Page 11

11

Diem

F ive sets of eyes turned to Londyn—Tallus’s and mine included—Duke looked at Loyal, and Atlas, smothering a smirk, stared hard at the table’s surface.

A gaping hole opened in the conversation. More than a pause. The clatter of dishes from the kitchen and other customers’ chatter played a soundtrack in the background, but no one at the teens’ table immediately spoke.

Then, Loyal laughed a hearty politician’s laugh that matched his politician’s smile. Reaching across the table, he patted his sister on the head in the most condescending way imaginable. “You’re such a treat. It’s a wonder you’ve made it this far in life. Gentlemen, we have many fun nicknames for the school writing club. Creative masterminds are like that. Its official title is The Whodunnits?”

In increments, the teens crawled out of the crater of silence, all but Londyn recovering with ease as though nothing strange had happened, but the fact that they’d reacted and had to recover from anything was a massive red flag. My partner in crime picked up on it too. He may not have been facing me, but Tallus’s entire body went on alert.

A thing about Tallus: He was incapable of subtlety, and when he wanted to know something or was convinced he’d made a whopping discovery, he didn’t take time to assess the situation and figure out the best approach. He barreled right into the snake pit and started attacking without armor.

Before he jumped all over the Murder Club bandwagon, blowing the horn and calling in cavalry, I spoke up. I might lack couth, but Tallus lacked a filter.

“Are you all part of the Whodunnits? or whatever the fuck it’s called?”

“Honorary members.” Loyal’s teeth shone as he leaned back in the booth, draping an arm around Noel’s shoulder, feigning an easy, relaxed pose. He was good. Pretty Boy knew how to win an audience. I bet his teachers loved him.

“And Weston was a member?”

“New this year. I convinced him to join,” Chett said, body language a fraction tighter than before Londyn’s slip.

“No. I brought him in,” Londyn said, a stitch in her brow. “You guys said—”

Duke loudly coughed, cutting her off.

Again, Atlas smothered a smile, shaking his head.

Chett held out a staying hand to Loyal, who looked ready to jump in. He spoke slowly, enunciating his words. “Nooo. I brought him in, remember? Mr. Abercrombie made a big deal about it. Weston, the newspaper superstar. Weston, who’s going to write for a living. What a fantastic addition to our club, he said.”

“Oh. Right.” Londyn glanced wide-eyed at her brother, and for the first time, a flash of annoyance peeked through his artificial facade.

Loyal tipped his head at Chett as the waitress arrived with their food. I regretfully stepped back so she could deliver the plates. Once she left, I pointed at their meals. “Remember. You give me useable information, and I pick up the tab for your breakfast.”

“What’s the definition of ‘useable’ exactly?” Loyal asked. “I mean, we could answer all your questions and be as cooperative as possible but still get stiffed because you don’t think it’s ‘useable.’”

“Facts of life, kid.”

“I’m still not clear what you want to know?” Chett said, unfolding his breakfast wrap to squeeze a line of ketchup on the inside.

“Tell me about the club. How does it work? What do you do?”

Loyal stabbed his home fries, filling a fork. “Well, it’s a writing club, so we write stories. Shocking, I know, but that’s the long and the short of it.”

Noel giggled.

“I think we have enough cocky attitudes on this side of the table.” I gestured to the silent and smug Atlas. “Are you trying to outdo your buddy?”

Loyal wasn’t fazed, and my position, hovering above them all, did nothing to intimidate him. The teen reminded me of Tallus—oozing confidence and not easily shaken—but he had a lot of growing up to do.

Loyal chewed and swallowed before elaborating. “We talk about plot devices, discuss characterization, and break down strengths and weaknesses. Learn to outline. Talk about story beats, how to build suspense, and what to do if your ideas aren’t coming together how you hoped. We examine the different genres of literature and study sections of the classics to determine what made them classics.” He shrugged. “That’s it. It’s like a modified English class only more fun, or we wouldn’t go.”

“Do you read each other’s work?”

“That’s kind of the point. How else do we improve?”

I cracked my knuckles, unsure how much longer I could keep my cool when every cell in my body wanted to knock his too-perfect teeth out of his face.

Tallus jumped in, likely sensing my shortening fuse. “Was Weston a good writer?”

“Yeah. The guy was top-notch,” Chett said. “It’s what he wanted to do.”

“I thought he wanted to be a journalist.”

“He wasn’t top-notch.” Noel huffed, stirring the yogurt bowl she’d ordered that was full of berries and granola. “Maybe with nonfiction, but with creative writing, he was a cheater. He couldn’t come up with an original plot to save his life. He was always stealing my ideas.”

“He was not,” Chett argued.

“Yes, he was. Whenever we used prompts and brainstormed as a group, he stole my ideas for his writing.”

Chett slapped the table. “You’re such a fucking liar.”

The two continued to argue, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. Lowering my voice, I asked Tallus to run to the Jeep to grab the folder of Weston’s stories. We hadn’t brought it into the diner, not anticipating running into a group of teens.

“Promise not to kill anyone?” he asked when he stood.

“No.”

“They can’t help us if they’re dead.”

I growled. “If you aren’t back in ten seconds, I’m going to start breaking fingers if they don’t give me straight answers.”

Amused, Tallus took the Jeep keys and hustled out the door.

“Hey.” I raised my voice, drawing the attention of more than one customer. “Shut the fuck up and stop fighting or you won’t get your free food. I need to know if you could identify Weston’s writing?”

“Sure,” Duke said.

“Probably,” Chett said.

“Not necessarily,” Loyal said.

Noel and Londyn shrugged with uncertainty, and Atlas, the punk, didn’t respond.

Tallus returned and handed me the folder. I removed one of the stories we knew belonged to Weston and presented it in the middle of the table. Five heads leaned over to read it. Atlas showed no interest and continued to eat.

“See,” Noel said, stabbing a finger on the composition. “When Mr. Abercrombie told us to write a short story that was a race against the clock, I mentioned the antagonist could be seeking revenge against his math teacher, who made him look stupid in class. I said he would communicate through coded math problems about an explosion at the school that coming Friday. That’s exactly my story idea.” She stabbed the composition again.

“Are you on crack? This is chemistry-based,” Chett said.

“It’s the same thing,” she shrieked. “All the beats land the same. All he did was tweak it.”

“No, you talked about using a clock in the equations, and he used an actual clock, wired to explode when the time ticked down to the top of the hour.”

“It’s the same.”

“Stop fucking fighting,” I yelled. “Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck? Why are you like this?”

Everyone in the diner turned to stare, and Tallus swung around on his chair. “Deep breaths, Guns. You’re going to get us kicked out.”

“I don’t fucking care. Deal with this shit… and tell them to never mention ticking clocks again.”

Poorly hiding his amusement, Tallus faced the table of teens. “Okay. Guys, gals, listen up. Tweety Bird upset Yogi this morning, so we have to exercise patience and talk with our inside voice, or it won’t be the school that blows up. It will be that man behind me, and he’ll take us all with him. We good?”

No one answered.

“Okay.” Tallus retrieved the story from the table. “I don’t care where the idea came from or who wrote it better, but can you all agree that Weston wrote this story?”

“Yes,” Chett said.

The other teens—apart from Atlas—nodded. As Tallus replaced it in the folder and was about to present the story that depicted Weston’s accident, a thought struck.

I scanned the faces around the table. Six teens who were all members of the writing club. If our goal was to prove that Weston didn’t write the story and didn’t have an accident, then we couldn’t show our trump card. They had already proven they couldn’t agree on anything, and our perpetrator, if he or she was among this group, wasn’t about to out themselves as the author. It would turn into finger-pointing and accusing, and we wouldn’t be any further ahead. For all we knew, this composition wasn’t common knowledge.

My gaze landed on Londyn. Nervous little Londyn, who seemed a few bricks short of a load and had upset the group not fifteen minutes ago when she’d slipped on the name of the club. The Murder Club. Had they not all reacted, I might have let it go.

But a chill had rippled through each and every one of them.

Also, not a single student at the table had shown any sign of grief. Not Weston’s supposed girlfriend. Not his best friend since forever. Not his classmates and club buddies. Something wasn’t right.

Before Tallus could lay the only piece of evidence we had in the center of the table, I snatched it from his hand. “We’re done here. Let’s go. Sorry, children. I hope your day is as pleasant as you are.”

Tallus, not computing the shift in direction, shot me a look of confusion, and a slow smile crawled onto his lips. “Guuuns? Did you just kindly tell these lovely teens to fuck off?”

“Yes, I did. Now let’s go.”

“Hey,” Loyal said as Tallus and I headed to the door. “What about our free meal?”

“Fuck your free meal. You gave me nothing but a headache.”

It was a lie. In fact, they had given me every reason to doubt the police and keep looking into Delaney’s theory.