The Night in Question

CHAPTER ONE

Alice Ogilvie

February 11

9:02 p.m.

“I’m not often bored,” I assured her. “Life’s not long enough for that.”

--Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia

Brooke Donovan is staring at me from across the room.

She’s wearing the dress we picked out in LA freshman year, when her mom drove us down there to go shopping for prom. The two of us were the only freshmen invited that year, much to the chagrin of our mutual friend, Rebecca Kennedy.

She looks good, Brooke, fresh and happy, smiling and carefree.

I crumple a cocktail napkin into a tight little ball in my hand. Whoever decided to hang a giant portrait of her in here should be stabbed.

Tearing my eyes away from Brooke’s picture, I survey the ballroom. It’s filled with my classmates from Castle Cove High School, all in various stages of celebration, all here for the annual Sadie Hawkins dance. To my left, a group of guys from the basketball team huddle together in a circle, not-so-slyly passing a silver flask between them. To my right, couples are dry humping on the dance floor.

I frown.

We’re at Levy Castle, for god’s sake. Some respect should be shown to its past. The site of elegant balls for almost a hundred years, a place where Old Hollywood used to come and play. Charles W. Levy would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what this room is being used for now.

As Brooke’s best friend, I grew up listening to all sorts of tales about Brooke’s great-grandfather. He spent millions of dollars building Levy Castle. It’s five stories and sixty thousand square feet of opulence. And with eighteen bedrooms, three pools, two kitchens, and secret passages extending throughout, it basically put the tiny town of Castle Cove on the map. It was also where the film star Mona Moody lived for a few short years, until her untimely death on Castle grounds at the age of twenty.

Mona Moody, with her platinum blond hair, baby-blue eyes, and the husky, sexy voice that made her famous. After several years starring in popcorn flicks, she was all set to break out in her first serious film as the titular role in Jane Eyre, but tragically fell off the Castle’s side balcony just before filming started.

According to the internet, she and Charles Levy had a brief but super intense love affair, and he was so broken up by her death that eventually his own life collapsed around him: he lost everything he’d worked so hard for over the years when he was arrested for embezzlement and spent the rest of his days in prison.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by Mona Moody’s life and death, and tonight is my chance to sneak upstairs to see her private quarters.

I turn to try to find Iris, when raised voices pull my attention to the massive DJ booth Rebecca Kennedy’s dad had built for the dance. According to Kennedy, it’s the only way DJ Porcini would agree to play tonight.

I pop up on my toes for a better look, and I’m entirely unsurprised to spot the very same Kennedy arguing with my other former friend Helen Park. They’re both wearing this season’s Natasha Matte off-the-shoulder satin gown in blue, the only difference being the obnoxiously expensive necklace around Kennedy’s neck.

I let out a sigh. This won’t end well. Ever since Brooke died last fall, the two of them can’t seem to hold it together to save their lives. Clearly, they forgot to consult with each other about what they were going to wear tonight. Which is, like, Dance Etiquette 101.

Through the crowd, I spot Ashley Henderson. She’s watching them, probably trying to figure out a way to interject herself into the drama. She thrives on this stuff; says it’s good for her craft, since she desperately wants to be an actress. Mostly, though, I think she’s just nosy. I never really meshed with Henderson, so it’s a relief not to have to pretend to be friends with her anymore. Which goes for all of my former friends, if I’m being perfectly honest.

“What’s going on up there?” Iris says, sidling up to me. “Want one?” She holds out a plastic cup of sparkling apple cider and I take it, noticing Spike at her back.

Iris is wearing a 1950s vintage prom dress, a black blazer, and Chuck Taylors. I adore the dress, but the blazer and shoes . . . they’re cool and all, but not exactly right for a formal dance. I inhale a calming breath, reminding myself I’m not that person anymore. The one who judges everyone by the labels on their clothing. I’ve evolved.

“Park and Kennedy are at it again,” I say, taking a tiny sip from my cup.

Cole Fielding materializes in front of me. “What’s going on up there?” he asks, echoing Iris. From somewhere outside the Castle, there’s a loud crack of thunder.

Spike immediately glances at Iris, who’s whispering into Cole’s ear. Spike’s face falls.

“Park and Kennedy,” I repeat loudly. “They are arguing, yet again.”

“Brooke’s murd . . . er . . .” Spike’s eyes dart to my face as he realizes what he’s saying. “Without Brooke around, they’ve really fallen apart, huh?” he finishes.

I shrug. Kennedy tried to pull me back into their little circle after Iris and I figured out who was responsible for Brooke’s death, but I wasn’t interested. I have no desire to be involved in mundane high school drama, and I have Iris. That’s enough. For now, at least.

“Do you think they’re fighting over--” Spike starts, but a familiar voice interrupts him and my stomach, my most traitorous of organs, does a little dance.

“Blini with caviar?”

I turn.

“Hello, Raf.”

“Hello, Alice.” He smiles.

“Hey, Raf,” Iris says, taking one of the blinis off the tray and examining it. “Um, what the hell is this thing?”

He shrugs. “Hell if I know. I just bring out what they tell me; I don’t ask questions.” He squints down at his tray. “I think it’s like . . . weird little eggs or something?”

I sigh. “It’s basically a pancake with caviar.” I take one and pop it in my mouth. “They’re delicious.”

Iris nibbles off a corner. “Oh, that is good,” she says, and nudges Cole. “Grab one.” Cole does as instructed, and as soon as Iris turns away, he wraps it in his cocktail napkin and stuffs it into his back pocket.

“How’s work going?” Iris asks Raf. Since Raf helped Iris and me out with Brooke’s case last year, we’ve all become . . . well, I guess the best word for it is friends. It’s odd: I’ve never been friends with a boy before, not really, so I’m not sure what to do about it or how to act with him, although Iris doesn’t seem to have that same issue. They chat all the time, or at least that’s what it seems like to me. Not that I care.

What I do care about, maybe a little more than I should, is that he has a girlfriend now, who just so happens to be Cole’s older sister. She works for Splendid Spread Catering part-time, and (according to Iris’s intel) got Raf this gig so he could make some extra cash for college since the Castle Cove Police Department barely pays their interns.

He smirks. “Fine. I’m pretty much invisible to most of the kids here. Which works for me. Really don’t need to get recognized from my high school days, you know?”

“Okay, break it up,” someone--a teacher?--yells over by Porcini’s booth. I sigh again. I suppose I should go help calm those two down. It’s what Brooke would have wanted, after all.

“Be right back,” I say, and push past Reed Gerber and Mason Jefferson to make my way through the crowd.

When I reach the front of the throng I end up next to Henderson and my ex-boyfriend, Steve Anderson, who are watching the scene. Henderson’s mouth is curled up into a grin, but when she spots me, she quickly rearranges it into a frown. She’s so transparent it’s laughable.

Steve, on the other hand, looks petrified. “Alice,” he says when he notices me. “You’ve gotta do something. They’re at it again.”

I haven’t seen him in two months. After Iris and I figured out who’d really killed Brooke and got him out of jail, all the media attention went to his head, and he dropped out of school and moved down to LA to try to make it in the entertainment industry. He’s only back tonight to catch up with some of his old friends. I bet he’s regretting it now.

“Fine,” I say, irritated that it’s the first thing he’s said to me all night. I step forward at the same moment Park leaps at Kennedy. She grabs a clump of Kennedy’s hair and yanks her head back, hard.

“Ow!” Kennedy screeches, trying to twist out of Park’s grasp. “Get off me, you brat.”

Ms. Hollister, one of the teachers chaperoning the dance, hovers on the other side of Park and Kennedy wearing a horrified expression. Ever since the stuff came out about Coach and all his lady friends, Hollister and a few other teachers have been going above and beyond the call of duty, kissing Principal Brown’s ass.

A hand clutches my arm. Iris.

“I’ll help you, Alice.”

I look over at Park and Kennedy, now wrestling on the floor. “I’d like that very much.”

And together, we make our way toward my ex-friends--the Mains.

CHAPTER TWO

Iris Adams

February 11

9:14 p.m.

All a girl wants is to put on a pretty dress and dance for a few hours. Is that too much to ask?

--Mona Moody, Matched Set, 1947

Alice and I manage to extricate Park and Kennedy, though not without difficulty. Park is quite flexible and keeps slipping from my grasp, though I’m finally able to subdue her by wrapping her in a bear hug just as Alice is able to yank Kennedy backward.

The instant the fight stops, a disappointed “Aww, no, they were gonna kiss!” rises up from the crowd. Of course, it’s from the boys because it’s typical (and boring) that when girls fight, all guys can do is stand there hoping at any moment it’s going to turn sexy.

Alice smooths her hair and glares at Park and Kennedy. Kennedy is inspecting her nails.

“Jesus, Park, I spent fifteen hundred dollars on this,” Kennedy pouts. “What’s your problem, anyway?”

Park is huffing, trying to scoop her disheveled hair out of her face and straighten the neckline of her dress. She’s wearing a lacy pink strapless bra with tiny embroidered hearts, which I find oddly endearing.

“I specifically told you I was going to wear this dress! I sent you pics! And you copied me, anyway! God, sometimes I wish you’d just shrivel up and die,” Park says.

Kennedy rolls her eyes and plays to the crowd. Phones are back up and filming. She’ll be on a hundred stories in about three minutes. This is her moment. “Sounds like a you issue to me, babe. Jealous much?”

Park lunges at Kennedy again, almost catching Kennedy’s necklace in her fingers. It’s an extremely expensive-looking thing with teardrop-shaped jewels. But Kennedy cackles and ducks away. Then Park storms off.

Alice shakes her head and looks at me, her eyes drifting from my seafoam-green gown down to my sneakers.

“Gorgeous girl, gorgeous gown, and yet . . . a blazer and sneakers,” she says, sighing.

I finger the lapels of the black velvet blazer. I just like to feel protected. And I was already nervous about other things concerning this dance, like Cole Fielding. I’d casually asked him if he was going to the Sadie Hawkins dance, definitely stressing the fact that it was a group thing. Ever since Brooke, and the investigation, and, you know, me accidentally accusing him of murder, we’ve been hanging out. Very casually. Roller-skating once or twice during his breaks at Seaside Skate. Maybe a coffee together at Dotty’s Doughnuts. Texting sometimes. None of which I’ve told Alice about, because her feelings toward Cole are well-known. She sees me sometimes chatting with him at school and that’s enough to get me some pointed looks. My mom doesn’t know anything but the barest details, either, because she’d flip out, especially if she knew about me riding on the back of his motorcycle along Highway 1. I don’t know how to explain to anyone, even Alice, what’s happening inside me. Like something’s been knocked loose. I can’t stop thinking of Brooke’s body at the bottom of the cliff. I can still feel my father’s fist on my face. The whole time on the back of Cole’s motorcycle, I felt . . . free. Like nothing could touch me.

Brooke is dead, but she’s still here. The Thing is locked up, but for how long?

The only other place where I feel like nothing can touch me is when I’m reading one of the many Agatha Christie novels I’ve borrowed from Alice, in a vain attempt to catch up with her knowledge of the Queen of Mystery, losing myself in the spirals of deceit and deception. Or when Raf and I are talking about the Remy Jackson case, painstakingly reading the poorly put together case files about his cousin, who was found in a dumpster in downtown Castle Cove, wrapped in a trash bag secured with duct tape. I’d like to see how Miss Marple would tackle that.

Alice isn’t happy about me hanging out with Raf, either. I can’t tell if she’s jealous or just . . . doesn’t want to get that close to a death case again, after Brooke. The Mona Moody thing she’s skirting around . . . it’s a mystery, for sure, but one that maybe Alice likes because it’s so far in the past, it can’t really touch her. Who knows? As long as I live, I’ll probably never fully understand Alice Ogilvie.

She snaps her fingers at me. “Helloooo?”

“Sorry,” I say. “Brain fog.”

I take a deep breath to get my bearings, look around the mammoth Levy Castle ballroom.

I love this, actually. I didn’t think I would. The dance. But everyone looks beautiful, even me and my ragtag friends the Zoners: Neil in his suit with the patched elbows, Zora in a shiny gold lame tux. I feel like we look fancy, and grown-up, even Spike, gazing at the chandelier glistening above us, mesmerized by what seems like a thousand twinkling lights. Usually, we’re on the edges of things at school, keeping to ourselves, but tonight, we’re a part of the whole.

Spike seems different tonight, more mature somehow, dressed in his powder-blue suit with a paisley tie. His hair’s grown out a bit. He’s been checking in on me regularly since last fall, texting me at night to make sure I get some sleep, and not calling me out for lying when I answer “Yep.”