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

by M. D. Archer

  She glanced at me.

  “Do you have two cell phones?” I asked.

  For a moment she looked—guilty?—then said, “Long story.” She took her whole bag with her into the back room and shut the door. I stared after her. Did Mrs. Pemberton have some sort of shady double life? Like Logan? What if instead of having a little crush on him, Mrs. Pemberton was involved in his scam, whatever it was? It seemed impossible to imagine, but she did have two cell phones, and she was always disappearing places she never talked about. What if Mrs. Pemberton was one of Logan’s drug pushers?

  My own phone buzzed, startling me out of my paranoid spiral.

  Mrs. Pemberton being part of a drug ring was kind of ridiculous. But Logan could be, for sure.

  I checked my phone. I had two messages from Isaac. Hope surged in my chest. He’d said he might be able to visit this weekend, and I couldn’t wait to see him. Finally, I’d be able to talk to someone about the Montrose craziness.

  But before I could read the messages, someone cleared their throat. I looked up and my mouth dropped open.

  “Oh, I—”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Brooke Masters stood before me, but she looked like a different person. Her almost waist-length hair had been cut off into a chunky bob cut that ended, kind of brutally, just above her chin. And it didn’t look great. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. When she turned to look past me—looking for Mrs. Pemberton, I figured—I sucked in another shocked inhale. She had an ugly bruise on her cheekbone.

  “What are you staring at?” she hissed.

  “Nothing.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Pemberton?”

  “Uh….”

  Mrs. Pemberton re-emerged with a big smile on her face and a flush blooming on her cheeks. The smile dropped away when she saw Brooke. She hurried forward. “Brooke, we’ll go to the guidance office.” Mrs. Pemberton ushered her out but turned back at the door. “You haven’t forgotten about staying late to help catch up on paperwork, have you?” she asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  After they’d left, I sat there frozen. Brooke had cut her famous hair, and how did she get that bruise?

  I went online and wasn’t at all surprised to see Brooke’s shock makeover was the headlining information. Her guidance appointment with Mrs. Pemberton had to have something to do with the bruise or the hair. Had she done it herself? A rash Britney-like decision to cut her hair? Haircutter’s remorse, I could relate to.

  I went back to read the messages from Isaac. A second later I threw down my phone.

  Unbelievable.

  Isaac was too busy to come down and too busy for visitors to come to the city, sorry. I shook my head, took a breath, and snatched up my phone again. How could he ignore me and everything going on? I understood about his workload, but he couldn’t just completely turn his back on me. I started typing a message but deleted it straight away and discarded my phone once again. I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “You all right, love?” Mrs. Pemberton said, huffing back into the office.

  “I don’t know. I—”

  A door slammed, and loud footsteps came banging down the hallway. Both Mrs. Pemberton and I turned toward the sound, and a moment later Ms. Michaels strode past the office, her eyes fixed ahead, while a man and a woman followed, walking either side of a student in a hoodie. I couldn’t see who the student was until they fell back a fraction and turned to glare into the office.

  The hostile eyes of Randall Clark met mine. I jerked back.

  “Where are they going?” I whispered.

  Mrs. Pemberton leaned in. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but it will be made public tomorrow anyway.” She glanced to her left and right. “He’s being removed from the school.”

  “Why?” I asked, although I didn’t need to since I’d been online recently and could guess what he was in trouble for.

  “He’s been posting threatening messages on the internet.” Mrs. Pemberton’s eyes were wide. “Bad enough to think he might do something.”

  “There’s been a lot going on with the students recently, huh?”

  She pulled her chair closer to mine and leaned in, succumbing to her need to gossip. “I won’t tell you his name. Let’s call him Student T, okay?” I nodded. “He’s been posting worrying messages on social media about self-harm.”

  It didn’t take a genius to crack her code. She meant Theo.

  “And another, let’s call her Student N … she’s going through an awful breakup with her boyfriend and showing worrying signs of OCD… obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

  Mrs. Pemberton’s code was ridiculous. This was about Nikki.

  “And Harv—uh, Student H. He seems so sweet, but he was caught doing that computer thing, uh… hacking from a school computer.”

  Harvey Foster.

  “What about Student, uh, B?” I asked.

  Mrs. Pemberton drew back, as if she’d realized her code wasn’t foolproof. “Oh, I can’t talk about the students.”

  Disappointed, I wheeled myself back to my workstation and looked out the window. Outside the health centre, Logan Kerry paced with his phone clamped to his ear. I took a breath.

  “Mrs. Pemberton, what do you know about Logan Kerry?”

  “What do you mean, love?” Mrs. Pemberton pursed her lips to reapply a thick coating of her apricot lipstick, which meant any minute she was going to tell me she was popping out to run an errand. “You know, Marjorie in the bakery told me he’s single.” She widened her eyes as if this might be relevant to me.

  “Uh, I mean….” I stopped. What did I mean? “Do you think he’s, uh… legit?”

  Mrs. Pemberton’s lips puckered together. “Legit?”

  I waved my hand. “Don’t worry.”

  She smiled and picked up her keys. “I’ll be back in a flash. And I’ll bring you back a coffee from Gypsy. One of those extra-large ones you like so much. To say thank you for working late.”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  I went back to my phone. I needed more information about what was going on with everyone. Emily collapsed, Nikki had OCD and an eating disorder, Theo was depressed, Randall was a psycho, and now Brooke’s bruise and hair.

  Things were starting to seem like… too much.

  I leaned down to rest my head on my hands to think. My eyes drifted down to my moonboot, now looking tattered and worn. Maybe instead of festering about Logan and everyone else, I should be worrying about what I was doing with my life.

  I needed to do something. My hand went to my hair, and for one crazy second, I eyed the scissors in the pen holder on my desk. Brooke’s bob looked awful, but what about one of those long bob styles? I stopped. No. I needed to do something physical. For the first time in ages, I wanted to dance. It didn’t change anything—I still knew my decision was the right one—but my body missed it. Moving through space and time to music, feeling my whole body unified, bending and flexing. The unique sense of freedom you got from the hard-won control over your muscles.

  I stood up. With school over at least an hour ago, the halls were deserted, but I still double-checked no one was around before I slipped off the moonboot.

  Just a couple of minutes, I promised myself.

  I wriggled my toes. The freedom felt amazing. I flexed my feet, but it wasn’t enough. I stood and rose up to the balls of my feet and down again. I started moving from side to side. My movements got larger and larger until before long, I was whirling and spinning in the middle of the office.

  “I knew it.”

  I fell out of a pirouette and turned toward the voice.

  Amanda.

  “I knew you were a big faker.” Her voice was cold, but her expression was pleased.

  Busted.

  mitchell

  Mitchell Faulks was ten years old when he found out he was adopted.

  He hadn’t been angry or sad at all. He’d been relieved. Things finally
made sense, because his parents had always seemed like a different species to him.

  They were small and unassuming, and he was large and intrusive.

  They were quiet and calm, and he seemed to permanently be on a high simmer, close to boiling over.

  And he was stupid, but they were smart. Bookish types, his father a librarian and his mother a bookstore manager. And Mitchell had never read a book all the way through.

  Not even once.

  They still tried. Every Christmas he’d get a couple of books. Usually a Jack Reacher type—“like an action movie”, they said—but they’d tried a graphic novel one year. He’d spent five minutes flicking through it while they watched with hopeful eyes.

  He’d used to smile and say thanks and then make fun of them behind their backs.

  But now, he was starting to get angry.

  Books, words, didn’t make sense to him. The wrestling mat and the hockey rink, they made sense. And boxing. He’d started boxing. Because he had to. Because the rink wasn’t enough. He needed more.

  Jogging on the spot, he turned the music up until it screamed at him through his headphones—almost painful—and carried on pummeling the bag. Sweat dripped down his face, burning his eyes. Only this made sense.

  He looked up. Where was he?

  He didn’t remember leaving the gym.

  He was hiding behind a bush, his breath coming in short pants, loud, laboured. As if he’d just run away. Would someone hear him? Where was he? Why was he here? He couldn’t remember. He grabbed his hair, yanking it so hard it almost came out in his hands.

  This was different.

  What was happening to him?

  14

  When my alarm went off, I reached out from under the covers and hit snooze. I burrowed deeper. I wanted to stay here, enjoying the comforting rhythm of the raindrops drumming against the window, forever. I wanted to remain swaddled in my cocoon, protected from reality.

  Amanda knew my secret, so what now? I’d tried to explain to her, stammering about how I’d just found out it had healed, but she’d only thrown me an evil smile and walked off.

  What was she going to do?

  What should I do?

  I’d been lying about my foot for less than a week, but if anyone could make it into a big deal, it was Amanda. She could make me seem like a complete weirdo. Or, like, a compulsive liar. And yes, I’d lied, but I had good reason.

  I pulled my phone under the covers with me to check what was happening online, but I wasn’t tagged in any messages or posts, no one had recorded a Snapchat attack on me, and I hadn’t lost all my friends or gained a bunch of random followers. Things were quiet, for now. But would it last?

  After I showered, I sat on my bed, still in my bathrobe, and stared at the moonboot. Should I wear it or not? If I wore it to school, I’d almost be tempting Amanda to call me out. But if I didn’t wear it, the Montrose gossip channels would deliver this information to Mom within days, if not hours. But maybe Amanda wouldn’t say anything. Maybe she’d understand that I only needed some time. And even if she did say something, it was her word against mine. I could say yeah, it had healed, I just had to go to the doctor for one final check-up before I could take it off. At this point, the thought of telling Mom was still scarier than what Amanda might do, so I pulled on the boot, feeling as if I was shackling myself to my own lies, and trudged down the stairs.

  When I got to school, I entered the gates, moving cautiously, my eyes darting left and right.

  Nothing.

  No weird reactions, no one pointing at me or yelling out insults. Amanda couldn’t have told anyone yet. I relaxed a little and picked up speed, almost desperate to get into the safety of the office. And maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal anyway. A misunderstanding.

  The whole day passed without a single Amanda sighting, and without any weird occurrences.

  Until I left the office.

  In the parking lot, standing next to my pushbike as if waiting for me, was Cole.

  “Hey,” he said as if everything was normal, as if the last time I saw him he hadn’t acted super weird. “Can I give you a ride home?”

  I was too surprised to say anything at first, but when he tilted his head and frowned at me, I jolted into action. “Uh, I have my bike.”

  “I’ll put it in the trunk.”

  A moment later, Cole had slid it neatly into his car. This was actually happening… but what was this, exactly?

  “Jump in,” he said breezily, opening the door for me.

  The last few times I’d seen Cole, he’d been anything but breezy, but this version of him was way less intimidating, so I tried to adopt his casual air and said, “Sure.”

  I buckled my seat belt and focussed on keeping cool and nonchalant. Sitting this close to him in the confines of a car, it took a lot of work.

  “Hey, are you hungry?” Cole glanced over at me. “I definitely could eat.”

  “Oh, um.” I swallowed nervously. “Sure.” Was my tongue normally this large? Did it normally press against my teeth like this?

  “Pizza or sushi?”

  I imagined eating greasy pizza versus dainty pieces of seaweed-wrapped rice.

  “Sushi Sushi on Main Street is pretty good,” I said.

  “Sure.”

  We parked outside and went in to look at the menu.

  “Mom and I come here all the time.”

  “Yeah? What’s good?”

  “We usually get the California roll mix and a large sesame salad.” I shrugged. “But we aren’t experts or anything.

  “That sounds great.” He stepped up to the counter to order.

  I hung back and scanned the restaurant. My gaze landed on Amanda, across the other side of the restaurant at a table with her parents. She scowled as her mom jabbed her finger in Amanda’s direction. Her dad leaned forward too, and Amanda’s face turned a dark red. Suddenly she looked up, as if aware of my attention. Her eyes found Cole, then slid to me, appraising, narrowing.

  Uh-oh.

  I lurched over to Cole. “Hey, can we get this to go? It’s, um… too loud in here.”

  The server was pushing plastic containers of food toward Cole. “Of course.” He nodded to the server. “A bag?” He waited calmly while the server fussed about getting a takeout bag. I resisted the urge to tug on Cole’s arm and tell him to hurry up. Amanda hadn’t moved, but she was watching us like a predator eyes their prey. The longer we were here, the riskier it got.

  Inside the car, Cole said, “I heard Craddock Hill has a great view.”

  “Uh….” He wanted to eat at The Hill? Like… a picnic? “Sure.”

  I looked out the window, feeling weird. This was starting to feel like a date, which was totally unexpected. It wasn’t just that, though. The Hill was a special place for Isaac and me, and going with Cole felt like some sort of betrayal. But Isaac didn’t seem to have much room in his new life for Montrose and our old traditions anymore, so maybe I didn’t need to worry.

  As Cole drove, my awareness of him seemed to heighten. Once again, he smelt faintly of aftershave or deodorant. I had to actively resist the urge to lean over and smell his neck. Thank God for seat belts. His hands gripped the steering wheel and he stared straight ahead, the jaw muscles working in his cheek. The air streaming in from his open window was cold, but I liked the way it ruffled his hair. He pushed himself back in his seat and changed gear, the muscles in his forearm working under his skin. A gust of colder wind swept through the car and I shivered, pulling my coat tighter around me. Cole glanced at me and leaned forward to adjust a few settings. His window went up, and warm air started swirling around my feet. As well as heating the car, it seemed to circulate his aftershave. Was my nervousness visible? I hoped not. I looked out the window and focused on not acting weird.

  As we made our way toward Craddock Hill, I relaxed a little and started talking about Montrose, giving him the tourist spiel while marvelling at how cool and calm I was able to sound. Like a normal person wh
o wasn’t considering yanking off my seat belt and jumping onto his lap. When we got to the carpark next to the viewing platform, he pulled up and turned off the engine.

  “We’re here,” I said unnecessarily, adding a little laugh.

  Before, in between my tour guide talking and his conversation-making, we’d lapsed into silence, but it hadn’t been uncomfortable. Now, though, the atmosphere felt loaded.

  “Ready to eat?” Cole said.

  I was about to respond when my stomach did for me with a loud growl. I clutched it with both hands, casting a panicked glance at Cole.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He grinned. “Let’s eat in the car, eh? It’s pretty cold out.”

  His phone beeped. “One sec.” He handed the bag over to me and checked the message.

  I managed to stop myself from looking over his shoulder and instead looked out into the darkening night sky. A mist had dropped down, masking the stars. The occasional headlight swept through the car, dancing off Cole’s cheekbones before leaving him in darkness again. Muffled sounds of conversation drifted in from the lookout platform behind us, and higher up, and an occasional laugh rang out.

  Cole shoved his phone back into his pocket and smiled. “Can I grab one of those waters?”

  “Sure.” I handed it over, and while I fussed with chopsticks and napkins, he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and shook out two to take with his water.

  “Meds for this condition I have,” he said, answering my unvoiced question.

  “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  Maybe he wasn’t perfect after all.

  “No, just, like, a deficiency.” He shrugged.

  Cole was deficient in something? Not as far as I could see.

  “Something you were born with?”

  “I didn’t get sick until I was about thirteen, but yeah, it’s a genetic thing, so it was always there. It’s no big deal, there are no side effects or anything. Silver lining? It sparked my interest in medicine.”

  “Who isn’t on some sort of medication, right?”