The Beast of Beauty by Valerie Johnston Read Free Book Online Page A

took a quick shower.
    “Jasper? The officers want to
speak to you!” my mother said as she tapped on the door. It sounded like she
was beating it with a hammer.
    “Just a minute!” I yelled back,
hurting my head even worse.
    I brushed my teeth to take away
any trace of alcohol and walked to the living room where I saw two cops sitting
with notepads out.
    “Son, we have a few questions,”
one cop said. “I’m Officer Harvey, and this is Officer Kerry.”
    I nodded as I sat down on the
couch opposite them.
    “How well do you know Daniel
Cotton?”
    I was a bit thrown by the
question. Why would anyone be asking me about Daniel? Did he rat us out? How
did he even know about the party?
    “Uh, he’s in my class. Has been
for years,” I replied.
    “Jasper, he’s your best friend!”
my mother interrupted.
    “Is that true, Jasper?” Officer
Harvey asked.
    I scoffed, “No, it’s not,” I
looked at my mother as I spoke. “We used to be friends, but we aren’t anymore.
We grew up, or at least I did.”
    “Did you see him yesterday?”
Officer Harvey continued.
    Yesterday… yesterday we beat the
crap out of Daniel. That’s what this is about. I didn’t put a finger on him, so
why are they at my house?
    “Yes,” I said, “but not since
school got out.”
    “Mr. Cotton said that the two of
you exchanged words after school, pulled over on the side of the road,” Harvey
said.
    “Oh, yeah!” I said quickly. “I
did see Daniel. He had a passenger in his car that wanted to ride with me, so
we both pulled over and she switched rides, but I didn’t see him after that.”
    “What is the rider’s name?”
    “Zoey Hart,” I said. “Officer,
can I ask what this is about?”
    “Sorry, we thought your mother
told you,” Harvey explained. “Daniel has been missing since about seven p.m.
yesterday. We are trying to figure out if he’s run away, and if he has, why.”
    I was blown away. Cotton ran
away? What a wimp.
    “Is there something you need to
tell us?” Kerry asked. He must have seen me make a face.
    “Oh, well if Daniel did run away,
I suppose it was because he didn’t make the basketball team. We found out
yesterday who made it and who didn’t, and he was pretty bummed about it. He
even got so upset that he walked out of class once,” I explained.
    They jotted in their notepads as
I spoke. “Is there anything else that you think we should know?”
    I pondered, “Well, I want you to
know that I would never do something to directly hurt Daniel, but he and Zoey
Hart broke up yesterday, and, well, now I’m dating her. So he could be upset
about that too.”
    The cops nodded, just taking in
the facts, but my mother frowned.
    “Okay,” Harvey said as he stood.
“We have all that we need for now. We’ll come back if anything new comes up.
Thank you both for your time.”
    I stood up and shook both of
their hands to try to win my mother over, but she looked like she was trying to
strangle me with her eyes.
    She saw them both to the door and
whipped around to face me.
    “You stole your best friend’s
girlfriend? Are you out of your mind?” She said calmly and creepily.
    “Mom, I told you that we aren’t
friends anymore, so what’s the big deal? If bro code applied to every male on
the planet, then I’d never have a girlfriend,” I reasoned.
    She wasn’t impressed.
    “Jasper! You don’t treat other
people like that!” she yelled.
    “Look, Zoey should be the one at
fault here. She’s the one whose actions are going to hurt Daniel, okay, not
me.”
    “What do you mean ‘going to’? I
thought you said he already knows,” Mom asked.
    I sighed, “He’s knows about us
going out, he just doesn’t know the whole story yet. And he may never know,
since he might’ve run away.”
    “Well, guess who is going to know
the whole story?” she said calmly. “Me.”
    “You don’t want to hear it,” I
warned.
    “Try me,” she dared.
    “Fine. I slept with Zoey last
night,” I stated.
    She