Black Heart Page 19

Page 19

 

  “I’m sorry, sir. I wasn’t feeling well, sir. ”

  “Oh, is that right? And do you have a note from the nurse’s office?”

  “I just went back to sleep. Then, when I was feeling better, I went to class. ”

  “So, no note?” he asks, raising both silver brows.

  Okay, so say Mina’s a luck worker. Say he has a gambling problem. Maybe he’s coming up on retirement and realizes—for whatever reason—that he doesn’t have enough socked away. I figure he’s a guy who, at least mostly, stuck to the straight and narrow. But honest people get screwed too. The bottom falls out of the market. A family member gets sick and insurance doesn’t even begin to cover it. For whatever reason, maybe he veers off the path.

  My eye is drawn to the single yellow pill on the carpet.

  Hiring a luck worker is pretty easy. He wouldn’t need to target a student, although I guess maybe, being so straightlaced, he didn’t know where else to go. But using luck work to win at gambling is a pretty uncertain proposition. Although sometimes people can get around it, most racetracks and casinos have ways to control for luck work.

  Of course, he might need luck for some other reason. Maybe Northcutt is leaving and he wants to be the new headmaster.

  “No note,” I say.

  “You’re going to serve a Saturday detention with me, right here in this office, Cassel. I want you here at ten in the morning. No excuses. Or you’re going to get that third demerit you’re flirting with. ”

  I nod. “Yes, sir. ”

  The pill under his desk might be nothing. It could be aspirin or allergy medicine. But I don’t have many clues, and I want this one. I should drop something, but all the little stuff that it would make sense to be holding is in my bag. I don’t have keys or a pen or anything.

  “You can go,” he tells me, handing over a hall pass without really looking. I think about dropping that, but I imagine it fluttering to the floor far from where I need it to be. It’s impossible to aim paper.

  I stand and take a few steps toward the door before I have an idea. It’s not a very good one. “Uh, excuse me, Dean Wharton?”

  He glances up, brows knitted.

  “Sorry. I dropped my pen. ” I walk over to his desk and bend down, grabbing for the pill. He pushes back his chair so he can look, but I’m up again fast.

  “Thanks,” I say, walking to the door before he can think too much about it.

  As I start down the stairs, I look at the pill in my hand. There are ways to search online to find out about medication. You can put in details—like the color and shape and markings—and get a whole gallery of pills to compare against. I don’t have to do any of that, because this pill has ARICEPT stamped into the top and 10 on the other side.

  I know what it is; I’ve seen the commercials on late-night television.

  It’s medication to control Alzheimer’s.

  Daneca is waiting for me outside the cafeteria at lunch. She’s sitting on one of the benches, her mass of brown and purple hair hanging in her face. She waves me over and shifts aside her hemp book bag so that I can sit down.

  I lean back and stretch my legs. It’s cold and a storm is rolling in, but there’s still enough sun that it’s nice to sit in a patch of it. “Hey,” I say.

  She shifts, and I can see what her hair hid before—red eyes and puffy skin around them. Streaks of salt on her cheeks marking the map of tears.

  “Lila called you, huh?” I don’t mean to sound callous, but the words come out that way.

  She wipes her eyes and nods.

  “I’m sorry. ” I reach into my pocket, hoping I have a tissue. “Honest. ”

  She snorts and touches her cell phone where it’s resting in the lap of her pleated Wallingford skirt. “I broke things off with Barron about ten minutes ago. I hope you’re happy. ”

  “I am,” I say. “Barron is a sleaze bag. He’s my brother—I should know. Sam is a much better guy. ”

  “I know that. I always knew that. ” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at you for being right, and I shouldn’t be. It’s not fair. ”

  “Barron’s a sociopath. They’re very convincing. Especially if you’re one of those girls who thinks she can fix a boy. ”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I guess I was. I wanted to believe him. ”

  “You’ve got a real taste for darkness,” I say.

  She looks away from me, out at the overcast sky, the formless shifting mass of clouds. “I wanted to think there was a part of him that only I could see. A secret part that wanted kindness and love but didn’t know how to ask for it. I’m stupid, right?”

  “Oh, yeah. The taste for darkness, but not the stomach for it. ”

  She flinches. “I guess I deserve that. I’m sorry I believed what he said about you, Cassel. I know you haven’t told me everything, but—”

  “No. ” I sigh. “I’m being a jerk. I’m mad because I wanted you to be the person that I could count on to always know right from wrong. That’s not fair to expect from anyone. And I guess . . . I thought that we were better friends, despite all our sniping at each other. ”

  “Friends screw up sometimes,” she says.

  “Maybe it’d help if I put my cards on the table. Tell me what Barron said, and I’ll tell you the honest truth. This is a onetime offer. ”

  “Because tomorrow you’ll go back to lying?” she asks.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do tomorrow. That’s the problem. ” Which is one of the truest things I have ever said.

  “You never told me what kind of worker you are, but Lila and Barron both did. I don’t blame you for not telling me. That’s a pretty big secret. And you really just found out last spring?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I didn’t think that I was a worker at all. When I was a kid, I used to pretend I was a transformation worker. I imagined that I could do anything, if I was one. That turns out to be almost true. ”

  She nods, considering. “Barron said you told the federal agents . . . what you are, in exchange for immunity for all past crimes. ”

  “I did,” I say.

  “Immunity for murdering Philip, for instance. ”

  “That’s what Barron thinks?” I shake my head and laugh without actually being amused. “That I killed Philip?”

  She nods, braced. I’m not sure whether she’s braced for me to tell her what an idiot she is or because she thinks I’m about to confess to the whole thing. “He says the guy they’re blaming for Philip’s murder was dead way before Philip was. ”

  “That part’s true,” I say.

  She swallows.

  “Oh, come on. I didn’t kill Philip! I know who did, that’s all. And, no, I’m not going to tell you, even if you ask, because it’s got nothing to do with either one of us. Let’s just say that the dead guy could afford to carry a murder charge in addition to his many other crimes. He was no angel. ”

  “Barron said that you killed him—and that you kept him in the freezer of your house. That you were some kind of assassin. That you’re the one who killed the people in those files you showed me after Philip’s funeral. ”

  “I’m no angel either,” I say.

  She hesitates. There’s fear in her eyes, but at least she’s not leaving. “Lila explained. She said that they—that Barron—messed with your memories. You didn’t know what you’d done. You didn’t know what you were or what happened to her. ”

  Selfishly I wonder if Lila said anything else. I have no idea how I could persuade Daneca to tell me.

  “He really kept her in a cage?” Daneca asks in a small voice.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Memory work—it erases part of who you are. If we’re who we remember ourselves to be, then what’s it like to have huge chunks of your identity missing? How you met the girl sitting next to you. What you had for dinner the night before. A family vacation. The law book you studied all last week. Barron�
��s replaced all that with whatever he makes up in the moment. I have no idea if he really remembered who Lila was or even that he had a cat in the first place. ”

  She nods slowly and pushes back a mass of curls. “I told him that it was contemptible, what he did. I told him that I would never forgive him for lying to me. And I told him he was an ass. ”

  “That sounds like quite a lecture,” I say, laughing. “I hope he was properly chastened. ”

  “Don’t make fun of me. ” She stands up, grabbing her bag. “He really sounded sad, Cassel. ”

  I bite back everything I want to say to her. How he’s an excellent liar. How he’s the prince of liars. How Lucifer Morningstar himself could learn a thing or two from the conviction with which Barron lies.

  “Lunch is almost over,” I say instead. “Let’s grab a sandwich while we can. ”

  Afternoon classes slide by in a flurry of diligent note-taking and quizzes. A cup I made in ceramics comes out of the kiln in one piece, and I spend the better part of forty minutes painting it a muddy red, with the words RISE AND WHINE across it in big black letters.

  Dr. Stewart is in his office when I swing by before track. He frowns at the sight of me.

  “You’re not in any of my classes this semester, Mr. Sharpe. ” His tone makes it clear that he considers that to be better for both of us. He adjusts his thick black-framed glasses. “Surely you aren’t here trying to beg me to change a past grade? I maintain that anyone who misses as much school as you have shouldn’t even be—”

  “Mina Lange asked me to come by and drop something off for her,” I say, pulling a paper bag out of my backpack.

  It’s not that I believe that Dr. Stewart has anything to do with blackmail or Wharton or Mina. It’s that I want to be as sure as possible.

  He crosses his arms. I can tell he’s annoyed that I interrupted him before he could tell me once again how students suspended for almost falling off a roof should have to go to summer school, at the very least. “Mina Lange is not in any of my classes either, Mr. Sharpe. ”

  “So this isn’t for you?”

  “Well, what is it?” he asks. “I can’t imagine what she would be handing in to me. ”

  “You want me to look?” I try to seem as unaware as possible. Just the stupid messenger.

  He throws up both gloved hands in obvious disgust. “Yes, please do, and stop wasting my time. ”

  I make a show of opening up the bag. “Looks like a research paper and a book. Oh, and it’s for Mr. Knight. Sorry, Dr. Stewart. I really thought she said your name. ”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure she’s glad she trusted you to courier it over. ”

  “She’s not feeling well. That’s why she couldn’t bring it herself. ”

  He sighs as though wondering why he is constantly being punished by the presence of inferior intellects. “Good-bye, Mr. Sharpe. ”

  He might not be a nice guy, but Stewart’s never blackmailed anyone in his life.

  I love running. I love the way that, even in a marathon, I only have to worry about my feet hitting the pavement and my muscles burning. No guilt and no fear. It’s just me hurtling forward, as fast as I can, with no one to stop me. I love the cold wind against my back and the sweat heating my face.

  Some days my mind is blank when I run. Other days I can’t stop thinking, turning everything over and over again in my head.

  Today I come to a couple of different conclusions.

  One: No one is blackmailing Mina Lange.

  Two: Mina Lange is a physical worker, fixing Wharton’s Alzheimer’s.

  Three: Since Alzheimer’s can never be cured, she can never stop working him, which means she just gets sicker and sicker, while he stays the same.

  Four: Despite all her lies, Mina is probably actually in trouble.

  Sam looks up from his bed when I walk into our dorm room. I’ve got a wrapped towel around my waist and am fresh from the shower.

  He’s got a bunch of brochures scattered beside him, colleges his parents want him to consider. None of them have a department that teaches visual effects. None of them will let him make his own rubber masks. All of them are Ivy League. Brown. Yale. Dartmouth. Harvard.

  “Hey,” he says. “Look, I was talking to Mina over lunch yesterday. She said she was sorry. She basically admitted what you said. That she wanted us to blackmail Wharton for her. ”

  “Yeah?” I start rooting around for sweatpants, and put them on when I finally locate them under a pile of other clothes at the bottom of my closet. “Did she say why she needed the money?”

  “Said she wanted to leave town. I didn’t really understand it, but it seems like someone’s brokering the deal between Wharton and her. That person won’t let her leave, so she’s got to run. Do you think it’s her parents?”

  “No,” I say, thinking of Gage and myself and Lila and of what Mrs. Wasserman said when I was sitting in her kitchen. Lots of kids are kicked out onto the streets, taken in by crime families and then sold off to the rich. “Probably not her parents. ”

  “Don’t you think we can help her?” he asks.

  “There’s too much that’s fishy about this situation, Sam. If she needs the money, then she should blackmail Wharton for it herself. ”

  “But she can’t. She’s afraid of him. ”

  I sigh. “Sam—”

  “You nearly yanked her wig off in public. Don’t you think you should make it up to her? Besides, I told her that the investigative firm of Sharpe & Yu was still on the case. ” He grins, and I’m glad to see him distracted. I wonder again if he likes Mina. I really, really hope not.