Page 19 of What Happened to Lucy Vale

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T he Thing with Will King happened when we were still in middle school. Will King had just broken up with his girlfriend and was on the rebound. The girl he met online was older. Gorgeous. A beauty queen, she said.

She said she was from Prairie Lakes.

Which was true. By then .

What she didn’t say was that she’d been expelled from Jalliscoe High School her sophomore year when it turned out she and two friends had been giving head to any athlete who would give them oxy.

She also didn’t mention that she was now working both sides of the market, getting bulk from a friend’s cousin, a con job who sold “miracle supplements” to competitive athletes who wanted an edge.

It was preseason, Labor Day weekend, when she finally invited Will to hang out.

Her college friends were throwing a party off campus.

King noticed that a few guys from the Wolverines had showed up, along with some bottom girls from Jalliscoe.

But it was a big party, and he was worried about drawing out the cops.

Again, it was preseason. There were plenty of drugs floating around, and everyone was getting wasted. He had practice in the morning.

Luckily the girl was ready to go home, so they left together.

He admitted later that he’d seen her take a bunch of shots with her friends. But she wasn’t slurring, and it never occurred to him she was high as a kite. She’d told him she was an athlete. He figured she knew better.

So he drove her home and walked her in, and they hooked up for a few hours. By then it was almost two o’clock in the morning, and he was tired.

So he split.

Monday morning, Will King woke up to find two Willard County sheriff’s deputies in his living room.

Afterward Will King said he wasn’t sure whether the pills discovered in his console had been planted by his date or by the deputies who’d been authorized by his father to search the car; the Kings later found out that one of them was the girl’s cousin by marriage.

The subsequent investigation turned up plenty of proof that the girl’s initial claims to the police were bullshit.

In the end, she recanted her accusations and dropped all charges against him.

But by then Will King’s acceptance to Wisconsin had been rescinded, he’d missed the entire season, and the Sharks had lost out on the state trophy.

Will King was a cautionary tale. The thing is, he’d been naive. Too trusting. A good kid.

And being good could get you in serious trouble.

The problem was that not everyone was trustworthy.

And the thing about girls from rival counties?

They lied.