by Callie Rose
He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before standing up behind his desk. “I believe that’s what you said last time as well.”
“Yeah. It is. Because I didn’t fu—I didn’t do it last time either.”
I stop myself from cursing in front of him, working hard to bring my internal tempo down. I’m so fucking pissed and frustrated right now that I’m practically vibrating with angry energy.
“We need to go see Mr. Osterhaut.” Mr. Arndt presses his lips together, like he really regrets having to do this. “I’ll have a hall monitor tell Ms. Watson you’ll be late.”
“Can you at least tell me what the problem was this time?” I demand, gripping my backpack straps hard. “What I’m supposed to have done?”
He looks tired and annoyed, and I wonder if maybe he doesn’t have that big of a soft spot for me after all. Maybe I’ve used up all of his goodwill already.
“Let’s just go see the principal. We can discuss all of this in his office.”
Dammit. I want to argue, to dig my heels in, but it won’t do anything but crack the already thin ice I’m skating on. So I grit my teeth and keep my voice calm.
“Yeah. Okay. Sure.”
Students are still hustling down the hallway to their next classes as we make our way to the admin offices on the first floor. I’ve been back at school for less than two weeks, and this is my second time visiting the principal. That’s not a great track record.
Mr. Osterhaut’s secretary—or office manager or whatever she is—greets us and sends us into his office. The middle-aged man with the skinny legs and large gut sits up straighter as we enter, his gaze flicking from me to Mr. Arndt to me again.
The expression on his face makes me think he’s already decided he knows what this is about, and it makes me want to scream. Jesus, is the concept of innocent until proven guilty just a myth? Does it even exist anymore?
“Harlow.” Osterhaut sighs. “I was hoping I wouldn’t see you back here so soon.”
“Talk to him.” I jerk my head toward Mr. Arndt as we both take seats in front of the principal’s desk. “He made me come.”
“Yes, I did.” Mr. Arndt opens up the worn leather briefcase he brought with him, taking out a small sheaf of papers and sliding them across the desk. There’s a large C- written in red ink at the top, and my eyes bug out as I look at it.
“What? So now I’m in trouble for getting bad grades too? I studied, Mr. Arndt. I swear, I did. I just—”
The principal picks up the quiz and flips through the pages before glancing back at the man beside me. “What am I looking at here?”
“That exam has all the correct answers… for a quiz I gave last year,” Mr. Arndt tells him. “I changed several of the questions before giving the test this year, but obviously the wrong answer key was used. So even though it’s not a good grade, it was still achieved through cheating.”
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. I’m gonna kill Savannah.
I thought she was done with this shit. I thought she’d learned her damn lesson—but maybe since the school admins have cracked down so hard against overt bullying, she felt the need to return to a tried and true method.
And the shittiest part is, it looks like it worked.
“I didn’t have an answer key,” I say in a flat voice, looking at Mr. Osterhaut because I’m not sure I can keep my cool if I look at my teacher. “I studied. Well enough to pull a better grade than that”—I gesture to the papers in front of him—“but probably not enough to get a perfect grade on any version of the test. Somebody tampered with it.”
“You were warned about this once before, Ms. Thomas,” Osterhaut says, shaking his head. “This is not the kind of thing we can let slide.”
“I’m not—I’m not asking you to let it slide! I’m asking you to believe me when I tell you I didn’t cheat. Why do you think I’d be stupid enough to do something like that twice?”
Mr. Osterhaut blinks at me, his lips pursed thoughtfully. “I know you’ve been having a difficult time, Ms. Thomas. But as I said before—”
“Don’t kick me out. Please. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ll find some way to…”
Kick Savannah’s ass.
The principal shakes his head. “That’s what you said last time.”
“Well, I meant it last time too!” I suck in a breath and hold it for a three-count, and when I speak again, my voice is more even. “Please, give me one more chance. I’ll retake that test. I’ll take all my exams in a locked room if you want me to. I’ll take the C minus, even though I know I did better than that.”
Osterhaut grimaces, running a hand over his face. Then he sighs. “All right, Ms. Thomas. I’ll give you one more chance. But this is well and truly your last, so please take it seriously. You and Mr. Arndt can make arrangements for future tests to make sure you don’t have access to any outside materials.”
I glance over at Mr. Arndt, but although he nods, he doesn’t look thrilled about this idea. It probably just makes more work for him, and I have a feeling he was hoping to dump this problem in the principal’s lap and wash his hands of it.
“Yes, sir,” he murmurs.
“Thank you,” I add, even though it grates on me that I had to beg for leniency when I didn’t do anything wrong in the first place. I have a feeling Mr. Osterhaut only has a few shits to give, and I just used up all my favors fixing a problem I didn’t create.
The principal nods. “This has been a… trying semester for everyone. Iris Lepiane’s death has shaken everyone up, but order and rules still have to be maintained. No one gets a free pass.”
His voice softens a little when he mentions Iris’s name, and I wonder how well he knew her. She was certainly no saint, but I don’t think she was the type who probably got sent to the principal’s office very often.
Osterhaut dismisses us after another few minutes, and Mr. Arndt nods curtly to me before heading back toward his classroom. I think there was a time when he liked me despite my flaws, when he liked my spunk or sass or something. But same as with Mr. Osterhaut, I’m pretty sure I’ve used up all of his indulgence by now.
I’m late for Calculus, so I rush to class. Lauren and Andrea share their notes with me, and I do my best to focus on the second half of the lecture. I make it through History too, and as soon as eighth period ends, I’m the first one out the door. I know what class Savannah has last, so I hustle up to the second floor and catch her just as she’s emerging from the room.
She’s on her own, without the backup of Trent or her usual posse, who are probably all waiting for her downstairs. Before she can step into the stairwell, I walk up behind her, grab her elbow in a firm grip, and drag her into the girls’ bathroom midway down the hall.
“Hey! What the hell?” she sputters as the door slams behind us.
The only reason I got her in here that easily in the first place is because I took her by surprise. As soon as she realizes who’s got a hold on her, she struggles out of my grasp. She moves toward the door, but I put my body in the way, physically blocking her.
Two little freshman girls bolt out of the bathroom, smart enough already to spot an impending fight.
There are no cameras in here, and if I keep this relatively quiet, hopefully no admins will know I started shit on school grounds.
Savannah sneers at me and tries to step around me again, but I intercept her, shoving at her shoulders with both hands. She stumbles backward with a rough yelp.
“What the fuck?” I hiss. “This isn’t a damn joke, you bitch. You could get me kicked out of school! Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?”
“Oh, like your mom left Iris alone?” Her blue-green eyes flash with malice, and she shoves me too.
My backpack falls to the floor with a thud, and I throw myself at her, grappling with her as she tries to push me off.
“My mom never did shit to her!”
We careen around the room in an undignified tangle of limbs and fists, and when we sl
am into the wall near the hand dryers, I manage to pin her against it with the weight of my body. She’s facing away from me, her backpack between us, but I press her head against the wall, breathing heavily as she struggles in my hold.
“My mom did not kill Iris. Fuck, maybe it was you and Trent. Maybe she was pregnant with his baby and you just couldn’t stand the thought of that. Couldn’t stand the thought of them having a kid together.”
Her struggles grow wilder, and we’re both gasping and panting. Her red hair tumbles loose down her back, and a large lock of it is stuck to her face, making her look even more crazy and disheveled.
“You’re fucking insane!” she shrieks. “Why would we—? It wasn’t even Trent’s baby!”
“Right. I’m sure that’s what he told you.”
The guys and I already pretty much ruled Trent out as the killer, but I’m so pissed right now, I don’t even care.
“No, you bitch! She told me. It was some older guy. She wouldn’t ever tell me his name.”
Older guy?
“Older? How much older? Like, out of high school?”
“What do you think?”
As she speaks the last word, she shoves herself away from the wall, fighting against my grip on her. I’m so distracted I release her entirely, stepping back before she can launch herself at me.
“Did she say anything else about him? What he looked like? Where they met?”
Her eyes narrow, and for a second, I think she might spit on me or come after my eyes with her fucking talons. But then she huffs a breath, pushing her hair back. “She hardly said anything. God! They met through someone else she knew. She never told me who that was either.”
An older man knocked her up.
She met him through someone else she knew.
“What else do you know about him?” I demand, and the intensity of my voice makes her blink.
Then she glares at me, her lips curling. “Why? You gonna try to steal him from her even after she’s dead? I don’t know anything, I told you. She never even said his name. Just called him her ‘gray fox’.”
The world seems to blur for a second before returning to focus even sharper than it was before.
Her gray fox?
Oh, fuck. That paternity test I found in Mr. Black’s drawer.
From the first moment I laid eyes on it, I automatically assumed it was to test Lincoln’s paternity, for Samuel to determine whether Linc was truly his son.
Given all the weird vibes in that house and the way he and Audrey act toward each other, it just made sense that he might be worried she’d slept around outside their marriage—particularly since he’d done the exact same thing himself.
But what if the paternity test wasn’t about Linc at all? What if it was about a baby who hadn't even been born yet?
What if Mr. Black was the one who knocked Iris up?
11
I stare at Savannah with unblinking eyes as my body goes numb.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” She glares at me, snapping her fingers in front of my face. “What’s your problem, Pool Girl?”
“Nothing,” I mutter as I stoop to pick up my backpack with shaking hands. “I gotta go.”
I’m halfway to the door before I remember why I came in here in the first place, and I toss a warning over my shoulder before I step into the hall.
“Stop fucking with my tests. I mean it.”
She just huffs a cruel laugh, but I hardly even care. I can’t focus on tests or sabotaged grades when a new thought is crawling around inside my brain like a giant centipede on the loose.
Mr. Black.
And Iris.
Fucking hell. They could’ve met through Lincoln, when he hooked up with her a few times last year. If she came to his house, there’s a decent chance she saw Mr. Black there. And I already know from Linc that his dad isn’t exactly faithful to his mom, and that the older man’s tastes tend to skew young.
I’m shaking so hard my legs feel like they might give out from under me as a combination of excitement, disgust, and anger wells up inside me.
For the first time since my mom’s arrest, I feel like I’m closer to the truth than I’ve ever been. Closer to digging up the facts that will set her free.
But if I’m right? If this is the truth?
Then everything is so fucked.
I walk down the stairs like an eighty-year old, clinging to the railing for dear life. It’s almost twenty minutes after three o’clock by now, and I’m sure Lincoln’s already waiting for me by the front doors of the school. Probably wondering where I am.
That thought draws me up short, and I sink down onto the steps at the mid-floor landing, tugging my phone out of my bag.
I need to talk to someone. To tell someone what I’m thinking. But it can’t be Lincoln. Not yet.
ME: Hey. I need to talk to you. Can you tell Linc to go ahead without me? And can you stay?
RIVER: Are you okay?
Jesus. That has to be the most worthless word in the English language. What does it even mean?
Am I alive? Yes.
Am I in immediate danger? No.
Am I okay?
How the hell should I know? It’s all fucking relative.
ME: Yeah.
Maybe River can read between the lines of that single-word answer, because his next response comes quickly.
RIVER: Yeah okay. I’ll tell him. What about Dax and Chase?
ME: Just you. Please.
RIVER: Okay. Give me five minutes. Where are you?
ME: Stairwell. West wing.
RIVER: omw
I slip my phone back into my bag and wait. Savannah and I were in the bathroom long enough that the school has mostly emptied out. Unless people have to stick around for clubs or extracurriculars, they usually bolt for the doors at the end of the day. There’s always a logjam getting out of the parking lot.
I almost expect River to show up with the other three following him anyway, refusing to be left out. But the trust they showed Linc the night my mom was arrested runs both ways, and when the boy with the broad features and ash-brown hair opens the door at the bottom of the stairs, he’s alone.
His gaze lands on me immediately, and he climbs up to sit on the landing next to me, angling his body so he’s facing me more fully.
“Low? What’s up?”
I mirror his movement, turning toward him so that our knees almost brush. His brows are knitted together, the blue-gray of his eyes looking paler than usual in the light streaming through the windows in the stairwell.
Jesus. Where do I start?
There’s no good way to say it, no way to massage the words to make them less awful.
“Samuel Black,” I murmur, gazing helplessly into River’s eyes.
“Linc’s dad? What about him?”
“What if he did it?”
It takes him a couple seconds to fully process my words, and I watch the small changes in his expression as he goes from confusion to understanding to shock to something like disbelief.
“Are you serious?”
River’s always had a careful way of talking, as if he’s considered every word before it comes out of his mouth, and that’s more true than ever now. He’s staring at me like he can’t quite decide if I’m crazy or brilliant.
I nod, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Savannah said the father of Iris’s baby was an older man. Not someone from school, an older guy.”
“Sure, but that could be—”
“And I found a paternity test in Mr. Black’s desk drawer a couple months ago.”
River’s mouth snaps shut, and for the first time since I blurted out my suspicion, I see him processing it analytically, sorting through the puzzle pieces to see which ones fit.
And a lot of them do.
Too many of them do.
“He had access to my mom’s car. He could’ve planted evidence. And he knew she was out that night—the night Iris died. If she’d been home, she would’ve had an
alibi, but he knew she wouldn’t. And he had access to her apartment. Hell, he could’ve planted evidence there too if he wanted to.”
I hope I’m not speaking too fast for River to pick up the movement of my lips, but I can’t slow down. My entire body is revving like an engine, poised for action even though I have no idea what to do.
“Fuck.” He leans back slightly, and I lose his storm cloud eyes for a second as he gazes down the steps ahead of us, chewing on his lip. “Jesus fuck.”
When he looks back up at me, I suck in a breath.
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s nothing. But I had to tell someone.”
“No, yeah.” He shakes his head and then nods, and I can’t quite tell what he’s agreeing to or disagreeing with—or if he’s talking to himself.
Then something hardens in his gray eyes, and he moves to stand. “We need to tell Linc.”
“No!” I grab his hand, pulling him back down beside me. “We can’t. Not yet.” His expression darkens, and I shake my head. “I don’t like it either; I fucking hate it. We said there would be no more secrets between us. But we can’t tell him yet.”
River wraps my hand in both of his, running his fingers over the contours of my knuckles, and I let that touch soothe me a little, just like I think he means for it to.
“We’re still in essentially the same boat we’ve been in,” I say quietly, keeping my head tilted toward him. “We don’t have enough evidence to make a convincing case to Dunagan if we tell him about this. And if we move too soon, and Mr. Black figures out what we know, it only gives him time to destroy evidence and cover his tracks even more.”
“If it’s really him,” River murmurs.
“Right. If it’s him. We don’t know that yet. But even if we’re wrong, if we tell Lincoln about this now, you know he’s gonna flip out. He’s got enough weirdness with his dad as it is.”
“I don’t like lying to Linc.”
“It wouldn’t be lying,” I plead, although I know I’m skirting a gray area here. “Just hold off on telling him for a little while. Just give me a little more time.”
River blinks slowly.
I’ve played poker with him, and he can keep his face completely impassive when he wants to, but right now, I feel like I can read every thought in his head. I can see him judging the pros and cons of each course of action, weighing them against each other.