The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (54 page)

“That’s a good point, Natasha,” Ariana said, sounding oddly detached. “We should look into that when we get back.”

Natasha and I exchanged a look. There was something weird about the way they were all talking. It was too antiseptic. Too clipped.

“And she could still get in next year, right?” I suggested. “It’s just not a given.”

“Very true,” Noelle said calmly, turning away from me to pack her bag. “You should remind her of that when we get in the car.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I will.”

I stepped up next to Natasha to open my locker and she widened her eyes at me and shrugged.
Call me crazy, but I don’t believe half the stuff I hear at Easton,
I heard her say in my mind. Words to live by.

Somehow, we were back on campus early that afternoon. I felt like I had been gone for days. Years. That was how different I felt from the angry, tense, scared (I
did
have a blindfold over my eyes) person who had left that morning.

Now I was energized. My skin practically sizzled and my hair felt freakishly soft against my face. Since I hadn’t been allowed to shower that morning, Noelle had treated me to a shampoo, deep condition, and blowout before we left—a ridiculously expensive blowout. But worth every penny, especially since I hadn’t paid for it.

I pulled some of my wavy brown locks in front of my eyes, just to see how shiny they were. Unbelievable. This could not be my hair.

“Look at her. You’d think no one had ever shampooed the girl before,” Noelle said as we made our way around Bradwell.

“What are you gonna do next? Throw your arms out and twirl?” Kiran asked.

I paused, embarrassed. “Actually, I was about to say thank you, but you guys make it so hard. . . .”

“Sorry.” Noelle stopped in her tracks and the other girls lined up beside her. “Proceed.”

“With what?” I asked.

“The thank you,” Noelle replied.

They all looked at me expectantly—even Taylor, with her bloodshot eyes.

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes slightly just so that they wouldn’t think they had me entirely under their thumbs. “Thanks, you guys. Really. I actually feel almost normal. Like, I don’t know, like life might actually go on. And I just—”

Suddenly, I realized that Noelle’s gaze had wandered past me and over my shoulder. Gradually, all the other girls looked as well. Their expressions changed so abruptly I felt the stone path tilt beneath my feet.

What now?

When I turned around, I saw Dash and Gage stalking toward us with military stiffness. Dash’s nostrils were almost as wide as Missy Thurber’s, who could have snout-doubled for Seabiscuit. He had a rolled-up newspaper in his hand.

“What happened?” Noelle asked as the boys arrived, blustering and short of breath.

“They let the prick go. They let the freakin’ prick go,” Dash said.

“They didn’t,” Ariana said.

Dash shoved the newspaper at Noelle and Ariana, his hands trembling. Slowly, Noelle took the paper in both hands. It was a local publication I had seen around campus before. The headline read
MURDER SUSPECT FREED.
Beneath it was a picture of a person I assumed to be Rick DeLea walking out of the Easton police station.

“He came up with an alibi,” Gage said. “Some crackhead girlfriend, no doubt. We should’ve known. These podunk cops’ll take care of their own over us any day. Even if he is a scum-sucking drug dealer.”

Thomas was a scum-sucking drug dealer, too.

I don’t know why that was the first thought that came into my head, but it was. And even though it was the truth, I felt guilty for thinking it.

“I don’t believe this,” Noelle said. “I thought we had this all under control.”

“We?” Dash said.

“We. They. You really want to debate pronouns with me right now?” Noelle snapped.

Her skin looked shiny with sweat, and her hand was over her mouth. Seeing her look so thrown was almost more disconcerting than the news itself. Turning in Rick the Townie had been her idea, and clearly, she didn’t enjoy being wrong. I glanced at Ariana and Kiran and Taylor. Everyone looked like wide-eyed caricatures of themselves. I wondered if their stomachs felt as tight and empty and sick as mine did. If the police were right, then Thomas’s killer was still out there.

“What’re we going to do?” I heard myself say.

No one replied. Natasha reached out and slipped her arm around mine, pulling me to her. I had thought this whole thing was over. I had thought the police had done their job.

But now I saw that this was never going to end. That I was going to feel this way
forever
.

How to Go from on Top of the World to Rock Bottom in Less Than Five Seconds: A Cautionary Tale
, by Reed Brennan.

“He did it. We all know he did. I say we take justice into our own hands,” Dash said at dinner that night. His eyes were wide and he was unable to sit still. I had never seen him so fidgety, and every time his hand jerked or he shifted in his seat, I flinched. This guy was primed to blow.

“Does anyone know where this fuckhead lives?” Gage said.

“What are we going for now, mob rule?” Noelle joked.

She seemed to have recovered nicely from her initial shock. Of course, teasing the guys was always good for her mood.

“If that’s what it takes.” Dash let a bit of spittle fly. “I’m not playing here, Noelle.”

Noelle rolled her eyes and sighed. We all stared at one another. It had been like this all through dinner, and neither my stomach nor my nerves were enjoying it.

“Can we talk about something else?” I suggested.

“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Natasha said.

“What did you say?” Dash blurted.

Noelle leaned back in her chair, shaking her head. Kiran pushed her vegetables around on her plate. Ariana stared down at her book. Taylor was MIA. Probably curled up in a bed in the infirmary, where she seemed to spend half her time lately.

“I’m just saying, clearly they didn’t have enough evidence to keep him in custody, so maybe he
didn’t
do it,” Natasha said, lifting a shoulder. “Sometimes you just have to trust in the system.”

“That’s good stuff, coming from you,” Gage said.

Natasha dropped her fork and crossed her arms on the table. “Is this going to be another ‘Republicans are evil’ diatribe? Because I
so
don’t get enough of those,” she said sardonically.

“I’d love to hear about why Republicans are evil,” Kiran put in. “At least it would be a change of subject.”

“Look,
Gisele
, just because you don’t give a shit that Thomas was murdered doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying to figure out who did it,” Gage said. “The world does not revolve around Kiran Hayes.”

“You think I don’t give a shit?” Kiran blurted. Her tone was so venomous, it made me jump. Startled tears came to my eyes and I was instantly embarrassed, but I couldn’t control it. I was that on edge. “Who the hell do you think you are? You have no idea what I do and don’t care about! I would
love
to know what really happened to Thomas, what the police are thinking. But no one seems to want to tell us, do they? No! They just want us to sit here and suffer.”

“Kiran,” Ariana said in a warning, soothing tone.

Kiran looked around as if just remembering that anyone other
than Gage was at the table. “Sorry. I’m just sick of this,” she grumbled. “It’s too weird. A few weeks ago he was sitting right there being obnoxious and now we’re talking about who did and didn’t kill him. I mean—”

“I can’t listen to this anymore,” I blurted.

I pushed my chair back so hard it slammed into Cheyenne’s, who was sitting at the next table. Clumsily, I gathered up my bag and coat. One of the wood buttons whacked Cheyenne on the back of the head and she made a big show of how much it hurt. I ignored her.

“I’ll see you guys back at Billings.”

“Reed—”

I had already turned to go, but I paused and swung around. “I thought you guys were planning a party for Thomas,” I said, looking at Dash and Gage. “Why don’t you concentrate on that instead of making everybody even more miserable than they already are?”

I turned and stormed out, narrowing my eyes to try to quell the tears as I shoved through the door and into the cold night. The second I hit the pathway, I slammed directly into Josh.

“Reed! Are you okay?” he asked.

He placed his hands on my arms to steady me. The wind blew a few of his blond curls across his forehead. Being so close to him so suddenly brought on another huge rush of emotion that I wasn’t sure I could take. I moved aside and sucked in a broken breath.

“I’m fine,” I said, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead.

Breathe in, breathe out. Remember how you felt this morning. How
you felt before everything caved in again. I’m at the spa. I’m cuddled into that soft, soft robe. I’m lying back in the chair, content. . . .

“I was freaking out all day. Where were you?” Josh demanded.

I blinked at him, confused. Ripped from my reverie before I could fully realize it. Was he angry at me for some reason? “I was with Noelle and them.”

“Oh.” Josh’s face became hard as he stood up straight. “I thought we were going to Boston.”

I felt as if someone had just dumped a bucket of water over my head. Josh’s brother and his girlfriend. The day of fun in Boston. I had completely forgotten about it, what with being forcibly torn from my bed and everything. My heart squeezed as I noticed the depth of disappointment in Josh’s face. This had meant a lot to him, and I had completely blown it off. And even as I realized this, I was touched. Josh really wanted to be with me. Introduce me to his brother. Treat me with that level of importance. Which made my forgetfulness that much worse.

“Josh, I am
so
sorry,” I said. “I completely forgot. Noelle and Kiran woke me up at the crack of dawn and I was half out of it. I’m an idiot.”

“It’s fine. Really,” he said, all aloof. “It’s good to know I’m that forgettable.”

He turned to go. Guilt overcame me. All I wanted to do was explain.

“Josh, wait,” I said, grabbing his arm.

“No, Reed. It’s okay. You’d rather spend the day with your
girlfriends than me. I get it,” he snapped. “Message received.”

I’d never seen him this angry. Where was this coming from?

“I would not rather spend the day with them than you,” I said, desperate. “Believe me.”

Josh paused and searched my face. “Yeah?”

“I swear.”

Slowly his demeanor relaxed. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I was just worried about you. I called you twenty times and I kept getting your voice mail. I was freaking out. I mean, after what happened to Thomas . . .”

I felt like I was trying to swallow my heart. Everything was different now, wasn’t it? A few unanswered phone calls and one could reasonably assume disappearance and death.

“Josh, I’m really sorry. I didn’t think,” I said.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” he asked. The accusation was gone from his voice, replaced by concern. I took a deep breath, glad to have normal Josh back. He was supposed to be the rock around here.

“Noelle stole my phone,” I told him. I shivered in my thin sweater. The hot streak of anger had passed and I suddenly realized I was freezing. I placed my bag on the ground and pulled my coat on. “I really am sorry.”

“It’s cool,” Josh said. “Just . . . next time, don’t let her take it. With everything that’s been going on . . .”

For a second I thought he was going to reach for my hand, and my heart skipped nervously, but then he thought the better of it.
He shoved his fists into the pockets of his coat instead. My fingers itched for the phantom contact.

“I know,” I said. “Won’t happen again.”

Josh managed a smile. “Good. Because if anything happened to you . . .”

My chest felt warm and full. I had all but forgotten the unpleasantness in the caf.

“Okay,” I said. Because there were a million things I wanted to say but couldn’t.

Josh leaned back against the brick wall behind him and tipped his head up. He let out a huge sigh.

“So, did you hear about Rick?”

“Yeah,” I said. I leaned back next to him. Looked down at my shoes. “It’s all anyone can talk about.”

“I can’t believe it. After all that, they let him go? How incompetent are these people?” he said.

“I know. I feel like we’re never going to know what really happened,” I said.

“I know what happened,” Josh snapped. “Rick and Thomas got into it and Rick killed him. End of story. Why can’t these people ever just accept the easy answer?”

I felt something flip in my mind and tried to keep the thoughts at bay, just as I had all day long. But there was no more avoiding it. On they came. If the police were right, if Rick was not the killer, then the killer was obviously still out there. One thing we knew for sure was that Thomas’s body had been found in the
area. Somewhere near Easton. Rick the townie had made sense because he lived in town, but if it wasn’t him, then it stood to reason that it was someone else from around the school. Maybe even someone
at
the school.

Whenever I got to that point on the logic train, my engine died. I just could not wrap my brain around the idea that someone at Easton hated Thomas that much. That someone at Easton was capable of murder.

“I don’t know,” I said, glancing away.

“It had to be him,” Josh said. “It had to be.”

“It would make everything so much easier,” I said, feeling numb. “Because if it wasn’t him, then it was someone else. Maybe someone—”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. There was no way.

Josh stared into the darkness. “Maybe someone we know.”

“This feels sort of weird,” I said as my friends and I approached the Great Room in Mitchell Hall on Tuesday night. I could already hear the dance music pumping through the walls. A few of the former headmasters’ portraits were shaking in their gilded frames.

Headmaster Stern from the early 1900s did not look happy about it.