Page 11

SEPTEMBER

Paige called her crying one evening, and Jodi’s heart stopped when she said, “I got paperwork. Me and Lucy both. Criminal harassment of Emily Mills.”

Paige sniffed, and Jodi found her breath. “What does that mean? What kind of harassment?”

“I don’t know. We have to appear in front of a judge and say we’re not guilty”—her voice broke—“and I don’t think I can do it, Jodi. What about college? What am I supposed to do?”

Jodi listened to her cry, assuring her it would be alright, and went to check the mailbox for the third time that day. Still nothing. She’d been checking the mail every afternoon, dreading the day she’d see official-looking paperwork from the district attorney’s office.

The school had only recently let go of the drive-in gossip now that Paige’s limp had faded, Lucy and Jodi’s stitches had been taken out, and Julian had started walking like normal again. This would stir up a whole other kind of drama once it got out.

“And Lucy has something weird in her papers,” Paige said. “Something about assault.”

“What do they mean by assault?” Jodi said, voice hollow.

“I don’t know. Lucy said she can’t talk about it anymore. Her dad and her lawyer are locking her down.”

Jodi let Paige talk it out, wondering what it was Lucy had done. What had Emily written about in her journal?

In the last week of September, Jodi’s dad called her on the road to Oregon.

“I just got off the phone with the DA’s office. They want to interview you. I called Miranda Perez, and she said you don’t have to say a single thing. She’ll sit in the room with you and do the ‘No comment’ thing until it’s over.”

“And that’s okay? With me being a minor?” she asked, her voice too high. Her mind was running a mile a minute.

“Miranda will be there as your guardian. Unless,” he paused, “I mean, I could call out of my Florida trip next week—”

“No. That’s okay,” Jodi said quickly.

Money was tight. Jodi was putting away every dime, and her dad was taking longer shifts, all to prepare for Miranda’s retainer to run out.

“Are court-appointed attorneys real, or is that just a TV thing?” she asked. “Like if it’s only saying ‘No comment,’ then maybe we don’t need Miranda after all—”

“I’m not letting you walk into that fucking courthouse with a glorified stenographer while your rich friends walk scot-free thanks to their $15,000 retainer,” he snapped.

Jodi swallowed, listening to the truck engine rattle through the phone. “Yeah, of course.” She took a deep breath, relaxing her voice, directing the conversation back to exactly where he wanted it to go. “Miranda will be fine. I’ll just stay quiet and let her do the talking.”

Jodi met Miranda at a coffee shop after school the following Monday. Her appointment with the DA’s office was at four, and she hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything that day. She’d Snapchatted the others, asking if they’d been interviewed about anything. They hadn’t. Julian, Paige, and Lucy had received arraignment paperwork in the mail, and Zack had been formally charged when he was arrested, but none of them had had a one-on-one with the investigative team.

“Why would they even want to interview me if I have a lawyer present? What do they expect to get out of me?” she asked Miranda.

“Well, they might be just applying pressure, hoping you know something. I know that’s scary, but just remember—you did nothing wrong.”

Jodi nodded, hoping that was true.

“You’re not a hothead, are you?” Miranda smiled into her latte.

“No, not really.”

“Then this should be a breeze. Honestly, I don’t know what they want out of you, either, but if they can’t rile you up, then they won’t get it.”

Miranda drove them over to the courthouse, full of beige hallways and asbestos air. There was a small lobby with four uncomfortable chairs, and Jodi sat on the edge of one while Miranda stood, checking her phone.

“Jodi Dillon.”

Her head snapped up, and there was Detective Harding—red lipstick, ponytail, and fake shoes. She was smiling at Jodi, but it was different than the catlike smile from three months ago. This time it was an imitation of sincere, encouraging.

She stood and introduced Miranda. She watched them shake hands. Then she followed Detective Harding into a room with a large table and two other people sitting in chairs facing the door.

“This is Assistant District Attorney Buechler and his colleague Henry Yang.”

Buechler stood and shook Jodi’s hand. He was a good-looking man with silver hair and thick-framed glasses. He could have been an eyewear model in another life. Yang simply nodded at her before continuing his notes, the fluorescent lights casting odd shadows on his angular jaw. Miranda pulled up a chair for Jodi, then herself, and then Jodi was staring down the tunnels of Buechler’s dark blue eyes.

“Thank you for coming in, Miss Dillon. We’d just like to ask you a few questions to follow up on the interview Detective Harding had with you in July.”

Miranda cut in, “Can I ask for the record if Miss Dillon is being charged with anything at this time?” Jodi almost jerked at the firm, acerbic tone of her voice.

Buechler tilted his head at her. “Not at this time, no.”

She cast a quick glance to Miranda, who was pulling out a legal pad and a pen.

“Alright,” Buechler said, sitting forward in his chair. “Miss Dillon—or, may I call you Jodi?”

“Please refer to my client as Miss Dillon.”

Jodi tried not to let her eyebrows reach her hairline as Miranda’s “lawyer voice” reappeared. She didn’t look up from her notes.

“Miss Dillon,” Buechler started again. “How old are you?”

Jodi paused. When Miranda didn’t say anything, she responded, “Seventeen.”

“And when did you meet Emily Mills?”

“When she transferred to New Helvetia. My junior year, her sophomore year.”

“At the beginning of the year? Middle of the year?”

“We had a class first semester, but I probably didn’t talk to her until October.”

Yang cleared his throat. “And that would be October 2023?”

“Yes.” She watched him scribble.

Buechler tapped his fingertips against the table and continued, “So you were in a class with Emily a whole month and a half before speaking to her. Is that common for you, Miss Dillon?”

“No comment,” Miranda said.

Jodi chewed the inside of her cheek. It was common for her. She’d realized this during the current semester as she’d tried to make new friends. But it wasn’t intentional, like Buechler was trying to make it sound.

“What did you and Emily Mills talk about when you were together?”

“No comment.”

Buechler was unfazed, as if he expected her interjection. “Did Emily ever talk about suicide with you?”

“No comment.”

Jodi’s eyes flashed to Detective Harding, who was leaning back with a bored expression. “Like I told Detective Harding, Emily never mentioned suicide or that she was depressed.”

Miranda shifted next to her, and she knew she should have stayed quiet. But it was the truth, no matter what a journal said.

“Is there anything else you’d like to say on that, Miss Dillon?” Buechler asked.

Jodi shook her head. He flipped a page.

“When did you meet Zackary Thrasher?”

“In second grade.”

“Would you say you’re close?” Buechler looked up from his notes to watch her response. Miranda hesitated.

“Yes, we’re very close.”

“Do you now or have you ever had a sexual relationship with Zackary Thr—?”

“No comment.”

Buechler stared her down, ignoring Miranda, and waiting for Jodi to react. She pushed her thumb into her pressure point and counted to five.

“No comment,” Jodi said, with as even an expression as she could muster.

Buechler barreled on. “You say you’re very close. Would you say that Zackary Thrasher shares everything with you?”

“No comment,” Miranda said.

He turned a page, and Yang did the same.

“When did you meet Julian Hollister?”

Jodi blinked. “Uh, freshman year.”

“Would you say you’re close—?”

“No,” Jodi said immediately. “We’re not.”

Buechler stared at her over his designer glasses before sliding them up the bridge of his nose. He hummed. “You were at the Sacramento drive-in with Julian Hollister on Friday, August twenty-third, were you not?”

Jodi felt like her tongue didn’t work. “We were all at the drive-in. The five of us.”

“You were in a car with Julian Hollister,” he stated.

Miranda hesitated.

“I was,” Jodi said.

“He told the ticket booth employee that you were on a date.”

Jodi’s mouth opened and closed. They’d interviewed the guy at the drive-in about them. Why? What did that mean?

“Is there a question?” Miranda prodded.

“Were you on a date—?”

“That was a joke. We were not on a date.” Jodi’s voice was climbing octaves.

Miranda placed a subtle hand on her knee, and she took a deep breath, remembering herself.

Buechler placed his pen down and steepled his fingers on the table. “We have phone records indicating that Julian Hollister texted Emily Mills on the day that she died. Do you know what that text message said?”

A cold trickling sensation pricked down her spine. She could barely hear Miranda’s “No comment” response.

Why had Julian texted Emily? She thought back to the notes in the counselor’s office, the page she’d stolen.

Julian H. said he’d order a corsage for her to match the girls.

Was that part true? Had Julian purposefully tricked Emily into thinking she was going, only to text her before prom that it had been a game?

Jodi realized that three sets of eyes were on her. Buechler, Yang, and Harding were watching her closely, as if waiting for her to magically reveal her thoughts.

Buechler pressed his lips together and said, “Were you aware that Julian texted Emily that day?”

“No comment.”

Jodi almost wanted to answer that one, to make sure they knew she was clean. But Miranda was smart to jump on it.

“You don’t know what the text messages said?” Yang asked.

Jodi narrowed her eyes as Miranda did her thing. This was why she had been brought in. Three questions about this .

“Why don’t you know what the text messages said?” asked Jodi, looking between all three of them. “What does Emily’s phone show?”

Harding and Buechler returned her stare without moving a muscle. But Yang dropped his eyes and scratched a note.

Jodi ignored Miranda’s squeeze to her knee. “You don’t have her phone, do you?” she asked, waiting with her breath held.

For some reason, Buechler nodded. “It hasn’t been recovered, no.”

Her fingertips were buzzing as her mind spun. What would Emily have done with her phone?

There was a conversation… almost six months ago… something about hiding places.

Emily had claimed to have a joint stashed at home. She’d been trying to connect with Lucy as Lucy took a hit from Julian’s pipe.

I haven’t smoked it yet. I can’t do it at home or my dad would totally kill me. But he’ll never find it where I’ve hidden it.

She’d smiled at Jodi. Jodi had sent her a weak grin.

Mr. Mills was a stickler. Probably too harsh on a teenage girl who had no bad behavior to speak of. Emily had said he would search her and her sister’s rooms—turning over mattresses, opening vents, ripping up loose floorboards.

Emily had to keep even makeup hidden. It wasn’t allowed. She’d told Jodi she had the perfect place to hide it all…

Emily and Hannah’s shared bathroom. In a secret spot.

Buechler cleared his throat, and Jodi jumped.

“Do you know where Emily’s phone might be?”

He sounded almost hopeful.

Jodi had to find out what was in those texts before she cooperated. She lifted her chin. “Can’t you recover things?”

“One text message has been recovered. The other was a link to something,” Buechler said. “Do you know what kind of link Julian Hollister would have sent her?”

“No comment,” Jodi said. She had no idea.

Buechler sighed and sat back. He tilted his chin at Detective Harding, and Jodi watched her lean forward on her elbows.

“Miss Dillon, where does the name the Thrashers come from?” Harding asked.

Miranda waited, and Jodi said, “It’s something the school came up with.”

“The school? The administration?”

“No, the students. During freshman year.”

Harding gave a barely perceptible nod. “And is that how long you’ve been a Thrasher? Since your freshman year?”

“I don’t call myself that. It’s not—” She tried to collect her thoughts before they spilled from her lips. “We didn’t agree to the name. The five of us would rather not be called that.”

“But it does come with perks, doesn’t it?”

Jodi kept her mouth pressed shut, waiting for Detective Harding to continue.

Harding tilted her head, and Jodi realized that Buechler was allowing her to lead this section. He and Yang were rapt with attention.

“What’s the question?” Miranda prodded.

“Do you think there are perks to being a Thrasher?” Harding said.

“No comment,” Miranda said to her notes.

“I asked you when we last talked if you helped any of your friends with their grades.” Harding stared at Jodi, like waiting for a fish on a line. “You said you didn’t. Are there other reasons why Zackary Thrasher, Julian Hollister, Lucy Reed, and Paige Montgomery would want you around?”

Miranda looked up. Jodi stared back, feeling her pulse pounding.

“We’re friends,” she said weakly.

Harding paused, as if Jodi would continue. She decided not to.

“Why do you think you’re friends? What do you think you add to the dynamic?”

Her breath stuck in her throat. It was the poignant question she’d spent the last three years obsessing over. Longer, maybe. Since Zack got his braces off in seventh grade and Kacey Andrews asked him to a dance. Since Julian and Zack’s first sleepover freshman year. Since the first pool party with Lucy and Paige. Since the first time Julian tried to leave her off a group chat.

“I’ve been friends with Zack since—”

“Second grade, yes,” Harding said, glancing down at her notes, though Jodi knew she didn’t need to. “Why do you think your bond is so strong, seeing as your socioeconomic positions are different, your hobbies are different, and your relationship has never become sexual?”

Jodi swallowed, and Harding’s eyes dipped, catching it. She felt pressure on all sides of her body, like she was deep, deep in the ocean. When Jodi couldn’t answer, Harding continued.

“Would you classify yourself as ‘the funny one’ or ‘the smart one?’ Anything like that?”

The implication was clear. You are not “the pretty one,” “the sexy one.”

Jodi glanced at Buechler. He was watching her with a predator’s eye, waiting for the weakness. Yang twirled his pen.

“Jodi,” Detective Harding said softly, friendly, “have you ever worried that you were going to be Thrashed?”

Her eyes welled.

Every day of my life .

She was giving them exactly what they wanted. That’s why Harding took lead on this. She already knew it. With her fake Louboutins and her clever nicknames—“Box-Dye.”

Jodi took a steadying breath.

“No comment.”