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way, a silent question hanging in the air—just how pissed at Courtney had I been yesterday?
    I ducked my head, again feigning inordinate interest in Shakespeare’s sonnets as the principal went on.
    “We at Herbert Hoover High are both stunned and saddened by this untimely loss. We are providing a grief counselor to any student who may wish to take advantage of her services. You may meet with her in room twenty-five.”
    I managed to make it through English and PE, but by third period, I’d had enough of the stares, the whispers, people mouthing across the classroom “Is it true?” Even worse were the sympathetic head tilts from my teachers, who all made sure I had the grief counselor’s name and room number written down. All but Mrs. Blasberg. She just reminded me to study for the trig test next week.
    By fourth, I couldn’t take it anymore. I texted Sam.
ditching. U in?
    Two minutes later she responded with,
totly. 5min bck prklot.
    Five minutes later I was standing in the back lot of HHH, scanning the rows of old minivans and compact starter cars for Sam’s blond head. Finally, I saw her, bobbing and weaving between the rows, glancing nervously over her shoulder every two seconds.
    “We’re not dodging the mob, you know,” I said when she finally approached. “It’s just the faculty.”
    “Yeah, try explaining that to my dad. I’d get a three-hour lecture on how this is going to play out on my entrance essay to Stanford.”
    I bit my lip. “Sorry. Wanna go back in?”
    She shook her head violently. “H-E-double-hockey-sticks no! I couldn’t have been any more avoided today if I’d had swine flu.”
    “Me, too.” I paused. “Josh came over last night.”
    Sam gave my shoulder a shove. “No way! Tell me!”
    I did, quickly filling her in on my midnight visitor, all the while watching her eyes grow wider and wider. By the time I was finished, she looked like she’d been popping No-Doz all morning.
    “You seriously promised to help him?” she asked.
    I stuck a fingernail between my teeth. Then nodded. “Yeah.”
    “Dude, Hartley, I thought you were gonna break up with him.”
    “I know!” I said, a little more loudly than I’d meant to. I made a conscious effort to lower my voice before I continued. “I know. And I did,” I assured her, ignoring the memory of how conflicted my stupid emotions had been last night. “But I can tell you there is no way he did this. He may be a cheater and a liar, but he’s no killer.”
    Sam frowned, chewing on this for a moment. “So, what do we do? I mean, it’s not like we’re investigators or anything.”
    “No,” I hedged, “but think about it—we know HHH inside and out. We have access to all kinds of info about Courtney that no one would ever spill to the cops.”
    Sam nodded slowly. “True. Okay, so who do we know that hated Courtney?” She paused. “Besides you.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    I pursed my lips. “Well, we could start with the Goths. She was always getting on them for not showing school spirit.”
    “Oh, and remember how she totally snaked the homecoming crown from that cheerleader with a last-minute voting blitz from the school band?”
    I nodded. Truth was, it would be easier to narrow down those who didn’t hate Courtney Cline. You didn’t get to be that popular by being nice.
    “Okay, maybe we need to go at this from a different angle,” I decided. “Who had access to the crime scene?”
    “Look at you being all CSI ,” Sam teased.
    I punched her in the arm. “I’m serious. Who could have been in Josh’s house that day?”
    “Well, I think we kinda proved it wasn’t the Batcave,” Sam pointed out. “I mean, anyone could have gotten in the window.”
    Right. This investigator stuff was harder than it looked.
    “Okay, here’s what we know,” I said. “Courtney was in her Color Guard uniform, right? Which means she took the time to change after school before going to Josh’s place. It