by Rachel Shane
As he fit the key in the lock, my nerves crumbled. He opened the door and stood there, shifting his weight. Maybe he was as nervous as me? His arm traced an arc in front of the door, welcoming me. It took a lot of effort to lift one foot and then the other, but eventually I coaxed them onto the back seat. I slid over to make room for Chess.
Once inside the car, we both sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead. Then we turned to each other and laughed.
“You make me do bad things,” he said.
“Payback.”
A foot of space separated us because I’d slid over too far and he hadn’t moved in close enough. Now he inched forward and lifted one hand as though he was going to put it around my shoulder. Except he didn’t, he held it there in midair. I turned to look at the hand, wondering what he was going to do with it, and his lips connected with my ear.
Oops.
He sprang back. My heart beat so fast I worried it might scare him. I leaned forward. He took my cue but bent his head in the same direction as I did. Our noses crushed together. This time, I pulled away, giggling.
“At least this isn’t awkward,” I joked.
“That would be embarrassing.” He cupped my chin in his palms and brought his lips to mine, slow and cautious. I sank into the moment, savoring what I’d missed. The kiss intensified and so did the warmth spreading over my skin. I wrapped my arms around him, desperate to pull him closer. I couldn’t get enough of him, and my heart swelled at the prospect of trying. My fingers grazed the short hairs at the back of his neck, rigid in some places and smooth in others, like he’d taken a razor there and hoped for the best.
“Wait,” I said against his lips, when I finally mustered the willpower. I inched back away from him, scolding myself inside for stopping the kiss. I tilted my head to the side to thwart temptation. “I need to know—everything.”
“What do you mean?” He snuck in another kiss. Sneaky bastard.
I had a lot of questions for him, but my brain refused to sift through them. It was too focused on the blinking neon lights that spelled out KISSING! “The missions and stuff. Why?”
“Alice, let’s talk about this later.”
“Okay.” My lips met his again, and this time the kiss revved up faster than a Lamborghini. He leaned into me, pressing my back against the door. It took several pep chats in my head before I convinced myself to pull away. “Chess . . . ” My breath was ragged, in a good way.
He rested his forehead against mine, panting. “It’s too embarrassing. I’m afraid . . . you’re not going to like me anymore if you know everything.”
“Then you don’t have a lot of faith in me.”
He sat back up and closed his eyes. This was the moment before clarity. Finally knowing what it would feel like in my ears as I heard the truth. I imagined this was what sex would be like. Silence, and then sound.
“My dad made me go to boarding school even though I had no interest. Told me he wanted me to have a better education, when really he was just trying to get me away from Wonderland. And because of that, I didn’t notice our financial problems until it was too late.”
I grabbed his hand and laced my fingers through his.
“It’s my fault. The taxes kept piling up, and if he hadn’t paid for boarding school . . . ” He ran his free hand through his hair. “It sucks because I loved living here and now everything’s all screwed up.”
“Everything?” I squeezed his hand.
He pulled me to him and stroked my hair. “Well, some good things happened.”
We kissed again, this time less hungry, like we were both holding back. And I was, because that wasn’t my only question. Still, it was harder to pull away. I was the superhero of restraint.
“Why’d he want you away from Wonderland?” I asked, even though I also desperately wanted to kiss him again.
A grimace tightened his lips. He held my gaze with a new intensity. “The township has a lot of power here. They’ve hurt tons of people.”
“Like with the energy crisis?”
He shook his head. “It was good that the power plant shut down, but that’s not what I’m talking about. More like, closing the farms and building houses instead. We’re trying to get them to see the error of their ways, to reinstate the things they screwed people over with. But there’s also a lot at stake.” He trailed his fingers along my arm. Tingles spread under his touch. “My dad lost his job because of them. He needs to get that job back.”
I nodded, finally understanding the personal connection here and what he stood to gain from these missions.
“Whitney told me yesterday she wanted to warn people. Does that have anything to do with your dad’s job? Since he was part of the activism stuff before?”
“Exactly. He lost his job because they targeted him, so we’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.” He tipped my chin up to his face. “Okay? So now you know.”
He trailed kisses along my jaw line. I closed my eyes. “And the wet hair?” I murmured, not even sure it was loud enough for him to hear.
“That’s the embarrassing part,” he said into my ear. Chills swept across my body like a tidal wave. He paused there, to kiss me in a crazy-dangerous form of torture. I patted his back as encouragement to continue—whether it was with the conversation or the kisses, I didn’t care. “My water got shut off.”
“Oh, Chess.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed. I hadn’t realized the extent of his money problems. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. I’m not exactly going to make Forbes’s wealth list.”
“I know. But guys are supposed to impress the girls. Take their girlfriends out on dates. You know, dates that aren’t in back seats of cars or in trees. When I say it like that, it sounds so sleazy.”
I laughed. “I don’t need fancy dinners. The best dates are the missions.”
“Even if we have a third wheel now?”
“Wait—” Something he’d said caught up with me. “Did you say girlfriend?”
“You like how I slipped that in there? I thought that was pretty slick.”
This time, the kissing was much harder to wriggle out of. “I still have more questions. Why is Kingston doing this stuff?”
“I honestly don’t know. They would never tell me. He promised to help me as long as I returned the favor when we were done. I was grateful, so I never pressed the issue.” His head snapped toward the window where a few kids straggled up from the track. “We should go.”
We scrambled out of the car.
“Does your dad have a new job?”
He squatted to put back the key. “He’s not qualified for anything else, so he’s working minimum wage. But also, he’s lying low. He’s paranoid and afraid. Thinks it’s his fault that—” He stopped short and turned to me. “Alice, there’s something else I’ve been keeping from you. Whitney doesn’t know this. It has to do with why my dad sent me away.”
The look on his face seemed more fit for a funeral than a school parking lot.
“How did your parents die?” Chess asked.
“What?” Where did that come from? I glanced at the gravel pavement. “Car accident.” After three years, I could finally talk about this without bursting into tears. “It wasn’t their fault,” I added, because I didn’t want him thinking my parents were irresponsible. “We’re not sure, but we think they swerved to avoid a deer and hit a tree instead.”
“They were on their way to a protest, right?” Something about the way he said it sent the hairs on the back of my neck standing.
“I—I don’t know.” That seemed like it could be true, but it was the first time I’d heard it. I’d been barely thirteen and got spoon-fed information, the kind that was picked over and reduced down to its very essence to help my sensitive little brain cope.
“Are you sure it was a deer they were trying to avoid?”
My throat started to close. I couldn’t answer.
“That day, my dad was supposed to go to a protest
he was organizing with your parents. They were trying to stop the rezoning of the farmland. But he never got there either. A few township officials showed up at the house before he left, presenting him with a cease-and-desist letter and demanding answers. He surrendered and told them what your parents were planning. And then they were run off the road.”
“By a deer?” I wasn’t making the connection here.
“There were no witnesses, Alice. And some of the newspaper articles reported tire tracks, possibly from an oncoming car headed in your parents’ direction.”
I dropped his hand. “Wait.” My breath shortened with each inhale, becoming more rapid. “Are you saying my parents were murdered?”
“No.” He reached for my hand, but I snapped it away. “I don’t know. All I’m saying is, my dad believes they were, that he’s responsible. He’s racked with guilt, and the township has done everything in its power to screw him over. He sent me away to keep me safe, which means he believes this town is unsafe. And if that’s the case, we have to stop it before anyone else gets hurt.”
CHAPTER 15
Hearing Chess’s confession brought back emotions I’d tried hard to suppress after my parents’ death. I attempted to concentrate in my next class, but the words in my textbooks all said the same thing: My parents might have been murdered. In the middle of the teacher’s lecture, I scraped my chair away from the desk and stumbled to a standing position. I didn’t even notice people were staring at me until the teacher cleared her throat and asked where I thought I was going.
Even though the lights were dimmed to movie-theater ambiance, I squinted as if they were too bright, trying to focus on her but only seeing a blurry blob. “Uh, I don’t feel well.” I didn’t wait for approval. I weaved through the classroom, smacking into more than one desk on the way. I staggered into the slanted hall that tipped so much it seemed it might slide right off the face of the earth. I didn’t stop moving until my legs carried me out of the building and all the way to the bus stop.
At the library, I pored over newspaper articles about the accident. It was exactly like Chess had said: very little information with vague details. One article speculated on the set of tire tracks left on the road, suggesting the other-car theory and requesting that the drivers of the offending vehicle come forward. When no one did, the paper retracted its statement at the request of—dun-dun-dun—the township, whose expert analyst confirmed that the second set of tires was still my parents’ car, spinning out of control. The large-animal theory resurfaced after that.
When the sniffles escaped from my nose at the computer screen, I packed up my things and sat in the cold air outside the library until the wind stung my cheeks and froze my tears.
I wanted to interrogate people, dig out more info, but I didn’t know who to confront. At school the next day I asked Whitney if the township would ever resort to murder, but she just said, “This isn’t the mafia.”
I concluded that Chess had been telling the truth about Whitney’s ignorance over this. I decided not to ask Lorina because I figured if she knew about a potential murder plot involving our parents, she wouldn’t be working at the township. Maybe that was why they put her—an amateur—in charge of such an important investigation. They thought she could lead them to the ecotage suspect because of her ties to Mom and Dad. Keep your enemies close.
Which left Chess as my only news source. Each time I saw him, I fired off question after question about the accident. He didn’t know what to believe since the lack of evidence supported and refuted both theories. I felt like we were arguing about whether God existed or not. Or what exactly was that brown, goopy stuff on the salad bar at school.
“What do you think?” he asked me in between stolen kisses in the school hallway, his body pressing my back into the red lockers. It took me a moment to remember what he’d even asked. Kissing must be one of the causes of amnesia. “Do you think it’s true?”
“I think . . . I want it to be false.” I didn’t want Lorina’s employer, possibly even her boss, to be capable of murder.
He clasped his hands in mine. “Then let’s agree it’s false.”
It’s false. I repeated the words over and over until they were imprinted on my brain, stamped there so I couldn’t deny them anymore.
And that worked. But only ephemerally. Later that night I lay in bed unable to sleep, my head spinning. If my parents had been murdered, I needed to know. They deserved to have the culprit behind bars, not running free, able to do it again. All my other sources for info were dead ends. Except one . . .
I sprang out of bed, my pulse pounding with a new kind of determination. Fear and adrenaline mixed together to create a caffeine cocktail even Starbucks couldn’t replicate. My head buzzed as I slid on my trusty black hoodie, courtesy of Whitney. I slipped on black leggings and black ballet flats. I could be simply going to dance class, if it wasn’t the middle of the night. I tied my giveaway blonde hair into a tight bun and secured it with a headband. Defense against unwanted flyaways and security-camera identification. Sunglasses completed my disguise.
I took extra care descending the stairs. Once upon a crime I’d gone through Lorina’s bag; I’d been an amateur. Now I was practically a veteran at snooping.
A single breath left my mouth as I pulled out my sister’s keys, fingers sliding between the metal like toe-dividers at the nail salon. Not even a clink sounded as I stuffed them into the front pocket of my hoodie.
I tugged the door behind me and headed to Town Hall to break and enter.
The plan had seemed utterly attractive while lying in bed. Foolproof, even. Take the keys. Go inside. Find the information to link someone to the crime. Solve the case. What I hadn’t factored into everything was guts, which happened to be something I lacked.
I paced in front of Town Hall, my heart pounding as if it was ready to escape my chest and ditch me completely. I paused in front of the rows of white rosebushes lining the entrance and took a deep breath.
You’re not breaking and entering, I lied to myself. You have a key.
I counted to three and yanked the keys out of my pocket, but my hands were too clammy. The keys leapt out of my fingers and hit the ground with a metallic clink.
I should go home and forget about Kingston’s stupid-as-hell plan. I tried to move, but my feet wouldn’t budge, weighed down by cemented desire. As scared as I was, I wanted to do this. I fumbled for my phone. 3:10 blinked back at me on the LED screen. If I had Chess’s phone number, I would call him. Accomplices equaled encouragement.
But it wouldn’t have mattered; Chess had refuted Kingston’s idea. So had Whitney. If I called her, she’d try to talk me out of this. I knew what a bad idea it was. I’d broken up with my sense of reason when I first followed Whitney through the woods. Might as well descend even farther down the path of wrong and stupid. I let out a crazy laugh that echoed in the silent darkness.
Morality bites.
Before I could stop myself, I flipped through my cell phone until I found Kingston’s number. It was absurd that Whitney had made me add my least favorite person’s number when I still didn’t have my own boyfriend’s. Tonight, though, it came in handy.
“What?” he said when he picked up. He didn’t sound tired, more like . . . prepared.
“Hey, it’s Alice. I have a weird question.”
“Wow. Didn’t strike me as the booty-call type.”
My nerves erupted out of my mouth in a laugh that sounded almost flirty. I covered it up with a cough. He was calling me crazy, and this was the first time he made sense. “I’m outside Town Hall.”
“Keys?”
“Yeah.” The word came out all choked.
“Be right there.”
As soon as I hung up, the gravity of what I’d done hit my stomach like a cartoon anvil. I’d just committed to committing a felony. With my enemy.
Ugh.
To Kingston’s credit, he didn’t share Whitney’s penchant for being late. He arrived in less than five,
decked out in the same uniform as me, hoodie tied tightly around his face so only his essential features were visible. A skullcap, complete with an embroidered skull, secured the hoodie in place. He carried a black messenger bag, and brought his face so close to mine I had to turn away. He kept on staring. “Are you a hologram?”
“Yes,” I said. “And a robot. I’m a miracle of modern science.”
“That’s absurd. That kind of technology won’t exist for another seventeen years.” He counted something on his fingers. “And five days. Now I know you’re lying. Which means, you must be Alice.”
“That’s debatable. I’m starting to think I was changed into someone else in the middle of the night.” The real Alice wouldn’t do something this stupid.
He nodded. “That’s probably true. It happens to me a few days a week.”
“I hope you woke up as a superhero tonight.” I leaned closer to his messenger bag. “You better not have any cameras in there.”
“No cameras.” He opened the bag for me to see. Tubes rattled around inside, but nothing as small as a digital camera. He even went the extra mile to show me his empty pockets. So chivalrous.
“How do I know I can trust you?” I asked him.
“You don’t, but you called me, which means you thought you could.”
I pursed my lips. “I’m not sure I’m thinking clearly tonight.”
“Let’s just say I need you as much as you need me. Besides, I’ve got plenty to blackmail you with already.” He flashed his teeth. “So why did you call me?”
“I need to get inside.” I jutted my chin toward the entrance.
“Did you try knocking?” He tapped the air with his knuckle and clucked his tongue for the sound effect.
I ran a hand over my brow. “That wouldn’t make sense.”
He lifted his finger in an aha gesture. “There might be some sense in knocking, if for example I were inside and you weren’t. Or you didn’t bring the keys.”
I jingled my pocket for proof. “Keys, yes. Courage, no.”