Alice in Wonderland High (31 page)

“They didn't.” My eyes locked with Lorina's in a staring contest.

“Alice,” Kingston warned with gritted teeth.

“I'm really sorry. We should have listened to you!”

“You were right.” Dru clenched her fists, gold nails shimmering. “We never should have done the prank.”

Di gave me the saddest puppy-dog stare. But apologies weren't exactly sincere when the motivation was to save your butt.

Lorina's eyes darted to my friends before settling on the girls. She forced a smile. “Di and . . . Dru, is it? Would you do me a favor and round up your friends? I'd like to talk to them.”

Di paused, eyes wide. But she was always one to follow the rules, any rules, and she obeyed Lorina's as if it were a commandment, taking Dru with her.

As soon as the door swung behind them, Kingston slammed his fist into the wall. “She's lying. I saw them do the prank. I have more proof.”

“Alice.” Lorina crossed her arms, looking only at me. “I'd like you to explain.”

“The world would go around faster if everyone minded their own business,” Whitney mumbled under her breath.

“I—” . . . didn't know what to say. My heart beat so loudly it made it difficult to think. The peppy pop music blasting from the gym sounded upbeat and out of place, like wearing pink to a funeral.

“How about I explain for you then? Because I know those girls didn't do it. The roses, yeah, but not everything else. They certainly didn't break into Town Hall, even though someone tried to make it seem like they did. I know about Chess's farm. Whitney's arrest. And I know that Kingston—” She tilted her head to him. “That's your name right?” She paused, waiting for confirmation he wouldn't give. “He was once apprehended near the scene of an environmental crime but then released because of lack of evidence. This is obviously all some big revenge scheme.”

“That's what you think?” Chess scrubbed the back of his neck. “I don't want revenge. I want my farmland back.”

“And the moral of that is,” Whitney said, “the more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.”

Lorina opened and closed her mouth like a fish. Then her voice got soft. “That's why you were living out of your car.” She paused for a second, contemplating, then came back strong. “And you three?”

“Our parents were murdered,” I blurted, to avoid making Kingston reveal his secret. He might have been crazy and had warped ideas about how to save us, but I felt bad for him. His secret weighed on my shoulders because now I felt it was my responsibility to help him somehow, even if it seemed impossible.

How do you stop someone from dying?

Lorina's arms slipped from their tight coil. “What?”

I told her about Chess's theory and the newspaper articles I'd found, rushing the words out so fast, she probably couldn't even make sense of half of them.

“But we don't know if that's true, Alice. It's all speculation.” Chess stepped away from me, shaking his head, his face serious.

Whitney pursed her lips. “I can't tell you right now what the moral of that is, but I'll remember in a bit.”

“It scared your dad enough to stay away from here.” I reached for Chess.

That shut him up.

“And I found some evidence. A phone transcript where two people are talking about stopping Mom and Dad and Chess's dad through whatever means necessary. It seems too coincidental if they died the same day as the phone conversation.”

“Where'd you get the transcript?” Lorina placed one hand on her hip.

I probably should have seen that question coming. Way to basically confess, self. Heat prickled at the back of my neck, but I plowed on. The prospect of spending the rest of your senior year in jail made you pretty fearless, or at least pretty desperate. “Also, I found a forensics report that claims only one set of tires was on the road, but there's no seal or watermark and it's supposed to be an official document. I think it was doctored.” Not very well, but still.

Next to me, Kingston shifted his weight from one foot to the other. If Lorina could make even him uncomfortable, that didn't bode very well for our chance of success. Mountain climbers buried under an avalanche of snow probably had better survival odds.

“That's all still spec.” Lorina dropped into the empty chair. “You're looking for a way to blame the township.”

“I know,” I said. “But it makes sense with all the evidence. After Mom and Dad died, the township targeted Chess's dad's farm, drove him out of town. They wanted to get rid of them through any means possible, like they said in the transcript.”

She shook her head, hands gripping her knees. “Alice.” Her eyes glistened with moisture. “I've already buried them. I don't want to unearth this.”

I opened my mouth to protest again but then snapped it shut. Now wasn't the time. We had more important things to discuss; for example: where was I sleeping tonight? In a bed or on a wooden bench with a porcelain toilet as my roommate?

Kingston cleared his throat. “Um, you guys?” He pushed himself off the wall. “I think I may have the evidence you need to solve this.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a folder full of paper.

Please let this be real evidence and not one of Kingston's conspiracy theories.

“The document you think was doctored?” He lifted a sheet from the folder and dangled it in front of me. Of course, I should have known the best place for Kingston to hide the original file was on himself. I bet he'd been carrying it around this entire time. Even if I had found a way to sneak back into his empty room, I wouldn't have found it. “It was, but only because I gave you a pretty crappy photocopy and kept the real one for myself in case I needed it.” He took a few hesitant steps toward Lorina and laid the file on the table in front of her.

A relieved breath escaped my throat, but I sucked it back in because what the hell was Kingston doing? If he debunked my motivation as the reason for the ecotage, she'd have to find something else to go on, something that would implicate the other three people in the hallway.

Kingston removed a second sheet of paper from the folder and held it up for all to see. Criminal show and tell. “I couldn't figure out why a forensics report was in the same folder as a soil-sample evaluation.” He smoothed it out and handed it to Lorina. “I thought this was the soil sample I needed but . . . it ended up not being exactly right.”

Soil samples? Why did that sound so familiar?

Lorina perused it, mouth open. “All this says is that some land tested positive for radiation and lead. How does that solve anything?”

“Look at the land's coordinates.” He turned to us. “It lists it in technical terms. I had to ask the moon for help in figuring it out. Now I'm her slave. Like the tide and PMS.” He shrugged. “Small sacrifice.”

Lorina gasped. “Katz Farms.”

Chess perked up. “Wait, what?”

“Chess,” Kingston said. “The township didn't rezone the land and raise your taxes to drive your dad out of town. They did it to cover their own ass. It had nothing to do with your dad at all. They were just trying to keep the citizens safe because the land was contaminated from the nuclear power–plant leak.”

I gasped. Chess's mom's cancer. It was all related.

“My dad never mentioned the leak.”

“I doubt he knew about it. The township covered it well,” Kingston said. “If it was the township's fault, that is. I'm starting to suspect it might have been the plants. A suicide mission.”

Chess's hand flew to his chest. “He never had to flee. It's still safe here.”

“Though I haven't ruled out aliens from the list,” Kingston kept going as if no one else was speaking. “I haven't had a chance to interrogate them because I keep my window shut at night.”

Blood pounded in my ears, and the entire world slid beneath me. The forensics report had been accurate. The threatening talk in the phone transcript was only about about getting them to stop protesting the farm shutdown, to prevent anyone from finding out about the leak. I clutched Chess's arm to steady myself. “Then . . . my parents weren't murdered?”

I closed my eyes and exhaled. It was a relief, but even having a concrete answer wouldn't bring them back. Either way, they were still gone. My chest ached.

Lorina dragged her hands over her face. “I don't know what to do. My boss is going to fire me. He thinks I'm keeping info from him, which I am. If they fire me, someone else will take over, someone who won't be so caring. I will not turn those innocent student-council kids in.”

They weren't innocent, but I knew what she meant. They'd only painted roses, a minor infraction compared to, you know, burglarizing a government building.

I tried not to dwell on the fact that it seemed she planned to turn us in to keep her job. And I guessed that meant I'd always hoped she wouldn't. Either that or I never thought she'd figure it all out, which meant I had no faith in her. I was a horrible sister.

I left her side and slumped back against the wall. Chess brushed my cheek with his fingers.

“So tell me.” Lorina stood up from the chair. “What should I do instead?”

She wanted permission to take her own sister into custody. I hated that I had put her in such an awful situation. “I'll confess, then,” I said at the same time Chess said, “Let me take the fall.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

“Chess,” Whitney said. “We should do this together.”

“I got you all into this mess,” he said. “My life's already screwed up. I'm the one who has the least to lose.”

I pushed my frazzled hair out of my face. “You're the one with the most to gain if we correct this.” I briefly made eye contact with Kingston so he would know I intended to include him in my statement as well.

The door swung open and Quinn stormed out, face as red as her hair and her dress. “Di and Dru told me.” She stopped in front of Kingston. “You sent in pictures of me?” She scrunched up her face as if she might be able to fold her tears back inside.

“I also plastered them on the wall of the senior lounge.” He grinned at her. “
Now
are you going to accept that I broke up with you?”

Quinn slapped him in the face. The sound echoed in the reverberant hallway, and my teeth clamped down. She kicked off her heels and ran in the direction of the dark hallway.

Kingston rubbed his cheek as he stepped forward and approached Lorina. “I set them up. Tricked them into doing the prank to try to make it seem like they did everything else, too.”

Lorina searched me to see if this was the truth or another lie altogether. I wouldn't corroborate. I'd made a promise to protect him and everyone else, and I wouldn't betray them. I'd be no better than a tattletale if I did that.

“I'll take the blame.” Kingston lifted his chin. “Alone.”

“No!” Whitney and I both yelled at the same time.

“It was always my job to take one for the team and get arrested.” Kingston spun around to plead with his eyes. Then it almost seemed like he . . . winked. Or it could have been a trick of the light glinting off his eyes. Whitney straightened up and nodded. So she'd seen it, too.

Did Kingston have a plan? And if so, what could it possibly be?

I prayed silently that his plan didn't involve tricking someone else into the blame. Or getting plants to aid in his escape.

Sharp lines indented Lorina's forehead. I knew she wanted to protect me, but I also knew she wasn't president of Chess's fan club.

“You don't have to do this, King,” Chess said.

“Yeah. I do.”

“But what about . . . ” I didn't know how to phrase it without revealing his secret.

“That's exactly why I should,” Kingston said, clearly understanding me. “You guys have your whole lives ahead of you.” He removed the watch from his wrist and threw it on the floor. He stomped on it, shattering the glass.

Whitney sucked in a gasp. I wondered if she got his meaning like I did.

Lorina sighed. “The three of you, leave right now and go straight home. Alone.” The fact that Chess didn't have a home must have slipped her mind. “Kingston, come with me.” Lorina had made the decision for us. Kingston would take the blame, and we'd get off without a scratch. Every muscle in my body tightened.

I stepped forward to go with him, but Chess held me back.

“He'll be okay.” Whitney hopped in place. “I think he has a plan.”

But all our other plans had backfired. It didn't take a probability mathematician to determine that our odds of succeeding would deter anyone from betting on us. “Can we trust that, though? That his plan will be . . . ”

“Crazy? Undoubtedly. But maybe that's what we need to get this to work.”

Kingston and Lorina walked out of the school side by side. He didn't have handcuffs on yet, but the way he held his palms out in front of him, it was almost like he was preparing for them.

“Kingston's sick,” Whitney said. We stood in the empty hallway, watching the door swing shut as Lorina and Kingston disappeared on the other side of it. “Isn't he?”

“Um.” I twisted my hands into knots, sliding my fingers through each other and back again.

“That jerk. If he doesn't die on his own first, I'll kill him for keeping this from me.” Whitney grinned, clearly not serious.

“Chess.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Your mom's cancer.” My eyelids fluttered closed. The next words scraped against my tongue, heavy and painful. “I think it was caused by chemicals leaking into the soil from the power plant. The same thing that happened to Kingston.”

The color drained from Chess's face. The truth hung heavy in the air between us. The township might not have killed my parents, but they'd been responsible for his mom's death.