Page 56 of Tested

“Hi,” I say, trying to make myself look as benign as possible. “I’m looking for Janet Edmonds.”

The guy’s expression doesn’t change, although his gaze drifts from me to Trajan. “Janet,” he bellows, and without inviting us in, he steps away from the door.

A woman takes his place. She’s tall and lanky, with at least some elven blood, judging by her scent. She doesn’t look a whole lot older than me, but then supes don’t age like ordinary humans.

“What do you want?” she asks, which is a little odd because I told her over the phone that I wanted to talk to her about high school.

“So I’m an investigator”—small white lie—“helping the LAPD with a series of murders. All the victims have been supes, and all of them went to Beverly Hills High School at the same time.”

“So?”

“I’m wondering if you knew Adaline Nosaka, Monica Johnson, or Kitten Fletcher.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Can you think of a reason someone would want to kill them?”

“Cuz they’re stuck-up bitches and always have been?”

The venom in her tone takes me back a step. Literally. I bump into Trajan, and he puts a hand on my shoulder.

“When’s the last time you talked to any of them?” he asks smoothly, and I take a minute to catch my breath. This investigator stuff is hard.

Janet plants her hands on her hips and snorts a laugh. “Never have spoken to any of them. Bitches like that don’t hang with a low-class halfling like me.”

“Shut it, Janet,” her man-friend hollers from somewhere in the apartment. “You’re worth two of any of them.”

“So you say,” she responds, but her expression softens some.

An idea occurs to me, one that I hadn’t entertained before. “Were they all, like, cheerleaders or something?”

Her lips press together in something like exasperation. “You’re going to make me dredge it all up.” She rubs her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Monica and Adaline were cheerleaders and Kitten was homecoming queen. Can you believe that? A fucking fairy for a homecoming queen. There were a couple other bitches in their posse. Uh…what the fuck were their names?”

I keep my mouth shut and let her think.

“One of them was Amanda. She was another cheerleader. The other was…shit…Donna. Donna Del-something. They ruled the school. I kid you not.”

We talk for a while longer, but other than that she still carries a grudge because the murder victims always wore the cutest designer clothes, we don’t learn much. We say goodnight and head back to the Range Rover.

“Good job,” Trajan says and hits the switch to start the engine.

I give a half-hearted laugh, becausewhat the hell is he talking about?

“I mean it. You managed to keep her talking. She even smiled a little bit when we left.”

“Smiled because she was happy to get rid of us, you mean.”

“No, you come off as cute and a little goofy, and people like talking to you.”

“So I should be an investigator when I grow up?”

“Only if you get bored being my daytime business manager.”

I roll my eyes and plug the next address into the map app. “I mean, I can see why she’d hate them. I have a hard time with anyone who consistently dresses better than I do.”

Trajan raises one eyebrow but otherwise keeps his mouth shut. We make our second stop, a lovely home in Beverly Hills where the couple were both petite and perfect and clearly had pixie blood in them. They were brother and sister, and they both remember the murder victims from school. Other than to confirm Janet Edmond’s assessment – that the victims were school royalty and potentially not very nice – we didn’t learn anything new.

Our third visit, however… “Hey, this is interesting. The name Smith gave us is Bobby DelMarco. Wonder if she’s any relation to Donna, the one Janet mentioned.”