“If McCoy is really after him, I figured he could keep himself safer than I could alone,” I said. “Besides, he’s known about me since October.”
“Oh, well.” Tucker thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we’d be stupid not to ask him. His house is only a few streets away from McCoy’s.”
“What?”
“Yeah—McCoy lives in Lakeview Trail.”
Chapter Forty-one
Dad took me to school the next day. In the hallways, everyone stared at me like I’d imagined them doing all year. My hair had become a blight, just like at Hillpark; people saw me coming and jumped from my path.
I tried to perform my perimeter checks like usual, but by the time I’d left my locker, there were so many eyes watching me it became difficult to keep my panic down. The only good place was English, where Mr. Gunthrie seemed to have reined in the class so well they ignored me completely.
Miles ignored me, too. He sat with his head bowed, scribbling furiously in his notebook.
The lines he made were thick and dark, and covered whole pages.
In true Miles the Jerk fashion, he didn’t talk to me until I forced him to, when we were walking together toward the gym. It was the day of the one baseball game I’d been dreading all year—East Shoal vs. Hillpark—and part of the reason I’d decided to come back to school. The other part was a joint threat between my mother and the Gravedigger to burn me in the fires of hell if I stayed home. (I told Dad that; he said I might be exaggerating.)
I had to face this. But before I could even think about it, I had to make sure Miles was okay.
I checked to make sure no one was around, then asked Miles, “What’s going on?”
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his eyes flicking back and forth over the empty rotunda. “I—sorry—I couldn’t think at all today. Everyone knows. They’ve been talking about it all day, and I can’t figure out how they know. . . .”
They knew about his mom. I grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his hair, holding it between both of mine. “What’s the worst they can do with it, right? We only have a couple months left.”
“It’s that they know,” he said. “I don’t like them knowing things about my mom, because they’re going to start making judgments. And will anyone even take me seriously anymore? What are they going to ask me to do now? Even if it’s ridiculous, I’ll have to do it—I can’t say no, because then I go from die-hard genius back to punching-bag nerd, and no one will be safe anymore. I won’t be safe anymore.”
I looked around again—just him saying he didn’t feel safe made me think McCoy was hiding around a corner with a lighter and a can of hairspray.
Finally he said, “My mom called me. Last night, at Finnegan’s.”
“How come?”
“My dad. He went up to see her. She told me not to visit anymore.”
“Miles . . .” I wasn’t good at comforting people. So I did what I’d done before, and dragged him into my plans.
“I think Celia told everyone,” I said. “Like she told them about me. And I think McCoy was the one who told her.”
Miles’s expression flattened out the way it always did when he was dealing with information rather than emotions. To anyone else, he probably looked bored or annoyed. To me, he looked relaxed. The content cat. “That makes sense. He would have access to records. It would’ve been harder for him to find out about my mother, but . . .”
I rubbed my head. “I honestly didn’t think Celia would hurt you. I thought . . . I thought she still liked you too much.”
“I guess she’s had enough.”
“Tucker and I think we can figure out what McCoy’s master plan is, but we need your help.”
“With what?”
“We’re going to break into his house.”
Miles brought out the Magnificent Quirked Eyebrow, which made me feel better. That expression meant that things were at least kind of okay.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
“Tucker said if we’re going to find anything incriminating, it won’t be at school, and he’s right. It’ll be at McCoy’s. While I’m sure I could just John McClane my way into his house by shooting down the front door, I figured you might be able to do the job a little more discreetly.”
“So basically you’re saying if I don’t agree, you’re going to go anyway, but you’re pretty sure you’ll get caught.”
“Basically.”
“But you know I don’t want you to get caught.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re blackmailing me.”
“Yep.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can get behind that,” he said. “When?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure you won’t mind it if Tucker’s there? Can you two play nice?”
“Maybe.”
“Would it help if I told you this was Tucker’s idea?”
Now both eyebrows were up. “Well, fuck me.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. The times he kissed me were so few and far between, I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ll meet you by the track,” he said, walking away without further explanation.
Chapter Forty-two
When I arrived at the baseball field minutes later, the visitor stands were already packed full of red-clad Hillpark fans, many of whom I recognized even from a distance. They formed one undulating mass of red, the head of a dragon rising from their midst. Its scales glimmered in the sun and flames licked from its mouth. The Hillpark side was separated from the East Shoal side by the concession stand and press box planted behind home plate.
I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of Miles.
What I saw instead were Cliff and Ria, on their way to the bleachers from the concession stand. I froze like a deer in headlights when they neared—this was what I got for not doing a good perimeter check. If I’d done the perimeter check, I wouldn’t have run into them, I wouldn’t look like an idiot, I wouldn’t . . .
“Watch out, babe, she’s dangerous,” Cliff said to Ria, holding out an arm like he was going to protect her from something. Protect her from you, idiot. I gritted my teeth and tried not to look at them.
“I’m not dangerous,” I said, keeping my voice level.
“Yeah, and your boyfriend isn’t a Nazi,” Ria scoffed.