In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead

Chapter 25

Now

We didn’t plan to stow away on Frankie’s float, the six of us. But it was a madhouse outside the stadium, the Homecoming crowd an ocean, tides pulling, impossible to navigate. And though we looked like everyone else, dressed head to toe in crimson and white, we were a world apart, skittish with anxiety, with the weight of our questions for Frankie.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was missing something; couldn’t stop looking at Caro every time she turned her back, thinking of her raw face in the morning light of my hotel room. Imagining her ten years ago, watching us from across campus. Determined to know us better than we’d let her, terrified of being left behind.

Where had she followed me?

Everyone had things they were ashamed of. Caro was still the same person. But as we pushed through the crowd, she turned, catching me staring. And I could feel her confession like an electric charge between us, buzzing my skin.

So when we got to Frankie’s float—the football float, where the grand marshal rode, first in line—I didn’t think before I leapt onto it, propelled by the discomfort of being around her. Everyone followed, Eric included, and we huddled behind a six-foot replica of Blackwell Tower, agreeing to grab Frankie once we spotted him among the swarm of football players, tug him off the float to talk. But then there was a giant thrust, a roar from the crowd, and suddenly we were moving.

“Oh god,” Caro said, face paling. “It’s starting.”

I looked over the railing. Waving, cheering fans, young and old, a sea of crimson and white. I felt nauseous. “We have to get off.”

“Don’t be crazy,” Mint said. “Everyone will see us. Let’s just stay here and hide, and confront Frankie once the parade’s over. It’ll be fine.”

“Mint?” A big voice—Frankie’s—boomed from the other side of the tower. “What are you doing here?” Resplendent in the grand marshal’s blood-red cape and scepter, his mouth agape, Frankie looked like a very startled king of Duquette.

“Uhh—” Caro looked desperately at Eric, waiting for him to take over the questioning, but he just arched an eyebrow, as if to say, This was your idea.

“You came to cheer me on,” Frankie said, with unexpected emotion. He looked at us, searching our faces, lingering on Mint’s. “This is even better than I pictured. Come up front with me.” He tugged Mint with him; the rest of us followed, looking at each other uncertainly.

At the front of the float, Frankie turned to me. “Just like freshman year, huh?”

Jack banished. Heather dead. And your friends ambushing you to ask if you killed her. Yes, Frankie, exactly the same.

I cleared my throat. So many people in the crowd were waving to him, shouting his name. One man even wore his Saints jersey.

“They love you,” I said. “You really are a star.”

Was Frankie still using? What would all these people think if they knew?

“Let’s hope so,” Frankie said. “Because I stayed up all night thinking. And I have a plan.”

“We’re here to ask you something,” Eric cut in, voice rising to be heard over the cheering. “About Heather.”

Frankie looked around at us, the first hints of understanding—and betrayal—dawning on his face. “Wait. You’re here to interrogate me?”

“You knew Heather was planning to out Jack during Parents’ Weekend,” Coop said. “And your parents would likely hear the news right beside them. Your dad would hear. Why didn’t you tell us that part?”

“It’s a pretty big motivation to kill Heather,” Mint said, pulling no punches. “Killing her would keep her from telling your dad about Jack, maybe making him suspicious, making him ask you questions.”

Frankie’s mouth dropped open. All around us, people kept shouting his name.

“I can’t believe you guys. I didn’t tell you about Heather’s plan to out Jack because I didn’t want to say something so ugly about her.” Frankie scrubbed his face with his hands and paused. “She wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

“How do you know?” Caro leaned against the rail, dark hair fluttering in the wind.

“Because she regretted even telling me Jack came out to her. She cried and said she was too drunk, and wasn’t supposed to say anything, especially not to me, because she thought I’d hate him. Try to kick him out of Phi Delt. She remembered what I’d said about Danny Grier the night guys were drawing on his picture in the frat house. She thought I was a homophobe. She died thinking I was a homophobe.”

I thought of how Caro had described Heather reaming out Frankie for dragging Jack into his steroid cover-up. “She was trying to protect Jack,” I said. “Like always.”

Frankie nodded. “That’s why I know she wouldn’t have told his parents. I know it in my bones. What she said to Courtney—she was just hurting and letting off steam.”

Suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to know, even though Caro was going to kill me.

“Did you stop taking steroids? Senior year of college, when Heather confronted you and Jack, did you come clean like she asked, or did you have Jack cover for you? Are you still using them?”

Caro gasped, but everyone else grew deadly quiet.

“Are you suggesting Heather had more dirt on Frankie?” Eric asked, eyes narrowing to slivers. “Career-ending dirt?”

Frankie stared at me, too surprised to do anything but gape. “Heather told you?”

I could feel Caro’s eyes burning my face. “It’s not important. Answer the question.”

“There’s no way Frankie—” Mint glanced at the crowd and the other football players waving near the back of the float. It was too loud for anyone to hear us, but still, he lowered his voice. “Cheated.”

To my surprise, Frankie shook his head. “It’s true. I was an idiot. I messed around with that stuff back then. Jack helped me pass the drug tests, and the last time, senior year, Heather caught us. She threatened to tell my coach. Jack and I did it anyway, and I kept expecting the sky to fall. But nothing. I guess Heather changed her mind.” He looked at Eric. “So I had no reason to be pissed at her. And I stopped using, anyway. She scared the hell out of me, and that was what it took.”

Why hadn’t Heather told Frankie’s coach, like she’d sworn to? I tried to find Caro’s eyes, but she wouldn’t look at me. A puzzle piece was missing.

“So all that talent,” Mint said, “that was the drugs, not you? Not the pride of Oahu?”

“I swear, my NFL career has been all me,” Frankie said.

“No one’s perfect,” Coop said. “People in glass houses, right?”

“No, Mint’s right.” Frankie looked across the sea of people. “I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. I’ve done so many things because I didn’t think who I am was good enough. It’s time to stop being afraid. I’m going to have a bigger imagination.”

Before anyone could say anything, or ask any more questions, Frankie grabbed the microphone from the stand in the corner and closed his eyes—briefly, only for a second—then opened them and shouted into the mic with a giant smile: “Happy Homecoming, Duquette!”

His voice boomed through campus like the voice of God. The crowd roared back. I clutched the railing.

“My name is Frankie Kekoa, class of ’09. For those who don’t know, I led the Crimson football team to four division championships while I was here.”

Everyone shook their pom-poms and whooped.

“And then I was drafted by the Saints.”

The stomping and shouting grew louder.

“And you won a Super Bowl!” someone screamed, followed by a ripple of laughter.

“And I won a Super Bowl,” Frankie agreed, laughing. “Maybe two. Who knows? This year’s looking pretty good.”

The crowd ate it up. Frankie was a natural; he always had been. A huge personality. So much like Heather.

“But let me tell you some things you don’t know about me.”

My heart raced. I resisted the urge to throw my arms around Frankie, shield him.

“In addition to being the highest-scoring player to ever grace Crimson stadium, and the only Duquette alum to play in the NFL, I, Frankie Kekoa, love the color blue.”

Everyone laughed at the feint.

“I love a good steak,” Frankie continued. “I think Easter is the most underrated holiday. And—I am a proud gay man. So now you know a few things about me.”

It was amazing to watch hundreds of people in the throes of cheering suddenly freeze.

Oh god.Somehow, Frankie had found a way to get even more naked atop a Homecoming float. He stood stalwart, his shoulders held high, gazing defiantly at the crowd.

I shot Coop a desperate look over Caro’s head. We have to do something.

Coop nodded, a wild look in his eyes. “Hey, I’m going to take off all my clothes and streak across campus. Right now.”

“What?” Caro hissed.

“Fast,” I whispered.

But a strange thunder had started in the distance. It took a second, but then I realized: it was cheering. Shouting, coming from all around us, all four directions, building and building like a tidal wave: Frankie. Frankie. Frankie. The people closest to us on the sidewalks almost toppled the barriers, shaking their pom-poms. Someone screamed, “We love you, Frankie!”

The parade had turned into mayhem.

We were rushed by the members of the Duquette football team as they poured in from the back of the float, surrounding Frankie, slapping his arms and squeezing him until they lifted him, despite his protests, high in the air. Frankie Kekoa, dressed like the king of Duquette, laughed and bounced on their shoulders.

He’d done it.Frankie, always so careful, so anxious, had reimagined what his life could look like. I tried to picture what Jack would say if he could see Frankie now.

In the midst of the chaos, one hand clapped to his ear against the noise, Eric pointed to the now-empty back of the float. I didn’t want to go, wanted to stay here and soak up Frankie’s triumph, but the look on Eric’s face brooked no argument. The rest of us followed, gathering around him in a tight circle, pressed shoulder to shoulder.

“I don’t think Frankie did it,” Caro yelled. “I believe him.”

“Me too,” I said, casting an eye at the crowd, which was still going crazy, not paying the slightest attention to us. What Frankie told us hadn’t exactly cleared him. He could be lying, after all; maybe Heather had still planned on telling his coach and he’d done it to stop her. But I felt certain of Frankie’s innocence. Another one of my instincts.

“Now what?” Coop asked. “Where do we go from here?”

“I told you the Frankie theory didn’t match all the evidence,” Eric said. “It’s time to look at everything. Connect all the dots.”

He slipped a hand inside his jacket and pulled out three pieces of white construction paper, enclosed in sheet protectors. Mounted on each was a carefully reconstructed photograph. Three different pictures of the East House Seven. One from freshman year, outside East House. The second from sophomore-year spring break, our trip to Myrtle Beach, all of us sunburned and in bathing suits.

The last was from the final day of junior year. Coop and I stood close together in the back; I could still remember how he’d slipped his hand inside of mine at the last minute, right before the shot. How I’d jerked in surprise, but the next moment, I’d slipped on my mask. The camera had caught that instant—that millisecond—when you could see the conflicting emotions plain as day on my face.

Each photo had been torn into jagged scraps, then pieced back together, like a puzzle. In each, Heather’s head was violently scratched out in pen, so hard the strokes had cut into the photograph—manic swirling circles, knifelike X’s. In the last picture, the pen strokes had been so intense that half of Heather’s face was missing, a gaping maw where her smile should have been.

The world narrowed to those hateful marks, stabbed in ink. The noise of the crowd retreated, the float’s jerky movements falling away. My stomach plummeted. It couldn’t be.

Eric held up the photos, turning so we could all get a look. “I started investigating Heather’s case two days after you graduated. I wasn’t very good at it back then, but I was trying.”

I remembered Eric, stiff and alone, walking across the graduation stage to accept Heather’s diploma, the sound of his shoes scuffing the wood the only noise against a suddenly silent crowd.

“I sat in her room at home and forced myself to unpack her boxes, because my parents couldn’t bring themselves to do it. I knew if I didn’t, she would just sit there, alone and untouched. I remember that it felt like all I had of her was in those boxes—like she was in there, somehow, and needed me to take care of her. So I took them apart. There was a strange mix of stuff. The police had dumped things quickly, after they’d finished searching her room.”

I remembered that too, the dark-clad men rifling through my things.

“I found these strange little scraps of photographs tucked into Heather’s papers from her desk. It took me an hour to find all the pieces. But when I put the first together, lo and behold—” He tapped one of the pictures, right where Heather’s face was slashed by black X-marks. “New evidence. Clues the police missed. That’s the exact moment I knew they’d gotten it wrong, and it was going to be up to me to find my sister’s killer.”

The black hole inside me was spinning, memories spilling out, faster than I could push them down. I’d told myself I would look for Heather’s killer, but I hadn’t expected the path would lead to this.

Eric scanned the circle. “I’ve waited ten years, imagined all the possibilities. I know it’s one of you. So confess.”

“No one here is that much of a freak,” Courtney said, shaking her head. “Those pictures are straight-up stalker material. Sociopath material.”

From across the circle, I felt Coop’s eyes burning into my face. He wanted me to look up, reassure him, tell him unequivocally with my eyes that there was no way I was responsible, despite what he’d said all those years ago. I kept my gaze locked on my feet and heard his sharp intake of breath.

It was enough. The black hole burst, and the memories cracked open.