White Rabbit(12)

April takes a breath. “We were having a Fourth of July party, you know? Fox’s parents went to New York, so he knew the cottage would be empty, and he told everybody to come over.”

“And by everybody you mean Race and Peyton?” I venture, naming Fox’s and April’s respective best friends—who also happen to be a couple.

She nods. “And Arlo Rossi, and … some other people.”

Her eyes dart to Sebastian when she says this, but just as quickly drop back to my kneecap. I’m intrigued, but decide not to press her on it. At least, not yet. “Okay, so Peyton and Race and Arlo came out here, and you guys had a party, and then what?”

“And then I don’t know,” she says helplessly, her voice small and shaky again. “Honestly, Rufus, I didn’t take anything—all I had was a couple drinks, but maybe they were stronger than I thought, because, like … there’s just this big blank! Last thing I remember, everybody was over here, and then … then I wake up in the kitchen, and Fox is on the floor next to me and, and…” She trails off, hiccupping, and slaps a hand to her mouth. For a moment, I’m afraid she’s about to barf, but then she asks, “Is he really dead?”

I shift in the stupid little chair. “Yeah, April, he is.”

She shakes her head in disbelief, auburn tresses swinging, and squeezes her eyes shut. A couple of tears roll silently down her colorless cheeks. “I didn’t kill him. You have to believe me.”

With some difficulty, I ignore her grasp for my heartstrings, determined to stay clearheaded—to not let my creeping sentimentality for April Covington get in the way of my judgment. I’m rattled enough as it is, with pink shadows of Fox’s blood still dappling my wet shorts, and I can’t afford to be softhearted right now. I try to remember all my reasons not to trust her, but our past keeps intruding on my perception.

In the eighth grade, when the stage-whispered rumors of my sexuality were publicly confirmed, April stunned me by being the second person—after Lucy—to voice her support. The day I learned that my secret and I were both officially out was horrific, and after the final bell rang, I fled our school for the privacy of a wooded rise behind the soccer field. All I wanted was to finally get a chance to cry without an audience of jeering, scornful thirteen-year-olds, but my half sister somehow managed to track me down.

*

“I don’t care,” she blurted in a quiet rush the second I noticed her, copper sunlight gilding her face as she looked up at me. “I don’t care that you’re gay, I mean. It doesn’t make any difference to me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, and I think Cody and Eric are shitheads for making fun of you and stuff.”

“Thanks,” I answered awkwardly, befuddled by her sympathy and lacking for anything more meaningful to say. Cody Barnes was one of Hayden’s many acolytes, willing to hurt me in any number of trivial ways if it would catch his hero’s attention, but Eric Shetland had—until that very morning—been one of my closest friends. I was so stung by his betrayal that no one’s actions seemed to make sense to me anymore.

“Hayden’s a shithead, too.” April’s cheeks flushed with the guilty pleasure of saying it out loud. “He’s so mean. All the time. I mean, you’re lucky you don’t have to live with him.” She glanced over her shoulder instinctively, as if afraid saying his name might actually conjure his presence, and then went on in a fervent undertone, “Honestly, Rufus? Sometimes I wish he was dead. Sometimes I wish you were my real brother and Hayden didn’t even exist!”

Without warning, April suddenly threw her arms around me—our first actual embrace—and then, while I was still reeling from the unexpected show of affection, she turned and dashed away toward the school.

*

Willfully blanking the memory, I ask April, “Where was your phone?” The question seems to confuse her, so I back up. “You woke up next to Fox, and then you called me. Where was your phone?”

She makes a bewildered face. “I guess I had it with me. I don’t really know.”

“You didn’t have to go looking for it?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, if I had, I wouldn’t have still been sitting next to Fox when you got here.” She shivers a little.

“So why did you call me?” I finally ask, after tallying up everything she’s said. I’m pretty sure I have the reason figured out, though, and am anticipating her answer with a growing sense of prickly unease.

“Don’t you get it?” She fixes me with a haunted look. “All my friends were here. The last thing I remember, we were all having a big party; and then all of a sudden, I’m waking up, my boyfriend is dead, and I’m here all by myself? They left me, Rufus.” With both hands, she drags her hair back from her face, and whispers, “I didn’t do it. I know I didn’t. But that means … it means—”

“One of them is the killer,” Sebastian concludes, rubbing his eyes. “Fuck.” I can tell he’s regretting whatever impulse compelled him to seek me out tonight, whatever guilt or curiosity made him so eager to drive me to South Hero Island so he could stumble over the dead body of one of his friends.

“I didn’t do it,” April repeats insistently, searching my face with the piteous desperation of an orphaned beggar. “You know me, Rufus, I could never have done something like this!” The point is, frankly, equivocal, but before I can address it, she’s already moving on to the true purpose of her summons. “You have to get me out of here, okay? I’ve already bagged up my bikini—we can throw it in the lake, and—”