I stared at him, in doubt about . . . everything. “I . . . I . . .”
I had no idea what I was about to say and no chance to say it because, suddenly, downstairs, I heard my mom enter the kitchen. We’d completely lost track of time.
“You have to go, Tristen! My mom is home!” I searched the room, desperate. We were on the second floor, and the only closet was tiny. “You have to hide somewhere!” I cried, eyes darting everywhere. “And I have to get out of here!”
Tristen didn’t seem to share my concern. He calmly packed up the box, replaced it on the shelf, stuck the novel into his messenger bag, and walked to a window, which he unlatched and opened with one powerful shove. He paused and looked to me as I heard my mother’s footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Go, Tristen! Please.”
“Think about what I’ve offered, Jill,” he said, stepping over the sill. “It’s a good bargain.”
Then Tristen Hyde slipped out the window and pulled it shut behind him. I heard his footsteps cross the porch roof and disappear, leaving me to turn and face my mother, who stood in the doorway looking very tired and very, very unhappy.
Chapter 19
Jill
“MOM . . . I WAS JUST . . .”
What was I doing? My eyes darted around the room again, to the box and the window that Tristen had just shut, and the photograph of me with my parents. “I just remembered this, and I really wanted it,” I lied, snatching the picture off the desk.
“You’re not to be in here, Jill,” Mom said, through gritted teeth. “I’ve told you!”
“But Mom . . .” I wanted to defend myself and say that it wasn’t so bad, was it? To be there with Dad’s stuff? But the look on Mom’s face stopped me. She wasn’t just upset. She looked almost beyond anger. Her eyes were getting empty again, like after Dad’s funeral.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, hanging my head with guilt and so I wouldn’t have to look at Mom’s face. Those flashes of vacantness . . . they were scarier than anger. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” I added, cradling the picture against my chest.
“Go to your room, Jill.” Mom stepped back from the door so I could pass. “Now.”
“Yes, Mom.” I stared at the floor as I brushed past her. She smelled like hospital disinfectant, but I caught a faint whiff of staleness, too, like maybe she hadn’t showered that day. “Good night.”
She didn’t answer. As I walked to my room, I heard her slam the office door shut, and the faint click of the lock slipping back into place. I closed my own bedroom door behind myself and stared at the photo I’d taken on impulse. Did I even want it, really? Did I want to look at Dad?
Tucking the picture in a drawer, I put on my pajamas and climbed into bed. I couldn’t sleep, though. I just kept thinking about madness and money and bargains.
Dad had stolen from me . . . Mom seemed to be losing touch again . . . Tristen might kill himself . . . Thirty thousand dollars, all for me . . .
Was it a good bargain?
Yes. No. Maybe?
I tossed and turned for hours, and by the time my alarm went off in the morning, I had made my decision.
Chapter 20
Tristen
I WAS AT MY LAB STATION, rotely completing a very basic experiment, when Jill approached me, face pale and drawn, as if she hadn’t slept the night before.
“I’ll do it, Tristen,” she said, her pink lips crushed into a white line. “I’ll help you if you help me.”
Although it was my deal on the table, I took a long moment to consider Jill’s offer, regretting that I’d told her so many of my secrets—and sorry at the same time that she would enter into this arrangement without knowing all of them. She probably deserved to know everything—even the terrible thing that I feared had happened in London—but she was already too scared. “Are you sure?” I asked, lowering my voice. “Because we will have to work in secret. My way, according to my rules.”
Even through her glasses, I caught the flicker of hesitancy in Jill’s hazel eyes. “Why in secret?” Her voice dropped to the merest whisper, too. “Can’t we at least tell Mr. Messerschmidt?”
“I am the lab rat, here,” I reminded her. “I told you, there will come a point when I begin drinking things. Do you think Messerschmidt will stand by and let me sip from beakers? And more to the point, don’t you think he’d wonder why I was doing it? What would we say?”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “But—”
“We will enter the contest,” I added. “At the last minute, regardless of what we learn on my behalf. We will record our work, develop a presentation, and have an entry in time to win you thirty thousand dollars.”
Her financial situation must have been desperate, because at the reminder of the money, she hesitated just one more moment, then took a deep breath and actually extended her small hand. “Okay. We’ll do it your way. In secret.”
I took Jill’s hand, clasping her fingers, amused by her attempt to seem mature and businesslike. Amused and somehow touched. “It’s a deal,” I said. “We’ll start tonight. Say, nine?”
She nodded, and although I saw that she was still uncertain, agreed. “Okay. I think my mom will be working then.”
“Meet me behind the school near the cafeteria,” I said, recalling a place where smokers sometimes congregated. “There’s a padlocked metal door, used to bring in kitchen supplies. We can probably get in through there.”
Jill’s fair cheeks blanched, but she kept nodding. “Sure. See you there.”
As she returned to her lab station, I watched her ponytail swinging in time to her steps, and I kept thinking that she was not only smart but also a good person. Genuinely good
