The Lie (Kings of Linwood Academy Book 2)

by Callie Rose

  Mr. Black cocks his head, swirling the dark amber liquid in his glass. “Know what?”

  “You said my mom doesn’t deserve this. How do you know? Why do you think she’s innocent?”

  His head jerks back a little as his brows pull together. “Harlow, you think she’s innocent, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  A smile breaks through the look of consternation on his face. “Good. Good.” He takes another sip, hesitating for a moment before he speaks again. “I do too. I like to credit myself with being a fairly good judge of character. In my business, understanding people and why they do the things they do is key. I haven’t known you and your mom for very long, but I feel like I’ve gotten a good handle on who you are—what kind of people you are. And I sincerely don’t believe your mother is capable of what she’s been accused of.”

  An ache builds in my chest as he speaks, something both sweet and painful. I had no idea how much I needed to hear another person say that they unequivocally believe my mom is innocent, that they don’t think she has it in her character to murder someone.

  To stand with her, despite the evidence building up against her.

  “Thank you, Mr. Black,” I whisper, reaching up to swipe at an escaped tear that trails down my cheek.

  “Samuel, please.” He smiles gently. “It will be all right, Harlow. I wish there was more I could do, but I have to hope that if we let justice run its course, your mother will be fully exonerated. Then we can put this whole ugly mess behind us.”

  “Thank you. Samuel.”

  He pats my knee one more time, swallows the last sip of whiskey in his glass, then heaves himself to his feet. He returns to the liquor cabinet and deposits the glass there before glancing back over at me.

  “I’ll be bringing someone on soon, probably in the next few days. If I provide boxes, will you be able to pack up your mother’s things? I can have people come take care of it, but I wasn’t sure if—”

  “No! I’ll do it,” I say quickly. After watching Detective Dunagan and his officers ransack her little apartment, the thought of anyone else touching her stuff makes me feel sick.

  “I thought that might be the case.” He nods. “I’ll have boxes delivered tomorrow morning, so you can get started as soon as you’re ready.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I hate this. I hate it so much. Thinking about packing up my mom’s stuff feels like admitting she’s not coming back. But I’m glad he’s not having someone else do it. I’m glad I won’t just wake up one morning and see a stranger coming out of my mom’s old apartment without having had a chance to prepare for it.

  My heart feels like a rock in my chest, but I know that, just as Lincoln did the night Mom was arrested, Mr. Black is offering me the best possible choice out of a plethora of shitty options.

  He purses his lips, looking like he wants to say something else, but I don’t know what on earth he would say—and apparently, neither does he, because he just turns and heads for his desk, unlocking it before opening the top drawer and grabbing out a stack of papers and two manilla envelopes.

  “Well, I’ve got to go.” He taps the edges of the papers and folders on the desk to align them in a neat stack, glancing over at me quickly. “I have a meeting this afternoon. Work never stops, not even on the weekends. But thank you for speaking to me, Harlow. And please, if you need anything, let me know.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  He nods, then strides to the door, holding it open for me before exiting the room himself. I watch him walk away and disappear around the corner, but I stay where I am for a moment, gripping the door frame like I need the support to remain standing.

  Hell, maybe I do.

  The house is quiet. I’m sure Lincoln is upstairs, probably waiting for me, waiting to make sure everything’s okay.

  I don’t know where Audrey is. She tends to disappear into the master bedroom for long periods of time, and whenever I see her in the rest of the house, she reminds me of a ghost roaming a haunted mansion. I’m never quite sure where she’s going or where she’s coming from.

  I take a step into the hall, about to head toward the stairs—but then I hesitate.

  Mr. Black grabbed two manilla envelopes from the drawer. Was one of them the paternity test I saw when I snooped in his desk all those weeks ago? He didn’t lock the drawer back up this time. At least, I don’t think he did. So there’s an easy way to answer that question.

  I glance both ways down the hall, making sure no one is coming, then duck back into Mr. Black’s study. I don’t dawdle, making a beeline for the desk and pulling on the drawer. It slides open easily, since I was right—the lock hasn’t been engaged at all.

  There are a few papers scattered across the bottom of the drawer, some pens and paperclips, but no manilla envelopes.

  It’s gone.

  Whether it was in one of the envelopes he just took with him, I don’t know, but it’s definitely not in here anymore.

  I’m tugging the drawer open a little farther, bending down to peer into the back corners, when a soft sound outside makes my head snap up. My heart rattles in my chest as I shove the drawer closed again, arresting the sharp movement at the last second so it doesn’t make a noise.

  As soon as it’s shut, I bolt for the door, and I’m just stepping out of the study when Audrey walks up. She’s wearing loose, flowing house pants and a simple but luxurious green top. Her chestnut brown hair is piled on her head in a messy updo that still manages to look elegant.

  She blinks at me slowly, stopping in her tracks. “Where’s Samuel?”

  “Oh, um, he had to step out. He had a meeting, he said. Work.” I’m clinging to the door frame again, and I force myself to release my grip on it so I can step past her.

  She turns to watch me as I do, a look of mild curiosity and maybe a little suspicion on her face. “What were you doing in his study? Were you cleaning?”

  “No.” My mouth feels dry, and it makes swallowing difficult. “I was just meeting with Mr. Black for a second. That’s what he wanted to talk to me about, actually. About how you guys will be hiring someone else for now, since my mom…”

  I don’t finish that sentence, and she doesn’t seem to care that much. She glances back toward the study door. “Oh. I see. How is your mother?”

  Yeah, she definitely doesn’t care about that. I don’t think she has anything against my mom, or against me, but Samuel has been the one who’s more invested in helping us through this. Audrey just seems… politely concerned.

  “She’s fine. Thanks. Trying to keep her spirits up, you know.”

  I take a tentative step away, hesitating to see if she’ll stop me with any other questions. When she doesn’t, I give her a polite nod and smile before turning and hustling down the hallway.

  Stepping into the grand foyer, I head straight for the stairs, eager to get back to the safety of my room.

  Jesus. That was weird.

  I’ve been so removed, so distracted by my mom’s arrest and the search for clues about Iris’s killer, that I forgot for a little while how utterly bizarre this fucking household is.

  9

  I spend the day on Sunday packing up my mom’s stuff into boxes, which I stack neatly against the wall in my room. Lincoln offers to help me, but I turn him down. It feels… private, in a way.

  It’s not that I don’t want him to see her stuff. It’s more that I want to spend time with it by myself, to be able to stop and stare at a trinket or favorite book and get lost in a memory for a moment without feeling like I need to rush to move on. Without having someone’s gaze on me.

  I try not to let my thoughts turn dark, but there’s a finality to the act of closing up each box that makes my stomach seem to invert itself. When I’ve finally got the last box stacked neatly against the wall in my room, I shut the door and pad down the hall to Linc’s bedroom.

  Fuck it. His dad already knows about us anyway, and his mom may or may not know but defini
tely doesn’t care.

  He opens the door a second and a half after I knock softly, tugging me into his arms like he’s been waiting, hoping I’d come to him. I hug him back, shoving away any worries about how used to this I’m getting, and how terrifying that is.

  Lincoln holds me for a while, just letting me breathe, and it feels good but strange to hug him like this—in a way that’s about something entirely different than sex or the fierce attraction that bubbles between us.

  Of course, not long after I have that thought, my hands start roaming over his muscled back, and I press my body harder against him as my lips find his. Following my silent urging, he tosses me down onto the bed and makes me forget for a little while that I just dismantled my mother’s life, her last semblance of normality.

  Later that night, River, Dax, and Chase come over, and we all convene in the movie theatre again, going over our list. It’s getting smaller, which is a good thing.

  None of us are trained detectives or anything, and our resources are limited, but the guys’ status as the unofficial kings of Linwood Academy does give us a little bit of a leg up. They’ve got enough sway over the student body that they’ve been able to tap into the gossip mill and drag information out of kids about their parents or friends of their parents.

  It’s been surprisingly helpful in narrowing down who on our list might have ties to Iris.

  “What if it was Trent?” Chase says suddenly, leaning back in the cushy lounge chair and staring up at the ceiling.

  “What?”

  I glance over at him. Linc is sitting on my other side, with River and Dax in front of us.

  “Well, I mean, he is a guy. So that fits. We know he was there that night, so that fits. You saw him and Iris argue, so there’s motive right there.”

  My face scrunches up, and my head starts shaking even before I formulate my answer. “His car doesn’t match. It’s not the same shape or color.”

  “Maybe he swapped out cars,” he says, but his tone implies even he doesn’t think that’s likely.

  I twist my hair up in a knot and rest back against the seat, staring at the same spot on the ceiling Chase is, as if that’s where we’ll find the answers. “It’s possible. But that would imply premeditation, and he was definitely surprised to see Iris show up at the club.”

  Memories flit through my head of the screaming match they got into outside the strip club—although maybe match isn’t quite the right word for it when only one of them was doing most of the screaming. Iris told him she needed a real man, someone who could step up, and told him that if he wouldn’t do it, she knew someone else who would.

  Chase is right about one thing. That could be motive right there. If Trent was the one who knocked her up, maybe he didn’t want to get stuck caring for a baby while he was still in high school. Maybe he didn’t want to step up like she asked.

  But how the fuck could he have swapped cars so fast? Where would he have gotten the sleek, dark one that rammed into Iris?

  I snap my eyes shut, tilting my head down and swallowing the bile that tries to rise up in my throat as images rush through my head.

  That night still fucking haunts me.

  I try not to think about it more than I have to, but the vivid details are always there, just waiting to rise to the surface anytime they’re called.

  That fight outside the club? Her ultimatum to Trent? Her hurling an empty soda bottle after his car as he drove away?

  Those were Iris’s last moments on this earth.

  I witnessed them.

  And I witnessed the moment she left this earth.

  We never got along, and I honestly thought she was a bitch most of the time. But no one—no one—deserves an end like that.

  I lift a shaky hand to my mouth, pressing hard against it as my throat works, nausea churning my stomach.

  “Hey, Harlow? You okay?”

  River’s voice is soft, and when I open my eyes, he’s staring at me intently.

  “Yeah.” I move my hand away from my mouth as I speak so he can read my lips. “Just… sometimes it hits me harder than others. How fucked up this all is.”

  He nods, his blue-gray eyes somber and shadowed in the dim light of the theatre. “We should call it for tonight.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can—”

  “Nah, River’s right,” Dax interjects. “We can do more tomorrow. Ask around more.”

  His face is concerned too, and I wonder exactly how shitty I look. How freaked out and pale.

  Chase and Lincoln back the other two kings up, because of course they do, and a few minutes later, we all head up to the main level. The guys say goodbye, although they keep shooting me concerned glances as they do.

  Upstairs, Lincoln doesn’t even hesitate. He follows me to my room, and I let his comforting presence envelop me as I finally fall asleep.

  Mr. Black was serious about bringing someone in soon to replace my mom.

  The new—interim—Executive Housekeeper moves in on Tuesday. I see her in the upstairs hallway when Linc and I get home from school, and for a second, I just stare at her, blinking quickly as my body freezes.

  She’s young and pretty, with a round face, a curvy figure, and a wide smile. She looks younger than my mom by a few years, although I’m not a great judge of those kinds of things. When she approaches me, I finally shake myself out of my stupor and take her offered hand, introducing myself.

  Her name is Bri Marshall, and Mr. Black must’ve filled her in on at least a little of my situation, because sympathy gleams in her eyes as she talks to me.

  I exchange a polite greeting with her, then escape into my room as quickly as I can, pressing my back against the wood and biting my lip so hard it hurts.

  Samuel Black warned me this was coming. He handled the situation as gently and kindly as he could, but it still breaks my fucking heart to see how easy it was for him to replace my mom.

  It makes her seem expendable somehow.

  Like no one but me would miss her if she were gone. Like the world would just replace her and keep going.

  I won’t let that happen. I fucking won’t.

  Prison inmates aren’t allowed to receive calls, only make them, but I wish I could call Mom right now. Just to hear her voice. To remind myself that she is still here.

  Pulling myself together as much as I can, I drop my backpack on the floor by the large, comfy chair before curling up on the plush seat. I’ve almost entirely caught up with what I missed during my absences, as well as all the assignments that’ve been handed out since then.

  I spend most of the night studying, and I sleep alone. In the morning, when I meet Linc downstairs at 7:25, he takes in my expression and sighs.

  “You met Bri?” he asks, draping an arm around my shoulders as we head out to his car.

  “Yeah.”

  “Dad certainly has a fucking type.”

  We’re both in a funky, agitated mood as we drive to school. It’s for the same reason, but in different ways, like two sides of the same coin.

  A coin named Bri Marshall.

  Not that I condone the way Linc treated me when Mom and I first arrived in Fox Hill and the Black household, but I understand it better now than I ever did before.

  I kind of hate Bri, even though I have no reason to.

  Keeping his gaze on the road, Lincoln reaches over to fiddle with the dials on the radio, flipping through several stations before finding one that seems to fit the mood we’re both in. He turns another knob to crank the volume up, and we let the blaring music provide our soundtrack for the rest of the drive.

  I’m grateful for the distraction school provides. It keeps me from sliding into a full-on funk about my mom, the new housekeeper, and how little progress we’ve made in tracking down usable information about Iris’s killer.

  The guys and I eat lunch together, and I can tell Lincoln’s still struggling to throw off his weird mood too. I grab his hand under the table, and he squeezes mine back, but we don’t talk ab
out it—I don’t think either of us want to.

  My sixth period class, right after lunch, is Business and Economics. It’s not my favorite subject, and aside from the test Savannah tampered with to make it look like I cheated, I haven’t been pulling the best grades in this class. But Mr. Arndt likes me for some reason, and he definitely cut me a lot of slack after I missed several days of school.

  We had a big quiz on Monday, but despite everything else going on, I studied my ass off for it—and I think I did reasonably well. As he passes back the graded quizzes at the beginning of class, I mentally brace myself, trying to temper my expectations of what kind of grade I pulled. I think at least a B-minus, maybe even a solid B.

  But when Mr. Arndt reaches my desk, he glances down at me briefly, then passes right by me.

  All the other kids get a graded test back, but I get… nothing.

  Oh, fuck.

  10

  My stomach clenches with nerves through the entire rest of class, and I barely have the wherewithal to write down any notes on Mr. Arndt’s lecture.

  I can’t focus.

  My mind is racing, trying to figure out how the fuck this happened, what the fuck Savannah did this time. Did she somehow just steal my test entirely? Make it look like I never took it? But Mr. Arndt was in the room with us the whole time. He saw me take it, watched me turn it in at his desk.

  Chill out, Harlow. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe he just wants to ask you a question about it or something. Or maybe he lost it.

  I can’t bring myself to believe any of that though.

  As soon as class ends, I spring to my feet, yanking my backpack over one shoulder. Students file out around me, but I’m already marching toward Mr. Arndt’s desk when he says, “Miss Thomas, would you hang back for a—”

  He breaks off when he looks up and realizes I’m already almost in front of him.

  “I didn’t do it,” I say flatly, realizing only after the fact that starting with an adamant denial of guilt—before he even accuses me of anything—might just make me look more guilty.