Kill Me Once, Kill Me Twice

by Clara Kensie

  Mrs. Duston came into the foyer wearing pleated jeans and carrying a stack of loose papers. “Oh! Lily!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Duston,” I said sheepishly. I felt like I should apologize for being in her house. “I came to see Will. Is he here?”

  “He’s out back helping his dad fix the tractor,” she said. “He’ll be back in a minute.” Her tone wasn’t unfriendly. She sounded curious, and maybe tired. “Come on in. I’ll get you some lemonade.”

  I followed her into the kitchen. “Have a seat,” she said, nodding at the table. She dumped the stack of papers on the counter, turning over the top page before going to the fridge. She poured two glasses of lemonade into jelly jars, then sat across from me.

  She was the same age as my mother, yet she looked at least ten years older. She did nothing to hide the gray in her hair, and her skin was dry, as if the dirt from decades of working on the farm had been embedded in all the tiny cracks in her skin. She was not a woman to treat herself to expensive moisturizers. But there was a beauty behind those tired eyes. Warmth and love. Contentment.

  The Dustons’ kitchen was outdated, like the rest of the house I’d seen so far. Mrs. Duston, or maybe some past relative, had decorated the kitchen in a rooster theme. Roosters on the oven mitts, a rooster clock on the wall, rooster magnets on the fridge. The appliances were old, a faded avocado color. The cabinets didn’t shine with the blinding gloss like mine did. Instead, they were covered with crayon drawings and art projects. A childish “WILL” was scrawled at the bottom of several of them, mixed in with his brothers’.

  I had been in the same kindergarten class as Will. I must have made the same projects that he had. Where were my kindergarten drawings? I wasn’t sure if my mother had even kept any of them, and Will’s mom still kept his displayed on the cabinets after all these years.

  For once in my life, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I took a sip of the lemonade.

  “So,” Mrs. Duston said. She drummed her short nails on her jelly jar.

  “So,” I agreed.

  She drummed. I sipped.

  “You and Will doing a school project together or something?” she asked.

  “Kind of,” I said. Not a complete lie. I took yet another sip. “This lemonade is good. You made it from real lemons, didn’t you? With real sugar. It’s so much better than the powder mix with Splenda that my mom makes.”

  “It’s real.” She chuckled a little. “How is your mom?”

  I blinked, surprised that Mrs. Duston would ask about her. “She’s fine. She’s good.”

  “We used to be friends, you know. Your dad and Mr. Duston were friends too.”

  “Best friends. I know.”

  The phone rang in the other room.

  “I’d better get that.” She dashed out, probably as relieved to end that awkward conversation as I was.

  I sat alone, drinking my lemonade and waiting for Will. The wooden kitchen table was marred with decades of scratches and dents and water stains, and eight mismatched chairs were shoved around it. The table had probably been here since the house was built. How many generations of Dustons had sat at this table? My kitchen table was only five years old, small, round, and glass. The houses my parents grew up were in the older part of town. I’d been to each of them many times before my mom’s parents moved to a condo in Eastfield and my dad bought his parents a place in a retirement village in Tennessee. Now those houses were occupied by other families with their own kitchen tables.

  It was kind of nice, the Duston farmhouse being passed from generation to generation. I could understand why Will liked it here, why he wanted to stay on his farm his entire life.

  But just the idea of staying in one place my entire life made me want to run. I couldn’t sit at this table anymore. I stood and walked over to the cabinets to get a better look at some of the artwork. Report cards, flyers, yellowed recipes torn from magazines were taped to the cabinet doors. Will’s latest report card was taped on the cabinet over the toaster. Straight A’s. Nicely done, Duston.

  On the counter in front of the toaster was the stack of papers that Mrs. Duston had placed there earlier. My hand, seemingly of its own accord, turned over the top paper. A utility bill, with “SECOND NOTICE” stamped on it in angry red letters. The paper underneath was from a collection agency. Another was from the bank. I didn’t know exactly what foreclose meant, but I knew it had to do with property and money, and I knew it wasn’t good.

  Heavy footfalls at the back door alerted me to Will’s imminent presence. I quickly stacked the papers again, turned the top one over, and rushed back to my seat at the table.

  He stood tall and lean in the back doorway, so surprised to see me sitting in his kitchen that he stopped chewing his toothpick for a moment. I couldn’t help myself; I grinned. “The enemy has infiltrated your headquarters.”

  He grinned back. “What are you doing here, Red?”

  “Thought today would be a good day to look for a certain cobalt blue Viper with a broken headlight. Wanna help?”

  “Let me change. Be right back.” He strode through the kitchen, glanced past me into the hall, and when he saw the coast was clear, gave my forehead a quick kiss as he walked by. My whole body flushed with happiness.

  Will and I looked around town for the Viper until well after dark. We didn’t find the car, but we didn’t see Rick Paladino either. Will didn’t mention anything about the late notices and bank papers, so neither did I. Maybe he didn’t know about them.

  Around dinner time, we met the gang at The Batter’s Box for pizza. Seth, Javier, Brandon, and Diana. Will and I watched each of the boys closely. I was one hundred percent certain that whoever killed Neal was not sitting at our table that night. They’d be acting differently. But everyone was their usual goofing-around selves. Brandon and Diana were their usual make-up-and-break-up selves.

  Will and I purposely didn’t sit next to each other, and to keep up appearances, I said yes when Seth offered to drive me home that night. Will got a ride with Javier. There would be no goodnight kisses from Will tonight, and I felt cheated.

  Seth pulled into my driveway, but before I could get out of his Mitsubishi, he asked, “What’s up with you and Duston?”

  “What? Nothing. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You were both weird tonight. You kept looking at each other and grinning.”

  “Ugh, gross,” I said. But apparently, the only ones acting differently tonight had been Will and me. Thinking back, I realized that we hadn’t bickered at all. We hadn’t slung a single insult at each other the whole time. “I hate that guy.” It hurt to say that.

  “It’s like you were flirting,” Seth said, rubbing the dimple on his chin with the tip of his index finger. “You’re like that at school too. And at the games. Even at Lennox Auto Body the other day. You’re always staring and smiling at him.” His tone was bitter and accusatory.

  “You watch me that closely?” I shot back. Seth Siegel had no right to be jealous. I’d always made it perfectly clear that I only wanted to be friends with him.

  “So what if I do?”

  “So, who I look and smile at is none of your business.”

  “I think I’ve been pretty patient with you.”

  “Patient with me? What do you mean?”

  “When you needed a date to the homecoming dance, I took you. I took you to prom last year. We hang out all the time.”

  Was this guy serious? My cheeks burned with flames of anger. “First of all, I’ve never needed a date to the dance, or to anywhere. You and I went as friends. Second of all, I hang out with all of you guys, as friends.”

  I opened the car door, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me from leaving. “That was more than friendship between you and Will tonight,” he said. “Seriously, Lily. You play hard to get with me, but you drop your panties for Will, just like that?”

  I wrestled away from him and climbed out. “Screw you, Seth.” I slammed the car door shut and stomp
ed away.

  He called after me, shouting out the window, “That’s what I’ve been waiting patiently for!”

  I slammed my front door shut too, and stifled a scream.

  “What’s wrong?” my dad asked from the study, peeking over his newspaper.

  Great. Just great. I made myself unclench my fists and smile at him. “Nothing.”

  “You look upset.”

  “I’m fine.” I smoothed my hair and willed the angry red in my cheeks to fade.

  He folded his paper and put it aside. “Anything I can do to help?”

  “No.”

  “Lily, you are clearly upset about something. I want to help. Tell me.”

  Wow, he really did look concerned. He cared, for once. I had to tell him something, but I didn’t need his help dealing with that jerk Seth Siegel. And I couldn’t ask him to help Will and me investigate Neal’s murder, not if I wanted him to keep thinking I was responsible and well-behaved so I could go to CFGU.

  So what should I tell him?

  I did have a third problem. “It’s not me,” I said. “I have a …friend… who’s in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Financial.”

  He pursed his lips. “It’s not Seth, is it? I thought the Siegels were doing fine.”

  “No, Dad. It’s not Seth.” I took a deep breath. “It’s Will. Duston.”

  Dad’s face turned a bit red at the name Duston.

  “His parents are about to lose their farm,” I said. “That’s what foreclosure means, right?”

  “How did you find out this information?”

  “I saw the foreclosure notice and late notices.”

  “And you read them, obviously.”

  I squirmed uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

  He sighed. “Where did you see them?”

  “In their kitchen.”

  His lips thinned into a straight line. “Why were you in the Dustons’ kitchen?”

  “Will and I are working on a project together.” Not a lie.

  “Duston Farm hasn’t been profitable in years, Lily. It’s no surprise that they’re facing foreclosure.”

  “But you and Mr. Duston used to be friends. Best friends. Can you let that happen to him?”

  “Don and I haven’t been friends in a long time.”

  “I know, but what if…” I took a deep breath. “What if you gave him the money they need to keep the farm?”

  Dad’s eyebrows raised. “Give him money? Why should I do that? I’ve already spent a lot of money on him fighting his lawsuits.”

  “Yeah, and you win every time. But aren’t you tired of being sued all the time? It’s bad for the reputation of your business. Make a deal with him. He takes a loan from you, and you promise not to take any more of his land. The Dustons would keep their farm, and they would stop the lawsuits against Agri-So.”

  He picked up a pen from the coffee table and started clicking it, exposing and retracting the nib over and over. “It wouldn’t be as simple as that, but no more lawsuits would be nice.”

  “Everyone wins.” Especially Will.

  Click-click-click. “Let me think about it. I’ll see what I can do.” He clicked some more as he considered my idea, then he gave me a smile. “See, sweetheart, you have an acumen for business after all.”

  I nodded and went upstairs, satisfied. I had just saved Duston Farm, and I’d made my dad proud of me. I might be going to CFGU after all.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Ever ~ Present Day

  When Keith passes me in the school hallway on Monday, he doesn’t even glance my way.

  And why would he? I’m no longer his girlfriend.

  Keith and I were supposed to get married and live the rest of our lives in Ryland, Indiana. I always pictured us in a little white house with white shutters and an American flag hanging from our porch. We were supposed to work at The Batter’s Box together, he as the manager and I as the accountant, and then one day we would own it together. That was the plan. That was the only plan. I was so sure it would happen—and that I wanted it to happen—that I’d never considered anything else, not even when I first heard the rumor that he’d cheated on me, not even after he admitted he didn’t want me to win the Lily Scholarship so I couldn’t go to college.

  Whether I win the scholarship or not, the life I’d always dreamed of having with Keith is not going to happen. For the first time in my life, I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

  So why do I feel like I can breathe for the first time in three years? Why do I feel so light? So free?

  I scold myself for feeling so happy as I walk to AP World History. I shouldn’t feel so happy. Vinnie Morrison is days away from execution for a crime he didn’t commit. Ash and I still haven’t identified warrior74. If we do find him and set Vinnie free, there’s a very good chance I’ll lose the Lily Scholarship to Ash.

  What do I want from him after this? Friendship?

  No, I want more than that.

  I shake the thought from my head. It doesn’t matter anyway because

  1. If he wins the scholarship, he’s leaving. First for college, then outer space. Mars. The farthest place he can possibly get. I’ll never see him again.

  2. If I win the scholarship, then Ash will stay in Ryland. I’ll be here too, living at home with Joey while I commute to Griffin. But if we can’t find the killer and his father is executed, he’ll never forgive me for giving him hope and then taking it away.

  3. So no matter what happens, we’re doomed. Ash and I have no chance.

  But I can’t help looking for him as I enter AP World History. There he is, slouching with his knees sprawled wide at his desk in the back row. Our eyes meet and the coldness in his expression thaws, the corner of his mouth turning up just the tiniest bit, and my entire body floods with warmth and happiness.

  I wonder if my mother would have liked him, or if she would have preferred me to stay with Keith.

  Ash. She’d approve of him. I know it.

  I walk right up to him now. No need to be sneaky anymore. If people want to think we’re together, I’m not going to stop them. But reminding myself that we have no chance, I ignore the scent of his leather jacket and get down to business. “Find anything in Miss Buckley’s computer last night?” I murmur.

  “I looked all over it,” he rumbles back. “Recovered her deleted files, looked in her deactivated email accounts. Nothing new. You have any luck with warrior74?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hey.” He slides his hand close to mine. “Want me to come over tonight? We can, I don’t know. Order a pizza. Do some more investigating.”

  There’s something in the way he asks, something in the way he shifts his body. A vulnerability, a hope. He loops his pinky over mine.

  He wants more, too.

  “Yes,” I say softly. “I’d like that.”

  Mrs. Ricciardelli snaps her fingers to start the class. The gaze between Ash and me lasts a millisecond longer than it should before I tear away and go to my seat next to Courtney.

  She shakes her head in disapproval. “Keith told me what happened. I don’t understand why you’d dump him for that guy.” She’s not even trying to be quiet. Ash can hear everything.

  “Keith broke up with me. And he cheated on me.” Anger bubbles in my blood. “What I don’t understand is why you’re so upset about this. We’re best friends, Court. You should be supporting me, not Keith.”

  The classroom door bursts open and Chief Paladino marches inside, followed by Principal Duston. The chief is swinging handcuffs from one finger, and his other hand is resting on the butt of the gun at his waist.

  “Ash Morrison,” he announces triumphantly, “I have a warrant for your arrest.”

  I freeze. “For what?” Ash and I say at the same time.

  “Trespassing and burglary, for starters.” His white teeth gleam through the vengeful smirk on his lips as he opens the handcuffs. “We have a witness who saw you breaking into
Diana Buckley’s house.”

  I feel the blood drain from my cheeks. Mr. Siegel, my dad’s boss, must have seen us at Miss Buckley’s house after all.

  “I wasn’t trespassing,” Ash says coolly. “She gave me a key.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m sure she didn’t give you a key so you could steal her laptop. I found it in your bedroom.”

  “You can’t go in his house,” I cry, surprising myself, and probably everyone else in the room. “Not without a warrant.”

  He tilts his head and squints at me. “My source says he saw two kids running from the house. The other kid wasn’t you, was it?” He gives me a knowing look, daring me to confess.

  “Fine,” Ash says. “I did it. But I was alone. She wasn’t there.” He stands and holds out his wrists.

  “Ash, no!” I dash over to him, trying to block the chief.

  “Miss Abrams,” Principal Duston says, his blue eyes like ice. “Sit down.”

  “Do what he says, Ever.” Ash says. “Stay out of this.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve been through this a million times. I’ll call a public defender and be home by tonight.”

  “Yeah, maybe a few weeks ago,” the chief says, “but you’re eighteen now. A legal adult. No juvenile court for you.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ash says, tossing his hair. “Theft is just a misdemeanor.”

  “It would be,” the chief says, “if I also didn’t find two bags of cocaine in your locker just now. Coke on school property is a Class A felony. That’s three years in prison. Too bad you can’t spend that time with dear ol’ dad.”

  “You planted that!” Ash roars.

  “I’m also charging you with possession with intent to sell. That’s an additional two years in prison.” He shoves Ash against the wall, then pulls his hands behind his back and cuffs him as he gleefully recites his Miranda rights.