Chasing Truth

by Julie Cross

  “Come in, all of you,” Ms. Geist says, her voice warm and friendly.

  My heart picks up. “Okay, what did I do?”

  Someone in the corner of the office laughs. Mr. Lance is standing near Aidan’s chair. “Right,” he says. “Like you could be in trouble.”

  Aidan chokes back a laugh, and Harper just looks at me, like testing her mind-reading powers.

  “Shoes off! Shoes off!” one of the toddler twins shouts at Harper. The other one repeats it in German. You know, ’cause Harper is their native German-speaking nanny.

  Ms. Geist ushers us all inside and shuts the door, making her small office very crowded. I catch a whiff of what might be a dirty diaper. I don’t know how Harper deals with this all day.

  “Thank you both for coming in at such short notice,” Ms. Geist says. She eyes the babies and then looks between Harper and Aidan. “Are they yours?”

  Considering they’re pasty white kids and Aidan is black, I’d say it was a leading question.

  Harper shakes her head. “No, I’m just the nanny.”

  The girl twin, Shayna, yanks off one of her fancy black baby shoes and pelts it at the wall behind the desk and shouts, “Thank you!” in German.

  Mr. Lance bursts out laughing and then turns it into a cough. “How nice, they’re bilingual.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Harper mutters, her face turning red. She sets both kids down and rushes over to retrieve the shoe.

  For a moment, I’m wondering if she brought the wild twins on purpose, as a distraction. Aidan surprises me by scooping up the shoe thrower and holding her firmly on his lap. He whispers something to her and she seems to sit still. She might be the one with the dirty diaper and she’s planted it on Aidan’s dress pants. Gross.

  “As you know,” Ms. Geist says, “Mr. Lance is one of Eleanor’s teachers, and he’s expressed some concerns.”

  “What kind of concerns?” Harper says. She looks at me, trying to pluck something from my mind, but her guess is as good as mine.

  “She’s one of my top students,” Mr. Lance says. “But Ellie is currently not on the track to position herself for acceptance to top colleges.”

  “College?” I blurt out. “That’s why were here?”

  “Junior year is crucial for college planning,” Ms. Geist says. “And Eleanor isn’t even registered for the SAT or the ACT exam. Most of our juniors are already prepping for their second attempt at both exams. We need to get her into AP courses next fall, college visits, interviews…her ECs are slim to none—”

  “What are AP courses?” Harper asks at the same time Aidan says, “Remind me what ECs are?”

  Ms. Geist’s mouth falls open. She’s clearly disturbed by those questions. “It’s safe to assume you haven’t hired an educational consultant yet?”

  “A what?” Harper and I both say.

  Mr. Lance interrupts, moving beside her desk. “What Ms. Geist is trying to tell you is that we’re here to help Ellie in any way that we can because she is an asset to this school. I, personally, would love to see her in my senior AP English class next fall, and I’m happy to help with her application essays.” He opens the folder he’d been holding and hands a paper to Harper and Aidan. “This is the practice SAT exam we gave all the juniors a few weeks ago. As you can see, Ellie scored in the top five percent of the nation. She has the potential to gain admission and scholarship to an Ivy League school. I can speak personally of her literary analysis and writing. According to her admissions file, her foreign language skills are top in our school.”

  Not anymore. Not with Miles and his Mandarin.

  Harper looks at me, and I know what she’s thinking. We’re good at foreign languages because we were taught practically to imitate accents, to learn enough of a language to give the appearance of fluency. Even our names were given with intent to be a conversation topic. Historically famous women: Harper Lee and Eleanor Roosevelt.

  “What steps would you recommend we take first?” Aidan asks.

  I tune out the conversation for a minute and chance a look at Mr. Lance. I hate that he thinks I’m good and wants me to be something valuable and important. If only he knew the truth.

  “I know it’s been months,” Harper says. “But we’re still having the hardest time getting copies of birth certificates, and without those, the Social Security office won’t issue us new cards.” She chokes up, popping out a few tears. “We just can’t seem to escape the damage that fire did to our family. Look what it’s doing to Ellie’s future! She can’t even apply to college or take Advanced Placement exams without a Social Security number.”

  Yep, my sister has still got it. An Oscar-worthy performance.

  Aidan looks a bit startled but pulls himself together and rubs Harper’s back while saying in his stern Secret Service officer voice, “I’ve had enough of the tail-chasing we’ve been sent on. I’m going to talk to someone higher up in the system and get this taken care of. It’s been long enough.”

  God, for a second, I wish this were real. These were my real parents and we really had lost everything in a fire and Aidan really could growl at some grumpy Vital Statistics worker and demand copies of birth certificates for two people who never filed for them.

  But it isn’t real. And despite the fact that I’m here at this school to start over, I’m still playing a role. And it’s apparently not going to end anytime soon.

  But Geist and Lance buy it with no problem. Harper has to take off quickly, probably to change a diaper, but Aidan lingers in the school hallway to ask how I’m doing.

  We lean against a row of lockers, and he pulls a pack of Skittles from his pocket and hands it to me. “Don’t tell Harper.”

  I force a smile. “Thanks.”

  “The truth,” he says, his voice low. “Did you cheat on the practice SAT?”

  “I should have.” I look down at the candy. “Would have saved you guys the school visit today if I flunked it, right?”

  “But you didn’t,” Aidan points out. “You’re competitive. They put a test in front of you and you ace it. They’re not wrong, Ellie. You really do have potential.”

  “I thought I was going to have a clean slate here, you know?” I look up at him and he nods. “But I’m still stuck with all of that crap from the past.”

  He stares straight ahead. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be like that.”

  “Maybe it is,” I reason. “I mean, I’m not innocent. Maybe I don’t deserve to be completely free. Besides, they wanted my dad, and he’s still out there.”

  “Enough of that,” Aidan warns. “You keep winning over teachers, acing tests for real, and I’ll handle the rest, okay?”

  “You really are going up the chain?” I lift an eyebrow. “Think you can get the boss man to toss in a driver’s license?”

  He grins. “Don’t push your luck.”

  For his benefit, I force myself to look happy about this. But between the Geist and Lance intervention and Miles’s homecoming proposal, I end up in a funk all morning, and I’m in it enough for Justice to notice something is up at lunch.

  “You look upset,” she says. “Is it Bret? Did he not—”

  I shake my head, not wanting that gossip circulating. But damn, Justice really sucks at being a mean girl. Chantel has her beat by a mile. “I had a college intervention this morning. Apparently I’m not doing enough to get on the right track.” I look up from my school hamburger, surprised that she’s listening so intently. “But I’m not sure all of that is for me, you know?”

  “This school has a one-track mind—college prep and more college prep,” she says. “I don’t agree with it all, not sure I want my parents’ life, but I figure what can it hurt to prepare for it at least? Then you have choices. People are always so afraid of choices, but that doesn’t make sense. Be afraid when you don’t have any choices.”

  It’s smart advice. It really is. But it might be too late for me to have choices. Or maybe I made that choice when I agreed to go into the
bank heist under the FBI’s direction. I’m about to thank her but a middle-aged dude in a chef’s hat approaches our table holding a dish of something.

  “I’m looking for Ellie Ames,” he says.

  Ruby, one of Justice’s friends sitting to my right, says, “Oh my God, Chef Leo! You’re, like, on TV.”

  I sit there like a dumbass until Justice kicks me underneath the table. I clear my throat. “Uh, I’m Ellie.”

  The guy sets the dish in front of me, and when I ask what it is, he reluctantly says, “Tuna casserole,” he says with a wrinkled nose. “Not my recipe.”

  I snort back a laugh. What the hell is this? He hands me a card and stands there waiting.

  “Read the card,” Justice hisses at me. She reaches over and pulls it from the envelope, holding it open for me to read.

  Ellie,

  I heard this was your favorite food, kinda weird but whatever. Go to homecoming with me? Chef Leo promises he’ll make this at his restaurant before the dance.

  Place your order below.

  Thank you,

  Bret

  Everyone is staring at me so I have no choice but to scribble “yes” at the bottom of the card and hand it back to Chef Leo, who then marches it over to where Bret and Miles are sitting. Bret makes a big show of looking surprised by my answer. We get nearly as much applause as Miles and Justice had this morning.

  “What is it?” Justice says, then she peels the foil cover off the dish. “Uh…”

  I examine it and smile. There are green peas poking out and crushed potato chips on top. Just like Miles made. Bret slides into the seat beside me, and I immediately dig my fork into the noodles and stuff a giant bite in my mouth to avoid a grand kiss like Miles and Justice had this morning. He settles for planting one on my cheek.

  “You like it?” Bret asks.

  I swallow the big bite. “Love it. Thanks.”

  Miles appears beside Justice and digs his fork in, taking an even bigger bite. “That’s good stuff. I gotta get the recipe.”

  I shake my head at him. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

  “Okay, guys,” Justice says, all businesslike. “We gotta talk details. Limo or no limo…?”

  I tune them out and stare at my casserole, pretending it meant I would get to go to the homecoming dance with the person who really created this gift, not just the one who made a call and paid for it. What would that be like to want someone’s attention and then earn it? No false pretense, no agenda.

  In the midst of the homecoming discussion, Miles sends me a text. I place my phone in my lap to read it privately.

  MILES: she kissed me

  ME: I know, I saw

  MILES: I told her I wanted to go as friends

  I look at him, a silent question on my face. He reads my expression perfectly and replies.

  MILES: she was cool with it

  Justice’s voice rises, her feelings against neon-colored limos fueling a passionate response. I study her, replay that kiss in the hallway, and I’m sure she’s lying to Miles. She’s into him. But in Miles Beckett fashion, he was honest with her. I’m not sure how this will end well.

  Before I can fall into another make-out daydream, Jacob taps me on the shoulder. He asks me to give him some chemistry notes but his body language—hand fidgeting, wide eyes—indicates something else. I hurry through my lunch and meet him at his locker, where Chantel is currently extricating her tongue from his mouth.

  “Bad time?” I prompt.

  I wave a set of chemistry notes in the air and Chantel takes the hint, flashing me her perfect smile before skipping off to class. Jacob opens his locker, keeping his back to the crowded hall. “You know that question you asked me before…”

  About Bret and his presence in my parking lot last June.

  I glance around, checking for listening ears. “Yes?”

  “I was with him that night. We partied together for a little while, and he hadn’t said anything about you or…your date. I didn’t think there was anything to worry about.” He pauses, checks around. “But then Chantel was talking about the spring formal this morning and how she drank too much and Bret had to drive her home.”

  “And…?” I ask, hoping this actually goes somewhere.

  “Bret never mentioned that to me, which is a little weird, so I asked her if anything happened, you know, between them. She said no, that she passed out right away and then remembers waking up for a minute and they were parked somewhere, just sitting there.” He lowers his voice, leaning in a bit, as if to read my chemistry notes. “Bret saw that she had woken up, and then he turned the car back on and started driving.”

  “She doesn’t remember where they were parked?” I ask. Jacob shakes his head. “Did she say if he got out of the car?”

  “He didn’t leave the car while she was awake,” he says.

  “Anything else?”

  He starts to shake his head again but stops. “Just that he had a camera in his hand. A nice one.”

  Yeah, that’s an important tidbit. “Did he take any pictures?”

  “Not that she saw.” He looks worried, really worried. “Do you think he took pictures of Chantel or did something to her? They were dating just a month before—I can’t even believe I’m thinking this… God, I’m an ass.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Pretend I didn’t say that, okay?”

  “It’s fine,” I assure him. I don’t think it was Chantel that Bret wanted pictures of. “It doesn’t hurt to ask questions. You’re worried. But remember, he was in my parking lot when Simon dropped me off. I think Chantel was there out of necessity, nothing more.”

  Or an alibi. Nothing better than a drunken girl who can claim you gave her a ride home but can’t recall if you drove straight home or not.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I say to Jacob, and then leave him when I spot Miles exiting the cafeteria. I grab him for the second time today—people are gonna start talking—and drag him away, this time to the back of the library.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” Miles says, whispering the words into my ear. No kidding. “Is Jacob trying to get rid of another future stepmom?”

  I spin to face him. “No, but I think I know who ‘all eyes on you’ is.”

  Miles listens intently, not interrupting me once—he’s good like that—and then before I can launch into my plan to get closer to Bret at the dance, he says, “You can’t be alone with that guy. We’re gonna have to ditch the dance mission. It’s too dangerous. Let me—”

  “Uh-uh.” I shake my head. “You don’t have authority to cancel plans. We’re a team, remember? Equal partners.”

  He opens his mouth to protest, those adorable lines of worry creasing his forehead. When he looks at me like that, my stomach gets all fluttery, and I hate myself all over again for being such a liar. I grin at him and start walking backward. “Besides, I’ve already got the perfect dress for this mission—I mean dance.”

  “Ellie—” he argues.

  I leave before he can finish. Maybe we should have signed our work-together contract in blood. No way am I backing out of this now. If Bret Thomas is secretly harassing Dominic, what else is he capable of?

  CHAPTER 27

  “Hey, have you seen my date?” Justice asks me above the loud music in the school gym.

  I check my cell, hoping for an update from Miles. “Um, last time I saw him he was sucking up to Mr. Chin in Mandarin.”

  MILES: u got eyes on Geist?

  The guidance counselor is near the gym doors, busy checking tickets (aka sobriety checks).

  ME: what’s taking so long?

  MILES: the lock is tricky

  I roll my eyes. Amateur.

  Bret is across the gym, talking to some guy I don’t know. I keep an eye on him while sliding carefully out the back entrance of the gym. I clunk down the hall in my heels, toward the office, and slip through the door.

  Miles is kneeling on the floor of Ms. Geist’s dark office, a flashlight poised in one hand. �
��You’re supposed to be lookout.”

  “Fine by me. Assuming you could pick a simple lock.”

  “What about Geist?”

  “She’s busy smelling people’s breath.” I snatch the flashlight from Miles and examine the lock. I hold my free hand out to him. “Scalpel, please.”

  He reluctantly hands over the tool he’d been using and even holds the flashlight for me. And when he leans in closer, I hear him inhale. “You smell nice.”

  My face warms. He smells nice, too. Like soap and cinnamon. I focus on the lock on this ancient file cabinet. I hook the tool inside the slot and wiggle it gently. “Advice for future reference…you can’t be too aggressive. And try to put yourself in their shoes.”

  “Whose shoes?” Miles asks.

  “The lock’s,” I say. “Enter with the least amount of disturbance because deep down, it wants to open for you, wants to let you in. All you have to do is”—carefully, I twist the tool, applying just the right amount of pressure until I feel a pop—“ask nicely.”

  I hand the tool over to Miles, a big grin on my face. He’s staring at me in that way that makes my stomach flip over several times. “What?” I ask.

  “You,” he says simply, like this should answer everything. “You’re kind of amazing.”

  “Only ‘kind of’ amazing?” I glance away from him, my face heating. I stuff those feelings way down and turn my gaze back to him, lifting one eyebrow. “What about you? You’ve morphed into a fully fledged Hermione Granger.”

  “I’m definitely not Hermione,” he says.

  “You so are. Mr. By-the-Book, breaking and entering for the greater good. It’s hot.”

  His mouth falls open, words preparing to exit, but he stops and tugs his vibrating cell out of his suit jacket pocket. His eyes widen. “I have to answer this.”

  I slide the drawer open and head straight for the T section to find Bret’s folder. I can’t believe Geist keeps actual files for students. Paper filing is probably nearly as ancient as this cabinet.