"It might get all of us into trouble," Anuja says.
"Let's aim for no one to get into trouble, all right?" Addy says. "We do that by finding this dumb jacket lining and making sure it looks like the ones from school."
The group splits up to take on as many stores as possible in a short amount of time. Anuja is the one who finds the closest match over at a discount department store. It's definitely black quilted nylon, and only someone who was paying ridiculously close attention would be able to tell it isn't one and the same as Ashbrook's jackets. On the way home, Addy uses their fake ID to buy a pack of menthols, and then it's time to tear the thing apart.
"No, we can't use scissors," Anuja tells Diego when he grabs them from your desk. "They'll make too clean a cut."
"We need to make it look like it got snagged by a tree branch or something," you tell them. "Let's go outside."
The five of you take turns swinging the jacket down so it will get caught on one of the sharper sticks in the pile of firewood in your backyard. You manage to make the jacket sufficiently dirty as if someone had been wearing it while rolling around on Burbridge Island, but can't get it to tear. Finally, you tap into all your inner stores of anger and just rip the lining off by hand.
"It's good enough," you say. "Now someone light a cigarette."
Addy lights a menthol, and you hold the fabric over it as if you were trying to cleanse it with incense. Anuja takes it from you, throws it on the ground, opens up a cigarette to let all the tobacco fall out on it, and grinds it into the liner with the sole of her shoe.
"Maybe we went too far," Kirill says as you all stare at your fabricated evidence. "It looks like whoever was wearing it rolled down a cliff."
"It's been out in the elements," you tell him. "Besides, it definitely smells like menthols now, thanks to Anuja."
The others still seem skeptical. You're the one who will be trying to sell this, though, so you're the only one who really has to feel it's believable.