The Thrashers(7)

The door to the room swung open, and Jodi jumped. Detective Harding strolled in with a file tucked under her arm and a fire-engine-red mug in one hand. She tugged out the opposite chair, the metal scraping against the linoleum, and sat.

Jodi watched as she flipped open the folder and clicked a pen, all without glancing up at her.

“I hear you don’t drink, Miss Dillon.”

Her eyes met Jodi’s, head tilted slightly to the left. Jodi was frozen in confusion.

“What?”

“It was one of the first things out of Mr. Thrasher’s mouth. ‘Jodi isn’t drunk. You can’t keep her here.’” Detective Harding clicked her pen several times in rapid succession, and Jodi realized that she’d already questioned Zack. “Is it a personal choice?”

Jodi blinked. “Is that really what you want to question me about?”

Detective Harding’s lips pulled up in a quick smile as she reached for her mug. “Just curious, is all. I don’t know many teenagers who don’t drink.” She leaned forward, like they had a secret. “Much less ones who are in the popular crowd.”

She sipped her drink. Her lipstick color matched the mug perfectly.

“Yes, it’s a personal choice.” Her mind flashed through images of empty beer bottles, the smell of stale alcohol on her father’s breath. “It’s fine. I can DD for my friends.”

The words slipped out of her mouth before she could pull them back. She looked up at Detective Harding and found a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. She furrowed her brow in mock confusion and flipped through the file on the table.

“You have your driver’s license? I thought you didn’t—”

“I just mean … I take care of them. At parties. DD is like, such a general term these days.”

“Of course.” Detective Harding smiled, and Jodi could see her perfectly straight teeth cresting just on top of her ripe, red bottom lip. Jodi’s skin felt tight. She was hyperaware of every blink, every pause she took. “Do you often have to ‘take care of them?’ Your friends?”

Jodi’s brows knitted together before she could stop them. “What do you mean?”

She looked down at her notes. “I mean, you have a 3.9 GPA.”

“I think Paige has a 4.2, so what—”

“What about Mr. Thrasher and his 3.3? He and Miss Montgomery earned those grades? It wasn’t something you ‘took care of’ for them?”

Jodi reeled back. “No. Zack and Paige have private tutors. Why would they need to cheat off me?”

“You don’t have a private tutor, Miss Dillon?” she said, scribbling something illegible on her notepad. Jodi angled her head to see if she could catch it.

“No, I can’t aff—” She cut off. Detective Harding’s gaze came up to hers, and Jodi felt pinned by it. Heat rose in her cheeks. “I get my own grades and so do they.”

“But they do pay for theirs. One way or another. Right?” Her eyes sparkled, and she crossed her legs.

For someone wearing Louboutins, Harding sure loved to dig about money. The red soles of the shoes flashed at her, and Jodi glanced at them again. Scuffed and shiny, plastic. They were fake. Jodi should know—she’d had enough designer fakes herself to keep up with Paige and Lucy.

Jodi raised a brow, examining Detective Harding as she uncrossed her legs, the corner of her mouth tight, like she’d been caught. She cleared her throat.

“How did you know Emily Mills?”

“She was a classmate.”

“And that’s all? You wouldn’t consider her a friend?”

“You asked me how I knew her, not what our relationship was. We met at school, ergo—classmate.”

“Were you friends with Emily Mills?” she rephrased.

Jodi’s tongue was like sandpaper in her mouth. “Kinda. A little.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her depression? Did she ever mention suicide to you?”

The word jarred her. Suicide. It made her pulse slow, then race. Jodi felt like the air was being leached from the room. “We weren’t really close enough for those kind of talks.”

“Your friends indicated that Emily was the kind of person who”—she looked down at her notes—“overshared. Mr. Hollister said she ‘latched on by giving you too many personal details.’”

If she’d already interviewed Zack and Julian, was Jodi last? What did that mean?

“Um, yeah. I guess that’s right.”

“But she never talked to you about suicide?”

Jodi pushed her thumb into her palm, focusing on the burn of the pressure point. In her mind, a flash of memory—a school bus rocking. The sweaty seat under her thighs. Pale blue irises pinning her against the window seat.

“I’ll protect you.”

Pain lanced across her wrist as the pressure point flared. She shook out her fingers and spread her hands across the tabletop.

“Never,” Jodi said.

Detective Harding stared at her, picking her apart. She placed her elbows on the table, inches away from Jodi’s fingertips.

“Why do you think Emily Mills killed herself?” Detective Harding asked softly. Almost motherly.

“I don’t know.”