Overturned Read online

  I rushed through my card room like I was being chased. It was good to get into that mode, because I knew, very soon, I would be.

  Gavin’s tent-sized sweatshirt still rested on the blackjack table. I snatched it on my way because, really, I didn’t know when I’d have the chance to return after tonight. Whatever happened in the next twenty-four hours, it might mean I couldn’t come back here ever again.

  Exiting through the alley, I circled the building and caught the valet on duty messing around on his phone. He was a newer guy, only a little older than me. This could work.

  Tense, but needing to play this exactly right, I waited just beyond his line of sight. He was goofing off on company time, chuckling at whatever text, game, or funny animal video had captured his attention.

  “Excuse me.” My mock authority voice was on point.

  He jumped six inches and attempted to slip his phone into his pocket. He dropped it; the pavement-to-screen crack was wince-worthy.

  “You know the policy about phones during working hours.”

  “I’m sorry, Nikki, I—”

  “Unbelievable. I’m not in the mood for this tonight. Just give me the keys to one of the town cars.”

  “I can pull it up for you.”

  “Is that what I asked for? Keys. Now.”

  He crouched into the cabinet at the base of the valet stand, unlocked it, and selected the fob for a motor pool vehicle.

  “Thank you. I think I can overlook you breaking the rules. I didn’t see you on your phone, and you didn’t see me. Understood?”

  Squinty and suspicious now, he still agreed. “Sure. Have a good night, Ms. Tate.”

  At a swift walk, I found the car and got the heck out of Dodge. To finish this.

  Molly and Gavin were still en route by the time I reached the International House of Pancakes. Gavin kept me updated and also provided, what else, their orders. Blackberry and vanilla double- dipped French toast for him. Breakfast Sampler, with extra bacon, for her. I asked the waitress to bring a pot of coffee, too. That was mine. Because I needed to be more wired and neurotic.

  Mom: Don’t do this to me. Please come home.

  That was her ninth text since I hit the road; the first one came a mere five minutes after I left the Loop.

  Mom: Do you understand how bad you’re SCARING me right now?

  I thrummed my fingers on the table before responding.

  Me: i’m safe. i won’t be back tonight.

  Mom: TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW!!!

  Me: i’ll check in tomorrow morning. try to rest. i’m fine.

  Then I blocked her.

  The waitress returned with my pot. Bypassing the cup and pouring the scalding hot brew straight down my throat crossed my mind.

  The doors chimed. Gavin muscled them open against a chill breeze and held it for Molly. Her hair whipped around her face in wild tendrils, her cheeks stung red. They came to me and squeezed in on the other side of the booth, cozy.

  The waitress returned with their food.

  “Perfect timing.” Gavin unwrapped the silverware from a paper napkin cocoon.

  “Your food bribes give you away. You’re buttering us up for something,” Molly said.

  “I like bribes.” Gavin’s mouth was crammed with gooey whatever.

  “Guys, I don’t have time to joke around tonight. Someone attacked me in my room a few hours ago.”

  Gavin stopped eating. Molly grabbed my hand across the table. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, just need your help.” I told them as much as I could. I went through everything from recognizing Big Bert’s man Delano, to Dan Harris, to the NGCB snatching Freddy Spliff. I was about to start in on my plan when my phone buzzed.

  Davis: you there?

  I’d forgotten about him. Or blocked him from my thoughts like I blocked Mom’s texts. There hadn’t been much mental real estate available for the good Carlino right now. Given what I’d just told my friends—my suspicions about Big Bert and his lackey—it felt weird responding to Davis in front of them.

  Phone in hand, I slid from the booth. “I’ve got something for you in the car.”

  Gavin perked up. “Yeah?”

  “Your hoodie. You left it in the card room.”

  “Awesome. I thought my brothers got to it.”

  “No petty theft this time. Be right back.”

  My thumb was in motion before I hit the door.

  Me: i’m here.

  Davis: are you still in trouble? think you can sneak out? i want to see you.

  How crazy was it that, with all this going on, with his shady-gangster-murderer dad trying to scare me off, part of me wanted to see him, too?

  Me: not a good idea right now. wish i could explain.

  I unlocked my car. Gavin’s sweatshirt had fallen onto the floor of the passenger side. I leaned in to get it.

  Davis: you can explain. in person. i’ll come to you.

  From the driver’s side of the car, I had to cat-stretch and plug the hoodie up by the inscribed tag. The silver inked Gavin glowed under the sodium arc lot lighting. I flopped into the driver’s seat then, and attempted dissuading Davis to come. Really, dissuading myself to let him.

  Me: probably better you don’t know.

  Davis: let me decide. if it’s bad news, pancakes will soften the blow.

  I almost responded, almost gave in to his comforting charm. One question stopped me.

  How’d he know we could talk over pancakes?

  One sneaker had been resting on the pavement. I reeled it in, slammed and locked my door. Twisting in my seat hard enough to bang my elbow on the wheel, I scanned every angle, every shadowed corner, looking for the light from another phone. A bluish ghost haze exposing some sinister watcher’s grinning face.

  Only cars in the lot. All of them empty. My eyes dropped to my hands. Phone in one, Gavin’s shirt in the other. The fabric clutched tight, absorbing the dampness from my insta-slick palms.

  Davis knows I’m at IHOP. How? He knew about that GPS Location History stuff. Could he be tracing my phone?

  I scrolled back through his messages from earlier, before the incident in my room.

  Davis: i’m worried about you. this is getting way out of control.

  Davis: thus the back off message. this is scary. you SHOULD stop.

  Davis: you’re changing the subject. someone else is DEAD, nikki. DEAD.

  Davis: text me later please. i’m trying to help.

  How helpful are you, Davis?

  My world tipped oh so slightly, skewing into paranoia. Those cards from my locker—the dead man’s hand—were still in my back pocket. Never had the chance to remove them. I laid the phone on my thigh, snaked my hand into that pocket to retrieve them.

  Fanning them on the passenger seat—BACK OFF OR ELSE—I glanced back to the texts.

  Davis: thus the back off message. this is scary. you SHOULD stop.

  Back off. Why’d he say that in his text? Sure, Molly could’ve told him exactly what she saw on the cards, and he could’ve been reciting it. Still …

  I leaned over the cards, studying the silver ink scrawl on each. Gavin’s hoodie with its exposed tag was still in my other hand. A fresh text came through.

  Davis: you there?

  No. No, I wasn’t.

  My vision blurred, my throat constricted to a pinhole. Then it all reversed itself, allowing me to vomit a ragged sob.

  Davis hadn’t tracked my phone. He’d sent a spy.

  The door chimes were faint beneath the pulsing in my ears when I stomped back into the restaurant, aimed at our booth. Molly’s concerned expression morphed to straight-up alarm when she saw me. Maybe fear. Someone should be afraid.

  Gavin plucked syrupy blackberry chunks off his plate. I flung those playing cards in his traitor face. “How could you?”

  He flinched away. The nearly weightless cards spun in varying directions.

  “Nikki!” Molly said, on her feet, pressing her body into me like we
were on the soccer field.

  I sidestepped her as gently as I could, which wasn’t gently at all in my current state. She stumbled beyond the range of my tunnel vision, and I extended the arm holding Gavin’s hoodie as if the garment was a weapon. “The handwriting’s the same, Gavin. On this tag and on those cards.”

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye, wouldn’t deny it.

  A man in grease-stained cook’s whites suddenly flanked me. “Whatever this is, you need to pay for your meal and go before I call the cops.”

  My eyes were on fire. Tears poured down my cheeks and dripped onto the sticky tiles. I turned away and bit into the meaty part of my hand. Stop crying. STOP CRYING!

  “Here,” Molly said, pushing her own money into the man’s hands. “That should be enough.”

  Gavin ejected from the booth and cleared the building with all the athletic speed and grace that might make him famous one day. Molly’s arm looped into mine and she guided me back into the night where that Judas was.

  He hovered by her SUV, his catcher’s-mitt hands plunged deep into this pockets, and his eyes bouncing to everything but me.

  “What’s this about?” Molly demanded, dragging me into a loose huddle with him.

  “Tell her what you did!” I said.

  Molly’s not stupid, never had been. She handled her own follow-up. “You didn’t put those creepy cards in her locker, did you?”

  “I didn’t want to,” he said.

  She sagged beside me. “Why? What could’ve made you—”

  “Davis paid you”—I willed myself composed—“right?”

  “Yes, but it’s not like you think.”

  “I think you like bribes. Food. Money. God, if he offered you food and money, would you toss me into traffic?”

  “Nikki, he said it would keep you safe. He said it would help.”

  My composure cracked. “Do you feel helpful?”

  “Stop it!” Molly said. “We should go.”

  The threatening cook stood at the restaurant entrance, his own phone pressed to his ear.

  “I’m not going anywhere with him.”

  “Nikki, I’m sorry.” He reached for me. I slapped his hand away.

  “Did you tell Davis I was here?”

  He shrank back.

  “Really?” The intensity of Molly’s disgust was something I’d never thought possible, not toward Gavin. Never.

  Gavin looked smaller and weaker than anytime since I’d known him. Good. I pulled free of Molly, tossed him the incriminating shirt. “I can’t do this right now.”

  “Wait,” Molly called, “I’m coming with.”

  “I told you, not with him.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m asking you to wait. I need to give him cab fare.”

  “Molly?” Gavin sounded half as wounded as I felt.

  She said, “Don’t. I’m with Nikki one hundred percent on this one. You messed up big.”

  I watched the rest from my car, leaning into the steering wheel, gripping it until my hands hurt so I wouldn’t tip sideways and ball up from the pain in my chest. My friend could be bought? That was almost worse than knowing it was Davis who bought him. I couldn’t even go there yet. The implications were darker than the night surrounding me.

  Molly pulled away from Gavin while he waved his hands in pleading gestures. She came to my window and didn’t look back.

  The pane descended, Molly leaned in, her own tears cresting. “Lead the way.”

  The way led to a convenience store first. Second, a safe secluded place. The airport observation lot. Molly parked, then joined me in my car as I opened the plastic clamshell housing my new prepaid phone. On Dad’s phone, Davis continued texting. I ignored them.

  Molly asked over jet noise, “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to activate this thing.” I flipped the ceiling lamp on, washing us in yellow light, still squinting over the tiny print in the instruction booklet. “You ever turned one of these on before?”

  “No. I never turned on an untraceable burner phone before. And I’m talking about that crap show with Gavin.”

  “He sold me out. Don’t tell me you’re defending him.”

  “Am I sitting in the car with you, or with him? I’m backing your play here, but you need to hear everything.”

  I glanced up from the advanced calculus that was my phone’s activation procedure, afraid. Was she in on it, too?

  She said, “Gavin’s dad lost his job.”

  The construction job that barely paid the rent and fed Gavin’s family. The job he used to supplement with money from my, now nonexistent, card games.

  “When did that happen?”

  “The week you weren’t in school. Before the funeral. He—we—didn’t want to tell you because you deserved your time to grieve. He was scared his family wouldn’t have a place to live next month and he kept it to himself because he didn’t want to add to your burdens.”

  The fury I’d been hanging on to since we left the IHOP was sapped. I fought to stay indignant. “That’s still not an excuse for what he did.”

  “It’s not a good excuse. But who put him in that position?”

  I bared my teeth. “You’re blaming me?”

  “No! Your rich boo-bear living up on Mount Olympus or whatever. You think Gavin would’ve ever considered doing something behind your back if Mr. Moneybags didn’t throw cash his way when he was most desperate? Think about how close he got to you. To all of us. How he exploited it. That’s some Lex Luthor stuff.”

  I’d exiled Gavin, but his presence remained in the form of sci-fi references. He would’ve complimented Molly on her judicious use of Superman lore. I would’ve laughed at his unabashed nerdiness. My anger swirled with waxing shame. “I have been thinking about Davis. He will be dealt with.”

  “Should he, though? What he did was gross, and what he talked Gavin into was grosser, but was he wrong? We’re dealing with murder. I’m scared for you. That you’re not scared, too, is really, really wrong.”

  “Would it be wrong if it was your dads? Or Bethany?” I barked.

  She flinched. “All I’m saying is—”

  “Cut Gavin some slack. I get it. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. That might make the UVA plan super awkward if me and him don’t smooth things over, but—hey, what’s wrong now?”

  Her demeanor shifted. From the fierce intensity of giving me the business to a constipated discomfort. This wasn’t about her wolfing that bacon.

  “It’s not important right now,” she said.

  “Would be helpful if I knew what ‘it’ was.”

  She sighed. “The UVA thing. It happened during that same week.”

  “You got in?” I didn’t think she could accept offers or anything this soon.

  “No. Me deciding not to go to UVA.”

  A half mile away the glaring wing lights on an approaching plane shone like low-hanging stars, getting bigger and brighter before shooting over our heads.

  “What brought that on?” I focused on that empty runway, waiting.

  “I don’t know. Bethany started city league soccer, and she’s wanting to run drills in the backyard. Dad Jerome started taking an improv comedy class, and Dad Dan is practicing his heckling. It’s feeling like I’d have a hard time leaving them, is all.”

  “So you’re not going to college?”

  “Of course I’m going to college. I’m going to be a Runnin’ Rebel.”

  That strange conversation in the Loop, when Gavin slipped and I thought he’d blown her cover about some guy. You’ve been way preoccupied ever since you and—

  The conversation I’d misheard. Not “you and—” but “U-N.”

  As in UNLV. University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  “Oh my god.”

  “Their coach came by the house. The stuff she was saying was really cool, and—”

  “I can’t do this right now.”

  “Nikki.”

  “We’ll deal with it, all right. All of it.
I gotta get this phone set up, and you gotta help me. I know you’re scared for me, but I need to see this through. Can you have my back for one more day?”

  “I’ll always have your back.”

  It’s the same thing I would’ve said.

  It took twenty minutes of concentrated effort, groaning, and teeth sucking to get the cheap phone operational, confirmed with a test call to Molly’s cell.

  “Now what?” Molly asked.

  “Now I program all the numbers I need into the new phone, and you’re going to take my dad’s phone home with you.”

  I started the task, scrolled through Dad’s contacts list.

  “Why would I do that?” Molly asked.

  The phone lit with another Davis text. “Because I can’t take him texting me all night. And I’m paranoid. I turned off the tracking features, and I blocked my mom’s calls, but I don’t know if her and Tomás can figure another way to find it. I’m almost certain they’re going to try before long. So I’m giving it to you.”

  “What am I supposed to say if they come to me?”

  “The truth. You don’t know where I went.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Molly, you seem to be missing the point.”

  “You’re not going to do anything stupid?”

  “No.” Not tonight, anyway. “I’ll be in touch with you in the morning before school. But don’t tell my mom that and do not respond to any of Davis’s texts. I need to get through tonight, then tomorrow we execute my plan. Besides taking the phone, there’s something else I need from you.”

  “Should I be scared?”

  “Not yet.” I told her what I wanted. No fear on her part. Not even when I mentioned abduction.

  “Oh yes.” Her killer smile radiated pure joy. “I like that idea a whole lot.”

  “Awesome.” I punched the last number into my burner and gave her my dad’s phone. “Now go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She hugged me awkwardly over the gearshift. “Be safe tonight.”

  When her SUV was taillights in my rearview, I called one of those transferred numbers. It wasn’t one of Dad’s originals, but one I’d added only a day ago.