Exposure Point: A gripping small town mystery. (The Candidates Book 1)

by M. D. Archer

  But if I didn’t dance, what was I supposed to do instead? I tugged at my bangs. Be a hairdresser? Doubtful. I pulled out my phone. There had to be something online to help with this. I opened a search engine, hesitated as I tried to find the words, then typed how do I know which career? into a browser. When the results popped up, I sat back with a smile. There. A free online test I could do to figure out what career was best suited to my personality. And then maybe I could figure out a way to make it happen. Because if I had a plan, then maybe Mom, and everyone else, would take me seriously. Maybe everyone would believe I was capable of doing something other than dancing.

  As Kathleen topped up my coffee once more, I clicked on another link to a list of personality tests. Ten minutes later, I found one that asked whether I liked parties, whether I thought about conversations for a long time after they’d taken place, whether I liked to plan my travel, etc. They were like the questions we answered at the start of the Your Future session. I would know—I still had the questionnaire I’d filled out in my bag. And a personality test made total sense, because they were trying to figure out which jobs we were most suited to. As I looked for another link, I wondered what had happened to all the student questionnaires. I hadn’t seen them in the office, but Mrs. Pemberton had probably collected them.

  I found another test that only took five minutes. Like the others, it asked me whether I liked hanging out with large groups of people, whether I was sensitive, whether I liked thinking abstract thoughts, and whether I worried about my current problems or future problems. I found that one hard to answer because I wanted to say both. My no-longer-injured foot was a current problem I’d spent a lot of time worrying about, but the reason I was doing this test was to do with my future. Or lack thereof.

  Behind me I heard the diner door swing open and someone call out, “You here, Mom? I mean Kathleen?”

  A bright-eyed woman, probably in her twenties, walked up to the counter, and Kathleen appeared from the back. “Brie, honey, what are you doing here?” she said, her face breaking into a wide smile.

  “Turn on the TV,” Brie said, unwinding a stripy scarf from around her neck and taking a seat at the counter. “I’ve got a story coming up. A special bulletin.”

  “About the hiker?” Kathleen’s eyes widened.

  Brie nodded. “That’s not all.” Her eyes flashed with excitement.

  Kathleen pointed a remote at the TV, and from a few tables down, I heard a familiar voice say, “Hey, darling. Can you increase the volume so we all can hear?”

  I did a double take. It was Logan Kerry, sitting a couple of booths away. I hunched down instinctively. What is he doing here? But I guess he had to eat too. Keeping low in my booth, I turned a little more so I could see his face properly. He was throwing his smarmy smile at Kathleen, and she had a big smile for him in return.

  “Sure, hon.” She winked and went to adjust the volume.

  Was I the only one who could see his smiles were totally insincere?

  I turned my attention to the TV, now blaring as Brie started her segment. The camera showed her walking slowly past the entrance to the park as she spoke.

  “Montrose is home to a world-famous national park, a popular spot for honeymooners, overseas tourists, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts. Vast and rugged, with near-endless stretches of forest, the park draws thousands of visitors to Montrose.” The camera cut away from Brie to footage of the park, with Brie’s voice in the background giving the Montrose spiel I’d heard maybe a million times since I moved here. I tuned in again when the camera cut back to her, now with a more serious expression on her face. “But in the past three years, Montrose has had more deaths than a town ten times our size. Within the last month alone, both Kade Liston and Robert Symonds came to grisly ends in what perhaps should be renamed the Notorious National Park.”

  I sucked in a breath. With everything else going on, I hadn’t thought about Kade in a while.

  The camera cut to footage of a paramedic-type person wheeling a body bag out of the park, then to a press conference in which a police officer told us Robert Symonds had fallen and then sustained further injuries from wild animals and the elements. His death was accidental, and that was that.

  “Good.”

  I turned toward the voice. Logan stared intently at the TV.

  Good?

  But the story wasn’t finished. The camera returned to Brie. “But can we put the entirety of the blame on the park? Robert Symonds’s death was ruled accidental, but given the coroner’s original comments and the eyewitness accounts from other hikers, one has to ask, was this ruling completely unbiased, or did it perhaps take into account other factors? Factors such as Montrose being a town reliant on tourist dollars? A town that can’t afford suspicious disappearances or deaths?”

  Whoa.

  Brie nodded at the camera. “This is Brie Paulson, and I’ll be continuing this story. Follow me @BusyBrie for more.”

  Kathleen and Brie huddled together to talk in excited whispers while Logan stood up, threw a couple of bills on the table, and packed away his laptop. I drained the rest of my coffee and set the cup down, watching him as he ambled to the entrance, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He moved through the door, already making a call, and without thinking about it, I jumped up and hurried to follow him. He paused in the shelter of the awning with his laptop bag slung over one shoulder and his phone to his ear. I eased the door open a crack so I could hear him. I wasn’t totally sure what I was doing, but why was he pleased that the hiker’s death had been ruled accidental? What was up with this guy?

  “News came out about the hiker,” Logan said into his phone, staring into the distance. “You saw?” He paused. “No, of course not, but… Yes, I will. What about this reporter? Is she going to be a problem?… It shouldn’t have gone down like that… What? Yes. See you then.”

  Logan shoved his phone into his pocket and carried on to his car, a dark blue sedan. As he opened the door, I noticed the coat he was wearing. Camel-coloured.

  A dark-coloured sedan and a camel-coloured coat.

  Oh, wow.

  It was him. It was Logan. The guy who’d stun-gunned the hoodie guy. Of course. It had happened at the health centre, after all.

  “Hon?”

  I sprang up and whirled around to see Kathleen eyeing me with a questioning frown. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, I was….” I searched for an explanation. “Weather doesn’t look good,” I said with a lame smile. “Um, can I get the check, please?”

  Kathleen gave me an uncertain nod. “Sure.”

  ***

  On the bus home, nestled into a window seat near the front, I replayed what I’d overheard, trying to figure out if there was another way to interpret it.

  I pulled my phone out of my bag and opened a search engine. I did a general search of Robert Symonds, and after scrolling through a lot of stuff that talked about his death, I found one talking about his life. Robert had been a pharmaceutical equipment rep. Thirty-three years old, married but no kids.

  I started a new search, this time with Logan’s name. A minute later, I sat back. Logan had a Master’s in Biological Management. Is that what you needed to run a small-town high school health centre? After scrolling through more results, I found an interview he did for the Gazette right before the health centre officially opened. The article was full of the normal boring thing about helping the town and new health initiatives, etc.

  Then I noticed the date.

  Logan Kerry had come to town a few days before Robert Symonds had gone missing.

  Was that why he cared what happened to Robert, or more importantly, what people thought had happened to him?

  Was Logan responsible for Robert’s death?

  9

  I got to work early, before school started.

  Mrs. Pemberton had already said I didn’t need to worry about making up the time I’d missed from my doctor’s appointment, but I couldn’t hang around at home this
morning because there was a risk Mom would get up early and want to chat over breakfast. She still hadn’t seen my bangs, and like Ms. Spencer, she wasn’t going to be impressed—it was harder to do dance hair with bangs—not to mention I’d have to lie about my injury. I just wasn’t ready to fess up. Plus, I wanted to try talking to Mrs. Pemberton about Logan again. Maybe she’d be able to stop mooning over how lovely he was for one second and tell me something about him that would make sense of what I’d seen and heard.

  But when I got to the office, Mrs. Pemberton wasn’t alone. She and Mr. Evans were huddled deep in conversation. They looked kind of weird together—Mrs. Pemberton was short and squat, Mr. Evans tall and gangly—and neither had noticed me arrive.

  I cleared my throat.

  Mrs. Pemberton startled. “Oh, Calliope.” Her eyes were wide. “You’re here early.”

  Suddenly, asking about Logan seemed impossible.

  “Did you hear about the truck driver?” Mrs. Pemberton hurried forward and clutched my arms. “The one who.…” She waved one hand out in the direction of the school gate. “He died.”

  I stared at her. “No. Really?”

  “He had a stroke in hospital.”

  “A series of strokes, apparently,” Mr. Evans added. “They believe he had one while driving and that was what caused the accident.”

  “Wow, that’s… freaky.”

  It wasn’t as if I knew him or anything, but I’d been right there. I’d watched him drive into our school, and now he was dead.

  “Calliope, honey, I need Mr. Evans here for another fifteen minutes. We really must get this finished. Can you go hold the fort in his homeroom class?”

  “The fort?”

  “It’s easy,” Mr. Evans said. “They’re doing a simple computer test this morning. You just need to get them to the computer lab and then tell them to start. It’s all set up to begin once they log in with their student IDs.”

  “Um, okay. What’s it for?”

  “Just tell everyone that they’re testing a computer program. It’ll include solving puzzles, a bit of vocabulary, that kind of thing, but it doesn’t affect their grades—some will ask about that, I’m sure, so make sure you say that. Then take them to computer lab C. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Oh, and I must remember to send out the message about the athletics tests next week,” Mrs. Pemberton said. “Calliope, I might need your help with that.”

  “We’re having athletics tests?”

  “Yes, just standard fitness tests to see how the school performs next to national standards. Very important to stay fit these days,” Mrs. Pemberton said earnestly, lifting her chin and straightening her shoulders as if she herself was a CrossFit legend. “Hurry along, Calliope,” she added, making a shooing motion.

  Inside Mr. Evans’s homeroom class, I got a few curious looks from students, but mostly people just carried on chatting and looking at their phones. Was I supposed to clap my hands and say I had an announcement or something?

  “Hey, Callie.”

  Sitting at the front was Emily Levene. I’d hung with her and Isaac a couple of times, usually after they’d finished studying and I’d finished dance training.

  “Emily. How’s it going?”

  “Oh, you know.” She rolled her eyes and tucked hair behind her ears. “Lots of work to do.” She fiddled with the edge of her sweater. “Grades… parents,” she continued, adding a nervous laugh that didn’t go with her pinched expression.

  Isaac had told me about the pressure Emily’s parents put on her. She was supposed to become a heart surgeon. Her parents had been plotting it since she was a toddler. So maybe I didn’t have it so bad. Mom had almost no chill when it came to dance, but I still thought when it came down to it, she’d let me decide what I wanted to do with my life. I just had to find the right way to tell her.

  “Sorry to hear about your injury,” Emily said. “You’re such a good dancer,” she added, giving me a smile, which I tried to return. I dropped my gaze to regard my moonboot. It was starting to feel like if I took this thing off and admitted to everyone I didn’t want to dance anymore, I might cease to exist.

  “Um, thanks.” I cleared my throat and looked around the room. How was I supposed to do this?

  “Why are you in homeroom?” Emily asked, a frown creasing her brow.

  “Getting things going for Mr. Evans. How do I get everyone’s attention?”

  Just then, Dean ambled through the door wearing a big grin. “What up, Callie? You playing teacher today?”

  “Sort of. Just trying to pass on a message, really.”

  Dean put his hand to his mouth and a piercing whistle cut through the din. “Listen up, people,” he said, nodding in my direction.

  “Thanks,” I said, giving him a grateful look and standing a little taller to talk to the rest of the class. “So, um, this morning you’ll be doing a, uh, special task. You’re testing a computer program. Like, with puzzles and vocab tests.”

  Emily sat bolt upright. “Testing?” Her normally quiet voice was shrill. “Will this count toward our GPA?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Mr. Evans said it absolutely doesn’t, so don’t worry about that.”

  “But what will the tests and puzzles involve?” Emily said. “I haven’t prepared.”

  I lifted my shoulders. “I don’t think you’re supposed to… I, uh, yeah. It’s just… testing software.”

  Emily frowned.

  “So we’re all going to lab C. Once you get there, log in with your student ID and the test will start.”

  Dean, still standing next to me, said, “Right on,” and immediately turned to amble out the door. With that, everyone else got up and shuffled out after him.

  As everyone filed into the computer lab, I saw another grade twelve group doing the same thing next door. Was everyone doing this? And was this normal? Students testing software during school? It wasn’t as if we were doing this as part of a computer class.

  Everyone took seats, and after a few minutes of chatting, the room got quiet. Almost everyone had started, but Emily, sitting right at the front, wrapped her hands around her body and rocked back and forth.

  “Hey, I don’t think this is something you need to worry about,” I said quietly.

  “They can’t spring stuff like this on us.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” I whispered.

  Her face pale, she nodded and placed shaky hands on the keyboard. I left Emily and strolled around the room, getting into the teacherly vibe. I looked over someone’s shoulder to see that they were doing an online survey. I paused and frowned. The survey asked the same questions as the Your Future information session questionnaire: how one might behave in a given situation, react to something, etc. Why were they doing the same test again? Had they lost or messed up the paper copies? That would explain why I hadn’t seen them in the office. They must have gotten lost in the mayhem after the truck crash.

  I continued around the room, returning to the front to look over Emily’s shoulder. She’d moved on to the next bit, which was a series of puzzles to be solved. Suddenly she groaned. “I can’t believe they didn’t warn us about this.”

  “Hey, don’t worry. It’s okay. And it doesn’t count—”

  “But if it doesn’t count, then why were we doing them?” Her voice was high–pitched.

  “Emily—”

  She waved me off and turned back to her computer to move on to the next section. This test seemed to be measuring the speed at which she put together synonyms, then antonyms. I checked the time. Where was Mr. Evans? What was I supposed to do when they were finished?

  I did another circuit of the room, and when I next looked over at Emily, she was pale. Scarily pale. I hurried over to her just as she doubled over, her breathing coming out in panicked gasps.

  “Emily?”

  She keeled forward into a crumpled heap on the floor.

  “Emily!” I cried, louder.

  “What’s going on?” M
r. Evans said, appearing at the doorway.

  “It’s Emily. I don’t know. She just kind of fell over and started….”

  Just as he reached us her eyes rolled back into her head. He knelt on the floor and leaned over her. “Call an ambulance,” he said, his voice low and serious.

  My own breathing shallow, I fumbled with my phone and dialled. I got through straight away and told them a student had collapsed. “Fifteen minutes,” I said, disconnecting the call.

  He got her into the recovery position and sat back on his heels. Her eyelids were fluttering, and she hardly seemed to be breathing. I couldn’t believe how white she was. I leaned a little closer and heard a strange gurgling sound in her throat. Mr. Evans dropped his head to her chest, then jerked upright again. “Calliope, get them back on the phone.” His eyes locked with mine. “She’s stopped breathing.”

  10

  It had been twenty-four hours since Emily was admitted to hospital, but she hadn’t woken up yet. And even though I’d been right there, right beside her when the ambulance came and the paramedics took her away, it still didn’t feel real.

  My phone rang, jolting me out of my thoughts. When I checked the screen, I saw it was a video call request from Isaac. Finally. I answered immediately. Mrs. Pemberton could come back any moment, but there was no way I was missing this chance to talk to him.

  Isaac appeared as a blur on the screen as he moved back to pick something off his bed. “What’s up?” he said. Clothes, books, and empty pizza cartons were littered throughout his room.

  “Isaac, your room is ridiculous.”

  “No one to tell me to tidy it up!” He grinned. “It’s awesome. Hey, so what’s going on? My phone blows up every five minutes with news from Montrose. Emily collapsed, huh? That’s….” Isaac’s face darkened as he shook his head. “I bet her folks had her under too much pressure.” Suddenly his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Whoa, Callie. Your hair. When did you get bangs?”