“Of course they do,” he finally said. But his voice was wobbly.
“Mia does. Maybe your mother, although I doubt it,” I said. “But Lex and Patrick? Come on.”
Nicholas shook his head. “No way. Why would they pretend?”
“You’re one of the smartest people I know, Nicholas,” I said. “You must have figured it out. Subconsciously at least.”
“Shut up!” he said.
“They’re pretending because I’m a convenient cover.”
“Shut up!”
“Because no one will investigate Danny’s death while I’m here.”
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Nicholas collapsed back onto the grass.
? ? ?
We sat there under one of the crepe myrtles that lined the driveway for a long time, the crushed petals beneath us surrounding us with a sickly sweet, decomposing perfume. I tried to speak a couple of times, but Nicholas cut me off, told me to be quiet, he was thinking. So we sat there silently.
I thought about a lot of things. What I would say if Lex came back with dinner and found us here, both bruised and bleeding. How I might get away if Nicholas were to pull out his cell phone and call the cops right now. Ren’s smile and the warmth of her breath against me.
“How do you know Lex and Patrick know?” Nicholas finally asked. He sounded exhausted. Broken.
“I overheard them talking about it,” I said. “Besides, you always knew I wasn’t Danny deep down. Don’t you think they would have too?”
“Yes,” he whispered, plucking at the grass.
“Who made you believe you were wrong?”
“Lex and Patrick,” he said, even quieter. “I kept going back and forth, but they’d always tell me it was really you and that I just couldn’t let myself believe it. I wanted to believe it, but underneath I knew.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His head snapped up. “You don’t get to say that to me, not after what you’ve done. Don’t mistake the fact that I haven’t killed you or called the cops yet for forgiveness. You’ll never get that from me.”
“Yeah,” I said quickly. “Okay.”
He pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. “God. Danny . . .” He was quiet for a long moment, and then he said, “It was one of them, wasn’t it?”
“What?” I asked. I wanted to make absolutely sure I understood what he was asking before I answered.
“One of them . . . ,” he said. “They’re responsible for what happened to him, aren’t they? That’s why they’re using you to make everyone think he’s still alive. It’s the only reason they would have brought you here.”
Nicholas really was the smart one.
“I think so,” I said.
“So why the hell are you still here?” he asked. “Your cover is blown, or never existed in the first place. For all you know, they could be setting you up to take the fall.”
I blinked. “What?”
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” he said. “You’re the outsider. The transient with—I’m just guessing here—the criminal record. I think you’re at least eighteen or nineteen, but here you are, posing as a kid, infiltrating this rich family. Maybe Danny ran away, or maybe he was kidnapped and escaped the way you said. You two became friends in some homeless shelter until you found out what kind of life he’d come from. Then you killed him so you could take his place.”
“That’s not what happened,” I said.
“I bet a jury down here wouldn’t find it so unbelievable,” he said. “Especially not when Lex or Patrick plants something of Danny’s on you. You’re the cover and the patsy, if they ever need one.”
Fuck. He was right, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. It was ludicrous, of course, but a jury would pick a grieving, upstanding family of their own kind over a nothing scam artist like me any day.
“So why are you still here?” he asked. “What are you doing with all that research on us?”
“I’m trying to figure out what really happened to Danny,” I said.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “What’s your real plan? Blackmail?”
“No,” I said. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but it’s true. I just want to find out who hurt Danny.”
He looked at me for a long minute, not believing me. Which was fair, since I wasn’t sure I believed myself either. He turned his head away as he engaged in some kind of internal battle, and I saw the moment he made his decision in the straightening of his shoulders.
“Good,” he said, “because that’s your only chance to prove it wasn’t you.” He stood up and looked down at me, looming over me. “You’re a psychotic, cruel, pathetic excuse for a human being, and there’s only one thing you can do that will stop me from making sure you rot in prison for impersonating my brother.”
“What?” I asked.
“Help me find out who killed him.”
Then he walked back to the house.
? ? ?
The next morning I dragged myself from bed to the bathroom and found an impressive black eye staring back at me. Nicholas might have damn near broken his hand, but he had a decent left hook. I couldn’t go downstairs looking like this.
I crept to Lex’s room. Most mornings she was already making breakfast by the time I woke up, but I knocked softly on the door just in case. There was no response, so I ducked inside. As I’d hoped, the counter in her bathroom was littered with cosmetics. I riffled through them carefully, looking for what I needed without disturbing too much. Behind a bottle of men’s cologne I found a goldish cream eye shadow, and there was a liquid concealer by the hot tap. I stuck them into my pocket and returned to my room. Lex had so many bottles and concoctions that I doubted she would notice, at least until I could come home from school that afternoon with some story about getting hit by a ball in gym class.
When I was presentable, I went downstairs and found Nicholas already eating scrambled eggs, a Band-Aid across his jaw. I guess I scratched him when we were fighting.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Cut myself shaving,” he said.
“You want some eggs, Danny?” Lex asked from the stove. From the corner of my eye I saw Nicholas wince.
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
“We’ve got to leave for school, actually,” Nicholas said. “He’s doing a tutorial with Mr. Vaughn, and I have a lab to finish up.”
“Oh,” Lex said, looking down at her skillet full of eggs. “Okay.”
Once we were in the car, I asked Nicholas what was going on. I didn’t have a tutorial with Vaughn, and I doubted he had a lab.
“Don’t speak,” he said, not looking at me. “I don’t want to get so angry that I accidentally crash the car.”
I waited as he drove us silently toward school. Every few minutes his hands would tense around the steering wheel, turning his bruised knuckles white, and it was hard not to assume that he was imagining wrapping those hands around my neck.
There was only a smattering of cars in the parking lot at Calabasas High this early in the morning, but Nicholas parked in the very back corner of the lot. He kept the car running for the air conditioner but unbuckled his seat belt and turned to me. He felt uncomfortably close.