The hospital room was nominally shared, but a uniformed police officer—Patrick Foley—stood at the door, and Theo guessed that Nia would have the room to herself for the foreseeable future. A second bed stood cattycorner to Nia’s, the privacy curtain pulled back to reveal that it was empty. The bathroom door was open, and although the light was off, Theo could see that the bathroom was empty as well.
“Do you want to check under the bed too?” Auggie whispered.
Instead, Theo studied the girl in the bed. Nia was long: long arms, long legs, a long torso. The hospital gown and the thick bandages around her chest did nothing to hide the compact muscle that padded her frame. Her skin was very dark, and her eyes were even darker. After a moment, her eyes slid to the window, and she touched her tight fade with one hand.
“Where are your parents?” Auggie asked.
“They had to go out.” Her voice was flat and slightly nasal; judging from her eyes, Theo guessed she was high as a kite. “Dad won’t say it, but he wants to get back to work. He’s a chemical engineer at Tegula.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if that man has ever taken a day off. Even at home, he’s always scribbling equations, ideas, you know. Mom gets crazy picking them up. She went home to shower.”
“You waited until they were gone to tell us we could come up,” Auggie said.
Nia nodded.
“Why?” Theo asked.
“I didn’t want them to know.” Her voice tightened, and she ran one hand along the bed rail. The metal chimed. “Please don’t tell them. I don’t have a lot of money. God, after this, I’m not going to have any money. But I’ll figure something out.”
“We’re not here to—” Auggie began.
“Let’s start with information,” Theo said. “That’s what we want first.”
Nia nodded listlessly.
“How long has this been going on?”
Nia laughed. “A long time. A long, long time. Since high school. The summer before, actually.”
“Who—” Auggie began.
Theo slashed the air with one hand, the gesture at waist level, and Auggie cut off.
“Do you know what it’s like?” Nia asked dreamily, “having Deja as your sister? Having the tennis champ as your sister? I had to hear about it all the time. ‘Why aren’t you as fast as Deja? Why aren’t you winning like Deja? Why’s Deja still at practice and you’re sitting on your butt in front of the TV?’” Nia fell silent, and then, choking on the words, she added, “For one minute, for one single minute, I was actually relieved when I heard she was shot. I thought she’d just been hurt. I thought that was the end; I wouldn’t have to hear about tennis anymore. And then they told me she was dead, and ever since, I’ve been living in a shrine to Deja. And I’m part of it. I’m supposed to be part of all of it. I’ve got to be in every march. I’ve got to be in every picture.” She shuddered, cried out quietly, and then sagged back against the bed. “Oh God, I can’t even think clearly. What are we talking about? The pills. We’re talking about the pills. You won’t say anything?”
“That depends,” Theo said. “Tell us about Cal.”
“Just a fight,” she said. “It was just a fight.”
“Keep going.”
“Someone told him. Deja. Probably Deja. She didn’t like that I was getting stronger. Didn’t like that I had a faster serve. Asked me why I looked different, sounded different . . .” Her voice trailed off, and her head nodded. Blinking herself awake, she said, “I don’t know how she got into my locker. Must have taken my keys.”
“And then?”
“Big fight. Mom and Dad crying, they didn’t even know why. She left.” Nia made a choking noise. It looked like she was trying to cry, but her eyes remained glassy. “Got killed because she was in a hoodie and because a scared man had a gun and a badge.”
“And then?”
Muzzily, she said, “And then Mom and Dad knew why they were crying.”
“What happened with Cal?” Theo asked.
“Is he here? I don’t want to see him. What he did, messing with my head, I told him I was going to kill him.” Pushing back the bedsheets, she mumbled, “Want to see a mirror. Want to see what I look like. Freak, that’s what. Deja saw it. She ran out of the house.”
“Hold on,” Auggie said, running interference, trying to keep Nia in bed by filling up the space next to her. She ignored him, trying to extricate herself from the bedding, sliding one bare leg toward the edge of the mattress. Thick, dark hair covered her thigh. “Nia, just wait—”
“Sit your ass back in that bed,” Theo barked.
Auggie stared at him. Nia shrank back.
“Put one foot on the floor, and the pictures go straight to the head of athletics. They don’t need a warrant to open your locker, and they’ll spot the pills, and that’s the end for you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Nia said. She lay back. “I understand.”
“Theo, maybe you should—”
“When was the last time you saw Cal?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit. You killed him, and we know you killed him. If you tell us the truth, it’s going to go a lot easier for you.”
The door opened, and Foley stared in. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Theo said. “Close the door, Patrick.”
Foley stayed where he was, though, and his gaze shifted to Auggie. Auggie looked away. Then Foley looked at Nia.
“S’all right,” Nia said. “Everybody’s upset.”
When the door closed, Nia said, “I killed Cal, huh? God, don’t I wish.” Her hand hovered over the mass of bandages on her chest and then flopped back onto the mattress. “Don’t even know why someone shot me. If I were five years younger, Cal and Wayne would have lost their minds about this; I don’t know if I’ll play again, definitely not competitively.”
“With physical therapy,” Auggie said, “and a lot of hard work, you’ll be able to play again.”
Nia didn’t grace that with a response, and Theo kept his opinion to himself.
The afternoon sunlight fanned across the linoleum, across the side of the bed, filling in the scratches on the chrome rail and exposing the metal’s texture. Nia played her fingers through the light for a moment, watching the shadow they cast. Then she picked up her phone.
“What are you doing?” Theo said.
“I’m looking up the last time I called Cal.”
Theo shot Auggie a look, and Auggie nodded. He inched closer to the bed to see the screen. After tapping and scrolling several times, Nia said, “August 22nd. See?”
The day Cal had disappeared.
“What did you talk about?”
“He wouldn’t talk long on the phone.” Closing her eyes, Nia settled back against the mattress. “He was so mad. I think Deja tattled. She was the star, so she got star treatment. The rest of us were dogs they ran into the ground.”
“You fought with Cal about the steroids? On the 22nd?”
“He practically bought them and put them in my hands. I don’t know why he got so worked up about them.”
“What about Deja. That was the same day she got shot, the 22nd. Where does Deja fit in?”
“She wrote that note,” Nia mumbled. “Stay away from my sister, or I’ll kill you. She would have done it too. Would have killed him herself. I needed to warn him. If I drove, I’d be faster.”
“Did you go to Cal’s apartment that night?”
Her answer was rough, uneven breathing.
“Nia, did you go to Cal’s place that night?”
Her eyes were glassy.
Theo felt it, the invisible connection they were on the edge of unearthing. It was like reading a play or a novel or a poem and sensing the outline of something, knowing you just had to excavate it. How could it be a coincidence that the same night Deja died, Cal Reese went missing? “You did. You were there. You were at Cal’s place that night. Let me tell you how I think it happened: the night Deja died, you and Cal fought, and you killed him. You were arguing about a lot of things—the drugs, how he favored Deja. But mostly you hated him because you envied Deja. And now, the dealer who supplied you and Cal has decided you’re a little too crazy to keep as a customer, and she’s decided to get rid of you.”
Nia’s eyes were half-closed.
“Well?” Theo said.
“I don’t even know her name,” she mumbled. “I thought I saw her. Cal called her the White Rabbit. Don’t know why Cal didn’t see it coming. He was mad. I was mad. I wanted him to die; he deserved to die.” She sucked in a deep breath, aspirated saliva, and coughed. Her whole body contorted with the effort, and pain from the gunshot wound made her eyes bright and wild. Auggie sat next to her, supporting her with one arm until the coughing eased. Then he helped her lie down again.
“Why did Cal deserve to die?” Auggie asked.
“He took Deja away from me. Turned us against each other. I was never as good as Deja. If I won, it was luck. If I lost, it was because I didn’t work hard enough. But Deja—always doing things exactly right, just the way he wanted. When we talked on the phone, he was so mad. Wanted to know how I could ruin everything for him. Wanted to know how I could risk that. I wanted to say a few things myself. I wanted him to know he put those pills in my hand. The minute I knew I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be, not without some help, he might as well have put those pills in my hand himself. The White Rabbit was always there, but all Cal was worried about was the money.” She tried to sit up. “He didn’t even congratulate me when I signed my letter of intent with Wroxall. Didn’t even look at me when I told him. When Nicki got her letter from one of those Indiana schools, though, he threw her a party. All he cared about was the money.” Her eyes shut to slits again.
“She’s exhausted,” Auggie whispered.
“What money?” Theo asked. “Auggie, wake her up.”
“Theo, she’s—”
“Right now.”
Auggie shook Nia’s arm and spoke into her ear. When her eyes came open, nobody was home.
“What money?” Theo asked. “Cal cared about the money, that’s what you said. What money?”
“They got a new car,” she said in that flat, droning voice. “Indiana temporary tag.”
“Who’s the White Rabbit?”
But her eyes shut again.
“Wake her up.”
“No.”
Scratching at his beard, Theo shifted his weight. “Wake her up, Auggie.”
“No. She’s exhausted. She’s hurt. She can’t think clearly.”
“We don’t have time to coddle her. I want to ask—”
“I said no.” Auggie stood from where he perched on the mattress. “We’re done for right now.”
The sun painted half of his face. That expressive mouth was a tight, hard line. He looked older. Then, touching his temple, he winced, and he was just Auggie again.
Theo nodded, and they left.