The Truant Officer v5 Page 12

  Darren continued to follow the juvenile delinquent. Probably straight to prison. But something told him that she was the one who could lead him to the truth.

  He landed in a 21st-century teenage room. It wasn’t much different from Darren’s day—just the Heather Thomas poster was replaced with Brooklyn Decker, and Darren’s boom box and television with rabbit ears was now a shiny Mac computer and an iPod docking station.

  “The FBI was just here an hour ago, they could come back,” Darren warned.

  “The FBI?” she scoffed. “They couldn’t even figure out that a bunch of guys on terrorist watch lists signing up for flight school was a bad idea.”

  “What about his parents? The authorities probably called them.”

  “Trust me, the Buckleys are not going to cut a Hawaiian vacation short because Brett skipped town with some chick. Those stuck-up sons of bitches never liked me anyway.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  Becks feigned laughter. “Good one,” she said and picked up a picture and handed it to him. It was a prom photo of her and Brett. Darren had to admit she cleaned up well. The form-fitting gown matched the streaks in her hair. With the Arizona sun setting in the background, they looked a striking couple.

  “Look at me—I’m damn cute. You’d do me, right?”

  “Um…what?”

  “I mean if you weren’t married and I weren’t in high school. If we met at some bar, you’d find me attractive, no?”

  “Sure, I guess,” Darren stuttered uncomfortably, expecting that Catch a Predator guy from Dateline NBC to jump out at any moment and slap the cuffs on him.

  “But obviously not as hot as our chaperone—the lovely and talented Lilly McLaughlin. Wearing her skanky dress and prancing around in her stripper kicks. Always bending over so all the boys can see her tramp stamp right above her ass. And I’m not talking about the prom—I mean everyday at school when she was trying to steal my boyfriend!”

  Becks grabbed the picture from Darren and launched it into the wall. The frame shattered off of Brooklyn’s nose.

  “Lilly’s not like that—there has to be an explanation,” Darren stated.

  “Oh, she’s not?” Becks replied, her eyes now burning with a competitive fire. She hurried to the computer stand where a laptop was plugged in. “We’ll just see about that.”

  Chapter 33

  Becks booted up the computer and began furiously typing.

  “What are you doing?” Darren asked.

  “Breaking into Brett’s computer,” she said coldly. “I want to show you something.”

  She filled in all the appropriate passwords and was logged on.

  “You stole your boyfriend’s passwords?” he asked.

  “What can I say—I was a dedicated girlfriend. I wanted to know what was going on in my man’s life.”

  “Relationships are built on trust,” he lectured.

  She looked at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious. Maybe you shoulda done a little more checking up on your wife.”

  The comment, besides angering him, turned his thoughts to the computer. “Don’t you find it odd that that the FBI confiscated Lilly’s computer when they searched our house, but they left Brett’s computer. I know they were here because I talked to Agent LaPoint when I came by.”

  “Maybe because she’s the one who committed the felony.”

  She had an answer for everything. She was also making the proverbial woman scorned look contented.

  She pulled up the Internet and called Darren over. What she showed him made him understand her hurt. He viewed endless blogs, Facebook pages, and random websites created in honor of his wife. The most creative was called Pictures of Lilly based on The Who song of the same name—actually an updated techno version of the song made by some hip-hop artist that Darren had never heard of. The song played over and over, as the photos from the infamous post-prom party looped endlessly in slide-show format.

  The majority featured Lilly and Brett Buckley nestled on a couch, her arms and legs wrapped around him like she didn’t want to let go. When Darren saw that she was still wearing the corsage he bought for her, his heart broke.

  The pictures were bad enough, but one site had an amateur video taken on a student’s phone. It followed a kissing Lilly and Brett into a bedroom. The giggling couple finally shooed away the cameraman so they could have some “privacy.” His mind kept trying to make up excuses—maybe someone gave her that date rape drug—but it was obvious that at the very least, Lilly was a willing partner, if not the aggressor. He felt sick.

  The blogs and chat rooms were even worse. He was amazed how vicious the kids on these sites were. The names they called Lilly were far worse than anything Becks said about her. Becks referred to them as “keyboard commandos,” who were only tough when they could hide behind an online alias. She didn’t seem to be a fan.

  Becks was determined to keep his nightmare going. “And if you think she just had a bad night, maybe you should take a look at this.”

  She displayed an archive of text messages sent between Brett and Lilly over the past month. Darren didn’t even want to ask how she got access to them.

  As painful as the Internet photos were, the correspondence between them hurt even more. Words are by far the most intimate stimulus.

  Lilly expressed how she felt their relationship was “wrong,” but she “couldn’t stop.” How Brett took over her mind, body, and soul. How she craved him when they weren’t together, and how she never wanted to return home when they were together. he realized why she was distracted—she was thinking about him.

  It also detailed the places where they’d been intimate. Different classrooms in the school and parks around the Chandler area. Darren felt most betrayed when they plotted a rendezvous at their home while he was out of town on a flight. The thought of this boy in his bed made him nauseous.

  As time went on, their actions grew riskier. Brett wrote of avoiding his “rents,” which Becks explained was the millennium generation’s term for parents.

  But after that infamous prom party, the tone of the messages turned to damage control, discussing the importance of getting their stories straight, and even plotting their escape in general terms. The messages came to an abrupt end, likely because they suspected the authorities were onto them.

  Darren’s head began to spin so fast that he thought it was going to fly off his neck. He wandered out of Brett’s room like a drunk looking for his keys and bumped his way down a staircase. He found the front door and rushed into the Arizona sun, needing air. The picture of Lilly and Brett Buckley together was the last thing he saw in his mind just before everything went black.

  Chapter 34

  Darren felt a sharp slap across his face. And then another. He heard a faint voice. It seemed to be coming from far away. “Wake up.”

  He opened his eyes just in time to see the hand once again headed for his face. His reflexes responded in time to grab it before another slap connected with his throbbing cheek. He found himself in the passenger seat of his Jetta. They were no longer at the Buckley’s house.

  “Any chance the last twenty-four hours was a really bad dream?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  “That’s what all the guys say when they wake up next to me,” Becks replied with a smile.

  “What happened?”

  “You passed out, so I dragged you to the car and brought you for help. BTW—you’re waaay heavier than you look!”

  He looked around, unsure of his surroundings. “This sure doesn’t look like the hospital.”

  “The hospital will kill you. Do you know how many germs and bacteria are in that place?”

  “Where are we, Becks?”

  “I brought you to Cholla’s. I figure a Cholla Burger and curly fries can cure any ailment.”

  Now the neighborhood came into focus. They were in the parking lot of the popular hamburger stand on Chandler Boulevard, not far from Darren’s home. “How long was I out?”

/>   “About twenty minutes, I guess. I really didn’t keep track. I thought you were trying to scam me into giving you CPR—that so wasn’t happening. Now let’s go,” she ordered. Darren wasn’t going anywhere.

  Becks walked around to the passenger side and unhooked him out of his seat-belt. She then yanked him to his feet.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Darren groaned.

  “It’s a Cholla Burger and curly fries. What does hunger have to do with anything?”

  He hesitantly followed her to one of the outdoor patio tables. Once he was seated, she took out a tube of 30-block and began smudging it on his scalp. “Don’t want you to be sorry in the morning—did you know the sun is the leading cause of sunburn?”

  “You must have Mr. Fischer for science.”

  “I was thinking about running away with him to get back at Brett.”

  He smiled—he’d almost forgotten what it felt like. “He’s pretty spry for his age, you think you can keep up?”

  “Tell me about it. Instead of teaching physics, physics should be teaching him,” she replied with a grin.

  But the nice moment quickly waned. Darren figured that’s how things would be from now on. After ordering, they fell into silence. Lilly and Brett was their only common conversation piece, and neither of them wanted to discuss it anymore.

  “Shouldn’t you be back in school?” he finally asked.

  She looked at him like he’d said the most absurd thing ever. “Let me see—school—Cholla Burger—school—Cholla Burger. It was a tough choice, but I went with Cholla Burger,” she mocked.

  “Be careful or they’ll send the truant officer after you.”

  “The wha...?”

  “Truant officers were a volunteer section of the local police force that rounded up kids who were cutting school—what they called truancy. My grandfather was a truant officer.”

  Becks snorted a laugh. “I think they need to send one of those dudes after Brett and your wife. They are the ones cutting school today. Or maybe we should declare ourselves honorary truant officers for the day and drag their asses back here.”

  He was impressed by her sharp wit, even if most of the humor was at his expense. But her face soured, and even the arrival of their food didn’t remove her frown. She sighed heavily. “I really thought it was meant to be.”

  “What was?” Darren asked, confused.

  “Brett and I. All the Barbies in school wanted him, and would always trash me behind my back or in those stupid chat rooms, but I was convinced they were just jealous of what we had.”

  Darren nodded as he bit into his burger. Becks was right—it hit the spot. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate, which probably played a role in his passing out.

  “We were inseparable,” Becks continued, still not touching her food. “People eventually accepted us. They called us Posh and Becks—how cute is that?”

  “Posh and Becks?’

  You know, like Victoria and David Beckham—the British supercouple. Brett was actually Posh because he was so pretty, and I was Becks, because, well, I’m Becks. But we were more than cute, we had a lot in common. We both moved here in the middle of our senior year, which BTW, really sucks.”

  He continued to devour his burger, half-listening to her teenage tangent.

  “And Chandler is like totally the worst place. The guys are a bunch of suburban wangsters and the girls are all tanorexic backstabbers.”

  “Where did you move here from?” Darren asked as he whisked a curly fry through a mound of ketchup and slung it into his mouth.

  “Boston. My father got a job out here and chose the scrilla over his daughter’s sanity.”

  Darren perked up, feeling the connection. “I’m from Framingham.”

  “Wicked awesam,” she replied, displaying a heavy Boston accent. “I guess we have more in common than our sig-ohs being a couple of cheating louses. I got accepted to BC, so hopefully I’ll be heading back in the fall…if I graduate, that is.”

  “I left when I was eighteen and don’t get back much, unless I’m flying into Logan. My parents both passed about ten years ago and I lost track of most of my childhood buddies. But I do miss the old neighborhood.”

  “That Paul Revere thing musta been pretty cool,” Becks said with a smirk that resuscitated him.

  “I’m not quite that old, but I lived there when the Red Sox were the cursed team that lost every year.”

  “That was way before my time, but I’ve read about those teams,” she said. Her smile faded and she stared forlornly at the traffic on Chandler Boulevard. “Do you think we are just setting ourselves up for failure?”

  “What do you mean?” Darren asked, washing down his burger with his diet soda.

  “No offense to us, but we we’re playing OOOL here.”

  “OOOL?”

  “Out of our league. My boyfriend and your wife are serious hotties. I’m nerd-sexy enough to be a rock star at a Harry Potter convention, but I can’t compete with your flirt-in-a-skirt wife.”

  Darren took a close look at her. And despite the ketchup dripping from the side of her lip and her light skin losing the battle against the sun, he thought she was selling herself short.

  “And you…” she continued.

  “And me, what?”

  “You’re not exactly a lollipop. There’s a reason it’s Angelina and Brad, and not Angelina and some follicley-challenged boring guy from Arizona.”

  “When you get older you’ll learn that it’s not all about looks. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

  “Thanks for the backseat mothering, but I’ll take that a little more seriously when Tom Brady dumps Giselle for Madam Curie.”

  “I heard Mr. Fischer and Madam Curie once had a steamy affair,” Darren tried to joke a subject change.

  Becks didn’t laugh, but seemed in favor of the shift in topics. “So what’s your deal?” she asked.

  “My deal?”

  “I told you my sad tale, and my parents taught me not to eat Cholla Burgers with strangers. Tell me about yourself and then you won’t be a stranger anymore. So far, all I know is that you’re boring, your baseball team never won, your grandfather arrested kids for not going to school, and you have bad taste in women. The story has nowhere to go but up.”

  Darren shrugged. “Not much to tell. Grew up in the Boston area, Irish Catholic, so I have lots of guilt to go with my boringness and bad taste. I went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and was an officer for ten years before joining civilian life. Flying planes is what I did, so flying commercial seemed like the logical step. And that’s when I met Lilly.”

  Becks burst into laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” Darren asked, rankled.

  “It’s so ironic,” she said through chokes of laughter, “our lives are exactly like those Greek tragedies we studied in your wife’s class. Things are going along and then one wrong turn and things come crashing down. And then I met Lilly, cue the horror-film music.”

  She shook her head in disbelief, unable to stop laughing. “I guess ya gotta either laugh or cry.”

  So Darren cried.

  Chapter 35

  The red light flashed on and Jessi Stafford sprung into action. She was about to deliver another in her exclusive reports on the teacher/student scandal.

  The case was already a screenwriters dream. It included: the abduction of an attractive woman, forbidden romance, and a tear-jerking plea by a distraught husband to strum the heartstrings. But it now added a few more elements that made America weak in the knees—weddings, gambling, and Elvis. And the best part for Jessi was that since Channel-6 was an unaffiliated station, they were able to syndicate her reports to the national outlets. She was getting nationwide coverage!

  “I am reporting to you live from the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. Where, after a night of reckless gambling, fugitive couple Lilly McLaughlin and Brett Buckley were last seen trying to get a married without a proper marriage license.�
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  Jessi smiled into the camera. It wasn’t one of the smiles she’d had to fake this past year—this one was full of joy. The joy of a possible return to New York and spreading the gospel of kiss my ass.

  “Since Lilly McLaughlin is already married, we can add bigamy to the laundry list of charges,” she continued.

  She sneaked a smirk at her cameraman, Byung. Always the skeptic, he actually thought coming to Vegas was a bad idea. Another reason why he would spend his whole career behind the camera in that Arizona cowtown.

  She turned to a man who had witnessed Lilly and Brett in the chapel, and had agreed to go on the air with her. He featured a large pompadour haircut, and wore a sequined jumpsuit unbuttoned to his navel, oversized sunglasses, and disco boots. As if this wasn’t enough of a circus already, her eyewitness was an Elvis impersonator.

  Interviewing Elvis was actually more along the lines of the career she thought she’d have while growing up in Kissimmee, Florida. She wasn’t sure exactly what she would do with her life, but knew it would take place in front of a camera. She never thought about the news, and frankly the idea bored her—if you’ve witnessed one crime or political scandal, you’ve seen them all—entertainment was where the real stars were made.

  Following the interview with Elvis, Jessi received a phone call. More good news. Her source informed her that Lilly McLaughlin was spotted at McCarran International, and had purchased a ticket on a flight to Mexico City.

  She practically dragged Byung to their rental car and made a dash for the airport. Not wanting to take time to park, she told Byung to drop her off at the terminal. But she had a hunch, and changed her mind. Instead, she directed him to go to long-term parking.

  And sure enough it was there. The McLaughlins’ Lexus SUV. She had Byung film a shot of it for her next report, and then they returned to the terminal.

  Jessi hightailed it into the airport, but when she did, the winning streak came to an end. She learned that the flight to Mexico City had already taken off.