“You figured that out, did you?” Kenyon snipes. “Thank you for caring.”
Evangeline smiles grimly. “In fact, I do. Listen, it’s a good thing we got you out of there today. I mean, think about it. Your dorm room might have turned into a firetrap or something. Gabrielle has skills.”
Kenyon exhales. “Great.”
“So, to work. What kind of policeman is your grandfather? Where does he report? What’s his rank? We’ll have to go around him when we show our evidence. The police won’t want to believe in the involvement of one of their own.”
Saralinda puts in, “Most importantly, we have to protect Kenyon. That means we have to throw suspicion on Mrs. Dubois immediately. Get her arrested if at all possible, which—oh, God. Back to square one. We have evidence on Kenyon’s grandfather, but not on Antoine’s mother. Huh. What to do, what to do.”
You say, “There might be something in the carriage house. Something pointing to her.” You are astonished that you can pay attention, because your mind is still spinning on its own track. Your father. Your father. Your father.
“We need Dr. Lee,” Saralinda says.
“Yeah, if we can trust him to believe us,” Evangeline comments. “Anyway, these are problems, but not impossible ones. Hopefully.”
“I don’t get why you’re so positive all of a sudden,” Kenyon mutters.
“Because we have a thesis and a potential pattern,” says Evangeline defensively. “When there’s data, there’s hope, okay? I want to make a list—”
You listen but say nothing else as you turn the impossible idea over in your mind.
There’s no reason your father would manipulate grieving parents into swapping murders. Multiple parents? Why would he do that? It would put him at huge risk, and what would he get out of it?
Although you’ve never understood him.
No. It’s truly nuts. Totally implausible.
Does your father want you to die? Yeah, maybe.
But if he wanted to kill you, he’d find an easier way. He could slip you an overdose of some opioid and blame it on you, for example.
You rub your eyes.
Kenyon is describing her grandfather’s job. He’s a lieutenant for the New York State Police, Criminal Investigation Division.
Evangeline leans her chin on her hands. “That’s pretty high up?”
“Yes,” says Kenyon. “People report to him.”
Evangeline moans. “That’s not good.”
Saralinda says, “I have an idea.”
Without consulting your brain, your mouth opens. “Uh-oh.”
Saralinda glares. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” you say. “Sorry. It’s just—your previous idea was, uh, disturbing.”
“But it’s the best working theory we have so far,” Kenyon says.
“It’s kind of mad genius,” Evangeline says.
“Yeah,” you say frankly. “And it scares the hell out of me.”
“Say it, brother,” says Kenyon. “Anyway. Saralinda?”
“Okay.” Saralinda laces her hands together and presses them under her chin. “What if we don’t try to make a case for the police? What if we go public? I’m talking YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook. We put it all out there, our suspicions, our accusations. We accuse Kenyon’s grandfather and Antoine’s mother so that there’d be no chance they could get away with it if anything did happen to Kenyon. Maybe this would push an official investigation into Antoine’s death that Kenyon’s grandfather won’t be able to finesse. See?”
“Oh,” says Evangeline. “Oh. Huh.”
Kenyon frowns. She holds up a hand. “Let me think.”
“No,” you say flatly. “I don’t see.”
Saralinda gets to her feet. She makes a gesture with her cane like she’s the grand marshal of a parade. “If we do this, we don’t have to figure out how to persuade the police to do anything up front. They’re free to ignore us even, if they think we look like your garden-variety internet crazies. Which we might be. But that doesn’t matter! What matters is that Antoine’s mother and Kenyon’s grandfather would know that our accusations are out there. If anything happens to Kenyon, then wham: The police are forced to take notice. It’s like taking out insurance.”
“It might buy us time,” Kenyon says thoughtfully. “To talk to Dr. Lee. Persuade him to do an investigation of the carriage house—”
“Which he might be doing already,” Saralinda puts in.
You see it now too. It would also put a spotlight on Mrs. Dubois and Kenyon’s grandfather, whose name is Lieutenant Stewart Kelly.
You say, “But what if Mrs. Dubois doesn’t care? She’s got what she wanted—Antoine’s death. She doesn’t have anything to live for.” You remember how that tall, straight-backed woman stood on the other side of the glass wall from her son, expressionless. “This is a plan that would work for someone who doesn’t want to get caught. We don’t know if she is that woman. We don’t know what’s in her head.” For you, everything always seems to come back to a final question. “We don’t know if she’s sane.”
“Oh, she’s not,” says Evangeline softly. “You should have known her—before.” She ducks her head down, so that her expression is completely hidden.
There is silence.
Evangeline says, “Antoine wouldn’t want her to go to prison.”
You say, “Antoine would want Kenyon alive.”
Evangeline nods. “I know. I know. That’s our focus now.”
You push all thoughts of your father aside. You ask, “How would it work? We’d show the video of Kenyon’s grandfather? Make a statement of some kind?”
“We’ll have to figure it out,” Saralinda says. “How to make a campaign. How to make it go viral.” She looks at Kenyon expectantly. “Kenyon has experience.”
“Not pleasant experience,” Kenyon mutters. “But yeah. Yeah, I have experience.” She is paler now than she was before.
Evangeline hesitates. “Back to Gabrielle for a moment. I’m thinking that maybe we—I guess it would have to be me—I could talk on a video about Antoine’s dad and how his mother suffered. That would be sympathetic, not accusatory.” She picks at the skin on the back of one of her hands. “Establish that she is crazy with grief and not herself.”
More silence. You think about how Evangeline goes back and forth between rage and compassion. Maybe you aren’t the only one who is not entirely okay.
Kenyon’s voice is gentler when she speaks. “Nobody would lock Antoine’s mother up in a jail cell. She’ll get help, therapy, whatever she needs. She wasn’t ultimately the one who murdered her son—even if she did blow up the carriage house.” Her voice hardens. “That was my grandfather. It’s hard to imagine her blowing up the carriage house all by herself, isn’t it? How much do you want to bet they did that together?”
“This will be huge,” you say at last. “We’ll definitely go viral.”
Evangeline shakes her head. “It’ll probably be one more stupid thing on the internet. We’ll look like crazy kids, and the only people who will notice are people we know. But maybe it will work anyway. Maybe it will do what we need. At least we’re not sitting around doing nothing, or waiting on other people to act.” She looks up. “Saralinda, you are brilliant.”
Saralinda blushes.
“It’s decided, then?” you ask. “We’ll do this?”
You look from face to face and each one nods.
Kenyon grabs paper and begins to scribble a list, taking charge. “We have to have scripts. Keep in mind too, this is theater. Advertising. We should be outrageous. We don’t want credibility as much as we want readers and we want shares. If we can pound this out tonight, that would be great. Then we go back to school tomorrow, talk to Dr. Lee.”
“Let’s do it,” Saralinda says.
Cha
pter 30. Saralinda
Using Evangeline’s phone which has the best video recorder, we record some footage in which Kenyon explains who her grandfather is and narrates what’s happening in the video of him with Antoine’s car. Caleb finds some pictures online of the car crash and also a local news story about it. Evangeline and I start working on another part of the script about Antoine and his mother and father, but when Evangeline says that she is going to be completely melodramatic in it, Kenyon speaks up.
“You guys? I have to mention something.” She clears her throat. “What about college?”
Evangeline and Caleb and I look at each other and then back to Kenyon.
Evangeline says, “What about college?”
“So, colleges do internet searches of their candidates. They look on Facebook. Right? I already have a reputation. After we do this, I’m afraid I’ll look like—you know, the kind of person who wants attention.” Kenyon scowls at Evangeline and adds, “Like you said, that first day in the carriage house.”
Evangeline blinks. “What are you talking about?”
“You said that.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Well, you were annoying me. And I didn’t know you yet.”
Kenyon scrunches her eyes shut for a second. “Fine. Whatever. But you got that idea from what you knew about me online, right?”
“I guess. So what?”
“Well, I was thinking—I want a regular life on the other side of this. Assuming I survive. College and, you know—a life.”
Evangeline says, “Um. Nobody gets into college when they’re dead.”
“I know that! But can we at least, in putting all this stuff online, can we not act crazy or melodramatic? Can we achieve the exact same ends by being calm and clear?” Kenyon lifts her chin. “Can we try for credibility?”
We look at her.
Finally Caleb says, “Doesn’t matter what you do. People are always going to think what they think.”
Kenyon sighs. “All right. So I should accept it? No matter what, I’m going to look bad. My grandfather’s a cop. You guys don’t know—cops are revered in a way. Who am I kidding? I’m going to be a pariah. At least I’ll be a living pariah. If I’m lucky. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”
“There’s community college,” I say tentatively. “Don’t they let everybody in?”
Kenyon gives me a look that makes me shrivel. But stubbornly I add, “I know it’s not, you know, Harvard.”
“Wellesley,” says Kenyon. “My dream is Wellesley. Hillary Clinton’s college. Just in case anyone happens to care.”
“College can’t be your priority,” Caleb says quietly. “Or ours.”
“I know I know I know,” says Kenyon. “One more thing, though, while I’m talking. Just to get it off my chest. None of you have a clue what it’s like to be a so-called internet celebrity. The hate mail. The—the rape threats.” Her fists clench. “And—and worse.”
We are silent and I don’t know about Caleb and Evangeline but I am thinking about Kenyon’s mother, killed by a stranger who had decided he hated Kenyon because of what he saw and read about her online.
“It’s not fun to be hated by strangers. It affects you. It does damage.” Kenyon shrugs then, like it doesn’t matter. “Okay, I’ve said my piece. I only want all of you to know in advance what we’re doing if the viral thing happens. Just—you know. In case.”
“I never thought of any of that,” I say.
“Well, who would? Not until it happens to you. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not like you can really be prepared anyway.” Kenyon’s shoulders slope down. “I don’t know what to hope for,” she adds. “If we get some traction and go viral, that’ll be good. Except for all the ways in which it won’t be. Okay, stop with the big eyes, Saralinda. I’m fine. I’m just fine.”
I don’t think she is, but it can’t matter because this is when music rings out from somebody’s phone. Somebody’s phone is ringing and then it turns out that it’s mine.
“My mom,” I say.
“Don’t answer,” Caleb says.
But I have to answer she is my mother who loves me.
My hand is shaking for some reason however and then my mother’s voice is on speaker and she is furious, yelling:
“How dare you run away? How dare you, Saralinda! Well, you’re to come home right away. I’m sending the police for you! Yes, I know exactly where you are! Go outside right now and wait for the helicopter and you come home!”
My mind swoops and swirls—police, helicopter?
“Mom,” I say. “Mom, calm down—”
“There is nothing to be calm about!”
“Mom,” I say, and then Kenyon grabs my arm and snatches the phone away and hangs up on my mother.
I stare at her. “Kenyon, what—?”
She is breathing so hard her chest is going up and down. “You’re not getting on any police helicopter, Saralinda. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but—but the police wouldn’t be sending a fricking helicopter after a girl who’s been gone from school for a few hours! Which means my grandfather is involved somehow, and that means . . . I don’t know what it means, but—”
“It means we need to get out of here immediately,” Evangeline says. She hesitates. “And our phones . . .”
All four of us have been using our phones. For research, for starting to record the video, for making all the plans to save Kenyon.
“We have to leave our phones,” Evangeline finishes. “So they think we’re still here while we run, and so they can’t track us.”
“You don’t have to come too,” Kenyon tells her. She’s on her feet, facing Evangeline with her hands on her hips. “I can take Saralinda with me, while you and Caleb finish up.” She swivels toward me. “Saralinda, you do have to leave—I have this bad feeling about you, about your mother. About what you told me when we were in the carriage house.”
“Uh,” I say, because I don’t remember exactly what I told her.
“We’re all going,” Caleb says. “Together. Now.”
“But all our work on the phones,” I wail.
“We’ll get new phones,” Caleb says. “We’ll do it all over again, with phones they don’t know belong to us.”
Chapter 31. Caleb
You push everyone out the door. Outside, while returning the key to the hiding spot—a nicety that Saralinda insists on—Kenyon stumbles. Her back is hurt, you remember. You offer your arm. “Lean on me.”
“No. It’s time for more Tylenol, that’s all.”
She shakes out four and swallows them dry.
You set a fast (given the situation) walking pace toward the ferry. The ferry! There’s no other option. You knew the island was a bad idea, you knew it.
The girls talk, because the time will never come when girls don’t talk.
“Main thing, we need money,” Kenyon says grimly. “We definitely can’t use credit cards if they’re following us.”
“And at least one phone,” Saralinda says. “To record video on.”
“Also, a safe place to do the recording,” adds Evangeline. “Maybe a hotel room?”
“Money,” says Kenyon. “Money buys everything else.”
Evangeline says, “I’m not sure cash is the answer to everything. We’ll need a credit card for a hotel. You can’t check into a hotel room with cash.”
“If it’s a skanky hotel you can,” says Kenyon.
“Really?” Evangeline raises an eyebrow.
“That’s my impression. From, you know, TV.”
“Fount of all knowledge.”
“You questioning it?”
“Actually, no. I don’t know.”
The four of you now have about fifteen dollars. Mr. Hyde has never performed a robbery that you know o
f. But how hard can it be? You run it through in your mind: a small store, a mousy clerk, dead of night—which is on its way now, as the sun sinks fast toward the horizon . . .
Abruptly you turn and walk backward, facing the girls. “Kenyon, you’re right. When this is over, none of us will be Wellesley material. I just caught myself planning a robbery. I was, like, seven detailed fantasy steps into it, with some kid at the cash register handing over money.”
In the next instant you can’t believe you told them that. It felt . . . intimate. And you’ve probably shocked Saralinda with your inner criminal.
“Caleb?” says Evangeline. “Just so you know? Wellesley is a women’s college.”
“I knew that,” you mutter, although you didn’t.
You turn back around and say over your shoulder, “Maybe prison will be sort of like college.”
“We haven’t committed any crime,” Kenyon says.
“Yet,” you respond.
Your imagination zips off again. You could be on the same chain gang with Saralinda, picking up trash by the side of the New York State Thruway. She would lean on her trash pick-up stick. You could superglue a plastic snow globe to the top for her. If snow globes are allowed in prison.
Kenyon says, “With luck, we’ll be gone long before the helicopter has time to get here. If Saralinda’s mother called soon enough. But when we get to the other side, should we keep using my car? Probably not, right? Also, where should we go?”
“The city,” says Evangeline. “Best place to get lost.”
“Do we take the train?”
“Not enough money. Listen, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Kenyon says, “I thought you liked to plan ahead.”
“I am. I’m thinking!” Evangeline says.
The ferry dock comes into sight.
That’s when you hear a whirring from above, growing louder by the second.
Saralinda cranes her neck and points.
Kenyon says, “We’re screwed.”
Evangeline shakes her head. “The ferry’s coming in now. We can make it.”