by Dana Mele
“About what? So, wait, you’re in the clear?”
“Apparently, for now. They held me overnight and asked a shitload of questions. They wanted to know about fragments of a broken bottle they found by the lake. They think they have the murder weapon.”
My blood runs cold. “What kind of bottle?”
“Some kind of wine bottle. They’re running a DNA test, but it takes a couple of days and it’s probably been contaminated by now. You may have twenty-four, forty-eight hours. Depends on how contaminated.”
“Shit. Why did they arrest you?”
“They found something of mine in the lake, too. A bottle with a label they traced back to my father’s credit card. Problem is, no fingerprints, no traces of blood. I don’t even drink. I think someone was trying to frame me, and I think the police may have finally, definitively excluded me.”
“So why are you warning me?”
“Because I saw the evidence board, and you are on it. With only one other person. Spencer Morrow.”
I grit my teeth. “That blows your Brie theory.”
“I’ve been wrong before. Kay, stay away from him. And get a lawyer. And when they ask you about—” As my train approaches, his words are drowned out.
Shit.
* * *
• • •
I MAKE A LIST of everything I know so far on the train ride back to Bates.
The location of the body, and the time we found it.
Estimated time of death, time and content of the conversation between Jessica and Greg.
Description of the body:
The marks on the wrists, position of the body.
Full clothes, eyes and mouth open.
Wristband from the dance, in costume.
Relationships: Greg, Spencer, family, teachers, unknown volunteers, community members.
I sigh. If the police have access to all of these people and are still only focusing on Spencer and me, that’s not good.
The revenge blog
Connected people: Tai, Tricia, Nola, Cori, Maddy, me.
I pause, and then add Hunter.
By the time I switch to the westbound train, my notebook is a spiderweb of information. I am about to nod off into my hand when someone stops in the aisle next to me and places a Hershey’s Kiss on my pad. I look up to see Brie gazing down at me nervously.
“Hi,” I say doubtfully.
“Everyone missed you,” she says.
“That’s it?”
“And I’m sorry. For everything. Things have gotten really out of hand.”
“How did you find me?”
“Called your mom.”
“Did she tell you to go back to school, switch trains, and travel away from civilization for a couple of hours?”
“She gave me your train number and departure time. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to see you.” She pauses. “I like your hair. You look like that soccer pro everyone hates.”
“They hate her because she’s the greatest.”
She smiles a little and sits in the seat next to me. “I know. I’m really sorry, Kay.” She sheds her coat and snow-colored scarf and smooths her dress, soft gray wool with a white collar. “I shouldn’t have recorded you—I should have just talked to you. But I’m allowed to have my doubts. Doubt is the cornerstone of faith.”
I try not to smile, not because there’s anything funny about any of this, but because that statement is so essentially Brie. “How profound,” I say, in mock awe.
“It’s true. Blind faith is meaningless. And it doesn’t last.” I give her a pointed look, and she slides a folded piece of paper on top of my notebook. “I do still have faith in you. Don’t open that yet.”
“I thought you were ‘so done’ with me.”
“You’ve hurt me, Kay,” she says sharply. “What you wrote on my door was just the last straw. You’ve done some shitty things in the past and I’ve looked the other way because that’s what we do. Tai says shitty things. Tricia. Cori. I don’t like it, but I like you. So I suck it up. But I’ve spent a lot of time pretending to laugh with you guys over the past few years. And that’s on me, I chose that. I chose you.”
“You chose Justine.”
“I love you both. But she’s the one I’m with. And you’ve changed. You stopped returning my calls and started hanging out with Nola Kent all the time. And after Maddy died, I thought about it. The scratches on your arms. The window of time when you disappeared. The Spencer thing. When you add all those things up. Maddy and Hunter—Detective Morgan told me she found you dumping his body in the lake. Is that true?”
I open my mouth to deny it but I’m determined not to lie anymore. Not to Brie. “It’s extremely complicated.”
“I bet I can guess.” She sighs and lays her head on my shoulder. “Then you show up in my room accusing me of making Spencer cheat on you or something and talking about a revenge website that didn’t exist. You just stopped making sense at some point.”
I think about it for a minute. “First of all, the website did exist. It was taken down. As for you setting up Spencer with Jessica, there’s been either a lot of hacking into cell phones or a lot of lying about hacking into cell phones lately.”
“Sounds like Spencer, either way.”
“Says his biggest fan.” I straighten up. “I’m sorry. Everything that’s happened in the past month has been kind of larger than life.”
“Fair enough.” Brie looks across the aisle at a train rushing by in the opposite direction, a faint blur of colors and faces behind frosted windows. It’s early afternoon, but the sky is so overcast that it appears much later. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about Maddy and Spencer. Justine told me and I didn’t want it to be true. And if it was, I didn’t want you to find out. It was just once, right after you and Spencer broke up, but I knew how hard it would hit you. Then Tai made it worse with that stupid Notorious R.B.G. thing and I was sure you were going to figure it out. She’s obviously been in love with him forever.”
“Consider me clueless.”
“I always have.” She tries at a smile. “And you kept asking why I was acting weird around her and I lied. I’m sorry. She was sweet. I’d feel so horrible if she thought I hated her.” Her eyes brim, and I lean in and press my face against hers.
“She would’ve known exactly why. She wouldn’t have blamed you. She had me to do that.” I poke my shoulder into hers, and she rubs her face against it and sighs.
“No more. No more killing. No more lies.”
I hesitate. “There was one more thing. Greg told me you and Jess used to be friends, and that turned into a serious grudge. Something about you blowing her off and her forwarding your personal emails to your parents or something.”
Her lips twitch and she shifts her gaze. “I don’t talk about it for a reason, Kay,” she says softly. “We were friends. It didn’t work out. I don’t feel comfortable talking shit about her now.”
“But it’s true?”
She straightens up. “Yes, it’s true. And it’s my business. And the extremely private information she stole from me and showed my parents before I was ready to tell them was my business, too. I’m sorry she died. But I don’t need to talk about what went down between us. With anyone. It was painful and it’s in the past.”
I lay my hand palm up on the armrest between us as a peace offering. “Okay. You don’t. I’m sorry.”
She closes her hand around mine. “Being away from everyone the past few days has been really helpful. I feel like everything is finally coming into focus.”
“You didn’t seem to care before.”
“How would you know? You weren’t answering my calls. I think I know who the killer is. But before I say it, you tell me. Who do you think killed Jessica?”
“Santa Claus!” a high-pitched voice cries from so
mewhere above.
I let out a shriek. There’s a small, sticky child dangling over my head from the seat behind me. An annoyed-looking woman yanks him up and away and hisses at me, “Can you talk about your adult shows in indoor voices, please?”
I look down at my notebook. “The police have narrowed it down to me and Spencer.”
“I think they’re wrong,” Brie says.
“I never thought I’d see the day when Brie Matthews offered to defend Spencer Morrow pro bono.”
“We’ll see about that.”
I eye the paper curiously. “What have you got?”
She unfolds the piece of paper she placed on my notebook and I look down at it. It’s a list of evidence, like the one I made, but much neater, arranged in sections of notes in a nexus around a central word, all pointing to a name written in large, black, all-capital letters: NOLA.
Brie’s face glows in the overhead reading light. “It all makes sense.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course it does. Because you don’t like her.”
“She’s not one of us.”
I turn away from her and draw a heart on the frosty window as we pass a series of abandoned buildings. I’m not sure why a heart. It stings to hear words like that coming from Brie’s mouth, especially after I’ve just come from my little leprechaun house and she’s waltzing back from her precious mansion. Because I’m the one who’s not one of us.
“Just look.” Brie points to her paper. “It’s all here.”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through? I’ve been getting phone calls in the middle of the night physically threatening me. I’ve tried calling campus police to file a report, but they won’t help me. I know you’ve at least seen my Facebook wall. I’ve been going through hell, and Nola’s been a real friend.”
Brie’s eyes fill up, and when she speaks again, her voice sounds thick. “I can never apologize enough for abandoning you.”
“And I said okay. But you’re not going to throw Nola under the bus for killing Jessica.” I push my hair back from my face. I’m starting to regret cutting it. It’s harder to get out of the way now.
Brie takes her headband out and hands it to me. “I have a million of these.”
“Thanks.” With my hair out of my face I feel a little more in control, a tiny bit less chaotic. “What about Spencer?”
“He’s a possibility. But I have a feeling about Nola.”
I cock my head. “A feeling. Then let’s go straight to the cops, shall we?”
“Let’s play lawyer,” she suggests.
“I’m not in the mood for games.” The train seems to be speeding along more carelessly than usual, its frame rattling like it’s about to collapse.
“I’ll prosecute. You defend.”
“Fine.”
Brie looks to me for permission, and I nod and gesture for her to make her case. “Nola Kent is a brilliant girl. She has the capacity to memorize massive amounts of information, hack into school databases, and frame innocent classmates for murder. She also has the ability to kill, and to befriend the person she frames for that murder. When Nola first came to Bates Academy, she had a hard time making friends. One group of girls in particular were pretty nasty to her. She vowed revenge. And she was patient. Two years later, she killed Jessica Lane in cold blood and framed the ringleader of those girls, Kay Donovan, for the death. She used her computer skills to set up a website that would turn Kay against her friends and vice versa, before delivering the final blow: sending her to prison for murder. Nola Kent killed Jessica and she did it to frame Kay.”
I look out the window through the sheen of frost, my eyes focusing and unfocusing on the gray blur of fog-obscured mobile homes we’re passing, neat little rectangles firmly planted in the dirt, sideways graves. Nola forgave me the night after the confrontation with Cori, the night we kissed. Hearing Brie bring it up makes me feel like a terrible person again.
“Defense?” Brie prompts.
I look at her wearily. “You haven’t suggested a single reason why she would have killed Jessica. Why Jessica? In court your theory would fall flat. Because you need to prove that Nola killed Jessica, not that she has a grudge against me. And Nola’s theory against Spencer wins. And you know what else you have to admit? The case against me beats them all. That’s the best case right now.”
Brie closes her eyes and leans her head back against the seat. “I know she did it. I know it.”
“Knowledge isn’t evidence,” I say.
“Then let’s talk to Spencer.” She looks up at me. “Both of us. Just to be on the safe side.”
I look out the window again. I’m not sure he’ll agree to it after everything that’s gone down. But at this point, it might be the only way left to get any kind of resolution.
“I have to go alone. Just keep your phone on.”
26
Nola texts me throughout the day and I write back, but just terse, fluff answers. She didn’t return any of my texts on Thanksgiving, and I wonder what happened with her family, but don’t want to pry. I hate that Brie planted this seed of doubt in my mind. Yes, Nola had a reason to hate me. I’m sure she did for a while. And when we first started spending time together, she wasn’t exactly the warmest, fuzziest personality. But she’s proven her loyalty. Or maybe I just don’t want to believe anything bad about her. Maybe it’s Todd syndrome. I call Spencer as soon as I get to the train station, and I’m actually surprised when he picks up.
“Still hate me?”
“Since you asked me if I killed Maddy to hurt you?”
“And you called me a killer and said everything I touch gets ruined?”
“I’m pretty sure Charlie Brown said that. In the Christmas special. Surely I was more original.” I hear him take a sip of something.
“Are you drinking?”
“Just chocolate milk. Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”
“Wow, you’re really getting into the Christmas spirit.”
“The Christmas special spirit,” he corrects.
A gust of wind whips a newspaper into my face and I crouch behind a garbage can—all the benches are full. “I’m at the train station.”
“And you need a ride.”
“And I wanted to see you, or I would have shared a cab back to campus.” I wait.
I hear him gulp the rest of his chocolate milk down. “Five minutes.”
We stop at a Dunkin’ Donuts—there are no cutesy cafés or Starbucks near Spencer’s house, and the truth is, I prefer their vanilla coffee with a glazed doughnut. It reminds me of home, of the few good parts of home, of when Todd would bring home leftovers from practice, or the way Dad’s truck always smelled. Dad is a house painter and he usually left for work before I woke every morning and returned with a dozen empty Dunkin’ Donuts cups in the passenger side of the cab. When I was a kid, I got a quarter every week to clean Dad’s truck inside and out. So Dunkin’ is one of my happy associations with home.
After we order, I try to find an isolated table, but it’s pretty crowded. We settle for one at the side of the building with a view of a busy side street. It’s the opposite of Cat Café. Packed, overheated, a little sweaty. Nineties Christmas songs blare from a speaker positioned right over our heads. Around us, everyone is engrossed in their own lives. There are couples laughing (and one fighting), mothers struggling with toddlers flinging food, and groups of younger teens chatting over coffee.
“So, Katie D. Are we actually going to talk this time?” He grins, and I notice how much better he looks than the last time we met. Like he’s slept for a long time and left his nightmares behind him for good. I wonder if he’s moved on from me, and even though I was kissing Nola just days ago, it pisses me off. It automatically makes me want to touch him. I’m messed up beyond repair.
I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth, though. “A
re you seeing someone?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh. Me too.” I try to look casual, but I can feel my face morphing into pre-crying mode.
“How can you possibly be upset about that?”
“I’m not.”
He takes a sip of coffee. “Maybe part of our whole problem was that we went all in on this Brie-and-Justine-versus-Kay-and-Spencer thing.”
“I shouldn’t have turned it into a competition.”
“God, Katie, give Brie some credit. The pedestal thing is disturbing.” He sighs and reaches his hand across the table, but mine feels too heavy to meet him halfway, so he leans his chin on his elbow and gazes up at me. “I really am always going to love you.”
“As a friend,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“As you,” he says seriously. “No matter what either of us ever does.”
I do know. It’s how I keep loving Todd, even after what he did. Todd took Megan away. My Megan. The trivia champ of John Butler Junior High, a cookie connoisseur, and a champion snuggler. We had, between us, seven secret identities, and we could communicate in Sindarin, one of J. R. R. Tolkien’s elven languages. And Todd destroyed her. And I still love him.
I push Spencer’s hands away. “I don’t want you to.”
His eyes cloud up and he looks down, shading his face with his hand. “Why do you keep calling me?”
I feel stuffed and sick but I force myself to keep eating just to have something to do. “I don’t want you to love me out of habit. I don’t want you stuck with that. It’ll ruin you, Spence. I am not worth holding on to.”
He looks up at me with the grin that used to make my heart jump. He was my secret keeper. Marked as mine. But now his eyes are shining wet, and it just makes me want to rewind to the day we met so when he sat down beside me I could tell him, “Run, Spencer. Don’t look back. Run.”
“Don’t smile at me.”
“Why?” He presses his lips together.
“Because it’s weird. You’re crying and smiling and it’s weird.”
“I’m happy and sad. Deal with it. So, what is this, our seventh breakup?”
