Her Dangerous Revenge

CHAPTER 54

Cooper adjusted in his seat, ignoring Calla's sideways look.

"Would you sit still?" she demanded.

"I have to get comfortable." He pulled at his jeans.

Calla sighed, burying her hand in the bag of popcorn they were supposed to be

sharing. She'd already managed to mow through half of it well before the previews.

He watched her apprehensively, waiting for the inevitable burst of fury.

Her calm demeanor unnerved him.

"Aren't you mad?" he asked, tentative. She'd taken the news of his tall tale well. Too

well. Sitting here in the dark theater, he'd assumed now—before the others arrived,

but not in the total privacy of her room—would be the best time to tell her and get

the ordeal over with.

She'd sat in silence as he told her about his conversation with Ryan. He held back

nothing, giving her every dirty, illicit detail. How he'd fabricated her involvement in

the drug market, giving Ryan the impression that she and Jacob had been on bad

terms not because of Cooper, but because of a deal gone

wrong.

Her only reaction came as a derisive snort as he told her about Jacob's motive

behind dealing. Ryan had given Cooper the edited version, but from what he'd

gathered, Jacob's home life had made Vincent's look like an idyllic dream. He'd

been left on his grandmother's doorstep as a newborn, and raised by the woman for

the last seventeen years. Or so he and the rest of the town had thought. Cooper had

been alarmed to learn that Jacob's grandmother—his caretaker and the only family

he'd ever known—had passed away three years ago. Ryan never elaborated how

Jacob had bamboozled the system, exactly; he only knew that Jacob had somehow

managed to keep her death a secret, terrified of being thrown into the system and

losing everything.

"I guess the old broad kept her savings in cash...she didn't trust the banks. The money

finally ran out over the summer. Jake got desperate. He heard about a good gig and

jumped at the chance to make some money."

The story hadn't seemed to move Calla. Not even an inch.

"Mad?" She stuffed another handful of popcorn into her mouth. Her next words

came out as a jumble. "Why would I be mad?"

Cooper hesitated. He couldn't believe his luck. Why push it now? "Because...I told

Ryan you're a coke fiend?"

"You could have told him I'm a murderer. Of all the lies to tell, that one's the safest."

She smirked, amused by his obvious fear as he awaited her reaction. "Besides, it

worked. He trusts you. And now we know that Jacob isn't the ring leader."

"We...do?"

"Coop." She gave a huge sigh. "Jacob was a follower. A jackass, yeah. But a sheep

in wolf's clothes." Something about the phrase made her smile. Probably because

she was quite the opposite—a wolf in sheep's clothes. "Ryan said that Jacob was

essentially offered the job, right?"

"Oh." The pieces clicked together. He heard about a good gig. Of course. "He was

just a part of a larger operation."

She nodded along. "Yep. Sounds like it. Someone else is calling the shots."

"Gareth?"

"Please. Don't make me laugh." Calla sank further into her seat with an eye roll. "If

what you said is true, Gareth hasn't been using for long. Since the dance. Maybe

since Tracy's death."

"But he could be dealing now, too," Cooper pointed out. "If the murders are

connected to the drug ring..."

"If," she muttered, almost too low for him to make out. "So many if's ."

He had nothing to say to that. Rather than make light conversation, he allowed the

silence to fester, the hum of the projector behind them oddly soothing. He stared

down at his shoes. Dim orange light filtered from below their seats, illuminating the

aisles just enough to see the sort of nasty, sticky things you definitely didn't want to

see.

His eyes drifted back to Calla, as they always did. The strange light cast eerie

shadows across her face, giving her a sinister look.

Or maybe that was just his overactive imagination.

He thought of his couch back home, the cushions warm and inviting. He could be

there now, playing video games with Vincent—if his friend would ever text him back,

that is. Despite the fact that they shared half their school day together, Vincent had

done astonishingly well at avoiding Cooper ever since the incident on Monday.

Cooper had tried to explain Calla's text a dozen times, brushing it off as a joke.

But there were only so many ways he could spin it. At the end of the day, the girl his

best friend liked had invited him to the movies. And Cooper had no idea how to tell

Vincent the truth: that he was just trying to help his neighbor kill the person who was

killing everyone else.

Talk about a f*****g headache.

You're not at homes playing video games, Coop. You're in a dark movie theater with a

psychopath, trying to figure out who wants you dead. Get to work.

Cooper crossed his arms, breaking the silence. "Have you figured out which pages

are missing from the book?"

The book. The leatherbound tom had shown up in a dead girl's house, conveniently

—or strategically—placed in the very coat Rachel had donned the night of her

murder. Calla had told him everything over the phone, the call short and succinct.

Cooper once again resisted the urge to point out that the book hadn't been in Calla's

possession. If she'd killed Tracy Smith, she'd been smart enough to leave the book

behind.

Or she'd been framed. He held onto that hope, desperate and fruitless as it might

be.

Calla made a face, as if insulted by the question. Or annoyed. Could she read his

thoughts? Did she know he still held out hope of her innocence?

She picked at the hem of her oversized sweater. "Of course I did. Do I look

incompetent?"

"We really need to work on our communication." Cooper lifted his eyes to the

heavens. "Why haven't you told me?"

"Why haven't you gone to the yearbook lab yet?"

"Don't..." he stuttered, aghast. "Don't change the subject!"

She shook the bag. The aroma of popcorn wafted over him. "Here I am, carrying the

weight of this investigation. It's exhausting."

He leaned toward her. "The lab is closed, alright? Steph's been busting her ass to

get it reopened. Apparently, the detectives got the same idea we did. And they

actually have the authority to throw their weight around and get things done."

"I'll accept that answer," she said after a minute's consideration.

He somehow managed to keep from rolling his eyes.

"It really didn't take much to track down the missing pages." Calla popped a kernel

into her mouth. "I have no idea what the order is, or what lines the killer is drawn to,

specifically. But one of the pages was an excerpt from Snow White. The other from

some tale called Faithful John."

"I can't believe that creep broke into Rachel's place," Cooper muttered. He doubted

that the new intel would narrow down their search—none of the suspects were

named John, and faithful wouldn't be the word Cooper would use to describe...well,

any of the six—but it felt good to know something that they hadn't known a week

ago. "What kind of psycho organizes their victim's closet? What's the point?"