Dial Em for Murder (3 page)

No, I did not.

Much.

But that wasn't the point.

Zzzzz! Zzzzz! Zzzzz!

The three of us stared in silence while my backpack jolted like the victim of an invisible stun gun.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “You going to answer that anytime soon?”

“It's nothing,” I lied, grabbing my backpack off the chair and shoving it farther under the table. “Just ignore it.”

Confusion radiated from Audrey's warm brown eyes. “I don't get it, Em. Why are you suddenly hiding stuff from
us
?”

Because I don't want you to tell me to do the right thing. Not yet.

Ben used his foot to snag the strap, and with one effortless movement he brought up the backpack and dumped all my possessions onto the lunch table. Textbooks, notebooks, my graphing calculator, a few cheap pens with the names of real estate offices on them, a special journal for all of my novel ideas, and the Slate I definitely should have left at home. I'd been uncomfortable with the idea of leaving it on my bedside dresser—or anywhere out of reach, really—which was stupid because I hadn't been brave enough to do more than flip the Slate over half a dozen times, examining every smooth inch. The possibility, no matter how remote, that my information might be listed in the dead man's contacts had scared me into inaction. Or maybe that had been the product of the shock finally catching up with me. Either way, I didn't mean for the Slate to become my very own show-and-tell exhibit.

The Slate writhed on the cafeteria table before I snatched it up and stuffed it into the crumpled sweatshirt. It buzzed one last time and then quieted, probably because the battery had died. I wasn't sure how I'd afford a charger, but that wasn't my most immediate problem. Not when my best friends were staring at me like I'd gone off the deep end.

“What,” Ben asked with forced calmness, “is that?”

“You mean, beyond a total violation of my privacy?” I began shoveling all my belongings back into my bag. “My new Slate.”

Audrey's jaw dropped open. “There's no way you could afford that unless you sold your kidney on the black market.” I watched as comprehension dawned across her face. “The dead guy?”

“Can you keep your voice down?” I muttered. “This isn't something I want to advertise.”

“You robbed a
dead guy
?”

“No! Of course I didn't. He gave it to me. Sort of.”

“Yeah, nothing weird about that,” Audrey scoffed.

“He gave it to me,” I repeated. Neither of them looked impressed with the repetition of that particular point, so I quickly moved on. “That makes it mine. Case closed.”

Ben sat up straighter as he quickly zipped my bag shut. “I doubt the cops see it that way, since they're headed right toward us.”

The two police officers weren't exactly chatty as they hustled me out of the cafeteria.

They wouldn't tell me why or where they were taking me. In fact, the cops barely spared me a glance. Instead, they flashed their badges at the lunch monitor, told him that they'd already cleared everything with our school principal, and assured him that this was merely a safety precaution. Officer Eva Thorton's exact words were, “We have a credible reason to believe this young woman's safety is at risk.” Then she placed one hand on my shoulder and frog-marched me out the door and into a waiting squad car. Her partner, Andre Brown, stayed two steps ahead of us. His wide shoulders partially blocked my view of the growing crowd of students, but I could still see plenty of people staring at me with open-mouthed amazement. I could hear the rumors starting.

On a normal day, being the center of attention would've freaked me out. I've never enjoyed being on stage or doing public speaking. Or public anything, really. So if an old man
hadn't
died on top of me less than twenty-four hours earlier, this would've been my worst nightmare.

Nothing like a quick brush with death to put life in perspective.

The popular girls like Beckie Miller could whisper whatever they wanted. I had much bigger concerns, like what kind of “credible threat” could have two well-armed police officers pulling me out of school.

Yesterday I'd thought that apology was intended for someone who didn't exist. Now I couldn't help wondering if it really had been directed at me. If he'd been perfectly aware that he was adding this much chaos to my life the moment he stole my drink.

A little more context would've gone a long way toward clearing everything up, but my police escort seemed to be playing ambivalent cop, silent cop.

“Um, excuse me?” I said hesitantly, unable to take the silence any longer. “Can you tell me what's going on?”

The two officers exchanged a meaningful glance as we pulled up to the station.

“We're here to ensure your safety. A detective will be talking with you soon,” Officer Thorton said brusquely as she pulled open the door. Even without the handcuffs, I felt like I'd already been marked as a criminal.

“Breathe, kid,” Officer Brown said at last. “You'll be fine.”

Five words might be a soliloquy by his standards, but they did nothing to reassure me.

“A
detective
?” I squeaked. “Um, what's wrong with the two of you?”

That didn't come out quite the way I intended.

“Nothing is wrong with us.” Thorton hustled me forward with an air of complete confidence that I envied. She didn't look like she put up with crap from anyone, like she might play roller derby in her spare time because she loved the rush of physically knocking people out of her way.

“Then why—”

I lost my train of thought as they led me into the heart of the station. Everyone was scurrying around, barking orders, gulping down coffee, or glaring at their computers. I looked at Officer Brown and hoped my red-rimmed eyes would guilt-trip him into telling me
something
useful, but he just steered me into a room empty of furniture beyond a dinged-up table and two chairs. Then they left me alone to wait.

And wait.

And then wait some more.

By the time a stocky man with small dark eyes in a face that had the air of perpetual dissatisfaction stepped through the door, I had already plotted out a whole new romance novel. One that involved a plucky heroine, a very sexy district attorney, and a corrupt police station intent on covering up a prostitution ring.

“I'm Detective Luke O'Brian,” he introduced himself easily before sinking into the chair on his side of the table. “You've gotten yourself into quite the mess, Miss Danvers.”

Maybe it was knowing that the entire school would still be gossiping about me on Monday, or the fact that I
still
had no freaking idea why New York's finest had unceremoniously hauled me in only to make me sit alone for the better part of an hour, or that a dead man had pretty much warned me this might happen, but I completely lost it.

“
I've
gotten myself into a mess?” I repeated indignantly. “You might want to brush up on your detective work.
I
didn't start anything!”

He raised a single eyebrow, looking thoroughly unmoved. Probably because I was the least threatening person to ever take a seat in his interrogation room. “Why don't we—”

But I didn't give him a chance to finish.

“Tell me, is it normal for high school girls to be summoned here—or am I special?”

He smiled, but it didn't reach his dark brown eyes. “Most girls your age don't get tangled up in murder investigations. I'd say that makes you very special, Miss Danvers.”

“
Murder?
” My knees weakened unexpectedly and I sank back into my chair. “What are you talking about? I was
there
,
Detective. He tackled me and died. End of story.”

“I'm going to play something for you, Miss Danvers. And then I suspect you'll be
dying
to change your statement.”

A sardonic gleam flashed in his eyes and my stomach twisted painfully, as if I had been dared to eat a seafood quesadilla and was now deeply regretting it.

For some reason I couldn't even begin to fathom, he
wanted
to scare me.

That's when I should've pulled the Slate out of my backpack. I should've slid it across the table and said,
Here you go. Enjoy. Now please keep me out of this.
All
of this
.

Except I couldn't help mentally replaying the old man's warnings, even as the detective flicked open the briefcase to reveal a laptop inside.

It had been so easy to dismiss those words in the coffee shop as the meaningless ramblings of a senile man. But he didn't sound crazy now. Not when the police were willing to drag me to the precinct for questioning in a
murder
investigation.

If my coffee thief was right, if someone really had been out to get him, then maybe he wasn't mistaken about the other stuff, either. Although that kind of thinking was exactly how psychics reeled in their customers. The psychic would say something vaguely cryptic, the client would search for a meaning in their own lives, and come up with
something
that linked the two together. And anything that didn't fit the story? That tended to be ignored.

Just because the old man had been close to death didn't automatically mean anyone else was in danger.

Detective O'Brian spun the computer around so that I could view the screen. “Maybe this will jog your memory.”

One click later and I saw myself as a grayish figure sitting at one of the window tables, courtesy of what had to be the Starbucks' security camera. It felt so weird watching onscreen-Emmy glare in frustration at the loaner laptop before moving toward the counter, and—

O'Brian froze the video just as the old man snatched my drink.

“Anything yet?”

I shook my head so he let the security feed keep playing, although this time he kept up a running commentary. “He's holding on to your arm for quite a while there. You say this is the first time you ever met him?”

“That's right.”

“And yet the two of you are looking awfully chummy.”

I didn't think that particular statement merited a response, so I took a page out of Officer Brown's playbook and pressed my lips tightly together. The detective pointed to the Emmy onscreen who had just reclaimed her drink.

“Now here's where it gets interesting. Watch what happens as you move toward your table.”

My pixelated figure slowly began to walk across the room while I braced myself for the inevitable tackle that would send me hurtling to the ground. Even knowing
exactly
what was coming, the scene disturbed me. I flinched instinctively as the old man flew through the air with all the grace of a professional baseball player diving for home base. I focused my attention on the placement of his hands and tried to resign myself to the reality of the situation.

There was no way Detective O'Brian would overlook the Slate that was slipped into my pocket. Not when he already seemed intent on proving that the two of us shared some kind of past. The dead man's fingers dipped into his coat and my breath caught in my throat. Any second now and I'd see a silvery flash of chrome caught on camera.

The detective was right; I did need to amend my statement.

My jaw dropped open in surprise as I watched his body release its tentative hold on life. Two empty age-spotted hands sprawled across the sticky floor. He hadn't given me a thing.

At least not as far as the security footage was concerned.

Two businessmen in suits had moved forward when the old man lunged for me, then hesitated in a painfully long moment of indecision, obscuring the old man's right side from view. They were probably unsure if it would be more dangerous to move him before the ambulance arrived. I did my best not to exhale in relief.

The police didn't know about the Slate. Yet.

I scooted the laptop so that it faced away from me and gave the detective my best disinterested glare. The one I usually reserved for anyone trying to shove a pamphlet or a flier into my hands.

“Fascinating. What's your point?”

“Why don't you try watching it again,” he advised. “This time pay attention to the man in the hat behind you.”

While the old man refused to surrender my drink onscreen, my gaze locked on the relatively wiry build of yet another stranger. The blurry man in the dark blue baseball cap held something a lot more lethal than a Starbucks Doubleshot in his hand. I couldn't begin to speculate on the make or model, but even I could tell it was some kind of gun.

And he was aiming it right at
me
.

I watched in horror as the old man lunged forward, knocking me to the ground and absorbing the hit without flinching.

My stomach rolled over and my fingers gripped the edge of the desk tightly, as if I were gripping the safety bar on a rollercoaster ride. “I-I thought it was a heart attack. Everyone said he had a heart attack!”

“Oh, it was,” O'Brian replied easily, as he returned the laptop to the briefcase. “Our medical examiner confirmed it. According to the toxicology report the heart attack just wasn't due to natural causes.”

“So you think the old man died for
me
?”

“It would appear that way.” He leaned forward so that I couldn't look away from the chill in his dark brown eyes. “Now you can either start talking or wait for the killer to take another swing at the job. So let's try this again. Why does that man want you dead?”