White Rabbit(84)

26

The fog seems to constrict, drawing in closer, and the three of us just stand there like a taxidermy display. I’ve been an idiot. “You … You’re the one who torched the Whitneys’ house?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Peyton sobs helplessly. “I was so upset I couldn’t think straight! All I wanted to do was teach him a lesson. It was … Thanks to him, everybody knew my secret, and I wanted to make sure everybody knew his secrets, too! His parents just ignore all the shit he gets up to, and I wanted to do something they couldn’t pretend not to notice anymore; I wanted to make sure that Fox would finally be held accountable for all the things he’s done!”

“So you burned down his house?” Sebastian stares at her, aghast.

“It was an accident!” she screeches. “I just … I busted a few windows and spray-painted some stuff on his door. That’s all I meant to do. That was the plan. I mean, I didn’t even have a plan, but that’s all I was thinking.”

“‘Liar, cocksucker, drug dealer, rapist,’” I recite.

Peyton gives me a startled look, but then she nods slowly. “Yeah. I wanted it all big as life, so his parents couldn’t avoid it, so they’d have to ask Fox to explain himself.” Swallowing hard, she continues in a tremulous voice, “But then I started thinking, you know, what if he had the door painted over before they got back from New York? He had enough money that he could easily find some guys willing to do a last-minute job, even on a holiday. And then I thought, maybe I could write it on the lawn—like, burn it into the grass? Then there’d be no way he could hide it.

“So that’s what I did. I spelled stuff in the grass with a gas can I keep in my trunk and I lit it up, and then I just—I don’t know!” She tosses her hands out. “I must’ve, like, the gasoline must’ve dripped or something, because the fire just went everywhere, and I’d left the can in the driveway, and it fucking exploded! The garage went up just like that, and it was, I mean, the whole thing was burning, just like that!

“So I took off. I was so freaked out that all I could think to do was pretend it had never happened. I changed my clothes, I washed every part of me that smelled like gas, and I went straight to the diner, thinking … I don’t even know. That if I could act normal enough, nobody would think I could be behind what happened to Fox’s house.”

“And then Race showed up.”

“I wouldn’t let him get away that time. I chased him to the sidewalk, and I begged him to hear me out; he didn’t want to, but this time I followed him all the way home, and I made him listen to me. I told him the whole story—even what I’d done to the Whitneys’ house. He was so pissed, he’d barely even look at me. He just sat there.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I needed him to know how sorry I was. How much I’d already paid for trusting Fox.” The sound of the train dies away in the distance, the rhythmic clacking dissipating into nothingness. “I was so sure he was going to turn me in, but then you guys showed up, and he told you we’d both gone straight back to his place after the party. I couldn’t believe it.”

“You didn’t arrange that in advance?”

“No! I was shocked when he said it. I thought … When he lied, I thought it meant he’d forgiven me. I thought, at the very least, it meant he still wanted to protect me, and that maybe we still had a chance.” She rakes her fingers through her hair, blond curls writhing like snakes. “But you guys kept asking questions I was really afraid to answer, so I left; and I kept texting Race, trying to thank him—trying to see if he still wanted to be together—but he never wrote me back. Not once. Not until a little while ago.”

I take another step forward, my scalp and the backs of my ears prickling. “Peyton … did Race kill Fox?”

“He must have,” she whimpers back. “It had to have … He lied for me, because I was his alibi. Because he knew I’d back him up. It’s the only thing I can figure now.” She shakes her head tearfully. “I had no idea. I didn’t even know Fox was dead, I … I only put it together later. He lied because covering for me meant I’d be covering for him.”

I look over at Sebastian, who meets my gaze, grim-faced and ill at ease. Peyton said she never caught up to Race on the drive back to Burlington; what if that was because the guy had pulled into a driveway and killed his engine after Arlo’s bike passed, and then waited for Peyton to go by before doubling back?

How he might’ve managed it is pretty much irrelevant, though; with everyone else’s moves accounted for, there’s no one left but Race. He must be guilty. Glancing around us, I become aware of how much time passed while Peyton was recounting her story, dawn spreading over Fernwood Park in inexorable degrees. The sun must be above the horizon by now, but the oceanic fog surrounding us is still an endless bruise, only gradually relinquishing the pale purples and blues of early morning. The prickling in my scalp takes on a new intensity. Race is at least fifteen or twenty minutes late now. Where the hell is he?

“Peyton,” Sebastian says, nerves rubbing his voice raw, “you need to tell all this to the police.”

“Are you nuts?” Whatever hypnotic state she was in that had compelled her to bare her soul, she just snapped out of it. “I’m not turning myself in for fucking arson—it was an accident!”