“It wasn’t porn! Your grandmother was one of the ladies.”
Of course she was.
“The costumes were amazing,” he says dreamily. “Feathers and masks and sets like you wouldn’t believe. Crescent moon thrones and a massive rose with petals that swung like doors.”
“You were looking at the sets?” Now I’m laughing for real.
“I didn’t want to stare at the women. I wasn’t sure which ones were your relatives! And your grandfather was right there!”
I laugh some more. Mom told me about theaters back then, with curtained balcony seating where curse workers could conduct business while the show provided a legitimate front. Then came the raids. Now no one risks that kind of setup. “Imagine you in a place like that. You would be agitating them to do zombie burlesque in no time.”
“Untried market,” he says. Then he taps his gloved finger against the side of his head. “Always thinking. That’s me.”
He doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t look crushed and miserable, the way he did all last week. If he’s still thinking about Daneca, at least she isn’t all he can think about. But if he knew about Barron—if he knew that my brother was the one she was seeing—that would change.
I know that if I’m going to be a better person, that includes being less of a liar. But sometimes a lie of omission is what you need until the world starts being fair on its own.
When Lila finds someone else, I hope they all lie to me.
I wake up with the alarm on my phone vibrating against my skull. Yawning, I glance over at Sam. He’s still asleep, his comforter half-kicked to the floor. I get up quietly, grab some clothes, and pad into the bathroom.
I set my alarm to wake me up silently, so I could go find Daneca before Sam’s up and noticing little things like me yelling at his ex-girlfriend. Before Daneca has a chance to see my good-for-nothing brother again. Before this situation gets even worse.
I shower and shave—so fast that I cut my neck right along my jawline. I wash the blood away, splash with stinging aftershave, and hurry to the cafeteria.
I’m early, which is rare. To celebrate I get myself two cups of black coffee and a piece of toast covered in crisp bacon. By the time Daneca comes in, I am considering a third cup.
Her hair is pulled back by a sandalwood hair band, and she’s got on brown herringbone stockings with brown leather Mary Janes. She looks like she always does, which for some reason surprises me. My idea of who she is has changed completely. She’s been seeing my brother secretly for days—maybe weeks. All that stuff she said, all the questions she suddenly had for me, now it makes sense. But the answer tilts my world on its axis.
I wait until she gets through the line, and then follow her back to her table.
“What do you want?” she asks me, setting her tray down.
“He’s not who you think he is,” I say. “Barron. Whatever he told you, it’s not true.”
Surprise makes her take a step back. Gotcha. Then she recovers herself, looking even more furious than she did before. Nothing makes people angrier than getting caught.
Trust me, I know.
“Yeah, I saw you last night,” I say. “You suck at sneaking.”
“Only you would think I should be ashamed of that,” she snaps.
I take a deep breath, trying to control my anger. It’s not her fault she got tricked. “Okay, look. Say whatever you want about me. Think whatever you want about me. But my brother is a compulsive liar. He can’t even help it. Half the time I don’t think he remembers the real story, so he just fills in whatever he dreams up.”
“He’s trying,” Daneca says. “That’s more than I can say about you. He told me what you did. To Lila. To Philip. To him.”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask her. “Did he tell you what he did to Lila?”
“Stay away from me, Cassel.”
Girls say that to me a lot lately. I’m starting to think I’m not as charming as I like to believe.
“Just please tell me he didn’t take off his gloves,” I say. “No, actually, I’d rather you said he did. Because there is no way the Daneca that I know would fall for my brother’s crooked smile and his crooked patter.”
“He told me you’d say that. He practically told me the exact words you’d use. And he wasn’t lying about that, was he?”
I sigh. My brother can be a smart guy when he wants to be.
“Daneca, look. There are two ways he could know what I’d say. One, he knows me really well. And two, he knows the truth. The actual truth. Which is what I’m telling you—”
“You’re going to tell me the truth? That’s a joke.” She turns her back on me, picks up her toast, and starts toward the door.
“Daneca,” I call after her.
My voice is loud enough that people look up from their breakfasts. I see Sam in the entranceway to the cafeteria. Daneca brushes by him on her way out. He glances at her. Then he rounds on me. There is so much anger in his face that I stand, frozen, until he swivels on his heel and walks back out.
I call Barron before I walk into statistics, but I get his voice mail. The class is a blur. As soon as I walk out the door, I try him again.
This time he picks up. The connection is bad, staticky. “How’s my favorite and only living brother?” he asks.
“Stay away from her.” My hand shakes with the urge to deck him. I will bet anything that she was the girl he was talking to when I ran down that death worker. I will bet anything that he loved getting away with talking to Daneca right in front of me. Texting her from the car. Bragging about his date.
He laughs. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
I remember what he said long ago when I accused him of dating Lila just because she was Zacharov’s daughter. Maybe I’m dating her just to mess with you.
“Whatever you’re trying to pull . . . ,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to work.”
“Me and her—it bothers you, doesn’t it? I saw the way it got under your skin when I talked to her, first at Zacharov’s little fund-raiser—where you got Anton killed—and then at Philip’s funeral. It bothered you, but it made her blush. Guess you shouldn’t have brought her around if you wanted her for yourself.”
“Daneca is my friend. That’s all. I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want you to hurt her. And I know it’s impossible for you to date a girl and not hurt her, so I want you to leave her alone.”
“You’re only trying to convince me because you already failed to convince her. Nice try, Cassel, but are you really betting on my backing down?” His voice is smug.
The problem with cell phones is that you can’t slam them down into a cradle when you hang up. Your only option is to throw them, and if you do, they just skitter across the floor and crack their case. It’s not satisfying at all.
I close my eyes and bend down to pick up the pieces.
There is only one person I can think of with the power to convince Daneca to stay away from Barron. Lila.
I text Lila that I will meet her anywhere she wants, that I need to tell her something, that it’s not about her or me, that it’s important. She doesn’t respond. I don’t see her in the halls or the lunch room.
Sam grabs my arm the minute I walk into the cafeteria, though, so even if she was, there wouldn’t be much I could say to her. He’s got bed-head and is looking at me with the gaze of someone who’s hanging on to their sanity by a very thin thread.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he demands in a tone that suggests false calm. “You snuck out. You wanted me not to see you with her.”
“Whoa.” I hold up both of my hands in a sign of surrender. “You grunted and opened your eyes. I thought you were awake already.” It’s a lie, but hopefully a believable one. Lots of times I’ve said a few things, rolled over, and gone immediately back to sleep. It’s just that Sam usually kicks my bed frame again before he heads out.
He blinks a couple times, rapidly, like he’s restraining himself.
“What were you and Daneca arguing about this morning?” he asks finally.
“I said she was being a jerk,” I tell him, frowning. “That you didn’t deserve the way she was treating you.”
“Yeah?” He slouches a little. I feel like the lout that I am. He wants to believe me, I can tell. “You sure? It seemed worse. She looked really mad.”
“I guess maybe I didn’t say it in a nice way,” I say.
He sighs, but the fury has gone out of him. “You shouldn’t talk to her like that. She’s your friend too.”
“Not anymore,” I say, and shrug.
Then he looks grateful and I feel even worse, because I sound like a loyal friend who is declaring how firmly I’m on his side, when actually she’s the one who’s done with me.
“Cassel,” a girl’s voice says from just behind us. I turn to find Mina Lange looking up at me. She smiles, but she looks tired, which makes me feel suddenly protective. “Can we talk about tomorrow?”
Sam glances at her, then back at me. Then he looks up toward heaven, like that’s the only possible explanation for luck like mine with women.
I can guarantee that’s not where it comes from.
“Uh,” I say. “Sure. I’ve been considering things, and—” I’m improvising, since I honestly haven’t thought much about Mina’s problem since our last conversation. The weekend came and swept everything away with it.
“Not here,” she says, interrupting me.
I jerk my head toward the door. “Sure. We’ll go to the library. There won’t be that many people there, and we can find a quiet place in the back.”
“What’s going on?” Sam asks.
“Ah,” I say. “Sam, Mina. Mina, Sam.”
“We have a film studies class together,” Sam says. “I know who she is.”
“I’m just helping her out with something.” It occurs to me that this is a perfect opportunity to distract Sam from all things Daneca-related. “But you should come to the library with us. Be the Watson to my Sherlock, the Hawk to my Spenser, the Mouse to my Easy, the Bunter to my Wimsey.”
Sam snorts. “The fat Sancho Panza to your delusional Quixote.” Then he looks at Mina and his neck colors, as if he has realized that he just made both of us sound pretty bad.
“I really don’t think—,” Mina starts.
“Sam is completely trustworthy, if overly modest,” I say. “Anything you can tell me, you can tell him.”
She gives him a suspicious once-over. “Okay. But it’s happening tomorrow. We need to get the camera back before then or find some way to pay them or—”
“The library,” I say, reminding her.
“Okay.” Mina nods, looking relieved.
I grab a few pieces of fruit from the bowl near the card swipe and we cross the quad together. A few students are sitting at library tables, studying through lunch. I navigate through and head for the far back, picking a spot near the stacks marked SOCIETIES, SECRET, BENEVOLENT, ETC. and sit down on the carpet.
I pass out the apples and take a bite of mine. “Let’s start by going over the facts of the case one more time. This will get Sam up to speed and help us see the whole thing with fresh eyes.”
Sam is looking a bit bewildered, possibly because I am talking like we really are playing detective here.
Mina looks at Sam. “Someone’s blackmailing me. I’m supposed to pay that person five thousand dollars. Which I don’t have. And I’m supposed to give it to them tomorrow morning.” Then she looks back at me. “Please tell me that you know what I should do, Cassel.”
“What do they have on you?” Sam asks. “Did you cheat on a test or something?”
Mina hesitates.
“Pictures,” I say. “The naughty kind.”
She flashes me a hurt look.
“Hey,” Sam says. “Nothing to be ashamed of. We have all taken them. I mean, not me personally, but Cassel’s grandmother, you should really see—”
“Okay,” I say. “The point is, she had them on a camera. Then the camera got stolen. Mina, the more I think about it, the more I think that someone on your hall must have done it. One of the girls. Maybe she broke in to steal a packet of hot chocolate, saw the camera, and took it. Then a week later she started flipping through the images, found the naked pictures, and during one long night of giggling and eating too much junk food, she and her friends dreamed up a funny prank.”
“You said you would help me.” This time when she looks at me, her eyes are wet. She isn’t crying exactly, but tears cling to her lashes, making her look lush and terribly vulnerable. Her misery makes me doubt myself.
“I am trying to help you,” I say. “Honestly, it fits. But look, tomorrow morning Sam and I are going to get up early, go out to the baseball field, and watch. There’s no way whoever is setting you up like this is going to be able to resist seeing if you bought it.”
“You’re upsetting her,” Sam says.
Mina turns to him. “He doesn’t believe me.”
I sigh. I do think she’s hiding something, but since I don’t know what, it’s no help. Telling her that I don’t entirely believe her won’t be any help either. “Look, if the blackmailer shows to get the money, we’ll know who it is.”
“But what about the money?” Mina says. “I won’t have it.”