“It’s in a shed off the circle. Behind town hall.”

It was like someone had suddenly encased my arms and legs in cement. “I thought that shed was owned by Buck’s father.”

“Huh? That’s public land. Buck’s father has nothing to do with it. It’s owned by the town. That’s where they keep all the urine specimens—the ones already tested and the backups. But because someone broke in, no one can say if something’s been switched or tainted or whatever. That’s why they’ve all been voided.”

I staggered back, suddenly dizzy. I could feel the blood rushing to my face. “Do they know who broke in?”

“No,” Brandon said. “But the police said it was someone tall.”

CHAPTER 44

Troy was waiting for me in the car. He had the same big smile on his face, but now I saw it for what it was. Not friendship. Not sportsmanship or teamwork.

It was the smile of someone mocking me.

I went around to his side of the car. The window was open. I reached in with both hands, grabbed him by the lapels, and pulled him straight out the window.

“What the . . . ?”

“You set me up!” I shouted.

Troy didn’t fight back. He just kept smiling at me. “You don’t want to make a scene, Mickey.”

“You never saw Randy and Buck go into that shed.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“What?”

“I want to make sure you’re not recording this. Get in the car and take your phone out where I can see it.”

I wanted to punch him.

Troy pushed me off him, opened his door, and slid back into the car. I was at a loss about what to do.

“You deaf?” Troy asked. “Get in.”

I walked back around and got into the front passenger seat of his red sports car.

“Now show me your phone.”

I took it out and put it on the console. He checked it to make sure that I wasn’t taping the conversation. I wasn’t. I should have been, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I had let my anger take over. I needed to calm down.

“Is Randy even a drug dealer?” I asked.

“Oh, that part was true,” Troy said. “Where do you think I got the steroids?”

So there it was. He’d done them. And I had helped him get away with it—me, the dope who claimed that people could change. Ema had said that they couldn’t. Normally I enjoyed irony. Not today.

“I’m going to tell the coaches,” I said.

“And what exactly are you going to tell them, Mickey?”

“That we broke into that shed. That I thought . . .”

Troy just kept smiling at me. “Think it through a minute.”

I said nothing.

“First off,” Troy continued, “you know that the circle has several new security cameras, right?”

“So?”