Premeditated (28 page)

“Brooks Walden,” he said. “I go to school with Dinah. We were at the carnival when she got the call, and her friend had sort of left her stranded, so I drove her over. I’m sorry about your daughter, sir.”

“Thank you,” Uncle Paul said automatically. Brooks nodded in return, out of words and apologies.

“Excuse me, Mr. Reed?” A woman with a clipboard and an understanding face appeared behind Uncle Paul. “I’m sorry, but I need to know who to call to handle the preparations for Claire.”

Preparations. They had to prepare her body for a funeral. I was going to have to go to Claire’s funeral.

“I don’t know,” Uncle Paul said, more lost now than numb. “We have a parish priest, but I don’t know anything about funeral homes or—”

His voice cracked; he coughed a sob into his fist.

“If you come with me, I can put you in touch with someone.”

She’d likely given this speech a hundred times to strangers in deserted hallways who were going home with one fewer member of their family than they’d arrived with. Every word she said
was precise and polished, but she seemed genuine enough. Uncle Paul nodded and she walked away, leaving him to come whenever he was ready.

“Would you stay with her, please?” Uncle Paul asked Brooks. How could he know he was leaving me to Claire’s killer?

“Sure.”

They were talking about me like I wasn’t there or had gone deaf. My ears worked fine; it was the rest of me that wasn’t behaving the way it should.

“Do you want to sit down?” Brooks asked. “There’s a lounge at the end of the hall if—”

“I know,” I snapped. “I’ve spent enough time there already—and I
don’t
need your help.”

“I could get some coffee or something. The caffeine might take the edge off. When my—”

“No.” I cut him off. I was in no mood to hear about his losses and his mourning. Crying over a parent was nothing compared to having a fifteen-year-old girl’s killer offer to get me coffee while her body cooled off down the hall. “I’m going outside for some air.”

I found the exit door, shoved my weight against the release bar, and rode my own momentum into the stairwell, hoping Brooks wasn’t stupid enough to follow me.

He was, of course. I heard his feet on the stairs behind me, knew they’d be right there all the way to the parking lot or however far I chose to go. The only thing that kept me from ignoring the exit to go into the basement was knowing the morgue was down there.

Outside, there was no more air than there had been in that
cramped ICU cubicle; I exited in a vacuum of my own misery. It pulled harder against my self-control the longer I stayed within reach of Brooks without lashing out.

“Do you want me to take you home?” he asked. I wanted to beat him to death with his own words; the false compassion grated against my temper like sandpaper until it was raw and bleeding.

“Leave,” I said. Losing it in the parking lot would only make things worse for Aunt Helen and Uncle Paul. I couldn’t deal with Brooks there.

“What?”

“Leave! Go away! Leave me alone!”

“Dinah, I know how—”

“Finish that sentence and I will shove it back down your throat one word at a time. Get in your car and drive away before I decide to do it anyway.”

“Look, it sucks. I know that. You’re going to be stuck in the middle of a crowd of people, and you may not even know half of them, but they’ll act like they’ve known you for years. They’ll say meaningless words so often you won’t be able to remember what face goes with what voice when the swirl stops because they’re all alike. I’ve been there—with my mom.”

I dodged the hand he tried to lay on my arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“You’ve been building up to this moment from the day you got here. I don’t know if this was the end you expected, or if you thought she’d come home, but your whole life has revolved around the girl in that hospital bed … I get it. But Claire—”

“Don’t you dare say her name,” I snarled.

“It doesn’t work, you know,” he said.

“What?”

“Pretending you can put it off. As lame as it sounds, sometimes it really does help to talk about it, and now or later you’re going to want to. If you find yourself without an ear on the other side of the conversation, my number’s still in your phone.”

“Don’t lose sleep waiting for my ringtone,” I said. “You’ve already done enough.”

“Fine,” he said. Brooks unlocked his car and climbed in. “But I’m here if you change your mind.”

The Beemer’s engine fired up, humming loud in the otherwise still lot. He pulled out onto the main road and vanished.

Experience told me I had maybe three days before Claire’s funeral. That meant I had less than two to bury Brooks first.

It was after midnight when Uncle Paul finally forced me and Aunt Helen into the Land Rover and drove us home. No one spoke, and luckily for me no one had enough spare brain cells to dedicate to things like asking why I looked like such a mess. We got out of the car in the dark and still didn’t speak. We went into the house and split apart, everyone going somewhere different.

Uncle Paul headed for his office; Aunt Helen made for the stairs. I know she wanted to go to Claire’s room, but she couldn’t raise her foot high enough to climb; I sat in the kitchen until she gave up. She ran toward the master bedroom with her head in her hands. That meant I had the whole top floor to myself, so there was plenty of room to pace. I needed it. I had to burn off some anger before I started breaking things like my mom would have.

The clock was striking one when I caught my reflection in some sort of decorative wall hanging Aunt Helen had in the upstairs hall. It wasn’t as smooth as a regular mirror, and most of my features were smudged, but what I could see were tearstained cheeks, running makeup, and blond hair that fell past the mangled collar of my shirt. I’d completely forgotten about Dex and what had happened at the carnival.

I wiped my hand across my face to stop the tears, and the bruises on my knuckles glared back at me.

My mind filled with the sudden image of Brooks’ face at the other end of my fist, but no matter how much I knew I wanted to hurt him like that, I couldn’t. All I’d done from the moment I began planning was prove how much of a coward I really was. If I’d been brave enough, I would have marched into the headmistress’s office that first day, shut the door, and told her everything. If I hadn’t been a completely useless lump, I’d have told Brooks’ father that day in his office and let him handle his son. I’d have told my dad or Uncle Paul, given them Claire’s diary, and let them call the police.

I wasn’t some vigilante out to make Brooks sorry for murdering my cousin; I was a stupid little girl playing princess in a mansion with nice clothes and my very own dream car. It was no wonder someone like Dex thought I was a doll he could play with.

But I could fix it.

I
could, the real me, not the reflection of Claire stuck in that mirror.

I flew down the hall to my room, dragged the bag I’d never unpacked from under the bed, and hauled it to Claire’s bathroom. I rummaged her desk for a pair of scissors and stood in front of the sink where she’d made her last stand. Holding my breath, I said goodbye to the girl in the mirror. No one would ever see her again.

After Tabs abandoned me at the fairgrounds, she’d brought the Mustang home and left it so she could pick up Grimace; the keys were still in the ignition. And despite the total absence of sleep, and the insistences from Uncle Paul and Aunt Helen that
I not go to school the next day, I was out of the house before they were awake. All the Lowry guards looked at was the car; they never even noticed me.

I walked up the steps as though nothing had changed, and ignored every look and whisper as I made my way to class. For the first time, Dex wasn’t glued to Brooks’ side. I saw him with Hayden Leung just inside the room, watched the shock register on their faces and everyone else’s, and didn’t react when Dex leaned over and said: “Careful, man. This is the part where she locks the doors and makes the walls bleed.”

Hayden didn’t laugh or respond. He acted like Dex was contagious, heading for his seat rather than lurking at the door.

I took my own seat, not bothering to look for Brooks at the back of the room. I’d see him well enough later.

The morning ticked down to a cadence only I could hear; my pulse realigned itself to match, falling into the lockstep of a military march. The steady rhythm was the only thing keeping me calm in the last moments before I planned to make my final move.

I was going to do it.

As soon as class started and everyone was listening, I was going to walk up to the front of the room, introduce them to my real self, and tell them all the reason I was there. Then I’d leave Claire’s books and papers where I dropped them, along with her blazer on the back of my chair, walk out of the building, and drive home, forgetting all about Lowry and everyone in it.

But nothing ever went the way it did in my head.

As if I needed further proof that I’d been elected Fate’s whipping child, Mr. Tarrelton entered class as the last bell rang and
the first person he noticed was me. It wasn’t a surprise—I looked so different, with the short black hair and my newly replaced piercings, but I was hoping for at least a couple seconds’ worth of shock value to buy me my opening. Instead, I got the angry teacher face.

“Miss Powell, I suppose there’s some sort of explanation for your appearance? You’re a month early for Halloween.”

“There is,” I said. “And I’m happy to explain—”

“Then I suggest you do so—to the headmistress.”

“But, sir—”

“Now, Miss Powell.”

“It’s not her fault, Mr. Tarrelton.” When Brooks came to my defense, I snapped my head toward him so fast my neck popped. All it would have taken was hearing him speak Claire’s name again and they’d have had to call the cops to haul me away, because there wasn’t a force in that room strong or fast enough to save him from the firestorm that had replaced my self-control. But I forgot who I was dealing with—the devil’s a smart one, and he knows how to paint himself as one of the good guys.

He looked straight at me.

“What are you even doing here? You should have had your uncle call you in.”

“Sit down, Mr. Walden. I don’t think you can afford any more time in Ms. Kuykendall’s office.”

My courage failed; it was never really courage to begin with. It was anger, and now that I was being denied my chance to purge, all I could think was how unfair it was. I didn’t even wait for Mr. Tarrelton to write me out a slip. I left everything other than the clothes I was wearing and rushed for the door, desperate to escape before the tears started.

Movement was all that mattered. If I kept moving, I could stay ahead of all the grief and pain, and I could get my heart pounding hard enough to drown out my own voice chanting how big a failure I was. I wasn’t expecting anyone to try to stop me, and I definitely wasn’t expecting to get tackled as I fled down the hall.

One second I was alone, and the next Channing Pepperidge was dragging me toward the girls’ bathroom. I didn’t even hear her follow me out of the room.

“You, me, talk, now,” she ordered.

“Get off me!” I swatted at her, trying to dislodge myself from her grip.

The expression on her face was one I couldn’t figure out; it was as though her facial muscles were trying to decide how to best interpret the cues from her emotions and coming up blank. A toilet flushed in one of the stalls and a girl who was probably a freshman stepped out toward the sink. She froze at the sight of Chandi squaring off with me.

“Out,” Chandi ordered. “Big-girl talk, no toddlers allowed.”

The friend who’d obviously been waiting on the poor little fishstick took her by the hand and slipped between us, out of the bathroom. Chandi shut the door behind them and propped it shut with the doorstop.

“I see those etiquette classes are really paying off. With people skills like that, you should run for office.”

“I don’t like you,” she said.

“Shocking.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked me straight in the eye. Her own were storms in a bottle, dark and dramatic. The usual fake posture had melted off her body and taken the pandering ditz with it. Whoever this girl was, she was the real Channing Pepperidge, and it was the first time we’d met.

“Aside from Brooks, I have a rule about avoiding people who hang around Jackson Dexter by choice.”

“I’m going to assume you think you’re being subtle,” I said. “Maybe you should buy a dictionary.”

This Chandi wasn’t throwing tantrums or going for the diva histrionics. She stood her ground and didn’t react to insults.

“And I don’t like you because there’s something about you I can’t quite put my finger on,” she said.

“Yeah … I wouldn’t suggest putting your finger on anything concerning me right now, Cookie Cutter.”

Maybe hitting her sore spot would get her to back off.

Instead, she laughed at me. Not like I’d told a joke, but more the way you do when you mean “Is that all you’ve got?”

“I also don’t hate you.”

“Great. Glad we cleared that up. Now if you don’t mind, I’m late for never going to class again.”

Chandi didn’t play any sports, so far as I knew, and she certainly didn’t act like the athletic type, but she beat me to the door and slammed her hand against it hard enough to close it again, then flipped the lock.

“I’m not done.”

“Get out of my way.”

She just stared at me. Barbie/Twiggy hybrid or not, she was bigger than me by at least four inches.

“I’ll move when I’m finished,” she said. “Until then, I’ll stay here, and if you want to try and hit me, you can, but you’ll only get one shot. I could pretty much beat you unconscious with my shoe right now, call it self-defense, and no one would question it.”

“Get that line from a script?”

“Just thought of it, actually.”

“Nice.”

“Thank you.”

Who thanks someone for complimenting them on a threat?

Against my better judgment, and fighting the urge to make her prove she could make good on her promise, I backed away and propped my hip against the sink row behind us. Chandi stayed leaned against the door. So she was at least smart enough to realize I’d make a run for it if she gave me the chance.