You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone by Kevin O'Brien

beyond that.
    Heading toward his car, he focused on his smart phone. His thumbs rapidly moved over the little keypad:

    W@ a 4kd ^ dy! M finly fre n on my wa 2 my car. CU sn!

    He hit Send, and then shoved his phone into the pocket of his Queen Anne High School Windbreaker—which was identical to the one the coach always wore at their football games. Approaching his Mustang, Roger took out his keys. From this distance, he couldn’t quite see where the car had been scratched last month. But as he got closer, there it was. He still hadn’t gotten it fixed. The car detail place wanted $460 to make the scratch disappear. He couldn’t afford that right now. At least no one had vandalized the car again, not since he’d stopped parking in the teachers’ lot.
    Roger opened the door and climbed inside. He slid the key into the ignition, but didn’t turn it. With a sigh, he sat back and stared out the rain-beaded windshield.
    The cops had asked him if Damon Shuler had ever threatened him—or if he’d received any anonymous threats recently. Roger had told them no, and insisted he was very well-liked by the students. He’d didn’t think to tell them about the unidentified douche bag who had keyed his car. He’d never associated the incident with Shuler. He’d figured the squirrelly kid would never have had the nerve to do anything like that. But then, until a couple of hours ago, he didn’t think Shuler would have been capable of killing his mother and himself in that spectacle of carnage half the school had just witnessed.
    Could Shuler have been the one who scratched his Mustang? Did the kid even know what kind of car he drove?
    Suddenly someone tapped on the window—right by his ear. Roger sat up with a start. He swiveled toward the door and saw KC Cunningham smirking on the other side of the glass. KC lived with her divorced mother only a few blocks from the school. She’d gone home and changed from her rain-soaked cheerleading uniform to a pair of jeans and a purple sweater. Her close-cropped, blond hair was dry now.
    Roger rolled down his window. “You scared the crap out of me,” he said, catching his breath. “Talk about a fucked-up day . . .”
    She nodded. “So you said in your email. How did the meeting go with Dunmore? Or should I say Done-Nothing ?” She let out a little laugh. “Hey, it was pretty funny when the Freakazoid went on about that on the webcast. And then— boom! I mean, W-T-F. I still can’t believe it—”
    â€œThe meeting went fine,” Roger said, cutting her off. He reached over and unlocked the passenger door. “Hurry up and get in before someone sees you talking to me.”
    With a sigh, KC rolled her eyes and then flounced around the front of the car to the passenger side.
    KC was one of those popular girls who had a crush on him. It was more than a crush now. For Roger, it was a fantasy fulfilled. He was screwing a pretty cheerleader. They’d been secretly meeting for the last three weeks. Her mother was clueless, too busy working—and dating some guy KC didn’t like. The sex with KC was pretty fantastic. But he really felt the age difference between them when they were together. Plus she could be a real chatterbox about the most inane things. Sometimes Roger had to bite his lip to keep from telling her to shut the hell up. But then he reminded himself that he was banging a cheerleader, and he suddenly felt better about the whole thing.
    KC opened the door and plopped down on the passenger seat. He could tell she was pissed off about something. She let out another sigh and folded her arms. “Are you even going to ask me how it went with the police? Y’know, you’re not the only one they talked to. They grilled me for, like, almost a half hour. I’m not sure if that was even legal—questioning someone my age without a parent or a lawyer.” She glanced in