Page 109 of Enemies to Prom Dates
“Yes. I’m home,” I shouted back and made my way through the house into the kitchen where my dad was clapping and smiling, and my mother just looked relieved.
She put down her phone. “That was the police. They called us to let us know you are no longer a person of interest.”
“What? How?”
“You were right about the video being altered,” she said. “Apparently they got an anonymous tip and checked it out. The time stamp was right, but someone had cut and pasted the video of you at that intersection over the original footage. Apparently, you can see that one of the cars parked in the background changes, then changes back to the original car a few minutes later. The officer told me it’s unlikely they would have looked for it without the tip.”
Locke, I thought. Whatever Beth had said to him had worked.
“So I’m off the hook?” I asked. “That’s great.”
“You’re notoffanything,” Dad said with a humorless laugh. “Son, someone stole your car, put one of your classmates—who happens to be into your sister, by the way—in the hospital then found a way to alter digital footage from a street camera. You, my friend, are definitelyon the hook.”
I hated that he was right. Hated even more that I didn’t know what to do next.
So I looked at both my parents. “What do you think I should do?”
“I’m going to call the lawyer,” Mom said. “He’s got an investigator on retainer. We’ll get his name and hire him.”
“A private investigator. Really? Does it have to go that far if I’m not going to be arrested?”
“Yes, it does,” she said. “In the meantime, you need to stay close to home.”
“Mom,” I groaned. “We talked about this.”
“I’m not trying to make you a prisoner, but what happens if you’re the next one to be run off the road? Whoever is doing this, Fitz, is not playing games.”
“I agree with your mother,” Dad said.
Both Mom and I blinked.
“You never agree with Mom.”
“You never agree with me,” she said at the same time.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t become the world’s greatest athlete, and marry the powerful senator and live in the fancy town with my fancy cars so my son could get popped by some asshole kid with a grudge. I could’ve stayed in Baltimore for that shit. Which means you stay home until this investigator figures this out.”
I felt my phone vibrate with a text.
“Fine. It’s not like my friends can’t come here, right?”
“Of course,” my mother said. “They’re always welcome. Even Heath.”
Of all my friends my mother always thought Heath was the worst influence. What she didn’t realize was my friends didn’t influence me to do anything. More it was the other way around.
Or maybe not with Heath. He still smoked those gross cigarillos, had indiscriminate sex whenever he felt like it and drank as much as he wanted.
I read the text.
Heath:We need to talk. I think I know who is behind the list but you’re not going to like it. It’s Reen.
What? That was crazy. A girl? Behind the Freshman Bait List?
Heath:Meet me at The Woods asap. I need to show you something.
That was going to be a challenge given my parents had basically grounded me. But they were reasonable. If Heath knew something, I wanted to know what that was now. Waiting on some private investigator to pull all the pieces together was going to take too long.
“Look, before I head into lockdown, I’ve got to take care of something first. Let me go for one hour and then I’ll be back, and I’ll promise to sit tight.”
