Gun Games - Faye Kellerman [77]
“Like tampered with her phone?”
“I don’t know,” Marge said. “We just found it odd because her texts were not erased. You sent her a text saying she needed to be more careful—that people were starting to talk. What was that all about?”
“Be careful about what?” Georgette asked.
“It’s nothing, Mom.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Decker asked.
Heddy again averted her eyes. “Like I said, Myra could be sarcastic.”
Decker said, “She sure didn’t appear to like Dylan Lashay.”
Heddy said, “Why do you say . . . oh, the picture of him on the toilet. No, she didn’t like Dylan, which is okay because Dylan likes Dylan enough for the whole world.”
“You don’t like him, either?”
“He’s okay.” Heddy licked her lips. “It’s not like you think. Myra had a mad crush on him for years. She and about a billion other girls. It was unrequited of course.”
“Dylan’s a popular guy?”
“BMOC. He treated her just terrible. He can be very cruel.”
“How?” Decker asked.
“He started calling her ‘heifer.’ And would moo whenever she walked by. Then all his friends started doing it. I yelled at him about it.”
“What’d he do?”
“He called me names.”
“Like?”
Heddy looked at her mom. Georgette said, “I wasn’t born yesterday, Heddy. Tell the lieutenant.”
“Okay, Mom. You asked for it. He called me a bitch and the c-word and told me the only thing I was good for was giving a beejay standing up.”
Georgette gasped. “Oh my God! How disgusting!”
“Then I told him he’s outta luck ’cause I didn’t liked gherkins.”
“Heddy!”
“It was nothing, Mom. The point is he laid off Myra for a while.” A pause. “She must have finally gotten angry at him. She started drawing those pictures and showing them around. That’s when I told her to be careful. That she was gonna get herself in trouble. Dylan’s not only popular with the kids, but adults like him, too. He can be very charming, and he’s real smart. But below the surface, he’s really creepy.”
“Like how?” Decker asked.
“Put it this way. I wouldn’t want to be in a room alone with him.”
“Got it.” After Marge thought a moment, she said, “Is it possible that Myra got so angry with Dylan that she gave up on him and got interested in someone else?”
Heddy shook her head. “If she found someone else, she woulda told me. We were BFFs. We shared everything.”
Marge said, “What if she found someone that she thought you wouldn’t approve of. Maybe someone younger than her. Lots of girls might be embarrassed about that.”
“Do you have someone in mind?” Then Heddy made a face. “You’re thinking Gregory Hesse?”
“Did she even know Gregory Hesse?” Decker asked.
Heddy thought a long time. “We have once-a-week after-school meetings for the paper. Gregory was there a couple of times. So was Myra. But they didn’t talk to each other or anything. At least, I don’t think they did.”
Marge said, “If they were a secret item, it would certainly explain why she became so sad after Gregory died.”
“Gregory’s death affected all of us,” Heddy said. “But . . .” A pause. “You know? That is when she started doing all those real nasty cartoons of Dylan and Stance and JJ and Cam and Darla . . . like really, really nasty stuff. Right after Gregory’s death.”
Decker said, “Is it possible that she blamed Dylan for Gregory’s death?”
“I dunno,” Heddy said. “She never talked about it. Just started drawing some graphic things.”
“Like what?” Decker asked.
“Close your ears, Mom.” She started whispering. “Like Dylan getting it in the rear end or Cameron doing it with a donkey.”
“Oh God!” Georgette said.
“Cameron Cole?” Marge asked. “The girls’ president of the school council.”
“Yep. She and Dylan are on-again, off-again. Currently, they’re on. She’s popular and beautiful, but a real mean girl. It’s not enough that she’s mean to you, she has to get other girls to be mean to you. She tortured Myra because she had Dylan and she knew that Myra has this mad crush on him.”
“How did she torture Myra?” Decker asked.
“Just whenever she and Dylan saw Myra, they’d start French kissing. It was pretty