Like Wildfire

Chapter 9

"For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently"

                                                               -Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

John

"I'm ordering a pizza. What do you want on it?"

"Are you talking to me?" Peter turned down the volume on the football game and looked around the living room as if there were someone else in the house besides the two of them. Idiot.

John swallowed his irritation and pasted what he hoped resembled a smile on his face. "Yeah. We could watch the game together." Their parents had gone out for the evening to celebrate their three-month wedding anniversary—barf—leaving the new stepbrothers to fend for themselves. John would much rather have headed out to find a party and a girl, but he needed information. There had been little to no official update on the whole child porn aspect of the investigation and he was starting to freak out.

"Uh, sure. Pizza's always good. No bell peppers. I'm fine with whatever else you want." Peter turned back to the game.

John called in the order and grabbed a couple beers from the fridge. "Incoming." He lobbed one to his stepbrother—God, he hated that he was permanently connected to this loser.

"Stealing Dad's beer? No thanks. I value my life too much." Peter started to hand it back.

"Relax, Poindexter. It's mine. I put it in the fridge earlier." This was a complete fabrication, of course. He flopped at the other end of the couch and put his feet on the coffee table, something for which his mother would have smacked him. He waited until the pizza arrived and Peter had consumed another beer before asking anything. "So, what's going on with the whole Hope sex video situation? I heard she's not coming back." He took another bite of pizza and tried to appear casual.

Peter skewered him with a suspicious look. "Since when do you care about Hope Daniels? It wasn't even her in the video."

Crap. Time to back pedal a bit. "Hey, I never really thought it was her. That's why I showed you and Cam as soon as I saw it, so he could get out in front of it."

"I never did ask who sent it to you." Peter still looked suspicious.

"I didn't recognize the number."

"Can I see it? I might know whose number it is." Peter held out his hand for John's phone.

This was not going as well as he'd imagined. Peter was smarter than John had given him credit for. "I had to get a new phone. I dropped mine in the toilet. I lost all my messages."

"Huh. Well, that's too bad. You were apparently one of the first to get the video. That really would have helped."

"Yeah, that sucks. So, is Hope coming back?" If she stayed away, maybe he could dodge this whole thing for long enough to plan a decent exit strategy. He recognized his faulty logic, but he was desperate.

"I don't know. With Ben and Trissa broken up, I haven't had much chance to talk to Trissa about Hope or anything else. I did hear she went to Lubbock to visit her." Peter turned his attention back to the game, yelling at the quarterback for his latest play. "Did the sheriff talk to you yet?"

"Yeah, but I just told him the same thing: I got a message from an unknown number with the video and it had the video attached. I showed Cam because I knew they were going out. I'd want to know if it was my girlfriend."

"Sure. Of course. It's just kind of funny you were the first one it was sent to. Why you?"

"No idea." Shit. If Peter was starting to wonder, he could bet the principal would soon hear about it. It was a short leap from there to the sheriff. John definitely didn't want any closer scrutiny on his part in this whole debacle. He wished he'd never listened to Brad and Connie! He needed to figure a way to turn the attention to them without implicating himself in any way. Either that or he needed to get the hell out of Dodge. Pronto.