Page 47 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer

And that makes this dangerous.

Because if she’s involved? If she killed someone?

I’ll be the first to find out.

And the last person who’d ever be willing to turn her in.

twenty-four

. . .

Elle

The driveto Santa Luna High feels like someone stretched the street and looped it five times around the sun. I hit every red light, every crosswalk, every slow-motion retiree who decides today is the day to power-walk across the entire width of civilization. The automated call said, “Please come pick up your student,” like it was about a missing lunchbox. It’s borderline diabolical to use an automated system to let parents know to come and pick up their children. The waiting without knowing until you get answers lasts several lifetimes.

I rush through the front doors and over to the administration desk. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, and the air is thick with the scent of disinfectant, teenage sweat, and anxiety. A Ficus droops in the corner like it gave up on living long ago and is just waiting to die.

“Hi,” I say, breathless. “Elle Grant. I got a message to pick up my child. Which child, exactly, and are they bleeding?”

“Mrs. Grant,” she says, tapping keys with the passive-aggressive rhythm of a snare drum, “please have a seat. Someone will be right with you.”

“I’m not really a sit-and-wait kind of woman.” My voice is nice. My eyes are not. “Which. Child.”

She does the world’s smallest sigh and checks the screen again. “Jillian Grant. Principal Carmichael asked that you come to her office.”

“Is Jill okay?” My stomach drops like an elevator ride to hell.

“Someone will be right with you,” she repeats, already done with me as a concept.

A door clicks open farther down, and an aide motions me in that I-wish-I-were-anywhere-else way school staff have perfected. “This way, Mrs. Grant.”

We pass a bulletin board declaring YOU BELONG HERE in rainbow letters next to a handwritten sign about dress code violations and appropriate skirt lengths. The closer we get to Principal Carmichaels office, the faster my heart races. I take a deep breath to prepare myself. When we round the corner, I see Jill sitting in a chair right outside the door, arms crossed and a defiant expression on her face.

My baby. My not-a-baby. Her knuckles are scuffed. My heart goes liquid.

“Hey,” I say, crouching to her level. “You okay?”

She shrugs, which is teen for no. “I’m fine.”

“Mm,” I say, because we both know she isn’t.

“I was defending Jaq,” she says. And, really, that’s all I need to hear. But then she continues, “They’re suspending me. I can’t play in the volleyball finals or go to the dance.” She hiccups and tears run anew down her cheeks.

I bend to give her a hard hug. “I’ll handle it. I promise.”

This fucking school.

“You want me to breathe fire, or you want me to play it cool?”

“Cool,” she says, voice wobbling. “At first.”

“At first,” I promise.

The aide knocks and pushes the door open. Principal Carmichael looks up from behind her oak desk, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of a nose that was born to sniff out joy and label it disruptive. Beside her stands Ms. Thompson, the guidance counselor. She looks about my age, except that she thinks 40 is the new 60 based on her hair style and the way she’s dressed.

“Mrs. Grant,” Principal Carmichael says. “Do come in.”

I keep my hand on the doorframe like it might keep me tethered to planet Earth. “Before we start, is anyone injured, arrested, or missing teeth? Because I couldn’t seem to get a straight answer between the automated phone call and the fount of information manning the front desk.”