Guys, Lies & Alibis Read online

  GUYS, LIES & ALIBIS

  A Langdon Prep Mystery

  Kimberly Reid

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  About This Series

  About The Author

  To Bridgette, always.

  Chapter 1

  The parking lot behind the gym is almost empty now, everyone gone home or off somewhere to celebrate. I’ve never been on campus this late and I’m surprised how quiet it is, even though we’re just a few blocks west of Cherry Creek. The restaurants and bars over there must be jumping right now, but you wouldn’t know it from where I stand. When the school was built, someone smart ringed the property with a thick stand of juniper and cottonwood trees, growing a green fortress around the gray stone buildings. Sixty years later, it not only looks like some bucolic ivy league school in the middle of the city, it sounds like one.

  Still, it’s a little too quiet. I suppose rich people don’t party as loudly as they do in my neighborhood. Saturday night on Center Street is full of traffic noise, loud music, police sirens, and an argument or two that will escalate into a fistfight—or worse—before the night is over. Out here, I’m like the guy in the episode of Twilight Zone where he realizes he’s the last person on earth. Just twenty minutes ago, I was part of the frenzied riot of people making their way from the bleachers to the exit, chanting, “Langdon Knights brought the fight!” I can still hear them in my head, so I add my own voice, out loud. It helps shake the weird I’m-all-alone feeling that came over me as I watched the last car turn out of the lot.

  It works. By the time the subjects of the chant burst through the gym doors, still charged from the game, the strange feeling has gone and I’m as pumped as they are, maybe more. We’re moving on to the Sweet 16 round of the high school playoffs, not that anyone expected otherwise from the Knights. What does surprise me—and anyone who knows me—is that I, Chanti Evans, hater of all things sport, have become a basketball groupie.

  It helps that my boyfriend is the star of the team, and that isn’t just my biased opinion. Right now, he’s being carried on the shoulders of his teammates, who voted him game MVP. Marco is the shortest player at nearly six feet, so my first reaction is to run up and demand they put him down because that’s a hella long way to fall, but I don’t. I’m trying hard not to be that girl. It’s bad enough I’m the only girlfriend hanging out in the lot in subfreezing weather, leaning against her boyfriend’s car. In my defense, the other girlfriends have their own cars and are probably waiting somewhere else for their players. Somewhere warm. With food and hot chocolate.

  After another round of reminding each other of their awesomeness, the team finally breaks up. Marco comes over and before he says anything, kisses me. That earns him a whistle or two from the guys. One of them has to make it nasty and yell out, Whipped. It’s too late. I’m already that girl.

  “I was beginning to suspect we spend too much time together, and now I know it’s true if that’s what they’re calling you.”

  “They’re just jealous, and you must be freezing,” Marco says, unlocking the car doors. “I would have given you my keys if I’d known we’d be that long. Coach gave one of his we’re better than that speeches.”

  “But you guys won. And by ‘you guys,’ I really mean you. That three-pointer just before the buzzer was incredible.”

  “It never should have gotten that close. It was only the second round of play-offs and Hart Academy isn’t that good.”

  I can think of all kinds of pep-talky things to say, but this isn’t my first rodeo. After being with Marco through part of football season and all of basketball, I know he’s replaying the game in his head right now. No matter how well he does, he’s thinking about what he didn’t do right. Marco is pretty laid back about most things, which is why he’s so good for me because I’m laid back about nothing, but when it comes to sports, he’s got a perfectionist streak. So I stay quiet while he joins the line of cars making its way from the gym parking lot to the school’s main entrance.

  The procession of Porsches, Escalades, and BMWs, one with a custom paint job in Langdon Prep red, would make a perfect child’s game of Which one doesn’t fit? Marco’s 1985 Grand Prix, with a custom paint job in Bondo gray, would be the winning answer. As we leave the campus and head down the hill into Cherry Creek—which is congested and bustling just as I’d suspected—we pass the corner where I usually catch RTD, the city bus, and I’m grateful for Marco’s hoopdie. If nothing else, the heater is always warm and I don’t have to worry about a drunk sitting next to me when I make the cross-town transfer to Denver Heights.

  I don’t say another word until we’re halfway home, which for me is a feat, when I decide he’s had enough quiet time.

  “Okay, time’s up. No more obsessing about the game. The team seemed pretty happy about your performance, even if Coach Rickford wasn’t.”

  “They’re just glad we advanced to the next round. I care how we get there.”

  “But right now we’re going to celebrate that you did. Anywhere you want to go, my treat,” I say, checking my wallet. “Well, anywhere we can eat for under twenty-three dollars . . . and fifty-eight cents.”

  “I’m not really in the mood—”

  I don’t know if he really isn’t in the mood because he thinks winning a game with a buzzer-beater shot truly is the worst thing in the world, or if he’s broke and doesn’t want me paying. Marco’s been talking about being broke and needing a job lately, so that might be the real story. It turns out my perfect, forward-thinking boyfriend is as old-school as every other guy when it comes to his girl buying. But I’m not having it, and I’m hungry.

  “Don’t even try it. We’re at least getting dinner at Tastee Treets. Our last three dates have been me watching you play ball in Heights Park pick-up games.”

  “You’re saying that hasn’t been as good for you as it was for me?”

  Marco’s smiling now and folds away the armrest he usually leans on, a signal for me to move closer and I do, snuggling under the arm he’s put around my shoulders. I’m pretty sure the basketball segment of tonight’s program is over. Score one for Chanti.

  Suddenly the car is full of light because the driver behind us switches on his high beams. Now he’s flashing them.

  “Where did he come from?”

  I admit to being a little distracted a second ago, but I’m never that distracted, even by Marco. I know for sure the road behind us was dark until now.

  “What’s his problem? We’re the only cars on the road. He could just pass if he’s in that much of a hurry.”

  As if the impatient driver hears Marco, the car moves to the left, crossing the solid yellow line and quickly overtaking the Grand Prix. Just as the car passes us, a blob of orange explodes across the windshield. Marco turns on the wipers, which only makes the blob grow. A second later, I don’t need a clear windshield to know Marco
is no longer following the road. We’re spinning out of control.

  Chapter 2

  When we finally come to a stop after what feels like a hundred rotations of the car, I see we have a guardrail to thank for it. Otherwise, we’d probably have landed in the reservoir just twenty yards from the road.

  “Chanti, are you okay?”

  “I think so. Are you?”

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  We sit there a minute making sure what we just said is true before Marco turns on his hazard lights and gets out of the car. I follow him, scooting over to his side since the passenger door is flush against the guardrail.

  “What just happened?”

  “That idiot threw a paint bomb at us. I couldn’t see, so my first reaction was to hit the brakes. We must have been going over some black ice when I did.”

  While Marco looks over the car, I look over everything else. It’s an isolated stretch, even on Saturday night. After a near miss with a fishtailing car on Colfax Avenue, I broke my vow of silence long enough to talk Marco into taking the back roads home. Icy main streets and weekend drunks are not a good combination, but I never anticipated having paint thrown on the windshield. It’s been a minute or two since the spin-out, and no other cars have come down the road because it’s only a means of getting from point A to B. There are no nearby businesses—no ATM or gas station, nothing for at least a mile—which means there’s no camera that could have recorded plates.

  “That’s probably why they picked this spot,” I say, as though I’d been sharing my thoughts with Marco all along. He doesn’t hear me anyway. He’s already on his phone giving someone our location.

  “It shouldn’t be long,” I say when he ends his call. “Even if there’s no patrol nearby, there’s a district two station not far from here.”

  “Station?”

  “The police shouldn’t be too long coming.”

  “I didn’t call the police,” Marco says, unlocking his trunk. “That was my uncle.”

  “Is your uncle a cop?”

  “He owns a garage with a tow truck. We got bounced like a pinball between the guardrails. She’s too damaged to drive home, even if the engine starts. Jesus . . . look at the front end.”

  Marco sounds understandably sad about his car. But me? I’m pissed off.

  “This is like those morons who drop bricks from overpasses. Why would any sane person think murder is a fun way to spend a Saturday night?” I say, inspecting the windshield and the shards of glass still stuck in the orange paint.

  I rub some of the paint between two fingers. “It’s so thick. Acrylic . . . mixed with something sticky. Glue maybe? Yeah, I definitely detect some Elmer’s,” I say, only briefly concerned about passing out from huffing both paint and glue. “Your wipers were no match for it. And look at how thin this glass is. This piece has writing on it . . . 60 watt. They wanted to make sure it shattered easily and you can’t find glass much thinner than a light bulb.”

  Instead of studying the evidence with me, Marco begins rubbing it off with an old rag he took from his trunk.

  “Don’t do that! You’re destroying the crime scene.”

  “I know being a cop’s kid makes you a little more paranoid than the rest of us—”

  “Not paranoid. Observant.”

  “Whatever you want to call it, but this isn’t a crime scene. Or attempted murder. It’s a stupid prank.”

  “TPing someone’s house is a stupid prank. Those guys could have killed us.”

  “They weren’t trying to kill us. And how do you know it was a guy, or more than one of them? Did you get a good look?”

  “No, but can you really see girls doing something that idiotic and calling it fun? And of course there was more than one. When guys do stupid stuff like this, it’s because they’ve talked each other into it.”

  “It isn’t like you got a description of the car.”

  “How could I? They blinded us with bright lights. Before they blinded us with paint. But maybe a forensics tech can lift prints from the light bulb shards. If it’s just a prank, they wouldn’t have thought to wear gloves while they made their bombs.”

  “Doesn’t that work only if there are prints in the system to match them to? Kids getting their kicks with paint bombs probably aren’t in the system.”

  “True,” I say, conceding defeat. “You’ve been hanging out with me too long,”

  “Getting the cops involved and calling it a crime won’t fix my car. All it will do is stress out my mom. It’s bad enough I’ll have to tell my parents we were in a wreck.”

  I can’t argue with him on that point. I plan to omit this detail when my own mother asks about the date. She already worries enough about me. Since we’ll be getting home earlier than expected, she won’t have started her watch at the front window and hopefully will miss the tow truck dropping me off.

  We don’t say much while we lean against the car waiting for Marco’s uncle. Since the crash took out the back hazard lights, we figure it’s safer than waiting inside and having some drunk rear-end us. Okay, I figured that and Marco just indulged me. Waiting outside also means we can see anyone coming. He probably thinks the threat has passed, if he imagined there ever was a threat. But what if the paint bomb was just part of a plan to jack us? For all I know, those guys are heading back right now. They’d be really angry to find they went through all that for twenty-three dollars and fifty-eight cents, plus whatever Marco has on him, which can’t be much.

  Ten minutes later, the bad guys haven’t returned and only a handful of cars have passed by when we see the tow truck coming. Marco’s uncle parks in front of the Grand Prix and gets out.

  “He must be your uncle by marriage,” I whisper to Marco.

  They look nothing alike, and I mean nothing. Marco’s family is from Mexico but he’s still kind of fair, like a white person with a year-round tan. If we ever got married—and no, I have never thought about that before now—the ushers would assume his uncle should sit on my family’s side of the aisle.

  “He’s my dad’s best friend, but like an uncle to me.”

  Marco introduces me to his play-uncle, who tells me to call him Archie instead of Mr. Archambault, which is too bad because I like the sound of it. Thanks to Madame Renault’s class, I like the sound of pretty much anything French.

  “How bad is it?” Marco asks, looking like he doesn’t really want to know.

  “It’s hard to find these old chrome bumpers anymore, and we probably won’t be able to replace the original grill, but I’ll check some of the yards. You’re looking at fifteen hundred dollars, and that’s before I even get a look under the hood.”

  “I guess you don’t have to worry about us spending too much time together,” Marco says to me. “It’ll take a minute to come up with that kind of cash.”

  “Might be better to finally let her go, son.”

  Marco winces like Uncle Archie just kicked him in the shin. Hard.

  “That was Pop’s first car when he got to the States. He was so proud of it. It was running great until now. And I was planning to get a paint job soon.”

  “No one knows this old girl’s history like I do. If I’d charged your father the full price for all the time and parts I’ve put into this car, I could have put one of my kids through junior college. But there comes a point you’re just throwing good money after bad.”

  “No way. I’ll come up with the money,” Marco says, sounding more angry than determined.

  I guess hearing how much the “prank” will cost him has Marco feeling like I did right after the accident—angry. He doesn’t say a word as we wait in the cab of the truck for Archie to hook up the Grand Prix, and I have enough sense to stay quiet. Now I know there are two things that can make the laid-back Marco tense: basketball and someone messing with his car. He’s been stressed since the Knights made the playoffs, and this wreck isn’t going to help. He doesn’t join in on the small talk I make with Archie on the ride back to Denver Heights and
I don’t force him to. When I slip my arm through his and hold his hand, Marco gives mine a squeeze and doesn’t let go until we pull in front of my house.

  Chapter 3

  The bus shelter is no protection from the cold Monday morning. I pull my hat down and my scarf up trying to cover my ears and curse the bus for being late, which it always is the morning after a heavy snow. But that didn’t keep me from getting up at my usual time and catching my usual bus, knowing I’d be late for first period. It’s world history and I won’t miss much since everything happened about a thousand years ago, but I still hate being late for anything.

  Did I mention it’s cold? Marco and I had been riding together only a couple of weeks before the wreck, but I had gotten used to it. I don’t know what I was thinking when I planned to tell him we should stop commuting every day. I’m still worried about keeping the mystery in our relationship, but I must be turning into a Langdonite because I’ve decided public transportation sucks.

  When I step out of the shelter to look for the bus I know isn’t coming yet, I see something that makes me freeze in my tracks, and it has nothing to do with the weather. A black Cadillac is heading south on Center Street toward my bus stop and it’s the speed that catches my attention. Even with snow on the ground, it’s driving too slowly, causing the cars behind it to switch lanes and move around it. It takes forever to reach me, though I don’t want it to reach me. I want the driver to be going twenty miles an hour because he’s about to take the next right turn. But he doesn’t. It has to be him.

  What do I do? Stay here in the shelter where there are at least a couple of witnesses, or risk crossing Center in rush hour traffic on an icy road and head back home? He might spot me. He knows where I live. He’d find me home alone in an empty house. I take my chances staying in the shelter. What are the odds this car even belongs to him? It’s probably going to just pass right by.

  Except it doesn’t. It comes to a stop just before reaching the bus shelter and I was right, it looks exactly like his car. I’ve been trying to avoid Cisco for months, and thankfully, I’ve been successful. Word on the street—well, word from Tasha Morgan, my best friend and Aurora Avenue’s premier gossip—is that he’s in jail. But I know better. What I don’t know is why I’m so afraid to run into him. Cisco is one of the good guys, even though I’m not sure which one. I suspect he works for the FBI or maybe DEA, but either way, he’s some kind of deep-cover cop, which is why I know he’s not in jail and why I shouldn’t be about to lose my breakfast worrying it’s him in this car.