Get Dirty (16 page)

“You don’t.” Ed smiled broadly. “You just have to trust me.”

“Make no mistake about this,” Kitty said, glaring down at him. “I don’t.”

Just then, the side door to the school burst open and Logan lumbered into the courtyard. Instinctively, both Ed and Kitty jumped apart and acted like they hadn’t been involved in a heated confrontation just moments before.

“Hey,” Logan said, glancing back and forth between them.

Ed immediately donned an affable, friendly demeanor. “Logan, my man.” He held his hand up for a high five. “Don’t leave me hanging, bro.”

Logan stared at Ed’s raised hand but didn’t reciprocate. “How’s your aunt Helen?”

Ed felt his face grow hot.

Kitty arched an eyebrow. “Aunt Helen?”

“Don’t ask.” Ed eyed Logan, wondering if he was serious or pulling his leg. “She’s fine,” he said slowly.

“Oh,” Logan said with a smile. “Good. Hey, can I talk to Kitty? In private?”

“Anything you can say to Miss Wei,” Ed said, channeling a hotshot sports agent, “you can say to me. I have exclusive rights to all professional interviews and—”

“Ed!” Kitty barked. Her sense of humor was definitely lacking. “Get out of here.”

“Fine.” He desperately wanted to hear what Logan had to say to Kitty, but what could he do short of positively refusing to leave? That would piss Kitty off even further, which was the last thing he wanted to do. He’d just have to take his chances eavesdropping. With a dramatic sigh, Ed slowly dragged his backpack toward the door to the boys’ locker room. “I am considerably—and reluctantly—out of here.”

Kitty wanted to punch Ed in the face as he sauntered out of the courtyard. How did they ever think it was a good idea to initiate him into DGM?

“Sorry,” Logan said. His usually breezy smile felt forced. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Trust me,” Kitty said. “You weren’t interrupting.”

“Oh, good.” Logan shifted his weight back and forth between his feet as if he were standing on hot coals. “I don’t even know if you’re the right person to talk to, but I heard your speech this morning. In leadership. And, well, I thought that you might listen to me.”

He looked nervous and uncomfortable, like a guy who was keeping a secret. Was it possible Logan knew something about DGM or the killer? “Sure,” she said, smiling. “What’s up?”

“It’s about Olivia Hayes. Do you know her?”

Kitty fought hard to keep from showing any emotion at the mention of Olivia’s name. She took a moment to remind herself of their outward relationship.

You know who she is because she’s the most popular girl in school and you’re dating her ex-boyfriend. Nothing more.

“Everybody knows Olivia Hayes.”

Logan laughed nervously. “Right. Sorry. Well, I’m worried she might be involved somehow in all this.”

Kitty stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Like . . .” Logan ran his fingers through his longish blond hair. His eyebrows were pinched together and his nose wrinkled up, as if he was grappling with a difficult concept. “A couple of days ago, we were talking about the night Margot . . .” His voice trailed off and Kitty saw a look of pain wash over his face.

“Opening night of the play?” she suggested, careful not to give anything away.

Logan swallowed. “Yeah. Well, I told Olivia about how I’d seen something weird that night. While I was on stage. Two dudes in the audience who, like, totally shouldn’t have been there.”

The Gertler twins.

“Did you tell the police?”

Logan nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think that sergeant dude took me very seriously.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I told Olivia, right? Like two days ago. And then last night I stopped by the surf shop where these dudes work, just to look at some new Uggs, and it was empty.”

Kitty looked at him sidelong. “What do you mean, ‘empty’?”

“Like, the door was unlocked, the lights were on, but nobody was home.” Logan passed a hand through his hair again. “I checked with the lady who runs the shop next door and she hadn’t seen anything. She called the owner, who was pissed, I think. I left my number in case anyone heard anything, then this morning I got a voice mail from that sergeant guy, asking if I could come down and answer some questions about their disappearance.”

“They’re missing?” Kitty blurted out.

Logan shrugged. “I guess so. And, like, just a day after I told Olivia. Don’t you think that’s kinda weird?”

It was kind of weird. More so than Logan could possibly have realized.

“Then after that video this morning,” Logan continued, “I thought I’d check out the ’Maine Men meeting. You know, like, if this is all connected to what happened to Margot, I want to help.”

“Of course.”

“And when I heard your speech I thought . . .” He heaved a sigh. “I thought maybe you’d listen to me.”

Ugh. How could she ease Logan’s mind about Olivia without giving away DGM’s secret? “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”

“I guess.” Logan hiked his bag up on his shoulder and turned toward the door. “Anyway, thanks for listening.”

“You’re welcome?” Kitty said as he disappeared from the courtyard.

Kitty slowly dialed in her locker combination. The Gertler twins were missing? What did that mean? They were the killers? They weren’t the killers? Her head was spinning as she lifted the ’Maine Men shirt out of her locker and stared at it. As much as she loathed the idea of wearing the thing, she had to admit it put her in a position to help DGM, to help Margot and Bree, and to keep everyone she cared about safe.

That seemed mostly worth it.

“So it’s true.”

Kitty swung around, the blue shirt still gripped in her hands, and found herself face to face with Donté. His features were tense, his eyes unusually dark, and Kitty could see anger reflected in his entire body.

“You joined the ’Maine Men?”

Dammit. Had Mika told him? “I can explain,” she began.

“What, you just liked the shirt? It’s a good color on you?”

Kitty had never seen Donté so angry. He was always good-natured and easygoing. She’d never known a harsh word to pass
his lips, not even in regard to his ex-girlfriends, or smack-talking basketball players on a rival team. But now he looked at Kitty like she’d just kicked a puppy, and she didn’t like it.

“I know how you feel about the ’Maine Men,” she said, trying to suppress the emotional flutter in her voice and afraid she’d burst into tears at any moment.

“They’re assholes,” Donté said.

“But there’s a reason I’m doing this.”

“Which is?”

Which is
I can’t tell you.
She couldn’t exactly explain to Donté that she was the person responsible for forming DGM and for carrying out all of their previous exploits. She’d worked so hard to keep her friends and family away from it. If she shared that secret with Donté and Father Uberti found out, he might get kicked out of school and lose any chance at a basketball scholarship. She’d literally be responsible for ruining his life. And so she’d lied to him, kept him in the dark. Even now, when faced with his indignation over the ’Maine Men, she couldn’t bring herself to endanger his future.

“I can’t explain it right now,” she said, dropping her voice. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“Yeah,” Kitty said, taken aback. “Just like I’m supposed to trust you. Isn’t that what you asked me to do just yesterday?”

“That’s different,” he snapped.

“How?”

“You don’t understand.”

Kitty didn’t appreciate the double standard. “So I’m supposed
to blindly trust you when you say that there’s nothing wrong with our relationship, but when I ask you to trust me with this ’Maine Men thing, you get all bent?”

Donté jabbed his finger at the packaged shirt. “They stand for everything I hate about this school.”

“Me too!” Kitty blurted out.

“Then why did you join them?”

Kitty clamped her jaw shut. She’d already asked him once to trust her. That should have been enough. It had been when he asked the same of her.

“I have to go,” she said, and turned back to her locker.

“Yeah,” he said. “You have a meeting.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Kitty watched as Donté stormed down the hallway, and fought back the tears as she wondered if those were the last words they’d ever speak to each other.

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KITTY SQUEEZED HER ARMS TO THE SIDES OF HER BODY AND
hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself as thin as possible as she sat sandwiched between Kyle and Tyler in the front of Kyle’s pickup truck. “Are you sure the Cavanaughs won’t mind if I barge into their house?”

“Nah,” Kyle said. He took a corner so fast, Kitty smooshed into Tyler. “They’re usually not home so it doesn’t really matter.”

“I texted Rex that we were bringing you,” Tyler added. “So it’s cool.”

Kitty couldn’t imagine that Rex would be thrilled about a girl joining up with the ’Maine Men, and certainly not about her being inducted into his inner circle as Kyle and Tyler had so readily done. “Did he ask why?”

“Nope,” Tyler said.

“Oh.”

“But I told him that you had an awesome idea about this new DGM,” Kyle added. “Which he had to hear.” He glanced at her and smiled. “Rex is gonna be so pumped.”

Kitty had mixed feelings about this field trip to Rex’s house. She’d protested when Kyle and Tyler insisted on bringing her along to visit their de facto leader. They wanted to show her off, share her plan with Rex, and though the visit gave her the opportunity to perv around for the Rolex Amber had supposedly given Ronny DeStefano, the idea of being in his house was almost as nauseating as donning the ’Maine Men shirt in the first place. And that, paired with Kyle’s questionable driving skills, was giving her a raging case of motion sickness.

The brakes screeched and Kitty’s head whiplashed as the truck lurched to a stop in front of a two-story colonnaded McMansion.

Tyler and Kyle opened their doors in choreographed symmetry and jumped to the sidewalk while Kitty eased herself across the bench seat, head still spinning from the drive, and heaved a sigh of relief as her feet hit the solid mass of concrete. Her legs felt wobbly as she followed Kyle and Tyler up the front walk.

Kyle leaned on the doorbell. From inside the house, Kitty heard Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” ring out in electronic bells. They waited for several seconds before Tyler leaned across and rang the bell again.

“Hurry up, dude,” he said over the Beethoven, as if Rex could hear him.

Again they waited. Again nothing.

Kitty felt a gurgling sensation in her stomach. Try as she might to blame it on car sickness, she couldn’t ignore the fact that something felt eerily wrong.

Kyle took a step off the porch and tilted his head back. “Rex!” he yelled up to the second floor of the house. “It’s us. Open the door.”

“Maybe he’s embarrassed,” Kitty offered. “About the video.”

Tyler snapped his finger and pointed at her. “Good point.” He reached out and depressed the door latch. It clicked and he swung the door open.

“Sweet,” Kyle said. He took the two steps up to the porch in a single bound and barreled past Tyler into the foyer. “Rex! What the fuck, dude? Are you sleeping?”

“Put your pants back on,” Tyler said as he followed his bromantic partner into the house. “And stop playing with yourself.”

Kyle turned to him, fist extended. “Nice one, dude.”

“Thanks.” Tyler returned the bump, then headed up the stairs. “Let’s check his room.”

Kitty stood on the doorstep as the guys raced upstairs. Front door unlocked, the house silent. Something about it made her uneasy, as if she’d just stepped into a scene from a horror movie.

You’re being ridiculous
. Kitty stomped her foot against the doormat and forced the fear from her mind. Kyle and Tyler knew Rex better than anyone and they didn’t seem apprehensive. Kitty was just tainted by the last few weeks. With shoulders squared, she stepped into the Cavanaughs’ foyer.

She recognized the decor immediately. Apparently, not much had changed since Rex’s thirteenth birthday party. The foyer was a massive space of gilt paint and marble, with a twenty-foot ceiling and a double-wide staircase that curved up one side. In front
of her, an arched doorway led to the living room. She could see the fireplace flanked by floral vases and just a peek of sparkling chandelier above. It was the site of Rex’s humiliation.

“His cell phone’s here,” Tyler shouted.

“Seriously?” Footsteps pounded above her.

“Yeah. See for yourself.”

“Check the spare bedroom,” Kyle said after a pause. “I’ll hit his parents’ room.”

“’Kay.” Tyler darted by the upstairs balcony. “Rex! This isn’t funny. Come on, we need to talk.”

There was an urgency in their voices that hadn’t existed a minute ago. As normal as it had been for Rex not to answer the door, apparently this was the exact opposite. The gurgling in Kitty’s stomach returned, only now it was more of a thundering wave. She wanted to flee the house, to wait outside and let Kyle and Tyler search for their friend, but she just kept staring into the living room.

It took her several minutes before she realized why. There was something on the floor behind the piano. Something that shouldn’t there.

Kitty blinked, her eyes focused on the object. It was a shoe, a brown Oxford worn by a fair number of Bishop DuMaine’s male population. No, not just one shoe. There were two. Kitty took a few steps farther into the living room, rounding the piano, and froze in her tracks.

Not just shoes; there were legs attached. And a torso.

Kitty’s mind screamed at her to stop, to look away, but her body had a mind of its own. Before she even realized what she
was doing, she’d approached the figure on the floor and was hovering over it.

It was the motionless body of Rex Cavanaugh with a belt pulled tightly around his neck.

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