My Unfair Godmother(8)

hadn’t been saying good things about me. This night would just give everyone more to talk about.

I wadded the tissue in my hand. “This is a stupid hick town. I can’t wait to move back to New York.”

“Right,” the guy said with a slow drawl. “ ’Cause the police don’t hassle teenagers in New York.”

The guy had a point, but I didn’t concede it. I glanced at the front door. Dad and Sandra would be here soon and I still wasn’t sure what to tell the detective. It was a desperate thing to do, asking advice from a stranger in the waiting room of the police station, but he was the only one around. Besides, looking into his deep brown eyes, I felt he would understand my predicament. He knew I was in trouble, but he was also cut from the same cloth as Bo—he was someone who bucked the system. I whispered, “The detective said if I don’t tell them who was with me, they’ll pin everything on me—including a bunch of other vandalism jobs. Can they do that?”

The guy shrugged. “They’ll try all sorts of things to mess with you.

Sometimes it’s best to give them what they want.”

“But I can’t turn in my boyfriend and his friends. How low class is that?”

“Not quite as low class as leaving your girlfriend to be arrested for your crime.” He sent me an incredulous look. “Do you still want Bo as your boyfriend?”

The reminder stung. “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean I want him dragged in here by these minions in blue shirts and charged with a bunch of stuff he didn’t do.” I glared down the hallway where I’d last seen Officer Frisky McFriskerson. “The police are a bunch of power-hungry jerks.”

“Jerks,” the guy repeated mockingly. He probably would have chosen a stronger word.



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I looked down at my wrists, still seeing the handcuffs that had been there earlier. “I’ve only gone to school here for a month; if I turn in my friends, I’ll never get any new ones.”

“Maybe you should just try hanging out with guys who aren’t criminals,” he said.

This is when I realized that even though the guy had said he knew Bo and his friends, he’d never said he liked them.

My gaze went to his eyes, trying to read his expression. He wasn’t looking at me, though. He waved at someone across the lobby. I turned to see who it was, but the only one in the room was the lady behind the desk. She motioned to someone behind her.

I didn’t understand what it meant. I turned back to him with a question on my lips. It never got past my lips because the detective opened the lobby door and walked over. I expected him to come talk to me. I braced myself for it, but he barely looked at me. He went over to the guy. “Well?”

I waited for the guy to scowl at the detective. Instead his voice came out casually. “It’s who we thought and she named them all.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, thin box. A recorder.

My mouth dropped open. I felt like I had been punched. “You work for the police?”

His gaze flickered back to me. “When I have to.” He turned to the detective. “She didn’t know they were going to do it beforehand, and she didn’t get away because she was behind the building calling someone to ask how she should stop Bo. The guys saw the police coming and took off without her.”

The detective let out a short dismissive laugh. “What a great catch Bo is.” He took the recorder from the guy and slipped it into his breast pocket. “We’ll send some officers out to see if we can track down our missing artists. Thanks for your work.” He turned to me almost as an 41/356

afterthought. “Be glad you decided to cooperate with us, Tansy. It would have gone much worse for you otherwise. Your parents will pick you up soon.”

I couldn’t process much of what the detective said. He walked back across the lobby, and I stared at the guy who I had thought was my age, but was obviously some sort of undercover police officer. I had trusted him and he betrayed me. Why hadn’t I seen that coming?

I wanted to call him a string of names. Instead I slowly said, “You lied to me.”

“And you were an accessory to a crime. Which of us has had a worse night?” He stood up and wiped his hands on the front of his jeans as though to say he was finished with this job. I turned sharply away, erasing him from my line of vision. I didn’t want to look at him.

“You made the right choice to tell us, even if you don’t know it yet,” he said.

I clenched my teeth. “Drop dead.”

“And they couldn’t pin the other crimes on you,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. “They couldn’t even pin this one on you. You don’t have any traces of spray paint on your hands or clothes. Anyone could tell you weren’t involved in the graffiti.” Which made this that much worse. They had known I hadn’t done it and had bullied me anyway. “You are such a jerk,” I said.