He keeps dribbling the ball between his feet. I don’t want to keep arguing with him, so I look for neutral territory. I drop my armload of flags and cones on the ground. “You’re really good at that. You should try out for the high school team—”

  “The high school soccer team is a joke.” He shoots the ball toward me so hard that it stings my foot, but I block it and send it back to him.

  “They went to state last year, and the year before,” I point out.

  He catches the ball under his foot and rolls it back and forth. “Really? How many soccer games did you watch last year?”

  I pick up the first flag, not sure why he sounds so hostile. “I didn’t—”

  “And how many football games?” His gaze goes through me.

  “I don’t—”

  “All of them?”

  I hesitate, not sure of the animosity in his voice. “I don’t know what that has to do with any—”

  “And they lost every one.” He crosses his arms. “But you watched them anyway. And probably painted your face and wore the school colors and screamed for them.”

  He’s right. I didn’t paint my face, but I wore the school colors and I went to every game, alone. Even though Rachel and I were still friends at that point, I couldn’t get her to come with me. The rest of the town went though. We all screamed ourselves hoarse as the football team was trounced again and again. Why does Eduardo care?

  “Nobody goes to soccer games because they’re a conciliation sport for the Mexican kids.”

  I plant another stake while I think about that. “So you texted me and made me come all the way out here so you could give me attitude about high school sports?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  He looks like he’s sizing me up. “Rachel said you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know you stopped talking to Rachel when she changed the way she looked. I know you were ashamed to hang out with her.”

  “That’s not true. She—” But I can’t explain about Evan to Eduardo. “Look, we just …” What did Dad say? “We just took different paths.”

  He doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”

  That stops me. I remember Rachel’s voice when I admitted to her that she wasn’t invited to Claire’s New Year’s Eve party but I was, probably because Claire’s mom made her invite me. Rachel wasn’t mad, just quiet. “It’s okay. I have plans.” But I half believed she was lying to protect my feelings, so I could go to the party without feeling guilty.

  On New Year’s Day, I called so we could laugh together over how stupid Claire’s party was, but she didn’t answer and she never called back. Claire told me about Evan and Rachel’s date at church, the day before we went back to school after winter break. My last conversation with Rachel happened the next day.

  He’s still watching me, his eyes narrowed. I know what Rachel meant. The chip on his shoulder is so big I can almost see it.

  “If you want to talk, talk,” I snap at him.

  “She said you knew things. That you were with her that night.”

  His reference to the night I’ve buried in the black corners of my memory, the night in the old house, makes my blood freeze. I wonder how much Eduardo knows about it.

  “No.” I shake my head hard as fear pulses through me. “She was wrong. I wasn’t there. I don’t know anything.” I turn away so he can’t see my face. We promised we’d never talk about it; Rachel made me promise. I don’t know this guy. For all I know he was part of the gang that murdered her. Just the mention of the word “police” makes him freak. “I can’t help you.”

  “You mean you won’t help me. But you’ll help the pigs in blue.” He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Rachel said you were different, boba, but I don’t think so. You’re just like the rest of them.”

  “Whatever, okay?” I throw down the cone I was holding and start back to church.

  “Boba!” he yells. When I turn, he boots the ball to me one more time. I stop it with a header that sends it flying to the other side of the field. When I turn back around he yells, “Why don’t you play high school soccer?”

  It was the wrong thing for him to say, like he knew
exactly how to get to me. Like Rachel told him.

  It was the regional championship. The score was tied, and for once I was in the game. The ball came to me. For one beautiful moment, everything ahead of me was clear. I started dribbling down the field, getting in position to shoot the winning goal. I was getting closer, so close I could almost see myself being carried off the field on the shoulders of my adoring teammates. She came from behind me, so fast that all I could see was her long blond ponytail and the florescent green of our matching shorts. Claire was going to steal the ball from me, her own teammate, because she didn’t trust me to make the shot. Rachel blocked her so I could shoot the ball. I missed, and we lost the game on a penalty kick. I don’t think Claire has ever forgiven me or Rachel for that.

  We were eleven. Rachel said it was no big deal, that it was just a game, but I quit after that season because soccer wasn’t fun anymore. Not because of what Eduardo was implying, that soccer is beneath me because it’s a sport for the Mexican kids.

  Dawn is coming out of the church with the children, but I don’t care. I’m done with his attitude and everything about him. I march back to Eduardo. “You don’t know anything about me. I gave my phone to the police to try to help, because it was the right thing to do. Because I wanted to help. Rachel was just fine when she was my friend.”

  “She was fine.” He scoffs. “That shows how much you didn’t know about her.”

  “And she was better off with you?” I’m so angry, I’m shaking. Eduardo stands his ground, his eyes hard, but I step toward him, so close I’m in his face, my anger pushing aside all fear. “How can you stand there and accuse me of being disloyal to Rachel”—the words come out before I can stop them; I have to blame someone—“when she’s dead because of people like you?”

  His attitude melts into horror and pain. He lowers his head. “You’re right. It is my fault.”

  He looks so hurt that I reach for him, sorry for what I said. He jerks away, and my hand catches the edge of his tank top. It slips off his shoulder, and for the first time I see a red mark on his back, a tattoo that looks like the symbols I saw on Rachel’s porch. A gang sign.

  I back away and Eduardo runs.

  Chapter 10

  Dad isn’t home yet when I’m finished with Vacation Bible School, so I go for a long run. I plug in my earbuds and try to concentrate on the music, my breath, and moving forward. Running is my release. Sometimes it feels like my runs are the only time I have to myself, the only time I have to be in my own head. After my talk with Eduardo, I need to think.

  I make a wide circle and then run into town. For a while I head to the high school track, thinking I might try some sprints. Instead I end up back at the grade school, the place where I first met Rachel. I’m thinking about the piece of paper she gave me, our loyalty pledge, signed on this very playground, hidden here until she gave it to Eduardo. I think this is where she wanted me to go.

  At one end a mom and her kids are playing on the swings, and there’s a lawnmower going behind the building, but otherwise I’m alone. I slow to a trot as I get closer to the fireplace at the far corner of the school. It’s a stone structure with two ends where you can build a fire and a long chimney in between that makes it look kind of like a castle—at least it did to a couple of little girls. There’s a grate across the top of either side for cooking over the fire, but it’s old and rusty. I’m sure no one has used it for years.

  At the end of fifth grade a little boy jumped off the top of it and got a bloody lip and a chipped tooth. We were banned from playing on or near it after that, which sucked because until then the castle fireplace was our haven, where Rachel and I went to pretend at recess, far away from the rest of the kids.

  I slow down as I get closer. Somewhere in the back of the right side, up underneath a loose brick in the chimney is where we left our proclamation of loyalty, signed in blood. I’d forgotten about it until Eduardo tried to give it to me at the lake. I wish now that I had kept it instead of shoving it back at him. Agent Herrera said Rachel’s phone was missing and that she had a diary. Maybe she hid one of them in the fireplace. I have to look.

  I glance around again. I’m hidden from the view of the mom and her kids by the corner of the school building, the lawnmower still sounds far away, and there’s no one else around. I have to sit down and slide backward across the soot-stained cement to get to where I can reach the back of the fireplace. I turn sideways, wedging myself farther into the narrow opening and reach up. I don’t fit into this spot as easily as I once did.

  Solid, solid, solid, I count the bricks as I touch them. The fourth one gives way like a loose tooth. Rachel and I used to hide notes for each other in the space behind the loose brick. I work it out with one hand and heft it beside me. From the angle I’ve shoved myself into it’s impossible to see if there’s anything inside. Trying not to think about spiders, I reach my hand back into the hole. It goes back farther than I remember. I strain to reach, and my fingers touch something like a plastic bag.

  I stretch farther sideways, my arm scraping against the bricks, until I get the plastic between my fingers and slide the bag out into the light where I can see it. It’s full of black beads and a thick cross.

  My heart throbs. The cross is Rachel’s, the only gift she ever got from her dad, except for the phone. She used to wear it all the time. I swallow hard as I trace the roses carved onto the front. It’s gaudy and huge, but somehow it seemed to fit her. I try to remember the last time I saw her wearing it. Or even the last time I saw her.

  I remember now, her eyes following me as I walked past her, but she didn’t say anything. Not “hi” or “have a great summer” or anything. Just watched me walk away as she left school with Eduardo. It was like we’d never known each other.

  I don’t know if she was wearing the cross.

  I reach to replace the brick, but suddenly the lawnmower sounds like it’s on top of me. I scramble to get out of the fireplace. Just as it gets to me, I scoot out and stand up, stumbling forward. The lawnmower’s engine kills, and a tall guy wearing a baseball cap gets off and comes toward the fireplace.

  He laughs when he sees me, and my heart sinks. Evan Cross. Again. He’s shirtless, his T-shirt tucked into the back pocket of a pair of ripped jeans. “Jaycee, what are you doing?” His grin makes me feel like a slow little girl again, standing alone on the sidelines of the soccer field.

  “I was just—” I stop when he reaches over and brushes my cheek with his hand.

  “You have a little smudge there.” He brushes my other cheek. “And there.” He touches my forehead. “And there. Were you climbing around in the fireplace?” I step back, bump my elbow against the bricks, and drop the bag. I lean to get it, but he’s faster than I am, so he picks it up first.

  I reach to take the bag from him, but he holds it up to take a look. Frustrated, I step back. “I came to see if that was still here. I hid it when I was in grade school.”

  “How long ago?” He’s studying the cross through the bag.

  “Fourth grade.”

  “And it was in the fireplace all this time?” He pushes his baseball cap back, leaving a streak of soot on his own forehead. “Amazing that it didn’t burn up years ago, but I guess no one uses this anymore.”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask to take the attention off the bag of beads before he recognizes it.

  He rubs his hand on his jeans. “The pursuit of higher education.”

  “Higher education?” I glance over at the grade school, not sure if he’s making a joke.

  “College. I’m working for my uncle. To earn money to go to school.” He walks over to the lawnmower and picks up a bottle of Coke that’s sitting by the seat. He wipes the lid off with the T-shirt from his back pocket.

  “I thought you had a football scholarship,” I say. He looks confused, and I push forward stupidly. “Weren’t there scouts from WSU and everywhere else coming to the games, checking you out?”

  “Junior year, y
es. Last year, when the team went 0–9? Not so much.” He takes another drink like he’s disgusted. “I’ll be lucky if I make Walla Walla Community College. But one way or another, football or not, in a couple of months I’m outta here.”

  He sits on the edge of the fireplace and takes a long drink of the Coke. He watches me as he lowers it and wipes his mouth. “You want a drink?” I shake my head. “Are you sure? You look hot.”

  The way he says, “You look hot,” makes me shake my head harder and tug my T-shirt down to cover the sliver of skin between it and my shorts. Everything Evan says sounds like he’s flirting, like it’s impossible for him to have a conversation with a girl without turning on the charm.

  As he tips his head back to drain the last bit of Coke, I’m distracted by a tattoo on his shoulder, black-and-purple symbols surrounding a sloppy eighteen, his football jersey number and my lucky number for most of my life. The number I saw in the old house.

  I think.

  The swirls remind me of the symbols I saw on the porch at Rachel’s house and the tattoo on Eduardo’s back.

  He leaves the bottle on the fireplace and stands up. “I need to get this finished.” He nods toward the lawnmower. “I’d offer you a ride again, but this isn’t nearly as fun as my motorcycle.”

  “That’s okay.” I back away, trying not to stare at Evan’s tattoo. “I need to get home.”

  “If you wait, my little brother will be here to pick me up.” His lips twitch into a smile. “I think he’d like it if you were here.” I duck my head, wondering what Skyler might have told Evan about me or about us kissing. “You might want to clean up a little, though.” He pushes a piece of hair that escaped from my ponytail back around my ear. His ease at touching me makes my heart beat faster but bothers me at the same time. He doesn’t move his hand. “Skyler was right, you are—”

  Before he can finish whatever it was that Skyler said about me, a door slams and both of us turn toward the parking lot. Evan freezes with his hand on my cheek. Skyler stops and stares at us. He’s close enough that I see his expression change from shocked to hurt to angry in about a heartbeat.