Page 45 of Tell No Lies

I nodded but made no move to follow his order. Mckayla had her phone in her hands and gave me a sad smile before typing. “I’ll ask Cassie to let them know. You can call them yourself later.”

Her tone snapped something inside me. She was talking to me as if I might crumble at any moment. Granted, all day I’d been walking around like a basket case, but I wasn’t a weak person. I’d let things go too far for too long with Morgan, and I wasn’t going to do that again. I’d learned my lesson about letting things happen to me without fighting back.

“Brandon, can we have the detectives look at the footage from the campus cameras from yesterday and today? I know where I was in these pictures. Maybe we can see who took them.”

He seemed shocked to hear me speak. I guessed, after my performance last night, he’d expected me to be in a ball on the ground again. Well, there was a huge difference between the pain of a broken heart and being terrorized by a coward.

I could put a stop to the second one.

“We also need to have someone look at my laptop. I think someone hacked in and has access to the camera.”

He looked over the pictures on my car. “You think this was taken from your computer?”

“Judging by the angle, yeah, I do. There’s nothing else on my desk, so it’s not like something could have been planted without me seeing it.”

He seemed to be considering this. “That’s a good point. Nice catch. I’ll take your laptop into my office and have someone look into it.”

“Can we get someone here to take care of this paint before it ruins the car? It’s still wet, so maybe it can be wiped off. I know the detectives will want pictures, but after that, I want to get it taken care of fast.”

“Yeah, I’ll call the guy that comes by the office and details the cars in the parking lot.”

He turned away from me and began working on his phone. It was only a few baby steps, but taking action against this monster made me feel powerful. I wasn’t going to fall apart this time.

I turned around, looking for Mckayla, and spotted her standing with Mike. I had completely forgotten about him the second I’d seen my car. From the look on his face, he was as furious as I was about this.

Brandon was absorbed with his phone, so I walked over to them.

“I swear I’m going to find out who’s doing this to you, Aubrey.”

I fought the urge to shake my head. Of course, he would want to come in and play hero and fix everything in one swift movement. As if my brother and I were doing nothing to figure this out. “Thanks, Mike. The detectives should be here in a few, but there’s nothing we can do right now. You should go to practice.”

“I can’t think about practice when my girlfriend was just threatened!”

“I appreciate that, but Brandon is here, and Mckayla won’t leave my side. I don’t want you getting in trouble because of me.”

He begrudgingly agreed and left after a quick kiss.

Sixteen

Despite how quickly we cleaned up my car before Brandon drove it home, the damage had already been done.

My secret was out, and I could feel it the minute we reached the parking lot the next day. Mckayla tensed, and I knew she could feel the change too.

On every other day, the crowds in front of the school and on the lawn would be dispersed and lost in their own worlds, but today, it seemed they were all focused on this area. Mike’s truck was parked next to our empty spot, but he and his usual posse were missing.

Mckayla pulled into our normal spot and slumped in her seat. “We can leave now if you want.”

Her focus was on the population of our school. Half were blatantly staring at her car, while the other half pretended they weren’t doing the same thing. It was eerie, like we had entered a bad zombie movie and we were the only remaining humans with brains.

“We can’t ditch every day. Brandon and your mom would catch on eventually.”

“Duh. I just don’t think they would mind you skipping today … all things considered.”

My eyes followed a group of freshman girls as they walked in front of our car, whispering behind their hands. Very clever. Cover your mouths but stare right at me.

“We would have the beach to ourselves.”

“Would that make me a coward?”