“To apologize. I know it wasn’t you now.”
“You didn’t have to make the trip to state the obvious. Take the stairs when you leave, I’d rather not have actual murder added to the list of things people think I’ve done because you decide to break your neck.”
“I don’t blame you for being mad, but I came here to try to fix this.”
“You accused me of raping a fourteen-year-old girl at her funeral! How do you fix that?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll do anything. Brooks … it was Dex. The things in Claire’s diary happened, even if you didn’t do them. It was Dex; I can prove it. Look—this is at Freeman’s Point. The time stamps should match the date on her diary entries.”
Cell service at the Point is always lousy, but that wasn’t why Claire never sent me the pictures when she finally got them. The more I thought about it, I was sure she didn’t send them because she was too embarrassed. They’d been taken the same day she met Evil Dex, and as much as I’d like to believe she didn’t delete them because she thought they’d come in handy as proof when she came to her senses, I knew they were still there because of that embarrassment. To delete them, she’d have had to look at them again, and Claire wouldn’t have done that. She’d have left them in her past and gone on like they didn’t exist.
I handed Brooks Claire’s phone and watched the horror cycle across his face with each new photo.
“When did you get back from DC?” I asked.
“Two weeks before school started. Why?”
And there was the final piece of the puzzle. Claire was so wrapped up in Dex that his dropping her had made no sense. He could have kept using her—but not if there was a chance the real Brooks Walden might spoil his act.
“He was pretending to be you,” I said. “When you came home, he had to stop.”
“It has to be a mistake.”
“You know better than that. Jordan told you. I hope Chandi told you, too.”
“Yeah, but—”
“The night …” I choked trying to say it. “The night Claire died, when I was such a wreck at the carnival, your first thought was that Dex had done something, wasn’t it?”
“I’d just talked to Jordan, but she was so angry, I hoped she was overreacting. Blowing things out of proportion or something.… You … you were okay, weren’t you?”
“Only because I fought back. Others didn’t.”
“Others?”
“Like Claire. And Abigail. The only difference is, Abigail knew who Dex was. Claire only knew who he claimed to be. That was you.”
“He wouldn’t do that. We’re friends.”
“You heard him do it, Brooks. He told that guard at the mall his name was Courtney D’Avignon, because he didn’t want anyone at his own door if something happened. Dex didn’t know Claire was going to be a student at Lowry, so he gave her someone else’s name, not realizing she’d learn the truth when she started school. He picked someone who was out of town, someone with dark hair and eyes like his own, and someone with a dad who had connections that he thought would protect them. It’s his safety net.”
In his own twisted way, he probably thinks the people whose names he takes deserve it. They get the reputation people expect a spoiled rich boy to have.
“I have to show this to my dad,” Brooks said, flipping back and forth through the pictures, zooming in on Claire’s face and then Dex’s.
“I told you, I’ll do anything to fix this. I’ll tell your dad, his lawyer, the police. Whoever I have to.”
He didn’t answer. Brooks was still thumbing through the photos on Claire’s phone, wandering into the older ones that dated back before I’d moved out of state with my parents.
“So the black hair and tattoos, the piercings and boots, that’s the real you?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’ve pretty much lost track of who I am. I’m not sure I ever knew.”
“I know the feeling,” he said. “Dad’s downstairs, in his office, most likely. He’s been on the phone with Ryland since your dad called the cops and they called him to arrange a voluntary surrender. I’m sort of under house arrest.”
I nodded and let him lead the way out of his room, back into that nearly pristine hallway and down the stairs.
“She was pretty,” Brooks said as we walked. “Your cousin.”
“She was beautiful,” I amended.
She was sweet and kind, and never understood that others weren’t. Claire flitted through the world without letting any of the darkness in it touch her. Nothing bad mattered, because she always thought there’d be another day, with a day’s worth of chances for the bad to improve.
“I’m sure you know this, but I’ll warn you anyway: he’s not in a good mood.”
We’d reached his father’s office door, which was shut, exactly as it had been the last time I was there, without any noise to say there was anyone alive inside. Real fear bubbled up within me for knowing I’d have to face that scowl again, and this time for a reason. If the first time was how Brooks’ dad looked while trying to be hospitable, I wasn’t eager to find out how much that face could sour when he was angry.
“Ready?” Brooks asked.
“For this to be over? Definitely.”
We entered the office together, Brooks in front, me behind, so hopefully all his dad could see of me was my hair poking up over the top of Brooks’ head. The place looked abandoned, with the lights on their lowest setting and the office chair turned backward, toward the bookcase behind it.
“There’s been no word, Brooks,” his voice said from the chair. “Go back to bed. I told you I’d call you if anything new developed.”
“That’s why I’m here, Dad,” Brooks said. “Something new sort of fell through my window.”
“I’m in no mood for nonsense.” The chair turned and I had the sudden flash of one of Brucey’s cheesy old movies. The villain, who was the head of some secret group of super-baddies, sat in a chair just like the one in front of us. The only difference was that the guy in the movie had a fluffy cat in his lap, and I’m not sure there was an animal in existence that would have been willing to sit with Brooks’ dad. “Nor am I in the mood for visitors. Who is this, and why is she here?”
“It’s me, Mr. Walden,” I said from the back of Brooks’ shoulder. “Dinah Powell … I was here before.… You thought I was a scholarship case at Lowry.”
“You don’t look like the girl who was here.”
“Bad haircut,” I said.
“She came to help, Dad,” Brooks said.
“Yet earlier this evening, you told me it was the girl who had been to the house who accused you this afternoon.”
“I did,” I said. “But I was wrong … and … and …” I had to swallow before I could finish. “And so were you.”
“Explain.”
Easier ordered than accomplished. Brooks’ dad didn’t get up or unfold his hands from where he had them steepled under his chin, but his voice was toxic enough, even across the room.
“Brooks didn’t do any of the things you think he did,” I said, then quickly added a polite “sir” for good measure. “He didn’t get himself in trouble with the mall cops. He didn’t do anything to his car, other than speeding, but that was my fault, too, because I’m the one who messed up his interviews and he was afraid you’d blame him, which was sort of the point. It was all me.”
“Take a breath before you pass out,” Brooks whispered. Somehow he’d ended up behind me instead of in front, and I’d moved closer to his dad’s desk without realizing it.
“All you?”
“Yessir.” I swallowed again, trying to stop the nervous slurring. “And if the drug test you made him take came back … just know it’s a false positive.”
“You’re not serious,” Brooks said.
“Sorry.” I cringed. “You really shouldn’t eat things you don’t cook yourself.”
“Your friend tried to poison me?”
“No … maybe a
little, but only because you ate so many.”
His father cleared his throat to put our attention back on him.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Walden, and if you want to call the cops and have me arrested, I won’t argue. I’ll tell them the truth.”
“Good, because that’s exactly what I should do.”
“Dad—” Brooks started, but his father held up his hand for silence.
“However, my first priority is to have you speak to my son’s attorney, so that we can stop this unpleasantness before it goes any further. You have the time it takes Ryland to reach the house to explain your actions and your sudden change of heart; perhaps I’ll have one as well.”
He still hadn’t moved, and I felt like I was being circled by the grim reaper.
I spilled my guts until that didn’t feel like a figure of speech. I physically hurt from the admission of everything I’d done or had Brucey and Tabs do for me. (Their names stayed out of it.)
Ten minutes in, Brooks’ dad made me stop and call my parents to let them know where I was; I think it took him that long to realize I was still barefoot and dripping wet. He had Brooks bring me some dry clothes so I wouldn’t, as he said, catch pneumonia.
After I changed, I was headed back to the office from the downstairs bathroom when the bell rang. I assumed it was either my dad, Uncle Paul, or Brooks’ lawyer, maybe even some combination of the three, but when Brooks opened the door, I discovered the night hadn’t yet hit its lowest point.
“You have to help me.” Dex tripped across the threshold in worse shape than I’d been before Brooks’ dad had me dry off. If I had to guess, he’d made most of the trip from his neighborhood to Brooks’ on foot. “You have to let me stay. There’s no one else—”
“You can’t be here,” Brooks interrupted him. Dex still hadn’t seen me.
“I know … but she’s going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“Too many girls to count, I’d bet,” I said. Dex looked past Brooks and the foyer to me. He backpedaled a step or two, stopping short of going outside into the storm, where the mystery vigilante could be lurking. “Whoever she is, she’s going to have to take a number. The first shot’s mine.”
I lunged for him, but Brooks, once again, got between Dex and danger. His arms wrapped around mine at the shoulder so he could spin me sideways until Dex was out of reach.
“Let me go, Brooks! He did this! He deserves to pay for it!”
“Calm down,” he said in my ear.
“What’s she doing here? It’s her psycho friend who’s trying to kill me! She tried to run me down!”
Apparently, since my plans had been a bust, Tabs had reverted to her original.
“She came to talk,” Brooks said as I tried to kick loose. “About a lot of things.”
“She’s lying.”
“You don’t even know what she said.”
“Look at her—she’s as crazy as the other one.”
“Which means I’m not responsible if I rip your black heart out through your chest. Put me down!”
Brooks had lifted me off the ground the same way Uncle Paul had with Aunt Helen at the hospital. There was no way to get traction. My arms were stuck under Brooks’, so all I could do was flail my feet.
“Not a chance,” Brooks said.
“Why are you still protecting him?’
“I’m not.” He shoved me out to arm’s length by the shoulders. “I’m protecting you, idiot. Most of what you’ve done can be explained away—assault, not so much.”
“It’s only assault if there are bruises. I don’t have to leave a mark on him.”
“Stop arguing with her and call the cops,” Dex said.
“No need, when they are already on their way.” Brooks’ father, and his icy voice, had joined us in the hall.
I swear I still can’t figure out where that man finds the extra inches to increase his height when he’s mad, but Brooks’ father had an instant growth spurt. He crossed his arms behind his back, holding on to his elbows with his hands.
“I took the precaution when I realized it was neither Ryland nor Miss Powell’s guardians at the door. They should be here shortly. And we”—he glared at each of us in turn—“will wait for them in my office, as they will no doubt be requiring statements from you all.”
“Brooks … you know me,” Dex said desperately.
“I thought I did, but right now I’m trying to find a single reason not to let Dinah go and tell the cops it was self-defense.”
“You can’t believe anything she says.”
“On the contrary, I’ve found Miss Powell to be a rather accurate source of information, when she’s inclined to cooperate, of course,” Brooks’ father said. “You, however, I have never trusted. I suppose we’re about to discover whether I had reason for my reservations or not. Once the police arrive, each of you will tell your respective stories to them, and this insanity will cease. Understood?”
Brooks shuffled me toward his dad’s office, but Dex was eyeing the door, weighing his chances if he made a run for it.
“I have already alerted security, Mr. Dexter, and requested they detain you, if necessary, until the authorities arrive to sort this out. It’s dark and they are armed. I wouldn’t try my luck if I were you. It’s time to show a bit of intelligence and prove you deserve that scholarship you’ve no doubt managed to squander.”
There was no point in arguing with Brooks’ father; there wasn’t even much of a chance anyone would try. He opened the door to his office and held it while Brooks hung on to me long enough to make sure I didn’t take another shot at Dex when he crossed in front of us.
Dex had become another person, yet again. No arrogance or swagger in the trembling steps. No cocky tilt to the head that hung down toward the floor. No uncomfortable laughter in the silence he didn’t have the voice to fill.
I felt it the instant a flashing red and blue light bounced through the windows and ignited the terror of impending justice in his face. Whatever came next didn’t matter. I could handle the cleanup and consequences, because I’d finally stepped across the finish line.
This was it; things finally felt like they were over. Claire had her ending, and so did I.
35
I left Lowry after the disaster with Dex and Brooks, and everyone else whose lives I nearly ruined. It wasn’t like I wanted to see any of them again anyway. Not Abigail-not-Abby with her limitless energy, who was so much like Claire I couldn’t help liking her, or Chandi, who turned out to be the strongest marshmallow I’d ever met. Not Brooks. I definitely didn’t want to see him ever again.
Yeah, Tabs didn’t believe me, either.
But it didn’t matter what I wanted; there was no reason to stay at Lowry. I’d only been there for Claire, and without her, everything was a reminder of how I’d failed to do anything I set out to accomplish, and how I had almost made things worse than Dex could have dreamed.
Ironic, isn’t it? That first day, I’d sat in the cafeteria thinking about the final destination on that road of good intentions. And I’d certainly meant well—as well as one can mean when the goal is to make someone’s life so miserable they’d rather not live it, anyway—so it shouldn’t have been such a shock when my life took a detour through the hot zone.
My first impulse was to go back to Oregon in shame. Join a convent, or a commune, or a circus—one of those things people join that always seem to start with a “c.” My mother practically insisted on it, saying that the humiliation was unbearable (mainly hers, of course), but Dad was getting better at standing his ground on things he thought were important, and he told me to stay put.
Technically, what he said was if I showed up in Oregon, he’d have me on the next flight back to Aunt Helen’s if he had to drive me the whole way himself. Sure, it didn’t make much sense, but he was trying not to pass out at the time, while avoiding the sort of “face your mistake” character-building clichés dads are so famous for.
His only concessions
were sending me my cat and letting me transfer back to Ninth Street. That one was a no-brainer. Even if I hadn’t turned myself into the local pariah, I was on track to fail out of Lowry by the end of term, and I couldn’t see too many tutoring sessions in my near future to pull my grades out of the gutter. I decided to go back to being regular smart and leave the advanced stuff to the people suited for it.
I also discovered that my natural hair color was not, in fact, dirty blond. It turned out that the “dirty” quality had been the result of my repeated dye jobs hanging on to my hair, because it began to grow out strawberry blond at the roots.
I ditched all of my piercings except two: the one in my nose and the dragonfly belly button ring. When I actually considered each piercing on its own, it was a shock to realize those were the only two I liked. I didn’t even miss the barbell through my tongue—or the lisp, which eventually stopped. I was done playing parts that didn’t involve a stage and makeup. I needed to figure out who I was, and there was less “back-off black” involved than I expected. (Though I still wasn’t in a rush to fill my closet with pastel pink. I seriously hate that color.)
My “avoid all Lowry references” plan worked brilliantly for about a month; it failed at 3:17 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, the exact time I walked out of Ninth Street with Tabs and saw a familiar face standing next to her car.
“I expect details,” Tabs said. She headed for her assigned spot in the junior year parking lot and left me to decide whether I should walk over to Brooks or let him make the next move.
We started walking at the same time and met in the middle. Tabs gunned her engine and took off, clearing the immediate area of nosy pedestrians.
“New ink?” he asked. No introduction, no time to be awkward or to let me blurt out another apology. He just picked a subject and started talking. Not quite as smooth as Dex, but I envied him for being able to start a conversation like that.
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