You don’t owe me

  You don’t ever need to care

  I let you in

  I didn’t win

  I shouldn’t have brought you there

  It’s done, it’s through

  It’s me, not you

  It wasn’t worth your time

  Another day

  Another play

  Another wasted rhyme

  Take care, Ali

  ZK

  ZOE DIDN’T COME to school the next day or Friday. That wasn’t an all-bad thing for me, since I was so confused by that poem of hers. I wasn’t sure if she’d broken up with me, or if we’d even been boyfriend and girlfriend to begin with, or what.

  Ruby said I should just give her some space. And since I didn’t have much choice, that’s what I did.

  In social studies, Mrs. Achebe showed us a movie. It was a documentary called Walking While Black, all about the issues between the African American community and the police in this country. The movie was everything we’d been talking about, and it showed lots of different people with different opinions about what needed to be done.

  The whole time we watched that movie, I kept coming back to one thing. Why hadn’t those cops helped me at the homeless camp when I was there on the ground, bleeding and hurt? Was it just because they had Mikayla to deal with? Did they have to make a hard choice because so much was going on?

  Or did they ignore me because I was just another Black kid to them? Maybe they thought I was experiencing homelessness, too. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s exactly what it was about, considering how fast they changed their tune after I told them I was Alex Cross’s son.

  Still, the movie wasn’t all about the bad stuff. There was also a whole section about how people and police departments can come together to talk about this kind of thing. One city had a program called Coffee with a Cop, where regular people sat down with police officers and just talked, with no agenda. And another guy had an approach that he called L-O-V-E.

  L for “Learn about the community.”

  O for “Open your heart.”

  V for “Volunteer to be part of the solution.”

  E for “Empower others to do the same.”

  “That’s corny,” Eddie said.

  “Well if learning, and opening, and volunteering, and empowering are corny, I don’t know,” Mrs. Achebe said. “Is that really the world you want to live in?” Her T-shirt today said, MY OTHER CAR IS A BROOM. Mrs. Achebe wasn’t always super serious. But she was always about the love.

  I raised my hand then. “I want to say something,” I said. “Mostly to you, Patrice, but also to everyone.”

  Patrice wasn’t the only person I’d been sparking with about this stuff, but it felt like she was the main one, anyway. So I told them all about how I’d seen some messed-up stuff on the street that had me thinking. I didn’t say anything about Zoe, or her dad, or any of that, but I did say that I was working on my report about people experiencing homelessness when this happened, and how the police hadn’t handled it very well.

  “I told you so,” Patrice said. “This is exactly what I’ve been talking about the whole time.”

  “I hear you,” I said. “I’ve always heard what you were saying, even if you didn’t believe me.”

  “Well… I’m sorry that happened to you,” Patrice said, and looked at me like maybe we were seeing just a little eye-to-eye for once.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And you’re right. It shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

  “We also shouldn’t be waiting around for the adults to do something about this stuff,” Patrice added, and I agreed with that, too.

  Mrs. Achebe spoke up next. “It was Henry Thoreau who said, ‘Be not simply good. Be good for something.’ So what do you kids want to be good for? What next steps would you like to take?”

  “What do you think we should do?” Carmela Lipton asked.

  “Nope,” Mrs. Achebe said. “What do you think? That rally outside the school the other day was an excellent start. But what else? What’s something that might have a lasting impact?”

  “Something more like that movie, maybe?” Patrice asked.

  “Yeah,” Destiny said. “We could do some event at school, but record it and make it available for people afterward.”

  “I like that,” I said.

  “So do I,” Mrs. Achebe said.

  “We could use our social studies reports,” Patrice said. “Call the whole thing ‘My Washington,’ and do like an open house, and use it to talk all about how things could be better here.”

  “Maybe Dee-Cee Knight could even perform,” Carmela said. “Ruby Sandoval’s writing about her, isn’t she?”

  “I think so,” I said. I didn’t know what was true anymore. “I’ll ask Ruby.”

  “Can’t you just ask Zoe about it?” Patrice asked. “I mean, you guys are like a thing now, right?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  “I’ll look into it,” was all I told them, only ’cause I didn’t have the nerve to say that getting Zoe involved in anything I was working on right now had somewhere between a zero chance of happening… and a zero chance of happening.

  But it was a start, anyway. Maybe if we saw this through, at least something good could come out of it.

  ALEX WASN’T HOLDING his breath waiting around for Detective Matheson to report back on the Zoe Knight case. He spent the day periodically checking the departmental files to see if there was any news.

  Then, just before five o’clock, an update was posted.

  Apparently, the gun that had been found on Mikayla Dunbar was a forensic match for the bullet that had broken Zoe Knight’s wrist. That was no surprise, given Mikayla’s story, even if her confession had been a bit sketchy.

  Also, the report said, in addition to finding Mikayla’s fingerprints on the weapon, the MPD lab had turned up a few older, trace prints belonging to Orlando Fletcher.

  Alex read the last few lines of the report a second time. Somehow, it seemed, Mikayla had come into possession of Orlando’s gun. Whether that happened before or after Zoe was shot, the report didn’t say. Still, this was major.

  Alex didn’t even bother texting Matheson or dialing his number for more information. The shift supervisor, Sergeant Rook, would almost certainly be as up-to-date as anyone on this. And unlike Detective Matheson, Rook had always been a team player, ready to share information where it was needed.

  “George, it’s Alex Cross,” he said, when Rook picked up. “I’m seeing some new activity in the Zoe Knight file?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s turning out not to be so straightforward.”

  “So I see,” Alex told him. “Can you tell me any more at this point?”

  “Matheson and a couple of patrol officers are on their way over to Orlando Fletcher’s apartment right now,” Rook told him. “That’s all I have, but we should know more soon.”

  Alex hung up, thinking mostly about Ali. Despite how rough the last day or so had been, he couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for his son. Ali had really poured himself into this case, and it couldn’t be easy sitting home, just waiting and wondering about what might happen next.

  Oh, well, Alex thought. It couldn’t be helped. He’d bring Ali up to speed just as soon as it made sense to do so. In the meantime, the boy would just have to be patient.

  I WAS STUCK at home after school that day, with no phone or computer privileges. Dad said I was grounded for a week, which stunk. But I got my homework done in record time, anyway, including some more research for my report. I’d already decided to stick with the same topic, even if Zoe never spoke to me again.

  But I was also going crazy, wondering what was up with everyone.

  Then, just after five o’clock, the doorbell rang. I stayed in my room, listening while Nana Mama answered the door.

  “Hi, Mrs. Cross,” I heard Ruby saying. “Can we please talk to Ali?”

  “I’m sorry, children, but Ali isn’t allowed to have friends over,” Nana said.

  “We know,” Gabe said next. “But it’s really important. Please? Just for a minute?”

  By now I was out in the hall, still listening, but I didn’t go any closer. Something told me if Nana Mama saw me, she’d remember to be strict.

  It was a good bet, too.

  “All right,” Nana said. “Five minutes, in the living room. I don’t want any secret conversations going on.”

  “No problem, ma’am,” Ruby said. “Thank you.”

  “Ali!” Nana called up, but I was already on my way down the stairs.

  When I saw Ruby and Gabe, both of them were looking at me with eyes big as dinner plates. Something was definitely going on.

  We all sat down in the living room, including Nana Mama.

  “What have you got?” I asked.

  “This,” Gabe said. He flipped open his laptop and started pulling something up, while Ruby did the same thing on her phone.

  “So, here’s Orlando Fletcher,” Gabe said. He’d loaded some Instagram account, and clicked one of the posts to make it bigger. It showed a tall, thin Black guy, holding a rack of glasses, working at some bar. The caption just said, “Our intrepid dishwasher, Orlando Fletcher.”

  “This is from a bar called Cavalcade,” Gabe said. “It’s only a few blocks from Orlando’s apartment.”

  “Okay?” I said.

  “So he’s working two jobs,” Gabe said. “At the garage, and at the bar.”

  “Okay?” I said again.

  Ruby held out her phone for me to see next. “And here’s Kim’s Insta from last Saturday night,” she said.

  The picture was a selfie Kim had taken, along with two other women. All three of them were holding up fancy-looking drinks. And the caption said, “Call me Ms. Blige cuz I am all about #NoMoreDrama tonight. Happy weekend, y’all!”

  “Just guess where that is?” Ruby said.

  It was coming together now. “Cavalcade?” I said.

  “Cavalcade,” Ruby said.

  “Boo-yah!” Gabe said. We all stopped and looked over at him. I guess he was just trying that one on, but he shrugged now. “Or… not.”

  “Anyway, yeah,” Ruby went on. “Kim left the party at Dee-Cee’s at like eight-thirty on Saturday night, and this was posted just before eleven.”

  “And Orlando doesn’t work weekends at the garage,” I said.

  “Cause he probably works Saturday nights at this place,” Gabe said.

  “Exactly.”

  It felt like an actual click! Like something had just fallen into place.

  “So, do you think Orlando and Kim are—”

  “A couple? Yeah,” Ruby said.

  So Dee-Cee’s ex-boyfriend, the guy she’d kicked out of her house, was now seeing her sister on the side. And it looked like they were keeping it a secret, too.

  “What do you think it means?” Gabe asked.

  For one thing, I thought, it meant that I’d gotten it wrong with Dad the day before. I’d told him all about how good I was at this stuff. But the truth was, we were good at it. Not just me.

  And there was more.

  “Cedric and Mateo are over at Orlando’s apartment building right now, just scoping it out for us,” Ruby said. “Let me try them.”

  She put in a FaceTime call then, and Cedric showed up on the screen a second later.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “How’s it going over there?” Ruby asked.

  “Boring,” Mateo said from off-camera.

  “We’re also out of snacks,” Cedric said.

  “Very funny,” Ruby said.

  “We don’t even know if Orlando’s home,” Mateo said. “Seriously, you guys, this feels like a waste of time.”

  “Thanks for going anyway,” I said. “No sign of Kim?”

  “Nope,” Cedric said. “But it’s early, right? Maybe she’ll—”

  Cedric had just trailed off. His screen went blurry, and it seemed like he was on the move all of a sudden.

  “Cedric?” Ruby said. “What’s up?”

  “Oh… wow,” Cedric said. “No way.”

  Ruby, Gabe, and I were looking at one another. Even Nana had come around the back of the couch to see.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Cedric’s face came back on the screen then. “You guys, you guys, you’re not going to believe this,” he said, whispering now. “Check it out.”

  The phone in his hand spun around one-eighty in another blur, and then stopped. That’s when I saw Detective Matheson and a police officer getting out of a patrol car and heading over to the front door of Orlando’s building to ring the bell.

  WE WATCHED LONG enough to see them bring Orlando outside. Cedric hung back with his phone pointed that way, but none of us said anything the whole time. Orlando wasn’t cuffed, and he wasn’t resisting, either. He just let them put him in the back of a car and they drove away.

  Whatever all that meant.

  “Someone needs to tell my dad about this,” I said. “Because it can’t be me.”

  “You don’t think he already knows?” Cedric asked.

  “I doubt it,” I said. “I think Detective Matheson is keeping most of this stuff to himself.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Nana said. “Meanwhile…” She leaned across the couch to look into Ruby’s phone again. “Cedric, go home! Mateo, does your father even know where you are?”

  “Not exactly,” Mateo said. “But I’m only a couple of blocks from my house.”

  “Well, good,” Nana said. “Because I’m giving you fifteen minutes to text me a picture of yourself at your front door, nice and clear. If I don’t hear from you by then, I will be calling your parents. You, too, Cedric. Understood?”

  “Um…” was all Cedric got to say.

  “I’ll have Ruby text you my number,” Nana said.

  It’s like she has a foolproof system for everything. About a second later, Cedric and Mateo were on their way home. And a second after that, Nana started shooing Ruby and Gabe out the front door.

  “All right, you two. I hope you have a wonderful evening, but you can’t stay here,” she told them.

  I was surprised she’d let everything go that far, so I wasn’t going to complain about cutting it short. But I did still need to talk to Ruby. In about half a minute, she and Gabe were going to be up the street and gone, and I’d be stuck at home with no computer or phone privileges. If I didn’t catch her now, I’d have to wait until Monday morning at school.

  So as soon as Nana headed for the kitchen, I went to the front door, opened it, and yelled outside. “Hey, Ruby, you forgot your phone!” Then I closed the door behind me and caught up with them on the sidewalk outside.

  “I didn’t forget my phone,” Ruby said.

  “I know,” I said, and pretended to hand her something, just in case Nana was watching. “I wanted to ask what was up with Zoe. Have you talked to her? I mean… about me?”

  Ruby looked at the ground, like there was something interesting down there. “I don’t know, Ali,” she said.

  “You don’t know if you talked to her?” I asked.

  “Um, no.” Ruby said. “I mean, I can’t just tell you what she said. That’s up to Zoe.”

  So at least I knew they had been talking about me.

  “Far as I can tell, she broke up with me in a text,” I said. “Unless she was never my girlfriend to begin with. I don’t know what’s going on. Help me out?”

  Ruby gave me another look, like I was making this hard for her. And maybe I was, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to find out what was up with Zoe.

  “It wasn’t just a text,” Ruby said. “She sent you a freaking poem, okay? You don’t do that if you don’t still care. That’s all I’m going to say.”

  It was something, anyway. I think it even counted as good news. So I didn’t push it any further.

  “What about the investigation?” I asked. “Do you know if Mikayla confessed to the shooting?”

  Ruby shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “For real. Zoe didn’t say anything about that either way.”

  I wondered why not. Did that mean Zoe was in the dark about Mikayla? Or was she just keeping it to herself?

  “Can you try to find out?” I asked.

  Just then, I heard the front door open, and Nana called down.

  “Ali! Are you trying to exhaust my patience?” When I looked up, she was waving at me to get back in the house. “Come on. Let’s go!”

  I shrugged at Gabe and Ruby. “Guess I’ll see you guys Monday,” I said.

  “Later,” Gabe said, and turned to get out of there. I think he was more scared of Nana than any of my other friends. Then again, Gabe was also smarter than any of my other friends, so you do the math.

  “See you Monday,” Ruby said. “And… I’ll try.”

  She couldn’t say too much with Nana right there, but she meant she’d try to get some info from Zoe. In the meantime, all I could do was wait. And anyone who knows me knows that waiting isn’t exactly my best subject in life.

  It was going to be a long weekend.

  I WASN’T EXPECTING to hear from Ruby until we were back at school. So when Nana’s phone rang in the middle of breakfast the next morning, and Ruby’s name showed up on her screen, I knew something big was up.

  “What in the world?” Nana said. “Hello? Ruby?”

  There was a long silence while she listened to whatever Ruby was telling her.

  “Slow down, sweetheart. Let me put you on with Ali’s dad,” Nana said, and handed the phone over while Bree, Jannie, and I just sat there letting our cereal get soggy.

  Right away, I could see on Dad’s face that something was wrong. He kept looking over at me, too. I didn’t know for sure if it was about Zoe, but what else could it be?

  “I’ll ask him,” Dad said finally. “Just sit tight. We’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked once he’d hung up.

  “Have you been in touch with Zoe since yesterday?” Dad asked. “I need you to be honest, Ali.”

  “No,” I said. “I swear. I haven’t talked to her since the tent camp. Why? What’s going on?”