“Because you weren’t supposed to,” Moore mutters.
He’s trying to be nice—we both know anything that Sterling did to Jimmy would have been covered up—but I don’t want kindness. I want Caleb and his family to be okay.
I don’t realize I’ve stood until I’m leaning into Moore, feeling the gentle scrape of his wool sweater against my wet cheek. His arms are wrapped around me. I am a tornado encased in his steel grip.
“That’s enough,” he says after a minute, firmly enough to make me realize how stupid I’m being.
I gasp and shudder, and then wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve.
He leans down, so that we’re on the same level. His dark eyes pull steadiness out of my chaos.
“You’re Brynn Hilder from Devon Park,” he says. “You don’t do this.”
The last sob hiccups away.
My back straightens.
My breath is cool in my throat.
“Soldier up. You got a problem, figure out a way to fix it.”
I lift my chin.
“Good,” he says.
We go inside.
CHAPTER 33
Just before midnight, my phone buzzes with a text message. I reach for it on my nightstand, blinking at the bright light of the screen as my eyes adjust from the darkness. I’ve been alone in my room since Moore and I came back inside. It wasn’t hard with everyone avoiding me.
I’m still dressed; I even have my shoes on. It feels best to be ready for anything.
Sorry! Here you go.
Ben’s name pops up beside the words, along with three dots indicating another message is coming.
Since leaving the garage, Moore’s words have been on repeat in my head.
You’re Brynn Hilder from Devon Park.
I’m calm now. Refocused. Since I’ve come to Vale Hall I’ve wanted to shed the girl I was and become something better, something more. But this place is no better. It is a snake’s den.
I thought leaving my old life meant leaving the old me, but now I see that every scrape and bruise was practice for this. I was made in the southside. I was molded by midnight sirens and muggy summers and canned vegetable casseroles. By teachers who were too busy breaking up fights to give me a minute. By harsh words, and harsh hands, and a mom who worked minimum wage to keep a roof over my head.
By everyone who thought I wasn’t good enough.
I am Brynn Hilder from Devon Park.
I will not forget who I am again.
The second message—the one I requested an hour ago—pops up on my screen. It’s a picture of three college guys in tuxes, laughing. Ben, Emmett, and Jimmy Balder. I’d forgotten I’d asked Ben to send it. That was the night that Mark tried to pull me into his car—the night Caleb showed up and had my back, even though he was only there because he’d followed me.
The night he saw Margot.
Moore said earlier that I wasn’t supposed to find anything on Jimmy. But I did find something. I found Mark Stitz, who claimed to have seen the senator and Susan before Jimmy disappeared. He’d been clear that Sterling was telling Jimmy to run, but that hadn’t made sense, just like it didn’t make sense that Mark, director of interns, would have been left as a loose end when one of his employees disappeared.
At the very least, Sterling would have made sure he knew not to talk.
I expand the picture, focusing on Jimmy’s face—his eyes pinched in laughter, his mouth open. He’s grabbing Ben’s shoulder, like what they’re talking about is so funny he can’t even hold himself up.
I think of his parents, wondering what happened to him—if he really did run away, or if he’s dead.
I think of the devastation on Caleb’s mom’s face when he tells her what’s happened.
Dr. O isn’t just playing chess, he’s playing God—saving people, crushing people. Trying to clean up the city through deceit and blackmail.
He probably doesn’t even care about Jimmy’s disappearance.
He probably never cared about Caleb, either.
My eyes move from Jimmy to Ben, who’s cleaned up in this picture for the event. No beard, no raggedy hair. Emmett looks nice, too, as do the two people behind them. The woman in the yellow gown, and the man walking by in his too-tight tuxedo.
I sit up so fast my head swims.
I recognize this man—his smooth features and slick black hair. His arms, so thick they barely fit in the sleeves of his suit jacket. His head is turned slightly to look at the guys—at Jimmy.
In a flash, I’m out of bed and sprinting toward the door. Gripping the phone in my hand, I race down the hall, stopping at Geri’s room. It takes serious control not to knock hard enough to wake the other girls, but I manage, and when I hear a rustling inside, I turn the handle.
“What the…” Geri’s at her desk, and at the sight of me she stands so fast her chair flips on its side. Her laptop is open to a screen with pencil-thin triangles and math equations.
“Is this your dad?”
I shove the phone her way, heart thumping in my chest. I knew I recognized him at Family Day. I’d seen this photo at Risa’s the night before.
“Listen, Traitor Tammy, I don’t know what—”
“Just look at it.”
With a dramatic sigh, she squints at the screen. Recognition cuts a scowl into her flawless skin.
“Yeah. So?”
“Why was he at an art gallery for a political fund-raiser for Grayson’s dad?”
“How should I know?” Her gaze darts to the side. “In case you haven’t noticed, I live here. In this room you’ve so rudely trespassed into. I don’t keep track of where my dad goes.”
“Please,” I beg her. “One of these guys disappeared the night this was taken. If your dad knew him, he might be able to help me.”
Her lips curve in a thin smile. “Why would he help you?”
My arm holding the phone lowers. “Well for starters, you could ask him.”
“And why would I do that? You just got one of us kicked out. For all I know, I’m next on your list.”
Someday, I’m going to strangle Geri. No one will be surprised. The world will breathe a collective sigh of relief. They might even give me a medal.
“You don’t know anything about it,” I growl.
“You’re right. And I don’t want to.” She walks toward her vanity, smoothing down her hair in the mirror’s reflection. “It’s fitting anyway. He got my best friend kicked out. It was only a matter of time before karma came back to bite him.”
Margot. My muscles ratchet tighter. Before I came, Margot and Geri were tight, that’s what Charlotte said. Geri, like the rest of them, believed that Caleb was angry that Margot had broken up with him and ratted her out to Dr. O. The truth was that Dr. O forced Caleb’s hand. The director threatened to take away his father’s care if Caleb didn’t say what she’d told her mark about the program.
Caleb protected his family, but Margot was let go.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” I say.
“I’m sure Caleb didn’t, either.”
“Stop.” The force of my voice makes her jump. “Stop pretending you’re above all this. That you can’t get cut just as easily as the rest of us.”
She faces me. “You really haven’t learned anything, have you? The only way to get out of here is to be above all this.” She holds her hands out to the sides, encompassing her room, this entire school, maybe. I don’t know what she’s talking about. More Geri propaganda.
“Poor Brynn,” she muses. “You lost the boys, you lost the girls. Lose your assignment and you can follow Caleb right out the door.”
I flinch at his name.
“You don’t want to help me, fine. Maybe Dr. O knows what your dad was doing there.”
“Leave it alone.”
At the warning in her tone, I stop.
“Why?”
Slowly, she walks around me to close the door, then leans against it, hands on the knob behind her. I glance down at her swe
atshirt, which bears the words BITE ME in bold black letters.
“Leave my dad out of whatever plot you and Dr. O have to bring down the Sterlings.”
Hold on a second.
“So he does know the senator.”
Her lips seal. She’s blocking the door as if she might try to stop me from leaving.
“Does he know those guys?” I pull out the phone again, scrolling to the picture. “Him. Right here.” I point to Jimmy. “His name is Jimmy Balder. Has your dad ever mentioned him?”
“Put that away.”
I don’t.
“I could have you out of here by morning,” she says, but her face has lost some color, and her voice wobbles the slightest bit.
“You don’t have anything on me.”
“I’d find something.”
I want to hit her. I want to drag her to the floor and pummel her, the way Caleb did Grayson.
You got a problem, figure out a way to fix it.
“I’m not your enemy,” I tell her.
“We are all enemies,” she says quietly. “That’s how this works.”
She’s right. We collect secrets. We share lies. When we’re threatened, we do what we have to—we save ourselves.
She’s alone, and she’s got a secret—I can see it threatening to tear out of her. If I’m going to get something from her, I need to give something first.
“Dr. O’s got my mom on the hook,” I say quietly. “Somehow he convinced her to sell her house and move into an apartment he found for her. She’s working for him now.”
She sighs, resignation dropping her shoulders. “So he finally got you.”
I nod.
“My dad has a record,” she says. “If I do what I’m told, he doesn’t go to prison.”
This takes a moment to sink in. I never pinned Geri as the daughter of a felon. I wonder what white-collar crime he’s done that Dr. O’s got the dirt on.
“What does your dad do?”
“He fixes things.”
“What kinds of things?”
“The kinds of things you don’t talk about.”
Some pretty ugly scenarios run through my mind.
“Bank accounts?” I ask. “Ballot counts for Sterling’s election?”
Her head tilts. “Have you seen my father? Does he look like he spends a lot of time in front of a computer?”
No, he doesn’t. He’s got arms like tree trunks but doesn’t look like he spends a lot of time in a gym.
“Is he a hit man or something?”
“You watch too many movies.”
But she doesn’t disagree.
This takes another moment to process.
I’ve heard of fixers. Pete used to call Eddie, his bouncer, a fixer. When someone stole from Pete, or set up shop selling pills in the same turf, Eddie took care of it.
Never did I imagine Geri would come from that kind of life.
“Does your dad work for Sterling?” The senator could have hired him to make Jimmy disappear. I’m still not sure why Sterling would warn him to get out of town beforehand, like Mark said, though.
It seems impossible that the answer to my missing person assignment could have been right down the hall this entire time.
Geri shakes her head. “He doesn’t share those kinds of details.”
My stomach sinks, and from the flex of her jaw, I suspect she feels the same cold dread.
She places a hand on her throat, as if trying to stop the words. “Grayson’s trouble. When I was assigned to him, my dad told me to sabotage it. Get away from him, even if it meant losing my spot here.”
A dozen more questions form in my mind at this confession. Geri told her father about her assignment. He knows what we really do at Vale Hall.
“Why is Grayson trouble?”
She shakes her head. “He didn’t say. But I believe him. When someone in my dad’s profession points out danger, you steer clear. Caleb doesn’t get much, but he got that.”
A piece locks in place.
“That’s why you and Caleb were all over each other. Not because he was rebounding. So Grayson could focus on me without competition.”
Like Dr. O wanted.
“It wasn’t a hardship for Caleb, believe me,” she says, annoyed. “But regardless, his plan to keep you safe backfired, didn’t it? Caleb’s gone, and Grayson’s moved on to something you certainly can’t provide.”
It makes me feel a million times worse to imagine Caleb, behind the scenes, helping me succeed in my mission.
“It’s awful when they go,” she adds, and I know she’s thinking of Margot. We may have nothing else in common, but we have both lost someone to Vale Hall, and right now, that feels like a lot.
I’m trying to process everything she’s said, but it’s like I’m chasing a bus that’s already left the station.
Her father, a “fixer,” has told her Grayson’s dangerous.
Caleb believed Grayson was dangerous.
The only person telling me he’s not is Dr. O, and I already know how much I can trust him.
My barometer can’t be that far off. I know who is safe and who isn’t. I’ve survived this long being able to make those kinds of split-second judgements.
But I never saw Margot coming.
I look down at the picture on the phone, still in my hand.
“Do you think your dad could have done something to Jimmy Balder?”
She inhales a quaking breath.
“My mom left when I was four. It’s been Dad and me as long as I can remember. He does what he has to for the two of us.” She steps closer, away from the door. Her hands are like claws, her chin low with a kind of fierceness I can’t help but respect.
“He’s all I have,” she continues. “You can’t tell Dr. O my dad has anything to do with Jimmy. If he decides Dad’s a liability, if he hurts Dad in any way, I will burn you to the ground.”
She doesn’t want to hurt me, though. I’m almost surprised to hear the regret in her tone.
Later, in my room, I stare up into the black, trying to figure out this puzzle. There are too many pieces, and I don’t know where to start.
The art gallery fund-raiser with Jimmy and Geri’s dad. Susan and Matthew Sterling firing Jimmy and telling him to get out of town. Jimmy disappearing.
Susan speeding away from the senator, followed by Grayson. Possible head injuries not caused by the accident. Grayson calling his father on Susan’s phone. Matthew crying when Grayson told him what happened.
I’m missing something. It’s right at the tips of my fingers, but I can’t quite grasp it.
As I finally drift to sleep, I’m haunted by Susan’s screams, and the betrayal in Caleb’s eyes, but above all else, by the familiarity in Geri’s voice when she used Jimmy’s name.
CHAPTER 34
By dawn, I’m ready to confront Margot.
She slipped past my defenses. She messed with Caleb’s head to get back at Dr. O. I knew from the beginning she was hiding something, but I let that slip because I thought she might actually be my friend.
She’s nothing more than a con. And I can’t figure out what her endgame is.
She told Caleb Dr. O was dangerous, maybe to get him back for getting her kicked out. But she also led him to some police report indicating that Susan Griffin had injuries before her accident. Why would she have given him that information? Susan wasn’t Caleb’s assignment, nor was she Margot’s.
Which brings me to the bigger question: what did Margot want from me? She asked about my schooling, but never directly about Caleb or Dr. O. If she was trying to out me to the senator, why go to the trouble of building rapport with me first?
And then there’s Geri, whose father was in a picture with Jimmy Balder the last night he was seen. Geri, who was best friends with Margot.
It doesn’t seem like such a stretch that Geri would be leaking information to Margot. Maybe their connection is why Jimmy’s name slid so easily off Geri’s tongue. Margot could have told Geri I was a
t The Loft looking into him.
It won’t be easy getting back there. I can’t ask Moore to break the rules after the driving lesson incident, and Dr. O doesn’t want me leaving campus after my run-in with the detectives.
I need a cover to get out.
For the first time since I got to Vale Hall, I’m overwhelmed with nerves knocking on Charlotte’s door. With everything that happened last night with Caleb, I know the thin ice I’ve been skating on since her birthday has broken through, and this may be a bust.
“Come in,” she calls. Maybe it’s my own unsteadiness, but her voice seems tense.
I push open the door and find her picking through the items in her purse.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
“Going somewhere?”
Her lips smush to the side. She’s not wearing makeup today, and it makes her look young, breakable.
“Meeting an assignment at the movies,” she says.
She doesn’t move. She won’t even look at me.
“Which girl?” I remember my hand’s still on the doorknob, and quickly pull it off. “The financial consultant’s daughter?” Her dad’s skimming a percentage off his clients and using it to fund his daughter’s new BMW.
Charlotte doesn’t answer, and her silence slices me with truth.
“It’s Tuesday,” I realize.
She made an appointment with the clinic for today. She must have told security that she’s out on assignment as her cover.
I can’t believe I forgot.
“It’s Tuesday,” she says.
“Want some company?”
Her breath comes out in a rush.
“Okay.”
In silence, we head toward the car, Margot pushed to the back of my mind.
I leave my phone in my room and shut the door so Moore and Belk will assume I’m upstairs studying and won’t think to track me. No one sees us as we head into the garage and she grabs the keys to the Jeep.
She’s starting the car when the back door opens and Sam slips in.
“We going somewhere?” he asks.
He’s wearing the same NYU shirt he was when I first met him at the train yard for my recruitment rally, and his newsboy cap is pulled low over his eyes.
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