Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods 1)

"We don't," Oliver said. "I mean, you guys don't. I don't know how much help I can be."

"What do you mean? You've already done so much," Schuyler protested. She gave him an admiring glance that made him blush.

"Research, yes. I can do research. That's what we're good for, but I can't do anything to help with the plan."

"What plan?" Bliss asked, amused.

Oliver looked so serious and purposeful for a second. He had dropped his glib jokes for once. "We've been acting as if the system works for us. It doesn't. You need to think like Blue Bloods. We're never going to convince anyone to let Dylan out based on what we know. So we do something else," Oliver said.

"What?"

"Bust him out."

;

CHAPTER 33

The police wouldn't let them see Dylan. They tried to visit him after school, but they encountered a wall of law enforcement - and no one at the station would even admit to holding him there. It was a dead end. They had taken away his cell phone and his Sidekick, and they had no way to get in touch with him. Schuyler felt a deep sense of foreboding. The crisis brought the three of them - Bliss, Schuyler, and Oliver - closer than ever. The next day, Bliss stopped sitting with Mimi in the cafeteria. Instead, they spent every free period plotting on how to help their friend.

"His family's rich. I'm sure they have some awesome defense lawyer set up for him, right?" Bliss asked. "We need to talk to them. I need to tell them something."

"What?" Schuyler asked.

"I did a little investigating on my own last night. Okay, so I overheard my mom talking to some people about the case.

I heard her say the police said time of death was between ten and eleven P.M. They're pretty sure about that. The way Aggie's body was found, it couldn't have happened anytime earlier or later."

"So?" From a skeptical Oliver.

"So, Dylan was with me from ten to eleven. We were outside in the alley the whole time, smoking cigarettes. He never left my side."

"Not once? Not even to go to the bathroom?" Schuyler asked.

Bliss shook her head. "No. I'm positive. I looked at my watch a couple of times. Because I was, uh, worried, that Mimi would wonder where I was."

"You know what that means, don't you?" Oliver asked. He was smiling.

The two girls shook their heads.

"It means he has a rock-solid alibi. Bliss Llewellyn, you are a doll. You're his get-out-of-jail-free card. C'mon, we've got to find Dylan's family and tell them."

Dylan lived in Tribeca, so they took Bliss's Rolls Royce down to his neighborhood that afternoon. Oliver and Schuyler were impressed by the plush interior. "I've got to get my dad to get us one of these," Oliver marveled. "We only have a boring old Town Car."

Tribeca was a former industrial neighborhood - the old butter and egg district, with cobblestone streets and old factory buildings turned into multimillion-dollar lofts.

"Is this the address?" Oliver asked, walking toward a loft building on the corner. They consulted the Duchesne address book. It was.

"You've never been here?" Bliss asked, surprised. Oliver and Schuyler shook their heads.

"But I thought you were his friends."

"We are," Schuyler said. "But see..."

"It never occurred to us..." Oliver explained.