“Well, where we’re from,” he said slowly. “People take care of themselves.”
“We’re lucky if there’s even a nurse on campus,” his brother added dryly. “You guys got a lot of bells and whistles around here.”
I shook my head in confusion again. Having a nurse on campus was an extra amenity? I mean, Canterdale was a private school but I’d never thought of it as anything fancy. Most of us were here because the local public school was atrocious and our parents couldn’t stand to send us to a place where we’d have to go through metal detectors each morning.
“Um, I guess so?” I said softly. “I mean, I’m a scholarship student so I’m not exactly like everyone else, but I guess the school does okay.”
And it was true -- I was here through the generosity of some rich donors. My mom had always struggled as a single mom to four girls, and I was the baby, the last one to leave the nest. But our situation was changing because Mom was recently engaged to Harold Sterling of Sterling Pharmaceuticals … hopefully, financially things would be looking up in the near future.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
“So what brings you guys to Canterdale?” I asked curiously. “I mean, it’s midway through senior year. Why didn’t you guys finish at your old high school?”
“It’s a long story,” chuckled one brother. “And more complicated than we’d like it to be. But listen, we gotta get back, Chrissy’s probably chopped that cat into fifty pieces by now without us. Feel better, you hear?”
“Sure,” I said, intrigued. “But listen, there’s a party tomorrow night at her house. I’m sure Chrissy wouldn’t mind if I invited you,” I said hastily, “Everyone’s invited and we’ve been friends since childhood, she’s almost like family to me. Stop by if you have a chance. Meet some people, have some drinks, no pressure,” I said a little lamely.
“Sure,” said Blake as he sauntered out. “We’ve got nothing planned for Friday right Bryan?”
“Nope, not yet,” winked his brother. “But we do now.”
And with that, the boys were gone … and my Friday night was shaping up indeed.
CHAPTER THREE
Blake
The girl had been amazing. She was beautiful, a little shy, and sweet. Sure, she’d fainted at the sight and smell of dead animals, but who wouldn’t? That shit’s disgusting.
Of course my brother and I hadn’t batted an eye. Dead corpses and spilled blood is part of our job for better or worse. Because, you see, we’re undercover cops at Canterdale High, kind of like Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in 21 Jump Street. Due to our youthful looks, we’ve been placed at school to ferret out an alleged drug racket.
It wasn’t altogether unexpected. It’s is a ritzy academy in a nice neighborhood, the kids with plenty of disposable income and little adult supervision. With no one around, a bunch of bored rich kids with money usually turns to crime and drugs are a common sin of choice.#p#分页标题#e#
So Bryan and I have been sited here. The assignment had been sudden, our sergeant calling us into his office just last week.
“Officers Hanson,” he said nodding to me, then at my brother. We’d graduated from the Academy two years ago but were no longer newbies. Walking the Tenderloin beat in San Francisco is an all-night racket, something that will transform the greenest rookie into a hardened cop overnight, the poverty, disease, domestic abuse and general crime overwhelming. Just last week, a woman had been arrested for tossing her newborn baby girl out the window in a rage. Can you believe that? A baby thrown like garbage from the eighth floor. Needless to say, the little girl didn’t survive.
So Canterdale wasn’t going to be cakewalk, sure, but there wouldn’t be the atrocities we witnessed in a crime-ridden neighborhood … we hoped.
“Hanson,” barked my sergeant. “We’re doing a sting in St. Francis Wood, you know that neighborhood just south of Tyleret?”
My brother and I nodded. St. Francis Wood was a hoity-toity place where Jags and Mercedes were stolen, not exactly a source of violent crime. But our sergeant lowered his voice.
“There’ve been two overdoses in the last month,” he said. “Two kids at the local high school. It’s been kept hush-hush because people are so protective of their property prices that they don’t want anything to sully their image. But evidently there’s a lot of drug use going on and the kids are getting it somewhere,” he continued. “The parents want us to bust the ring.”