Tuesday Morning, Continued
“You?” I said.
“Expecting someone else?” Benji asked. The smirk on his face deserved a right hook. But there was something more important.
I stared at him, my eyes briefly going to the brick structure behind him before flicking back to him. Moss grew over the roof and down the sides of the building. A dark doorway led inside. I slid my backpack off of my shoulders and left it in the shadow of a tree, hoping we were loud enough for the recorder to pick us up.
“Is Maggie inside?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s secure and cozy, all trussed up safely,” he said.
So many questions flew through my mind, competing with small details. Why would Benji have killed Sarah? And what about Paisley? He’d loved her!
“The last thing I remember Sarah saying to you,” I said, working through the memory while keeping an eye on Benji, “was that you should be happy to hang out with her, or something like that, and that she was with the fun cousin.”
“Her actual quote? She said I should feel grateful to her. Me, grateful to her. The skank.”
His words smoldered with a bitter bite I’d never heard from Benji before. As if he’d wanted something she’d denied him. “You wanted her? Even though Paisley would do anything for you? And Sarah wouldn’t give you the time of day, was that it?”
“You think you know it all, right Harper? Let me be the first to show you that you’re an idiot. Me and Sarah? We’d been sleeping together for months, and she pulls that shit? Like she’s better than me.” Benji glanced off to the side for a moment. His eyes came back to me. “She had that in common with you. So much fake superiority. She liked to feel superior to Paisley by screwing around with her boyfriend.”
A shudder went through me, but I saw the building behind Benji again. Maggie is in there. If she had seen him, he’d never let her go. Or me. But I didn’t really matter. The important thing was to stall, to get him talking. “Why should I believe a word you’re saying?”
“Ask Gin. He never told you about her, did he? About how Sarah threw herself at him when you weren’t there.”
His tone made me shiver, although the words weren’t taking me to a happy place either. Who was this person? “Why did you do it?” I whispered.
“I just told you. What. You were expecting the Big Scene? Tears and recriminations? Grow up.”
I thought of my parents, about how they never really fight in front of us, but also never really talked. Not to each other. Never to me. Did my father feel this level of contempt for my mother underneath his veneer of cool indifference? He’d sure lost faith in my brother when Daniel failed to become a reflection of success that made his parents look good.
“So you just, what, got rid of Sarah? What did you do, go to see her, got her drunk?”
“It was so easy. Easier than Sarah Dietz. Give her a drink from my flask. Lay her down for her final sleep. She thought I was apologizing. Being a sympathetic ear as she complained about you breaking into a house with Alex. I let her natter away. The way Gin lets you natter. She was such a broken record. Put a quarter in her and she’d complain about you.”
A red-haired figure crawled out of the doorway behind us. Her hands were bound with duct tape, and her mouth was still covered. But my heart beat with joy. Maggie was alive. Mobile. I kept my face straight so Benji wouldn’t look behind him.
“I can’t believe you did all of this.” I moved my hands, hoping Benji would think I was just gesturing random movements. Run away. Now, I signed.
She shook her head no and raised her hands, which were taped together so she couldn’t sign freely. But she could twist her hands enough to be clear.
No. She added a head-shake.
Go get help.
She shook her head again, and ducked down behind a tree, but I could see the edge of her head as she watched us. How could I get her to leave?
I stared at Benji to keep him focused on me, but I was surprised at the cocky lilt of his head. He now reminded me of his cousin, and not of the robotics club member with his crew of braniac misfits. “So you broke into my house,” I said while I continued to sign at my sister. Run away.
Not leaving you, she signed back. I can help.
Leave. Get help.
Benji’s smile made me feel like I’d been punched in the stomach. “No. I convinced Alex to do that. I needed to keep him busy. You really made him angry when you accused him of killing Sarah. Especially since he always thought the two of you had some sort of special thing going. I wonder where he got that idea.”
“Like Silas,” I said, suddenly enlightened. Silas. Paisley’s old boyfriend who had so been so conveniently removed from the landscape of her life. Go!
“Very good, Harper. I’ve always known there’s a bit of brain in there, even if you’ve never bothered to use it.”
The sliver of Maggie I’d been keeping an eye on disappeared from sight, and the branch on a tree behind rustled. A small knot of tension loosened inside me; she’d finally listened. She’d better be on her way to safety. Now I needed to stall Benji to make sure my sister had enough time to get to safety. A fresh flame of resolve flickered through me as I stared at Benji. I spoke.
“You had Alex wrapped around your little finger.”
“Pretty much. I prefer to see him as a puppet with me as the master.”
“Did you get him to text me? Or was that your blathering?”
“Do you think I’d let him be in control, and know that much? Especially something that’d give him leverage over me? I keep telling you. The secret to getting what you want is to keep your mouth shut. Keep the variables under your own control. But you just couldn’t let Sarah’s death go, could you? You never know when to let things be. Paisley would still be alive if you’d been able to keep your stupid mouth shut.”
“I didn’t do anything to Paisley!”
“Yes, you did. You had a fight with Sarah.”
A fragment of the picture clicked together in my mind. Paisley’s house after Sarah’s funeral. “You mentioned a bruise on Sarah’s stomach. I didn’t know about it.”
He nodded patronizingly. “It took her awhile, but Paisley figured out I shouldn’t have seen it. She started thinking. Then talking. And she had the audacity to question me. ME.”
“But you did it. She was right.”
“She shouldn’t have doubted me.”
“How’d you get Maggie to go somewhere with you?” I hadn’t thought to warn Maggie to avoid my friends. I should have.
“Your parents put her in a cab to school. I followed her, and told her you wanted to see her. She hopped right into Gin’s Jeep.”
Please have let a security camera pick that up, I thought.
“I’m pretty sure the police will think you stole Gin’s Jeep, by the way.” Benji smiled, and it was an echo of Alex’s crazy smile a while back. But this look chilled me to the bone. “You’re going to be the perfect fall guy.”
“No way you can pin this on me.”
“Angry Harper finally cracked. I can see the meme all over social media. You’ll go viral like the cancer you are.”
“I underestimated you,” I said, barely stopping myself from pointing out that cancer isn’t a virus.
“I’m used to it.” There was an incongruent humor in his voice—black humor—and I stored that detail for later.
“Alex is so cocky that he’s easy to persuade,” I continued. “He wouldn’t even notice. Our parents, our teachers, think you’re so earnest. Slightly geeky, easy to forget.”
“They’ll feel sorry for me when this is over. So. Any last requests?” His tone mocked me.
“Nah, I’m good.” I gave him my own half-smile.
He narrowed his eyes. “You might have been able to handle Alex, Harper. But you can’t charm me. You have no power here.” Benji motioned toward the building. “Your biggest weakness is your sister.”
I stared at him, trying to analyze his weaknesses like I did when sizing up players on the other team during soccer games. Did he move faster to the right than the left? He looked like a werewolf in puppy-dog clothing.
“Toss the phone to me,” Benji said. He patted the pocket of his cargo pant; it looked like he had something heavy inside. “If you called anyone you weren’t supposed to, you’ll regret it.”
I tossed him the phone. He bobbled it awkwardly before wrapping his fingers around it.
“Alex would have caught it cleanly,” I said. “I guess coordination only followed one branch on the family tree.”
No reaction. He glanced up and down as he tapped on the phone, presumably reading the call log and texts. I inched backwards, hoping it was slow enough that Benji wouldn’t notice. “Good girl,” he said as he put the phone in his pocket. “Now stop moving.” Benji pulled a gun out of his pocket.
I froze and put my hands in the air, but then dropped them. “Really? You’re going to shoot me?” If I’d understood his plan, he’d never do it. He couldn’t let it look like a murder. My heart started racing even faster. My hands felt shaky and I wanted to do something. Fight back. Think, Harper.
“Nah.” Benji’s smile made feel like bugs were crawling over me again, but I held my shoulders straight and stared at him. “You’re going to shoot yourself.”