White Cat

“You didn’t hear him on the phone,” says Philip. “He remembered—I don’t know what. Enough to know someone had been working him.”



Something crunches under one of their feet. Considering all the stuff scattered on the floor, it could be anything. “He’s a smart-ass. You’re just being paranoid.”



Lila’s breath is hot on my neck.



Footfalls on the stairs tell me they’re going to look for me up there.



We’re so close that it’s impossible not to touch her. And that makes me recall that she must have been touching me to make me dream.



“That night, at Wallingford—were you in the room with me?” I whisper.



“They needed me to get you,” she says. “To make you sleepwalk out to them. I made lots of people sleepwalk right into their hands.”



I picture a white shape on the steps, the hall master’s dog starting to bark before she made the dog dream too.



“Why did you kiss me?” I ask her, keeping my voice low.



“To shut you up,” she says. “Why do you think?”



We’re silent for a moment. Above us I can hear my brothers walking across the creaking boards. I wonder if they’re in their old bedrooms. I wonder if they’re in my bedroom, going through my things like I went through Barron’s.



“Thanks,” I say, finally, sarcastically. My heart is beating like a rattle.



“You don’t remember any of it, do you? I figured that part out. Barron told me that you laughed when he told you I was in a cage, but you didn’t laugh, did you?”



“Of course I didn’t,” I say. “No one told me you were alive.”



She gives a weird short, gurgling laugh. “How did you think I died?” I think of the cage and of her being there for the last three years. How that could drive anyone crazy. Not that she seems crazier than anyone else. Me, for instance.



“I stabbed you.” My voice breaks on the words, even though I know the memory’s not true.



She’s quiet. All I can hear is the hammering of my own heart.



“I remember it,” I say. “The blood. Slipping on the blood. And feeling gleeful, like I’d gotten away with it. Looking down at your body and feeling the way I did—the memory still seems so real. Like something that no one could make up, because it was so awful. And how I was—It’s worse than feeling nothing, like you’re just psycho. It’s much worse to think you enjoyed it.” I’m glad we’re in the dark. It is impossible to imagine saying all this to her face.



“They were supposed to kill me,” Lila says. “Barron and I were in your grandfather’s house in the basement, and he grabbed my arms. At first I thought he was kidding around, that he wanted to wrestle, until you and Philip walked in. Philip was saying something to you, and you just kept shaking your head.”



I want to say that it isn’t true, that it didn’t happen, but of course I really have no idea.



“I kept asking Barron to let me get up, but he wouldn’t even look at me. Philip took out a knife, and that’s when you seemed to change your mind. You walked over to me and looked down, but it was like you weren’t really looking at me. Like you didn’t even know who I was. Barron started to get up, and I was relieved, until you took my wrists and pressed them down on the shag rug. You pressed them down harder than he did.”



I swallow hard and close my eyes, dreading what she’ll say next.



Steps on the stairs make her clam up.



“Tell me,” I whisper. My voice comes out louder than I planned. Probably not loud enough to get their attention. “Tell me the rest.”



She presses her bare hand against my mouth. “Shut up.” She’s whispering, but she sounds fierce.



If I struggle, I really am going to make noise.



“I don’t want you to tell Anton,” Philip says. He sounds close, and Lila’s body jolts. I try to slide my hand against her upper arms to gentle her, but that only seems to make her shake worse.



“Tell him what?” asks Barron. “That you think Cassel’s going to flake? Do you want this whole thing to come apart?”



“I don’t want it to blow up in our faces. And Anton’s acting more unstable.”



“We can take care of Anton when this is over. Cassel’s fine. You baby him too much.”



“I just think that this is risky. It’s a risky plan and Cassel needs to be on board. I think you forgot to make him forget.”



“You know what I think?” Barron says. “I think that bitch wife of yours is the problem. I told you to cut her loose.”



“Shut up.” I hear the growl under Philip’s seeming calm.



“Fine, but he was hanging around her last night after dinner. She obviously figured out enough to leave.”



“But Cassel—”



“Cassel nothing. She told him what she suspected. And he did a little fishing to find out if it was true. See how you’d react. He doesn’t know anything yet, unless you freak out. Simple. Case closed. Now let’s go.”



“What about Lila?”



“We’ll find her,” he says. “She’s a cat. What can she do?”



I hear the front door slam. We wait what feels like ten minutes and then slide under the pole to open the closet door. I look around the room. It’s trashed, but no more than it was before.



Lila steps out behind me, and when I look back at her, her mouth curves up at one corner. She turns toward the bathroom.



I catch her wrist. “Why are you doing this? Tell me. How you got away from Barron. Why you lured me up to the roof of Smythe Hall with that crazy dream.”



“I wanted to kill you,” she says, that slight smile widening.



I drop her wrist like it’s burning me. “You what?”



“I couldn’t do it,” she says. “I hated you even more than I hated them, but I still couldn’t do it. That’s something, right?”



I feel like she knocked the air out of my lungs.



“No,” I say. “It’s nothing. Less than nothing.”



The kitchen door opens with a creak. Lila presses herself against the wall, shooting me a warning glance. There’s no time to dash for the closet, so I step into the kitchen to take whatever’s coming. To give Lila a few minutes to hide.



Philip smiles from the doorway. “I knew you were here.”



“I just walked in,” I say, even though he knows I’m lying.



He takes a step toward me, and I take a step back. I wonder if he’s going to try to kill me. I hold up my hands, still bare. He doesn’t seem to even notice.



“I need you to tell her,” Philip says, and for a moment I don’t know who he’s talking about. “Tell Maura I was weak. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I didn’t know how to stop.”



“I told you I don’t know where Maura is.”



“Fine,” he says tightly. “See you Wednesday night. And, Cassel, maybe you’re pissed off or you have questions, but it’s going to be worth it in the end. Trust us just a little bit longer and you’re going to have everything you ever wanted.”



He walks out and down the hill to Barron’s idling car. Lila walks into the room and puts her hand on my shoulder. I shrug it off.



“We have to get out of here,” she says. “You need to rest.”



I turn to agree, but she’s already pulling out gloves and a coat from the closet.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN



LATE AFTERNOON SUN-light streams through the window, and I wake up with my head pillowed against blond curls and warm skin. At first I’m so disoriented that I can’t understand who could be next to me and why she doesn’t have many clothes on.



Sam’s closing the door to the room. “Hey, dude,” he says in a whisper.



Lila makes a small gesture of complaint and rolls against the wall, her body sliding against mine, her shirt rucking up. She mashes the pillow over her head.



I dimly recall walking to the convenience store three blocks from my house, calling a cab, and then sitting on the sidewalk to wait, Lila leaning against me. I figured my dorm room was going to be empty for a couple of hours. There was no other place I could think of to go.



“Don’t worry,” Sam says. “I haven’t seen Valerio. But next time put a sock on the door.”



“A sock?”



“My brother says that’s the universal signal for getting some—the nice way to alert your roommate so that he can make other plans for the evening. As opposed to letting your roommate walk in on you.”



“Uh, yeah,” I say, yawning. “Sorry. Sock. I’ll remember.”



“Who is she?” he whispers, indicating her with his chin. “Does she even go to school here?” He drops his voice even lower. “And are you crazy?”



Lila rolls over again and smiles sleepily at Sam. “The uniform’s cute,” she says in her new, rough voice.



Sam flushes.



“I’m Lila, and yes, he’s crazy. But you must have noticed that before now. He was crazy back when I knew him, and he’s obviously gotten crazier over time.” Her gloved fingers tousle my hair.



I grimace. “She’s an old friend. A family friend.”



“Everyone’s coming back,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows. “You and your buddy better get out.”



Lila pushes herself up on her elbow. “You feeling better?” It doesn’t seem to bother her to be half dressed with one leg pressed against me. Maybe she got used to being naked when she was a cat, but I am completely unused to it.



“Yeah,” I say. My ribs are sore, but the pain is duller.



She yawns and stretches up her arms, canting her body to one side and making her spine crack audibly.



It feels like the whole world has turned upside down. There aren’t any more rules.



“Hey,” I say to Sam, because if the world’s gone crazy, then I guess I can do whatever I want. “Guess what? I’m a worker.”



He stares at me, openmouthed. Lila jerks to her feet.



“You can’t tell him that,” she says.



“Why not?” I ask, then turn to him. “I didn’t have any idea until yesterday. Wacky, right?”



“What kind?” he manages to squeak out.



“If you tell him that,” Lila says, “I’m going to kill you, but first I’m going to kill him.”



“Consider the question retracted,” Sam says, holding his hands out in a peace offering.



Some of my clothes are still in the drawers and in the closet. I grab what I need, then head for the library to take out a loan from my business.



We walk down to the corner store where all the Wallingford students go to shoplift gum. Lila picks out a bottle of shampoo, some soap, an enormous cup of coffee, and three bars of chocolate. I pay.



The owner, Mr. Gazonas, smiles at me. “He’s a good kid,” he tells Lila. “Polite. No stealing. Not like the other kids who come in here. Hang on to this one.”



That makes me laugh.



I lean against the wall outside. “Do you want to call your mom?”



Lila shakes her head. “With all the gossip down in Carney? No way. I don’t want anyone but my father to know I’m back.”



I nod slowly. “So we call him, then.”



“I need to take a shower first,” Lila says, winding the plastic handle of the bag around her wrist. She has rolled up a pair of my dress slacks and looks homeless in them, the baggy shirt and some lace-up boots she found in the back of my closet.



I dial the same cab company that gave us a lift over here. “We don’t have any place to clean up,” I say.



“Hotel room,” she tells me.



There’s a hotel not too far a walk from where we’re standing, a nice basic place that parents stay at sometimes, but it’s not going to work. “Believe me, they are not going to let the two of us get a room. Kids try all the time.”



She shrugs.



I hang up on the dispatcher. “Fine,” I say. I’m thinking of how when the rooms get cleaned, the doors are open. We’re never going to be able to get a room, but we might be able to steal one for a shower if we get lucky.



As we start across the parking lot, I see Audrey with two of her friends, Stacey and Jenna. Stacey gives me the finger. Jenna nudges Audrey with her elbow. I know I should look away, but I don’t. Audrey lifts her head. Her eyes are shadowed.



“Do you know her?” Lila asks.



“Yeah,” I say, and finally turn toward the hotel.



“She’s pretty,” says Lila.



“Yeah,” I say again, and jam my hands in my pockets, deep—gloved fingers against the crease.



Lila keeps looking back. “I bet she’s got a shower.”



Here’s another thing Mom told me over and over about scams. The first thing you have to get is the mark’s confidence, but it’s always more convincing when someone other than you suggests the score to the mark. That’s why most confidence schemes demand a partner.



“Cassel told me all about you,” Lila tells Audrey. Her smile changes her from homeless vagabond to regular girl, even with her matted hair.



Audrey looks from me to Lila and then back at me, as if she’s trying to decide whether this is part of some game.



“What did he say?” asks Jenna, taking a long swig of her Diet Coke.



“My cousin just got back from India,” I say, and nod in Lila’s direction. “Her parents were living in some ashram. I was telling her about Wallingford.”



Audrey’s hands go to her hips. “She’s your cousin?”