2 Death Makes the Cut Read Free

more than a damp paper towel, but still everything looked pretty good. Tomorrow was the first day of the new school year, August 24. A little later this year than in past years, but still the height of summer. Long days, cloudless skies, sizzling heat. There wasn’t a kid on the planet who wouldn’t have rather been at the pool, but at least I was ready for them.
    I returned to my desk and started looking over the lists of student names again. This year, my day was made up of four history classes, two French classes, one planning period, and one lunch period. Which meant I had about 180 students. Going through the lists in advance made it easier remembering who was who when I finally met them all. I prided myself on my ability to know every kid’s name by the end of the first week. I was just going through the list a second time when the door to my classroom opened, and my best friend Kyla Shore walked in.
    Although most people assume we are sisters, Kyla and I are first cousins. Our fathers are identical twins and we look enough alike to be twins ourselves. Maybe not identical twins, but we’d been mistaken for each other before, a fact that drove Kyla absolutely crazy. She would never admit there was anything more than a remote family resemblance. For my part I would have been happy if we looked even more alike, or rather if I looked more like her. Because, although I wouldn’t break mirrors, Kyla was drop-dead gorgeous—the kind of beauty that made men stop in the middle of the street to pick their jaws up off the ground. She was no fool either, and was fully aware of the effect she had on men. In fact, she shamelessly used it to her full advantage, telling me once that she hadn’t bought a drink for herself in five years. It might have made her obnoxious, but she was also completely charming. And to be fair, it didn’t seem to mean much to her other than as an entertaining diversion. She’d graduated with honors in computer programming and now worked as a lead developer for a software company, raking in money and bonuses.
    Today she looked glum. And beautiful, of course. And stylish and elegant. August in Austin, Texas, meant the temperature outside was at least ninety-five degrees. It meant that touching a steering wheel could leave grill marks on your palms. It meant that the thirty seconds it took to dash from an air-conditioned building to an air-conditioned car could leave your shirt clinging to your back like a professional wrestler’s. However, in her white and yellow sundress, Kyla looked as cool and together as an ice sculpture. Even her dark hair curled and bounced around her shoulders with a life of its own. My own hair was pulled back in a limp ponytail, and I looked sourly down at my denim capris and oversized T-shirt. We could have been the Before and After shots in a makeover commercial.
    Now, she dropped her purse on my desk with a thud and flopped dramatically into a chair with a groan.
    “That doesn’t look like good news,” I said. “How did it go?”
    Kyla had recently had a little trouble with the law.
    “Pretty good. I guess. I got community service,” she added with a frown.
    I whooped. “Hey, that’s great! You couldn’t have hoped for much better than that.”
    She looked at me sourly. “The best thing would have been for them to give me a fucking medal for protecting myself and the public in general.”
    “Well, yeah. But you pulled a concealed weapon on Sixth Street. They couldn’t exactly let that go,” I pointed out.
    A look of outrage lit her sapphire eyes. “I don’t see why not. Was I supposed to just let those assholes carjack me? I don’t think so.”
    “No, of course not.”
    “If it wasn’t for me, those little bastards would still be out there, taking someone else’s car, maybe hurting someone.” Her finger jabbed the air at every word.
    Now she was glaring at me like it was my fault.
    I held up my hands. “You know I’m one hundred percent on your side.