Free Code of Silence: Living a Lie Comes With a Price by Tim Shoemaker

He’s one of them!

CHAPTER 11
    H is mind shifted into high gear, but he wasn’t gaining any ground. An elbow in his ribs brought him back to reality.
    “It’s over,” Hiro said.
    The assembly or their plan to keep quiet? Cooper wasn’t sure which one she meant. Students all over the bleachers stood and started filing out. He could hear snatches of excited conversations. Jake, Kelsey, and Emily were talking over each other now, each of them guessing what had happened to poor Frank. Cooper knew exactly what happened, but he didn’t dare tell a soul. Gordy sat next to him in stunned silence.
    Lunk’s face had no more color than Hammer’s manila folder with the thirty-two names. Pulling a pen from the corner of his mouth, Lunk turned toward Cooper and Hiro.
    “Mr. Mustacci is the nicest man I know,” he said, quietly.
    And he’s alive. Thank God.
Cooper nodded. “He always treated us good. Like we were people, not just kids. Hiro’s mom used to work there.”
    Lunk worked the pen between his fingers, turning it end over end. “He gave me a job three weeks ago.” Then as if he guessed their question, he went on. “I’m 15, so I can work until seven on school nights. And all day Saturday. Gives me meals, too. All I want.”
    Normally Hiro wouldn’t let an opportunity like that go without a comeback, but this time she remained silent, staring at her shoes. Then again, Lunk only had good to say about Frank. How could she argue with that? Frank’s goodness was probably the only thing on Earth they both agreed on.
    Lunk kept talking—almost like he was in a daze. “I filled out applications everywhere. Mom didn’t want me to take a job, but the rent went up.”
    Cooper didn’t know what to say. Lunk wasn’t the type to open up.
    “None of the other places even called me for an interview. Mr. Mustacci didn’t care that I had no job experience. He gave me a chance.”
    Goose bumps rose on Cooper’s arms. Those were nearly the same words Frank used when the two men forced him to give them the combination to the safe. He had given
someone
a chance—someone who betrayed him and told the wrong people about the safe, and how Frank didn’t trust banks.
    “How could anybody hurt him?” Lunk’s eyes narrowed to slits as dark as his hair.
    Hiro finally found her tongue. “Exactly what I was thinking. They’d have to be total jerks. Morons. Scum-of-the-earth, cold-hearted bullies that deserved …”
    “Hiro,” Cooper interrupted.
    She set her jaw and glared at Lunk.
    Lunk didn’t look offended. “If I find the person who did this, or the witness who is messing up the investigation …” He bent the pen nearly in half and tossed it between the bleacher boards.
    Cooper heard the pen clatter against the steel supports on its way down. He had a feeling Lunk would do the same thing to him if he found out he was at Frank ‘n Stein’s last night.
    Like the starting gun at a race, the bell signaling the end of the last period triggered Cooper into action. Leaping to his feet, hestuffed his books in his backpack and slung it over his shoulder on the run. He’d play offense now. Rather than slinking around the halls, afraid of cops questioning him, he could finally get out of the school.
    He caught up to Hiro and Gordy. Together they merged into the crowd bottlenecked at the doors leading to the parking lot—and freedom. Policemen stood at every exit handing out neon yellow sheets of paper. Great. The permission form.
    Hiro nudged him. “How do we handle
that
?”
    Cooper didn’t answer. A police interview would change everything. It was one thing not to go to the police—not to
offer
information. It was another thing to lie to them.
    The crowd funneled into single file lines at the doors, and the police didn’t miss one student. “Have a parent read and sign this,” the cops repeated with almost every new student. “Bring it back Monday.”
    Taking one of the forms, Cooper folded it in half and buried it