Exposure Point: A gripping small town mystery. (The Candidates Book 1) Read online

  “So, something else was missing, but what?” Isaac asked.

  I shook my head helplessly.

  Mr. Ellison went back to the results page, looking thoughtful.

  “What is it?” Isaac said, jiggling his legs. He did a good impersonation of an impatient five-year-old sometimes.

  “That we can’t find any public record of DcH is highly unusual and suggests it’s a classified substance. A suspicion which is supported by the lack of identifying information on the results.”

  “What do you mean?” I peered over Mr. Ellison’s shoulder.

  “Normally the lab that runs the tests would have their full details printed somewhere, but there is nothing on here to identify the lab.”

  “Even the lab is a secret,” Isaac breathed, grabbing the file.

  “And in my attempts to find out more about DcH, I discovered something else.” He moved over to the kitchenette area to make coffee. “Cytec’s delivery truck didn’t have any reason to be in Montrose. Based on their transport routes, there were none that take them to Montrose. Especially directly past Montrose High.”

  “Huh, yeah.” Isaac nodded. “It’s not exactly a thoroughfare.”

  “But maybe the driver had a personal reason to come here. Maybe he had to drop something off, or see someone,” I offered.

  “Possibly,” Mr. Ellison agreed.

  Isaac opened his laptop and started typing quickly, his face tense with concentration. Eventually he shrugged and stood up. “Well, something is definitely up with the truck driver. He has, like, almost no internet presence.”

  Something was niggling at me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something didn’t add up.

  “So, the truck driver specifically came to Montrose for some reason we don’t know about, drove past our school, and then had some freak stroke, which made him turn into our school gates and crash?” I said. I looked up at the ceiling, trying to coax out whatever it was swirling around below my consciousness. When I brought my gaze back down, it landed on a pile of papers and mail on Mr. Ellison’s desk, piled neatly to one side. “Oh my God.” I picked up the piece of paper on top of the pile and waved it at Mr. Ellison. “You guys!”

  “What is it, Calliope?” Mr. Ellison plucked the unpaid power bill from my hand.

  “The invoice!” I shouted. “The one addressed to Logan, the one I accidentally opened just before the start of school. The one he got mad about.”

  “Huh?”

  “It was an invoice for test kits. Pinprick test kits.”

  “So?”

  “They were ordered before the truck crash even happened.”

  Both Isaac and Mr. Ellison stared at me, Isaac’s eyes wide and excited and Mr. Ellison’s questioning.

  “Calliope, are you sure?”

  “Totally. The invoice was posted to the admin office, and Logan was annoyed we’d seen it. And I saw the order date. He ordered them ten days before the start of school.”

  Mr. Ellison shook his head as he sat down. “This is so much worse than I had imagined,” he said, his face grey.

  “If he ordered the test kits before the truck crash… it means it can’t have been an accident, right?” I said.

  “It must have been organized beforehand.” Isaac had a glazed expression, like it was too much to take in.

  “And the only way he could know it was going to crash into the school—unless he has a time machine, which I’m pretty sure he doesn’t—is if he made it happen on purpose, right? They exposed us to DcH on purpose,” I summarized.

  “There’s no other explanation.” Isaac had started pacing.

  “We don’t know for sure the test kits on the invoice were the ones used after the truck crash,” Mr. Ellison cautioned.

  Both Isaac and I looked at him as if to say, Really?

  “I knew Logan was shady, but this is next level,” I said, chewing at the side of my nail.

  Abruptly, I stopped. “Hang on.”

  Two pairs of eyes fixed on me.

  “If they used the blood samples to test us for DcH, what were the test kits even for?”

  After a moment of stunned silence, Mr. Ellison slapped his hand to his head. “Of course, I should have realized.” He looked at me. “I’m impressed, Calliope. Attention to detail… critical thought… I’m impressed,” he repeated.

  I beamed. Isaac eyed me as if I might be new competition for teacher’s pet.

  “If the intention was to expose the students to DcH, releasing it via the truck crash is an uncontrolled and non-scientific way to do it.”

  Isaac stood up too. “Because if it’s airborne, you wouldn’t know where it went. You wouldn’t be able to control the dosage, right?”

  “Exactly. There are so many things that could go wrong, and you couldn’t be certain of who was exposed, and to what degree. That kind of variability and uncertainty would render any results virtually useless.”

  “We had it backward?” Isaac said, awe in his voice. “We thought the truck crash released a chemical and they covered it up, but the real cover-up was the truck crash?”

  Mr. Ellison nodded. “We have no proof, but the most logical explanation is that those pinprick tests were the method of administering DcH. That way they could control the dosage.”

  “Someone crashed a truck into our school and pretended it released chemicals, so they had an excuse to use a pinprick test on us. And instead of testing our blood, it actually dosed us with something called DcH,” I said. “But why would they want to dose with DcH? Without telling us?”

  “I can think of a reason,” Isaac said. “To test what it does.”

  Mr. Ellison nodded, his expression sombre. “To investigate its effects without public consequence. Or without having to go through normal experimental protocols.”

  “They’re testing something on us,” I said. “We’re seventeen-year-old human lab rats.”

  25

  The doors to the main entrance of the hospital slid open.

  Isaac and I walked inside, my stomach already tight with unease.

  It’d been my idea to come here—I’d had a sudden and overwhelming need to see how Emily was doing—but now that we were here…. It was one thing to discuss theories about being exposed to some mysterious chemical and another to see the actual effects. Here, everything felt way too real.

  I faltered as we walked up to the front desk, and sensing my hesitation, Isaac stepped forward. He put on his best polite grown-up voice for the nurse on reception. “Hello. We’d like to visit Emily Levene, please. Can you tell us where her room is?”

  She gave us a look as if we existed solely to annoy her, but then told us the ward and room number without putting up a fuss. We took the elevator up one floor and walked down the stark, brightly lit corridor to the end of the east wing. As we walked into her room, my mouth went dry. Despite the hum and beep of machines, the silence in the room was deafening. Lying on her hospital bed, hooked up to a machine and with a tube in her nose, Emily looked like a sick child. I clutched Isaac’s arm. He squeezed my arm and kept moving us forward. I peered at the figure in front of us. She wasn’t conscious, and it didn’t look like that was about to change any time soon.

  “Emily?” I said, still whispering.

  Nothing. There wasn’t a flutter, not even a twitch.

  “Emily?” I said louder. I looked at her motionless form, so vulnerable lying there. What did she do to deserve this? “I’m sorry,” I said.

  They say people can hear you in comas and talking to them could help bring them back, so I opened my mouth to say something encouraging, but something different came out. “He dosed you, Emily,” I said. “But we aren’t going to let them get away with it.” I took her pale, fragile hand in mine and squeezed it. “We’re going to do something. I promise.”

  As we walked down the front steps of the hospital, Isaac checked his phone, then shoved it back into his pocket. “You know… when you said there was somewhere you needed to be, I thought you
were going to get me to take you to that meeting with your mom and Ms. Spencer.”

  I stared at Isaac, stricken. I’d totally forgotten. Had I intended to miss it all along?

  “They’re going to be so mad.”

  “Unless we go now?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  Isaac gave me a look but said, “Okay. Whatever you want.”

  After a couple of minutes, he turned to me again. “Hey what’s with the new phone number?”

  I pulled the cheap phone out of my bag and held it up.

  “So we’ve reached the stage where you’re buying burner phones.”

  “I’m grounded. Mom has my phone.”

  His eyes slid to mine. “Callie are you sure we shouldn’t go meet her. To explain?”

  “Explain what?” I lifted my shoulders. “That Logan is up to something really shady and we have to figure it out, oh and by the way, I don’t want to be a dancer?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  I shook my head.

  After a few minutes he pulled off Main Street. “Firkin Burgers?”

  He said it like it was a question, but we were already in the parking lot.

  “Can you just get me a soda? I’ll wait in the car.”

  “Callie, you can’t sit here like an abandoned puppy, and I don’t want to eat in the car. Mr. Ellison will still be making calls and looking into things. We have time.”

  I sighed and followed him inside. Isaac called out his order to the waitress when she got within three feet of the table—he’d probably been planning this meal for the last half hour—and she returned a few moments later with sodas for both of us.

  “Have you heard anything about Nikki?” Isaac asked, slurping at his straw.

  “Last I heard, she’s in a program somewhere, but she’s okay.”

  “Like rehab for eating disorders?”

  I nodded. “But it might not help, right? If it’s something to do with DcH?”

  “Dunno,” Isaac mused. “We don’t know anything for sure about DcH. It’s all guessing.” He cracked ice between his teeth. “The thing I still don’t get is that the whole class was exposed, right? So why have only a few students collapsed?” Isaac took another sip of soda.

  I shook my head helplessly. “And what was the point? It can’t have been to make students collapse and freak out. What, someone was bored? There was nothing good on TV?”

  Isaac’s food arrived and he picked up the burger, taking a moment to eye it appreciatively, then got stuck in. Over the years, his burger-eating technique had evolved into a fine-tuned system: mouthful of burger, reach for a napkin while chewing, wipe up the juice on his chin or his cheek, take the next bite, reach for his soda, wash it down, take another bite, tuck any stray ingredients back into the bun, take another bite, use the napkin again, and after a final bite and soda wash, he was done.

  He let out a burp and smiled. “Let’s go.” He dropped his crumpled napkin on the empty plate. “I’ll get the check.”

  With no waitress in sight, Isaac went to pay at the bar. A few seconds later, he popped back into view, waving theatrically at me from across the restaurant to come join him.

  “What’s up?” I asked when I got to his side.

  He pulled my hand so I could see around the corner. I jerked back in shock. Logan Kerry was slouched at the bar, head resting in one hand. I’d caught Logan drinking at work, so his presence at a bar wasn’t a huge surprise.

  “Don’t let him see me,” I whispered, retracting my head. “He’s already suspicious of me. If he sees me here, he’ll think I’m following him. I’ll meet you at the car.”

  “How’d you know he’s suspicious of you?”

  “Tell you later.”

  Keeping low, I scuttled out of the restaurant to the car and kept a watchful eye on the door, ready to duck down if Logan came out. A couple of minutes passed before Isaac jumped in too.

  “Callie, I’ve got an idea. A potentially idiotic idea, but an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If we know anything, it’s that Logan is involved, right? So maybe we could find something incriminating at his house?”

  “And you figure if he’s here right now—”

  “Then he’s not at home.”

  “Isaac?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know where he lives,” I fished around in my bag and then held up my janitor-sized bundle of keys. When Mrs. Pemberton fired me, she hadn’t asked for them back—she’d probably forgotten I even had them. “And I can get us in.”

  “How do you have those?”

  “I work in the admin office, remember.”

  Isaac raised one eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “Okay, I used to work there. Moving on. Mrs. Pemberton liked someone to have a backup set.”

  “But why are Logan’s house keys on there?”

  “He’s staying in a school-owned house. It was donated years ago, and it’s for people like him, short-term staff members, or people who need a temporary place to stay until they find somewhere.”

  “Okay.” Isaac looked at me with wide eyes, like Are you sure you want to do this?

  After a pulse of uncertainty, I nodded.

  “Hang on. After what you told me about all the shady things Logan has been connected to, like possibly being involved in Robert’s and Kade’s deaths, is breaking into his house idiotic?”

  “But we know he’s not at home.”

  “I guess,” Isaac said.

  We pulled up at the curb on Greydon Avenue, a few houses down from where Logan was staying. The exterior of the house was dark. Isaac inhaled and exhaled, then looked at me.

  “So, what’s the plan, Veronica Mars?”

  I hesitated. “Are we nuts?”

  “Probably.”

  “But we’re still going to do this?”

  “Yep.”

  “And shall we tell Mr. Ellison?”

  “Nope.”

  “Agreed.”

  As we hopped out of the car, I caught sight of myself in the wing mirror. I was wearing a bright red coat. Real stealthy, Calliope. I pulled it off and stuffed it back in the car. I was cold but at least I wasn’t a human beacon.

  “Callie, what are you doing?” Isaac hissed. “This is not the time for an outfit change. Come on.”

  The street was deserted, but still we crept around to the back of the house. I unlocked the door and tensed, waiting for a screeching siren, but there was silence. No alarm. My shoulders dropped with relief and I took a breath, then slowly inched farther inside. I made my way through the kitchen/dining area, but Isaac went straight to the fridge. Out of habit, probably.

  “Ugh, gross,” he said, closing it again. “There are things in there even I wouldn’t go near.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “I don’t know. Anything to tell us what’s going on. Anything we can use as evidence.”

  I entered the bedroom warily and was greeted by an unmade bed and a smell that was both ripe and musty. Gross. I lifted my hand to my nose, as if it might block out the smell that had already caught in my nostrils. I backed out of the room and moved through the living area. Dirty dishes and takeout cartons were littered throughout, documenting Logan’s love of Chinese food and his dislike of doing the dishes. The bathroom, I soon discovered, was the epicentre of grossness, and I had to leave it as soon as I entered. How was this man in charge of a secret project? It looked as if he was barely organizing his own life.

  “Callie!” Isaac called from down the hall.

  “What’s up?” I stepped over a piece of clothing which at a glance looked like a pair of pants—as if Logan had stepped out of them and left them there, though I didn’t look too closely—and joined Isaac in the second room. It had been turned into some sort of makeshift office. He pointed. I looked. There was a laptop sitting innocently on the desk. Next to it, not so innocently, was an empty bottle of gin.

  “I guess running a secret
experiment to dose high school kids is stressful,” I said.

  “Yeah, no kidding.” Isaac picked up the laptop and gathered up the power cord.

  “Wait, Isaac, are we going to just, like, steal his laptop?”

  “What choice do we have? Unless you happen to have an external hard drive on you? Or a large capacity thumb drive?” I shook my head. “Plus, he could come back at any second.”

  There was a bang at the front door.

  We turned wide eyes to each other. It was almost as if we’d summoned him.

  “Hello? Is someone in there?” a man’s voice called.

  “Not Logan,” I whispered. “A nosy neighbour?”

  “I saw a flashlight,” the voice continued. “I’ll call the police.”

  “Frak,” Isaac hissed. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We hurried down the hall and through the kitchen to the back door. Isaac eased it open, and I poked my head out. No one was out there. Logan didn’t seem to be the type to join a neighbourhood watch group, but that didn’t mean the person banging on the door hadn’t brought a friend.

  Keeping close to the shrubbery, we crossed to the back yard of the house next door, then carried on through two more, then ran down the side of that house until we emerged on the street about a hundred feet away from Logan’s. The nosy neighbour was now looking through Logan’s front window. We carried on farther down the street until we got to Isaac’s car. Finally, we were safely inside.

  “Phew,” I said.

  “Let’s go.” Isaac handed me the laptop and started the car.

  It sat on my lap, its weight ominous on my legs.

  ***

  When we got back to Mr. Ellison’s office, Isaac handed over the laptop, seeming pleased with himself rather than guilty.

  “What’s this? Where have you been?”

  “Weeelll,” Isaac said as we exchanged a glance.

  “Wait.” Mr. Ellison held up his hand and looked from me to Isaac. “Do I want to know?”

  “That’s Logan’s laptop,” Isaac said quickly. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.

  Mr. Ellison inhaled, ran his hands through his hair, and sighed heavily. “Okay, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “We haven’t opened it yet, but we, uh, thought it might be a good way to get some evidence?” Isaac explained.