Chapter 12. Tessa
Tessa
Once Reed recovers from the deep chills wracking his body, he’s up on his feet, stalking between the broken piano and the windows, like a tiger trapped in a too-small cage.
“Tell me again,” I say. “What exactly did you see when you walked through Brandon?”
“I don’t know if I’d say I saw it. It’s more like … I knew his thoughts. I was consumed with his memories.” He shivers. “You were in there, too.”
My eyes snag on his.
He’s not the guy you should have been with.
I can’t believe in the midst of all of this, I keep thinking of that moment—his almost-confession. “But our deaths …” I prompt, getting us back on track.
“Brandon overheard his aunt talking to his mom about the case. She mentioned how the department was investigating our deaths as homicides after the coroner’s report came out. Brandon’s mom gasped and knocked her coffee on the rug, but they shut up when Brandon walked in. That’s all he knows.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Why would someone kill us?” My mind spins out, trying to remember the night of the party.
“I know. Who could possibly want us dead?”
“Jenny Chu,” I offer.
He bursts out laughing.
“Think about it,” I continue. “She’s third in line for valedictorian. She clears a path and the title’s hers.”
“You seriously think Jenny Chu killed us over grades? Jenny, who passed out in biology on frog-dissection day? Who faints at blood tests? You think she has the stomach for murder? Besides, she already got into Stanford. She didn’t need valedictorian.”
“You saw her threaten me at the party over that scholarship!” I cross my arms. “Though it doesn’t exactly make sense. Her family has tons of money.”
He pauses his pacing. “They had money. Didn’t you hear about all the trouble her dad got into for tax evasion?
” When I shake my head, he continues, “Apparently, he’d been doing it for years and owed so much in back taxes the government was coming after him hard.
Like, we’re talking ‘losing their house’ kind of hard. ”
“Then he clearly wasn’t paying Jenny’s tuition. She needed that scholarship as much as me, and she seemed pissed I might still get it after apologizing to Ms. Fieldman.”
“So … let me get this straight. Your theory is that because you were gonna butter up some old lady, that freaked Jenny out so much she killed you the night of the party?”
I smack my hands together. “Exactly. She had a clear motive. Or maybe, I don’t know, she had Yannick do it if she was squeamish.”
“She needed money, that’s true. But Jenny didn’t kill us or set Yannick on us. It’s absurd.”
“Remember when Mr. Kepler’s car was covered in paint?”
“Yeah …” His eyes narrow.
“Well, Tilly saw Jenny do that in the parking lot during the spirit assembly. And all because he’d refused to accept her late paper, bringing her whole grade point average down—which, by the way, is what put her out of the running for valedictorian with us.
I’m telling you; she’s unhinged. Plus, we have history. ”
“Wasn’t that back in middle school?” He taps his foot, waiting for me to explain.
“Yes, but it was a huge fight. I begged Jenny to stay and work things out with Tilly and me, but she bailed.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I’d catch her watching you in class, and she seemed … sad.”
“Or, and hear me out here, she was staring at me and plotting my murder.”
“Okay, Sherlock, but your theory doesn’t account for why I’m also dead.” He shakes his head. “Jenny’s off the list of suspects.”
“No one’s off the list.” I gesture wildly.
“Fine.”
“Besides”—I round on him—“who else could it be?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe Brandon did it because he was so pissed you stayed with me.”
I roll my eyes. “Nope. Next. Besides, he left the party. It would have to be a person there at the end of the night.”
Reed resumes his pacing. “After we started drinking, it’s all a blur.”
“There were lots of people there we didn’t know as it got later. What about those guys who told you to watch yourself? That was sketchy. What was that about?”
He sighs, sinking to the floor. “I mean … it seems extreme.”
“Let’s start with how you know them.”
“I don’t. Not really. They were angry at my stepdad.
He’s what’s called a corporate raider.” He looks at me uncertainly.
“I won’t bore you with the bullshit details, but, basically, he and his friends line up financial backers, buy struggling companies or factories on the cheap, and then break them apart and sell them off for parts.
They sell the equipment, sell the premises, that kind of thing.
Essentially, they kill a company to make a buck and screw whoever gets hurt in the process.
He bought and then destroyed the power plant, the one making turbines. ”
“My dad’s factory?”
He nods slowly, biting his lip. “Yep. The same one those guys at the party worked at.”
“So … your family is responsible for my family’s situation.”
He closes one eye and peeks at me through another. “My stepdad. Yeah.”
“And you knew?”
His shoulders slump. “I mean … I did know. I felt shitty about it, believe me. But what could I do?”
Bile rises in the back of my throat, a burning humiliation.
It’s bad enough my dad lost his job, but to know that Reed’s family was responsible?
Or that Reed was taking pity on me? All while he lived in his fancy house on the hill, drove his electric car, didn’t have a care in the world about applying to Harvard, or whether the light or heat could stay on. It’s embarrassing.
“I’m so sorry, Tessa.” He stands to face me.
I wipe away the hot tears that spring to my eyes, feeling guilty for ever being ashamed of my father or how we struggled.
There’s no shame in hardship. Challenge builds character, Dad would say.
Don’t wish for an easy life. Wish for a full one.
But I don’t know—the only thing I ever seemed to wish for was a successful one.
A life where I didn’t have to worry about money or being in his situation.
I never wanted to be that out of control.
I had countless plans to see me through.
Get the grades. Run the school. Run the company. I would ace life one way or another.
Only, look at me now.
I can tell I’m spiraling, about to become a ball of mush unable to handle the challenges in front of me.
Like how someone hated me so much they snuffed me out at a graduation party, and I have no idea who.
I need to regroup. “Okay, that’s a solid lead,” I manage. “Those guys at the party are weirdly connected to us both. Maybe they didn’t like my dad, either.”
Reed watches me closely, like he’s surprised we’re not getting into it over what his stepdad did to my family. But he follows my lead and diverts back to discussing our murders. “Since we were together, maybe they had no choice but to off us both?”
I wander over to the window, staring at the dark grounds.
Is that what happened? Did those guys kill us because they didn’t like our fathers?
It’s hard to imagine my dad making enemies, though I do remember him coming home from some union meetings where he said things got heated.
People get on edge when their livelihood is threatened.
The wind picks up, ice-cold gusts slipping through the seams. Reed joins me as we listen to it rattle the house.
Raindrops ping off the roof overhead, drip down the dusty windowpanes.
“We should go to the police precinct and try to overhear more of the investigation.” Reed shifts his weight beside me.
“We could walk through more people, though I’ve got to tell you, that is no fun. ”
“What about the smoke creatures?” It’s hard to see much outside, but the fog has receded. It doesn’t seem like they’re there.
He leans his back against the glass. “Do you remember what that old man said?”
“It was like … dust to dust, you are not wanted here … or we don’t want you here … or something like that.”
“Okay, so we know the magic words.” He shrugs a shoulder.
“Maybe they’re only magic words for him.”
“Well, it’s either walk into town and see what we can figure out or be trapped here forever without answers.”
I shiver, squinting into the darkness. “I haven’t seen or heard them again. Maybe it’s all right to leave. We can take off in the morning.” What I don’t say is that I’m far too creeped out to run into any smoke people at night.
“Okay.” He stretches before meeting my eyes for a moment.
He’s not the guy you should have been with.
I wonder if he’s about to say more, address the tension between us before he charged through Brandon, or my pain over the news that his stepdad put my father out of a job. But instead, he mumbles “Good night,” before heading out.
“Um … Reed?” I ask, pulling him up short.
He pauses in the doorway. “Yeah?”
“I need some quiet to think, but I also don’t want to be alone. Can I stay down here tonight? Like, on the couch or something?”
He nods. “Of course.”
I lie down on the threadbare sofa, fully expecting him to wander into another room on the first floor. But he lingers. “I’ll just … uh … chill on the blankets Yannick left.”
We settle in as the wind buffets the house, whistling through the window cracks. Though neither of us can sleep, it’s nice to rest. I close my eyes, letting my mind wander. These last few days have been a lot to absorb. I’ve barely had time to process.
After a while I peek at Reed out of the corner of my eye.
His hands are tucked behind his head, while he gazes at the ceiling, lost to the spell of his thoughts.
Starlight sets his olive complexion aglow.
I never really let my gaze linger on him before.
But I look now, taking in the long lines of his body, how his slick black hair fans out across the blanket behind him.
How did I miss how drop-dead gorgeous he was until I dropped dead? Was he always this hot? Or maybe people get more attractive as you know them?
I’m so used to him tucking his hair behind his ears, it’s nice to catch him in a moment when he’s not all buttoned up.
This isn’t the carefully constructed persona he puts out to the world.
It’s not the Reed who wins BattleBot competitions, gloats in the back of calculus after solving some tricky integral, or finds ways to drop his Harvard acceptance into every conversation.
This is just a boy. A boy who is lost, and maybe a little bit scared.
Something warm twists and unfurls inside me the longer I drink him in.
He didn’t have to stay in this room, but he chose to anyway.
Admit it.
It’s not his fault his stepfather’s an ass.
Admit you have feelings, too.
After a moment Reed shifts his head toward me, as if the thoughts pinballing around in my brain are so loud he can hear them. I quickly close my eyes.
In the distance, an owl hoots softly. I can almost make out the frogs in the pond near the road, even as raindrops begin falling in earnest, the beginning of a building storm.
And all of it to the soundtrack of his breath.
Slowing down, shifting. Not asleep—we don’t sleep. Just quiet, contemplative.
“Hey, Reed?” I whisper.
His sigh is more content than annoyed. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for staying.”
I don’t know if I mean in the room tonight, or in this house. There’s so little I know for certain.
Except … I’m pretty sure I have a ghost-crush on my nemesis.
Shit.