White Rabbit(15)

“You can at least try, though, right?” She demands indignantly. “It’s not like he’s gonna beat you up just for asking him a few questions!”

I grit my teeth, exasperated by her cluelessness. “April, Arlo would beat me up for no reason at all, let alone if I start asking questions about a party where he might have just killed somebody. He’s not going to let me get past ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ before he puts a steel-toed boot up my ass!”

“He’ll talk to me.” Sebastian says, surprising us both. I glance over at him, but his gaze is fixed on the floor, his posture taut as a leather strap. When he looks up, I see conflict swimming in his eyes—fear and conviction chasing each other on an endless loop—and he takes in a deep breath. “We get along okay. We’re not, like, friends or whatever, but he’ll probably answer the questions if I’m the one asking.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I say automatically, the rejection backed by a symphony of collaborating motives. Where not so long ago I was full of excuses for why I wanted to see Sebastian one more time, I now only want to get him out of my life again. I’m still angry, still hurting, and—worst of all—still attracted to him, even after one week of panic, four weeks of tearful misery, and another week of trying to pretend he’d stopped existing. I’d convinced myself I could be over him, but now every time he looks at me, smiles at me, touches me, it feels good—which feels horrible; I’m starting to realize that I’ve never stopped missing him after all, and it terrifies me. “If you drop me off at my house, I’ll get my mom’s car. I’m pretty sure she’s in bed by now.”

“You just said yourself that Arlo won’t talk to you,” he counters, scrubbing his palms up and down his thighs in agitation, “and Race probably won’t, either. I’m cool with those guys, though. Face it: You need me.”

April watches this exchange with narrowing eyes, and finally, she gives voice to the question that I’ve also been wanting to ask all night long. “Bash, what are you doing here, anyway?”

“Um…” Sebastian freezes, blinking a distress signal. “We were … I was at a party—at the same party as Rufus when you called. And I’ve been out here before, so I offered to give him a ride.”

The explanation clearly doesn’t make sense to her. “But—”

“Where does Arlo live?” I interrupt, seizing the reins of the conversation. There’s a lot I want to know about Sebastian’s reappearance in my life—in spite of my better judgment—but I sure as hell don’t need for it to come out in front of April. Besides, no matter how much my ex-boyfriend may have hurt me, I still feel the need to protect his secret. I had the right to come out on my own terms taken away from me, and it was devastating; no amount of self-righteousness would make me feel good about watching it happen to someone else. “Because, believe it or not, he’s never invited me over before.”

April just looks at me blankly, and then alley-oops the question to Sebastian, who offers a bewildered shrug. “I don’t know, man. I’ve never been there, either.”

“Awesome.” I give an acerbic sigh. “We’re off to a great start—we’ve got no idea where our prime suspect even lives. Not to be pessimistic, but what if we finally figure it out, and then he’s not even home because he’s lying low somewhere? You know, trying to avoid getting pulled into a murder investigation?”

“I can call him,” April suggests.

“Don’t.” My tone is so forceful that she actually recoils. “April, if Arlo is the one who murdered Fox, then he’s also the one who expects you to take the fall for it. Whoever left you here made sure your phone was sitting right next to you. Don’t you get what that means?” My response is another empty look. “It means they wanted you to call the police! They wanted the cops to come out here and find you all stoned out of your mind and covered in blood, lying next to the dead body of your boyfriend in a house filled with drugs known to cause violent episodes!”

“I told you I didn’t take anything—”

“Fine! Whatever,” I snap irritably, deciding not to make an issue out of it. There’s no time. “Whoever did this is pretty confident the evidence will incriminate you, and they’re expecting you to wake up and use your phone. If Arlo did it, and you call him, acting all casual, like, ‘Oh, I was just curious to know where you are right now—no reason!’ he’s gonna know something’s up. You’ve gotta be radio silent, April. I mean that.”

“Okay.” She puts her hands up in a sulky surrender. Strangely, then, her eyes slide to Sebastian again before darting back to me. “There is someone else who would probably know where Arlo is. Who might even … you know, be with him.”

“Who?”

April fingers a silver charm bracelet that encircles her wrist. “Lia.”

Sebastian and I both stiffen at the same time, and I feel my eyes turning to granite as I refuse to look his way. His voice is guarded and perplexed as he seeks to clarify, “Lia Santos?”

“Yeah.” April winces apologetically. “She and Arlo came here together. They’re … well, anyway, I didn’t know if you knew about them.”

“No.” Sebastian sounds totally hollow. “I didn’t.”