Wicked Games

by Wood, Vivian

  We have a perfectly nice dinner together. She flirts with me. I flirt back. But underneath it all is an beat that never stops: why? Why? Why?

  39

  Emily

  I sit in the hallway outside the language professors’ offices, which is located way in the back of campus in the upper floor of a dimly-lit building. I’m nervously waiting in a straight-backed chair for Dr. Maddux, who heads up the journalism department. After months of dithering, I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to major in journalism.

  I just need to talk it over with Dr. Maddux to be absolutely sure.

  Checking the time on my phone, I sigh. It’s about five minutes after the time I scheduled with Dr. Maddux via email. I know I need to learn patience, but I am already fidgety. Maybe I shouldn’t have had quite so much Starbucks this morning. I am very aware of how hard the chair is hard beneath my back.

  After ten minutes of waiting, I stand up, stretching a little bit. Is Dr. Maddux even in his office? His door is closed, the shades drawn down. There is about an inch of his office exposed beneath the shade.

  Bending down to see inside, I try the doorknob. It opens easily at the same time as I realize that Dr. Maddux isn’t in the office. There is just his messy desk on one side and a tall wall full of bookshelves on the other. Everything is still and silent and dark.

  Looking at my watch again, I bite my lip. I have class in half an hour. That’s not enough time to ask Dr. Maddux any of the long list of questions I have, much less wait around for him to actually show up.

  Should I leave him a note to prove I was here? I guess so.

  Taking a deep breath, I open his office door. It creaks a little. I feel like I’m intruding.

  I step back to the chair where I was sitting and dig in my purse to find a pen and a piece of paper. Then I hurry back inside to Dr. Maddux’s desk, looking for a good place to set my paper down and scrawl a note. I’m taken aback by how covered in stacks of papers and folders his desk is. His desktop computer and his many magazines dominate the workspace. If there is a mouse or a keyboard on the desk, I can’t see them. Then again, I wonder at the drifts of wrinkled papers and the old coffee thermos.

  Dr. Maddux is without a doubt a total slob.

  Finding a mostly flat square of the desk to write on, I start writing.

  Dear Dr. Maddux —

  I pause, sure what to write next. My eyes wander to the trash pile that is his desk. I straighten and turn around, looking about the office for… I don't know, inspiration or something.

  I scan his bookshelves, a set of binders catching my eye. They are the heavy duty black type, probably about eight of them, each one labeled in marker by hand. The very first one is labeled ASHER RADCLIFFE in big bold letters.

  What kind of material could Dr. Maddux be collecting on Asher? My fingers itch with the need to know. Glancing over my shoulder, I tiptoe the few steps to the bookshelf. I’m aware that what I am doing is totally not okay, but my need to know overrules my sense of right and wrong.

  Slipping the binder off the shelf, I crack it open, tingling with anticipation. The first things I see are several news clippings about Asher’s death. Flipping through them, I find a photo of the crime scene. To my shock, Asher’s body is in the photo, crumpled at the bottom of the stairs.

  I touch the picture, a frisson of energy running through me wildly. Asher Radcliffe was a real person. I keep forgetting but it’s true enough.

  The next page is the county coroner’s report. My eyes are immediately drawn to a highlighted section under the words Probable Cause of Death. It lists traumatic brain injury, likely due to a fall. Frowning, I flip the page only to find a second worksheet just like before. Only this time the same highlighted section reads, traumatic brain injury due secondary to bludgeoning.

  This sheet is dated April 12th of last year. Flipping back a page, I read the date of the second report. April 14th.

  I look over my shoulder, biting my lip. Turning around so that I am facing the door, I lean against the wall and think. So basically, there were two coroner’s reports with two different causes of death. One sounds like Asher fell down the stairs, one basically says that he was hit on the head.

  Checking the dates again, I realize that the report that lists his cause of death as a fall down the stairs is the final one. Is there a reason why the accidental version of the death was determined to be the final one?

  Turning the page, I see a list of bank transactions. There are three highlighted, each for just under ten thousand dollars. The next page is just a set of handwritten notes in the same handwriting that is on the outside of the binder. The notes are jumbled and pressed together, scrawled in a manner that is totally chaotic. But a couple of them are underlined so much that they jump out at me.

  Coroner was PAID OFF

  WHERE is Asher’s SKELETON KEY?

  I pause. Asher was missing a skeleton key? I found a skeleton key just outside the Rose House. That cannot be a coincidence.

  Could my key be his?

  I blanch when I realize that I wiped off a bunch of sticky gunk when I decided to wear the key as a necklace. Could that gunk have been… blood?

  Oh god. I am really part of this now, even though I wasn’t even here yet when Asher died.

  Hands trembling, I leaf through the remaining pages. Copies of the police report and the insurance claim. Apparently Asher’s death brought a lot of money to his parents. Just another vague motive in this potential crime.

  Everyone that I have talked to had a motive. Most of them had the opportunity too. While the crime becomes somewhat clearer, it plunges everyone who knew Asher into a murky world of doubt and suspicion.

  Behind that is a clear plastic pouch. In it is a piece of wadded up light gray cotton, splattered with…

  It definitely looks like blood.

  The breath freezes in my lungs.

  Is that…

  Am I holding Asher’s blood?

  Oh god. Is this binder a record kept by Asher’s killer?

  I’m shaking now, my eyes misting over. Turning to the desk, I dump the binder on top of everything else on the desk’s surface. Glancing at the door again, I can’t help but wonder if Asher and the other names on the other binders are evidence of crimes.

  I can’t be sure that they are. Then again, I can’t rule it out. As a matter of fact, I think that this investigation has suddenly ballooned to be something much too big for me.

  Backing out of Dr. Maddux’s office, I grab my cell phone and start dialing 911.

  40

  Wolf

  The arrest has everyone’s attention, even the newest brothers. It’s hard to ignore that kind of restless energy. It infects the entire campus. I can’t go anywhere without overhearing other people talking about it in low, hushed tones. It’s the same conversation every time.

  “—arrested.”

  “They said it was an accident.”

  “I knew it wasn’t. I knew there was something weird about the whole thing. The guys at Rose House—”

  The person would inevitably look around at that point, catch sight of me, and fall silent.

  My parents start calling the moment the news hits the local stations. The moment before, actually, because my father owns the local station. They wouldn’t run the story without informing him first. Finally, I had to tell him that if he didn’t stop calling I’d drop out of Campbell.

  “That seems rash, son,” he’d said, voice tight. “But please keep us updated on anything that happens on campus.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen on campus,” I told him. “There was an arrest made. Everyone’s shocked. That’s it. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Keep me updated,” he’d said.

  It’s been twenty-four hours since they took in Dr. Maddux, and nobody’s pretending to study.

  The TV is on in the living room at Rose House. It’s not usually on, unless there’s a big game, because most people prefer to watch their own shows on their o
wn personal televisions. You don’t fuck with another man’s streaming preferences. At Rose House, we only have subscriptions to live sports networks, not regular cable. There are two other news channels, and one of them’s been on nonstop for the full day.

  Max sits on the wide sofa right in front of the TV, leaned back with his fingers pressed to his temples. He’s hardly said a word since the news broke. He just frowns at the screen, eyes scanning back and forth as they update the chyrons.

  “They keep saying the same thing.”

  I quit lingering in the doorway and come to stand behind the sofa, a coffee mug in my hand. I wanted something hot and strong, and it’s cold as hell and blustery out. There is no wrong time for coffee. This is the rightest time of all. The first sip puts a temporary stop to the cascade of thoughts running through my mind.

  I’m too on edge to be relieved about the news. Dr. Maddux killing Asher doesn’t seem likely. Asher might have had a class or two with him, which wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary at an exclusive place like Campbell. But if he complained, if there was tension between them, I don’t remember it.

  “Hi.” Emily hurries into the living room with cold coming off her clothes. She stops just inside the living room doorway and turns back to the hall. “Matt?”

  Matthew Gold pokes his head in, a red scarf around his neck. “Yeah?”

  “If you need me to read over that essay one more time, just email it to me. I don’t mind.”

  “Cool.” He gives her the lamest thumbs-up I’ve ever seen and I smirk in that general direction, mostly to hide the envy that’s like a struck match whenever her eyes are on someone else. We haven’t talked about my dating proposal since that dinner, but patience is a fucking virtue. As long as I can keep stealing moments with her in the study rooms and at Thistle, I can wait as long as it takes.

  “Cool,” echoes Emily, and then she turns to face me, lowering her hood. Her cheeks are already pink from the cold but the color deepens as she gives me a tight-lipped smile.

  “Nothing new,” I tell her as she comes to stand next to me. She pulls off her gloves one by one, watching the footage cycle through on the TV. They’re reporting this every fifteen minutes on the local station, the same stock every time—a police car with its lights on parked on the campus street in front of Maddux’s office, an exterior shot of Rose House, Asher’s picture. The photo is a stab to the gut every time. I look down into my coffee mug when it comes up on this cycle.

  “Nothing? I thought they had, like, a limited number of time to charge someone and take them before a judge.” She cuts a glance up at me, like I’m a criminal lawyer.

  “Depends on if it’s murder or not,” Max says from the sofa. Emily takes a deep breath and walks around to sit next to him.

  “They’re not making that very clear on the news.” Emily folds her hands in her lap, then refolds them. “Arrested in connection with the death of Asher Radcliffe.”

  “They have to charge you in twenty-four hours normally, but they’ve got longer if it’s a more serious accusation. Like murder. That’s what I read.” Max lifts his hand from his lap, then sets it down again.

  “Then we’ve got some time.” Emily sounds completely decisive, and the knot that’s been coiled in my gut for the last twenty-four hours tightens.

  I open my mouth to answer, but it’s Max who gets there first. “You sound pretty sure about that.” There’s no sharpness to his voice, no suspicion, but there’s a focused light in his eyes. I warned her. I warned her not to dig into this, and it’s clear from the careful way she keeps her attention on the screen that Emily is avoiding my gaze. Details from yesterday click into place. She didn’t stop at Rose House yesterday evening. Cassandra said she’d shut herself in her room at Thistle and was studying nonstop. I thought about going over there to take her mind off whatever class has caught her obsession this week, but Cass sent me a winking text telling me that I’d have better luck if I let Emily have the evening.

  Cheeky.

  That’s all I sent back, and then I went to the living room with the rest of the guys and pretended not to be monitoring the news.

  “Well...” Emily hefts her bag from its spot on the sofa beside her and opens it, digging through. She comes up with a pen, then puts it back inside.

  “The game’s on,” booms Ellis from the door, Carter trailing behind, looking at his phone. “Are you guys still staring at this?” Is it me, or does he look pale, too? Carter doesn’t look up from his phone. “Jesus. There are better things on the planet than local news.” Ellis snatches the remote up from the table by Max’s arm and stabs at one of the buttons. The volume gets louder.

  “Hey.” Max reaches for the remote and Ellis twists out of reach. “Don’t—”

  Ellis tries again, but the anchor’s voice on the TV only rises.

  “—after an anonymous call placed to dispatchers at 9-1-1, officers arrived at the office of Dr. Maddux, where—”

  “Turn it down,” Emily says, her voice too loud, but level. She finally brings herself to look up at me. “We’ve heard all this before.” Ellis doesn’t turn the volume down.

  “Yeah, but we didn’t know who was behind the call.”

  Ellis perks up, holding the remote close to his chest. “You called in about Maddux? Why?”

  Emily chews at her lip. “I don’t know if I should talk about it.”

  “You had a guy arrested yesterday. What the hell—” Ellis blinks hard, then rubs at his eyes. “Are you an undercover detective?” A chill settles over the group of us.

  “No.” Emily answers quickly. “I’m not.” She cranes her neck to look me in the eye. Even Carter’s watching now, his phone held loosely in his hands. “I went to meet him yesterday and I saw something in his office. It made me think...” Her voice trails off, and she clears her throat. “It made me pretty sure that he had something to do with it. And I thought I should call.” Her words have been carrying over the top of the news anchor’s, and they blend together in an eerie mix. “I’m waiting to find out what happens like everybody else.”

  “What is it that you saw?” I don’t know how Max is managing to sound so fucking casual about this. It’s like he’s asking her about some detail for a nonfiction essay, or something equally as banal and forgettable.

  “Notes.” Emily pulls her bag onto her lap like it can protect her from everyone’s questions. “I found notes about Asher. A whole file, with stuff like bank transactions. Money was going somewhere.”

  “Do you know a lot a about that? Money, I mean.” It’s the first thing Carter has said, and his voice has an acid ring to it.

  “Whoa.” Max raises a hand toward Carter. “That’s enough.”

  “I think it’s a fair question.” Carter’s jaw is clenched. “Do you know they were Maddux’s bank records? Did you check? Did you make copies?”

  “No, I—I got out of there. I didn’t want to have a run-in if he came back.”

  Ellis’s mouth falls open. “You broke into his office?”

  “I didn’t break in. Emily shakes her head. “I was supposed to meet him. He was late, so I tried the door, thinking he might’ve forgotten, and—”

  “And started going through his files. Like anyone would do.” Ellis nods. “Right. It’s what anyone would do.”

  I raise my eyebrows at Ellis. He’s done plenty of shit in his time that would be frowned upon, so his righteous attitude is making me want to laugh and laugh and never stop laughing. He moved Asher’s body that night, and here he is, saying these things to Emily...

  Because he’s scared. I have no idea what kinds of files were in Maddux’s office. It doesn’t sound like Emily found evidence. Bank records? Why would he be keeping his own bank records? Emily bows her head.

  “—news,” I catch from the too-quiet voice of the news anchor. “We’ve been informed of new developments in the Asher Radcliffe case.” Ellis stabs at the remote, turning the volume back up. “We’re going live at the county jail, where Dr
. Maddux has been held pending investigation into his involvement in the death of Mr. Radcliffe.”

  The chief of police stands behind a podium, his face gray in the wintry afternoon light. “Yesterday, Dr. Maddux was brought in pending questioning as to his involvement in the death of Asher Radcliffe, which last year was ruled an accident. After extensive questioning, it has been determined without any doubt that Dr. Maddux has had no involvement in the matter at hand.”

  My cell phone rings in my pocket. I pick it up and swipe to answer the call without looking.

  “Hello?”

  “Maddux was at his sister’s funeral that day,” my dad says in clipped tones. “In Montana. They have him getting back on the plane the next morning at eight, after Asher...after,” he finishes. “I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Where are you getting this? We’re watching the press conference live.”

  My dad huffs a laugh. “Wolf. Go back to class.”

  I hang up the call. They’re all looking at me, waiting. Being an Astor has its advantages, and this is one of them. I don’t know how my dad got extra information out of the police for a closed case, but I have no doubt the details will be out by morning. I repeat what he’s said.

  Ellis tosses the remote back to the table with a clatter.

  “This is why it’s dangerous,” Max says, stepping in a beat ahead of me once again. I stifle my own frustration.

  “What’s dangerous?” Emily still stares at the screen.

  “Leveling accusations at people,” I tell her. “You could be wrong.”