And I can’t let that happen. He ditched me a few weeks ago without a word, and I’m not giving him the satisfaction of coming back for more.
Or perhaps my reluctance stems from him dropping me before I could leave him, this high school alpha who will give me his body, but wraps his soul in impenetrable, ancient armor I have no hope of piercing.
Why put my heart through it again?
“Unless you brought me here to appreciate how your virtual learning experience will go this week,” I say, picking at my bread, “I’d like to get back to the dorms.”
Chase swallows his bite. He stares at the kitchen cabinetry. “I’d like you to do something for me.”
I lean back as much as I can in a stool and reach for my coffee, more for comfort than thirst. “What’s so important you couldn’t text me, or, I don’t know, talk to me between classes?”
“This cop connection you have, the guy you talk to in the city,” Chase says.
“Ahmar?”
“Yeah, him.”
The fact that Chase is bringing up my pseudo-uncle causes my stomach to plummet. I stepped into Chase’s car with full knowledge that he needed me for something, but the smallest whisper inside my head wished for it to be unrelated to Piper. For her to be buried to rest so we could all move on.
It’s a cold, selfish thought I’d never voice out loud, but that part of me molded to Chase, the piece of me he kept for himself, will always wish to fit against him without the jagged edge of Piper in between.
Chase cups his coffee, his forearms resting against the granite counter, the trail of veins running under his skin matching the threads of gold woven in the marble. “I need you to find out if it was mine.”
I inhale, a silent swish of breath that freezes my entire form.
“It’s the only way I can know for sure,” Chase continues. “The local cops aren’t saying a word. More motive evidence they’re keeping to themselves, I guess.”
“Or they’re still waiting on the results,” I say, impressed at how steady I sound. Nothing like scientific facts to ease emotional turmoil inside one’s head.
Chase shifts his focus, and his copper-toned eyes meet mine. “Is that your honest opinion?”
I shrug as offhandedly as I can. “It can take a while. And think about it. If the results come back to match you, that unravels the entire case against Dr. Luke. If it were yours, they … they’d pull you in for more questioning.”
Chase’s head jerks in a nod. “Exactly. I’d like to know before they take me by surprise.”
I mull this over. “You’re asking me and Ahmar to meddle with an open investigation and interfere with Briarcliff PD’s potential plan to interrogate you.”
Chase’s Adam’s apple bobs, the only motion in his perfect form as he stares me down.
This is the moment where I say no. Where I stand up, demand to be taken to back to the dorms, or call myself an Uber.
What I shouldn’t be doing is sitting here, contemplating the ins and outs of obtaining such information and the effects that would ripple out because of it.
Worse, I want to do it. For him.
“Ahmar may not be successful. It’s not his jurisdiction,” I say. “He could outright refuse, too.”
Chase nods. “I get it. But it’s a way to try.”
“And if it’s yours?” I whisper. “You just punched your airtight alibi in the face. Friends fight. Friends lie for each other.”
“I know that, too.” His burnished gaze finds the inner heat it needs to flicker with golden flames. “You gotta believe me, Callie. I didn’t hurt her. The baby could be Dr. Luke’s just as much as it could be mine.”
The gears of my mind shift, rubbing together all wrong because of their blatant misuse. I should be planning how to live out the rest of my senior year without Chase and all the problems clinging to the Briarcliff blazers of his entire group. Instead, I’m busy drumming up a solution as to how I can benefit.
When the riskiest answer clicks into place, I say, “I’ll do it.”
Chase’s shoulders ease away from his neck. “Thank you.”
“On a condition.”
Chase stills. Then, once he processes what I’ve said, his mouth kicks into a saddened grin. “You’re learning survival skills pretty quick.”
I ignore his statement. “You’re suspended for a week, right?”
His brows draw together. “Yeah. Why?”
I sit straighter. “I’ll do my best to get the information for you, but in return, you’ll let me ask you three questions per day for an entire week, which you have to answer honestly and with the full truth.”
Chase’s nostrils flare. His stare doesn’t waver, and I tell myself to be strong against the heat of his microscope. He takes the next few seconds for himself, the mechanics of his mind possessing more expertise on the subject of trickery and traps than mine.
He says, “One.”
I shake my head. “Two questions.”
“Fine. But the questions have limitations. No asking about your Cloaks. And only one personal question per day.”
My heart flutters with disappointment, but I’d factored in that possibility and figured out a few workarounds.
That he’s playing into my hands should feel good, but it really, really doesn’t. “Deal.”
One flawless cheek of his tics with his clenched jaw. “Should we shake on it?”
Dear Lord, if I touch him now, I’ll have no hope of leaving this place with my clothes on. I’ve developed shivers in places that aren’t supposed to be sentient, but they’re going off on their own anyway, demanding orgasmic release.
“No need.” I stand, brushing invisible crumbs off my legs. “Can you take me home?”
After a pause, Chase moves from his eerily still position. “Sure.”
Dregs of coffee remain in my cup, but I take it anyway, needing something to do with my hands as Chase guides me out of his lake house and opens the passenger door of his car, an oil-slicked beast waiting silently within the shadows of the forest.
We’re silent under the ultraviolet hue of the interior, me taking pretend sips of my coffee. Chase doesn’t blast any music on our way back to Briarcliff, and I don’t ask him to, preferring the low hum of the vehicle to regulate and calm my thoughts.
At 5 AM, Chase pulls up to Thorne House. I unbuckle my seatbelt, and he leans back from the wheel. I feel his study like the fine pinpricks of sewing needles as I move but pretend I don’t.
“Thanks for the…” I pause to think of what this was between us. “Visit.”
Chase responds with a closed-mouthed smile, resting one wrist on the top of the steering wheel. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”
After a careful nod, I step out.
“And Callie?”
I bend down to catch his eye.
“Happy birthday,” he says.
Chase leans over to pull the passenger door shut, and I stumble back as his vehicle purrs across the driveway before disappearing around a corner.
With my hands on my hips, I watch his departure, a hesitant smile playing at the corners of my lips.
6
After my shower the next morning, I send Ahmar a text, asking him to call me when he gets the chance, preferring to get this chapter over with so I can tell Chase I held up my end of the deal.
I scrape my hair into a top knot using the small vanity mirror in my room, some strands still damp at the ends, since I didn’t have the patience to blow-dry it all the way.
Before leaving my room, I recheck my bag to make sure I have the supplies I need to go into town.
Emma’s bedroom is open and deserted when I slip through the main room, but the smell of fresh coffee is sharp in the air. My stomach gurgles. The few hours’ sleep I caught after being dropped off by Chase has reinvigorated my digestion, and I make a mental note to raid the Wolf’s Den pastry bar before calling a car.
Outside my apartment, a few of my neighbors mingle, Saturday morn
ing bringing with it a happy need to socialize, make plans, or stay in pajamas all day. A few girls glance in my direction when my door shuts behind me, and with the stares being more curious than feral, I figure news must’ve hit that I have a new roommate.
Or, for most of these girls, news of the return of an old, traumatized friend.
Relief should settle upon my shoulders at the idea I’m no longer the fresh meat of the week, but Emma’s loss of her formal social status doesn’t sit well, regardless of her crisp, pissy attitude. Someone experiencing tragedy like that should have friends surround them and be supported by their environment, not smuggled into the cobwebbed corners of a lonely mansion and forgotten about, only to come back to derisive bitches.
I lift my chin in defense of the stares and murmurs, then take a hard left into the stairwell, preferring to chew off my all fingers to the first knuckle than wait for an elevator while these girls mingle over caffeinated mugs of gossip.
A burst of fresh air hits me when I push through the ground floor’s side exit, the same one I took to meet Chase. This time, I hop onto the pathway leading to the school rather than hedge around the bushes and soak my sneakers.
I spot Ivy walking with her roommate, Eden, and run to catch up to them.
“Hey,” I say once I’m close enough.
Both turn their heads. Ivy smiles. Eden scowls through her curtain of long black hair.
“You guys headed to breakfast?” I ask, sidling up to Ivy.
“Definitely,” Ivy says. “I need a load of eggs and bacon to help digest what I just heard.”
I frown, hooking my fingers around the backpack’s straps at my shoulders while I match their pace, sun dappling their shoulders, and the wind carrying the scent of cut grass and damp wood. “I get why everyone else is whispering, but why are you surprised? You were with me when Emma first moved in.”
Eden’s brows hitch up. “Emma’s back?”
“Is that not what we’re talking about?” I ask.
“Nope.” Eden snorts, but the delicate skin around her eyes remains tight. “I guess the return of someone beat up and nearly killed in a fire while the school did nothing is yesterday’s news.”
“I thought the same thing,” I say to Eden.
Eden glances my way but doesn’t return the sympathy.
“I’m talking about Dr. Luke,” Ivy says, her ice-blonde hair bouncing as she strolls. I swear, rumors provide her more energy than espresso. “I spoke to Lisa who knew Carl who heard from Sebastian whose dad is on some sort of state council that Dr. Luke’s been released.”
I grind to a halt. “What?”
Eden stares at the ground and keeps walking, but Ivy whirls to face me. “It’s all over school this morning. Apparently, Dr. Luke had an alibi, but she was reluctant to come forward and corroborate because, well, it would ruin her life.”
I blink at Ivy, who leans in and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Dr. Luke was having an affair with Sebastian’s mom. She was with him that night.”
“But…” I think back to Piper’s diary entries while Dr. Luke’s last words to me play in my ear.
I was there to dump her!
“…he saw Piper that night,” I finish. “He admitted he was the last to see her.”
Ivy nods, then shrugs. “He also insisted he left her alive. And if Mrs. Dorian is to be believed, he was with her during Piper’s time of death. In her convertible on Briarcliff’s private driveway. Ew, right?”
“That can’t be true.” I shake my head and start walking again, with Ivy prancing beside me. “He all but admitted he killed her.”
“Did he, though?”
“Yes.” I grab Ivy’s arm. “He’s the one. Dr. Luke did it. He has to be Piper’s killer.”
“Ow. You’re kinda hurting me.”
“This is—there has to be a hole in this alibi somewhere. He’s lying. She’s lying. The police’ve made a mistake.”
“Callie, I don’t think so. Mrs. Dorian has a time-stamped video of it.”
My grip tightens on Ivy’s arm. She yelps, and I shake myself out of it, releasing her. “Sorry.”
“What’s going on with you?” Ivy asks, rubbing her arm. “Mrs. Dorian filmed them having sex. I guess to masturbate with later? Whatever the reason, it’s proof, Callie. Think about it.”
“No, I…” I dig a hand into my hair, pulling out strands from my hair-tie. “It can’t be. Dr. Luke did it. No one … no one else…”
My vision blurs with the possibilities I’d hidden in the recesses of my mind once I’d heard the chink of handcuffs locking around the beloved professor at Briarcliff.
The Cloaks.
The roses.
Rose Briar’s secret letter.
The lost pages of Piper’s diary.
None of it was supposed to matter anymore. I’d stifled the deep-seated, obsessive need to investigate…
“Listen, I don’t know why Mrs. Dorian waited so long.” Ivy’s voice breaks through the shimmering fog of my mind. “She must’ve found her morals where she originally stashed them to sleep with her son’s professor, deciding not to let Dr. Luke rot in prison for the sake of her reputation.” Ivy wrinkles her nose. “What a decent thing to do.”
In a surge of contorted memory, my stepdad’s face replaces Dr. Luke’s stricken expression when handcuffs snapped across his wrists.
Dad’s shock when his arms were wrenched behind him. The desperate words he uttered when police escorted him past me and out the door.
Cal, what is this? Why do they think it’s me?
I’m innocent, Callie!
…Don’t do this, please…
Honey, you have to believe me. I loved your mother. I love her.
His pleading didn’t stop until Ahmar’s arm folded over my shoulder, and he turned me away from the doorway, my cheeks soaked in tears.
“Oh, God…” I moan, then stumble off the pathway and fall to my knees in the grass.
“Callie!” Ivy rushes over, her hands on my back as she bends down.
Why did you do this? You were like a daughter to me…
“It can’t be,” I say, licking the sudden salt from my lips. I’m crying.
“Here. C’mere.” Ivy gently pulls on my shoulders until she envelopes me into a hug, oblivious to the small crowd gathering around us, asking if I’m all right.
“It may not be Dr. Luke,” Ivy murmurs into my ear, “but it’s someone. And they’ll catch him. You’re safe. You’ll be safe.”
“That’s not…” My face crumples into the line of her neck and shoulder. “I’m not afraid for my life. I’m…”
Afraid of being wrong again.
More students pause in the walkway, some for concern, most to spectate. Ivy pulls me to a stand and puts a protective arm around my shoulders as she guides me through the collecting crowd and toward the school.
“If you want to go back to your room, I can bring you some breakfast,” Ivy says.
While it’s tempting to shut out the world and pull covers over my head, I say, “No. I’ll be all right. It’s a shock, is all.”
“No kidding. You and Chase were the ones who got Dr. Luke to say enough to confess, right?”
I wince. It wasn’t exactly a confession.
Ivy notices and adds, “Not that you’re responsible. You’re not, Callie. Dr. Luke still slept with Piper. And Mrs. Dorian. And God knows who else. He’s still a dirty sleezeball who ruined his own life. You know that, right?”
I nod, but don’t necessarily believe it. It’s one thing to be a jerk-off. Another to be a murderer.
“Piper’s parents are still pressing charges, too. Statutory rape…” Ivy continues the morbid pep talk meant to make me feel better, and I appreciate her efforts to reduce my involvement in this clusterfuck, but I never told her how deep I went into Piper’s investigation.
How I tend to obsess over these things.
I gnaw on my lower lip, desperate to tell her, but too embarrassed to admit i
t.
How is one supposed to explain to their only friend their growing habit of implicating the wrong man?
“I’m glad you caught me on the way to the dining hall,” Ivy says. “It’s all anyone will be talking about over their breakfast. It sure would’ve been awkward if you puked on their pancakes.”
Ivy elbows me after the joke. I smile wanly in response. “I’m not headed there, anyway.”
“No?”
“I’m going into town to study at the public library for a while.”
“Can’t say I blame you. Gossip is so distracting, isn’t it?”
This time, my laugh is genuine. “I’ll catch you later. You’ll text me if you hear anything else, right?”
“One hundred percent. And text me when you’re back.”
We separate at the academy’s front pavilion, Ivy hopping up the steps and into the school with a few other students dressed in their weekend casual.
I pull out my phone and tap on the Briarcliff app to call the personal chauffeur service. After receiving an alert that the wait will be 10 minutes, my thumb hovers over my text list, instinctually tempted to message Chase.
I have to believe he already knows. He has his finger on the pulse of Briarcliff better than most faculty members, and his sources would’ve told him about Dr. Luke.
So, why didn’t he text me? Did he know all this last night?
The realization pisses me off, and I shove my phone back in my bag without bothering to contact him. I’m better off anxiously awaiting a call from Ahmar, not Chase Stone. Ahmar could help me clear up some confusion and possibly shed light on what is now a crucial piece of the puzzle.
The DNA of Piper’s secret pregnancy.
Evidence that could mean everything, and not just to Chase.
7
Briarcliff’s town car pulls up to the center of the circular driveway, and I greet my favorite driver of the three, Yael, when I slide in.
“Sorry I was late,” he says as he completes the half-circle to exit school grounds. “It’s a popular morning.”
“Really?”
Students tend to avoid the town and the chauffeur service, preferring to use their own cars to get to their nearby vacation homes and mansions on weekends.
Virtue (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 2) Page 4