“Does it matter?” I snapped. “Two people are dead! And someone’s making it look like I killed them. It’s only a matter of time before—”
“Three,” he whispered.
Everything stilled.
“Three people are dead.” He looked in my eyes, worry lines digging deep. “Posie. She’s gone, Leigh.”
“No!” I shouted. “That’s impossible! I saw her yesterday. She was fine. Her chart said she was—” My mouth hung open, breath held. The words were out, and I couldn’t take them back. But it didn’t matter. My name was on the visitor’s log at the hospital anyway. The police would know I’d been there. “How?”
“Poisoned. Through her IV bag.”
“When?” I already knew the answer. Posie had been murdered right after Mary Jones left her room. Right after I fled down the stairwell, and a nurse had come to change her bag.
“It was a slow-working toxin.” Reece reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded paper. He held it between his thumb and forefinger, hesitating before he gave it to me. “She was pronounced dead this morning.”
I peeled open a long list of handwritten names. On it were Mary Jones and Nearly Boswell. It was the visitor’s log from the hospital. My stomach rolled. I stared at the flashing runway lights, half listening for sirens in the distance. “How much time do I have?”
Reece’s cell phone rang in his pocket.
“I never gave that to you. It doesn’t exist.” He walked away, putting a few feet between us before taking the call.
“What?” he snapped into his phone.
Pause.
“None of your business . . . No, she wasn’t there either . . . I know because she was with me all day, same as yesterday. So we ditched class? Big freaking deal . . . They told me to get close. I’m just holding up my end of the bargain . . . I already told you, I’m not in the city . . .” A jet blared overhead, swooping in low with its landing gear down. Reece plugged the microphone with his thumb and swore, waiting until the plane touched down to release it. “. . . No, I’m not at the airport . . . No, I’m not leaving the state . . . I’m hanging up unless you have something to say . . .” Reece listened, his eyes flicking to mine. His voice lowered. “. . . The planetarium? Seriously? Was the kid okay?” He massaged one temple while he listened, presumably to the details of the crime scene we’d just fled. “Yeah, about that, Lonny called. It goes down next Friday . . .” Reece turned his back, pitching his voice low. “. . . A warehouse downtown . . . I need you to hold up your end of the deal. . . . Friday night. You promised . . .”
Pause.
Reece’s head snapped up, eyes fanning over the parking lot as an older model Mercedes with diplomatic tags—Oleksa’s Mercedes—eased out of the lot. We were being watched, and not just by the cops. How could Oleksa have known where we were?
“I can’t talk now. I’ll call you later.” Reece pocketed his phone and exhaled a string of curses. He dropped down beside me and stared out at the water. “We can’t stay. They know where we are.”
I folded the paper, a critical piece of evidence I wasn’t supposed to have. “How did you get this?”
He hesitated before answering. “Today wasn’t the first time I broke into your locker,” he confessed, glancing at me sideways as if gauging my reaction. I remembered our conversation back at the diner the first time I’d tutored him. How he’d pulled the crumpled first chapter of his textbook from his pocket and made up some story about finding it on the floor.
“Why?”
He jerked his hand through his hair. It stuck up around his head in a prickly halo. “The cops told me to keep an eye on you. Get information. They didn’t tell me how. After Romero kicked me out of his office, I came back to find you. I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me, and apologize for . . . you know . . . what happened.” He squeezed his eyes shut as if blocking out the memory. “But you weren’t there, so I broke into your locker. I was only going to leave you a note about meeting up to talk, but I found the message. The one with Posie’s room number on it. By the time I got to the hospital to find you, I was too late.”
“So you stole the visitor’s log?” I waved the folded paper in his face. “Lying to the cops, tampering with evidence? This is obstruction of justice, Reece! You’ll go back to jail—”
“I wouldn’t have to break any laws if you’d just stop running from me and be where you’re supposed to be for once!” “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
His face wrinkled with disgust. “You’re really not getting this, are you? You were supposed to be with me after school today. I was supposed to be your alibi!”
“My alibi?” I asked, only now remembering the note he’d left in my locker yesterday. Meet me tomorrow after school.
Reece’s head dropped into his hands, muffling his frustration. “Did anyone see you between the time school let out and the time Teddy went missing?”
“What are you saying?”
Reece raised his head. “I’m saying you’re the number one suspect in the case of three”—he lifted three fingers—“count them—THREE homicides! All the evidence points back to you, Leigh! And today, when you should have been teaching me chemistry in a packed restaurant full of witnesses who could place you there at the time of Teddy’s death, you traipse right into the damn crime scene! It’s like you’re walking into an ambush and I keep trying to keep you clear of the fire, but you just won’t listen! You were supposed to be with me!”
I hugged my knees. “I didn’t do any of this. None of this is my fault,” I whispered.
“Look,” he said through a long exhale. “The police think you’re involved. They just can’t prove anything. They’re looking for any connections. Motives. Accomplices. Even if you didn’t do it, they think you know who did. They’re watching you, waiting. They figure you’ll either do something stupid and incriminate yourself or lead them to the person behind this.”
He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. “Leigh, I know you didn’t kill anyone, and I know a set-up when I see it. You need to start thinking like the cops. It all boils down to motive. Think of everyone you know. Look for connections to the ads or the victims. Who has a reason to kill people you care about? To put you behind bars? Who would want to ruin your life, Leigh?”
I put my head in my hands. “I’ve never hurt anyone. I’ve never done anything wrong. My life isn’t all that great to begin with. It’s not like someone would have to work all that hard to ruin it.”
“They’re working hard because it’s personal, or they wouldn’t be risking so much. There’s got to be someone who wants to hurt you. Keep thinking. I’m just buying time— picking breadcrumbs off the trail until we can figure this out.”
He was covering for me. Which meant he believed me. And if he believed me, he could make the police believe me too. “Why not just give Nicholson the note the killer left in my locker? Tell him I’m being framed. I can’t do it, but he’ll believe you if you tell him you found it in my locker.”