We Know It Was You Read online

  “It’s after three o’clock,” Benny said. “It’s my right to leave school at this time.” He needed to get out of there. He needed to get to the Boarders and see the video of the bridge again. Now that he was certain the shadowy figure was Zaire, it changed everything.

  He smoothed his pants and walked out the door. Virginia followed him, and the nurse followed her, protesting with the exasperation of adults who assume, incorrectly, that being old somehow entitles them to respect. Eventually she gave up.

  “I want to watch the video again,” Benny said. “Can we go to the Boarders?”

  “Sure,” Virginia said. She knew better than to ask if he was okay. Benny hated being babied, and Virginia didn’t believe in babying people anyway. If Benny was sick, he could deal with it himself. It’s not like they were children. The thing Virginia really wanted to ask him was what he thought of Zaire. Had he noticed that she was totally flirting with him in the library? Did he like her? Old Virginia could have found out in a second, just by watching his reaction when she asked him. But New Virginia wasn’t going to. Not just because it wasn’t her style, but because . . . she didn’t know. She just didn’t want to do it. It was like, the new Virginia had self-respect, and only hung out with people who also had self-respect. She didn’t want to watch Benny flounder and blush in front of her.

  They turned down the road that led to the Boarders. They walked in silence, the only sound their feet crunching on the gravel. The air was muggy and a little too hot. It wasn’t helping Benny’s headache. He rubbed his temples, thinking. Then he finally said, “Zaire’s not very good at this.”

  “Good at what?” Virginia asked.

  “Pulling this off,” he answered.

  “Pulling what off? You never tell me anything.”

  “Whatever it is she’s doing.” Benny kicked a pinecone. “She’s out to get the cheerleading squad or something. She tried to kill Brittany but ended up killing Choi.”

  Virginia squinted at him. “Huh?”

  “Her plan went awry, and now she’s making it worse,” Benny went on. “She’s a control freak. She thinks she’s being some kind of puppet master, but really she’s just screwing herself over. She was obviously threatened by the fact that I was reading that book. She should have just backed off and stayed cool. Instead she took the book away, and then tried to hypnotize me into not being interested anymore.”

  “Wait, you’re saying Zaire Bollo is a murderer? You’re saying I live across the hall from a murderer?”

  Benny couldn’t tell if Virginia was scared or thrilled. “Yeah,” he said. “She tried to keep me off her track in the library. She started talking in this weird voice . . . I don’t even remember completely. And she kept saying, ‘It’s so boring. Don’t waste your intellect on this stuff. It’s so boring, Benny. Hypnosis is so boring. It’s so boring. It’s so boring. It’s so boring.’ And the word ‘boring’ was actually, like, boring into my brain. . . . And then I felt like I was going to hurl.”

  “Zaire is definitely a control freak,” Virginia said. Not unlike you, she added in her mind. “I remember when she was dating Gottfried, he’d be leaving with Corn Flakes or something, and she’d be like, ‘What time are you coming back?’ And he’d be like, ‘I dunno, five?’ And she’d be like, ‘What time exactly?’ ”

  “The key to getting away with something isn’t planning it perfectly,” Benny said. “It’s adapting perfectly when the plan inevitably goes wrong. Control freaks can’t adapt. They try to master their problems instead of adapting to them.”

  “Okay, but hang on. Are you sure about this? Why would Zaire want to kill Britt—”

  “Shhh!” He hushed her quickly. They were at the Boarders now, and he didn’t want anyone to overhear them.

  Virginia opened the front door, and Benny followed her inside. The air was stuffy and thick. The Boarders didn’t have air-conditioning, so they just kept the windows open until the temperature dipped below eighty degrees, which wouldn’t happen until Halloween if it was going to be another Indian summer. Benny followed Virginia into the empty common room, and Virginia flicked off the lights. She hoisted herself up onto the refrigerator and reached behind it. After a moment of digging around, and the sound of tape ripping, she hopped down and held out the grimy flash drive to Benny.

  Just then a girl appeared in the doorway and the lights flicked on. They both froze, the flash drive between their hands.

  “Virginia, will you get your crap out of the hall?” Chrissie White said, folding her arms.

  “What crap?” Virginia asked.

  Chrissie gestured impatiently toward the hall, then turned and left.

  Their hands were still touching. Their eyes met for half a second, then they both quickly drew back. Benny noticed Virginia wiping her palm on her skirt and was embarrassed. Was his hand sweaty?

  Virginia walked past him into the hall. “What the hell?” he heard her say. He followed her. The door to Virginia’s room was wide open, and some clothes were spilling out into the hall. He came up behind her and peered into the room. Every drawer was flung open, every book strewn on the floor. The sheets had been ripped from the bed and sat in a messy pile.

  “Give me your phone,” Virginia said.

  Benny handed it to her, feeling the familiar reluctance. It’s not that he had any secrets on there. It was mostly just apps for detective work (flashlight, encyclopedia, camera), and texts from Grandma, who didn’t understand cell phones (HELLO? HELLO?). But it still felt weird and too personal as he handed it over.

  Virginia had taken a business card out of her pocket and was dialing a number.

  Benny stood awkwardly in the doorway.

  Ring . . . ring . . .

  “Hello? Detective Holling? This is Virginia Leeds from Winship. . . . Yeah, I just have a quick question. Are you going to trash my room every day until you find what you want? Because if so, I won’t bother cleaning up.”

  She stopped talking and looked at the floor. Benny listened but couldn’t hear what the other person was saying.

  “My room,” Virginia spat into the phone. “My room is ransacked. Again. And I haven’t even gotten my stuff back that you took yesterday. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you totally stole my perfume, which I’d just bought, FYI. I should sue you for harass—”

  Virginia listened again. She’d started pacing back and forth, kicking a path through the sea of stuff on the floor. Then she scowled suddenly and threw the phone on the bare mattress. Benny looked at her, afraid she might throw something at him next if he said anything.

  “She said they haven’t been here since yesterday,” she told him. “She said it wasn’t them.”

  The hall, 3:30 p.m.

  No one had seen anyone going in or out.

  “I just walked in and it was like that,” said Chrissie White.

  “And you came directly to the Boarders once classes let out,” Benny confirmed.

  “Yeah. I’m always the first one back. Everyone else goes to sports.”

  “Thank you,” he said to Chrissie.

  “Is this for your club?” she asked. “Like a training exercise?”

  Benny peered into Virginia’s room. She was making the bed, yanking the sheets around irritably.

  “Training is over,” he said.

  Two minutes later he was in the common room with the door closed, waiting for the computer to buzz to life. He slumped in the chair and stared up at the ceiling, gently rubbing his temples.

  Gottfried keeps cigarettes above the rafters.

  Benny lowered his hands. Then he dragged the chair to the center of the room and stood on it. It wasn’t high enough. He stepped onto the sofa and balanced on the back, careful not to tip it over. Now he could see just above the rafters, and he spotted a small dark lump. He grabbed it. It was a pack of Parliaments.

  He jumped to the floor with a thump and pulled out his phone. He swiped through his photo gallery until he found the pictures he’d taken undernea
th the bleachers on Saturday. Dirty pieces of trash, a half-eaten hot dog . . . crumpled cigarette butts. Benny could just barely make out three dirty, blue letters: ENT. Parliament. So maybe Gottfried was at the football game after all, hiding under the bleachers. But what did that prove?

  The computer screen flickered on. Benny dragged the chair back to the desk and plugged in the flash drive. The computer was so old and slow, it took a full twenty seconds before the icon popped up on the screen. TOP SECRET, it read.

  “Christ, Virginia,” Benny whispered. He heard his mother’s voice in his head: Don’t take other people’s Lord’s name in vain.

  He clicked on the icon. It was empty.

  He closed it and clicked it again. Still empty.

  He pulled the flash drive out, blew on it, then plugged it back in. Nothing.

  Two seconds later he was in Virginia’s doorway. “Virginia.”

  She looked up from a pile of papers she was organizing on the floor. “What?” she said testily.

  “There’s nothing on this.”

  “What?”

  “There’s nothing on this,” he repeated.

  “It’s just the computer,” Virginia said. “It’s a geezer.”

  “You showed it to Zaire,” he half whispered, half hissed.

  “What?”

  Benny sighed impatiently and shut the door, a little more forcefully than necessary. “You showed the video to Zaire. Just tell me. I’m not mad; I just need to know all the facts.”

  “I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.” She shoved a stack of papers into her desk drawer and slammed it shut.

  “On Wednesday before the Sapphire Lounge. I saw you.”

  “Oh my God, I didn’t! I told you I didn’t, and I wasn’t lying.”

  “Then what were you doing? I saw you with her on the computer, and now the video is gone.”

  “I was fixing the Internet! I don’t know! I barely remember! I just—I just—”

  Is she about to cry? Benny was angry, but anyone could see she wasn’t lying. He quickly changed his tone. “It’s all right. She probably . . . she probably hypnotized you.” As soon as he said it, he realized it made complete sense. “She hypnotized you,” he said again.

  “Wait, no way,” Virginia said. “I mean, I think I would have known. She tried to hypnotize you and it didn’t work.”

  “Well yeah, but your mind is . . .” Malleable? Impressionable? He was having trouble coming up with a way to say it that wasn’t essentially You’re stupid.

  “Some people are better candidates for hypnosis than others,” he said tactfully, sitting on the edge of Virginia’s freshly made bed. “There really should be laws against it, but no one takes hypnotism seriously. That book I was reading, True Mesmerism, it said that a hundred years ago hypnotism was, like, a serious medical science. There are documented cases of hypnotism being more effective than anesthesia during surgery. You just alleviate the patient’s anxiety about pain. Without anxiety, pain is rendered powerless. I mean, what is pain without the anxiety and discomfort of experiencing it? Nothing! It’s nothing! Just . . . signals sent to the brain to indicate that there’s a knife sticking out of you. Hypnotism disrupts those signals, you see?” Benny looked at Virginia’s blank face and realized he was rambling.

  “Well, my point is, at some point in the last century, hypnosis got discredited, as we became a society less oriented toward holistic therapy and more toward prescription drugs. . . .” He could tell she still wasn’t following. “Okay. Basically, hypnosis is powerful and potentially dangerous, but there is no regulation, because no one takes it seriously.”

  Virginia folded her arms. “My mind is what?”

  Benny looked at the floor uncomfortably. Of course Virginia was only paying attention to the part about herself. “You’re not very . . . focused,” he said. “You’re easy to manipulate.”

  Virginia glared at him. “I . . . I am not!”

  “Yes you are. Think about it. You do whatever I say. I mean, it’s good! I value that about you.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Virginia said. Her cheeks were inflamed.

  “Calm down; I’m not trying to insult you.” He tried to explain. “You’re easy to lead. It’s a good quality. Some people can’t be led, because they’re too stubborn and full of ego. But that’s not you.”

  Virginia wouldn’t look at him. He went on. “The only problem is that Zaire took advantage of it. She used your mind against you to get the video. She must have heard about it from Gerard. . . . So it’s your own fault, because if you hadn’t told Gerard—” He stopped, realizing this probably wasn’t helping. “We all have different strengths and weaknesses,” he said conclusively.

  “What’s your weakness?” Virginia asked. She was still sitting on the floor, looking at him challengingly, with a cocked chin and narrow eyes.

  “Um . . . I dunno . . . maybe . . .”

  “Maybe the fact that you think you have no weaknesses is a weakness.”

  “I know I have weaknesses,” Benny said lowly. “Social weaknesses. I’m too polite. I give social constructs too much power.”

  Virginia frowned, obviously deciding whether or not it was worth it to keep arguing. “You were pretty rude to the nurse,” she said finally. “That was cool.”

  “Thanks . . .” The truce felt flimsy and temporary, but Benny didn’t know what else to say.

  Virginia went back to folding her clothes. Benny sat awkwardly, wondering if he should offer to help. He didn’t really know how to fold clothes. His mother always did the laundry and left everything in neat stacks on his bed.

  “So what is the deal? Zaire was trying to kill Brittany?”

  “Um, yes. Evidently. She’s the figure in the video at the edge of the bridge. I think she tried to hypnotize Brittany to kill herself by jumping off the bridge. But it was Mr. Choi in the suit. . . . What’s ironic is that if she hadn’t done that crazy performance, I probably wouldn’t have suspected her. And the way she meddled with you? She needs to learn not to interfere. There are moving parts in any plan. You have to just let them move.”

  “Why would she want to kill Brittany?”

  Benny bristled a bit. Wasn’t it obvious? “Because she hates cheerleaders. And school spirit. And Brittany is the mascot.”

  Virginia laughed, then quickly stopped. “Wait, are you serious?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  Virginia looked at him. “Isn’t that a little childish?”

  Benny tensed. Who was she calling childish, Zaire or him? “It’s immature, I guess. A lot of murderers are immature.”

  “Zaire’s not.”

  “Well she . . . I dunno. I mean, it makes sense.”

  “No it doesn’t.”

  Benny stared at her as she continued to fold her clothes. “Well what’s your brilliant explanation?”

  She shrugged. “I dunno. I’m just saying, I know Zaire. I’ve lived with her for a year. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself. Why would she bother killing Brittany just because cheerleaders are annoying?”

  “Well . . . what about the spirit show?” Benny argued. “Why would she bother doing that?”

  “To show off how great and amazing she is. But killing people? You can’t brag about that. No one can ever find out how masterful you are. I’m telling you, she wouldn’t bother.”

  Benny felt his mind straining to work around what she was saying. Somehow, without even trying that hard, Virginia just understood people. It was a skill Benny lacked, and one he was beginning to think was more important than he’d realized. He didn’t want to believe her though. He liked his version of events. It made sense.

  “But . . . I feel like I’m really on the right track here. The odd, out-of-control movements of the mascot? Zaire’s obvious derision for cheerleaders? The fact that she tried to hypnotize a book out of my hands. She knows I’m onto her. I know it was her. I can feel it really clearly.”

  “I’m not saying it wasn’t
her,” Virginia said defensively. “I believe you that it was her. I mean, the more I think about it, Zaire would totally probably kill someone. I’m just saying it wasn’t because she hates cheerleaders. Zaire isn’t that simple.”

  “Fine, okay,” Benny said. “It’s acceptable to know the who before the why. . . . Maybe Choi actually was her target. Maybe that was the plan, and the plan worked. Except how is she even connected to Choi? She’s not a cheerleader, and she’s not in band. . . . Maybe she realized he was a pervert, and just wanted to take care of it herself. . . .” Benny trailed off.

  “That doesn’t sound like Zaire either,” Virginia said. “She’s not gonna stick her neck out for a bunch of cheerleaders.”

  “Unless he was videotaping her, too.”

  “She’s not his type though,” Virginia argued, starting a new pile of folded clothes. “She’s not cute or perky, she doesn’t giggle and bounce around . . .”

  Benny felt frustrated. Was he not seeing this clearly? “Zaire is smart,” he said. “Why would she do that hypnotist act for the spirit show? Is she crazy? Drawing attention to herself like that . . .”

  Virginia shut another drawer. “Zaire’s not as smart as she thinks she is. She’s not smart about boys.”

  Benny stood up. He needed some air and some time to think by himself. “If you see Zaire, don’t talk to her. Don’t even look at her, if you can help it.”

  “Are we gonna take her down?” Virginia asked, an excited grin taking over her face.

  “We’re not the Take Down Club,” Benny said carefully, not wanting to start a fresh argument so soon after the last one. Virginia was unpredictable in how much antagonism she could take before snapping at him. “There’s this philosophy in aikido that you stare death in the face not so you can fight it, but so you can understand it.”

  “Huh?”

  Benny sighed. “Revenge and anger are petty reactions. I don’t want to take Zaire down; I want to understand her and embrace her with compassion.”

  Virginia snorted loudly. “You want to hug her? For killing someone?”

  “Well not literally. That’s just a Zen saying. Whatever. What I’m saying is, you and me, we solve the mystery, and that’s the reward. We use our power to understand, not to punish.”