Keaton School 01: Escape Theory (19 page)

“Is it possible that stealing was about getting attention? Or maybe just for the thrill of it?”

Cleo looked out the small window. “Not sure. You know the first time I stole something it was in France. When I was growing up there with my mom, we were in Lyon. I remember she took me to this little soap shop. It was, like, quintessential French. Everything was handmade and wrapped in wax paper.
Petites paquettes
my mom called them.
Little packages
. My mom wasn’t paying attention but I knew I just had to have one of them. She was talking to the clerk and no one suspected me, so I just grabbed one and put it in my pocket. I still remember it, pink hand soap in the shape of a rose with a cream colored ribbon around the wax paper.” Cleo now looked back to Devon, challenging her. “So, you tell me, Counselor: attention or thrill?”

Devon dropped her notebook on the floor next to her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “That’s a very interesting story. I didn’t know you grew up in France.”

Cleo tossed her head back and laughed. “Mmmm.” She nodded yes.

“Because,” Devon continued, “I thought you said last week that you grew up in San Francisco going to the same golf club as the Hutchins family. Maybe I’m confused.”

Cleo’s eyes darted back to Devon. “No, that wasn’t what I said. I said my parents belonged to the club, but we never went.”

“Oh, but you weren’t there with the Hutchins? Growing up with them?”

“No, I, we.…”

“Why do you feel you have to lie to me?” Devon kept her eyes glued to Cleo’s face, not letting her off the hook.

“I wasn’t lying. Okay, maybe I didn’t
grow up
in France. But I spent time there.” She sounded pissed off.

“That’s the thing about lying. I mean, no one’s perfect, we all do
it from time to time. But it makes it hard to trust someone. If this is going to work at all, we have to trust each other.”

“Whatever. That’s like assuming that we’re doing real therapy in here, which, let’s be honest, we’re not,” Cleo said.

Devon ignored the sting. “But why not try to make it work? You were let off the hook for shoplifting in Monte Vista, and the only condition is that you complete five sessions with me.”

“So?”

“So, it’s kind of a waste of both of our time for you to sit here and lie to me for an hour. What if we end a little early today and next week, and for the two sessions after that, you come back with the truth?”

Cleo chewed on the side of her lip. “And what I say in here doesn’t get out?”

“Not to anyone,” Devon confirmed.

“Fine. I’ll try.” Cleo stood up with a sigh. “You know, I didn’t know you could be such a ballbuster.”

“I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to be a bitch here. But—”

“No, that’s a compliment. You kind of needed to grow a backbone. Here.” Cleo pulled Devon’s Mont Blanc pen from the inside of her boot and tossed it to Devon. “Sorry about that.”

Devon turned the silver pen over in her hand. It looked unharmed, plus Cleo offered the pen as opposed to making Devon ask for it. That was progress, right?

“Hey, I might have a favor to ask you.” Cleo turned, her back leaning against the door, waiting. “If you wanted to make it up to me, that is.”

“Depends. What is it?” Cleo asked.

Devon paused for a split second. She had to ask someone, and preferably someone she wasn’t that close to. Devon pulled the folded green piece of Keaton paper from her notebook. Her Oxy order for Matt. “Would you give this to Matt for me? It’s not for me, I swear. I just need to research something.”

She tentatively held the paper out. Cleo studied Devon,
debating this new facet of their relationship. She took the paper and opened it.

“No, you don’t have to—” Devon tried to stop Cleo from reading, but it was too late.

“Got it. Consider it done.” Without the expected smirk, without the usual French exclamation, Cleo folded the paper and put it in her pocket. For a second, she looked completely unaffected. “See you next week.”

“R
IGHT ONE
’
S YOURS
.”

Devon caught the right speaker just as it tumbled off the dashboard. Raven’s Volvo sped down the Keaton hill, taking the curves above the recommend speed limit.

“Got it,” Devon yelled over the music. She wedged her speaker back into its place on the dashboard, and wiped off the layer of sand already sticking to her palm. “Thanks for the ride. I was dying to get off campus today.”

Raven adjusted the speaker on her side threatening to slide out of position. Her black hair swirled in all directions as the wind whipped through the car. “No problem. Waiting for the van must suck.”

“No kidding.” Devon leaned her head against her seat and let the wind dance over her. Outside the pine trees fluttered in the breeze, making the green needles flicker and flash different sun-drenched shades of green. She could smell the dust from the road and the comforting smell of the pine.

“I gotta make a quick stop first, hope that’s okay. Reed’s computer is acting up and I’m his personal geek squad it seems.” Raven looked both ways at the end of the Keaton road and took a left, away from Monte Vista.

“No problem. I’m just enjoying the ride.” Devon closed her eyes again. It was true: She was happy to be moving, period, to feel the engine revving under her seat, to be away from school. The car twisted and turned, kicking up dust and spitting gravel out behind
it. After what seemed like a very short time later, it lurched to a stop.

“Be right back.” Raven hopped out and slammed the door behind her. Devon finally opened her eyes and saw the ranch house at Reed Hutchins’s vineyard Raven had taken her to before. But this time, a rusted black Rover was parked in the circular driveway in front of the Volvo. Devon recognized it instantly: The car Hutch had been unpacking the last day she had seen him.

Raven disappeared inside the house.

Without thinking, Devon got out of the car and approached the Rover. The front window was open and the door was unlocked. Devon opened it and sat in the driver seat. She ran her hand across the cracked leather steering wheel. Hutch had driven this car to school. Somehow it had gotten back to his grandfather’s house. She’d ask Raven about that part. The floor and seats of the car had leftover dirt and twigs and grape stains. It smelled like a mix of dried dirt and men’s aftershave. In the cup holder next to her, Devon found a crumpled up piece of paper—white, not Keaton green.

“Ready?” Raven called from the front door. “Great car, huh?”

Devon quickly pocketed the piece of paper. “Yeah, really cool. How old is it?”

Devon casually ran her hand across the dashboard, around the wheel, like she was interested in taking it for a test drive. Maybe Raven would take the bait.

“Who knows? It’s Grandpa Reed’s. Kind of the junk car for all the heavy lifting and hauling around here.” Raven got back in the Volvo and Devon followed, even though she would have preferred to sit in the Rover all day. That aftershave, though … maybe Grandpa Reed wore it? It smelled almost old fashioned, musky, too overt for Hutch.

Raven started the Volvo and Devon held onto her speaker again as the car bounced back down the hill. “Feel like surfing?”

Devon shook her head as the beach swam into view through the
trees. The waves boomed. Seagulls coasted on the wind above, not flapping, surveying the water below.

“You sure?” Raven asked, turning into the parking lot. “I’ve got an extra board.”

“No thanks.”

Raven pulled her surfboard off the roof rack and shimmied into her wetsuit in the parking lot. Waves crashed like thunder. The gulls squawked and squealed.

Devon pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head as she eyed the rocky beach for a place to sit. She grabbed her backpack and a towel from the sandy backseat.

“Oh, can you grab my board wax? I think it’s on the floor back there.” Raven used the long string hanging from her wetsuit to zip the suit up her back. She tied her hair into a tight knot.

Devon reached back into the car. She dug past a damp towel covering the seat, protein bar wrappers, aged sunscreen tubes, a few loose homework assignments, some pamphlets. One of them caught Devon’s eye.
Pregnant? You Have Options
.

Devon froze. Did this mean that Raven was the one Hutch stole the pregnancy test for? Had her brother gotten Hutch off the hook for shoplifting because Hutch was stealing for his sister? Devon’s mind raced with questions. She had to ask Raven about this, but how?

“Found it?” Raven called from the outside.

Devon looked below the pamphlet and found a round hockey puck-sized mound of wax.
Sex Wax
, the label read. Sex Wax under the pregnancy pamphlet. Jesus. If that wasn’t irony, Devon didn’t know what was.

“Got it,” she called back. She tossed the puck to Raven over the top of the car.

“Thanks.” Raven started scraping the wax against her board. “Oh dude, I forgot to ask. What’s up with you and that lacrosse guy?”

“Grant.” Devon couldn’t make eye contact with Raven. Not now.

“Yeah, Grant. I wouldn’t have called that one. He doesn’t strike me as your type. But you never know about people, huh?” Raven tossed back the wax. “See ya in a bit.”

She strapped the surfboard leash to her ankle and ran down to the beach, over the rocks, and skidded into the surf like a rock skipping over water.

“Yeah, you never know,” Devon said as she watched Raven duck under a wave.

D
EVON DUG
A T
ALE
of Two Cities
out of her backpack, but there was no way she was going to get any reading done today. Instead she stuck her bare feet into the warm sand and watched the surfers out on the water. They sat in a cluster behind the breaking waves, straddling their boards and bobbing along with the tide. In their full-body black wetsuits, they looked like a family of ducks out for a swim. Devon couldn’t tell anyone apart, except for Raven’s signature nest of hair atop her head. Devon watched as Raven paddled next to a blond dreaded surfer. Bodhi, no doubt.

So. Raven knew about Devon and Grant. Was it public knowledge? Were they officially a couple now? She was going to have to remember to make peace with Grant if this “official” label was going to stick. That is, if she wanted it to stick. Why didn’t Raven think he was her type? She hadn’t exactly had enough boyfriends to identify a
type
at this point.

Off to the side of the group of surfers a figure bobbed alone. He ducked under a wave and when he came up he shook his head, sending water flying from his blond shaggy hair.
Was that Matt?
Devon smiled. It was another chance to see a side of Matt most people didn’t get to see at Keaton. He spent so much time surfing and now she got to see him in his element. She envied him his surfing. To have something that he craved every day, something that he loved that much. Although he would probably never admit it, Matt must get that buzz that surfers talk about. The idea of battling roaring waves on a piece of foam; the chance to be a part of the water, to
bring everything you are and throw it into the ocean, and to come out cleansed by it.… Before her days at Keaton were over, Devon promised herself she’d at least give surfing a try.

A wave approached the group and Devon watched Raven pop up on her board and weave expertly up and down the wave, while other surfers paddled out of her way. Before she got too close to the rocks near the shore, Raven dropped down to her board and paddled back out for another wave. She was graceful, and she clearly had the respect of the other locals. Having an older brother at the center of the surfing community didn’t hurt either.

The pamphlet in her car, though. Devon wished she had grabbed it. She wasn’t jumping to conclusions, was she?
Okay, what do you actually know?
She had to get her thoughts straight before talking to Raven. Hutch definitely stole a pregnancy test for someone. And she knew that someone was not Isla. She also knew that Raven bonded over peanut butter products with Hutch over the summer—while he was broken up with Isla, so the opportunity for them to hook up was definitely there. She cried more often than not at the mention of Hutch’s name.

Was this a bunch of coincidences, or was this a time where her mother would say, “There are no coincidences?” If Raven was pregnant with Hutch’s baby, would that be enough to drive Hutch to suicide? And, if Devon’s theory was correct, what if it
wasn’t
suicide? Was it enough to make someone want to kill Hutch? Like a protective older brother, perhaps? Could Bodhi have killed Hutch because he got Raven pregnant?

Okay, so maybe there was a lot of speculation here
.

Devon resolved to talk with Raven on the ride back to school. She would be the comforting-older-sister type Raven probably wished she had right about now. And she could ask about Bodhi. Did Bodhi really have murder in him? Something about surfers, so attuned to the tides and harnessing the ocean—no. But a pissed-off older brother could be capable of a lot. And Devon still didn’t know why Bodhi left MIT. Could he have been kicked out for
violent tendencies? Now she was just making stuff up. Forget about all that; she’d start with confirming if Raven was pregnant with Hutch’s baby.

Another wave approached and Devon saw Bodhi and then Matt both turn and paddle for it. The wave swelled and Bodhi stood up. He aimed his board toward the wave break and drifted to the top lip of the arcing wave until Matt dropped in on Bodhi’s wave, cutting him off, and riding it the rest of the way. Bodhi yelled something at Matt and then quickly let the next wave push him to shore. Matt was walking through the rocky shallow water when Bodhi caught up to him. “Dude!” Bodhi barked at Matt.

Devon shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. Bodhi didn’t sound happy.

Matt reached into the water and unhooked his foot from his leash. He nodded at Bodhi, oblivious. “What’s up, man?”

“Did you not see me there, ’cause you’d have to be freakin’ blind to miss what you just did.” Bodhi was carrying his board toward Matt now.

Deeper in the water, Raven caught a small wave to join Bodhi on shore. A few others followed her. Devon stood. This was bad.