Neverworld Wake(35)
“Are you okay?” I shouted.
“Go,” she gasped, waving me on.
I kept running. As I swerved around the front of the aquatic center, a hulking glass-and-slate building, I saw that one of the glass doors had been smashed with a brick. I opened the door and scrambled inside, disembodied shouts and footsteps echoing through the darkness in front of me. I hurried through the dark lobby, past the many display cases of trophies and first-place ribbons, black-and-white photographs of the swim team. I sprinted down the checkered corridor, my muddy sneakers slipping and sliding on the linoleum, and thrust open the double doors to the Olympic-sized pool.
Kipling and Cannon were inside. Whitley had dived into the water, and they were tracking her dark figure along the edge as she glided into the deep end.
After a minute, she surfaced, panting.
“What are you doing?” said Cannon. “We just want to talk to you.”
“You can’t outrun us, child,” said Kipling.
Glaring at them, she only sank back underwater.
“She’s going for the door again,” said Cannon, running toward me. Sure enough, Whitley leapt up the ladder, shoving me aside so hard I tripped against a chair as she heaved the doors open, only to come face to face with Martha, who was covered head to toe in mud. Startled, Wit tried pushing past, but Martha was gripping one of the swimming trophies from the cases. She wheeled back and hit Whitley in the side of the head with it. Yowling in pain, Whitley fell to the ground.
“Behold the White Rabbit,” said Martha, panting.
She slammed the doors and wedged the trophy between the handles to lock them.
“So it was you!” shouted Cannon, staring down at Whitley. “All along. How could you never say anything? How could you deceive me, day after day after— Unbelievable.”
“I didn’t mean to do it more than a few times,” she muttered. She rolled upright, rubbing the side of her head. “My number started getting passed around, and the myth of the White Rabbit was born. It was impossible to stop.”
“How could you?” I whispered in a low voice.
Whitley glared at me. “Yes, Bee, we all know that you’d never do something like that in a million years. That you’re the good one. With a moral compass perfectly set toward sainthood. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.” She sniffed, staring gloomily at the ground.
We said nothing, reflections of the blued water of the pool trembling across our faces.
I couldn’t believe how she’d lied. For years. I’d never suspected her. Neither had Cannon, given the enraged look on his face.
Yet it made a sort of twisted sense, considering that Whitley’s mother, the Linda, ruled a pharmaceutical empire. It wasn’t rare to hear Whitley talk about her mother’s business acumen with awe—how she, armed with her mink coat, high school dropout’s education, and Missouri-farm-girl common sense, could command New York City boardrooms and shareholder meetings, put macho bankers in their place with one of her perfectly timed ten-cent-gumball put-downs. If stupid could fly, you’d be an Airbus A Three-Fifty. The truth was—and it used to make me cry thinking about it, though I was always careful never to say anything to Wit—the Linda didn’t love her daughter, not the way Whitley needed. Ever since Wit was a baby, she’d been shuffled between nannies and nurses and au pairs, summer camps and boarding schools and educational groups, like some lost suitcase. I somehow understood. Whitley had become the White Rabbit to prove to herself, or maybe even to her mother, that she was worthy.
I hadn’t forgotten Vida’s comment that unmasking the White Rabbit had possibly played a role in Jim’s death. I said this person had something to do with Jim’s murder. Knowing their secret was about to come out? They had to get rid of him. The comment nagged at me, glimmering with the unmistakable sheen of truth, though I didn’t want to admit it.
“How did Jim find out about you?” I asked her.
Wit glanced up at me, sullen. “He caught me.”
“When?”
“A week before finals. I always snuck out at three in the morning to do a drop. He was coming back from Vulcan Quarry and saw me entering the observatory. He followed me into one of the domes, watched what I was doing. And he went nuts on me. Made it into a bigger deal than it was. I mean, we were about to graduate. The White Rabbit was done. Jim started screaming about civic responsibility. Doing the right thing. He insisted that I confess to the administration.”
“So you decided to frame him,” said Martha. “You put your drugs in his guitar so he’d take the fall for you.”
“No.” Whitley adamantly shook her head. “That was an accident. I always kept my supply buried behind the old maintenance shed at the edge of Drury Field. You know that place everyone says is haunted? Well, it’s not. It’s just cruddy, with a lot of old athletic signs and banners. One day, I saw this general contractor inspecting it. I found out they were going to demolish the thing and build a greenhouse. That night at supper I excused myself and dug up my stash. I meant to keep it in my room, only they were painting the hallways that night. The place was crawling with maintenance. I was desperate. This huge stash in my bag? If I was stopped…” She shuddered. “I ducked next door into Packer, to Jim’s room. I knew he kept his key under the carpet. I shoved the stash in his guitar. I meant to go back and move it the next day. Obviously. But that was when they announced Jim was missing. By the time I had a chance to go back, the cops had already searched his room and found everything.”