Moment of Truth - Kasie West Page 0,51
it to sound so flirty. Maybe it hadn’t. I needed to stop.
Five minutes before the bell rang the next morning, I walked into class to find Jackson sitting at my desk. “You have information,” he said when I stood beside him, waiting for him to move. “And I need it.”
“You need my notes for algebra? I have horrible handwriting, but they’re yours if you want them.”
“No, I don’t need your notes for algebra. What do I look like, a slacker?”
I tilted my head and evaluated him. He had on a red polo shirt and his hair was combed for once . . . or at least the curls were a bit more tamed. He actually looked like he was ready to deliver a speech.
“Fine. I already know you think I’m a slacker, but that’s not the information I need.”
“Well, spit it out, Holt. The bell is about to ring, and Mr. Kingston does not like your style of humor.”
“He belongs to your Jack-haters club?”
“Membership information is confidential.”
His eyes twinkled with a smile that didn’t reach his lips. “Cider. Where did you get it?”
I laughed under my breath. “That’s the information you want? Well, you’re out of luck. That’s a secret I’m taking to the grave. Now out of my chair.” For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him about the seedy shop just outside of town. It was like I had some sort of leverage over him and I was hanging on to that.
He stood, then kind of whined the words, “Why? You don’t even like cider.”
“Because now I own you.”
It had been a joke, but the way he raised his eyebrows made me blush.
I shoved him and said, “Oh, stop. If you can joke around, so can I.”
“People expect it from me. Things like that from you sound like an invitation.”
I blushed even more.
“See?” he said. “I can deliver a joke.” He leaned close, then said, “You will tell me where to find that cider eventually.”
When he left, I looked around and realized practically everybody was in their seats and staring at me. I quickly sat down. Kendra, the girl who sat next to me said, “When did you two get together?”
“We’re not together.”
“That was a lot of flirting.”
“Jackson is like that with everyone.”
“I wasn’t talking about Jackson.”
Right. She was talking about my behavior, not his. That shut me up.
Twenty-Four
Amelia sat at our normal lunch table with a stack of papers.
“Are you doing homework?”
“Our homework, yes.”
“We have homework?”
“Don’t we? Don’t you still want to know who Heath Hall is? We haven’t talked about it in a while.”
“Did you learn something new?” I still wanted to know. Probably even more so since I’d been talking to him online. I did not want to be blindsided by his identity, caught off guard. But she was right. We hadn’t been working on finding out who he was lately.
“I thought we should sit down and compile a list of the evidence we’ve collected so we can narrow this down.”
I glanced around the crowded courtyard. “Should we really talk about it here?”
“Why not? Everybody seems to have theories about who he is. We should just stand up and ask everybody right now if they are Heath Hall.” She stood like she was actually going to yell that question across the cafeteria. I pulled on her arm, forcing her to sit back down.
“Evidence,” I reminded her.
“Right. Evidence. I’ve made lists of all the people at both events, cross-checked it with his followers online. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two suspects.”
“Robert?” I asked, wanting her to disagree with me.
“Yes.”
My shoulders slumped. “Wait, you said two. Who else?”
“Jackson.”
She let the name hang there while I processed it.
“No, that doesn’t make sense. Jackson was at Whitestone Bridge talking to us.”
“Exactly. But he mysteriously disappeared when the jumping took place.”
I thought back to that night. She was right. About five minutes before the jump, Jackson had left and I hadn’t seen him the rest of the night. Was Jackson Heath Hall? As I thought about all the conversations we’d had online, and now in real life too, my heart seemed to sing at that suggestion.
“And Robert,” Amelia continued. “He claims to know who he is but hasn’t been at a single Heath Hall event to support him.”
“You’re right.” That hadn’t occurred to me until now.
“I know.”
“Is it weird that our final list includes only people we actually know?” I asked.
“No. I definitely think it’s someone we know. He’s been private messaging you online. I don’t think