Meg Cabot - Reunion

I pried my tongue from where it had been stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was very thirsty from my long hike down, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to the climb back up to Father Dom's car. But I felt compelled, despite my discomfort, to speak.

"Or," I said, "it could be because of his sister."

CHAPTER 13

Everyone - from Father Dom to Carrie Whitman - blinked at me in the firelight.

"Excuse me?" Josh said. Only his tone was more impatient than polite.

"Michael's sister," I said. "The one who's in the coma."

Don't ask me what made me think of it. Maybe it was Josh's reference to parties - how no party began until he and the other Angels got there. That started me thinking of the last party I'd heard about - the one where Michael's sister had fallen into the pool and nearly drowned. Some party that must have been. Had the police broken it up after the ambulance arrived?

Father Dominic's shaggy white eyebrows went up. "You mean Lila Meducci? Yes, of course. How could I have forgotten about her? It's tragic - very tragic - what happened to her."

Jesse piped up for the first time in some minutes. "What happened to her?" he asked, lifting his chin from the knee he'd been resting it on, his foot propped up against the boulder he was sitting on.

"An accident," Father Dom said, shaking his head. "A terrible accident. She tripped and fell into a swimming pool and very nearly drowned. Her parents are losing hope that she'll ever regain consciousness."

I grunted. "That's one version of the story, anyway," I said. Michael's parents had obviously cleaned it up for the principal of their daughter's school.

"You left out the part," I went on, "about how she was at a party in the Valley when it happened. And that she was completely blotto when she went under." I narrowed my eyes at the four ghosts seated on the opposite side of the fire. "So was everybody else at this particular party, apparently, since nobody noticed what happened to her until she'd been under long enough to curdle her brain." I looked at Jesse. "Did I mention the fact that she's only fourteen years old?"

Jesse, still sitting on the boulder, his hands around the propped up knee, looked at the Angels. "I don't suppose any of you," he said, "would know something about this."

Mark looked disgusted. "How would any of us know about some geek's sister getting wasted at a party?" he demanded.

"Perhaps because one - or all - of you happened to be at the party at the time?" I suggested sweetly.

Father Dominic looked startled. "Is this true?" He blinked down at the Angels. "Do any of you know anything about this?"

"Of course not," Josh said - too quickly, I thought. Felicia's "As if" was not very convincing, either.

It was Carrie who gave it away, though.

"Even if we did," she demanded with unfeigned indignation, "what would it matter? Just because some stupid wannabe drank herself into a coma at one of our parties, how does that make us responsible?"

I stared at her. Felicia, I remembered, was the National Merit Scholar. Carrie Whitman had only been homecoming queen. Twice.

"How about, just for starters," I said, "making alcohol available to an eighth grader?"

"How were we supposed to know how old she was?" Felicia asked, not very nicely. "I mean, she had enough makeup slathered on, I could have sworn she was forty."

"Yeah," Carrie said. "And that particular party was by invitation only. I certainly never issued an invitation to any eighth grader ."

"If you want to hold someone responsible," Felicia said, "how about the idiot who brought her in the first place?"

"Yeah," Carrie said angrily.

"I don't think Susannah is the one holding you responsible for what happened to Michael's sister." Jesse's voice, after the shrillness of the girls, sounded like distant thunder. It shut the others up quite effectively. "Michael, I believe, is the one who killed you for it."

Father Dominic made a soft noise as if Jesse's words had sunk, like a fist, into his stomach.

"Oh, no," he said. "No, surely you can't think - "

"It makes more sense," Jesse said, "than this one's argument" - he nodded briefly at Josh - "that Michael did it out of jealousy because he has no … what is it? Oh, yes. Dates on Saturday night."

Josh looked uncomfortable. "Well," he said, tugging on his evening jacket's lapels. "I didn't know the skank they fished out of Carrie's pool was Meducci's sister."

"This," Father Dominic said, "is too much. Simply too much. I am … I am appalled by all of this."

I glanced at him, surprised by what I heard in his voice. It was - if I wasn't mistaken - pain. Father Dominic was actually hurt by what he'd just heard.

"A young girl is in a coma," he said, his blue-eyed gaze very bright as it bored into Josh, "and you call her names?"

Josh had the grace to look ashamed of himself. "Well," he said, "it's just a figure of speech."

"And you two." Father Dominic pointed at Felicia and Carrie. "You break the law by serving alcohol to minors, and dare to suggest that it is the girl's own fault she was harmed by it?"

Carrie and Felicia exchanged glances.

"But," Felicia said, "nobody else got hurt, and they were all drinking, too."

"Yeah," Carrie said. "Everybody was doing it."

"That doesn't matter." Father Dominic's voice was shaking with emotion now. "If everyone else jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, would that make it right?"

Whoa, I thought. Father D obviously needed a little refresher course in student discipline if he thought that old line still had any punch.

And then my eyes widened as I noticed that Father Dominic was now pointing at me. Me ? What had I done?

I soon found out.

"And you," Father Dominic said. "You still insist that what happened to these young people was not an accident, but deliberate murder!"

My jaw sagged. "Father D," I managed to say when I'd levered it back into place. "Excuse me, but it's pretty obvious - "

"It isn't." Father Dominic dropped his arm. "It isn't obvious to me. So the boy had motive? That doesn't make him a killer."

I glanced at Jesse for help, but it was apparent from his startled expression that he was as baffled by Father Dominic's outburst as I was.

"But the guardrail," I tried. "The loosened bolts - "

"Yes, yes," Father Dominic said, quite testily for him. "But you're missing the most important point, Susannah. Supposing Michael did lie in wait for them. Perhaps he did intend, when they turned that corner, to ram them. How was he able to tell, in the dark, that he had the right car? Tell me that, Susannah. Anyone could have come around that corner. How could Michael have known he had the right car? How ?"

He had me there. And he knew it. I stood there, the wind from the sea whipping hair into my face, and looked at Jesse. He looked back at me, and gave a little shrug. He was at as much of a loss as I was. Father Dom was right. It didn't make any sense.

At least until Josh said, "The Macarena."

We all looked at him.

"I beg your pardon?" Father Dominic said. Even in anger, he was unerringly polite.

"Of course!" Felicia scrambled to her feet, tripping over her evening gown's long skirt. "Of course!"

Jesse and I exchanged yet another confused look. "The what?" I asked Josh.

"The Macarena," Josh said. He was smiling. Smiling, he didn't look anything like the guy who'd tried to drown me earlier that day. Smiling, he looked like what he was - a smart, athletic eighteen-year-old in the prime of his life.

Except that his life was over.

"I was driving my brother's car," he explained, still grinning. "He's away at college. He said I could use it while he was gone. It's bigger than my car. The only thing is, he had this stupid thing put in so that when you honk the horn it plays the Macarena."