The Liar Society (12 page)

Half screaming, half laughing, we rushed from Liam’s Jeep through the door at Starbucks, both shielding our heads from the pouring rain with our blazers. As soon as we pushed through the door, every head in the coffee shop turned like Pavlov’s dogs to check us out.

“You get the seat, I’ll get the drinks,” Liam suggested, handing me his dripping blazer. “Skinny Frappuccino, right?”

“Um, have you met me? I’m a full-fat Frap kind of girl. I don’t subscribe to ‘skinny’ drinks.” I considered asking for extra whipped cream to really make my point, but I figured that might be overkill.

I headed over to my favorite couch and threw my wet body down onto it. In spite of all the Beefany awkwardness, I was happy to be here with Liam again. He made the threat I’d received at the heart of Brown feel a little bit farther away than it had felt fifteen minutes earlier.

But when his blazer vibrated on the couch cushion next to me, I jumped, my heart pumping blood through my ears. I guess I wasn’t quite as removed as I thought. His phone slid partway out of his pocket, and I hoped whoever was calling or texting wouldn’t cut our date short.

I shifted my shoulders a few times and realized that with my soaking-wet shirt sticking to my skin, comfort was virtually impossible. Liam was still waiting at the counter for our drinks, so I draped both of our wet blazers over the couch cushions to save our seats and ducked into the restroom.

By the time I made it back to our spot, my hair had been partially dried under the hand dryer. I’d also ditched my wet button-down for the semi-dry tank top underneath and wrapped Grace’s long pearls around my neck three times instead of twice. Liam sipped a black coffee, and my Mocha Frappuccino sat chilly and inviting.

But when I moved my blazer aside, I noticed a small white note sticking out of the pocket. I hadn’t put anything in my pockets. In fact, I’d been careful to put the rock and the threat in my bag for safekeeping. My eyes flickered to Liam, who smiled at me.

“I’ll be right back,” I mumbled, slipping the note into my palm. “I think I left something in the bathroom.” Yeah, my sanity.

I hurried back through the restroom door and, after bending and peeking beneath the stalls to make sure I was alone, opened the paper.

Hush, little Kate, don’t say a word. We hear everything.

Same block handwriting, same bloodred ink. Despite my damp tank top, I felt feverish. Paranoid, I scanned the ceiling—for what? Cameras? The bathroom suddenly felt too small, so I pushed back through the doors, seeing each customer in an entirely different light than before I’d walked through the door.

A young kid wearing a black trench coat sat a few feet away from us. I stared hard at him and wondered. An older couple chatted animatedly near the door; the man met my eyes for a second but returned to his partner’s. Was he watching me? A girl around my age sipped coffee and typed into her laptop a few tables over. Could she have left the note?

And then there was Liam sipping coffee, his uniform shirt unbuttoned to reveal a vintage T-shirt underneath. His cell phone vibrated in his blazer pocket again, and I watched his face darken as he examined the screen. He looked toward the door and then back at his phone. Could I really trust him? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.

I felt a little sick, and I had no idea what to do next. I couldn’t just whip the note out of my pocket and demand to know who had written it. If Grace were here, she’d clap her hands together and jump up and down at the thought of something
actually
happening. She would have told me to sit my ass back down, suck on my Frappuccino, and keep my eyes and ears open. So I returned to the couch just as Liam finished typing a message.

“Is everything okay?” Liam asked with a concerned look on his face, sliding his phone on the table.

“Sure.” I said, but it sounded more like a question. I picked a piece of lint from my uniform skirt, letting my mind wander again.

And, big surprise, it wandered straight back to the heart of Brown and all the pieces of Grace’s puzzle. On top of the names, the heart of Brown was used as some sort of meeting place. And then there was that crumpled note I’d stuffed into my book bag.

Someone not only cared enough about me being there to send the threat, but even more disturbing, they
knew
I’d be there. And apparently one note wasn’t enough. They’d followed me here and delivered a second ultra-freaky warning. Clearly I was getting a little too close for comfort. Otherwise why would they bother? Too bad I still didn’t have any idea what all of this really meant and how it might connect to Grace.

“Hello? Kate? You still with me?” Liam’s voice made me realize that I’d been staring blankly at his shoes.

“Sorry, I was just thinking about…” Headmaster Sinclair? No, that was just gross. The Brown School for Boys? That was just weird. Rocks? Weird and geology focused. I shrugged.

Liam shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and I wondered if something more than just our awkward conversation was making him edgy.

“I’m gonna grab a water. You need anything?” Liam asked, standing up.

“Um…” I thought for a second about all the things I needed, but I waved my hand and shook my head.

As soon as Liam entered the line to order, his cell phone vibrated again. I craned my neck to evaluate his position in line and casually reached to retrieve his phone—in the name of my investigation, obviously.

On the screen, Beefany’s name was listed next to two new text messages. Without thinking I opened the first text.

Remember what we talked about.

I cleared his screen and tossed the phone back on the table, annoyed. What exactly was going on between them? And what exactly was going on between us?

After paying for his bottle of water, Liam lowered himself into the couch and shot me a smile I couldn’t possibly return. His phone vibrated again, and as he typed, I considered all the things he might be saying to Beefany, things about me, things about threatening notes. At this point, he could have been typing just about anything. I took one last sip of my Mocha Frappuccino and set the half-f cup on the table. Things had to be bad for me to abandon a Frappuccino.

“I’m out of here.” I pulled my damp blazer off the couch and threw it over my arm. Liam’s forehead wrinkled as he looked up at me and then over to his phone, which had just begun to vibrate for the millionth time. I could almost hear the struggle playing out in his mind.
Kate or Bethany…Kate or Bethany
.

“Oh, and, you might want to get that. Rumor has it that Bethany doesn’t like to be kept waiting,” I snapped, adjusting my blazer. Before I could grab it, a piece of crumpled notebook paper floated into Liam’s lap. On it was my drawing of the crest with the words
Audi, Vide, Tace
underlined repeatedly. I almost snatched it up myself, but Liam grabbed it and took in the picture.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam asked, silencing his phone.

“I just wouldn’t want Bethany to get upset.” I cursed myself for admitting I’d snooped in his phone but figured it didn’t matter. I was leaving. “Have fun texting about me.” I turned to go, but I felt words bubbling up in my throat that needed to be said. “I should have known you’d be a liar too.”

Liam reached up and grabbed my arm. “If you’re so into the truth, why don’t you tell me what this means?” He held up the picture of the crest.

I opened my mouth to say something and quickly snapped it back shut. I stood there stewing for a few seconds until Liam broke the silence.

“So, what does it mean?”

I wasn’t in the mood to be cooperative. “Why does she keep texting?”

“If I told you there’s nothing going on with Bethany, would you believe me?”

“If I told you I don’t know what the picture means, would you believe me?”

He took a swig of his water. I sat back down and reached for my Mocha Frappuccino. No use letting it go to waste.

“There’s nothing going on with her,” Liam whispered.

“I don’t know what it means,” I said.

And that was it. We both had our secrets. We were stuck: willing to trust each other enough not to lie but not enough to tell the whole truth. As I looked at him, his damp hair wavy, his wet shirt clinging to his skin, I wanted to believe him, to trust him.

“So let’s start over.” Liam shook the hair from his eyes, which had magically switched back to light blue. “I think I remember one of the questions I wanted to ask you.”

“Wait. You planned a question to ask me?”

“Well”—he turned a little red—“yeah, but only if things were going really bad, which, in light of recent events…”

I laughed one of those belly laughs that always seem to catch you by surprise. It felt good.

“So…what are your favorite things? You know, what do you
really
love?”

“Um…” I laughed, a little uncomfortably now, because it was kind of a personal question. “Well, I can’t live without Mocha Frappuccinos,” I said, rattling my near-empty cup. “I love infomercials, and even though I know it’s total bullshit, I check my horoscope daily.” The conversation had taken a 180, and my face flushed with something I hadn’t felt in a while. Something like happiness.

“So what did it say today? Mystery date with a hot guy?” he asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, a hot guy who spends half the date texting with some other girl.” A shadow passed over his face, and I felt bad for ruining the moment. But, hey, the truth hurts.

“Yeah, what an asshole,” he joked halfheartedly. “Although, now that I think about it,
my
horoscope might have said something about meeting a girl with a big secret.”

Laughter shone in his eyes, and I considered telling him everything. Yeah, he might think I was totally crazy, and I’d probably be putting myself in danger, but I was ready to be done with the secrets and lies.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets, my fingers brushing against the note still crumpled inside. Suddenly the words that were on the tip of my tongue were gone, and I knew this wasn’t even close to being over.

If someone held a feeling chart up in front of me (you know, the one with all the cartoon faces that guidance counselors use to help us describe our emotions?) and asked me to show how I was feeling, I could probably have pointed to each cartoon face listed.

My emotions were all over the place. One second I was terrified, fearful that someone was out to hurt me. Then the next I was captivated by the thought of finding a boy I actually liked. And then, as always, there was the bottomless sadness of not being able to share any of this with Grace.

Despite my confusion, I knew I had work to do, and I wasn’t about to let a guy come between me and the truth, no matter how charming he seemed.

And that’s how I found myself working Google again with Saturday afternoon drift, drift, drifting away. I started with the usual “Richard Sinclair” and got about a million random hits. Duh. Next up: “Richard Sinclair, Pemberly Brown Headmaster.” I got a bunch of hits with a Pemberly Brown–approved bio. Boring. But one hit was about Richard and Robert Sinclair, brothers who had broken all kinds of track records during their years at PB.

I stretched my back, cleared the search box, and tried “Robert Sinclair, Pemberly Brown, Ohio.” Bingo. A PDF of track-and-field records from 1970 came up. Backing out of the PDF, I clicked on results linking to school newspaper archives. I skimmed one, an interview with Robert about his track career. In one answer he mentioned his younger brother, Richard.

I backed out of the article and clicked on another. This one was far more interesting than the fluffy interview. Apparently Robert Sinclair had been accused and acquitted of attacking a girl in his grade at Pemberly Brown. The article discussed the impact on his track career.

The paper left out the girl’s name to protect the innocent while noting that other publications hadn’t been so kind and that the victim had been bullied by classmates as a result. Now this was getting interesting. The headmaster had a brother who had been accused of attacking a girl? Somehow I didn’t find that hard to believe.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find the girl’s name anywhere on the site, leaving me with no other choice—I needed to go public. And by public, I mean the public library, where the books I needed wouldn’t have pieces sliced out of them.

Faster than you can say “acquittal,” I grabbed my stuff, hopped on my bike, and ten minutes later was locking it to the rack outside the library. I know, I know, I was one leisurely ride away from sporting spandex shorts and one of those aerodynamic helmets. I shuddered at the thought.

Pulling open the ornate doors, I stepped into the atrium and breathed in the smell of musty books. They smelled like answers.

The old wooden floors creaked beneath my feet, and books sighed as people turned pages. Every time I visited the library, I admired the stately rooms that housed row after row of books. Some eccentric millionaire had donated his mansion to the city for a library back in the ’40s, and even though the floors were chipped and the paint was peeling in many of the rooms, the library still oozed a stately elegance.

It was a library you could get lost in. Tiny rooms with oversized armchairs and small side tables were peppered between larger rooms lined with tall shelves of books. The sterile buildings that usually housed books paled in comparison.

I wove my way through room after meandering room before I finally found the help desk.

“How may I help you?” The man behind the desk looked up at me over his glasses.

I figured I might as well get the easy stuff out of the way first.

“Do you have a book called
Pemberly Brown: 150 Years of Excellence
by…” I glanced down at my slam book, “Calvin Markwell?” The library was my last chance for good old Calvin. Every online bookstore said the book was out of print.

It might have been my imagination, but I swear the librarian sitting a few feet away from him stopped typing as I asked my question.

“Let me see if we have any copies. We just began allowing some of the reference materials to go out on loan.” He typed into his computer and looked up at me with a smile. “You’re in luck.
Pemberly Brown: 150 Years of Excellence
by Calvin Markwell. Computer says we have one copy available. Follow me.”

I gave him a smile, but it wavered when I felt the other librarian’s eyes on me again. I followed the nice old man, eager to get away from Eva Eavesdropper over there.

The library was set up in a similar way to the Academy library, only on a much larger scale. Bookshelves loomed around me, and computer terminals dotted each section.

“Say, you don’t happen to know Officer Dorothy?” the man asked as he led me to the nonfiction section. “She mans the PB library after hours.”

“Yeah, she’s awesome! Everyone loves Ms. D.”

“Well, you’ll never believe this, but she was my History teacher way back when. If you don’t find what you’re looking for here, just ask her. She knows everything there is to know about PB.”

“Oh,” I said, confused. “Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll have to talk to her.”

I wondered why Ms. D. would have stopped teaching History to take a job in security. Definitely an interesting career move. Plus she’d never mentioned it before. Granted we weren’t all that close, and I’m sure it wasn’t the type of information you really wanted to broadcast, but still.

“Here we are.” The man stopped in front of the reference section. “There should be one copy available. It’s leather-bound, maroon, I think.”

He bent to check the titles, but I knew after my quick scan that the book was not on the shelf. I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Hmm, I’m not seeing it. Someone might be using it within the library, or maybe it was an error. But I can hold a copy for you when it becomes available.”

Time was one of the many things I really didn’t have a lot of at the moment, but it was worth a try. “Um, yeah, that’d be great. My name is Kate. Kate Lowry.”

He wrote my name down in a small notebook and asked if he could help me with anything else. Before I could speak, the librarian who had been giving me the once-over at the desk stalked toward us.

“Thanks, Charles. There’s a young lady who needs your help at the reference desk. I can take over from here. Kate, is it?”

“Actually, I need to look through some old newspapers.” I didn’t trust her, but she was being forced on me, so I’d have to be flexible.

“May I ask what you’re looking for?”

“I’m just…um…researching Pemberly Brown during the seventies for a paper.”

She cocked her head slightly to the side. I wondered if she was equally concerned with every library patron’s information searches. If that was the case, her job must have been exhausting.

“Let me take you to the newspaper archives on the microfilm machine. You’ll find what you’re looking for down there.”

“Show me the way,” I said as the librarian led me toward a stairwell. Just as we were about to step down, a voice broke through the otherwise silent space.

“Hey, Kate!” The sound came from behind a huge stack of books.

The librarian stopped in her tracks and shushed the voice, throwing a stern look in my direction. I couldn’t suppress a groan when red curls emerged over the stack.

“Oh, hey, Seth.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Research.” I hoped he’d disappear back behind his pile of conspiracy theories.

“On what?” I really should have known better. After all, this was Seth Allen.

“Um…on a long-lost cousin of my dad’s. It’s extra credit for World History if I research someone in my family tree,” I lied, rolling a single pearl of Grace’s necklace between my fingers. “She went to PB in the seventies.”

“Want some help?”

I was about to decline his offer, but then I remembered that my search involved something called a microfilm machine and I reconsidered.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The librarian stood at the top of the stairs tapping her foot—she sure meant business. “Ready?” she asked.

We nodded and followed her down the winding staircase to the bowels of the library. A quick wave of nervousness washed over me when I recalled my last experience with a library’s basement, and I silently thanked Seth for being nosy enough to want to help.

Two lonely microfilm machines sat tucked into a corner next to drawers overflowing with microfilm rolls. It looked like the place where old school filmstrips went to die.

“Have a seat,” the librarian said.

I sat in front of one machine, and Seth pulled up a chair.

“Have you ever used one of these before?” she asked.

“No,” I responded.

“Yes,” Seth chimed in.

“Oh, good,” she said handing me a huge roll of film labeled, “The
Cleveland Plain Dealer
: 1970 to 1975.”

Without thinking twice, I handed the roll over to Seth. He expertly loaded the film and pulled up the first article.

“Oh, and Kate?” the librarian asked from the foot of the stairs. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Um, thanks,” I said, but she had already started walking back up the stairs. “What was her deal?” I mumbled.

“What? I thought she seemed nice.” Seth glanced back toward the stairs before slyly pulling a bag of Cheetos from his jacket pocket. “Please tell me you’ve tried Google already,” he said while messing with the focus knob.

“What do you think I am? An idiot? I couldn’t find anything. Trust me, the library was a last resort.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s just start. What’re we looking for?”

“Anything related to an incident on Pemberly Brown’s campus. Technically an assault.”

“I thought you said this was a project about your dad’s cousin, family-tree research.” Seth looked me dead in the eyes, the corners of his mouth stained with orange powder.

Crap.

“Oh, yeah, um…I’m working on that project too. But first I’m researching a paper for my Women’s Studies class about the history of assault against women at PB.”

“Oh, okay.” Seth pushed the button and the print became a blur, and I let out a huge sigh of relief. I couldn’t believe Seth was buying this crap. Maybe love really was blind.

Seth whizzed and whirred his way through 1970.

“Anything?”

“Keep going. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

By the time we got to May 1971, an hour had passed. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I had thought. By July my eyes had glazed over, and I was pretty sure that even if I did see something having to do with Pemberly Brown, I wouldn’t realize it.

But then the machine made a strange clicking sound, and even though Seth turned the knob, the film was stuck.

“That’s strange. I’ll go get the librarian.” Seth pushed out his chair.

“I thought you said you’ve used one of these.” I turned the knob manually and backed up the film. When I pushed the Forward button, the strip got stuck again at the same place. As I reversed it, I noticed a thin line in the film. I gently pulled at it to get a closer look.

“Is that tape?” Seth asked. “Someone must have tried to fix it.” He leaned his head in super-close to mine. His breath smelled like artificial cheese, and I resisted the urge to stuff a piece of gum in his mouth.

“Wait.” I loaded the film again and pulled up the article right before the split in the film. There was nothing on the screen about an assault. I manually turned the film forward and stopped directly after the piece of tape. “Somebody cut out an article.”

“No one even uses microfilm anymore. I’m sure it just broke or something. Keep going. I’ve gotta get back upstairs soon.”

Leaning in close to the screen, I saw the remainder of an article in the upper left-hand corner.

-berly Brown accused a fellow student of assault. The minor accused was an accomplished student and athlete, and police theorize Moore killed herself after friends and classmates turned against her. Along with her family, Elisa Moore, the victim’s sister, is speaking out-

“I think this is it,” I said, biting my thumbnail. “But it’s all broken apart, and I need an address, I mean…for the project.”

“Why? It’s not like you can interview her. She’s dead.” Seth pointed out helpfully.

“Yeah, but there’s always her sister.” Opening my slam book, I noted Elisa Moore’s name and shoved the book back in my bag. “Thanks for your help with the machine, Seth. I could never have figured it out by myself.” I pulled the film out of the machine, placed it back in its canister, and tucked that in the drawer along the wall.

“Wait. How will you find the address?”

“I’ll figure it out,” I said, swinging my bag over my shoulder and rushing to the stairs. But before I started up, I softened, thinking of everything Seth had done for me. “Hey, I saw a commercial for some special on the History Channel about…”

“Conspiracy Theory Week,” Seth cut me off. “DVRed.”

“Well, I thought it looked…um…interesting.” The lie rolled off my tongue, and Seth looked like he’d died and gone to heaven.

“Well, it’s a date then! I’ll call you later.”

“Uh, yeah. Sounds great.” I rushed up the steps thankful to have a friend in Seth, even if that meant I’d have to sit through hours of the History Channel. In surround sound, no less.

Back on the main floor of the library, I found an empty computer terminal and started limbering up for some serious Google-fu.

The last name “Moore” was like “Smith.” Googling it produced almost three million hits. The white-pages listings were pretty bad too. More than three hundred results were listed for “Moore” in the area alone.

“Elisa Moore” was a little different. There were only two Elisa Moores listed, and one was an Elisabeth. Under Elisa’s name was the name “Palm Manor Extended Care Facility,” as well as the address. According to my complex mathematic calculations (basic arithmetic done on my cell-phone calculator), if Elisa was living at a nursing home, she must have been the victim’s older sister. Pulling up Google, I typed the address in the box and clicked the search button.

Within thirty-three seconds, Google spat out directions. God bless the interwebs.