White Rabbit

by Caleb Roehrig

  Lia seems to be waiting for more, but neither of us says anything, tension pouring in through the cracks under the door, our awkwardness hardening in place. Finally, she tosses her arms out. “‘It’s complicated?’ I’ve been binging and purging my feelings for like an hour now, terrified that Hayden Covington was gonna show up and bludgeon me to death, and all you’ve got to say is ‘It’s complicated?’”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about Javi?” Sebastian demands, and Lia jerks like he’s just thrown a drink in her face. “Why didn’t you tell us Fox was selling to him?”

  “Because it’s none of your business,” she fires back savagely. “How dare you come here and ask—who told you, anyway? Was it Lyle? Was it April?” Her eyes suddenly go so wide, I’m afraid they’re about to come flying out of her face like champagne corks. “Oh shit, did she tell that to the police?”

  “Lia—”

  “Javi is a good kid! He made one stupid mistake, okay? And now they’re going to think—” She cuts herself off, paces a tight 360, and then blurts, “April fucking threatened Fox with a knife, right in front of me! She said she was going to kill him for cheating with Peyton! If she thinks she can—”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about that?” I interrupt, startling her out of her tirade. “Hayden told you Fox was dead and that April killed him, but it was pretty easy to talk you out of the idea. If you knew she’d threatened to stab him, why didn’t you say something about it?”

  “I don’t…” Her mouth flaps open and shut, and then she shakes her head in disgust. “Fuck you! What are you even doing here, anyway? You and April aren’t friends, and you’re barely even related. What the hell do you care?”

  “You saw April threaten Fox with a knife,” I persist, sharpening my tone, “and later, when you and Arlo went back to the cottage, you saw him look into the kitchen and shit his pants; but when I asked if you’d thought that meant Fox was dead, you said no. You thought it meant April was. Why? Why were you worried about her, when she was the one who was armed and dangerous?”

  “Because,” she fumbles, her eyes going totally blank for one long second. “Because Fox is, like, eight times her size, and she’s built like a paper clip! She couldn’t get a knife through a block of cheese, let alone some guy’s chest.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us about the fight she had with Peyton? Why didn’t you tell us it started because you ratted out Peyton and Fox, and that’s why the party broke up? Why did you leave all that stuff out?”

  “Because … because of … Javi!” Lia turns to Sebastian, her eyes glossy and imploring. “You know him, Bash. He’s not a screwup—he just does dumb things sometimes so his friends will think he’s cool. It would literally kill my parents if my baby brother got in trouble because of drugs! I just … I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

  I have to fold my arms to keep from launching into a sarcastic round of applause at her performance. “Oh, please. You didn’t want to get yourself in trouble with the cops, is more like it.”

  Lia’s head snaps in my direction, like a rattlesnake. “You know, you can get the fuck right out of my house.”

  “Just tell us the truth, Lia,” Sebastian mumbles, and she takes a step back.

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?” There’s a decidedly nasty ring to the question. “Bash Williams is asking someone to tell the truth? How about you tell the truth for once? And you can start by explaining why Rufus is wearing your shirt, and why he’s got a fucking hickey on his neck that wasn’t there earlier.” Too late, I clap a hand over my throat, and there’s a dreadful silence, a clock somewhere in the darkness chipping time away like fragments of bone. Lia arches a brow. “Oh, I’m sorry—did you really think no one could tell? Did you honestly think I never noticed the way you stared at him in the hallways at school? The way your voice changed every time you said his fucking name?”

  Sebastian’s face goes utterly slack. “Lia—”

  “Save it.” She tosses up a hand. “You know, I was shocked at first. And then I was like, ‘Damn, I guess that’s just how it is—no wonder we didn’t work out.’ But then you asked me to come back to you. You begged me.” Lia’s voice breaks. “You told me you loved me, you asshole.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sebastian whispers.

  “You should’ve just told me that you’re gay! I might actually have understood, you know. It’s a hell of a lot easier to handle than ‘I love you, only I really don’t, so good-bye!’”

  “It’s not that simple.” Sebastian’s hands are shaking, and I want to hold them. “I mean, I’m not sure what I am. I don’t—” He gives an anguished sigh, twisting the fabric of his shorts until the veins pop out on his arm. “You and me … we were real, Lia; I was into you for real. I never lied about what I felt when we were together, but I … when I’m with Rufus, it feels right. That’s real, too. He makes me happy, and it’s, like, I know who I am when I’m with him—who I wanna be. And I am so, so sorry, because I should’ve never said those things to you. It was wrong and … and unfair. I don’t know how else to explain it. I was really scared, and I thought I could change how I really felt—about both of you—and … you didn’t deserve that. I’m really sorry.”

  He’s crying by the time he’s finished, and with a start I realize that Lia is, too. “Fuck,” she says, her voice raw as she backhands tears from her cheek. “Now I wish you’d just stuck with ‘I love you, only really I don’t.’ It’d be easier to hate you.” She lifts her chin, then, a flinty look in her puffy eyes. “I’m not forgiving you, okay? You’re a shithead, and I’m not letting you off the hook. But … I get it.”

  There’s a long, weird silence—our lives shifting and resettling momentously around us—as we realize that their brief exchange has fundamentally altered the way we’ll all see one another from now on. Lia wipes her eyes, sniffles, and finally announces, “I drugged April.”

  “What?” I stare, almost hearing an actual needle scratch.

  “That’s the reason I didn’t say anything about how the night ended—that and Javi.” She slumps against the wall. “When she found out about Fox and Peyton, April lost every last scrap of her shit. She broke a bottle on Peyton’s face, shoved her into a wall, and started screaming stuff; she pulled that knife on Fox … and then she threatened to call the police.”

  “She was going to report him for cheating on her?” I ask, confused.

  “For the drugs, dumbass.” She rolls her eyes. “She was in crush-kill-destroy mode, and she wouldn’t be talked down from it—believe me, I tried—and nobody needed the cops to show up. We’d all been drinking; Fox, Race, and Peyton had been doing coke; and there were white rabbits everywhere. Even if we somehow got the place cleaned up, April was more than ready to narc anyway, just to see Fox burn. So … I spiked her vodka–Red Bull with prescription cough syrup when she wasn’t looking.

  “I kept her distracted until it kicked in, and then I left her in the bedroom. Race was already gone, Peyton split as soon as she knew April was out cold, and the second I managed to talk Arlo out of going inside to take Fox on again, we hit the road, too.”

  “What about Fox? Where was he during all this?”

  She lets out an unpleasant peal of laughter. “He was making himself a fucking snack the last time I saw him.” Wrapping her arms around herself, Lia explains, “April was dead to the world when I left her; that’s why it didn’t make sense to me when Hayden said she’d killed Fox. Honestly, right up to that exact minute, I was actually terrified that I’d overdone it—that maybe April had OD’d or something. That’s why I didn’t mention anything about the fight she had with Peyton. I thought that if something had happened to her, and that’s why she wasn’t answering her phone when you called…” Her voice ends in a choked squeak. “It would have been my fault.”

  Sebastian and I look at each other in the quiet that follows, Lia’s admission finding its place in the picture we’re trying to assemble. It finally makes sense how stoned April seemed when
we found her, yet how convincing she’d been when she swore she’d had nothing stronger than alcohol all night. It also fleshed out the rolling exits a little bit more: Race left after fighting with Fox, Peyton waited until Lia had defused April, and then my sister was abandoned—unconscious and alone—in the house with her boyfriend. So what had happened next? Who else returned to the cottage?

  “I should never have shown her that video,” Lia suddenly confesses, rueful. “It was all my fault.”

  “Video?” I repeat. “What are you talking about?”

  She glances up at me, embarrassed. “The video of Fox and Peyton doing … you know.” Unnecessarily, she demonstrates what she’s getting at by making a circle with one hand and jamming a finger in and out of it with the other.

  I do everything I can to prevent the correlated image from forming in my mind, but to no avail. “There was a video?”

  “Yeah. Fox had recorded it on a hidden camera and sent it to Arlo; and when Arlo got pissed off, he showed it to me—and then I got so pissed I showed it to April.” She shrugs guiltily. “It’s why she wigged out.”

  “There was a secret video of Fox and Peyton?”

  There must be something in my face as I stare at her, because Lia’s brow furrows in confusion. “Yeah. You didn’t know about it?”

  I look from her to Sebastian and back again, my pulse picking up. “Have you heard from Race or Peyton at all? Have either of them called or texted you?”

  “Both of them.” She frowns anxiously, rubbing her arms. “Like, a bunch of times. And Ramona fucking Waverley’s been blowing up my phone all night long, too, like I need to deal with that on top of everything else.”

  “Ramona Waverley?” I repeat, thrown. “How the hell is she involved in this?”

  “She’s not! She’s just the biggest gossip in Chittenden County. Lord only knows what she’s heard and who she’s told it to.”

  “Well, what did she say?”

  “I don’t know … Bash said not to talk to anyone but you guys. I had no idea what was going on, or what to think, so I just ignored all my messages!” She tosses her phone at me, and I barely catch it before it smacks me in the face. “Look for yourself.”

  I pull up her messaging app, which shows three unopened conversations, along with the latest incoming missives from each sender. Race: Text me as soon as you get this ok? PLEASE? Peyton: What the hell is going on tonight? Ramona: Girl call me ASAP about R+P I need this shit confirmed!! Or just stop by k? Working till suuuuper late.

  “R plus P?” I read out loud. “Race and Peyton?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Lia sweeps her arms out decisively. “Why are they all writing me, anyway? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Lia…” I don’t want to scare her. Or maybe I do. Maybe I need to. “Hayden didn’t kill anyone, and neither did Lyle; we overheard a conversation between them, and we’re pretty sure they’re in the clear. But that means it could be either Race or Peyton.”

  “What—?” She squints disbelievingly. “Are you high? Neither one of them could take Arlo! There must be—”

  “They’re the only ones left,” I insist, “and we’ve got no idea how things went down when Arlo got killed. They might have outsmarted him somehow. Don’t talk to either of them, don’t answer the door if they come over, and don’t go outside alone, okay?”

  “What the hell are you trying to say?” She sounds immediately querulous and fearful.

  “Lia, the first thing April assumed when I told her Arlo knew what had happened at the lake house was that you knew about it, too.” I take a step forward. “Whoever did this apparently killed Arlo because of what he saw, and if they think he told you about it? You could be next.”

  22

  “‘Don’t go outside alone?’ ‘You could be next?’” Sebastian recites my own words back to me when we’re seated back in the Jeep outside of Lia’s house, incredulousness writ large on his face. “Rufus, she’s never gonna sleep again!”

  “I just wanted to make sure she listened to me,” I protest. “All the way over here you were saying maybe it was Race; well, maybe it was! She needs to know she can’t afford to trust him right now—not if he killed Arlo for what he knew.”

  “If she’s really in danger, then she needs to go to the police! I mean, we should be taking her there right now—”

  “To say what?” I give him a frank look. “That we sorta think two kids from a couple of the most prominent families in town just might be on a murderous rampage tonight?” I toss my hands up. “Even if they don’t laugh us right out the door, we’ll have to explain a whole lot of dubious shit we did—like finding Arlo’s body and not reporting it, for instance—and we’ll have to tell them about the video, and the brawl that started after Lia showed it to April, which means letting them know that April was deliberately keeping stuff from them in her official statement.”

  “Who cares about that?” Sebastian exclaims. “You just said yourself that Lia ‘could be next’—she needs some kind of protection!”

  “It’s not like the cops are gonna give her a new identity and move her to Bali! They’ll just say, ‘Thanks for the wild allegations and the total lack of evidence to back them up,’ and send her home again.” A moth swoops and darts around the streetlight above us, throwing monstrous shadows against the fog. “Don’t forget: When April’s story starts unraveling, our stories unravel, too; and the last time we checked in, Race and Peyton were covering each other’s ass. Lia will sound like a crank, the police will start wondering what else we might be lying about for April, and the only two who will come out of it okay will be the ones with the corroborated alibis and the fancy lawyers.”

  “Fuck!” Sebastian smashes his hand against the steering wheel and shifts his jaw. “You’re right.”

  Once again, I feel like shit. Everything I’ve said is pretty much true, but the real reason I don’t want Lia sending the police after her friends just yet is because I need to be the one who does it. If I want a chance in hell of getting the four thousand dollars Isabel Covington promised me, I’ve got to follow her directive to the letter, and not give her a loophole to wiggle through. Well, technically, Lia Santos was the one who got April’s name cleared, so I’m afraid …

  Giving my phone a quick glance, I see more texts from Lucy, but nothing from my mom, and I breathe out a little sigh of relief. My curfew has long since passed, and if she wakes up and realizes I’m still out, my window of opportunity to resolve this thing is going to slam shut—hard. Fox’s death won’t make the headlines until his family is notified, and because Peter represented himself to the police as my dad, they probably won’t bother contacting my mother; but Peter himself is another matter. To say he was furious when we parted ways would be an understatement, and it’d be standard operating procedure for him to call Mom and chew her a couple new assholes about me entangling myself with April.

  Only he clearly hasn’t done that. Yet. Maybe he took my parting threat to heart and wants to strengthen April’s case before he provokes me into being honest with the cops; or maybe Isabel has prevailed upon him to leave my mom and me alone, buying some time so I can have a chance to deliver on the deal we’ve struck. Or maybe his heart grew three sizes when the police let April go tonight—I have no idea and can’t afford to take anything for granted. Now, more than ever, I’m racing the clock.

  I can pull it off. I know it. I can protect Lia, I can find some kind of evidence incriminating Race and/or Peyton, and I can give my mom the money we need to pay off the bank and save our house, all at the same time. Some damn how.

  “We just need to prove Race and Peyton lied to us,” I say, thinking out loud. “Maybe we can turn them against each other?”

  “I don’t understand why they’re backing each other up in the first place,” Sebastian grunts. “They were barely speaking to each other when we saw them.” He looks over at me. “Which of them do you think did it?”

  “My gut says Race, but wit
h that video … I mean, it turns out Peyton’s got a solid motive, too.” My skull thumps against the headrest and I let out a weary breath. “Fox secretly recorded them together and then showed it to his friends. If she just found out about it tonight, it could’ve totally pushed her over the edge.”

  “That bloodbath at the cottage did sort of scream ‘crime of passion,’” Sebastian agrees, “and there was no one behind Peyton on the road after Lia and Arlo passed her. If she’d turned around, nobody would have seen.”

  “But then why would Race be covering for her?” I rub my hands on my knees. “She cheated on him, but he’ll lie for her anyway? Put his own ass on the line to keep her from getting busted for killing the guy she slept with behind his back?”

  Sebastian fingers his car keys, metal and plastic clicking together. “So maybe it’s like I suggested on the way over here: Race went back to the house, and Peyton followed. Either she saw him stab Fox and is backing his story out of guilt, or they somehow killed the guy together and formed a pact to protect themselves—mutually assured destruction.”

  “Let’s hope it’s the second one,” I state. “The less they trust each other, the easier it’ll be for us to get one of them to tell us what really happened.”

  Sebastian clicks his keys for another pensive moment, and then turns to me. “Look, I know maybe you don’t want to hear this again, but I’ve got to say it: You don’t have to do this. It isn’t your job to save April’s butt—especially now that there are lawyers and cops and stuff involved. I mean, maybe you’ve done enough, Rufus.”

  I swallow my first response. The embarrassment of having admitted how desperately my mom and I need Isabel’s payout is still with me like a bitter aftertaste; I’m not getting into it again. But he’s saying this because he cares about me—he cares about me—and so I manage a smile. “I’m not backing out now. I can’t.”

  Sebastian nods, like this is what he expected to hear. “So where to now? Which one of them do we take on first?”