Read Online Poison Most Vial by Benedict Carey - Free Book Online Page B

What’s
her
problem?

The note must have been there for a little while. On the edge of Ruby’s desk, a piece of torn paper folded in half, lost amid the scraps she’d taken from the library.
    She glanced up at Mrs. Patterson, who was listing vocabulary words on the whiteboard. All clear there.
    Ruby opened the note, written in Sharon’s purple pen:
I want to help
. She looked at the other side; that was it.
    Ruby glanced back at its author again, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
    â€œWhat the . . . ?” The rumor was that Sharon landed in Regular after she’d hacked into the school’s computers and . . . what? Ruby didn’t know the full story.
    The girl wanted to help how, exactly?
    Mrs. Patterson’s lesson ended, finally. The class broke,with an audible collective sigh, for a half hour of free time. Ruby, Rex, and Sharon gathered at a table by the window by themselves.
    â€œWhat do you mean, you want to help?” Ruby whispered.
    Sharon swept a strand of hair from her face (
Everything she does is like some shampoo model
, Ruby thought). “I mean,” Sharon said, “I know what you’re doing. I think. I’ve seen you in the library.”
    â€œBut what do you care?” Rex said. “Don’t you tell me you been spying on us.”
    â€œI care because—well, you know. Because the school accused me of stuff, too, stuff I didn’t do, I’d never do. They accused me of hacking into the mainframe, of changing my grades.” (
So that was it!
Ruby thought.) “They said it, and now everyone believes it, and nothing I can do. Kinda like what’s happening with your dad, Ruby.”
    Ruby winced. She hoped that maybe not
everyone
believed that her dad was guilty.
    â€œBut, like, how are you going to help?” Ruby said. Those worked-up laces and that prima-donna way of swinging her hair. “We don’t—we really don’t have anything for you to do. Rex?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. Something, maybe.”
    Oh no: He wants her in? Does Rex like Sharon?
    â€œNothing?” said Sharon. “You got absolutely nothingI can check out or work with? No school documents, no numbers?”
    â€œJust this,” Ruby said.
    Ruby wrote down in her notebook an equation that she saw all over the grad students’ notebooks: Ln(2)/T-1/2. She had no idea what it meant.
Good luck with that
, Ruby thought, not sure whether she wanted the girl to succeed or fail.
    Sharon’s face went slack at the sight of the equation, and she turned the page around. “No idea on this thing.” She looked up at the two of them. “But I can bring in someone who might know. Is that all?”
    â€œNope,” said Ruby, and she felt of twinge of something—jealousy, maybe—that Princess Sharon was casually asking for items that Ruby had taken big risks to get. “Uh, let’s see. I wrote down the ID numbers from a couple security badges. But I’m not even sure whose they are.”
    Ruby thought she saw a flare pass through Sharon’s eyes. “Security badge numbers, did you say? Uh, yeah, I’m familiar with those. Let me show you what we can do with ’em. Meet in the library after school?”
    Ruby stalled for a half second, stole a glance at Rex. He was smiling, of course. “All right.”
    Ruby arrived first and checked the forensics cluster. Empty, and thank goodness; no need for another run-in with Lydia, not now.
    She staked out a table near the computers and flattened her lab diagram on the table just as Sharon and Rex were arriving.
    â€œHey,” Sharon said, putting her backpack on the table.
    Ruby nodded, glancing at Rex.
    â€œGo ahead, Ruby, you tell it,” he said.
    She recited most of what they knew. The timing of the murder. The poisons used. The red vials. The grad students, with quick descriptions. And the layout of the lab. She did not mention Mrs.