Red Heart Tattoo (5 page)

Jane crossed her arms, fumed. “Who got your slot?”

“Elana Mendez.”

“That Mexican—”

“She’s good, Mom,” Kelli interrupted.

“You beat her out last spring for the position, so she wasn’t as good as you.”

“She deserves my place now.”

“What about when your wrist heals? Is Linda going to give you your spot again?”

“Football season will be all but over in six weeks. Doc said it would take—”

Jane scoffed. “And in January basketball starts. Then soccer. You don’t have to lose the entire year. You need assurances that this Mendez girl will be out once you heal. She’s a junior. She’ll have another year to be on the squad after you graduate in June.”

If
I graduate
, Kelli thought. She felt as if she were
talking to a stone wall. Why didn’t her mother get it? Kelli didn’t
want
her place back on the squad. She was through with being a cheerleader. Finished with the acrobatics, the falls, the bruises, the constant weight watching. There was so much that her mother didn’t understand and that she couldn’t explain at this moment.

Jane’s features softened. “Believe me, honey. These are the best years of your life—”

“Give it up, Mom. You’ve told me this a thousand times.”

“Don’t raise your voice to me. It’s the truth. Before you know it you’ll be out here in the real world grubbing for a living.”

Like me …
The unsaid but implied words hung in the air. Kelli put her hands over her ears. “Not now, Mom. Just give it a rest! I don’t care about cheerleading. I don’t care that Elana got my place. I. Don’t. Care.”

Kelli turned and ran from the room while her mother stood speechless.

Morgan sat with a sobbing Kelli in Kelli’s wrecked bedroom, trying to comfort her. “Do you really not care about losing your slot to Elana, or is that just something you told your mother?”

Kelli blew her nose. “I really don’t care.”

Morgan hadn’t expected that answer. The cheerleading and dance squad had meant everything to Kelli since ninth grade. “Then if it doesn’t matter, why are you crying?”

Kelli picked at the fringe on a pillow, stared down at her hands. “It’s just—it’s just everything.”

“You and Mark?” Morgan ventured her best guess. “You two have a fight?”

Kelli nodded, wiped her eyes. “I’m afraid he’s dumping me.”

“Impossible! You two are like spaghetti and meatballs. Ice cream and cake—”

“Oil and water,” Kelli interrupted.

Usually Kelli ran to Morgan with details of every word that passed between her and Mark, but she had been pretty withdrawn lately. “Why do you think that?”

“He never calls anymore.”

“Well, with football practice and classes—”

“Last year he texted me five times a day. All summer we went places together.”

“I know. Trent and I were with you.”

“Now I have to practically trip him in the hall to get his attention.”

Morgan was baffled. How could she have not noticed? “So you think he’s into another girl?”

“Girls flirt with him all the time.”

“But you don’t know that for sure.”

“I don’t know anything for sure.”

“Well, then—”

“Don’t.” Kelli held up her hand. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Morgan sat, still puzzling over her friend’s behavior. “You have been kind of moody lately. Guys don’t like
moody, you know.” Trent liked Morgan happy and honestly didn’t know how to handle the days when she felt controlled by her hormones. She didn’t know how to handle such days either, so she kept to herself when they happened.

Kelli sprang off the bed. “Don’t you start on me!”

“I’m not.” Morgan glanced around the bedroom heaped with clothes and old food wrappers, unwashed plates and glasses hardened with milk stains. “I’ve—uh—never seen you let your space get so trashed before.”

“Well, thanks,
Mom
,” Kelli snapped. She scooted off the bed and started picking up the mess on the floor.

“Hey, I didn’t mean—”

“Just go,” Kelli said, a sharp edge to her voice.

Offended, Morgan recoiled.

Kelli marched to her closet, dropped a pile of wadded clothes onto the floor and hung her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be ugly to you. I’m just trying to figure out some things. Forgive me?”

Morgan stood up. “Of course. I—I hate to see you so unhappy. We’re friends. We should be able to talk about what’s bothering you.”

Kelli clutched a jacket to her chest, a jacket Morgan recognized as one of Mark’s. “I will,” she said. “I just need some space right now.”

“I can live with that,” Morgan said, not certain she could, but knowing she shouldn’t pressure Kelli. Nobody liked to be nagged. Kelli would talk to her when she was ready. She walked to the door, paused. “You’re my best
friend in the whole world, Kelli Larson. I don’t think it’s right to let Mark make you crazy. I know he loves you.”

“Right,” Kelli mumbled without conviction. “He just doesn’t love me enough.”

Baffled and confused, Morgan left Kelli alone in the ruins of her bedroom.

“C
arla, you here?” Roth called out as he walked through Uncle Max’s house. He heaved his book bag onto the counter and looked at the kitchen clock. It was after five.

“You by yourself?” Carla’s voice answered from the back porch.

Roth opened the door and stepped onto the weathered wood deck. Carla sat in an old lawn chair. She was wrapped in a quilt, one hand hidden from sight. Roth winked. “Just me.”

She blew out a mouthful of smoke and eased her hand forward to reveal a cigarette. “Good,” she said. “I just lit up and would have hated to toss it.”

Max didn’t like her smoking and she’d tried to quit many times, but every now and then she slipped up and just had to have one. Roth was the only person who knew. She slid a lawn chair toward him with her foot. “Sit.”

Roth flopped.

“He called to say he was running late, so I took a chance. Don’t ever start smoking, then you’ll never have to stop.” She took a long drag. “How was your day?”

“Before or after Trent Caparella and his jock buddies got in my face?”

“Why’d they go after you?”

“Trent doesn’t like me looking at his girl.”

“Is she pretty?”

Roth flashed a devilish grin. “Best-looking girl in the school.”

Carla laughed. “You touch her?”

“Not yet.”

“She worth getting beat up for?”

Roth shrugged. “Haven’t decided.”

Carla searched him with her eyes. “Sure you have.”

“Never could fool you,” he said with a laugh.

Carla was more a mother to Roth than his real one had been so many years ago. His memory of both his parents was sketchy; the thing most vivid, most haunting in his memory was the ball of fire that had taken them away. He kept a wedding photo of them in the drawer beside his bed. Max had given it to him. “You should remember them when they were happy,” Max had said. “Not what they became after meth took them over.” Roth had been angry at his parents for years, all the time he had spent in foster care, before Max had come along, war-wounded but determined to raise his brother’s kid. Why had his parents loved meth more than him? He was their flesh and
blood. Meth was just in their blood. And yet meth had won the war for their minds and bodies. Roth was collateral damage.

“Just be careful,” Carla said, snuffing out her cigarette and standing. “Don’t let some jealous boyfriend work you over.”

Roth knew that was how Carla had come into Max’s life. A jealous boyfriend had been beating her up when Max stepped in and evened the odds. Six months later, she’d moved in with Max, and two months after that, they married.

“I’ll be careful,” Roth said, knowing full well that he wouldn’t. If he decided he wanted Morgan, he’d go after her full throttle. This was his last chance. They’d be graduating—well, she would. He’d never see her again. To hell with the consequences.

Morgan was called to the principal’s office the next morning. Her nerves tingled. Being called into Mr. Simmons’s office was usually not a good thing. She smoothed her hair, sucked up her courage and marched down the hall. When she arrived, Principal Simmons introduced her to two detectives from the Grandville Police Department. “Detective Wolcheski.” The short round man nodded. “And Detective Sanchez.” The dark-haired woman smiled.

“We want to ask a few questions about the fireworks last Friday,” Wolcheski said.

Morgan remembered that her parents had told her not
to be questioned unless they were present, so she said, “I’ll call my parents.”

“Why?”

Simmons jumped in with “The Friersons are attorneys. They’re just uptown.”

“Do you really think you need a lawyer to answer a few questions, Miss Frierson?” Sanchez asked.

Morgan’s heart pounded. “Mom said to call….”

Wolcheski rolled his eyes.

Principal Simmons made the phone call.

Paige and Hal were there in twenty minutes. Once Morgan and her parents were seated in the cramped office, Paige asked, “What questions do you want to ask our daughter?”

The detectives stood beside the desk looking down at them like birds of prey to Morgan’s way of thinking.

Sanchez said, “Mr. Simmons tells us she was the person who organized the pep rally. Is that true?”

To Morgan’s ears, it sounded accusatory, like she’d planned everything that had happened—the good
and
the bad.

Hal nodded at Morgan. She could answer. “The student council planned the rally.”

“And you’re the president?” Sanchez asked.

“I am.”

“What did you plan?”

“To pump up school spirit before our game that night. The marching band was to play special music; the cheerleaders were to perform some cheers and gymnastic routines. Mr. Simmons approved everything.”

“And the fireworks?”

“Not part of our plan.”

“So whose plan was it?”

“Now, come on,” Hal interrupted. “You can’t possibly think the student council sanctioned a secret fireworks display.”

Wolcheski turned toward Hal. “Here’s what I know, Mr. Frierson. The fire department and the police department turned out in force, at great expense to the taxpayer, for what turned out to be a prank. We’re trying to find the culprit and maybe seek reimbursement for time and personnel costs from the responsible party or parties.”

“The fireworks came as a total surprise to all of us,” Morgan offered.

Detective Sanchez crossed her arms, leaned against the principal’s desk and looked hard into Morgan’s eyes. “You know, when I was in high school, there was always someone, or a group of someones, who ran the place. A queen bee, a gossipmonger, someone who knew everything that went on within our hallowed halls. I have no reason to believe that’s changed in today’s high schools. Kids talk. Kids know.”

Morgan felt her face grow hot with temper. The woman was practically calling her a liar. “Well, no one’s talked to me, Detective. I’d like to find out who did it too. It spoiled the pep rally and made our team miss a game.”

A long, awkward silence stretched, until Hal said, “I think this interview is over. My daughter knows nothing about this incident. If she did she’d tell you.” He stood. “Now if you’ll excuse us …” He took Morgan’s elbow.

She glared at the police but stepped to her father’s side.

“If you hear anything,” Sanchez called, “you will contact us, won’t you, Miss Frierson?” She held out a business card. Paige took it.

Once in the hallway, Morgan said, “They think I had something to do with it. They think I’m lying.”

“They’re fishing,” Hal said. “Using intimidation. Ignore them.”

Morgan was so angry she was shaking. “I don’t know anything!” However, she did know that it would be all over school that she’d been called to Simmons’s office and questioned by the police. That should make whoever had set off the fireworks feel very satisfied and safe.

“Calm down,” Paige said. “We may never know who did it, so don’t worry about it. It’s over.”

“Over? I don’t think so. We’ll never have another pep rally. Whoever did this will get off scot-free.”

The bell rang. Classroom doors banged open and kids flowed into the hall. “We’ll talk at home tonight,” Paige said above the din of chatter and shuffling feet.

Morgan said, “I’ve got to hurry. I don’t want to be late for next period.”

“See you at the house,” Paige called as Morgan hurried away.

Morgan seethed all the way to class. She knew the police didn’t believe her. That message about a “queen bee” was a dead giveaway. That was what she was to Detective Sanchez—a privileged brat who knew more than she was telling.
I don’t know who did it, but I will
. Whoever did this wasn’t going to get away with it.