by Callie Rose
“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 definitely 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 about 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.
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 en
ough 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.