White Rabbit(88)
“No.” I force myself to think it through, to focus and clear my mind—take a breath and step back. “Peyton snapped, just like she said, but she went back to the cottage to get her revenge—not the Whitneys’ house. She knew April was out cold, because Lia told her about the cough syrup, remember? Race didn’t hear that part. Peyton was the only one who knew there’d be no witnesses—and that there’d be somebody to frame.” The air feels swollen around us, pressing in close. “Race was the one who spray-painted the Whitneys’ door, and he must have told Peyton. Maybe he demanded that she cover for him. Maybe he said she owed him an alibi to make up for cheating with Fox.”
Peyton nods slowly, mechanically. “He was really scared. He drove away as soon as the garage caught fire, because he was sure that it was going to spread to the rest of the neighborhood. He was still panicking when I ran into him at Silverman’s—it’s the only reason he told me as much as he did.” Her tone is affectless, devoid of feeling, and it makes my stomach roll. “When he said I had to lie for him, I honestly thought the universe was sending me a sign that I’d done the right thing by getting rid of Fox. I mean, I was freaking out about it, and then an alibi just … dropped right into my lap.”
“You’re not making sense!” Sebastian blurts. “The door said ‘rapist.’ We saw it! Why would Race write that if he didn’t know Fox was blackmailing you to … to do things for him?”
Peyton releases a brittle laugh that sounds like someone prying open a sarcophagus, and which is approximately six thousand times scarier than when she was showing no emotion at all. “Do you have any idea how many girls Fox Whitney has gotten drunk or stoned and then taken advantage of? He was a disgusting asshole. Race knew even more than I did the kind of shit Fox got up to. Maybe if he’d told me some of it, I wouldn’t have fallen for Fox’s crap.”
She aims a resentful look at Race’s motionless body, still folded awkwardly into the limited space of his trunk, and I begin to sweat as I wonder what Peyton intends to do next. Between the two of us, Sebastian and I can certainly overpower her … but if she does have a knife, then the cost of trying might end up being higher than we can afford to pay.
Clearing my throat, I venture, “You killed Arlo because he tried to blackmail you, and you killed Race because … what? He figured out why you were so eager to lie for him? Where do you think this is gonna end, Peyton? Are you planning to bump off everyone else who was at the party and just hope the cops think that April was teleporting back and forth across the city all night on a murder spree?”
“Race isn’t dead,” she counters pedantically. “Yet.” She spares her boyfriend another look, and I can swear that this time I almost see regret form and disperse in her eyes, a storm that won’t quite break. “It didn’t have to be this way. Nobody else needed to die tonight, besides Fox. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“But Arlo forced your hand,” I prompt, eager to keep her talking. We could run. Peyton does track, and I know she’s fast, but she couldn’t chase us both if we went in different directions, right? “He saw what happened up at the lake house, didn’t he?”
“He saw me dragging April into the kitchen. He thought she and Fox were both dead.” She rolls her shoulders, the joints popping loudly. “I don’t think he gave an actual shit about either of them, but he was terrified of Lyle Shetland, and he figured I could pay him enough that he’d be able to blow town for good, if he had to. He wanted ten grand. In cash.” Peyton smiles then, her teeth sharp as a picket fence. “I showed up at his house dragging a duffel bag filled with magazines and shit, and the dumbass actually believed it was the money. Like, how the fuck did he think I got my hands on ten thousand dollars in the middle of the night?”
“And he let you get close enough to cut his throat.”
“He told me to back up while he opened the bag, but I rushed him when he bent down to unzip it, and I stun-gunned him. Cutting his throat was the easy part.”
“But there was still Lia—and Race,” I supply, my mouth feeling dry. The problem with running in different directions is that whomever she did decide to chase could easily die before the other managed to get help—and the nearest point of actual safety is the Jeep. There’d be no hope of losing her on a half-mile sprint, and stopping to unlock the car door would be an invitation for her to start with the stabbing. Splitting up is just as risky as trying to jump her.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Peyton declares firmly. “Race, that stupid douche—he changed his mind! After I dealt with Arlo, I went back to Race’s house so we could work out our story, but by that point he’d seen the news about the fire, and he was losing it. I mean, he had a total meltdown—crying, laughing, the whole bit—and he started saying he had to turn himself in. I tried to talk him down, but he wouldn’t listen. He figured Fox would know he’d done it, and he’d be busted anyway, so he might as well just confess.” She heaves a weary breath. “So I told him why he couldn’t do that. Why I needed him to stick to the fucking story we’d already told you guys.”
“He didn’t take it well?”
“He did not.” A faint, creepy smile slithers across her lips. “I had to use the stun gun again, just to keep him from calling the police, and then…” She shrugs listlessly. “Then it was too late to take chances. I can’t let him tell the cops about me, so … he has to die, too.”