“Probably just a cat,” says the other, but I hear a gun slide from a holster and the heavy tread of approaching boots. They’re coming this way. I scan the room, but there’s nothing large enough to hide behind, and there are only two ways out: the hall the cops are coming down and the back door I first came through. I gauge how much time it will take to reach it. I don’t have a choice.
I take a deep breath and run.
So do the cops.
They’re halfway through the house when I crash through the back door. I take three sprinting steps toward the fence and then a wall of a man comes out of nowhere and catches me around the shoulders. The moment I try to twist free, the officer spins me, wrenches my arms behind my back, and forces me to the ground, where he kneels on my shoulder blades. I wince as the metal of the handcuffs digs into my bad wrist. My vision starts to blur and my pulse pounds in my ears, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut and beg my mind to stay here stay here stay here as the tunnel moment tries to fill my head like smoke. I force air into my lungs and try to stay calm—or as calm as I can with a police officer pinning me to the ground.
But as he drags me to my feet, I’m still me. It’s a thin grip, but I hold on. And then I recognize him from the TV.
Detective Kinney.
He pushes me into the house—around the crime scene—and through the front doors. We’re tracking dirt, and it’s ridiculous, but I pause to think about how put out Judge Phillip would be just before Detective Kinney slams my back up against the cruiser door.
“Name,” he barks.
I nearly lie. It’s right there on my lips. But a lie will only make this worse. “Mackenzie Bishop.”
“What the hell were you doing in there?”
I’m a little dazed by his force and the anger in his voice. Not a professional kind of gruff, but actual rage. “I just wanted to see—”
“You broke into a private residence and contaminated an active investigation.…” I cheat a look to either side, searching for signs of Eric, but Detective Kinney grabs my jaw and drags my face back toward his. “You better focus and tell me what exactly you were doing in there.”
I should have grabbed something. It’s easier to sell the cops on a teen looter than a teen sleuth.
“I saw the story on the news and thought maybe I could—”
“What? Thought you’d play Sherlock and solve it yourself? That was a goddamn closed crime scene, young lady.”
I frown. His tone, the way his eyes keep going to the Hyde crest on my shirt—it’s like he’s talking to Amber, not me. Amber, who likes to play detective. Amber, who I’m willing to bet has gotten in the way of work before.
“I’m sorry,” I say, doing my best impression of a repentant daughter. I’m not used to being yelled at. Mom runs away to Colleen, and Dad and I haven’t had a real fight since before Ben. “I’m really sorry.”
“You should be,” he growls. One of the cops is still inside, no doubt assessing for damage, and the other is standing behind Kinney, wearing a smug smile. I bet he thinks I’m just some rich girl looking for a thrill.
“This kind of stunt goes on your record,” Detective Kinney is saying. “It hurts everything, everyone. It could sure as hell get you kicked out of that fancy school.”
It could do a lot worse, I think, depending on how much evidence you’ve found.
“You want me to take her to the station and book her?” asks the other cop, and my chest starts to tighten again. Booking means taking prints, and if they take mine and add them to the system, they’ll find a match here at Judge Phillip’s, and maybe even on Bethany’s necklace—unless she rubbed the marks away.
“No,” says Kinney, waving him away. “I’ll handle this.”
“Look,” I say, “I know it was really stupid, I was really stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking. It will never ever happen again.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he says, opening the cruiser door. “Now, get in the car.”
SIXTEEN
DA NEVER LIKED the word illegal. Semantics. There was no line between legal and illegal, he’d say, only between free and caught.
And I’m caught at the station, handcuffed to a chair next to Detective Kinney’s desk. My fingertips are stained black from ink, and Kinney’s holding up the page with my prints.
“This right here,” he says, waving the sheet, “isn’t just a piece of paper. This is the difference between a clean record and a rap sheet.”
My eyes hover on the ten black smudges. Then he folds the page and slides it into his desk drawer. “This is your one and only warning,” he says. “I’m not going to book you today, but I want you to think about what would happen if I did. I want you to think about the ripple effect. I want you to take this seriously.”
Relief pours over me as I drag my eyes from the drawer to his face. “I promise you, sir, I take it very seriously.”
The detective sits back in his chair and considers the contents of my pockets on the table in front of him. My cell phone. My house key (he left the one around my neck). Da’s lock pick set. And my Archive list. I hold my breath as he takes up the paper, running his thumb against it as his eyes skim the name—Marissa Farrow. 14.—before he drops it back on the desk, face up. He takes up Da’s lock pick set instead.
“Where did you get this?” he asks.
“It was my grandfather’s.”
“Was he a deviant, too?”
I frown. “He was a private eye.”
“What happened to your hands?”
“Street fight,” I say. “Isn’t that what deviants do?”
“Don’t talk back to me, young lady.”
My head is starting to hurt, and I ask for water. While Kinney’s gone, I consider the drawer with the page of prints, but I’m sitting in the middle of a police station, surrounded by cops and cuffed to the chair, so I’m forced to leave it there.
Kinney comes back with a cup of water and the news that my parents are on their way.
Terrific.
“Be glad they’re coming,” scolds Kinney. “If you were my daughter, I’d leave you in a cell for the night.”
“She goes to Hyde, doesn’t she? Amber?”
“You know her?” he asks, his voice gruff.
I hesitate. The last thing I want is for Amber to hear about this incident, especially since I’ll need her case updates more than ever. “It’s a small school,” I say with a shrug.
“Kinney,” calls one of the other officers. He strides toward us.
“Partial prints are back on the Thomson girl’s necklace,” says the officer.
Thomson. That must be Bethany’s last name.
“And?”
“No match.”
Kinney slams his fist on the desk, nearly upsetting the cup of water. I almost feel bad for him. These are cases he’s never going to close, and I can only hope I catch whoever’s doing this before they strike again.
“And the mother’s boyfriend?” asks Kinney under his breath.
“We rechecked the alibi, but it holds water.”
My gaze drifts down to Kinney’s desk. And that’s when I see the second name writing itself on the Archive paper.
Forrest Riggs. 12.
Kinney’s attention is just drifting back to the table when I rattle my handcuff loudly, hoping he reads my panic as natural teenager-in-trouble panic and not don’t-look-at-that-paper panic.