Page 38 of Don’t Say a Word (Angelhart Investigations #2)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Angie Williams

Angie waited in the student parking lot Thursday morning. She’d hardly slept the night before, replaying her last few conversations with Elijah in her head, searching for something she’d missed.

He’d been quieter, less himself. No jokes, few smiles. In hindsight, the signs were there: He was worried and distracted. She should have pushed him harder to tell her what was going on. Maybe they could have figured it out together. Instead, he’d kept it to himself and now he was dead.

Now Benny worked at the Cactus Stop. Maybe he’d heard something that could help Margo figure out what happened. It was a long shot, but Angie trusted Benny.

While waiting for Benny to show up for school, she reread Chris’s messages from the last two days. She’d wanted to call him, but didn’t want to be needy. He had college, new friends, a full life.

They’d been friends first, bonded over broken homes—her mom, an addict; his dad, a violent jerk.

Lori had never hit Angie, but Chris’s dad smacked both his sons, especially when they were younger.

She’d never told anyone—not even Gina or Elijah—how bad it really was.

It was easier to be angry, to say she hated her mother and whichever dipshit man she had in her bed.

But with Chris she told the truth. How she didn’t want to care about her mom, but she lived in fear that her mom would overdose or bring home the wrong guy.

She’d put a dead bolt inside her bedroom and kept a butcher knife in her nightstand, just in case.

Angie didn’t want to be a burden to Chris or anyone. She had plans for college, but now everything was uncertain. Elijah was gone. Mrs. Clark was gone. She had no one to help her figure it out.

Benny drove into the lot in the old pickup that Chris used to drive. They’d had a lot of fun in that truck, the three of them, sometimes with Elijah, often just her and Chris.

He parked near the exit even though there were plenty of spaces closer to the classrooms. Chris used to do the same thing, saying he’d rather get out of the lot fast than have a short walk.

Benny didn’t look much like his brother. He was taller, skinnier, more awkward, with brown hair that often fell in front of his eyes like a sheepdog. But the smile was identical, and he flashed it when he saw her leaning against the fence.

“Ange! Were you waiting for me?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. It was impossible to be sullen around Benny. Even with his shit father, he was always happy. “Do you have a couple minutes?”

“Sure. We’ll walk slow.”

They walked along the fence that separated student parking from the practice field.

“Chris said you’re not returning his calls,” Benny said.

“I don’t want to talk about Chris.”

“He misses you.”

“ Benny —” she said in warning.

“Okay, okay,” he said, hands up, a half smile on his face. “I get it.”

He didn’t, but that was okay. “It’s about Elijah,” she said.

“Oh. Were you, um, seeing him?” Benny glanced at her, but then looked straight ahead, his face red. She wanted to laugh. He was sixteen but still shy talking about relationships.

“No, we were just friends.”

“I thought so, but...” His voice trailed off.

“He was one of my best friends,” she said. “And I’m worried I didn’t see everything going on with him.” She hesitated. How did she broach the subject? “Have you heard anything?”

“About?”

“Elijah. At work.”

He shook his head. “Not really. In fact, no one even talked about him until a PI came in and started asking questions.”

“Margo.”

“She talk to you?”

“Yeah. Elijah’s mom hired her to find out what happened.”

“I thought he OD’d.”

“No,” she said emphatically. “I mean, someone drugged him and he died. He wasn’t an addict.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“I do, but...”

“But what?” She stopped walking. “Benny, what do you know?”

“I need the job at the Cactus Stop because I have to pay my insurance on the truck or I can’t drive. And they pay well. But... it’s kind of a weird culture there.”

“How so?”

“Tony, the assistant manager, is always high. It’s not illegal, I get it, but he shouldn’t be stoned when he’s working, you know? It’s not like he’s keeping it a big secret, so Elijah must have known.”

“You think Elijah might have turned him in to management or something?” Maybe Tony got a slap on the wrist and took it out on Elijah.

Benny shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not going to. Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you in any way.”

“You are. I don’t want to be around it any more than you, but I need the job. I’m already looking for something else, but I should stick it out a few months and then maybe find a job at one of the malls over Christmas. If I don’t find something that sticks, I have to work for my dad next summer.”

Mr. Vallejo owned a small construction company that worked primarily for larger companies on a project-by-project basis.

Chris had worked for his dad every summer.

He got paid, but it was grueling work, especially in the heat, and Mr. Vallejo was as big a jerk on the job as he was at home.

The only benefit, Chris had told her, was that his dad paid well, almost as much as he paid his regular crew.

Angie didn’t know what she wanted from Benny. “Just be careful. It’s not a great area, and I’m worried that maybe Elijah witnessed a crime or something like that.”

“You really don’t think he died of an overdose?”

“No, not on purpose.”

Except the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she was projecting. The Elijah she knew wouldn’t have gotten so high that he curled up and died in a park. But maybe he had changed.

They walked through the courtyard in silence as people talked in pairs or groups, laughing or complaining.

When they reached the corridor that separated the new building from the old, Benny stopped and faced her.

“After that PI talked to Tony, Desi—the manager—came in and ranted to him. I didn’t hear everything she said, but she was mad about something. It seemed weird.”

“Weird how?”

He shrugged. “I just do my job and keep my head down. It’s what I have to do so I don’t have to work for my dad.”

He knew something, she realized. But he wasn’t going to tell her.

She pulled out Margo’s card from her pocket and handed it to Benny. “If you need help, or see something illegal, call her.”

He took the card, nodded, but Angie didn’t know if he would call.

He gave her a quick hug. “I gotta go, I have chemistry first period.”

She watched him leave.

She didn’t want to go to class, but she couldn’t cut anymore.

She slowly headed to her first period class.

Gina was with a group of her volleyball friends and waved at her; Angie waved back, but didn’t join them.

The others weren’t her friends, and Angie always felt uncomfortable around them.

She was acutely aware that people were nice to her for the last two years because she’d been dating Chris, who was generally liked and didn’t care if he wasn’t.

This year? She might as well have been invisible.

“Angie, we need to talk.” Mrs. Webb, the vice principal, looked as stern and unfriendly as usual as she approached Angie.

“I’m going to English.”

“I’ll walk with you,” she said, heading down the corridor without waiting for Angie to agree.

“I’ve been going through Mrs. Clark’s records,” Mrs. Webb said. “She erased your absences last week. But I spoke to your teachers and you’ve only been to a couple of classes for nearly two weeks.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s been fuc—a tough week.”

She didn’t want this conversation.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the fact that you lost a friend, but you need to focus on you . And you didn’t go to your classes yesterday afternoon.”

Angie didn’t say anything.

“Did you leave campus because of the police?”

“They didn’t do anything about Elijah’s death, but Mrs. Clark is killed and they suddenly care?”

She didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Webb, but it just came out.

“Elijah died of a drug overdose. Mrs. Clark was murdered. Two very different things.”

Angie wanted to scream at her, but she didn’t. She bit her lip, wanting to just disappear.

“If you cut another class,” Mrs. Webb said, “I’ll have no choice but to give you detention.”

“I won’t,” she mumbled.

“There’s a private investigator who has been asking questions on campus. She talked to Mrs. Clark and Mr. Parsons, and I’m sure she’ll reach out to you and Elijah’s other friends. You don’t have to speak with her.”

“What if I want to?”

“Do you know where Elijah got the drugs?

It sounded like an accusation.

“No,” she said. “I don’t do that stuff.”

“Then I don’t see how you can help her. However, she’s not allowed on campus. If she finds you, you can ask someone to sit in with you. I would be happy to help.”

Why? she wanted to ask. Like everyone else, Mrs. Webb believed the worst in Elijah.

“Okay,” she said. Sometimes it was easier to agree than argue.

“I would hate to see you go down the same path as your friend.”

Angie stopped outside her classroom. “What does that mean?”

Mrs. Webb sighed, rubbed her eyes. “Angie, you’re a smart girl who is under a lot of pressure. Mrs. Clark was helping you with your college applications, and it’s going to be hard to replace her, but I would be happy to assist you. I know you have a difficult home situation.”

Angie reddened. She didn’t want to talk about her mother or anything else, especially with Mrs. Webb. How did she even know? Was everything she told Mrs. Clark written in her file? It was humiliating.

“I am here for you if you need me. Okay?”

She nodded and slipped into the classroom. The teacher gave her a look, but noticed Mrs. Webb and didn’t give Angie a tardy slip.

Angie sank into her seat and wished she were anyplace but here.