by Rachel Shane
“How are we going to do that?”
“Leave that part to me. You just set up a table outside the school tomorrow morning. I’ll try not to be late.”
I couldn’t think of anything that would change the students’ minds, but I’d be there tomorrow. Even if it didn’t work, we still had to try. Doing something open and in public might be the craziest idea of all . . . if it worked.
After Whitney assured me the coast was clear and her parents were safely occupied with some new and highly dangerous art-installation project in the kitchen, I tiptoed back up the stairs but paused by the front door. “Is Kingston home?”
She cocked her head to me. “No idea. He won’t let me put a GPS tag on him.”
“Can I just check his room real quick? I have to talk to him.” Truthfully, I hoped he wasn’t home. It would make it easier to snoop. My powers of persuasion weren’t nearly as honed as my powers of investigation.
“Why?”
“I want to . . . thank him. For his help with the pig.”
“I’ll deliver the message.”
“It will mean more coming from me.”
She studied me for a moment, obviously suspicious. “Fine, but if my parents catch you, I’m claiming you’re a burglar.”
“Striking while the family’s home and wearing jeans is the perfect cover.”
Whitney went into the kitchen to distract her parents with loud complaints about her unfair grounding—because wasn’t getting arrested punishment enough? I tried not to giggle and instead padded through the foyer and up the stairs.
I pressed my ear against Kingston’s door to listen over the loud sounds coming from downstairs. I knocked softly. No answer. I twisted the knob carefully and eased the door open.
Kingston sat cross-legged on his bed, huge earphones covering his ears. His alarm clock looked like it had been smashed in with a hammer. A large manila envelope rested next to him, and he was sliding photographs mounted on black, matte board into it. Other photographs littered his bed. One depicted a rose at the peak of bloom, crushed beneath a sneaker. Next to it, one of a gorgeous sunset taken through a streaky glass window, the vivid colors subdued by fingerprints. His eyes rose to meet mine. My stomach flipped, and I slammed the door shut.
I hustled back down the hallway, heart pounding. I had enough insight to know this wasn’t something Kingston would want me seeing. Taking photos of me to use as blackmail? Manly. Taking photos of flowers and sunsets? Lost him a bit of his intimidation cred. The door burst open and Kingston emerged, headphones wrapped around his neck.
“What you saw—” He broke into a coughing fit before he could finish.
“Got into a fight with your alarm clock?”
“It started whispering things to me, mocking me. So I destroyed it.” He pounded one of his fists against the other. “Didn’t stop the whispering.” He waited a few seconds. “Is that all you saw?”
I held up my hands. “Hey, I’m not like you. I don’t blackmail people or reveal their secrets.”
He stared at me, coughing one last time. “I know.”
“But I will secretly laugh at you for taking such girly photos.”
“You thought they were—” He brought his fists to his temples and punched himself several times. After a moment, he dragged his hands down his face. “Never mind.” His fists shook at his sides. “It’s not a big deal.” He forced his hands open with struggle, keeping his fingers splayed. “Just this thing that probably doesn’t even matter.”
Except to him, I could see. I bit my lip. Now I felt bad for making fun of him when he was obviously insecure about it. If the situation were reversed, I knew he’d use it against me, but I was glad I held the power for once. Because I knew the best way to get people on your side was through kindness, not force.
“Why’d you come to my room, anyway?”
“Ammunition?” I raised an eyebrow for good damage-control measure.
“Didn’t you learn anything from our night together?” He shook his head and clucked his tongue. “You can’t walk in and steal the files back. If I wasn’t here, you think I’d leave the door unlocked? I already have the voices in my head. I don’t want them sneaking into my room, too.”
“Huh, and I thought you could walk in and steal files. Since that’s what we did.” I started for the stairs, knowing defeat when I saw it. I’d have to think harder, think like Kingston instead of like Alice.
“Was what you found useful?” he asked, stopping me. He sounded almost curious, concerned.
“Sort of, but I need the rest of what you took.” At least I hoped I did. “What about yours?”
“Enough to get me started.” The cocky grin on his face returned. “So glad I snatched your folder.”
I ground my teeth together. Gah! I hated him. But more than that, I hated when he was almost nice to me. I wished he would stick with one direction. I liked him better when he was an asshole, because at least it made it easier to stick with my hate. I was an idiot for wanting to be civil to him. He’d used me to get inside Town Hall and then he’d stolen what I needed. He might have been crazy, but he knew exactly what he was doing. All the guilt and connection to him I’d felt a second ago shed from my body like a flaky, dried-up second skin.
I stood straighter, shoulders squared in battle mode, wanting to taste power over him. Experience what it felt like to be lord of the sting. “Have you checked your basement closet recently?”
He tilted his head. “How did you—?” Kingston swung his fist at the wall, punching it so hard his hand went right through the plaster. He yanked it out hard, plaster spraying. “If you did anything to—” He sucked in a deep breath that made his nostrils flare. “I need that.” He rubbed his hand.
“If the township starts investigating . . . goodbye freedom. Whitney was just protecting you.”
He closed his eyes, and his chest expanded and contracted. “She had no right.”
“Hey, I hear there’s a vacant job at the Garden Center you can take instead of dealing.” Of course, my stupid words made me think of Chess. A lump grew in my throat. I hated Kingston for that, too.
“That’s not why I needed it.” Kingston glanced at the floor. He must have noticed he looked weak because a second later his body went rigid and the venom in his eyes returned. “Just you wait. You’ll understand, and then you’ll regret what you did.”
“I doubt it. I have no room left for any more regrets.” I challenged him with my eyes. “But I wish you regretted taking files I might need.”
He stared at me, his chest expanding and contracting. I waited for a moment, and that was when I realized the danger of this situation. I was waiting. For Kingston. Because I thought he might do the right thing. Do something good. That was the kind of impossible hope that made people give up religion when it didn’t pan out, had made me give it up, praying for something that could never come true, like my parents coming back from the dead.
I twisted away from him and rushed down the stairs. From the kitchen, Whitney still argued loudly, now complaining about the spiky, execution-style fridge. I burst through the front door into the cold air. The wind stung my face, turning my cheeks an instant pink.
The door opened when I was halfway down the driveway. “Wait! Alice!”
Kingston.
I amped my pace. But my short legs struck again, carrying me at only half the speed Kingston’s long ones could take him. He cut me off on the sidewalk and thrust a paper into my hands. “Here.”
I snatched the paper away, expecting more blackmail photos. Instead, I skimmed what looked like a forensics report. I paused, glancing up at him. “What’s this?”
“It was in the folder. I didn’t need it, but . . . maybe you do.”
I hugged the paper close to my chest. “Why would you give this to me?” Either they were very cold in hell right now or a miracle had just happened on 34th Street.
“We were even when I helped with the pig. Now we’re not. You owe me one.” He
grinned and then spun on his heels to strut back inside. Of course, Kingston wouldn’t do anything without personal advantage to be gained. So much for thinking he might change.
My sweaty palms crinkled the paper. I read quickly, like it might self-destruct in a moment. Blood pounded in my ears as I absorbed it.
It was a forensics report investigating the tire tracks, dated only a few days after my parents’ death, though their names didn’t appear anywhere on the sheet. My eyes fell to a single line of text in the center of the page. Most of it was boring jargon I could barely understand. But I got the gist of it. Impressions were made of both sets of tire tracks. Expert analysis determined they were from the same car, not two separate cars.
I dropped my hands, sweat beading on my forehead. If this report was true, it meant my parents weren’t murdered. The relieved breath I wanted to let out remained stuck in my throat. Something about the report seemed odd. Maybe it was the blacked-out text; why hide if you don’t have anything to hide? Though that wasn’t exactly abnormal, based on the other files I’d found. I held the paper up to the light, trying to read through the censored lines. Nothing came from that. Except I also couldn’t see any watermarks.
When I’d attempted to read the other forensics reports, a faint logo appeared through the paper when held to the light. Also, there was always a raised seal embossed in the top-left corner. This paper didn’t have a seal either, though it did have a dark circle where the seal should have been punched in.
It could have been nothing unusual. Or it could have been doctored.
CHAPTER 23
The next morning, I got to school super early. It wasn’t like I’d slept the night before. Despite all the new evidence, I was still so far from the truth. But at least I could try to help Chess. Oh, Chess. God, I missed him so much. And now I felt guilty about not saying those words when I had the chance, and keeping him in suspense.
A janitor set up the table and chairs right in front of the school’s entrance, and I laid out several clipboards on the surface even though Whitney had told me to leave the details to her. I settled into one of the chairs and scanned my handiwork. Crap, I’d only brought one pen. Abandoning my perch, I raced into the school and dug through my locker until I gathered all the pens I could find. When I came back outside, I saw three people sitting in the chairs. One bent over, with her cheek pressed on the desk. The next had red, curly hair, a tiara on her head. The last wore a top hat.
The formalwear gave more credence to my opinion of them as royal pains in the ass. I stalked over to Kingston and Quinn and slammed the pens onto the table. “Get out.”
Di’s head bounced, but she didn’t look up. The stream of students flowing into the school stopped at my words, heads tilted in our direction. My skin felt prickly, like their eyes were burning each pore. I didn’t wear spotlight very well; it washed me out. Quinn, however, lit up from the extra attention.
“I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public,” Kingston said.
“Oh? I thought you held the keys to that special privilege.” I crossed my arms and eyed the occupied chairs. “Move.”
“What? No thanks for yesterday?” His face contained a hint of a smile, but Quinn eyed him pointedly. “And it’s not humiliation when I don’t give a shit.” Kingston pursed his lips at me. “Speaking of which, no room for you, Alice.”
Di echoed his claim with a snore.
Quinn shook her head. “No room at all.” She spun a clipboard and read the mission statement at the top. “Awww, you want to save a farm.” She turned it to face forward again. “I think it’s cute that you’re trying to be the laughingstock of the school.”
What would it take to kill a mockinggirl? “I’m not the one who’s sitting at the table wearing a ridiculous crown.”
“That’s because you have no school spirit.” Quinn’s tiara glinted in the sunlight. I vaguely remembered something about the week leading up to Homecoming being Spirit Week and each day involving a different task, like wearing school colors.
“Now who looks weird?” Kingston said.
I lifted my chin. “Still you. The answer’s always you.”
Kingston scrubbed his jaw. “They’ve bottled the answers in a jar, except I poured it out before I could drink it. It might have been poison.”
Quinn burst into a fit of giggles. “He’s hilarious, isn’t he?”
“Time’s the hilarious one.” Kingston snickered at some joke only he could hear.
She turned to me, ignoring Kingston. “Hat day was my idea.” She beamed. “But Kingston started the trend that inspired me.” She tapped him on his nose in a sickeningly cute way. Emphasis on sickeningly.
I straightened one of the pens. “Seriously, move.”
“Pull up a seat then, if you’re so determined.” Kingston flourished his hand over the table. “Oh wait, there aren’t any.”
“How kind of you to offer, Kingston. It’s not even your table.” I leaned in closer, my torso hovering over a clipboard, and lowered my voice. “Come on, you know why I’m doing this.”
“You should say what you mean,” he said.
“I do!” I pressed my finger to my lip. “At least, I mean what I say—same thing.”
“Hardly.” Kingston tapped a pen against the table. “That’s like saying ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see.’ ” For extra emphasis, he chomped down on the air.
“Or ‘I like what I get,’” Quinn said, stroking Kingston’s cheek, “is the same as ‘I get what I like.’”
“I breathe when I sleep,” Di mumbled, possibly talking in her sleep.
“I sleep when I breathe,” Dru finished, joining the group, pink cowboy hat tipped on her head. “Why are we reversing phrases? We better not be studying.” I’d forgotten how nice it was without her. Di was endurable. Though that might have been because she was only half-present in this conversation.
“It is the same thing, with you.” Kingston’s eyes slipped downward, aiming at the open space created by the neckline of my dangling shirt. We caught ourselves at the same moment, both of us straightening. I felt like I was on display, the stolen glance just another checkmark on the list of things Kingston had tried to take away from me. The real problem was, his track record boasted a winning streak. “I’m not stopping you by sitting here, am I?” He shook his head, clucking his tongue. A gesture too exaggerated to be anything but a cover-up. “You always misread me.”
“So are you going to join then?” I challenged with my eyebrows, pushing a clipboard and pen toward him. Kingston held my stare for several seconds. I couldn’t tell if he was really considering my idea or challenging me right back. My brave face wavered. The rhythmic footsteps of the students walking up the steps acted like a stopwatch, marking the seconds in our competition. The silent-treatment Olympics.
“Join with you?” he finally said. “Are you saying you like having me as your partner in crime?” He leaned in to whisper. “Literally.”
“Like wouldn’t have been my choice of words. It’s too generous.”
“You know you miss me,” he said, and I let out a high-pitched laugh. He grinned at me. “I mean, you’re the one who keeps calling me. There was that time at three A.M.” He ticked off his fingers. “That time with the car. And let’s not forget when you crept into my bedroom.”
“What?!” Quinn’s mouth gaped.
My cheeks blazed like a three-alarm fire. “Kingston, you really are crazy if you think that way.”
Quinn lifted herself from her chair and dropped into Kingston’s lap. She smiled at me. Not a satisfied smile; the kind of smile that made you think she had something up her sleeve. Or, more to the point, that Kingston did. He secured his arms around her, never taking his eyes off me.
“Our first recruits?” Whitney stepped beside me, setting a giant, yellow jug on the table, spigot facing out.
“Once again, you’re too late. If you’d been here on time, you’d know w
e’d never join your pathetic little club.” At Quinn’s mention of time, Kingston tugged at his watch.
Whitney shrugged. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
I steadied my hand on the table so I didn’t tip over. I felt woozy all of a sudden. Kingston’s retort had reminded me how much I hated him. Which meant, for one brief moment, I had forgotten.
“Even I can’t decipher that one,” Kingston said. “What the hell is that?” He pointed with his chin to the jug.
“Because I’m in a bighearted mood, I’ll give you a freebie. A raven is nothing like a writing desk, just like you’re nothing like us.” Whitney unpacked a bag of seven-ounce cups and set it on the table.
“Am I supposed to be offended?”
“You’re supposed to be a human, but sometimes I’m not too sure you qualify,” I said.
Whitney had pulled one cup off the stack and inserted it under the spigot. Steaming, green liquid sloshed into the cup. “Mar-tea-ni?” She held it out to Quinn.
Whitney brought the dizzy-liquid to school? I tilted my head and eyed her. She lifted a finger to her lips.
“What is that?” Quinn peered into the cup as if it might contain blood.
“Special recipe.” Whitney leaned conspiratorially closer to Quinn. “Let’s just say the students will be lining up to drink this, and you won’t want to be left out.”
Quinn started to laugh, but Dru grabbed the cup out of Whitney’s hand.
“Might want to hide it from teachers, though,” Whitney told her. “Alcohol’s not allowed on school premises and all. That’s why we’re outside.” She winked at me.
Alcohol? I pressed my lips together. The liquid I’d had at Whitney’s house before hadn’t been spiked. New concoction? Or bluff? I silently prayed for the latter; it was less incriminating.
Kingston narrowed his eyes. “There’s no alcohol in there. But what is in the tea? Better not be from my closet.”
“You wouldn’t know. You haven’t tasted it,” Whitney said.