Secrets, Lies, and Scandals

by Amanda K. Morgan

  No one argued. And if it was anyone’s car, it might as well be Kinley’s. No one would ever suspect perfect little narc Kinley to transport a dead body.

  And Kinley knew that.

  She forced away her revulsion at the idea. “I’m going to go out in the hall,” she said, “and at my signal, you lift.” She pulled her keys out of her bag. “I’m going to pull around.”

  She poked her head out into the hallway.

  No one was coming.

  No footsteps.

  They were alone.

  “Go,” she hissed back into the room, and she took off down the empty corridor. She didn’t look back. She walked quickly out the double glass doors near the parking lot and into the rain.

  The lot was still almost empty. She threw her backpack into the front seat of her Honda and crossed the car to the driver’s side. She opened the driver’s-side door and slipped inside.

  Out of habit, Kinley flipped down her visor and caught her reflection. She looked pretty much the same as she always did. A little wetter, maybe.

  If only her father could see her now.

  She took a slow, deep breath, the same way she did before penciling in the first answer on a big test, and pulled the car up to the curb, as close as she could get.

  The rain pattered across the windshield.

  Kinley stepped out, leaving the front door open, and popped the trunk. It was empty. She wished, for a moment, that she had garbage bags or something to line the trunk with, so she wouldn’t get body on it. But she had nothing.

  And that included time.

  She heard the clatter of the door opening, of the bar being pressed and released, and then the slow shuffling of her classmates. She looked up. There they were, carrying their professor’s body over the sidewalk. The legs of his pants were sliding up, exposing the white skin of his calves, which were slick from the rain.

  Down the road, in the distance, headlights appeared, two small circles of light.

  “Hurry,” Kinley urged. “Someone’s coming!”

  “Shit!” Ivy said, and Tyler tripped, dropping Stratford’s arm. It dangled down onto the wet concrete, and the rest of the group grunted. Tyler stood up and grabbed back on to the arm, heaving toward the car.

  “Faster!” Kinley said, raising her voice. The group was hardly moving, and the headlights were growing steadily brighter.

  “He’s heavy, Kinley!” Cade groaned.

  The car was closer. Closer still. What if the car turned into the school? What if someone caught them there, hauling the dead body? Could they pretend they were taking him to the hospital?

  She hurried toward the group and squatted down beneath the body, to position her hands under his midsection. “The car’s almost here,” she whispered. She remembered the stories about mothers who were able to lift cars off of their children in desperate times. Athletes who were actually able to channel their adrenaline to perform amazing, Olympic-level feats. She’d have to find that now. She’d have to be the one who got this body where it needed to go.

  She had to be the one to save them.

  Kinley bent down a little farther and took up more weight, her hands sinking into Stratford’s doughy midsection. She couldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t.

  Kinley chanced a look back. The car was near the school. Near enough to see them with the rain? She wasn’t certain. She could hear it now, the engine, the tires on the wet pavement.

  “Now lift. One, two, three!” Kinley bent her knees and gave the body a shove, and, like a giant, soggy doll, Dr. Stratford fell into the trunk. “Get in,” she commanded Mattie, who stood still, watching as she pushed the professor’s limbs in and then reluctantly climbed in after the others.

  She sprinted toward the front seat and threw herself into the car, and hit the gas. Hard.

  “Not too fast, Kinley,” Tyler said.

  “I just want to get out of here.” She checked the rearview mirror and pressed down on the accelerator. The tires hissed over the slick pavement and rain pitter-pattered off the windows.

  “Drive normally,” Tyler directed. “We don’t need any attention, okay?”

  He was right. Of course he was right. Tyler probably knew everything there ever was to know about crime. Kinley forced herself to breathe slowly. Like in yoga class. Channel her energy. Find her center.

  And then, the car was there. It slowed down and put on its blinker.

  It was pulling into the school.

  Her pulse went crazy.

  The car was pulling into the school.

  It was old—probably more than twenty years—and it was so rusted and dilapidated that she couldn’t even tell what color the car had originally been painted.

  That was the kind of car you transported a body in.

  It rolled past them, slowly. The night was too dark to see who was inside.

  Why would anyone be here this late? Kinley gulped, and forced herself to leave the parking lot at a reasonable speed.

  A few moments longer, and they would have been caught. If she hadn’t helped them . . .

  “Where are your cars?” Kinley asked.

  “I rode my bike,” Mattie volunteered. “I’ll get it later.”

  Tyler shrugged. “Grounded. My dad told me to find my own way home.”

  “My dad’s driver dropped me off.” Cade yawned. Actually yawned. Kinley stared at him in the rearview. What was wrong with him that he could actually yawn at a time like this?

  Ivy looked back. “My car’s in the lot. Is it weird if I leave it there?”

  “Didn’t you always used to leave your car here?” Cade asked. “I mean, you’re always making someone else pick your royal ass up, aren’t you? I swear, your car spends more time in the school lot than the bus.”

  Ivy settled back in her seat and wrapped her arms around her body. “I guess we can say I made Kinley drive,” she muttered. “And Mattie got a ride home too, since he didn’t want to ride his bike in the rain.” She yanked at a strand of her hair, running the tips of her fingers over the ends.

  Kinley’s heart did a quick double beat. How strange that she’d once envied Ivy McWhellen and her entourage. The girl who sat distraught in the backseat was nothing like the beautiful, confident queen Kinley had so admired.

  “My uncle has a farm,” Kinley volunteered.

  “So what?” Tyler said from the passenger seat. He looked over at her, and all the wit and charm was gone.

  Kinley looked at him. “It’s far away from the town. No one lives there since my uncle passed two years ago. It’s a place we can go to . . . figure stuff out.”

  “You mean stash the body.” Cade almost sounded bored.

  “I mean figure out where to stash it,” Kinley said. “Listen, I saw this TV show, and they used chemicals to destroy the body. Do you think we could do that? Get some Rubbermaid containers—”

  “It worked on Breaking Bad,” Mattie murmured, his voice breaking. “Shit, I can’t believe we’re talking about dissolving a body.” He put his heels up on the seat, tucking his knees into his chest.

  “If you have a brighter little idea floating around, we’d love to hear it,” Cade snapped. “Shit, Mattie, pull it together.”

  Mattie shut his mouth with an audible snap. He huddled closer to Ivy, and she put a hand on his knee. Kinley frowned. She’d keep an eye on Ivy and Mattie. The heroes of the equation, really. She could see them forming an alliance.

  She almost smirked. She would never have imagined Ivy McWhellen doing something that would be considered good, but she’d been the only one who actually tried to save Stratford’s life tonight. Even though he’d just told her she was going to fail his class.

  The Ivy who Kinley knew—the same Ivy who bleached the tip of her braid white in seventh grade—would have ground a boot heel in the asshole’s face and left him to choke on his own blood.

  So who was this new Ivy?

  Kinley narrowed her eyes. She didn’t trust her.

  The group was si
lent as they drove, and the lights of the city faded in the distance. They didn’t mention how the washboards of the road and the thick mud rattled the car and sent it pitching left and right and nearly off the road and into the ditch. Kinley knew what they were thinking: if something happened, they all deserved it.

  The rare farmhouse passed, and with it an occasional faint light, a reminder that there was life out in the deep country. Mostly, there was darkness. Thunder erupted from the sky, and lightning exposed the farmland: the fences, running along either side of the road, and the cottonwood trees that grew wild in the fields. The rain was carving deep ravines in the narrow dirt road. Normally, Kinley wouldn’t have dared drive on roads so dangerously close to being washed out, but tonight it just meant that there wouldn’t be anyone else to see them.

  It was perfect.

  And it was horrible.

  The group was still silent when they pulled up to the abandoned barn on her uncle’s property. And when they got out of the car. There wasn’t anything to say. Not really. Kinley popped the trunk, and they wrestled the body out. The corpse’s flesh was waxy and slick in the rain, but they didn’t drop him this time.

  Inside the barn, Kinley lit a couple of old gas lamps and hung them. The resulting glow was wholly eerie, as if they had faded into another century. The body rested in the corner, facedown. None of them could bear to look at Dr. Stratford.

  “Mattie, Cade, and Ivy? Take my car. Drive slowly, and find the chemicals. Don’t search them on your phone, just try to find the right things. Tyler and I will stay here. Stay in contact. If you aren’t back in an hour, we call the cops. Deal?” Kinley tossed them her keys. They landed on the cement floor.

  “Whatever,” Cade said. “I’ll drive. Let’s go.” He bent down and picked them up, and they were gone a moment later, leaving Tyler and Kinley alone in the barn.

  Tyler

  Friday, June 12

  The rain stopped outside the barn, and the silence crept in, heavy and thick. In the distance, cows from a neighboring farm mooed balefully in the wet air and a train barreled over tracks, letting out a long, mournful whistle.

  And the body of Dr. Stratford lay in the corner, his face buried in musty old straw.

  Tyler watched Kinley. She looked almost normal, sitting there on an old hay bale, except that almost half of her hair had escaped from her braid. And she was shaking.

  “Are you cold?” he asked her, more for something to say than anything else. It wasn’t cold out.

  She nodded. “I know I shouldn’t be, but I am.” Her voice held none of her body’s quaver. She cast a look at the body in the corner. “I hate that he’s in here.”

  “I know,” Tyler said. He moved and sat next to her, and tucked her errant strands of hair behind her shoulders. “We’re okay, though. And we’re going to be okay, you know. They’ll be back.”

  They would be. He’d been telling himself that since the car pulled away. Wouldn’t it be easy for them to disappear? To leave them to dispose of the body and never return?

  “I know.” She would have sounded almost annoyed, but the desperation in her words gave her away. She was shaking harder now, and clasped her hands together like she was trying to stop it.

  “Come here,” Tyler said, and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her tight to his chest. “I’m warm.”

  But the truth was, Tyler was as cold as she was, even in the warm, summer night air. Although his actions had every appearance of comfort, he needed to touch her. He needed to touch her more than he’d ever needed anything in his entire goddamn life.

  And she melted into him. He had always thought of Kinley as hard and cold and haughty, but she was anything but. She was soft, and warm, and made him feel things he had no right to be feeling with his professor’s dead body a few feet away.

  Tyler held Kinley tighter.

  “I can’t believe we’re here,” he whispered, and his breath moved strands of her hair. “I can’t believe we’re—this.” He didn’t look toward the corner.

  Kinley straightened and pulled away. She put her hands on his legs. “Can I say something?” she whispered.

  “Anything.” Tyler looked into her eyes. She was beautiful like this. She was actually really beautiful all the time. Her dark skin. Her impossibly light brown eyes, which were just a little too close set. It made her look too serious and he liked it. “Anything, Kin.”

  He felt his body respond to her. He shouldn’t be feeling like this. He shouldn’t. It was wronger than wrong. If he wasn’t going to hell by helping to cover up a murder—well, he was now.

  Kinley squared her shoulders and her hand tightened on his knee. “I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Tyler stared, and drew back a little bit. “What?”

  Kinley glared toward the body in the corner. “He was a foul, angry man who enjoyed hurting people. I’m a good student, Tyler, and he was going to fail me. He hated me, and for what? Talking to you? And it wasn’t just me. He hurt everyone. You included. And so I’m sorry. I just can’t feel bad that someone so horrible is dead. And yeah, I wish I hadn’t accidentally tripped him. I do. But I don’t care that he’s not coming back. In fact, I’m glad.”

  Something flashed quickly across Tyler’s mind and was gone just as quickly—had Kinley tripped him on purpose?

  No. Hell no. Never.

  “Do you think I’m horrible?” Kinley asked, peeping up through the loose strands of her hair that had fallen back over her shoulders.

  Tyler took her hands. “No,” he whispered. “No, Kinley. I don’t.”

  He understood why she said it. In a way, he wanted to agree. But deep in his heart, he knew that he would have gone to military school to make this go away. He would have done a stint in juvie.

  He wanted out.

  But he wanted to identify with her too, so he said, “You know if I had failed the course, I would have ended up in military school.”

  Kinley frowned. “I can’t imagine you in the army. You’re too . . . free.” She rubbed his arm.

  Tyler smiled, but it was wry and dark. “I can’t go. My brother needs me too much. He—relies on me.”

  Kinley drew back a little. “Your older brother? He needs you? Isn’t he some golden-boy Olympic hopeful? He relies on you? I mean, no offense, but I thought it would be the other way around.”

  Tyler laughed, just one short “ha.” “You’d be surprised, Kinley. Some people will do anything for a little success.”

  “Like?”

  Tyler shook his head. “I just need to be there for him. I’m his brother, you know?”

  “Sure.”

  But Tyler knew Kinley didn’t get it. And he couldn’t explain it to her. He couldn’t explain it to anyone.

  Outside, the rain started again and the thunder boomed in the distance. Kinley burrowed against him, her head on his chest, and for a moment, in the old, musty barn, lit by old-fashioned gas lamps, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction. He held her close and touched his lips to her hair.

  If he never had to leave this moment, never had to deal with his parents or his brother or the screwed-up shit that was lying there, right now, in the corner, and he just had Kinley and she just had him, he would be okay.

  Of course, part of him knew that wasn’t true. Knew it wasn’t even close to true.

  But he wanted nothing more than to believe it.

  And she lifted her head. She looked up at him, her eyes big and sorrowful and sexy, and he kissed her.

  It just happened.

  He didn’t mean to. He didn’t even want to. It just was. And the worst part and the best part is that it didn’t feel wrong.

  It felt good. Really good. Her lips were warm and soft and her hands on his back turned him on like crazy, and he put his hands in her hair and gently pulled her closer.

  She moaned, softly, and moved against him, and he crushed his body against hers, needing her completely.

  Cade

  Friday, June 12

  Cad
e tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Everything was closed. Everything.

  “I don’t even know where to buy chemicals!” Mattie burst out. “Especially at ten thirty at night!”

  He and Ivy were in the backseat together. Cade had insisted on driving.

  “We have to figure something out,” Ivy said quietly, her voice still choked with panic. “There has to be something.”

  “Mattie’s right,” Cade said. “Even if we find something, who knows how much it’s going to cost? And what am I going to do, put the chemicals on my dad’s credit card? And what happens if they’re the wrong ones?” He hit the steering wheel with a fist. “This was a stupid plan, you guys.” He lowered his voice. “Stores have cameras. The school might not, but any store nowadays has cameras. Like, all of them. And what happens if we buy the wrong chemicals, and someone finds the body, and we just happen to have that strange combination on our receipts?”

  Cade knew. They couldn’t go in there.

  “So what do we do?” Mattie asked. “Just go back?”

  Cade didn’t answer. There was nothing else to do. He started the car and began to pull out of the parking lot. A faint bolt of lightning erupted in the distance. The storm was leaving, but the rain was still falling—not hard, but steadily.

  “Yeah. I mean, what else are we going to do? Any genius ideas?”

  He watched in the rearview mirror as Mattie and Ivy exchanged glances. Ivy had retreated into a corner of the car, her back against the door, like she could disappear into the upholstery if she tried hard enough.

  “No,” she whispered finally.

  “No,” Mattie admitted. “Let’s go back.”

  “ ‘How do you get rid of your dead professor’s body?” Ivy laughed, suddenly, but it was harsh and grating, like a metal chain dragged over gravel. “I guess I should have paid more attention to the mystery novels my mom has.” She laughed again, and Mattie reached over to take her hand.

  Cade fought the sudden urge to yell at her. The truth was, he was barely keeping it together, and if someone went over the edge, he wasn’t sure if he could handle it. What was wrong with him, anyway? He was the one who should be in charge here, not that brat Kinley. Sure, Kinley was from a well-known family, and her father was powerful, but they weren’t rich. Not like his father.