Little Pretty Things (27 page)

The other index entry led me to the track team pages. The main photo was the one I remembered, Coach bent over in Maddy’s face, giving her a pep talk with a side of shoulder squeeze. The next largest photo was the team portrait with Maddy in the star position between the coaches and Fitz’s back turned ever so slightly toward me. My smile here wasn’t as bright. It was cold that day. There was a small photo of Maddy hitting the tape. I’d been cropped out. My foot kicked into the frame.

That was all. Because of the timing of the yearbook delivery, the season never got fully reported. No team stats, no personal bests. With only the photos and a couple of quick captions to go by, anyone could see that Maddy was the star. No wonder she hadn’t wanted me to buy the book. My foot was in more of the photos than my face. I would have fretted over that shoe for the rest of the year. Longer.

Maddy had a few more entries in the index than I did. I flipped between the pages until I found her in the spring homecoming court. I’d forgotten about that. In the photo with the other princesses, she was hunched over, like carrion sitting on a wire.

The last index entry made up for it, though. Near the back, in a series of pages of photos taken over the course of the year, a sort of highlights reel, there was a nearly full-page photo of Maddy. She was running, mid-stride—stretched into flight, athletic and angelic at once, her ponytail jouncing behind her in the wind. In black and white, she gleamed, just like one of those silver girls on the trophies we both took home.

The difference a split second makes. We only had room for one goddess, and maybe the shoelaces coming in right behind her.

I got up and threw the book up into the shelf, never more glad that I’d not wasted the twenty bucks. Maddy had saved me that reality for ten years. Forever, if I hadn’t gotten in my own way and insisted on seeing how little I’d meant to everyone at Midway High. Running hadn’t made me a god. It had made me a ghost. I hit the lights and slammed the door behind me on the way out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The rest of the day, groups of shoes pounded the gym floor. One direction, then the other.

At one point, I looked up to find Coach bringing his boys through. “Time for the showers, isn’t it, Juliet?”

The girls didn’t wait for me to agree. They pivoted from whichever position on the floor they held and jogged toward the lockers. The clock over the door revealed that I’d let the last period class go too long, almost too late for them to get ready to catch their buses home. I was no longer their coach.

Coach walked over. “I heard from Fitz, if that’s been worrying you. He’s fine, or at least he says he is. He says he’s helping with the service.”

“Service?” I said. “Oh.” Maybe Shelly wouldn’t have to do all the work. Fitz would get it right. “Better him than me,” I said. “I went to see Gretchen, and it was weird. Maddy’s room was weird. Everything was the same, the trophies and ribbons and stuff all still where she left them.”

Coach looked at me. “All of it? Like a shrine? That would be . . . upsetting, I think.”

“But she’s not the same,” I said. “I mean . . . she wasn’t who I thought she was. And I certainly didn’t know who she was when she died. It’s not fair to bury her as an eighteen-year-old girl, is it?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, giving me a closer look. “Are you OK?”

“I’ve spent too much time here,” I said, “I’m not even sure this is good for me right now. But I need the—anyway, Fitz is being so generous.”

“Is that what it is?” he said. “I suppose I’m glad one of us is the beneficiary of his kindness right now. I feel a little let down, myself. Any hope you can stay and help put down the revolution?”

“Revolution?”

“That Jessica creature didn’t work out,” he said. “These girls don’t like to be told what to do. I hate to sound a thousand years old, but I miss girls like Maddy, you. You just wanted to run. You didn’t need to be told why.”

Now that I’d seen the payoff of all the time and effort—the yearbook stung, I couldn’t help that—I wanted to know why, myself. “Her loss,” I said, not sure I believed it.

“Yes, but she’s taking my star with her.”

“Mickie?” I remembered Jessica taking Mickie’s arm at the lunch table. “You said Mickie was easily swayed. You were just worried about the wrong influence. I’m so sorry. I haven’t gotten anything right here, have I?”

He gave me a gentle pat high on my back. It wasn’t the same as getting one of his bracing shoulder grips at the finish line like Maddy used to get, but it was something. “You always got it right, Juliet. It wasn’t your fault it didn’t work out the way we all wanted it to.”

I nodded, and he dropped his hand and walked away.

The bell rang. Beyond the gym doors I heard the scatter of students rushing for escape. I followed closely behind, and was halfway to my car when I thought to wonder what the outcome that we’d all wanted had been.

Maddy winning? I had wanted something else. Even if she’d won, nothing about my life would have been any different. Same dead father. Same helpless mother. Same dead-end job. I had to admit: I still wanted something else.

A group of students gathered at the exit. I nudged through them and outside. Clouds rolled darkly overhead, and a few fat raindrops had begun to fall.

Out in the lot, a police car was parked in one of the aisles, askance. My broken car sat nearby, ugly and pathetic. Courtney leaned up against it, writing in her notebook. Her partner, the big guy whose name I’d forgotten, sat back in the passenger seat of the patrol car.

As I got closer, I realized Courtney wasn’t writing in her notebook. She had a ticket book out and was making good on it.

“What, Courtney?” I said. “What could I have possibly done now?”

“Your tags are out of date,” she said. “You’ll have the ticket, a fine—oh, and your insurance rate is not going to like this at all. Or is that out of date, too? Open up and let me see your proof of insurance.”

The group of students at the door had gotten deeper, peering doubtfully out at the weather.

“My tags can’t be out of date,” I said, but I didn’t know. I unlocked the passenger side door and popped the glove box. On my back, I felt the rain pick up. The wind turned shear, blowing at the hem of my T-shirt. Courtney looked over my shoulder into the car while I dug out the paperwork—a registration that was indeed out of date, and an insurance card that wouldn’t have been any help to me, either. “Dammit.”

“Thought so.”

Tags for my junk heap were cheap, but I didn’t have even that. Forget the fine or a renewal for the insurance policy. I checked the date on the card again. It was so out of date, I’d be lucky if they agreed to insure me at all after this.

Courtney ripped the ticket out of her book and held it out. It waved dramatically in the sharp wind. “I’ll make you a deal. Everything you know in exchange for this ticket never touching your hand. I can’t do anything about the insurance, but I can make this go away. No fine. You can probably get your tags renewed before the end of the work day if you hurry.”

I calculated the damage. “What is it you think I know, Courtney?”

“Where’s the ring?”

“It’s . . . in the bank,” I said. “At least that’s what Shelly said.”

“When did Shelly tell you this?”

I tilted my head back and let drops of rain hit my face. It had only been three days since Maddy had been killed. “The day the fiancé showed up,” I said. “Was that yesterday? Two days ago.”

“Well, there’s a problem with that ring. It’s a fake.”

My arms were cold. I folded them around me. “I don’t understand.”

“We don’t either. Explain it for us. Where’s the real ring?”

I glanced back at the students at the door. A few had gotten bored and left, but some of the girls, duffle bags against their legs, remained. “You think I have the ring? Would I still be scrounging babysitting fees from Midway High if I had a giant diamond ring to pawn?”

“Is that what you did?” she barked. “We can find it, so it’s better for you to tell the truth.”

“If you can find it, then find it, hot shot.” I didn’t feel desperate anymore. I felt flayed. What could she do to me? I didn’t have the ring. I hadn’t killed Maddy. “She had it on her finger that night she showed up at the Mid-Night, and then—you were there when it was sitting on the dresser, remember? I got you the key and—”

“Your prints are all over that room.”

“I cleaned that room the day before she checked in,” I said. “My prints are all over every room there. Except Billy’s.”

“Billy, who has lots to say now that he’s facing a few felonies,” she said. “He said he might have seen you heading up to that room later that night. A room that is strangely missing a piece of evidence.”

I swallowed. “You guys took the ring that day. Maybe you’re the one who swapped it for a fake.”

“Nice try.” She went to the patrol car and grabbed something through the window. “Is this the ring Maddy was wearing the night she arrived at the motel?”

Even inside the plastic evidence bag, the ring sparkled like a star brought to earth. “I thought you said—is it not the same ring? It looks the same to me.” I’d never owned a decent piece of jewelry in my life. I studied the ring in the bag. There was something obscene about it, now that I knew it wasn’t real.

“What did you do with the stolen evidence?”

Stolen. My hands burned at the word, and yet I couldn’t exactly disavow it. “She left that photo for me. No one else would have ever found it—”

“Photo? What photo?” Courtney glanced over her shoulder at her partner. Loughton, I finally remembered. He got out of the car and came toward me.

“I was talking about the perfume,” Courtney said. “The perfume bottle I found in your bathroom, the same one missing from the crime scene. We have photos of our own, you know. But a photo left behind by the deceased is even more interesting.”

“Did you take a photo of the bathmat?” I said.

Courtney’s eyes shifted to Loughton and back to me, coolly, but I’d already seen the hunger there. “Of course we did. Stop telling us how to do our jobs.”

Loughton held up handcuffs. “Miss?”

“What?” My voice cracked. “Do we really have to do this?”

Time stretched out as Loughton opened the cuffs. This was happening, and at the same time couldn’t be. Ten years I’d been lifting and swiping, hoarding bits and bobs that didn’t matter to anyone else. What I took wasn’t treasure; I only made it so in the taking. And so I’d forgotten that what I was doing was still stealing.

Loughton waggled his finger at me to turn around. I was sick, shaking. I took a step to turn and nearly fell. Loughton grabbed me and shook me back to my feet, then pulled my wrists together behind my back. Back at the open door to the school, a few gawkers were holding out to watch. Faces might have been pressed to each window in the side of the school. Rain pelted my bare arms. This was happening.

“Do we have to do this?” Courtney said, opening the back door for me. “No, but we’re going to. Take me to that photo. Oh, and you have the right to remain silent, by the way.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Riding in the cruiser was much less comfortable this time. That burned-in stench of fear and anger wasn’t as evident, maybe because I was adding to it. I slid down in the seat and ducked my head. When we passed Mrs. Schneider’s pulled-back curtain, though, I peered around Courtney’s head. Patrol cars filled our driveway and the street out front, alongside a gathering of neighbors and onlookers who’d come to watch.

My mother stood on the porch, rubbing her arms. Outside our home for probably the first time in more than a year. I couldn’t stand how thin and scared she looked.

Loughton pulled me from the car. I let my hair hang down, hiding my face. Loughton led me to her, but I looked at my feet.

“They had a warrant,” she said.

“It’s OK, Mom.”

She hugged me, awkwardly. Loughton gestured her inside and pushed me ahead of him through the door.

Inside was chaos. Drawers and couch cushions were pulled out. The bookcase was empty, the contents rifled through and set aside. While we stood in the doorway, something in the kitchen crashed to the floor. “My bad,” a voice called out.

Everywhere I looked, someone in a blue uniform was taking a closer look at another corner of our lives. My mother seemed to be taking the invasion stoically, but I shook with rage.

Additional officers emerged from the hallway, carrying a handful of my things in a series of plastic bags. They offered them to Loughton, who nodded in Courtney’s direction.

She took them, held them to the light so that I could see my old friends: the lipstick in the color I could never wear, the barrette, the spiral paper clip, the baby sock. The old lady’s empty atomizer. Maddy’s perfume. They’d put each item in its own bag. This was museum-quality care and presentation.

Courtney studied each offering as the room grew still around us. I saw the barrette through her eyes: confusing. The baby sock: inexplicable. “Tell me about this,” she said.

I wavered on remaining silent. “Which one?”

“Not any one thing,” she said. Her voice was quiet and more respectful than it had ever been. “All of it. Explain it to me.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I said. “I don’t understand it myself. It’s out of my control, or at least it feels that way.”

“And these were things you took from the rooms?”

My mother gasped.

“Absolutely not,” I said, looking first at my mother. “Well, not exactly. Most of it was left behind. Maybe I could have worked harder to get some of it back to the rightful owners, but I never took anything until—”

“Until the perfume bottle. When were you in her room?”

I returned my attention to the floor. “The night after I found her. I didn’t touch anything. The bottle, but not—I wanted to understand what happened to her. I don’t know, I thought I might be the only one who’d be able to figure out what happened.”

“And the perfume just happened to be a crucial clue to your investigation,” Courtney said.

“Well, no,” I said. “I just wanted it. It’s vanilla. The scent she wore, and the same one I wore that night in your patrol car. Vanilla, like cookies. I just—wanted it.”