Page 2

Jodi and Zack were silent the whole ride. She tried to make eye contact with him, but he gazed out the window, biting the inside of his cheek. Jodi couldn’t stop staring at the metal grate separating the front seat from the back—separating the cops from the criminals. Her heart hammered in her chest as the car parked in front of a sign for the Sacramento Police Department. The cop swiftly stepped out and opened the door for them.

She’d never been to the police station. She’d never been arrested. She wasn’t under arrest now. Jodi’s mind spun as they climbed the steps to the building, but—the cop had said “a few questions” when talking to Zack. They hadn’t been cuffed.

The fluorescent lights inside the police station made her eyes water as the cop led them past the front desk, through the metal detectors, and back to a waiting area where Julian, Lucy, and Paige were already seated.

“Wait here.” The cop pointed to the chairs and walked away.

Lucy tilted her head, her arms crossed and her legs stuck out in front of her, taking up as much space as possible with a vicious look in her eyes. Next to her, Julian was texting with a downward twist to his lips. Paige brushed a tear from her cheek. She was still barefoot, her shoes lost at the Vallow house.

Dropping into the only open chair, Jodi took Paige’s hand as it bounced on her knee. Paige flashed her a thin smile.

It was quiet except for the squeak of a chair at the front desk. She focused on the smell of burnt coffee and the warmth of Paige’s hand.

Zack paced in front of them, running his fingers through his hair. Suddenly his hand went to his pocket, before he looked up to Julian. “My phone’s still dead. Can you—”

“Your dad is on his way.”

Taking a deep breath, Zack nodded in thanks.

Zack’s dad was a lawyer. One of the best in town. Jodi knew this because he didn’t need bench ads or billboards off I-5. He did criminal cases, but she couldn’t remember which kind.

Paige snatched her hand back and started biting her thumbnail. “I don’t have to call my mom, do I?”

“We’re minors,” Lucy said. “We shouldn’t be here. We could probably leave.”

“Okay,” Jodi said. “Can we go then?”

Julian sighed. “He said he’d Breathalyze us and ticket us for underage drinking. Best to figure out what this is about before we try to go anywhere.”

“But we’re not, like… under arrest, right?” Paige asked. “This isn’t on our record or… God, I dunno.”

“We’re not under arrest.” Lucy stood and shook out her shoulders. She looked at Jodi. “Jodi, you should go.”

Jodi felt all eyes turn on her. “What?”

“You didn’t drink. You should take the Breathalyzer and walk out of here.”

She stared at Lucy, her mouth opening and closing. “And what? Walk home?”

“Call an Uber. Or, I’ll call one for you.” Lucy whipped her phone out of her pocket.

Jodi frowned. “I’m not leaving you guys. Let’s just find out what they want. Stick together, or whatever.”

She turned her eyes on Zack. He was staring at Lucy, his jaw working as his gaze seemed to communicate something with her.

A door opened, and all five of them turned at the sound.

A slender Asian woman in a tight pantsuit clicked her way into the room on four-inch heels. Her dark hair was pulled back into a severe, yet youthful, ponytail. With her was a young officer with peach fuzz who stood a few paces back. She scanned the five of them and planted her feet.

“‘The Thrashers.’ What a pleasure.” When her eyes landed on Jodi, she felt ice licking down her spine. “I’ll take Barefoot and Box-Dye first. Look for some sandals or something in lost and found,” she said to the officer.

Jodi narrowed her eyes at the woman once she realized that Box-Dye was her.

Zack jumped up. “Miss, can I ask what this is about?”

“You can call me Detective Harding.”

He thrust his hand out. “Zack Thrasher. Good to meet you, Detective.”

Detective Harding glanced down at his hand before gripping it firmly. “Zack.”

“Are we under arrest or…?”

“No,” she replied with a thin smile. “Just a couple of questions, that’s all.”

“Are we legally allowed to leave, then?” Julian said.

Her gaze snapped to where he slouched in his chair, and she looked him over—from his styled, messy hair down to his designer tennis shoes. “I don’t know, Julian, are you legally sober?”

Jodi blinked at the bite in her words, and as Julian sat up taller, she realized Detective Harding had already known his name.

“How did you know to look for us at a St. Joseph’s party?” Paige asked.

The detective pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen. “You made it easy, Paige.”

When she turned her phone toward them, Paige and Lucy’s faces filled the screen. They were in Lucy’s Jeep in today’s outfits, just hours before. The text across the Instagram story said, Party on Fortune Ct—come thru!

Julian dropped his head back and sighed. Paige’s lip trembled.

“Come on, girls.”

The detective spun on her stiletto, her ponytail swinging over her shoulder as she clicked back toward the door. Paige followed, her pink toenails bright against the linoleum. Jodi looked one last time to Zack and left.

Behind the door was a short hallway lined with offices on the left and closed doors on the right. Detective Harding stopped at a room labeled 202 and twisted the knob. The overhead lights sprang on. Jodi could make out a table with four mismatched chairs.

“Miss Dillon. If you could wait here while I get Miss Montgomery settled.”

Jodi stepped past her and took in the empty room. She met Paige’s wide eyes just as the detective closed the door.

They were separating them.

She didn’t know much about detective work that she couldn’t learn from reruns of Law it was true. Emily had been strange. She’d ask personal questions that acquaintances had no business asking. Every day she’d wear the same pair of orange Converse, orange backpack, and orange earrings. She’d stand too close to you when she talked.

Emily Mills might have been odd—a little moon-eyed—but the one thing she had in common with every other girl at New Helvetia? She was in love with Zack Thrasher.

When Emily had killed herself on prom night, Jodi had been in the limo with her friends, laughing and breathing in the smell of summer right around the corner. Zack’s older sister had provided enough alcohol for five limos, and Julian had drunk almost half of it by the time they got to the dance. At the start of the spring semester, Lucy had decreed that all five of them would go stag that year. Lucy claimed she wanted an excuse to break up with her girlfriend, but Jodi knew there were several motivations behind this, not least of all that Zack would be forced to be single that night.

They’d danced, they’d laughed, they’d taken official prom pictures standing front-to-back, and when they left early to drive lazily around the luxurious streets between 40th and 49th, nicknamed the Fab Forties, two cop cars had careened past. An ambulance followed.

It was Emily’s street. Jodi had been there often to study, sometimes even forced into dinner with the whole family. Not to mention the handful of times they’d picked Emily up or dropped her off after a night out.

Jodi had knocked on the window, asking the driver to squeeze down 35th. The limo had turned and stopped, unable to pass the emergency vehicles with their flashing lights. Jodi had stumbled barefoot onto the sidewalk, ignoring the calls from the others.

She had been frozen in her aquamarine prom dress, staring in horror as Emily’s mother tried to tug a gurney carrying a black body bag back inside of the house, screaming at the paramedics. Emily’s father stood off to the side with a trembling jaw, talking to a cop who was taking notes. In the corner of the patio, on the porch swing Jodi had sat in a few times over the past year, a small blond figure was swaying in the breeze, staring right at her.

Hannah Mills looked so much like her older sister that it had taken Jodi several moments to realize that it wasn’t Emily herself. Hannah hadn’t taken her eyes off Jodi the whole time, something unrecognizable in the shy girl’s eyes. Something haunted.

The door to the room swung open, and Jodi jumped. Detective Harding strolled in with a file tucked under her arm and a fire-engine-red mug in one hand. She tugged out the opposite chair, the metal scraping against the linoleum, and sat.

Jodi watched as she flipped open the folder and clicked a pen, all without glancing up at her.

“I hear you don’t drink, Miss Dillon.”

Her eyes met Jodi’s, head tilted slightly to the left. Jodi was frozen in confusion.

“What?”

“It was one of the first things out of Mr. Thrasher’s mouth. ‘Jodi isn’t drunk. You can’t keep her here.’” Detective Harding clicked her pen several times in rapid succession, and Jodi realized that she’d already questioned Zack. “Is it a personal choice?”

Jodi blinked. “Is that really what you want to question me about?”

Detective Harding’s lips pulled up in a quick smile as she reached for her mug. “Just curious, is all. I don’t know many teenagers who don’t drink.” She leaned forward, like they had a secret. “Much less ones who are in the popular crowd.”

She sipped her drink. Her lipstick color matched the mug perfectly.

“Yes, it’s a personal choice.” Her mind flashed through images of empty beer bottles, the smell of stale alcohol on her father’s breath. “It’s fine. I can DD for my friends.”

The words slipped out of her mouth before she could pull them back. She looked up at Detective Harding and found a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. She furrowed her brow in mock confusion and flipped through the file on the table.

“You have your driver’s license? I thought you didn’t—”

“I just mean… I take care of them. At parties. DD is like, such a general term these days.”

“Of course.” Detective Harding smiled, and Jodi could see her perfectly straight teeth cresting just on top of her ripe, red bottom lip. Jodi’s skin felt tight. She was hyperaware of every blink, every pause she took. “Do you often have to ‘take care of them?’ Your friends?”

Jodi’s brows knitted together before she could stop them. “What do you mean?”

She looked down at her notes. “I mean, you have a 3.9 GPA.”

“I think Paige has a 4.2, so what—”

“What about Mr. Thrasher and his 3.3? He and Miss Montgomery earned those grades? It wasn’t something you ‘took care of’ for them?”

Jodi reeled back. “No. Zack and Paige have private tutors. Why would they need to cheat off me?”

“You don’t have a private tutor, Miss Dillon?” she said, scribbling something illegible on her notepad. Jodi angled her head to see if she could catch it.

“No, I can’t aff—” She cut off. Detective Harding’s gaze came up to hers, and Jodi felt pinned by it. Heat rose in her cheeks. “I get my own grades and so do they.”

“But they do pay for theirs. One way or another. Right?” Her eyes sparkled, and she crossed her legs.

For someone wearing Louboutins, Harding sure loved to dig about money. The red soles of the shoes flashed at her, and Jodi glanced at them again. Scuffed and shiny, plastic. They were fake. Jodi should know—she’d had enough designer fakes herself to keep up with Paige and Lucy.

Jodi raised a brow, examining Detective Harding as she uncrossed her legs, the corner of her mouth tight, like she’d been caught. She cleared her throat.

“How did you know Emily Mills?”

“She was a classmate.”

“And that’s all? You wouldn’t consider her a friend?”

“You asked me how I knew her, not what our relationship was. We met at school, ergo—classmate.”

“Were you friends with Emily Mills?” she rephrased.

Jodi’s tongue was like sandpaper in her mouth. “Kinda. A little.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her depression? Did she ever mention suicide to you?”

The word jarred her. Suicide . It made her pulse slow, then race. Jodi felt like the air was being leached from the room. “We weren’t really close enough for those kind of talks.”

“Your friends indicated that Emily was the kind of person who”—she looked down at her notes—“overshared. Mr. Hollister said she ‘latched on by giving you too many personal details.’”

If she’d already interviewed Zack and Julian, was Jodi last? What did that mean?

“Um, yeah. I guess that’s right.”

“But she never talked to you about suicide?”

Jodi pushed her thumb into her palm, focusing on the burn of the pressure point. In her mind, a flash of memory— a school bus rocking. The sweaty seat under her thighs. Pale blue irises pinning her against the window seat.

“I’ll protect you.”

Pain lanced across her wrist as the pressure point flared. She shook out her fingers and spread her hands across the tabletop.

“Never,” Jodi said.

Detective Harding stared at her, picking her apart. She placed her elbows on the table, inches away from Jodi’s fingertips.

“Why do you think Emily Mills killed herself?” Detective Harding asked softly. Almost motherly.

“I don’t know.”

She tilted her head at Jodi. “You don’t?”

The door burst open, banging off the wall. Jodi jerked back.

Gregory Thrasher, Zack’s dad, stood in the doorway, all six foot four of him. Even in dark jeans and a polo shirt, he looked like he could sway an entire jury with one flash of blue eyes.

“You’re done,” he bit out. “Let’s go, Jodi.” Just behind his shoulder, she could see Zack hovering in the hallway.

“Greg Thrasher, what a surprise,” Detective Harding singsonged.

“She’s a minor, Chelsea. They all are.”

“All of them?” She smiled, and her eyes flashed to Zack. “We were just having a conversation.” She shrugged. “She’s free to go.”

Mr. Thrasher reached for Jodi’s elbow, guiding her into the hallway. He spun back to the detective and hissed, “If you ever pull a stunt like this again—with my son—I’ll have you reported.”

Her wide red lips parted on a gleaming smile. “Always a pleasure, Greg.” She looked past him to Zack. “You look so much like your dad did in high school. See, we go way back.”

Greg spun on his heel and marched out toward the lobby, Zack following closely. Jodi gave one last look to Detective Harding, who was leaning on the doorframe. She winked at her, and Jodi scurried past.

The others were already waiting for them, including Paige’s mom, who always looked like she’d just stepped off the Peloton.

“Greg,” she said, tugging at the sleeves of her Lululemon zip-up. “What’s going on?”

“It’s all good, Cheryl. Let’s—” He glanced at the officers manning the phones and flipping through case files. “Let’s talk outside.”

Placing a hand on his son’s shoulder, Mr. Thrasher steered him out. Mrs. Montgomery walked with Paige and Lucy. Before she could follow, Jodi was slowed by a hand on her elbow. She looked up to see Julian matching her pace as they passed the metal detectors.

“What did she ask you?” he whispered.

Jodi almost stumbled, so unused to Julian Hollister touching her. She shrugged a shoulder. “Probably the same things she asked all of us. ‘How did you know Emily? Did you know she was going to kill herself—’”

“What did you say?” Julian squeezed her elbow, forcing her to slow.

Jodi ripped out of his grasp just as an officer stood from the front desk, saying goodnight to them with a curious look.

Julian smiled at him and wrapped his arm around her shoulders instead—like they were together or something. Jodi recoiled.

“Can you not?”

“What did you say?”

“I said I didn’t know!” She shook free of him and lengthened her strides to catch up with Paige and Lucy. Paige’s mom was with Mr. Thrasher in front of his BMW, speaking quietly while Zack stood off to one side.

“Are you both okay?” Jodi asked.

Paige nodded, but still looked about ready to cry.

Lucy shrugged. “Fine. I don’t think Detective Hardass likes me much.”

“Lucy didn’t say anything,” Paige told Jodi, awed. “She didn’t answer a single question. She just stared at her.”

“Hey.” Julian stepped up to them and jerked his head to Zack to call him over. “No texts. No DMs. Don’t put anything in writing.” He looked at Zack. “Right?”

Zack nodded. “Maybe vanish mode on Instagram or Snapchat messaging—I’ll have to ask my dad about it.”

Jodi squinted at them. “Isn’t that extreme? We’re not being accused of anything.”

“Sure we are,” Lucy scoffed. “A girl is dead because we didn’t invite her in our prom limo—”

“Luce,” Zack tried.

“You know that’s what they’re saying—”

“That’s not what happened though!” Jodi lowered her voice to a hiss. “Emily was unstable. She was strange. We all knew that. This isn’t our fault. We didn’t do anything to her to make her kill herself.”

It was quiet. Zack opened his mouth—and closed it.

“Is that what you told Harding?” Lucy asked.

Jodi blinked at her. “No. I didn’t say anything, really.”

“Kids!” Mr. Thrasher waved them over. “Let’s go. Paige and Lucy with Cheryl. The rest of you with me.”

Jodi trudged toward the Thrashers’ car under a flickering streetlamp. She slipped into the back seat next to Julian, and as she reached for her seat belt, she cast one more glance at the police station.

A figure in a high ponytail and blazer stood in one of the back windows, watching the parking lot as she sipped from her bright red mug.