by Clara Kensie
He gasps a raspy breath and drops the paperweight, and I twist away before it hits me. Pain explodes again in my ribs, but I push him off and scramble away.
Brandon Lennox is not going to kill me twice.
Chapter Sixty-One
Ever ~ Present Day
Brandon grasps his throat. Paladino is shouting, swearing, swinging his gun madly between Brandon and me. I can’t run, can’t breathe. My ribs hurt too much. Ash leaps up, one arm still in the sling, a handcuff swinging freely from his other wrist. He kicks the gun from Paladino’s hand and it flies into the wall. They both dive for it, and Ash rises, triumphant, gun in hand.
The house goes silent.
The power has shifted from Paladino to Ash, and they both know it. Ash glares at him, smiles cruelly, and growls, “Get on your knees.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Paladino says. “You’re not gonna use that gun. I bet you’ve never even held one before.”
“But according to you, I’m a criminal. A vandal, a drug dealer, a thief, a thug. And now you say I’ve never held a gun?” Ash cocks the trigger. “Knees, asshole. Now.”
Shaking, Paladino obeys. He shuffles to his knees and raises his hands. The one Ash kicked is red and swollen, definitely broken.
“You have another set of handcuffs?” Ash asks him. “Give them to me.”
Again, Paladino obeys, using his good hand to unhook the cuffs from his belt. “You know you won’t get away with this. I have every cop in the county in my pocket. The mayor too.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll be doing them a favor. They’ll thank me for getting rid of you.” Instead of handcuffing the chief, he tosses the cuffs to me. “Put ’em on Lennox,” he says. “Hurry. Before he catches his breath.”
My ribs ache and I haven’t caught my own breath yet, but I stumble over to Brandon and look down upon the nationally revered professional athlete. This man killed two people. Some guy named Neal Mallick, and Lily Summerhays. Brandon Lennox killed me.
It hurts to bend, but I pull his arms behind his back and snap the handcuffs around his wrists. Weeping, he doesn’t resist.
Paladino isn’t resisting either, but when Ash presses the barrel to his forehead, he begins pleading. “Don’t do this, son,” he begs. “We can work this out. We can make a deal.”
Ash chuckles bitterly. “Now you call me son? After you tormented me my entire life? After you hurt my girlfriend? You poisoned her and her little brother with carbon monoxide. You tried to kill us in a plane crash.” With each sentence, Ash becomes angrier. “My dad spent eighteen years of his life in prison and is days away from execution because of you. Fuck you, Paladino.” Ash spits on him, then says over his shoulder. “Ever, how many people are killed by guns in this country every year?”
I clutch my ribs. “Forty thousand.”
He glowers down at the trembling chief. “Make that forty thousand and one.”
“Ash, no,” I cry. “He deserves it, but you don’t.”
Paladino whimpers, bracing himself.
The front door bursts open. “Stop! Morrison, put down the gun.”
It’s Principal Duston.
Principal Duston puts his hands up and advances slowly. “Put down the gun, Ash.”
“Fuck off, Duston,” Ash says, not taking his gaze off Paladino. “You killed Miss Buckley.”
“No, I didn’t. I promise. I have the sheriff and a deputy attorney general with me, Ash. Now put the gun down.”
Behind Principal Duston is a dark-haired, brown-skinned woman in a red pantsuit, and pushing past them into my living room is a man in a sheriff’s uniform. He has his gun drawn and aimed at Ash, and through my front door I see more police officers in my yard, too many to count. It’s like a SWAT team has surrounded my house.
“Ash, do what he says,” I plead, but he doesn’t move. He stands tall over the trembling police chief, the gun still pressed to his head.
A flash of navy, rushing silently from the kitchen, grabs Ash from behind and pries the gun away from him. The cop is about to wrestle Ash to the floor when Principal Duston stops him. “Not the kid. He was just defending himself and protecting his girlfriend. It’s the chief you want.”
He turns and looks at me, then to the sobbing sports hero handcuffed at my feet. “And, apparently, Brandon Lennox.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Ever ~ Present Day
Chief Paladino and Brandon Lennox are taken away, the former struggling and protesting, the latter meek and sobbing. The blonde reporter who interviewed Brandon for the local newscast this morning is now in front of my house, capturing on camera the disgraced police chief and the fallen baseball hero being placed in the back of two squad cars.
There’s also an ambulance, and the EMTs take Ash and me to the emergency room in Eastfield. My second visit in less than a week. Ash and I sit together on a cot. The doctors examine us with difficulty because I won’t let go of Ash. He’s still shaking. He won’t let me go either, and when a doctor looks at my ribs and I cry out in pain, Ash almost punches him.
Finally, my ribs are bandaged and Ash’s arm is in a new sling. He has four little butterfly stitches under his lip and it’s hard not to kiss them. As we wait to be released, we carefully curl up with each other on the cot, my head on his good shoulder, on my good side. I kiss his neck gently, assuring him that I’m okay, and he’s okay, and we’re safe, and we’re together.
Principal Duston enters our area of the emergency room, followed by that dark-haired woman in the red pantsuit. She’s speaking quietly but authoritatively into her phone. Ash jolts upright, stiffening into bodyguard mode again, and my stomach does flipflops. Can we trust them? Principal Duston told me to stop investigating Lily’s murder. He told me to do what Paladino said. He called me “Lily.” The only reason I’m not yelling for help—the only reason I’m willing to try to trust him—is because they told the sheriff to arrest Paladino and Brandon, not Ash.
“Ever, Ash,” Principal Duston says, “I know I have a lot to explain. But first please know that I’m on your side.”
“You’ve never been on my side,” Ash growls.
“I know. I sincerely apologize for that,” he says, lowering his head in shame. “I was wrong about you. I was wrong about a lot of things.”
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“For the past couple of weeks, I was looking into Lily’s murder, just like you were.”
“And?” Ash asks, still suspicious.
“I admit that at first I thought you were playing Ever so she’d drop out of the scholarship competition.”
Ash snorts and rolls his eyes. “Of course.” I pat his arm.
“But Paladino was so angry that you were investigating Lily’s murder,” Duston continues. “He was so defensive about it. He came to the school and asked questions about Ever, one of our best students; Ash, you were arrested; Ever, your house suddenly had carbon monoxide poisoning. Paladino was always involved. I remembered something Lily told me once about him…” He fades off for a moment and moves his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
“How do we know you’re not working with Paladino and Brandon?” Ash says, still suspicious. “I think you’re just saying all this to save your own ass.”
“I don’t blame you for thinking that way,” Principal Duston says, genuinely sorrowful. “In the weeks before Lily was murdered, she was trying to prove that a friend of ours named Neal Mallick didn’t slip from Railroad Bridge and drown in the creek like the police report said, that he was instead hit by a car. She told me that Paladino was protecting the killer. At first I believed her. I even tried to help her find proof. But we had a falling out and I didn’t believe her anymore. I thought she’d lied to me about Neal, about everything”—he says, giving me a pointed look—“in order to help her father get my family’s land. And then she was killed. Still, I didn’t believe her. For eighteen years I didn’t believe her—until you two started investigating her murder. Then I realized L
ily had told me the truth. I was trying to keep you away from Paladino, to keep you out of it, while I investigated things. I was trying to protect you.”
I want to believe him, but Ash’s clear suspicion and dislike for the man is making it difficult. Anger is rolling off of Ash in waves.
Principal Duston must realize it too, because he gestures to the woman in the pantsuit, who’s still pacing and barking orders into her phone. “The woman with me is Devi Mallick. I looked her up when I became suspicious of Paladino. She’s a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana. At this moment she’s making calls to get your father’s conviction overturned.”
“She can stop the execution?” I ask.
“She’s stopping the execution,” he confirms.
I slide my hand into Ash’s and squeeze, then give his shoulder a kiss. “We did it, Ash,” I whisper. He doesn’t move, but he swallows hard.
Principal Duston continues, “Devi lived in Ryland as a child. Her brother was Neal Mallick, the boy Brandon Lennox has just confessed to killing with his car. Now that she knows Neal’s death wasn’t an accident, she wants justice as much as you do. As much as Lily did.”
He turns to me, hesitates, then whispers, awestruck. “You’re different from Lily in almost every way. She was impulsive, reckless. Always causing trouble.”
“I know that now,” I say. Lily was not the prim, demure girl her scholarship poster made her out to be.
He regards me again. “You’re so different, but you’re both fearless.”
I suck in a breath, moved almost to tears. I’ve never been fearless before, but I am now.
Beside me, Ash grunts, not at all convinced of Principal Duston’s sincerity. “Brandon Lennox said we.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“When he was telling us what happened. He was crying and blubbering, but he definitely said ‘we went driving.’ Keyword: we.”
“There was someone with him when he killed Neal Mallick,” I say, realizing it’s not over; there’s still someone else out there involved in a murder—no, three murders: Neal Mallick, Lily Summerhays, and Diana Buckley.
Ash continues, “I think that person was you, Duston.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
Ever ~ Present Day
“You think I was with Brandon when he killed Neal?” Principal Duston asks.
Ash nods. “I think you were the other person in the car that night, I think you knew Brandon killed Lily, and I also think you pushed Miss Buckley down the stairs when she was about to tell everyone the truth.”
“I understand your distrust for me,” Duston says. “But I did not kill Neal. Nor did I know that Brandon killed Lily, nor did I push Diana down the stairs.” He sighs wearily. “All of them—Neal, Lily, Diana—were my friends. Brandon Lennox and Rick Paladino, too. My God.” He rubs his eyes with his hand, masking his emotions.
“If it wasn’t you,” I ask, “then who was it?” I gasp as I remember something. “Warrior74!”
Principal Duston goes white. “What are you talking about?”
“We found a chat history on Miss Buckley’s laptop,” I explain.
“Ever, shh,” Ash growls.
“He already knows we took the laptop,” I say. “And I think he’s proven that he’s on our side.” I rub his arm. “We have to trust someone, Ash. I think we can trust him.” I stare into Ash’s eyes—his beautiful, dark, conflicted eyes—until he softens. He gives me a cautious nod, and I continue.
“Ash and I found a chat history on Miss Buckley’s laptop,” I tell our principal. “She was chatting with someone named warrior74, telling him that she was going to get a defense attorney and confess. They both knew Vinnie Morrison didn’t kill Lily. He warned her not to say anything, and the next day, she was dead.”
With each word, Principal Duston looks more and more ill.
“We tried to figure out who warrior74 is,” I say, “but the account was deleted. Best I could come up with is it was his old uniform number. I know Brandon’s number was 09, but I couldn’t find a list of the rest. Maybe it’s Javier Soto. What was his uniform number, do you remember?”
Ash watches Principal Duston closely. “It’s you, isn’t it, Duston,” he rumbles. “You’re warrior74.”
Principal Duston has moved beyond white and is almost green now. “No, but I know who is.” He swallows hard. “The 74 isn’t a uniform number. It’s his daughter’s birthday, July 4th. Seven-Four.”
“Hey, July 4th is Courtney’s birthday,” I say. “We’re going to Chicago to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier this year to celebrate.”
Ash stiffens, and Principal Duston gives me a regretful look. It takes another beat for it to hit me. Do they actually think…
No. Impossible.
I shake my head. “No. It can’t be. You’re wrong.”
“Coach Nolan is warrior74,” Principal Duston says. He sinks back in his chair. “If Diana was chatting with him about Lily’s real killer, it means he knew it was Brandon.”
“Why wouldn’t he say anything?” Ash asks angrily. “Why would he keep it a secret all these years and let my father take the blame?”
Duston shrugs. “The same reason Paladino did, probably. The same reason Diana did. To protect Brandon’s baseball career.”
“Wait. Stop. No. We’re talking about Coach Nolan,” I say. “Courtney’s dad. My best friend’s father. I know him, really really well. There’s no way he would have done that.”
Principal Duston nods gravely. “I know him well too, Ever. He was my coach too, and now we’re coworkers at the school. But it’s him. I’m sure of it. Look.” He holds up his phone, showing us emails he’s received from warrior74. Some are signed Coach, some Dave, and some David Nolan.
“So Coach knew that Brandon killed Lily,” I say. “That’s bad, yeah, horrible, but it doesn’t mean he was in the car that killed that kid Neal or that he pushed Miss Buckley down the stairs.”
Devi Mallick stops pacing and ends her phone call. “That was the DA’s office. They’re interviewing Brandon Lennox right now. He waived his rights and refused a lawyer. He’s confessing to everything. He said that his high school baseball coach was in the car with him the night he killed Neal,” she tells us with a sigh. “The coach is the one who called Paladino, who came up with the plan to make it look like an accident.”
“So that answers that,” Principal Duston says. He looks as crushed as I feel.
“They’re bringing in the coach for questioning,” Devi says. “They picked him up at the Training Camp.”
“I knew Miss Buckley didn’t fall down those stairs. I knew she was pushed,” I say. “I just can’t believe Coach was the one who pushed her. God, poor Courtney.” If I feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut by this news, Courtney’s got to be devastated by it.
“The coach didn’t push Diana Buckley,” Devi says. Her heels click on the linoleum floor as she paces. “We have the security cam footage.”
“If you’re talking about the footage of Miss Buckley falling down the stairs,” Ash says doubtfully, “it’s been edited. There are a few seconds missing.”
I give the principal a sheepish but defiant shrug, and confess, “We stole the security cam video too.”
He gives a little chuckle. “Lily would have done the same thing,” he murmurs. Affection laces his voice. Regret, too.
“We have the original, unedited footage,” Devi went on. “After Will told me everything that’s been happening at your high school—Ash’s arrest, Diana Buckley’s death—I had some tech guys do a search of the building’s security footage. We found no proof of Ash storing cocaine in his locker. When we watched the footage of Diana Buckley’s death, we discovered the missing seconds. It took some digging, but this morning they were able to find the original footage in a backup file that’s stored off-site.”
“And?” I ask, breathless.
“You’re correct that someone pushed Diana Buckley down the stairs, Ever, but it wasn’t the
coach.”
I sink back into Ash’s arms, relieved. Courtney’s dad may have obstructed justice, but at least he’s not a killer. “Who was it?”
“If it wasn’t the coach, it’s got to be Duston,” Ash says, growling.
I shake my head. I no longer believe Principal Duston pushed Miss Buckley. “Paladino was at the school that day. It must have been him.”
“It’s neither of them,” the attorney says. “We can only see the arms and hands of the person who pushed Diana, and it’s obvious they don’t belong to anyone you suspected.” She takes an iPad from her case. “Any idea who it could be?”
Frowning, Devi Mallick shows Ash and me the footage on her iPad. We’ve seen it before: the back stairwell alternating between long stretches of no movement and flooded with students going to their next class between periods. I keep my eye on the time stamp in the corner. At a little after 13:05:29, Miss Buckley appears on camera, climbing the stairs in her pencil skirt and heels, her arms filled with books. At 13:05:32, Mrs. Buckley reaches the second-to-top step. At 13:05:33, she pauses and glances up.
On the version Ash and I have, the video skips to Miss Buckley starting to fall. But on this version, the original unedited version, Miss Buckley is still on the step, and a pair of arms appear, reaching for her, making contact, and pushing her.
Devi taps the screen to freeze the black-and-white video. With her thumb and index finger, she expands the image, zooming in on the hands that are reaching for Miss Buckley.
The hands aren’t those of a man. They’re smaller, smoother, feminine. The left one is decorated with an intricate pattern of swirls and dots.
No. That’s—That’s impossible. I must not be seeing it correctly. It makes no sense. There must be a mistake.
Swirls and dots. I look again and the room narrows. Swirls and dots.
I don’t recognize my own voice. I can’t believe my own words as they come out of my mouth. “Those are Courtney’s hands.”