"I believe in anything that brings you back home to me." -Signs, Bloc Party

Chapter Two

  "I can come in with you if you want," Jeremy told me as he pulled up outside of the police station, and I glanced out of the car towards the stucco brick building, one I'd been in too many times in the last week.

I shook my head. "No. I need to do this alone. I don't want to drag you down with me."

He grabbed my hand over the car console, and even the movement alone soothed me. It was incredible how much I'd come to rely on his touch alone to soothe my inner demons. Even having him close to me instilled a comfort in me unlike anything anyone else had given me. He had been my solid rock for months now. When life got too tough, I knew he'd always be there. "You're not dragging me down, Per. You know I'm here for you. Every step of the way."

"Thank you," I replied. "But this is something I have to do alone."

"I'll be waiting out here for when you're done," he told me, flicking on the radio. "Take your time. I'll be here when you get back."

"Thank you, Jeremy," I told him, kissing him on the cheek. I took a deep breath and opened the door, stepping into the frigid air. I shivered and walked across the parking lot, which led into the warm foyer of the police station.

It smelled the way it always did, of coffee and paperwork and a mixture of perfume and deodorant and air freshener. It was a flurry of activity, with officers chatting and phones ringing all around. I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped up to the front desk. I rubbed my fingernail against a chip at the edge of the counter, and heard someone approaching.

"Can I help you?"

"Hi, I was asked earlier to come into the station—" I began, and stopped as I finally looked up to meet the familiar brown eyes of someone I hadn't seen in a long time. "Oh, my God. Jake?"

"Perrie," he responded, eyes as wide and shocked as my own. "It's been a long time."

It was weird seeing him standing before me in a starched black uniform with his hair gelled back. And it had been almost three years since we'd seen each other.

Jacob Chamberlain and I had quite the extensive history. We'd met when I was fourteen and he seventeen, which had been somewhat taboo at the time. Immediately we'd hit it off, and since he was the cute junior in the letterman jacket with a whole lot of friends, it hadn't been long before I'd fallen right for his good looks. And who couldn't, with his eyes so intensely brown that it was easy to find yourself lost in them? Or that sweet smile and tanned skin and perfect laugh.

We'd dated for just over a year, when he'd had to break it off with me in order to pursue his dreams of going to college on a football scholarship. It had broken my heart, as it had been the first intense relationship I'd ever experienced. It had actually been how I first met Camila—at least, officially.

Cam and I hadn't always been best friends. She'd had that charisma about her since the beginning, but I'd stayed away. Someone that glossy and confident was surely lethal on the inside. And with that calm smirk and clear eyes, she practically screamed wisdom beyond her years.

I'd stuck with Jake's crowd of cheerleaders and footballers, which was probably not much better in hindsight. But I'd always kept a careful eye on her. She seemed like a snake; she wouldn't harm you if you looked her in the eye and showed you weren't scared. I watched her walk around school, constantly watching her back and observing everything. She kept a small journal where she wrote snippets of conversations she heard, and I often saw her at parties. She was the talk of the town; everyone both respected and revered her. I was told she was the girl you went to if you needed something.

In fact, they often called her the she-devil. She could give you anything you wanted, at the price of your soul. She was calm and sweet and kind when you needed her to be, but she could crack down hard as a whip within seconds.

She was the queen of Leighton Fields. Everyone knew her, but no one got close. She had a group of admirers, but she didn't seem to care. She only cared about the secrets she accumulated and the drama she could create.

When Jake left for college, thus dumping me in the process, I was a wreck. I had no idea what to do with myself. For so long I had defined myself not as Perrie Donovan, but as 'Jake Chamberlain's girlfriend'. I'd never been myself, because from the beginning I'd been his.

And when your safety net gets ripped away from you, it's hard to know where the hell you're supposed to fall.

Camila had found me curled up in an alley near the school, knees tucked to my chest as I sobbed into my jeans. I'd heard the clacking of high-heeled boots, and could smell that floral perfume that became her signature. I'd looked up, and she seemed calm and cool and ethereal, like an angel, or maybe the devil in disguise.

"Now, now, now, that's just a waste of expensive denim," she told me, casting a distasteful look at the tear marks staining my jeans.

I sniffed. "What do you care?"

"Let me guess, the bonehead in the jersey finally dropped you?" she replied, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning coolly against the brickwork. "Don't worry, he wasn't worth it, anyway. I always knew you could do better."

"I didn't realize Camila Stryker thought of anyone but herself," I quipped. Normally I would never be so forward, especially toward someone with such great power, but heartbroken Perrie had a lot of sass inside of her.

"I rarely do," she told me. "Gives me a headache. You wanna hear a secret?"

I swiped away a tear and sniffed. "Not especially."

"That's too bad. I have some real juicy ones, you know," she told me. "Did you know Mayor Quagmire is having some after-school relations with our algebra teacher?"

"No way," I replied breathlessly. Our algebra teacher was fairly young, but was the conservative sweater and matching slacks type.

She nodded. "I've already verified my facts. Turns out Sir Edward Quagmire isn't really picky. Algebra teachers, lawyers, assistants... Seems like the only woman he isn't having special relations with is his wife." She laughed, a musical and joyful sound. I couldn't help but smile. Something about her seemed so confident. She seemed like someone who never got mad. She seemed always calm and emotionless about everything. There was something very carefree about her.

I could see why everyone fell for her. With a perfect personality, pretty looks and a smile that could knock over even the most stubborn of men, she was the kind of charismatic girl you couldn't ignore.

"Well, look at that," she told me, tilting her head to the side. "And so Perrie Donovan smiles. Feels good, doesn't it?"

I looked down and picked at a fray in my jeans. "I guess."

"Hey, quit sniveling," she told me, knocking my shoulder with her own in a playful manner. "That's no way for a lady to act."

"And how does a lady act?" I replied.

"She goes out, she drowns her sorrows in expensive champagne, and she realizes that she is a whole lot better than a deadbeat boyfriend that doesn't appreciate what he had. And then you make him appreciate it, only for him to realize it's too late."

"I don't think Jake would care," I replied. "He made it pretty clear he's done with me."

She stood up and gestured for me to follow. "Then you prove to him how hot you are. He's going to regret ever breaking up with you, and you're going to have the time of your life. And I get to watch it all unfold. Win-win-win, if you ask me."

That summer was one of the wildest I'd ever experienced. It was a blur of vodka and dancing on tables and stumbling down the sidewalk at three in the morning with Camila faithfully by my side. In the morning she was always there smiling and laughing, a perfect hangover cure in her hands. She dressed me and instructed me on exactly how to have boys falling at my feet, and it worked. Within two weeks I was parading around a brand new boy-toy, and she made sure to stir the pot and get Jake looking. She was the devil's advocate, with the looks of an angel and the cunning of a demon. In my eyes, she was perfect. My idol.

We gossiped about secrets in her room, and soon I started doing her bidding for her, if only to keep relevant in her ever-changing world. I started learning off of her, and was soon extracting secrets just to make her smile. I lived for her approval, and preened whenever I gained it. She was the kind of girl you lived to impress, even if she had no idea she had that effect on people.

I was so wrapped up in her world of margaritas and exclusive parties that I hardly even noticed when Jake left for college. He'd called me for weeks leading up to his departure, and I'd ignored them all on Camila's demand. She was right; I felt invigorated. In hindsight, I realized I was drunk on power.

Something changed that year, though. She lost the spark in her eyes. A fire had happened at the local police station, and though she always seemed unmoved by everything, I think it hit her for some reason. For two weeks she was off of school, with no explanation. I couldn't get in to see her, and I was left out in the cold. I hadn't even realized how much I depended on her until she wasn't there anymore. She came back and continued ruling as if she'd never left, saying she came down with mono, and left it at that.

Like a loyal lap dog, I went along with it, and soon things returned to normal—well, almost. She stopped showing a vested interest in parties, and shied away from the news. She stayed in her own bubble, ruling the school and cultivating more of a following. She matured and began dabbling in darker things than just high school secrets about who kissed who in the closet after Spin The Bottle. She grew up, and lost that youthful vigor I loved.

She began to get bored over her life, and began upping the stakes at a pace faster than I could keep up. She was constantly gone from school, away on secret meetings. Afraid of losing her, I did more and more of her work, seducing secrets out of boys and doing whatever it took to keep Cam impressed, even when she didn't demand it.

It got to the point where Camila stopped being adored for her power, and started being feared, and it was hard to see when those two phases changed. One minute I was on the inside of everything, just for being a friend of Camila's. And the next people would watch us in fear as we walked past. I didn't like the change. I missed invitations to sleepovers and free manicures at the beauty parlor. It then turned into the manicurists hoping Cam Stryker and Perrie Donovan didn't darken their doorstep.

I didn't like the change.

That was when I met Jeremy. Calm and collected in a way different to Cam. Offering a release she couldn't. I'd fallen into the drugs as a way of coping with the change in social status. I was the handmaiden to the most hated and feared girl in the community. At first I'd been loved by association, and now I was hated for it.

"Perrie?" The voice knocked me out of my reverie, and I was returned to the present; to Jake and the police station.

I shook my head. "Yeah. Sorry. What are you doing here? I thought you had a full ride to Montana!"

He nodded. "I did. But something about it didn't feel right, and I realized I'd grown up enough to know that football just wasn't my passion anymore. So I dropped out and went to police academy instead."

"Wow," I replied. "What a change. And now you're back in Leighton Fields."

"This time to serve and protect," he replied, grinning. "But I, uh, I heard about Cam. I'm sorry."

"It's been tough," I confided. "I'm supposed to meet with Officer Holden now for questioning."

"I'll get him now for you." Jake disappeared and returned with the man in question. I bid my goodbyes to Jake and followed Officer Holden into a questioning room, which was dark and uncomfortably sterile and cold.

"We appreciate you coming in at a time like this," he told me. "We know it must be a difficult day for you."

He pulled out a chair for me, and I sat down. I pushed my overgrown bangs behind my ears and folded my hands primly in my lap. The room seemed too cold and the lights too harsh. I twitched uncomfortably.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"We just want to go over what happened that day and ask you a few questions," he told me in a fatherly voice.

"I already told you what happened."

"We just want to double-check a few things. It's standard protocol, I assure you. It'll be over before you know it. Now, Perrie, tell me what happened that day."

I shrugged. "Not much. I didn't spend much time with Cam at all. She skipped school, but I don't know where she went or what she was doing. That afternoon, she called me. Said she was in Montgomery Park heading down to the lake to meet somebody."

He leafed through a few pieces of paper, finding my previous statement and assessing it with a scrutinizing gaze. "You said that Camila suspected the hit-and-run wasn't an accident. Is that true?"

I nodded. "Yeah. She said she had a plan and was going to figure out who did it and end it. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn't listen. She said she was going to meet them by Montgomery Lake and end it once and for all. As soon as I heard I rushed down to the lake, but I was too late."

"Did you hear anything while you were there? See anyone?"

I shook my head. "Not that I noticed."

He wrote something down on a lined piece of paper and chewed on the edge of the biro. "Where were you when you received the call from Camila?"

I dug my nails into the jeans I was wearing to bring myself back to the present. The biting pain was enough to clear my head. "I was at a friend's."

"Name?"

"Jeremy Quagmire, sir."

He frowned. "The mayor's son?"

It seemed Jeremy's reputation preceded him, and I almost regretted bringing him into this mess. "Yes, sir."

"Can he vouch for you?"

I nodded in reply. Officer Holden muttered to himself and scribbled something else down in a spidery scrawl, and I looked around the bare concrete room, which vaguely resembled a prison cell. I'd never been claustrophobic before, but it felt like all the walls were closing in on me. I frowned and shook my head, wondering if the drugs were clouding my judgment. I just hoped it wasn't obvious.

"Now, during the phone call to Camila, could you hear anything in the background? Anything at all; crackling or even the snapping of a tree branch?"

"The reception was really bad," I replied, running my finger along the edge of the metal table and leaving a mark in its place. "It dropped out a few times, but she didn't seem really scared at that point. She was only in the park, and she hadn't made it down to the lake yet."

"What happened when you found her? Did you hear anything on the way down?"

"No, nothing," I replied, shaking my head. "I should've gotten there faster. All I remember is going down the slope and seeing her lying in the lake. I ran to her and tried to perform CPR, but she was gone by that point."

"And you're certain there was no one there?"

"Yes."

"Were there obvious signs of a struggle?"

I thought back to those horrific moments of tumbling down the riverbank and finding her lying there. "I don't know. I wasn't in the right headspace then. I think... I think there were some footsteps in the mud, but maybe they got washed away. Other than the bruises around her neck, the place didn't look too disturbed. Maybe some snapped twigs and loose rocks lying around."

The scratching of the pen on the pad was beginning to get to me now, and I fiddled with a loose thread of cotton on the sweater, which felt hot in the confined space. Holden looked back up and sucked in a breath. "Let's take it back to before it happened. How was Camila in the weeks leading up to the accident?"

I wondered why he kept referring to it as an 'accident' when it obviously hadn't been. It wasn't an accident. It was a murder.

"She seemed a little weird, but with Cam it was always hard to tell what she was feeling. She became really paranoid and scared after the hit-and-run, but even before that something had been wrong. Something had disturbed her."

"Do you know anything else that was going on in her life at the time? Something that may have caused that?"

"Well, she had a new boyfriend, Zachary Templeton," I told him. Was I going to get in trouble from someone for dropping so many others into this boiling hot mess? "And her parents were going through a rough patch. That may have contributed."

"How were her and her boyfriend?"

"I don't know," I told him honestly, realizing that Cam really did struggle to open up with me about her personal life. "They were pretty secretive about the whole thing."

I watched him write down Zach's name and underscore it a few times for good measure, and I felt my stomach flip.

Holden looked back up, and I wished for some excuse to get out of here. I wished to go back in time when everything was less complicated, and I was just Perrie Donovan, instead of a murder suspect.

"What about her parents? How was her relationship with them?"

"Strained," I responded. "It always has been. They butt heads a lot, but lately there had been some turmoil between them. Her dad wasn't living with them at the time."

"Can you think of anyone else who might want to hurt her?" he asked finally, and I realized this was the golden question. "Enemies? Maybe ex-boyfriends? People she did wrong by? It can be anything."

I leaned back and rubbed my eyes as a migraine began to form. This always happened when the high of the drugs began to wear off. I sighed and faced Holden, knowing if I could get through this the questioning was done for now. After that, I could go home and sleep and pretend this had never happened.

"Look, Officer Holden, I'm sure by now you're aware that Cam had more enemies than friends," I confided. "Whether or not someone hated her enough to kill her, I don't know. I never thought so, but she had a strong personality, and she clashed with a lot of people."

"Can you give me some names?" he replied. "Don't worry, you'll remain anonymous."

"If I gave you a list of people that disliked Cam, you'd have Leighton Fields' phonebook in front of you."

"Perrie, your best friend was murdered," he reminded me, not unkindly. "If you have any information that could help us catch the killer, it would be in your best interest to provide us with some names."

"Fine," I replied. "Um, there was this girl, Natalie Clavera. They got into a fight a couple days before she was killed. A teacher, Leo Solomon... She did a favor for him a little while ago. She got into another fight with this cheerleader Lena Hall. She was even on bad terms with our principal, Mr. Smythe."

"We'll look into those people," he told me gently, writing down their names with a stubby finesse. "Is there anything else you'd like to add? No matter how insignificant, any detail could help."

I thought back, recalling past conversations and strange ways Cam had been acting. Though nothing was ever ordinary with Cam, she was a master with a poker face, so knowing what she was really thinking or feeling was a damned near impossible task.

Finally, I shook my head. "No, I don't think so."

He stood up, and I did the same. He reached out and heartily shook my hand, before leading me to the door. "Perrie, if you remember anything—anything at all—you can give me a call any time."

I nodded as he led me out of the station, and as I glanced around the lot, I spotted Jeremy still waiting there faithfully, eyes shut as he leaned back in the car. I walked towards him and opened the door, slipping into the passenger seat with a long sigh.

He sat up and gazed at me long and hard.

"How'd it go?"

I turned away and rested my forehead against the cool glass of the window, shutting my eyes. "Please just take me home."

He didn't push me further on it or interrogate me. Instead he turned the key in the ignition and started the car. "Okay."

~      *      ~

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