by Alexis Bass
This is good enough for the rest of them, but it isn’t good enough for Stewart. “Are you kidding me? You were alone with her and you didn’t even try to make a case for the proposal. You only cared about getting her to stop blackmailing Jasper. Was that because you already knew that since your father had given up on the proposal, it was a done deal?” He zeroes in on Theo. “I told you—I told you we couldn’t trust her!”
“Setting up the cameras for Jasper’s meeting with Rob was my idea!” There’s a fire flickering in my chest. I told you we couldn’t trust her. What is he talking about?
“Oh, who gives a shit about that?” Stewart says. “That was no better than the idea to try to catch her on the phone. Bottom line, you knew your dad had stopped pushing the proposal and you didn’t share that with us—how do you explain yourself?”
“Why are you freaking out, Stewart?” Jasper says. “You really care that much about losing a house in Tuscany?”
This question is plaguing me, too. Why is Stewart this distressed when his family stands to lose the least? Why does he care so much about what my father is doing with the proposal that he thinks I betrayed them and withheld information on purpose?
“Why don’t you trust me?”
“Oh, please, Collins. I know, okay? We know.”
I look to Theo, who’s being suspiciously quiet. “What is he talking about?”
Theo hesitates. He bites the inside of his cheek. Anastasia pinches her lips together.
“What is he talking about, Theo?” Jasper says.
Theo shakes his head. “It’s not a big deal—” he starts.
But Stewart is red-faced. “Spectacle Barkley,” he says. He looks at me as he continues. “Rose Olsen.”
My throat fills with dust. There’s a hardening in my chest. Jasper stares at me, and I don’t know if he recognizes the names.
“We know your mother is an investor in the firm that will undoubtedly go out of business if Rob accepts the proposal,” Stewart says. The words blow out of him like releasing air from a balloon. “Don’t lie. You only cared about stopping Rob from blackmailing Jasper, you didn’t care at all about convincing Rob to accept the proposal. And what do you know—if Jasper tells the truth at that trial, Robames goes under and Spectacle Barkley flourishes, and that’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it, Collins?”
“But her dad has money in Robames,” Jasper says. “And Rose Olsen isn’t her mother; that’s her aunt.”
Theo pivots toward Stewart, and I can tell he means that as some sort of warning for Stewart to stop, but Stewart keeps his eyes trained on me.
“Not according to her birth certificate.”
The edges of the hall blur. My heart starts pounding in my ears. My face gets hot.
“What were you doing with her birth certificate?” Jasper says.
“Just doing our due diligence,” Stewart says.
I close my eyes. Their voices sound far away. It was my secret, and they’re fighting about it like they can’t see that it tears me up, having it exposed. I feel hands against my shoulders, a slow pulse of a squeeze.
“You’re an asshole,” Theo is saying.
“How did you—” Jasper is saying.
“I’m sorry, Collins!” The proximity and loudness of Anastasia’s voice makes my eyes fly open. The hallway snaps back into place. She’s the one with her hands on my shoulders, her face full of concern. “You know how Sebastian is when he gets talking; he’ll let anything spill out as long as you ask the right questions. And I always do. It’s a gift. Sometimes a curse.” She looks over my shoulder, shooting a glare at Theo. “You didn’t have to tell Stewart. That was told to you in confidence, the way all the secrets I tell you are.”
“How did Sebastian know?” Jasper blinks at me, and I watch as his expression turns cold. “The first day of the open house, when you were crying—after you ran away from the courtyard…”
I turn to Theo because it’s too hard to look at Jasper. I don’t know how to explain it. How will Jasper understand that he mattered too much to be honest with? None of them understand how raw this makes me feel, that they all know I was left, that my mother wasn’t my mother. They don’t understand that she might’ve been doing what was best for me. They only see a complicated, scandalous story. And reasons why I’m the liability in our situation with Rob.
“I know she’s an investor in Spectacle Barkley,” I confess. Maybe I should tell them that Mimi has money tied up in it, too—the woman who is most like a mother to me. Maybe they already know. The truth is, it did cross my mind that getting Jasper out of testifying might be good enough. That it wouldn’t be the worst thing if Mimi got a return for the money from the house, enough to start her new, independent life. “Both of my parents know that investments are risky. Whatever happens to their money is their own fault. I don’t care if either of them lose their investments. But I care about Jasper. I didn’t want him to be blackmailed into lying. And Theo. I don’t want their family to lose their money.”
Theo’s expression turns soft. Stewart’s next to him looking at his feet, and I can’t tell if he believes me. I wait to feel Jasper’s hand come down around mine to steady the trembling. But he doesn’t move. Anastasia drapes her arm around me; she rests her head against my shoulder.
We’re quiet as we walk back to the auditorium until Anastasia announces that her feet are killing her and she needs to go back to her room to change shoes.
“Come with me,” she says, tugging my arm. She hasn’t left my side since it came out that she was the source who revealed that Rose Olsen was my mother.
“We’ll see you later tonight,” Theo says, waving to us.
I nod. My throat constricts. I want to cry. I want Jasper to say something or at least make eye contact with me. But he continues down the path with Theo and Stewart and doesn’t look back.
“Something weird is going on,” Anastasia says. “We’re going to find out what it is.”
Fifty-four
Anastasia and I go back to the girls’ dormitory. But we don’t go to our rooms. We use the tunnel to go to the boys’ dormitory. It’s as deserted as the rest of the campus as we climb the stairs, move down the hall, and enter Theo’s room. She has a key to his room because of course she does.
Anastasia is meticulous as she searches Theo’s desk drawers and thumbs through his things. She opens his laptop. She powers it on and types in a password. There seem to be no secrets between Anastasia and Theo; I wonder what she expects to find tonight.
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“I have no idea,” she says. I watch over her shoulder as she opens his browser, and automatically his Rutherford email and his personal email open as tabs.
“Don’t you think it’s strange,” she says, “that Theo told Stewart the secret about your mom? He never betrays my confidence. And especially not to Stewart. Stewart’s closer to Jasper than he is to Theo.” She squints as she leans forward to examine the screen, flipping through his emails. “Or so I thought.”
“What do you see?” I ask.
“Nothing—I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “Stewart and Theo have only exchanged a few emails. They’re about pizza.”
Sure enough. A group email, even, where they debate what kind of pizza they’re going to eat during some big playoff game they were all getting together to watch.
Anastasia lets out a groan of frustration. She slides the chair out from the desk and stands.
“What were you expecting to find?” I say.
“I don’t know. It was also bizarre that Stewart was so worked up over the proposal when all he’s losing is that house in Tuscany. Theo will lose a lot more and I think that’s what Stewart actually cares about. So I’m looking for proof that they’re in love or something.”
“In love?”
“That’s the only conceivable explanation,” she says. “He and Stewart are lovers; therefore, they keep no secrets from each other. Even if it’s very disloy
al to me.”
I take her place at the desk in front of Theo’s computer as she moves onto his dresser.
“I guess that’s one possibility.” Theo’s computer pings. A notification pops up.
Would you like to accept a message from Mom?
A second notification slides across the message, a banner that says: This message is protected by Cyber Anonymous.
Cyber Anonymous makes your internet activity untraceable. It’s curious that Theo would’ve invested in this. And that it would be used when messaging with his mother.
“It’s the only possibility,” Anastasia is saying, her arm elbow deep in the bottom drawer of Theo’s dresser.
I click on Yes to accept Mrs. Mahoney’s message.
This is not good, she writes.
She sends another: No one wants to pay for our information because they’re hearing rumblings that the Robames lawsuit is moving forward. If Robames goes under they’ll never trust us again. If they think our tips are bad, we’ll lose all of them.
I stare at her message, remembering what Rosie said about Mrs. Mahoney being involved in insider trading, selling stock tips. What if it’s not only Mrs. Mahoney who’s selling them? It’s also Theo. Both of them, working together.
“Theo being in love with Stewart would also explain why Theo didn’t want me to get with Stewart,” Anastasia continues. Theo’s clothes are strewn around her.
Mrs. Mahoney says, So there was no luck when you met with Rob today? Followed by, Hello?
“And if Theo and Stewart are a thing,” Anastasia says, “that must be the reason he stayed with him on New Year’s Eve instead of coming back to the party after Stewart got too drunk.”
Hello, I type. I press Send. I want her to keep talking.
“When do you think it started between them?” Anastasia says. She’s standing in the closet, rooting through the pockets of Theo’s clothes. “And why didn’t Theo tell me about it? He tells me everything.”
Stewart said some payments were late? Did we get payment from the account ending 6815? Pls check now. From Mrs. Mahoney.
Stewart. This explains why Stewart was so invested in getting Rob to change her mind about the proposal. He thought we’d be able to get her to agree to it and was telling their clients to ditch Spectacle Barkley, thinking Robames would put them out of business. A bad tip given Rob has no intention of accepting the proposal or stopping the lawsuit, no matter how much she’s been warned that her company will never recover.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I don’t think they’re in love.”
They’re in business together—Stewart, Theo, Mrs. Mahoney. Selling tips. Rosie was right. And if she’s right about this, then she’s probably right about Mrs. Mahoney using my dad, being involved with him only for the way he’ll support her financially.
I jump as another message pops up.
I don’t blame you for not coming back to the theater, I’m killing time in the bathroom hoping it will be over soon.
Not coming back to the theater? Maybe she didn’t notice when he returned with Jasper and Stewart after our meeting with Rob, or maybe—
Behind us, we hear the door creak open. And then it slams shut.
Fifty-five
“What the hell are you guys doing?” Theo says, his eyes scanning the room and all his things scattered on the floor.
“Theo, it’s okay—you can’t help who you love,” Anastasia says.
Theo stares at me, at his computer with an open message. He comes toward me, like he’s going to yank his laptop off the desk. I beat him to it. I shut it and hold it close to me.
“Insider trading is a felony, Theo.” It might not be the smartest move to show him all my cards, admit that I know what he’s really been hiding. But I can’t stop myself. Rosie was right about the insider trading so that means I can probably trust what she said about Mrs. Mahoney only being involved with my dad for her own financial gain. Did Theo know about that too? And if he knew, how could he call himself my friend and not tell me?
“It’s not what you think,” he says. He smiles like he’s trying to brush it off, like maybe he doesn’t think I understand what I saw. But there’s something off about him. His smile is tense and his eyes are wide. He’s nervous.
“So you aren’t selling stock tips with Stewart and your mother?”
He opens his mouth, but no words come out. I’ve caught him off guard.
“Excuse me?” Anastasia says.
“That’s not—no,” Theo says. “Come on, you can’t honestly think that.”
“But that’s exactly what I think. And I wonder what my dad will think about it too, when I show him what’s on your computer.” This is risky. I don’t actually know if there’s incriminating evidence on Theo’s computer. But he’s using a security program to make his internet activity untraceable. Mrs. Mahoney felt comfortable speaking freely using the messenger app. And she asked him to check their accounts, like she assumed that since he was at his computer, he had access.
“Collins, please. You are not going to steal my computer, seriously.” Theo laughs, but his voice hitches. Anastasia hears it too—I see the way her eyes snap up to look him over. He reaches out, as though he thinks I’ll hand the laptop back to him.
I have it pressed against my chest, both my arms around it. “I thought we were friends,” I say as I start walking toward the door.
“Collins—wait—wait—please.” Theo’s voice trembles. He grabs on to my jacket as I’m leaving, then steps in front of me.
“Theo, stop it,” Anastasia says. “Get out of her way.”
He bites his bottom lip like he’s thinking this over. But he doesn’t move. I try to step around him, but he blocks me.
“Give me my computer and then you can leave,” he says to me.
“Theo,” Anastasia says, a little louder this time, with more annoyance in her voice. “You can’t hold her hostage in your room.”
“She has my laptop,” he says. “It has my essay on it for macro economics and my notes for the theoretical physics test on Monday.”
“I’m not giving it back.”
“So access them using the cloud,” Anastasia says. “Let her go.”
“This is bullshit,” he says.
“If it’s bullshit then let her take your computer. If you have nothing to hide, who cares? She’ll be proven wrong and you’ll get it back.”
Theo’s face is turning red as he struggles to keep it together. His eyes start to water. His lower lip shakes. “It was going to hold us over until Robames accepted the proposal, but then—well, you heard her for yourself today. She won’t agree to it and she’s freed Jasper up to disparage her in court.”
“So you gave a bad tip,” I say. “And now no one trusts you.”
“It’s probably over for us. We won’t have that extra income. We don’t get a return on the Robames investment, all we’ll have is—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
“Is what, Theo?”
“Nothing,” he says quickly. “We’ll have nothing.”
“What about my father?”
He bites down on his lower lip to stop it from trembling. “What about your father?” Theo looks away, still shaking his head. He seems deflated though, and it tells me that I’m getting closer to the truth and Theo knows it.
“She’s using him, right? That’s the reason for the arrangement, isn’t it?”
He rubs his hands over his face, trying to collect himself. “It’s called survival,” he says. “It kicks in when you have no other options.”
It hurts that this is the truth, the thing Theo was really hiding. He knew that his mother was using my father, taking advantage of him, involving him in her illegal scheme to make some money on the side, and he still let me get close to him. He treated me like a friend. And I’d thought he was.
“Let me go,” I say.
“Please, don’t do this to me,” he says, tears falling down his face. “If you show that to your dad,
he’s going to dig deeper; he’ll bring what he finds to the authorities. Really think about this, Collins. About what this could do to me, to my family—to Jasper.”
I was warned, I think. I was told. Rosie reveals the truth only when she needs to, only when it works in her favor. But it was there all along; she gave me an undercurrent of what I needed to know about my dad and the Mahoneys.
“My dad has to know the truth, Theo.”
A loud scream cuts through the room. Anastasia is standing in front of Theo’s open nightstand drawer. She’s holding a composition book, her face red with fury.
“What is this?” she shrieks at Theo. She throws the tattered book at him.
He lets it hit him, doesn’t even try to move out of the way.
“You wrote down everything I told you!” she yells. “Made lists of things I found out—added notes about the companies that might be connected.” She looks between us, and I’m not sure how much she’s picked up on while we fought, but from the way her whole body is rigid with anger, I’d guess everything. “You were using me for some illegal bullshit and to screw over Collins’s dad!”
“Anastasia, wait, please—come on—I was desperate.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Theo.” She charges toward him. “How could you do this to me?”
“Don’t act like you’re above this,” he says to her. “This is the reason you worm your way into other people’s lives, the reason you pry and ask questions. You use people, too—you exploit their secrets to your own advantage. Like Joyce! You used all that information you got from her crying in the bathroom to get her to give you her family’s penthouse.”
“Well, you used it to break the law. You used me to break the law.” She steps away from him, her eyes welling with tears. “I trusted you with everything. More than I’ve ever trusted someone before.”
She shoves past him and leaves.
Theo closes his eyes at the sound of the door slamming shut.
“I can’t keep this from my dad,” I say. “I have to get her away from him. I made a promise.”
It pains me, the way he slumps to the ground. The way he caves in on himself.