Pretty Crooked (26 page)

Here’s the latest Buzz. I’m not a Busted. But I know that we all need a little help sometimes, even if not all of us can pay a tutor to write our papers for us
.

In a way, it was my confession. I pointed my flashlight at the mirror and stood looking at the bold words, wondering if I had gone too far. The thing was, she would
only know it was me if she remembered the night of her party, when she’d been totally plastered. And I seriously doubted she would choose to turn me in, because it would also potentially get her into trouble. And now I had Kellie’s computers with evidence of all the Buzz bullying in my possession if I needed it. Besides, confessing would be worth it if it cleared Sierra’s, Mary’s, and Alicia’s names. At this point, I had to do it.

As I lowered the flashlight, my gaze caught on a framed portrait hanging next to the mirror. Kellie and her mother on the tennis court, tanned and wearing even white smiles and unwrinkled shirts that looked like they’d never seen the outside of a Lacoste store, let alone a full match on an actual court. The resemblance between them was undeniable.

It reminded me of my own mom. Out of habit, I pulled on the bird pendant around my neck. A pang of sadness shot through me. We used to be so close—best friends, even, but that seemed like a long time ago, before we came to Paradise Valley. Now I was alone in more ways than one, just someone creeping through the dark unseen.

I sighed, gathered my stuff, and started toward the door. But I guess I’d paused too long because when I moved again, I must have tripped a motion sensor. The lights flipped on all at once, and then a sound that could only have been the alarm let loose in loud shrieks.

I froze.

Oh no oh no oh no
.

In all the times I’d mentally practiced for this day, I’d had no idea that there was more than one security system. At this very moment, though, with the deafening noise burning my eardrums, it seemed stupidly obvious.

There was no time to panic, although that was exactly what I was doing. I threw the bag on my back and bolted down the hallway. The dark corridor was now strobing with flashing lights.

I just need to go back out the door I came in. In and out
.

As I rounded the corner back through the breezeway, the alarm stopped momentarily. I heard myself panting, the clapping of my feet on the slate tile, and then, the distant whine of sirens. I doubled my pace, running through the library and the den and the dining room. But even as I ran I knew I was being sloppy, messing up the rugs, leaving more footprints.

I made it to the kitchen door and pulled on the knob. It was stuck. I tried the locks, but no go. How? I hadn’t locked the door behind me when I came in—I was sure of that.

Okay, what now
?

I wiped my brow with my sleeve. My heart rattled in my throat. The alarm started up again, slapping my brain into blank fear.

Think. Think! What had Tre said
?

He’d said to run like hell.

I ran toward the front of the house. It would be okay to use the front door if I could just get out quickly—I calculated that I could run down the driveway in less
than two minutes to get to my bike. I just needed those two minutes.

The huge wooden front door loomed ahead of me. I undid the bolts and grabbed the handle. It was locked, too. Not just locked—sealed. Here I’d thought I was all clever, outsmarting the Richardsons’ security. I’d completely underestimated this system that now had me trapped inside.

The sirens were getting louder, which could only mean they were closer. I pulled out my screwdriver, figuring it was worth a try.

Please, please, please work
.

My hands were sweaty and shaking but somehow, with a few turns of the wrist, I jiggered the mechanism to release. The screwdriver clattered to the floor, and I let it go.

Just as the door flew open, I saw the lights flashing up the driveway. A police car pulled in front of the house, screeching to a halt. I couldn’t tell whether it was a real cop or a rent-a-cop but I didn’t care, and I wasn’t going to stick around and wait to see what happened next.

My speed surprised me. I was running faster than any sprint I’d ever done for Ms. Lonergan in gym class. Somehow, I felt airy, light. It had to be the adrenaline. My legs pumped and the air scratched against my throat.

“Stop!” a man yelled as I flew past and found my bike. “Stop right there!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I KNEW SOMETHING was wrong when the bike stopped moving altogether. I must have been riding through the dark desert streets for twenty minutes, at least. But now it was like my wheels had lost traction, like the ground had turned to pudding. I hit the brake and I practically fell off. I got down on the hot pavement to see what the problem was.

It was obvious right away. My tire. The one that had blown the day Aidan gave me a ride home from school. The one that I had supposedly patched myself a few months earlier.
I should have taken him up on his offer and let him fix it
, I thought.

Yeah, well, I should have done a lot of things differently
.

But there was no time now to dwell on it. I let the bike fall to the side of the road, quickly kissing it with my hand and hoping that this wasn’t a final good-bye. I couldn’t take it with me. It would only weigh me down.

Nothing to do now but run. I went off-road, running as hard as my legs would carry me over the thick brush. The terrain was bumpy, and full of hidden divots and big stones. I came down on a cactus and my ankle nearly gave out, but I recovered and kept going. I couldn’t look back, not even when a car screeched to a halt in the distance and I heard footsteps on the trail behind me.

I kept on until I’d reached what must have been someone’s backyard. I jumped an agave plant, hopped over some boulders, and then I was face-to-face with a stone wall. This was trespassing, but what choice did I have? I planted my palms on the rough stones and vaulted myself up, flinging my body over onto the lawn on the other side, and landing in a squat.

I would’ve congratulated myself on this gymnastic feat, except when I looked up, I had a face full of sprinkler water. Real nice.

I started to use my shirt to towel off, but there was no time. I could hear the footsteps behind me. And the shouting.

Move
, I told myself.
Keep moving
.

I scrambled to my feet and resumed a fevered run over the yard, which seemed to stretch across infinity. The ground blurred beneath me until I hit another fence, which was taller and sharper than the last one, and bordered a golf course. For once I was happy to see a golf course—that was something I could work with, maybe. Especially if there were golf carts.

A dog barked in the distance and I prayed it wasn’t loose and people-hungry. I wrapped my hands around the spires and tried to hoist myself up, but my palms slipped against the metal. My lungs hurt. My legs were tired. My hair and chest were damp from the sprinkler. I looked up into the pulsing stars, pleading silently for a miracle.

And that’s when I felt the arms gripping me, pulling me down, and then the weight, like a 200-pound sack of stones, throwing me to the ground, face-first. A knee pressed on my back, and my arms were pinned together behind me in a relentlessly tight grip.

“We’ve been looking for you, little girl,” I heard him say. Then there was the cool grasp of metal encircling my wrists, locking together with a click. “You’re under arrest.”

If you ever wanted to know what happens after you get tackled by a middle-aged cop as you try to flee the scene of a robbery, here’s a little glimpse: When he removed his knee from my back, I was struggling to breathe, the wind knocked out of me. I tried to stand up, which was nearly impossible with my hands cuffed behind my back.

At that point, I believe the cops were reading me my rights, but I could barely hear them over my own gasps. I was led back to the car, firm grip on my arm. Then they shoved me in the backseat.

They drove through darkness, headlights sweeping
the road in front of us. The chill of the car’s air-conditioning encased me and it felt like a morgue. I wished I was out in the naturally warm air, and not crammed into this bizarrely small space behind a bulletproof glass divider.

As we rolled on, I grappled with the reality of what was happening. Was it really possible that this was me, in the backseat of a cop car? I had only my senses to prove it. The smooth plastic of the seats, the smell of old coffee and cigarettes and aftershave, the sounds of the sirens. The cops ignored me most of the way, talking only to each other and into their radios. I stared out the smudged window, watching the normally vibrant skyline of cacti and rock formations dull into smears of black.

It felt like we were driving forever—until we weren’t. We parked in front of a sprawling white building. Paradise Valley Juvenile Detention Center.

It looked newly built, a box stacked on top of another box, surrounded by gravel and small plantings that had barely started to sprout. The parking lot was lit by greenish fluorescent lights.

The policeman who’d pulled me off the fence, Officer Carmichael, and the one who was driving the car, whose name I never got, escorted me in by the elbows. Carmichael was fortysomething, with black hair and a well-toned physique, while his partner was younger and scrawnier, with a bad case of acne.

Inside, a grumpy older woman in a brown uniform
stood behind the front desk. She pushed a bunch of papers in front of me for signing. She was rude, and I had a brief flash that people were only going to be rude to me from here on out.

Then the two cops brought me down a hallway to a big office with lots of cubicles. They introduced me to Officer Daniels, who would be my intake probation officer. Daniels was a big, intimidatingly red-faced guy, chins spilling over the front of his uniform. He looked like he was built for punishing people.

He told me to have a seat in front of his desk. By the time I looked up at his extra-large scowl, I was no longer in shock. It all got real.

I was in custody. This was going on my permanent record. I closed my eyes and opened them again, but the same scene remained. I was trapped. I trembled like an animal in a crate.

They’d uncuffed me and were allowing me to sit there unrestrained, but in the eyes of the law—the particular ones staring at me just then were icy blue and very judgmental—this was only a courtesy, a temporary reprieve. I was a menace to society and they wanted me under control.

If only I could just explain, maybe they would see that it wasn’t that bad. But I was too afraid to speak out of turn. My mouth was dried up like a neglected house-plant.

“We’re going to go through what’s called a screening
process, so I need to ask you some questions,” he said.

It was a long list. He asked me if I was intoxicated. If I was depressed. If I had any prior felonies. If I had ever been in a violent incident. If I’d ever run away from home. If I owned or carried a firearm. I laughed nervously at the last one.
Of course not, who did he think I was
?

One look at his dead-serious face and I remembered.

He made some more notes on his sheet and then typed some things into his computer. I tried not to let my eyes wander around too much. Just by being here I felt like I was taking in criminal vibes as much as I was giving them out—it was like guilt by osmosis. Had this happened to Tre, too? Or Aidan?

Daniels coughed. “I’m going to call your mother now, Willa.”

He dialed her number on his desk phone. It was Saturday night. I had no idea what she was doing. Whatever it had been was about to be interrupted by a call from the police telling her that her daughter had just been arrested for a break-in.

Hot, raw fear surged into my throat as I waited. I felt like I was staring down an abyss of the unknown, and it was dark as hell. How would she handle this? It wasn’t a call anyone wanted to get—there was no way around that. I had a feeling that Daniels wasn’t the type to sugarcoat, either. Having to sit here and listen to this conversation would be unbearable. I looked down at my
shoes, wishing I could close my eyes until it was over.

But she wasn’t picking up, because Daniels frowned and hung up the receiver.

“No answer. I’ll have to try again.”

Well, that was okay, I thought. I was in no rush to have that confrontation. But then worry seeped into the edges of my thoughts. If she wasn’t home, where was she? Out with that guy again? Was she all right? What if something happened to her and I was in here? I would never know.

“Will I get to go home tonight?” I asked, suddenly picturing the worst.

“Don’t think so,” Daniels said, clicking and unclicking a pen. “We have to finish the screening process and hold you until we can get a hearing. And tomorrow’s Sunday. Not much gets done around here then.”

A horrible, intense shiver crept through me. I was spending the night. In lockdown. Possibly two. And then a hearing? What would happen then?

Daniels pushed his chair out from his desk. “Do you want some water? Some coffee?”

“Water, please,” I croaked, and my voice sounded like I’d already been locked up in isolation for forty years.

He stepped away. I surveyed the room, all the cops in uniform coming and going from their cubicles. There had to be at least a dozen of them sitting around at their desks, and then there were the civilians, like me, who had been taken in. A few feet away, a tall wild-haired
guy with a visible scar on his chin was still cuffed and looking anxiously around the room, twitching like he was high on something. Another girl was wearing thigh-high boots and a leather skirt. I was pretty sure I knew what she was in for. We were all innocent until proven guilty, supposedly, but I immediately assumed they were all guilty of something, as they probably did when they looked at me.

In the detention center it didn’t matter that I had a

3.8 GPA or that I thought I was trying to help people. No one here would care. I could see that now.