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4
Sofia slowed as she approached Southwest High School. Not only did the law mandate the lower speed limit, but distracted high schoolers, hunched over their phones or rocking out to their ear buds even first thing in the morning, made it necessary. That group of guys there, for example, whooping at some joke that had them backslapping one another, looked unlikely to be alert to anything in their path as they made their way along the fence to the front of the school and its gates.
The energy of the kids made her smile and gave her a temporary reprieve from the hamster wheel of her thoughts. It had been spinning faster for the last three days, since her meeting with Ian. She started to pull into the parking bays when her attention snagged on a tall, thick-set figure hanging out where the bays gave way to the grass verge that separated the school premises from the sidewalk.
She knew that figure, with his thatch of golden-blond hair. Scotty Wagner had always been tall, but it looked like he’d grown even more since graduating last spring.
She frowned, recalling the last time she’d seen him. She’d bumped into him downtown, a few months ago, and he’d been cagey about what he was doing these days, making a joke and changing the subject before speeding off.
What was he doing hanging around here now? Sofia hated to be suspicious, but she couldn’t help wondering about his presence, especially when a senior, Emilio Fuentes, approached him, all smiles and greetings, clapping him on one shoulder and shaking his hand.
A car horn sounding behind Sofia had her realizing she was holding up the line of cars behind her, all wanting to park. Waving an apologetic hand out of her window, she parked in her spot, then headed toward Scotty.
She didn’t know the senior coming up to him this time, only that he was a jock. The guy nodded to Scotty who nodded back, and they both held out their hands to shake. This time, Sofia was near enough to see the jock left with a small package in his palm, and that he’d left money in Scotty’s in exchange. Money Scotty was now counting.
Damn.She’d suspected it, but seeing it with her own eyes was another matter. Scotty Wagner. He’d been sweet until he fell into a bad crowd. While he’d never been the best student, he’d been good in shop class. She’d hoped he’d make a career in some kind of trade job. So to see him selling drugs to students at the high school he’d attended hurt. She wanted better than that for her kids.
If this were a stranger outside the school, she wouldn’t approach like this. She would call the cops, maybe even the skeptical detective she’d spoken to, and report a suspicious individual. But Scotty was just a kid on the wrong path. Maybe she could help him see that he was in over his head.
“Hey, Ms. Popov!” Scotty Wagner’s dark blue eyes lightened, and he popped the Ps in her name in that way he always used to, the way that used to make her smile.
“Scotty.” Sofia was too sad to find it amusing now. “What are you doing here?”
“What?” Scotty’s faked laugh was fooling no one, least of all Sofia. “Can’t a guy hang out with his buddies?”
The way he avoided looking her in the eyes would have told her he was lying, even if she hadn’t just seen him dealing. “You mean clients. I saw you just now. I know you’re selling to students, and it needs to stop right now. Scotty, you’re not a bad person, but you’re mixed up in something bad. Really bad.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Scotty looked over her shoulder, then down at his shoes.
“It’s dangerous!” Sofia needed to convince him. “Someone is selling enhanced pot. I imagine it’s a stronger high—but it’s also way more likely to have negative side effects. Kids have been hospitalized, and Tony Ramirez is dead. If this is your supply, it’s bad news. I’ve been looking into it, and—”
Scotty took a quick glance around, then leaned in, all joking gone. “You don’t want to be doing that, Ms. Popov. You think dealing is dangerous? Poking around would be way worse. This is a serious operation, and the people I work for don’t play around.”
If she’d thought he was just trying to intimidate her, then she wouldn’t have been bothered. But he seemed genuinely scared for her, and that rattled her, though she wouldn’t let it show. “You listen to me,” she ordered, poking him in the chest. “Get away from the school, or I’ll get the police involved.”
“I’m telling you, Ms. Popov, you should stay out of this,” Scotty called after her as she strode away.
School had a hierarchy for reporting security concerns, and so at her first break, still uneasy, Sofia took her suspicions to the vice-principal, Elena Ramirez.
“And you’ve been to the police, after you spoke to me last time?” Elena stilled her fingers on her keyboard for a few seconds. Sofia doubted she was taking notes about this meeting. The woman usually had a half-dozen tasks to do at any one time.
Before Sofia could reply, the phone rang and, holding up a finger to Sofia, Elena answered it. The conversation, about some policy change or other, left her looking even more harried. “Police?” she repeated to Sofia the second she hung up.
“Erm, yes, but when I saw them, I didn’t have a name to give them. I didn’t know Scotty was—”
“Ms. Popov.” The vice-principal’s sigh was world-weary and just plain weary. “You’ve done what you can and to be frank, we don’t get paid enough to go sleuthing around like Nancy Drew, do we? Leave it to the professionals, yes? I’ll make a note that you had a second meeting with me about it, but…”
Her phone was already ringing again as Sofia showed herself out of the tiny office. Fine. Sofia got the message, loud and clear. She got another one later, when classes and her admin work were over and she made her way back to her car…
“What the f—” She clapped her hand over her mouth before the word left it and rushed closer to her Honda, hoping what she thought she saw was a trick of the light or not as bad as she’d thought or—
But no, it was worse.
SNITCHES GET STITICHES, said the spray-painted message on the windshield, and NARCS GET KNIFED read the back. Variations on the words RAT and BITCH adorned the panels along both sides. Oh, and the tires were slashed. All four. By the time she inspected the last one, the situation had fully sunk in, and Sofia was shaking when she straightened up.
She cast glances all around. She didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean no one was watching, of course. Watching, and waiting… She should call someone. That detective she’d spoken to, who’d looked at least a decade her junior and had dismissed her as a nervous, if not hysterical, woman? As if on autopilot, her trembling hand tugged her phone from her purse and pressed a few keys.
“Sofia, hey,” Ian’s voice answered.
