Haze (4 page)

It wasn't unusual for guys to sign out on weekends so they could stay off campus at each other's houses. Not for the ones that lived nearby, anyhow. It just hadn't come up for me before. Like I said, rich-boy clubs.

So Droid, his hair freshly blue, doubled me back to Yale after dinner to pick up my bike. From there, we took our time riding to the address he had written on the back of his hand. Nate lived only a few blocks away from the school. As we got close, music blared. Expensive cars lined the street.

“Why would anyone who lives so close to school need to board?” I asked.

Droid shrugged. “Parents travel, maybe. Who cares? Girls, Bram. Girls.”

Sure enough, there were more girls than guys at the party. Inside, the bass was cranked so loud it pounded in my bones. This was a mansion—big rooms, lots of them. The walls were all white, and there were black leather couches. The patio doors opened onto a huge backyard. The air inside was ripe with beer and sweat. Two girls in miniskirts wandered past, looking us up and down.

Droid grinned and rubbed his hands together.

I lost him after that. At one point I saw Red Cap in the kitchen, talking to a tall girl who totally outclassed him. She looked bored.

Along a hallway was a collection of photos of an older man who looked like Nate. It had to be his dad. In each picture, he was smiling with a different famous person. Singers. Actors. Politicians. Athletes. There was even a picture of him golfing with Coach, back in Coach's younger days. I grinned at that one.

In a room with a giant television, the Sharks were clustered in a corner. “To Jeremy,” they said and all took a shot. It pissed me off. What pissed me off even more was that Steven didn't raise his glass to join the toast.

I was about to go over and say something when they moved. At the back of the group was someone small. Someone with blond hair and three silver hoops in each ear.

The air whooshed out of me as if someone had punched me in the gut. Abby, drinking with the Sharks—with
Steven
—while her brother lay in the hospital? What was she trying to prove?

She saw me and waved. “Bram! You came!” She giggled.

I had seen Abby drink exactly once, at an ill-advised birthday party back in Storrs. She was not a giggly drunk. I narrowed my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“We were just toasting Jeremy. Toasting all about Jeremy.” She smiled, looking unfocused. “Want to make a toast?”

“No. And neither do you. We're getting out of here,” I said.

Steven stepped forward, arms crossed. “Who put you in charge?”

Nate put a hand on his shoulder. “Relax, buddy. How about we let Abby decide? Abby, what do you want to do?”

I squeezed her hand, hoping she would say the right thing. I didn't want to take on the entire senior swim team to get her back to Wallingford. I looked around, hoping for a glimpse of blue hair. No luck.

She squeezed back. “I'm gonna go,” she said thickly. “Got a lot to catch up on, me and Bram. Bye, Jeremy's friends. Nice meeting you.”

Steven stepped forward again, but Nate said something to him that I couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it stopped Steven cold.

Abby stumbled a little as we walked away, then, as we headed down the hall and out of sight, she suddenly remembered how to walk again. “Thanks for getting me out of there,” she whispered. “I was starting to think I'd be stuck with them all night.” Her words were perfectly clear.

I stopped walking. “Abby, what was that back there?”

“Shh. Not here.” A couple passed us and she giggled and leaned against me, smelling like oranges. “We should find a room.”

“We should—what?” It was suddenly hot in the hallway. I tugged at my collar. “What?”

“You say that a lot. Relax. I'll leave your virtue intact.” She eyed me. “It is still intact, isn't it?”

I closed my eyes. This wasn't happening. In a minute I'd open my eyes again, and Droid and I would be arriving at the party.

I opened them. Abby was watching me. Her face had turned red. “Let's just get out of here, okay?” she said.

I tugged my collar again. “Droid. I mean—I came with my roommate.”

It took a few minutes for me to locate him, deep in conversation with a dark-haired girl. I signaled that I was leaving. He gave me a thumbs-up. I met Abby out front. The night air had frost in it. Abby shivered, and I gave her my jacket.

“So what was that about?” I asked, pushing my bike. Wallingford was even closer to Nate's house than Strathmore was.

“I thought they might be talking about what happened,” she said. “If anyone suspected Coach, I thought I might overhear something.”

“And did you?” She had to see the truth by now. Coach didn't have anything to do with Jeremy's accident.

She shook her head. “Once they found out who I was, everybody just wanted to talk about how great Jeremy is. I think they were trying to make me feel better.”

Yeah. Pouring shots into a pretty girl. I'm sure that was exactly what they were trying to do. I squeezed my handlebars. “So you weren't drinking.”

She shrugged. “Only what I couldn't dump into the plant.”

I thought about that. “Were you this devious when we were dating?”

Abby laughed.

We walked in silence back to Wallingford. It was one of those cold, clear nights where the stars look just out of reach. Finally, we arrived at the tall black iron fence around Wallingford. It had points like spears all along the top. Abby used her pass card to open the gate.

I walked with her as far as her dorm building. Two lion statues, one asleep, one awake, guarded the heavy wooden front doors.

“Here,” she said, handing me my jacket. It was warm. She started up the stairs.

“Abby—”

She looked down at me, twisting one of her earrings.

“How's Jeremy?” I blurted.

“The same,” she said. She shoved some leaves off the step with the toe of her shoe. “They're keeping him sedated. Mom and Dad think I should stick to my normal routine.”

“Undercover work and all,” I said.

She smiled. “Something like that.”

“I'll go to the hospital with you tomorrow,” I said. “If you want.”

She hesitated. I held my breath. “That'd be nice,” she finally said.

I wasn't glad Jeremy was hurt. I wasn't, not even a little bit. But it was good to be spending time with Abby again. I rode home, thinking about our plan to meet up the next day.

chapter nine

Abby and I biked together to the hospital. I waited outside the ICU while she went in to see Jeremy. Only two visitors were allowed in at a time. Her father came out, and we talked about the weather. “Did you want to go in?” he asked at one point.

I shook my head. Abby probably needed her mom in there more than she needed me. Besides, Jeremy wouldn't even know I was there. “When he's awake,” I said. “I'll visit him properly when he wakes up.”

Mr. Blackburn nodded. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands.

I flipped through a four-year-old
Life
magazine and pretended to be interested in one of the articles. Mr. Blackburn looked out a window. Some of the tension went out of his shoulders.

Whoever did this to Jeremy had a lot to answer for.

“Do—” I hesitated to bring it up, but if anyone could tell me what was happening with the investigation, it was Jeremy's dad. “Do the police have any idea who did it?”

He shook his head. “They're investigating.”

“He was supposed to meet me that morning,” I said. “To go for a run. He didn't show up.”

Mr. Blackburn blinked. “Did you tell the police that?”

“No one asked,” I said. I promised to give the police a call later. Mr. Blackburn thought it would be best if I went through the headmaster.

Finally, Abby came out, red-eyed. Her dad gave her a hug before he went back in.

Abby and I went for coffee. She put three sugars in hers. She never used to drink coffee. She must have picked it up at Wallingford. “He's stable,” she said. “No change, but I don't think there's supposed to be any change yet. By Wednesday, they might start letting him wake up.”

“That's good, right?” I asked.

She nodded. Her hands were wrapped around her coffee cup as if she was trying to warm them. “Can you get me into his room?”

I thought about it. Girls weren't allowed upstairs in the dorms, but it still happened. “I can get you into the dorm,” I said. “I don't have a key to his room.”

She smiled. “I'll pick the lock with my Swiss Army knife.” She patted her pocket.

I stared at her. Maybe a little too long, because she laughed.

“Relax, I don't know how to pick locks. Jeremy loses things. He got sick of paying the lost-key penalty, so I keep a spare at my place.”

I blew across the top of my coffee. “What do you want in his room?”

“Get me in, and I'll tell you,” she said.

She had gone to Nate's party on her own. If she was going to play detective, maybe it was better if I helped her. At least I could try to keep her from doing anything crazy where Coach was concerned.

And I didn't exactly hate spending time with her.

On the way back to school, we passed a wig shop. They had a display of scarves, hats and different-length wigs in the window—even swim caps designed to look like fish. One of them had a giant shark face on it, with fins and everything. I bought it for Droid.

The swim team results were probably posted by now. They hadn't been after breakfast. I needed to check, but I wasn't sure I wanted Abby with me when I did.

Maybe it was stupid, buying a swim cap for Droid when I didn't know if he had made the team. But it felt right.

“It's for good luck,” I told Abby.

She nodded. “We could use some of that.”

chapter ten

The Sunday after a Saturday-night party was a good time for sneaking a girl into the dorm. Not too many people around. I had to bribe a couple of freshmen playing video games in the common room, who looked up as Abby and I passed by.

Step one was getting her to my room. That was easy. Step two, getting into Jeremy's room without being noticed, was going to be harder. Bribes wouldn't cut it. I needed us to be invisible.

Droid was napping when we got in. He grunted and sat up at the sound of the door, scrubbing at his spiky blue hair with both hands. At least he was wearing a T-shirt. “What is it? Is the list up yet?” When he finally noticed Abby, his eyes widened. “Dude,” he said. “That's a girl.”

“Keenly observed,” I said.

He frowned and looked at Abby again, as if checking that she was still there. “She's hot,” he finally said.

“Also, she can hear you,” I said.

Behind me, Abby laughed. “We need your help.”

Droid rolled onto his back and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars he had stuck to the ceiling. “It's a computer, isn't it? It's always a computer. Just finished reformatting Andrew's hard drive.”

I frowned, not recognizing the name.

“Red Cap,” Droid explained.

“Well, computers are kind of your thing,” I pointed out. “But actually, it isn't a computer. Not this time.”

Droid looked at me. “I'm listening.”

We explained we needed a distraction while Abby and I snuck into Jeremy's room. Droid refused to pull the fire alarm. “I could get fined,” he said. “Besides, it's unoriginal.”

“Unoriginal,” Abby said, studying Droid's stars. “Bram, did you show him the swim cap yet?”

Droid's eyes lit up when he saw it. “Now that has potential,” he said. “Yes. I can create for you a distraction. It will be a pleasure.”

Abby grinned at him. “You said you're good with computers?” she asked. “If Jeremy had something password-protected on his computer, could you open it?”

Droid sighed. “I told you, it's always a computer,” he complained to me. He turned back to Abby. “Unless Jeremy's middle name is NASA, I can get you into his system, yes. But I warn you. If he has protected files, there's a ninety-five-percent chance they're porn. Do you really want to know?”

Abby promised to shoulder the burden of knowledge.

Five minutes later, we had a plan. Droid would provide a distraction downstairs. Abby and I would wait a few minutes, then head up to Jeremy's room and look for whatever she needed to look for. While we were there, we would grab his laptop and bring it back to Droid.

Droid tugged off his T-shirt and put on the swim cap. He stood in front of us wearing boxers and a bathing cap.

“Um…Droid?” I was afraid to ask.

“You wanted a distraction,” he said. “Tell Jeremy's hot sister to cover her eyes.”

I covered mine too. A few seconds later, the door slammed. Droid's boxer shorts were crumpled on the floor. Hoots of laughter came from down the hall.

“I think that's our distraction,” I said.

Abby nodded solemnly. “We must honor it. Let's go.”

chapter eleven

Anyone who was hanging around for the afternoon ran downstairs when word of the “Shark Streaker” spread. Abby and I made it to Jeremy's room and closed the door behind us. It smelled stale, like home does when you come back from vacation.

As a dorm rep, Jeremy had a single room. It was average messy. Not a pigsty, but the bedspread was rumpled and there were socks on the floor. He had the same Michael Phelps poster I did—from the Beijing Olympics, where Phelps took eight golds.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we look around,” Abby said. “Look for something that might tell us who was after him.” She didn't mention Coach.

“You don't even know what we're here for?”

Abby avoided my gaze. “Listen, something bad happened on the swim team three years ago, and Jeremy had proof,” she said. “He was going to come forward with it.”