Very Bad Things

by Susan McBride

  “They must’ve found something,” the girl beside Katie murmured, “or else why would they be digging?”

  Katie’s book bag felt heavy, the strap biting into her shoulder. Then someone jostled her from behind, and her bag slid down her arm to the ground. She reached for it, and when she stood, she saw Mark, edging into a spot beside her.

  “Hey,” she said, staring up at him.

  He had a nasty bruise on his forehead. She didn’t need to ask what had happened. She’d gone to hockey practice before first period; sitting high in the stands, her gaze was on Mark as he skated. He’d seemed off during warm-ups, out of his usual rhythm and out of sync with the rest of his teammates. Then he’d gone after Steve Getty again, and Katie had found it too ugly to watch.

  She’d left the rink as fast as she could.

  I would never hurt you, Mark had texted her soon after.

  You are hurting yourself, she typed back. Don’t let him get to you.

  If Mark wanted to convince everyone that he was innocent, he had to stop lashing out at Steve. It just made him look angry and unpredictable and capable of anything.

  “What are you doing here?” Katie asked when Mark didn’t say anything. It wasn’t wise for him to be hanging around the woods where the dogs were searching, when the police thought he was the last one to see Rose alive.

  “I have to know if it’s her,” he said, and snatched Katie’s bag from the ground.

  Without another word, he headed through the crowd of students, away from the barricades, and toward a thick copse of trees in the opposite direction.

  “Mark, don’t,” Katie said, following him. She heard Tessa call her name. But she didn’t turn around.

  “C’mon, stop,” she said, but he kept on walking. If he didn’t have her book bag, she would have let him go. But instead she hurried after him as he pushed his way through overgrown bushes that scratched Katie’s hands and face. The crowded trees with their thick green canopies shut out the sun. Katie sidestepped tangled roots, twigs, and pine cones. She tripped and caught herself on a tree dark with sap. Her palm came away sticky.

  “Please, stop,” she said again, but he just kept going.

  He followed some path that Katie couldn’t see until she heard the dogs again and voices, and she realized what they’d done. They’d gone the long way around and come up behind the cops.

  Mark paused and turned, putting a finger to his lips. He set her bag down quietly and took her hand. They crept forward and crouched behind a messy tangle of wild honeysuckle. Mark parted the branches enough that they could see the dozen police officers and campus security loosely circling a spot where men with shovels were attacking the earth.

  No one spoke for what seemed an eternity. There was just the scuffling of the dogs, the labored breath of those digging, and the spades hitting dirt.

  Brush and stones had been cleared from the spot. The dug-up dirt looked different, lighter and softer, like freshly ground coffee.

  Mark didn’t move. He didn’t look at her. His gaze was fixed dead ahead. He was so still Katie wondered if he was holding his breath. She wasn’t sure how much time elapsed before one noisy clunk rang out, and then another, as shovels struck stone.

  “Careful now,” a man called out, and Katie recognized the detective who’d questioned her at Amelia House. “Let’s get those rocks out by hand.”

  The men tossed their shovels aside and dropped to their knees, drawing out flattened stones from the creek, setting them aside with gloved hands.

  “Must’ve laid them over her so the critters wouldn’t get her,” one of the cops said loudly enough for them to hear.

  Critters? Ugh.

  Katie looked at Mark. He still held her hand, and his skin felt ice-cold.

  “Okay, let’s take it slow,” the detective said. “Anything that’s not dirt or twigs, I want bagged. And make sure we get photographs every step of the way.”

  Katie caught a glimpse of white against the earth.

  “Is it her?” she whispered. “Is that Rose?”

  But Mark didn’t answer.

  She bit her lip, waiting, as endless minutes ticked past.

  “Use the brushes now and sift the dirt nice and easy. Let’s not miss a hair,” the detective said, and then he disappeared from Katie’s view as one of the officers shifted position, blocking her line of sight with his shoulders.

  “I can’t see,” Mark said under his breath

  But Katie didn’t want to see, not really. If it was Rose, what would she look like? Pale and waxen like Mr. Ogden? Probably worse, if she’d been in the ground since she’d gone missing over a week ago. Was her skull full of maggots, wiggling in and out of her eye sockets?

  Katie tasted bile and swallowed hard.

  Mark moved to the left and peeked through the branches. He sighed, looking grim, and Katie knew he could see again.

  She didn’t want to look. So she stared at her shoes. Her black flats were wet and caked with mud. They were as good as ruined.

  “Aw, hell,” Mark said, and Katie had to peek.

  She settled in beside Mark and gazed through the thick honeysuckle. Now there was no one in the way, nothing to obstruct the view. What Katie saw poking out of the shallow grave was a face—or what was left of one—discolored and gray. It looked like a Halloween mask, not a person. The men kept brushing away bits of earth that covered the corpse like a blanket until something around its throat glinted in the dappled light: a gold chain with a charm.

  Katie’s breath caught. Was that the St. Sebastian medal she’d given Mark?

  One of the cops held up the chain so another could bag it, and Katie saw enough to feel sure that’s what it was. Mark hadn’t just lost the medallion the night of the party; somehow it had ended up with Rose Tatum. Had she stolen it from him? Had he given it to her? Could he really not know where it had gone?

  “Mark?” she said, so quietly she wasn’t sure he heard. And then he looked at her with such wide eyes that she knew he’d seen it, too.

  “I swear—” he started to say, and Katie shook her head. She didn’t want to hear another denial. She couldn’t stomach it.

  What had happened two weekends ago on that Saturday night that Rose went missing? Who had killed her and buried her across the creek in the woods? What if Mark wasn’t telling the truth? What if he could remember and the rest was a lie told to cover up the bad things he’d done?

  Don’t go there, she told herself. But it was too late. She’d already gone.

  Katie closed her eyes. She drew away from Mark, dizzy and nauseated.

  Rose Tatum had finally turned up.

  And she was very, very dead.

  It took hours for the cops to unearth and remove Rose’s remains.

  Katie didn’t stick around to watch. Glimpsing what was left of Rose Tatum had made her sick. She wished she hadn’t gone into the woods with Mark to watch them dig. What had happened to Rose was real. It wasn’t a joke. A girl was dead, and whoever had murdered her could still be lurking around campus.

  When she’d seen enough, Katie had grabbed her book bag from Mark and fled the woods. She wasn’t even aware that he’d followed until he caught up to her near the creek. When he touched her, Katie flinched, and she saw the hurt in his eyes as he let his hand fall away.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said, but it sounded so hollow this time. Like even he wasn’t sure he believed it.

  “How’d she get your medallion?” Katie asked. “If you had nothing to do with her, why was she wearing it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Katie felt like screaming. “You have to do better than that. You have to remember! I’ve seen a dozen Lifetime movies where people get hypnotized and recover lost memories. Maybe you should try that. You have to do something. We’ll never know what really happened that night if you keep drawing a blank!”

  Mark flinched. His bruised face looked so pained. “At least she’s not missing anymore,” he said grimly. “We know t
hat much now, don’t we?”

  Then he walked off, and Katie stood there for a long time, staring down at her muddy shoes.

  Was finding Rose really a good thing? She had a sinking feeling that the cops were going to drag Mark back in for another round of questioning. What if they arrested him this time and threw him in jail? What if they stopped looking for anyone else? What if they didn’t need to keep looking?

  The whole world felt totally scrambled.

  It was like one of those awful thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles her dad had loved putting together. “Bonding time,” he’d called it, but for Katie it felt more like torture. Often they’d spent a whole weekend on a single puzzle. They would find the border pieces first and then move inward, doing small portions until those connected into something bigger. And when they’d finally stuck in that last piece (which had usually fallen to the floor and required a search on hands and knees), her dad would always say, “Whoever thought all those tiny bits of nothing would end up looking like that?” That being a truly dazzling photograph of a rain forest or the Taj Mahal or a villa in Tuscany.

  Only Katie didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle yet. She couldn’t even find the borders. So how was she supposed to figure out the whole picture?

  Leave it to the police, it’s their job, a tiny voice instructed. But Katie didn’t like feeling helpless. She had to do something. If she focused on small things, things she could do, that would be a start.

  First, she had to deal with her unfinished business with Tessa.

  She looked for her roommate, but Tessa wasn’t anywhere near the barricades. By then, only a few dozen students remained. Katie’s gaze drifted away from the creek toward the greenhouse, and she saw a solitary boy staring in her direction. He had his hands in his jacket pockets, the collar turned up. He gave her a long, hard look before he turned and headed off.

  Steve Getty.

  Katie shivered, staring at his retreating back. Had he really drugged Mark the night of the party? Had he done something to Rose? Or was it just that he was such an ass it made him easy to blame?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” a voice said from behind her. “But if you’re going after Steve, you’d better be careful.”

  Katie turned to find Joelle Needham standing a few feet away.

  “He may act like an obnoxious puppy, but he’s the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma.”

  What did Joelle think she was going to do? Run after Steve and accuse him of murder in front of everyone on campus?

  “I wasn’t going to—” Katie started to say.

  “Snoop around?” Joelle finished for her. “So you don’t want to clear Mark?”

  Katie pursed her lips. Of course she wanted proof that Mark was innocent! She wanted that more than anything. “I just want to find the truth,” she said.

  “Ah, the truth.” Joelle came closer, and Katie saw what looked like a bruise on her jaw beneath her carefully applied concealer. “Some people around here will do anything to keep the truth from getting out.”

  “Joelle, if you know something—if Steve hurt you—you need to talk,” Katie said. “You should tell the headmaster. If no one ever speaks, he’ll keep doing it. Maybe not at Whitney but at whatever college he goes to—”

  “I can’t,” Joelle cut her off. “I just can’t.”

  Katie glanced at the mark on Joelle’s jaw. “Did he hit you?”

  Joelle touched the spot and shook her head. “I was attacked by my blow-dryer,” she said. “Really,” she added when Katie squinted at her. “I swear to God, if Steve hit me, I’d hit him back.”

  Then what was holding her back? Katie wondered. Did Steve have pictures or video? “Is he blackmailing you?”

  Joelle clammed up.

  “You can’t let it go.” Katie’s dad had kept a big secret about losing all their money and then he’d killed himself because of it. “Some secrets need to be told.”

  “Not this one. Not by me,” Joelle said, and blindly bumped into Katie as she hurried past.

  Katie held her arm like she’d been stung. What had just happened? Joelle was warning her off Steve? Why did Mark’s ex care what she did? Joelle didn’t even like her. Everyone was acting so bizarre. She thought of a poem by Emily Dickinson that she’d had to memorize this semester:

  Much Madness is divinest Sense

  To a discerning Eye

  Much Sense — the starkest Madness —

  ’Tis the Majority

  In this, as all, prevail —

  Assent — and you are sane —

  Demur — you’re straightaway dangerous —

  And handled with a Chain—

  If you thought you were mad, then you were probably sane. If you thought you were sane and everyone agreed, you probably weren’t. And if you stood up for yourself against the crowd, you were dangerous.

  Katie definitely felt like she was losing it these days. She hoped that meant she wasn’t really nuts, at least according to Emily.

  With a sigh, she started up the hill toward campus. On the way, she reached for her phone to text Tessa where r u, and something fell out of her pocket. A folded slip of paper settled on the grass. She stopped and picked it up. Two lines were printed across the sheet:

  PHILLIPS EXETER, PHILLIPS ANDOVER, ST. PAUL’S, WESTMINSTER. WHAT DO THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

  Had Joelle stuck the paper in Katie’s pocket when she’d bumped into her? Was Mark’s ex actually trying to help? The four names on the list were all private prep schools, Katie knew, very much like Whitney.

  He may act like an obnoxious puppy, but he’s the wolf that ate Red Riding Hood’s grandma.

  Had Steve Getty gone to Phillips Exeter, Phillips Andover, St. Paul’s, and Westminster before Whitney? Katie had heard that Whitney was the fifth school he’d attended, so that would fit. Why had Steve transferred in the middle of his senior year? That wasn’t normal. Nobody wanted to switch schools so close to graduation. Had he done something awful that made the four other schools kick him out?

  Maybe Joelle wasn’t talking outright, but she was talking. Katie didn’t know exactly what had happened between Joelle and Steve, but she was certain of one thing: Steve Getty was involved in this mess with Rose Tatum up to his eyeballs. He’d known her before the party. He’d snuck her onto campus and used her in those pictures with Mark. Katie felt sure he had something to do with her disappearance. Maybe he’d even killed her.

  Katie had tried Googling Steve’s name and had only found interviews with his ambassador dad or hockey stats. Nothing about why he couldn’t seem to stay put. If Katie was going to learn anything more, she had to look at Steve’s academic records. Or at least get someone to look at them for her.

  Bea Lively volunteered in the Student Affairs Office, mostly working with leaders of various groups on campus. She’d helped set up the poetry slam in January, which was when they’d gotten to be friends. If anyone could take a peek at a student’s records without hacking, it would be Bea. Katie figured it was worth a shot.

  So she headed straight for the administration building and Student Affairs. When she walked through the door, the phones were trilling, and a pair of gray-haired women behind the counter seemed to be scrambling to keep up. They didn’t even glance at Katie when she approached. But Katie didn’t need them.

  “Bea?”

  A tall girl with bright orange braids hanging down the back of her burgundy blazer was putting up event notices on the bulletin board. Bea turned her freckled face toward Katie. “Hey,” she said, giving a little wave. She had a wrist full of handmade bracelets, yellow tights under her burgundy-and-black plaid skirt, and brown clogs. Bea was not a slave to fashion.

  “Have you got a sec?” Katie asked.

  “Hang on, okay?” Bea finished pressing pushpins into a flyer, then walked over to Katie. “How’re you doing? I heard they found that missing girl. The phones are going bonkers. I had to take a break.”

  “That’s kind of why I’m he
re.” Katie looked over at the women behind the counter. They were busy answering calls and didn’t seem to be listening, but Katie didn’t want to take any chances. She drew Bea toward a pair of chairs against the far wall.

  Above them, a framed poster of a broadly smiling girl and boy hovered. Bold black letters screamed WHITNEY ACADEMY IS THE PLACE TO BE!

  Yeah, Katie thought, it was the place to be if you liked sharing the campus with a psycho killer.

  “What’s up?” Bea asked. “You’re not here to get your transcript forwarded, are you? I know your mom wants you to leave, but they’ll catch the guy soon, I’m sure they will, and graduation’s coming up so fast.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Phew.”

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “You look so serious.” Bea wrinkled her forehead. “So is the favor illegal or immoral?”

  “A little of both,” Katie said, and wet her lips. “Can you look at someone’s records for me?”

  “Like, their grades?”

  Katie shook her head. “Like why they left their other schools.”

  “Who are we talking about?” Bea pulled a braid forward and twisted it.

  Katie kept her voice low. “Steve Getty.”

  Bea dropped the braid. “The ambassador’s son?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d he do? Besides thinking he’s God’s gift to women, I mean.”

  Katie didn’t know a way to put it nicely. “I think he might have date-raped someone.”

  “For real?” Bea looked horrified. “Why would Whitney let him in if they knew? Screw that”—she waved a hand in the air—“why isn’t he in jail?”

  “Maybe the school didn’t know. Maybe Steve’s dad kept everyone quiet,” Katie replied, thinking of something Tessa had said.

  People get away with stuff all the time around here. And if their parents can’t buy them out of it, they just yank them from school and they start all over again somewhere else.

  Steve Getty’s dad was high-profile enough to pull plenty of strings and quietly pass out hush money.

  “I’m toast if I get caught, but I’ll do my best,” Bea said, and her gaze shifted toward the women behind the counter. “Student volunteers aren’t supposed to handle transcripts. But if the phones keep ringing nonstop, I can probably get to the computer in back for a few minutes alone.”