You Owe Me a Murder Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  North American Student Scholars for Change

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Acknowledgments

  Sample Chapter from ONE LIE TOO MANY

  Buy the Book

  Read More from Eileen Cook

  More Books from HMH Teen

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  Copyright © 2019 by Eileen Cook

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Cover photographs: image of girl and image of tape © Getty Images; dot texture © Shutterstock

  Cover design by Maggie Edkins

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Cook, Eileen, author.

  Title: You owe me a murder / by Eileen Cook.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2019] | Summary: On a school trip to London that includes her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, Kim meets risk-taker Nicki, who proposes a diabolical deal.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018014683 | ISBN 9781328519023

  Subjects: | CYAC: Murder—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Foreign study—Fiction. | London (England)—Fiction. | England—Fiction. | Mystery and detective stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C76955 You 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014683

  eISBN 978-1-328-63003-2

  v2.0319

  To my friends

  who have always been there for me

  and offer to bring the tarp, shovel, and no questions

  when the need arises.

  North American Student Scholars for Change

  Our summer programs are formulated to show the world to your exceptional teen. Designed for high academic achievers with an interest in expanding their worldview, our programs have been called life-changing. Our trips combine the opportunity to view art and architecture and learn about history with a world-class guide, and your child will develop his or her independence and maturity while building friendships that will last a lifetime.

  One

  August 15

  16 Days Remaining

  I plotted murder in the Vancouver airport while waiting at gate D78 for my flight to London.

  Based on the expressions of the people around me, I wasn’t the only one thinking of how to do someone in. Our flight was delayed and everyone was irritated and restless. The couple at the end of the row were fighting about which one of them had forgotten to lock the bedroom window before they left. Then there were at least a half-dozen people wanting to take out the toddler wearing the SpongeBob T-shirt, who vacillated between shrieking at a decibel normally used to torture dogs and running around slamming into everyone with his grimy hands.

  The old guy across from me snarled, baring his yellowed teeth, every time the kid whirled in his direction. You’d think that would freak the toddler out, but it didn’t seem to make any impact. Maybe the little boy got his ability to ignore unpleasant things from his mom. She stared down at an issue of People magazine, her lips moving as she read, completely ignoring the fact that people in the gate area wanted to club her kid with their roller bags. The only way you knew it was her child was that when he would slam into her, she’d hold out a limp plastic baggie filled with rainbow-colored gummy worms and then drop one into his clutching hand. She was like an apathetic mama bird.

  I tilted my head to the side to crack the tension in my neck. I wished I could block things out that well. Instead I found myself continually looking over at Connor. My back teeth clenched, tight enough to crack. Miriam was perched on his lap. I told myself to stop staring, but my attention kept being pulled back. He slid his hand under her shirt and rubbed her back in tight circles. I knew that move. He’d done that to me.

  Before he’d dumped me.

  Miriam ruffled his hair. He couldn’t stand it when I’d done that. He’d push my hand away or duck out of my reach. Connor had gone deaf after a bout of chicken pox as a kid and had cochlear implants so he could hear. He wore his hair a bit shaggy because he didn’t like to draw attention to the processor behind his ears. I’d found it fascinating. Not just because it’s a pretty cool piece of tech, but also because I wanted to know how he felt going from a silent world to being able to hear. But he didn’t like to talk about it, or for me to touch his hair.

  Apparently, he didn’t have the same hang-up with Miriam. I reminded myself that I didn’t care. Connor meant nothing to me now. I swallowed hard.

  Toddler SpongeBob slammed into me. His sticky fingers, streaked red and blue from the candy, clutched my jeans. He stared up at me with his watery eyes and then, without looking away, slowly lowered his drooling, slobbery mouth to my knee and bit me.

  “Hey!” I shoved him hard without thinking. He teetered for a moment and then fell onto his giant padded diaper butt, letting out a cry. I glanced around guiltily, shame landing on my chest with a thud. His mother didn’t even look over. The old man gave me a thumbs-up gesture. Great—​that’s me, Kim, the kind of person who beats up preschoolers when she’s not stalking her ex-boyfriend. I crouched down to help the kid up, but he pushed me away and returned to running wildly up and down the aisle.

  I peered down at my phone, wishing I could call my best friend, Emily. She always knew how to cheer me up. She was spending the entire summer working at a camp on the far side of Vancouver Island. She didn’t have any cell service or WiFi, so there was going to be no quick “everything will be fine” text or call. Granted, if I’d been able to reach her earlier in the summer, I might not even have been in this situation at all. Communicating old school—​by letters—​might be vintage and nostalgic, but it does you no good when you have an emotional disaster that needs immediate BFF interaction.

  We’d been friends since elementary school and this was the longest I’d ever gone without talking to her. So far, my summer was proof positive that I shouldn’t be allowed to handle things on my own. I fished the last card she’d sent me out of my bag. Inside she’d scribbled, “I know you can do this! Your trip’s going to be amazing!!” Emily never met an exclamation point that she didn’t like. Despite the positive punctuation, I was pretty sure she was wrong on both counts. I felt far from capable, and although the flight hadn’t even left, I already hated everything about this trip.

  I took a deep breath, counting in for three and then letting it whoosh out. I can do this. I wasn’t going to let Emily and my parents down.

  A few rows over, Miriam
laughed, tossing her head back as if Connor had just told the best joke of all time. She playfully punched him in the chest with her tiny little hand. Everything about her was miniaturized. She told everyone she was five feet tall, but she was four eleven at best. She looked ridiculous when she stood next to Connor. He could have put her into his backpack and carried her around like a Chihuahua.

  I had to admit Miriam was pretty, other than being freakishly petite. She had long dark hair that could have starred in a shampoo commercial. Her only flaw was that she wore too much eyeliner. She was addicted to the cat’s-eye look, accentuating the slant of her eyes. She had a flair for drama; she always made huge gestures, sweeping her arms around, flicking her hair over a shoulder, or talking loudly as if she was constantly trying to make sure everyone could hear her. She was in the theater crowd, so maybe she couldn’t help herself.

  I never would have guessed Connor would date someone like her: showy. I thought he’d enjoyed that we didn’t always have to be talking, but if we did, it was about important stuff: Philosophy. Science. Politics. We met once at the coffee shop in the morning before work and split up the Globe and Mail, silently passing the newspaper sections back and forth. He was the only other person I knew besides me who liked to read an actual paper. I’d caught our reflection in the window and thought we looked like adults. Like people who lived in New York or Toronto, with important jobs, a fancy high-rise apartment with lots of glass and chrome, and a membership to the local art museum.

  Miriam had no volume control, but she wasn’t stupid. I didn’t know her well—​she hung with the drama crowd—​but I wouldn’t have thought Connor was her type. I would have seen her liking a guy with an earring and some kind of social justice agenda. She wasn’t in the hard sciences but still took a bunch of AP courses. She’d written some paper on Shakespeare that won a national award for English geeks. No wonder I wanted to kill her.

  I sighed. I didn’t want to kill her, I wanted to be her. Miriam hadn’t stolen Connor. Someone can’t steal what you don’t have. He didn’t dump me because he’d fallen for her. What had happened between us was complicated. More complicated than I even wanted to admit. He had his own reasons for stomping on my heart. If I was going to take anyone out, it should be him. But no matter whom I blamed, it didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t looking forward to spending the next few weeks watching the two of them make out in front of me. I shook my head to clear it. As everyone kept reminding me, it would be for only sixteen days.

  I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see them, but I could still hear Miriam. Her drama teacher should be proud of how well Miriam’s voice carried. She was four feet eleven of all lungs. Her voice filled the entire gate area and spread down the hall like toxic lava. I could tell already that the sound would be like fingernails on a chalkboard by the end of the trip.

  The worst part was that I’d pleaded to go. I told my parents if they let me attend, they’d never have to get me another gift. Once Connor had announced he was going—​before we’d broken up—​I’d been instantly consumed with images of the two of us walking hand in hand through narrow cobblestone streets. The program was advertised as if it were a great educational opportunity, but the truth was, there weren’t any real demands. We’d be “exposed” to culture, as though it were a cold we could catch. I didn’t really care about the chance to travel, or what I might learn from the sights of London; what mattered was going with him. I didn’t want him to be away for almost three weeks, doing all these things without me. I loved the idea of starting school in September with the two of us chatting constantly about “remember the time we were in London?” until everyone around us was annoyed.

  In retrospect, I know he wanted to come because he didn’t think I was going. He signed up without talking it over, telling me only after it was a done deal. I pleaded with my parents for days, never admitting that I wanted to go because of Connor and instead laying it on thick how it was a great way to expand my horizons, how amazing it would look on my university apps, and how I’d suddenly developed a fascination with British history, until they gave in.

  Then, after things with Connor blew up in my face, I’d begged my parents to let me bail, but they wouldn’t budge. They insisted it wasn’t the deposit, it was the point. My dad called it a chance for me to “build character.” As far as he was concerned, Connor had never been worth my time. He made a snide comment about Connor’s overbite, which, coming from a dentist, was some serious trash talk.

  My mom had made a dismissive sniff and told me “he’s not worth bothering over.” She acted as though she didn’t like him, but when I’d first told her about Connor, she’d been as excited as me. He was exactly the kind of boy she would have liked at my age, and the exact kind of boy she assumed would never know her awkward daughter even existed. She looked at me differently, as if her ugly duckling had finally hit possible swan status. We went shopping together and got matching hot pink mani-pedis. We’d never gotten along as well as we had for those few weeks.

  Then when things went bad with him, my mom acted as if she were the one who’d been humiliated. She might have said she wanted me to go on the trip because it was a chance to travel, but she also wanted me to be the kind of person who held her head high to handle the situation the way she would have done. And I wanted to be that person too—​the kind who would have a fantastic time regardless of a breakup and, by the end of the trip, see Connor desperately sorry he’d broken up with me. All while making a pack of new friends.

  However, if I was going to go full fantasy, I might as well add in that the queen would invite me to the palace, and Will and Kate would ask me to baby-sit, and Harry and Meghan would offer to hook me up with some minor count or a duke. The truth was, the next few weeks were going to suck.

  And I was going to be stuck strapped in directly behind the lovebirds for the entire flight, watching them crawl all over each other in the tiny coach seats. I squeezed my eyes shut as if I could block out the mental image playing on the big screen of my mind. I’d told myself a thousand times since we’d all checked in and I’d heard our seating assignments that I could handle this, but with every second that went by, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that I wouldn’t make it. I’d snap somewhere thirty-three thousand feet up and beat the two of them over the head with the in-flight magazine.

  Or start crying again. I wasn’t sure which would be worse. You would think there was only so much crying a person could do before she got completely dehydrated. I’d told myself I couldn’t stand him anymore, so why did my heart still seize and my throat grow tight every time he was around?

  I stood up so suddenly that my bag fell to the floor. I snatched it up and strode over to the airline counter. The gate agent didn’t look up. She was too preoccupied typing into her computer. Her fingernails, which had a thick layer of bright red gel polish, made a strange clacking sound on the keys. I cleared my throat, but she still didn’t stop.

  “Excuse me,” I managed to get out before she held up a finger to silence me.

  She finally finished whatever she was doing and glanced up. “If you’re asking about the delay, I don’t have any more information. As soon as we get clearance, we’ll start boarding.” There was makeup creased on her forehead and I suspected she was on her last nerve. She was a walking reminder to never go into a customer service occupation.

  I leaned forward even though logically I knew Connor couldn’t hear me from where he was sitting. “I wondered if I could change my seat?”

  She scrunched up her face. “I don’t think—​”

  “See the guy back there?” I yanked my head in Connor’s direction. “That’s my ex-boyfriend. We’re going to England on a travel program. I’m supposed to sit right behind him.” I paused. “For nine hours.”

  Her perfectly arched eyebrows shot up to her hairline and she looked over my shoulder.

  I sensed I was getting somewhere. “He was my first boyfriend.” My voice cracked and I ha
d to swallow over and over to keep control. “He dumped me just a couple weeks ago.”

  Her eyes softened, but she shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t—​”

  “That’s his new girlfriend. She used to be my best friend.”

  The gate agent sucked in a breath and looked over at Connor as though he were something she’d scraped off her shoe.

  I felt bad as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Miriam and I had never even hung out before this trip, let alone been friends, but I needed the agent to help me. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  I don’t lie to hurt people, or to pull something over on them, but I guess sometimes I . . . make up stories to make myself more interesting. As long as I can remember, I’ve done it. On the playground in elementary school, I told the other kids that fairies lived in my backyard. In junior high I let everyone think I’d been adopted. I didn’t want to lie. I wanted to be normal and interesting, but I wasn’t.

  I hadn’t lied with Connor. With him I’d been one hundred percent honest about my feelings, and look how that had turned out.

  The agent clacked away on the computer. “Your name?”

  “Kim, Kim Maher.” I spelled my last name.

  “I need your old boarding pass.” I slid the limp piece of paper across the counter. She tore it in half as the machine spat out a new one. She passed it over to me with a wink. “He doesn’t deserve you. Have a good trip.”

  The tight band around my chest loosened. “Thanks.”

  I wove through the crowd clustered around the gate and plopped back down in my seat. I pushed the New York Times I’d already read out of the way and pulled out the magazine I’d brought. I hid between the pages, blinking back tears. The gate agent was right. Connor didn’t deserve me. It was the same thing Emily told me. But even if I knew it was true, it didn’t hurt any less. All I had to do was figure out how to get my heart to catch up to the fact that my head didn’t like him anymore.

  A girl slid a few seats over to be next to me. “Did she say anything about the delay?” Her English accent made me feel as if I’d dropped onto the set of a BBC historical drama.