Fade

student related. Only student/student related, to Janie’s chagrin.

And when Luke Drake, the Fieldridge High football team’s star receiver, fell asleep on the gymnastics mats, already totally plastered when he arrived at the lock in, Janie cried, “Enough.”

“Cabe,” she gasped between dreams, “wake him the fuck up, and don’t let him sleep again. I can’t take it.”

Luke tends to dream about himself, and it turns out he’s a bit overconfident when naked. Cabel’s seen Luke in the showers after PE

“Luke’s definitely overcompensating in his dreams,” Cabel says when he hears Janie’s description.

Cabe may or may not have had more success in his assignment that night. He’s a relationship builder, so his work takes more time than Janie’s to see results. He makes connections, builds trust, and has the uncanny ability to get people to admit the most amazing things while bugged. And Janie plays cleanup. At least that’s how beautifully it went the first time.

Needless to say, Janie knows she didn’t ace the second math exam either. And today, the last day before going back for their final semester at Fieldridge High, Janie’s stressed about her grades.

She doesn’t need to be.

She has a terrific scholarship.

But she’s funny like that.

At noon exactly, according to Cabel’s police scanner, they log on from their respective computers and scan their pages.

Janie sighs. Under different circumstances, it would have been an A.

Math’s her best subject. Which makes it all the worse.

Cabel’s sensitive. He doesn’t react to his row of straight As. He feels responsible for Janie’s face-first free-fall at the police station that landed her in the hospital during exam week.

They simultaneously close their screens.

Not that they’re competitive.

They aren’t.

Okay, they are.

Cabel glances sidelong at Janie.

She looks away.

He changes the subject. “Time to go see Captain,” he says.

Janie checks her watch and nods. “See you there.” Janie slips out of Cabe’s house and runs across the yards of two small residential streets to her house. Janie looks around, sees no one, so she peeks into her mother’s bedroom. Her mother is there, passed out but alive, bottles strewn about as usual. She’s not dreaming, thank goodness. Janie closes the bedroom door softly, grabs her car keys, and heads back outside in the cold to start up Ethel.

Ethel is Janie’s 1977 Nova. She bought the car from Stu Gardner, who has been dating Janie’s best friend, Carrie Brandt, for two years. Stu’s a mechanic. He babied Ethel from the time he was thirteen years old, and Janie respects the tradition. The car roars to life. Janie pats the dashboard appreciatively. Ethel hums.

Cabel and Janie arrive separately at the police station. They park in different locations. They enter the building using different doors. And they don’t meet again until Janie gets to Captain’s office. It’s important that nobody sees them together until the drug case with Shay Wilder’s father is closed, or else their duties with this new assignment could be compromised.

It’s because Janie and Cabel work undercover as narcs at Fieldridge High School. Janie’s discovering there are a lot of weird things that happen at her school. More than she could have ever imagined.

Cabel’s already sitting there with Captain when Janie walks in. He hands out cups of coffee for the three of them. He stirs Janie’s with a stir stick after having prepared it just the way she likes it: three creams, three sugars.

She needs the calories.

Because of all the dreams.

She’s finally getting some padding and muscle back on her bones, after the last big thing.

Janie sits before she’s ordered to sit.

“Nice to see you, Hannagan. You look better than the last time I saw you,” remarks Captain in a gruff voice.

“Glad to see you too, sir,” Janie says to the woman, Captain Fran Komisky. “You don’t look so bad yourself, if I may say so.” She hides a smile.

Captain raises an eyebrow. “You two are going to piss me off today, I can just feel it,” she says. She runs her fingers through her short bronze hair, and adjusts her skirt. “Anything to report, Strumheller?”

“Not really, sir,” Cabel says to her. “Just the usual schmoozing.

Making the rounds. Trying to get a better picture of what some of the teachers and students are like outside the classroom.” Captain turns to Janie. “Anything from the dreams, Hannagan?”

“Nothing useful,” Janie says. She feels bad.

Captain nods. “As I expected. This is going to be a tough one.”

“Sir, if I may ask…,” Janie begins.

“You want to know what’s going on.” Captain rises abruptly, closes the door to her office, and returns to her desk, a serious look on her face.

“Last March, our Crimebusters Underground Quick Cash school program received a phone call on the Fieldridge High School line.

You’ve heard of that program, right? All the schools in the area participate. Each school has its own line, so Crimebusters knows which school the complaint is from.”

Cabel nods. “Students can earn a reward—fifty bucks, I think—if they report a crime directly related to schools. That’s how we were tipped off about the drug parties on the Hill, Janers.” Janie nods. She’s heard of it too. Has the hotline-number magnet on her refrigerator like everybody else in Fieldridge. “Hey, fifty bucks is fifty bucks. It’s a smart program.”