White Rabbit(37)

Money’s a really big deal to him. Sebastian has no idea how right he is. If Hayden went back to the lake house, murdered Fox, and then set April up to take the heat, he still wouldn’t have gone anywhere—not until he recovered the cash he’d paid to his dealer earlier in the evening. No sense leaving it with a dead guy, right? I think about April’s breathy, tremulous voice over the phone—I need … I need help, Rufus—and the loud blaring of Fox’s music when we arrived; it’s just possible that, if Hayden had been in another room, he might not even have heard April’s call to me. He might not have been aware that anyone was on the way until Sebastian actually started knocking at the front door.

“Why didn’t you call the police from the scene?” Detective Lehmann asks me suddenly, breaking through my reverie. I blink at him, thrown for just a moment, and he reiterates, “You found your sister shut up in a house with a dead body; why didn’t you call the police right away?”

He sounds markedly less friendly now, but it’s a question I’ve been anticipating. “April was really freaked out, and she phoned her parents first. They didn’t want her talking to anyone without them present.”

This has the benefit of being more or less the truth, but Detective Lehmann frowns anyway. “That sounds kinda strange, doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t they want her talking to the police?”

“Peter Covington is a lawyer.”

He nods slowly. All cops understand interfering lawyers. “Did you know the victim, too?”

“Fox? Sort of. We’re in the same grade, and he’s popular.”

“But you weren’t friends?”

“No.” I regret my tone the second the word leaves my mouth.

Detective Lehmann arches a brow. “You didn’t like him.”

Caught, I mumble, “We just … weren’t friends.”

“Why not?”

Now that is a loaded question. “Because I’m not popular. Because he didn’t have any use for me. The only thing we had in common was our zip code.”

“Did he pick on you?”

“He picked on everybody,” I answer flatly, and watch the man chew on this for a moment, exploring it for alternate routes.

“So you’re not going to miss him.”

My body won’t let me answer. I know how stupid it would be to lie—there’ll be no minimizing it if he checks up on my story and finds out how much bad blood there really is between me and Fox’s crew—but the truth feels too damning to admit, so I stare back at the detective dumbly until he speaks again.

“What time did you get to the lake house?” He poses the question in an off-handed way, but it’s information I’ve already supplied, and I feel heat prickle under my arms. Maybe I should have lied after all—said anything to keep him from tugging at the threads of our story. I need him to dismiss me as a potential suspect and move on.

For a split second, I consider bringing up Hayden, putting them onto his scent; April is unlikely to mention him, having made no connection between his visit to the cottage and the events that transpired after she blacked out, so it might be down to me to make sure the cops consider him. But I have to let the notion go almost as soon as it pops into my head. How can I implicate my brother without compromising myself and April and Sebastian in the process? I don’t even have a clear sense of motive yet.

Steadily, I meet Detective Lehmann’s eyes. “We were already on our way out there when April called to tell me what happened, so I guess like maybe ten minutes after that?”

Lehmann nods thoughtfully. Then: “I’ve got to tell you, Rufus, something about this isn’t adding up.”

I go completely still. “Huh?”

“Earlier, you said that April called her parents first thing; so, if she knew they were already handling the situation, I guess I don’t understand why she felt she needed to call you, too.” It isn’t a question, and I have no answer for it anyway, so I let him go on. “Why did she? If you and Fox weren’t even friends, I mean?”

It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to look up or away while I scramble to think—telltale signs of bullshitting that he’s no doubt been trained to look for. “She’d been drinking,” I begin experimentally, my mouth so dry it clicks, “and she was freaking out. Some of her friends … well, okay, look—they were doing … some stuff at that party that was worse than just drinking, you know? And April was afraid of what would happen if her parents saw all of … you know, that stuff. So she called me. She was supposed to call me anyway, and she was really … I mean, she was freaking out! I guess she was hoping I could pick her up so her parents wouldn’t have to know.”

My pulse is beating so hard I’m afraid it’s going to leave bruises, but Lehmann merely nods. “More serious than drinking, huh? What are we talking, here? Drugs?”

“I guess.” I shift in my seat. “I’d rather not get into it, though. I wasn’t at the party, so I don’t know for sure what went on. You’d have to ask April.”

“Was she using, too?”

My mind goes suddenly, terrifyingly blank. I hadn’t intended to open the door to this question—had only done so out of desperation—and I truly don’t know how to answer. April had sworn to me, convincingly, that she’d only had alcohol at the party … but I still can’t bring myself to accept it. My uncle Connor had stayed with us for a few weeks while recovering from knee surgery the previous year, and so I know the difference between “drunk” and “fucked up on meds.” I would bet every cent of the two thousand dollars in my pocket right now that April had been the latter when Sebastian and I found her at the cottage.