Ford still can’t even believe what she’s hearing. “Why would she hurt Becca?”
“Because Becca hurt me.” Alex raises her shirt and Ford sees the bandage on her rib cage. A small part of her whispers in silent agony. She, too, was branded, something the Ivy Bound society is expressly forbidden to do anymore. What was Becca Curtis thinking? She’s brought back every hazing ritual outlawed by Ford when she came on board a decade ago.
Rumi told Ford she was naive. Maybe they’ve been doing this all along and she’s simply not been paying attention. Or maybe Becca Curtis thought she could get away with it because of who she was.
“It’s not only the brand,” Alex says. “Or the hazing. Becca broke my heart, too. Ashlyn was furious yesterday and looking for someone to take it out on. She couldn’t torture and kill me, not until I made things right, so she went after the one thing, the one person, I give a damn about. Becca.”
She turns to Kate. “How did you figure it out?”
“A photograph from the crime scene, of a family portrait. After that, it was only a matter of finding someone from the household still alive to look at the photo from your customs entry. The cook confirmed for us who you really were.”
“Dorsey,” Alex says, smiling. “She was always so kind to me. Never sent me home hungry. I always wondered if she knew I was Damien’s, or if she was just a soft touch. He treated her abominably. Another innocent caught in Ashlyn’s crossfire.”
“This is all very heartwarming, but where is Ashlyn now?” Tony asks.
“I don’t know. I saw her in the graveyard last night—did you know there’s a tunnel out from the sophomores’ hall? It’s down the stairs from the storage room across from mine. So convenient, these tunnels. She’s been moving about freely for days, nicking food, lurking, snooping, stealing. She realized Camille was trying to spy on my computer, and though there wasn’t much to see, Ashlyn couldn’t risk it. She had to find out what she knew.”
“So you’re saying she killed Camille.”
“Yes. It’s the only logical explanation.”
“Did she admit this to you?” Tony asks.
“She didn’t have to. I don’t know exactly what happened that night, I was being tapped for Ivy Bound. The shirt is the key, though. Becca gave it to me, I found it on my bed after I took a shower. I assumed it was put there in that fifteen-minute window, but then I realized, it could have been there the whole tap. Which means Ashlyn, who was moving in and out of the buildings at will, would have had access to the shirt and my room for a few hours. I assume she wrote the summons and got Camille upstairs, questioned her, pushed her off the ledge, then hurried back and put the shirt on the bed.
“It was a good plan, to make it look like either Becca or I were responsible. Unless she confesses, though, we may never know what really happened.”
“This is quite a tale, Alex,” Ford says. An impossible, ridiculous tale.
“It is. But it’s the truth. I have no reason to lie anymore.”
Ford wants to believe her. But there’s something so strange about her story, something missing.
The convenient specter of a psychotic missing sister.
Something niggles at the back of her brain.
“The piano. You gave up the piano. Muriel told me you were just having an off day.”
Alex smiles, delighted with this tiny bit of proof. “Not an off day. I never had proper lessons, only school lessons. Ashlyn taught me how to get through the meeting with Muriel. She is an amazing pianist, total natural. Do you know how hard I had to work to at least make it seem like I had the tiniest spark of talent? I learned enough to make it seem like I was just out of practice. It was a right pain in the arse, I’ll tell you that. But Muriel, she wasn’t fooled. Not really. She knew something was wrong that went deeper. She saw it within the first few minutes, when I set my fingers on the wrong keys to start and had to shift over an octave. God, what a stupid mistake. I might have even stuck with it, pretended until she taught me more, but after that, I knew she’d be watching too closely. I had to quit.”
The story is a good one. It might very possibly be true. Except...
“And then she died,” Tony says, the words Ford is thinking. “Is this Ashlyn’s doing, too?”
Alex’s face falls. “I don’t think so. I think that was just a terrible, horrible coincidence.”
Is this girl capable of the lies, the deceit, it would take to pull off a stunt of this magnitude? Is Ford staring into the eyes of a killer?
Or is she some sort of split personality, and moments from now, the other part of her will claw its way to the surface and laugh at their pain?
And what is that smell?
84
THE SURPRISE
Oh, come on. Are you really buying into all of this crap?
We’re just kids. Stupid, ignorant children. Too smart for our own good, too certain we know better than everyone around us. Too jaded by our backgrounds, even.
Alex was prey, a deer for the wolves. If you thought she was bad...wait until you get a load of me.
I envision the scene of the crime. Alex finding her lover’s body, dropping to her knees. Oh, the wailing. Oh, the gnashing. The beating of breasts.
I can see them milling around out there. I’m too far away to see faces, but I can read their demeanor, they are in shock. A car pulls away. That’s the dean’s Bentley.
It disappears, and I move from Alex’s room to the dark space across the hall. My lair. My ingress and egress. The window looks out onto the back of Main and I see the car pull in. The dean is driving, not her little boy toy, and Alex steps from the passenger seat.
Is she going to tell them everything? Or is she going to cover up my existence?
I light a cigarette, blow out the smoke.
Hmm. There’s blood on my hand. The little bitch clawed me as I strung her up, flailing around like a grouse trapped in a raptor’s claws.
I move back to my beloved sissy’s bedroom.
I will admit, I was too hasty in killing Becca Curtis. I don’t regret her death, not at all. But my immense anger at her treatment of Alex got the better of me, I’m afraid. Things might come to a head now, but honestly, who cares? I will be free of them all. I can let Alex go. She was so happy to go to America, to leave me behind, that she never even looked back. Only forward. Ever forward.
Will she come to sleep in this bed tonight? Will she run her hands along her body, dream of that girl who she thinks loved her?
We always hurt the ones we love, right?
Bull. Shit.
“Hey! Who the hell are you?”
No, who the hell are you, little darling? She is tall, like Alex, but with red hair and freckles. Oh, that’s right, it’s the suitemate. She is wearing a Goode sweatshirt long enough to cover her ass, yoga pants, and a pink baseball cap. I like the hat. I like the whole outfit, actually. It looks comfortable. Broken in. I bet I would look adorable in it.
Me, Ashlyn, the sweet little Goode girl.
“Piper, right? I’m the sister.”
“The sister?”
“Ash. You’ve heard the rumors.”
She looks confused. Maybe they aren’t aware. “I don’t think you should be in here.”
“Why not? She’s my sister, I have every right to be here.”
“Um, no, you don’t. You’re not a student, and you need to leave. We’re dealing with a tragedy and it’s not right for you to be here.”
“Oh, you’re dealing with a tragedy?” I start toward her, and clever girl doesn’t even hesitate, she backs away. She scrambles out the door, into the hall. I’m moving fast now, a train barreling toward her, and she backpedals right into the open door of the storeroom.
I know she’s going to trip before she does; I see the ladders in the way. She goes down hard, her head hitting the flo
or with a terrible thwack.
“Oopsie-daisy. Did that hurt?”
It must have, she’s out cold.
I relieve her of the adorable pink hat. Might as well take the sweatshirt, too, while I’m at it.
I set my cigarette—almost gone now—on the edge of the ladder and reach for her arms. She is as lifeless as a full-size doll, lolling about here and there, her arms swinging loosely. Dead weight.
I finally get her out of the sweatshirt and pull it on. It’s warm, and smells good; whatever perfume she’s wearing is vanilla based. I reach for the end of my smoke but realize it’s fallen to the floor.
Oh well. I have more. Too bad it’s not laced with a little something, just to make the time go by faster. I wonder how long it will be until Alex comes for a lie-down. We need to talk. I need to make sure she understands that the clock is ticking.
There is a whoosh behind me. A crackle. Then heat, searing heat.
It happens so quickly I barely have time to take a breath before the room is ablaze. The smoke billows, chasing me into the hall.
Uh-oh.
85
THE BURNING
The alarms go off with a clamor unlike anything I’ve heard before—sirens and screams, flashing white lights. The detective shoots us a glance and bolts out the door. The dean follows in her wake.
The sheriff puts a hand on my shoulder so I won’t run.
“You stick with me, and I won’t cuff you just yet. Understand?”
“It’s probably not occurred to you, Sheriff, but I have nowhere to go. Goode is my home now.”
His cell phone rings, and with another warning glance, he answers it. “Yeah, Kate. Yes. We can smell the smoke. Second floor? Got it.”
The dean comes back into her office. “The security panel says there’s a fire on the sophomores’ hall. The fire suppression system should have kicked in by now. I don’t know why it’s not. It’s new this year, they tested it, our art is—”
“Ford, we need to get everyone out.”
The dean turns on me, face ferocious. “Did you do this?”
“Me? No, Dean. I swear it.”
“The alarms started across from your room.”
“It’s her,” I breathe. “You know it is. She ruins everything. She’s trying to cover her tracks.”
“Come on, we can do this later.” The sheriff hurries me out of the dean’s office with a hand clamped on my shoulder. There is pandemonium in the hall.
The detective runs up, breathless. “We have to get the gates open, Tony. The fire trucks need to park in front of Main.”
“That’s a crime scene. Damn it all, Ford, why don’t you have cameras so we can see what the hell is happening?”
“You can berate me later. Damn, Tony, there’s real smoke here.”
She isn’t wrong. There is a fire burning, and burning hard. If it started across from my room, it’s Ashlyn, doing something to draw the attention away.
Has she done this for me? To give me a chance to escape the sheriff’s custody?
Possibly. But there’s nowhere for me to go. I refuse to run anymore.
Dr. Viridian, the chemistry teacher, is waving toward the dean. “The fourth floor is clear, so is the third. The fire is moving quickly. What happened to the suppression system?”
“It’s not working, Phyllis.”
Melanie, loyal assistant to the end, hurries forward, a handkerchief over her mouth.
“Dean, we have to get out. Now. The students are all outside. We’re doing a headcount. A few are missing.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know. We don’t know! But there are only 195 girls outside.”
I hear the fire now. It chuckles to life behind me, the ceilings are starting to blister.
“Open the fucking gates, Tony!” the dean screams.
The sheriff is done playing around, he speaks into his shoulder mic, then herds us toward the front doors and out into the quad. The smoke is heavy, pouring out after us. I cough and cough the bitterness out of my lungs.
The gate is open—what have they done with Becca?—and the fire trucks come barreling through. They swarm the grounds, forcing us back, back, until the sheriff is pulled away and it’s just me and the dean, standing in the center of the quad, watching.
They are too late. The delay getting Becca’s body off the gate and opening it wide gives the fire enough time to sink its teeth into Goode. The winds following the overnight storms have started, the cold front howling through the trees, the forest bending, furious at this scary intrusion. The sparks fly from one end of the school to the other. The conflagration is intense, and it feels like time is standing still, though I know it’s at least an hour that we stand, horrified, as the school burns.
Shouts, calls, water being sprayed. Nothing seems to work. We watch the flames grow higher and higher, the brick veneer blacken and crumble.
The firefighters put up a heroic effort. But when the roof collapses with a rending groan, the dean puts up a weary hand and says the words that doom The Goode School forever.
“Let it burn. It’s cursed anyway.”
86
THE ENDING
After the winds, the trees are nearly bare, leaves dried and fallen, the ancient branches revealing the nests of the birds who’ve roosted for the spring and summer. Soon enough, the nests will disappear, as well, their foundations rocked by wind and snow, the birds retreating to the evergreens for shelter.
Shelter from the storm.
This is what we are supposed to be given by our family. Care. Feeding. Love. Shelter.
But some families are different. They give only pain and fear and a frantic sense of need.
Every time I think about my father, I am reminded of the moment my mother told me how lucky we were. We had escaped him. We were free of him. We would never have to be subject to his temper, his rages, his hollow apologies. We were safe.
Only no one can escape the rule of a tyrant, not while the tyrant lives.
We were dragged back into the undertow of his world time and again until she was gone, and he was gone, and I was left alone to clean up the mess.
Do not mistake me. Damien Carr was a narcissist of the highest order. He fed off the power he accumulated, running the finances for the most powerful families in the country. He controlled my mother, he cheated on his wife, he abused his daughter. He walked delicately on the draglines as he built his web. But like an orb weaver, his sight was poor. He didn’t see what he’d created, right under his nose.
Me.
When I went away to America, I thought I’d left all of this chaos behind. I had escaped, like my mother always wanted for me.
But there is no escape when you’re caught in the monster’s nexus. Only something bigger to fear, a stronger predator to be devoured by. I was plucked from the broken strands and thrust into a larger web, one less visible, less clear, but controlled by a force I couldn’t begin to understand.
The dean puts a hand on my shoulder. It is meant to comfort, but there is no comfort to be had. It will all end now.
As the flames rise, licking the edges of the building, I swear I see Ash inside the windows. She is staring out at me, a hand raised in a farewell salute, a smile on her beautiful lips.
We are forever bound, she and I, through the blood that flows in our veins, and the blood we spilled together.
A whoosh. A cry.
Main Hall collapses.
And she is gone.
87
THE SENATOR
Senator Ellen Curtis’s guests are in the middle of the third course—a gorgeous duck à l’orange, perfectly cooked—nibbling and laughing as she holds court over her dining room table like the doyenne she is when the chimes of the doorbell cause them all to stop.
Ellen ignores th
e ringing bell. Renata will get it, there is no reason to worry. It’s probably the caterer, locked out of the back door.
“As I was saying, when the judge came into the room, every head turned—”
“Madame?”
Renata’s quiet voice rings through the room. Ellen, fighting back a furious shout, looks at her housekeeper with a brow raised. “Yes, Renata?”
“There is a man to see you.”
Ellen waves a hand. “Tell him I will be happy to speak with him tomorrow. We’re having brunch.”
“He is a policeman.”
“Oh-ho, Ellie. Those parking tickets finally caught up to you,” Jude Westhaven chortles, tipping back the rest of her glass of Veuve. “Renata, darling—” Renaaaahta, daaaahling “—could you get me a teensy refill?”
“Madame,” Renata says again, not breaking eye contact with Ellen. “He says it’s urgent.”
Ellen rises, gives a reassuring smile to her guests, waves a perfectly manicured hand. “I’ll be back in a mo, have some more champagne, don’t let the duck get cold.”
Her heels click on the parquet floor, snick, snick, snick, snick, as she follows Renata, plodding along in her soft-soled shoes, out to the foyer. Ellen should institute a No Shoe policy, make everyone slip into lovely Chinese slippers like her agent friend, but she is so short, so tiny, the heels barely get her to eye level with the shortest of her male guests. She needs the boost. She hates staring up people’s noses.
Despite the mincing poodle noise she makes as she crosses the hallway, she is grateful she is wearing the stilts when she steps into the foyer. The cop—and this isn’t just a cop, but a detective, in plain clothes—is well over six feet tall. Handsome, too, dark hair slightly too long, soulful brown eyes, sharp jaw. When he sees her, he snaps to attention. All hail Queen Ellen. She is half-disappointed when he doesn’t bow or salute. He nods instead.
“Senator Curtis?”
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