Premeditated (32 page)

“Don’t be there … don’t be there … don’t be—”

“Dinah!” Dad said, shaking me by the shoulders. “What’s wrong, honey? Does this have anything to do with that boy you think hurt Claire?”

“Not think, Dad. I know he did.”

“Is his picture in her phone?” he asked at the precise moment I hit pay dirt.

“I have to go.”

I grabbed my keys off the peg by the door and ran out, soaked and shivering, into the storm with Claire’s phone clenched in my hand. I didn’t even stop for shoes; I just got in my car and peeled out, throwing gravel and mud. I shifted gears with one hand and dialed with the other, steadying the wheel with my knees.

Tabs picked up on the second ring.

“Hello?” she said cautiously. I should have thought about how she’d react to Claire’s ringtone, but I’d left so fast I didn’t even have my license, so I was praying there were no cops nearby to see me out driving like a maniac and dish out some poetic justice for the pills in Brooks’ Beemer.

“It was Dex,” I said.

“Dinah?”

“It was Dex, not Brooks.”

“What?”

“The man of many names, remember? Dex hands out random names when he’s afraid he’s going to get in trouble, like at the mall. He told Claire his name was Brooks, and she never questioned it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me, Dex can turn into a real monster when he wants to.”

“Dinah … did something happen after I left you with him?”

“It doesn’t matter right now.”

“Dinah! Of course it matters. I want details.… No, forget that. Stay where you are. I’m getting Brucey, and we’ll—”

“Tabitha!” She stopped the angry babble. I hadn’t called her by her full name in years. “I don’t have time to wait. My dad called the cops, and I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to pick Brooks up.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have to fix this, Tabs. I’ve got Claire’s phone. There’s a half-dozen pictures of her and Dex together.… I guess I’ll take them to his house and wing it from there.”

Hopefully, this time, I wouldn’t crash on landing.

Brooks was afraid of water; that was the missing piece poking at me the whole time. One stupid, simple fact that I’d shoved out of the way because it didn’t fit with everything else I thought I knew. Just like I didn’t really process any of the things I knew about Dex, because they interfered with the image I had created of him that first day.

I knew Dex was a liar, but I excused it.

I knew Dex had no problem being physically intimidating, but I ignored it.

I knew other girls couldn’t stand him for reasons they didn’t want to discuss, but I never asked why. And when I found out, I still chose to believe there were two predators prowling the halls at Lowry, rather than seeing the obvious.

I knew Brooks was terrified of water, but it didn’t matter.

When he first said it, I’d thought he was exaggerating or making conversation that he thought made himself sound cute, but there was no way a guy who ran from half an inch of rain would have been able to take a girl skinny-dipping.
No way
.

And now I’d ruined an innocent guy’s life because I didn’t know half the things I thought I did.

The only solution I could think of was to try to undo as much of the damage I’d caused as possible, and for that, I had to see him. Not surprisingly, no one opened the door at his
house when I rang, not even when I pounded on the door and shouted to be let in.

I went around the side of the house, took a guess at which window was Brooks’ based on the time I’d spent there, and did my best to climb the nearest tree with something approaching purpose and dignity.

“Let me in,” I called when I spotted Brooks through his window.

He glared at me, then went back to reading something on his computer screen.

“Brooks! It’s important!”

He stuck a pair of earbuds in his ears.

I inched as far out on the branch as I felt would support my weight, stretching my foot toward the railing on his balcony. The motion made the branch dip down, which made me slide in turn. I ended up hanging off the railing with my knee hooked over the top and my hands holding on for dear life.

Two stories up may not sound very high. It may not even seem very high when you’re standing on a balcony looking down. But when you’re hanging off the outside of that same balcony, dangling three times as far from the ground as you are tall, it’s high. Very, very high. The last few days had caught up with me, and this was my punishment. My life for destroying Brooks’—it seemed like a fair trade.

“Are you insane?”

Brooks tore the doors open and stepped out onto the balcony. He grabbed my upper arms as I took hold of his in turn.

“I’m surprised you have to ask me that,” I said as he pulled me over the top rail.

“Is everyone in your family suicidal?” Brooks left me on the
balcony and went back inside. “Most people take the door not opening as a reason to leave, not try breaking and entering.”

“It’s only breaking and entering if you have to break something to get in. You opened the window.”

“Right. I forgot I was talking to a criminal mastermind.”

He plopped into his chair and went back to clicking through whatever he was reading.

“That’s Claire’s diary,” I said.

The familiar letters filled his screen, each in its own window.

“I didn’t do any of this,” he said. “
Any
of it. I never met a girl named Claire during break; I wasn’t even in the state when this happened.” He clicked over to that first letter, the one where Claire mentioned meeting him at the mall and highlighted the date. “I was in DC doing one of those stupid Junior Congress summits Dad forces me to endure. That’s the
only
reason he’s waiting until tomorrow to take me to the police. He’s got Ryland petitioning for an attendance roster to prove it. Why are you here?”

“To apologize. I know it wasn’t you now.”

“You didn’t have to make the trip to state the obvious. Take the stairs when you leave, I’d rather not have actual murder added to the list of things people think I’ve done because you decide to break your neck.”

“I don’t blame you for being mad, but I came here to try to fix this.”

“You accused me of raping a fourteen-year-old girl at her funeral! How do you fix that?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll do anything. Brooks … it was Dex. The things in Claire’s diary happened, even if you didn’t do
them. It was Dex; I can prove it. Look—this is at Freeman’s Point. The time stamps should match the date on her diary entries.”

Cell service at the Point is always lousy, but that wasn’t why Claire never sent me the pictures when she finally got them. The more I thought about it, I was sure she didn’t send them because she was too embarrassed. They’d been taken the same day she met Evil Dex, and as much as I’d like to believe she didn’t delete them because she thought they’d come in handy as proof when she came to her senses, I knew they were still there because of that embarrassment. To delete them, she’d have had to look at them again, and Claire wouldn’t have done that. She’d have left them in her past and gone on like they didn’t exist.

I handed Brooks Claire’s phone and watched the horror cycle across his face with each new photo.

“When did you get back from DC?” I asked.

“Two weeks before school started. Why?”

And there was the final piece of the puzzle. Claire was so wrapped up in Dex that his dropping her had made no sense. He could have kept using her—but not if there was a chance the real Brooks Walden might spoil his act.

“He was pretending to be you,” I said. “When you came home, he had to stop.”

“It has to be a mistake.”

“You know better than that. Jordan told you. I hope Chandi told you, too.”

“Yeah, but—”

“The night …” I choked trying to say it. “The night Claire
died, when I was such a wreck at the carnival, your first thought was that Dex had done something, wasn’t it?”

“I’d just talked to Jordan, but she was so angry, I hoped she was overreacting. Blowing things out of proportion or something.… You … you were okay, weren’t you?”

“Only because I fought back. Others didn’t.”

“Others?”

“Like Claire. And Abigail. The only difference is, Abigail knew who Dex was. Claire only knew who he claimed to be. That was you.”

“He wouldn’t do that. We’re friends.”

“You heard him do it, Brooks. He told that guard at the mall his name was Courtney D’Avignon, because he didn’t want anyone at his own door if something happened. Dex didn’t know Claire was going to be a student at Lowry, so he gave her someone else’s name, not realizing she’d learn the truth when she started school. He picked someone who was out of town, someone with dark hair and eyes like his own, and someone with a dad who had connections that he thought would protect them. It’s his safety net.”

In his own twisted way, he probably thinks the people whose names he takes deserve it. They get the reputation people expect a spoiled rich boy to have.

“I have to show this to my dad,” Brooks said, flipping back and forth through the pictures, zooming in on Claire’s face and then Dex’s.

“I told you, I’ll do anything to fix this. I’ll tell your dad, his lawyer, the police. Whoever I have to.”

He didn’t answer. Brooks was still thumbing through the
photos on Claire’s phone, wandering into the older ones that dated back before I’d moved out of state with my parents.

“So the black hair and tattoos, the piercings and boots, that’s the real you?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’ve pretty much lost track of who I am. I’m not sure I ever knew.”

“I know the feeling,” he said. “Dad’s downstairs, in his office, most likely. He’s been on the phone with Ryland since your dad called the cops and they called him to arrange a voluntary surrender. I’m sort of under house arrest.”

I nodded and let him lead the way out of his room, back into that nearly pristine hallway and down the stairs.

“She was pretty,” Brooks said as we walked. “Your cousin.”

“She was beautiful,” I amended.

She was sweet and kind, and never understood that others weren’t. Claire flitted through the world without letting any of the darkness in it touch her. Nothing bad mattered, because she always thought there’d be another day, with a day’s worth of chances for the bad to improve.

“I’m sure you know this, but I’ll warn you anyway: he’s not in a good mood.”

We’d reached his father’s office door, which was shut, exactly as it had been the last time I was there, without any noise to say there was anyone alive inside. Real fear bubbled up within me for knowing I’d have to face that scowl again, and this time for a reason. If the first time was how Brooks’ dad looked while trying to be hospitable, I wasn’t eager to find out how much that face could sour when he was angry.

“Ready?” Brooks asked.

“For this to be over? Definitely.”

We entered the office together, Brooks in front, me behind, so hopefully all his dad could see of me was my hair poking up over the top of Brooks’ head. The place looked abandoned, with the lights on their lowest setting and the office chair turned backward, toward the bookcase behind it.

“There’s been no word, Brooks,” his voice said from the chair. “Go back to bed. I told you I’d call you if anything new developed.”

“That’s why I’m here, Dad,” Brooks said. “Something new sort of fell through my window.”

“I’m in no mood for nonsense.” The chair turned and I had the sudden flash of one of Brucey’s cheesy old movies. The villain, who was the head of some secret group of super-baddies, sat in a chair just like the one in front of us. The only difference was that the guy in the movie had a fluffy cat in his lap, and I’m not sure there was an animal in existence that would have been willing to sit with Brooks’ dad. “Nor am I in the mood for visitors. Who is this, and why is she here?”

“It’s me, Mr. Walden,” I said from the back of Brooks’ shoulder. “Dinah Powell … I was here before.… You thought I was a scholarship case at Lowry.”

“You don’t look like the girl who was here.”

“Bad haircut,” I said.

“She came to help, Dad,” Brooks said.

“Yet earlier this evening, you told me it was the girl who had been to the house who accused you this afternoon.”

“I did,” I said. “But I was wrong … and … and …” I had to swallow before I could finish. “And so were you.”

“Explain.”

Easier ordered than accomplished. Brooks’ dad didn’t get up
or unfold his hands from where he had them steepled under his chin, but his voice was toxic enough, even across the room.

“Brooks didn’t do any of the things you think he did,” I said, then quickly added a polite “sir” for good measure. “He didn’t get himself in trouble with the mall cops. He didn’t do anything to his car, other than speeding, but that was my fault, too, because I’m the one who messed up his interviews and he was afraid you’d blame him, which was sort of the point. It was all me.”

“Take a breath before you pass out,” Brooks whispered. Somehow he’d ended up behind me instead of in front, and I’d moved closer to his dad’s desk without realizing it.

“All you?”

“Yessir.” I swallowed again, trying to stop the nervous slurring. “And if the drug test you made him take came back … just know it’s a false positive.”

“You’re not serious,” Brooks said.

“Sorry.” I cringed. “You really shouldn’t eat things you don’t cook yourself.”

“Your friend tried to poison me?”

“No … maybe a little, but only because you ate so many.”

His father cleared his throat to put our attention back on him.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Walden, and if you want to call the cops and have me arrested, I won’t argue. I’ll tell them the truth.”

“Good, because that’s exactly what I
should
do.”

“Dad—” Brooks started, but his father held up his hand for silence.

“However, my first priority is to have you speak to my son’s attorney, so that we can stop this unpleasantness before it goes
any further. You have the time it takes Ryland to reach the house to explain your actions and your sudden change of heart; perhaps I’ll have one as well.”