Sam elbowed him. “No, babe. That’s the bluff part.”
“Why would you do that?” Chase asked, his eyes intent on me.
I swallowed hard, trying to ignore them. “In order to get the killer to come after me.”
Chase gave me a hard look. “Are you insane? Why do you want to do that?”
“How else am I going to flush this guy out?”
Chase didn’t answer, just stared at me, his jaw tense, his eyes an unreadable black.
“Look,” I explained, “we’ve been going around in circles for days. It could be Quinn, it could even still be Connor or Jenni… heck it could be anyone on campus! Maybe it was even Nicky and he paid someone to hit him over the head to divert attention.”
“A concussion is a heck of a diversion,” Kyle pointed out.
“The point is we have no idea who killed Sydney, and we’re no closer to knowing than we were a week ago. So we need to do something drastic to make the killer tip his hand.”
Sam nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Sure, it does. The killer is already scared,” Kyle said. “He killed Sydney to keep her quiet about who sold her the cheats, then hit Nicky over the head to keep him quiet, too.”
“Don’t forget he tried to run over Hartley,” Chase said, still sending me the evil eye.
I swallowed. “Right. So if I spread the rumor that I know who the killer is and I’m going to print it in Monday’s paper, it should get the killer to-”
“Come after you,” Chase finished for me. He leaned forward, putting both elbows on the wire metal table. “Which is a really bad idea, Hartley.”
“Not if I’m ready for him.”
“How exactly do you propose to be ready?”
“Well…” I hadn’t really thought that part through yet.
“We’ll protect you,” Kyle said, puffing out his chest.
“The homecoming dance is tonight,” Sam piped up. “All our suspects will be there. If we spread the rumor now, whoever is guilty will totally be on edge tonight.”
“And we’ll be sure to be around you twenty-four/seven. We won’t take our eyes off you,” Kyle repeated.
“So when the killer strikes, we’ll catch him,” I finished.
Sam and Kyle nodded. I nodded back. We all looked at Chase.
“Oh, now you want my opinion?” he asked, still scowling.
Not really. But I nodded anyway.
“This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard!” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Being bait? Are you kidding me?”
“You have a better idea?”
“That’s beside the point.”
“Look, it will work. Trust me.”
Chase narrowed his eyes. He clenched his jaw. Finally he threw his hands up. “Dammit, Hartley,” he said. “Now I have to get a tux.”
I blinked at him? “Tux?”
He stared right at me. “Because if you’re really going to go through with this, I’m not letting you do it alone. I’m now your official homecoming date.”
Chapter Twenty
I LEFT IT TO KYLE TO GET THE RUMOR MILL CHURNING, watching as he sent out texts to members of the soccer team, the water polo team, and, of course, all of our prime suspects, saying:
hart knows who killed Sydney! printin it in mon’s homepage!
All we had to do now was wait for our killer to strike.
At me.
At Herbert Hoover High, homecoming was one of those things usually reserved for a certain type of girl-a girl with a date. Since I hadn’t been one of those girls until this morning, there was one gaping hole in my plan to smoke out the killer there.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” I moaned to Sam as soon as Kyle and Chase left to go get their rented tuxes.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure I have something.”
“That’s even more worrisome.”
She punched me in the arm. “I have excellent taste.”
She was right. She did. She also had a track record of overdressing me. But, considering this was homecoming, I guess that wouldn’t really be an issue, right?
Famous last words.
That afternoon, while fielding a tidal wave of incoming tweets and texts-including ones from Quinn, Connor, Drea, and Jenni-all asking if it was really true that I knew who killed Sydney, I let Sam put my homecoming outfit together. She’d grabbed from her closet the dress that she’d worn to the Valentine’s formal last year, a full-length red satin with one shoulder strap and a slit up the side that reminded me of a Jessica Rabbit look. Since we were approximately the same size, it almost fit, just clinging a little tighter on me than it had her. But still, it worked.
We paired it with silver heels, a pair of faux-crystal drop earrings, and a simple silver necklace with little crystal beads in the center. While I’d insisted that Sam go light on the eye makeup, she had won the battle of the lipstick, painting my lips in the same shade of va-va-voom red as the dress. At first I’d felt like a clown, but as I looked in the mirror now, the overall effect with the dress was actually kind of nice. A little over the top, maybe, but if you couldn’t go over the top for homecoming, when could you?
Sam, on the other hand, had gone a little shorter, wearing a dress with a tight-fitting purple bodice that ended in a flared, tulle skirt that came to just above her knee. It was cute and flirty and went perfectly with the purple shoes she’d dyed to match. And while I’d gone with simple understated jewelry, she’d gone big, chunky, and bling-ified. Fake diamonds hung in a teardrop shape from her ears, and an ornate necklace that looked like latticework of silver and cubic zirconia decorated her neck. Her hair was swept into an updo that was studded with a dozen tiny, clip-on faux diamonds, making her sparkle from every angle.
“Now, close your eyes,” she told me, reaching into the ginormous duffel bag she’d brought over with her to dress at my house.
“Do I have to?” I protested. “I don’t really like wardrobe surprises.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Play along, okay? Just shut ’em.”
“Fine.” I felt Sam putting something on my head with little plastic teeth that dug into my scalp.
“Ow!”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she said, arranging my hair loosely around my shoulders. “Okay, now… open!”
I did. And blinked at my reflection. Or, more accurately, the reflection of the mass of sparkles on my head.
“Is that a tiara?”
Sam nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“It’s kinda… sparkly, don’t you think?”
She beamed, a grin taking up her whole face. “I know, right?”
“I didn’t mean that in a good way.”
“It’s perfect.”
“Sam, I’m not sure I need a tiara-”
But I didn’t get to finish as Mom called up from the bottom of the stairs, “Hartley? Your date’s here!”
I cringed at the term, quickly shouting back, “He’s just a friend!”
Mom had done a squeal frighteningly like Sam’s when I’d told her that I had changed my mind and decided to go to the homecoming dance after all. In high school, Mom had been the social butterfly, involved in everything under the sun, or so she told it, including being crowned princess of the winter ball one year. Secretly, I had a feeling she was a little disappointed that I hadn’t followed in her footsteps, though she never said so. But when I had told her I was going to homecoming, her face had lit up, her voice had gone high and giggly, and she’d even lifted the lockdown despite my nearly becoming roadkill last night. Never mind that I had spent the next twenty minutes trying to tell her that, no, I did not need her to run to the florist for an emergency boutonniere (which she ignored and did anyway); no, we did not need to go get nails done and eyebrows waxed (ouch!); and no, we did not need a limo to pick us up (though this last one was tempting).
But the thing I had tried to make the most clear was that, no, Chase was not my date, just a friend who happened to be going, too. With me. At the same time. Totally different than going together.