by Norah Wilson
That was the plan.
Someone cleared their throat, dragging Maryanne away from her drifting thoughts and back to the present. Right. She was supposed to be getting to know these two. After all, these were her roommates for the next ten months. They seemed an unlikely trio.
Alex was clearly a scene kid. Skinny-legged jeans, slip on Vans, tight band t-shirt. Two lip rings on her bottom lip, one on either side, and the requisite black hair skimming her shoulders at the back, but bangs cut jaggedly short at the front. The only thing missing was the heavy eyeliner. Maryanne could all too easily imagine those gray-blue eyes darkly outlined in that delicate, heart-shaped face. But even without dramatic makeup, Alex’s eyes were very pretty, if a little sad.
Brooke’s looks, on the other hand, were a sharp contrast with Alex’s. Not that Maryanne was vying for the title of fashion czar, since comfy jeans and a loose-fitting sweater was her fall fashion statement. But Brooke was clearly going for something altogether different. She was definitely high-end. Long brunette hair, parted in the middle, and doubtlessly enhanced by a salon versus Alex’s home dye job. Perfect oval of a face. Dark, impeccably groomed eyebrows and a slightly olive-tinted complexion that probably never broke out and required nothing more than a moisturizer. Even her clothes looked expensive. Maryanne didn’t know one designer from another, but even she could see the difference $300 made to a pair of jeans. Top it with a nice shirt and a tailored leather jacket and Brooke Saunders looked like sheer confidence on a pair of spike-heeled shoes. What was she doing in Harvell House? Maryanne would lay money that she was a late enrollment, too. Too late for one of the better dorms.
“Soooo,” Maryanne edged out. Someone had to break the ice. It would be a pretty damn long year otherwise. “You guys come here often?”
Not a chuckle. But at least it started a conversation.
“This is my second year,” Brooke said.
At Harvell or Streep? Maryanne wondered. “Do you like it here?”
“At Harvell or Streep?”
The echo of her own question rattled Maryanne for a moment. Brooke actually chose to come back to Harvell? She shrugged. “Both.”
Brooke sighed. “Quiet town. Small school. Boring house.”
Alex snorted.
“Okay,” Brooke amended. “Nothing much happens in my world around here.” With a purposeful and sly smile, she looked over at Alex. “But that’s just me. I guess I hang with the boring crowd. You know, the ones on this side of the law.”
Maryanne waited for Alex to reply, but she didn’t. In fact, her raven-haired roommate suddenly seemed to be barely registering the conversation. She seemed... lost. Not for words; Maryanne had the feeling Alex Robbins wouldn’t be too shy about tearing a strip off of anyone, if the situation demanded. But right now, she seemed lost in some interior maze of thought. Without knowing exactly why, Maryanne felt a pang of compassion for the girl.
“I’m from New York,” Brooke offered.
Maryanne swung her gaze back to Brooke. “What brings you to Mansbridge?”
She shrugged. “Same reason most of the girls are here. Things went wrong at home. Or home didn’t fit anymore. It was a boundaries thing. Take your pick. For me, that translates into my mother remarried.”
“You don’t like the guy?” Maryanne asked.
“He’s a freakin’ Nazi,” Brooke pulled a nail file out of her purse. “Or pride of the NYPD computer crime division, depending on how you look at it.”
“Your mom must like him.”
Brooke snorted. “My mother—she’s a district attorney—met him three years ago when she was prosecuting some corporate weasel who was hacking into competitors’ systems, then undercutting everyone on industry bids.”
“Bad stuff.”
Brooke waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy starts trying to set curfews and acts like a total authoritarian dipstick. The upshot—darling daughter gets sent away to boarding school.”
Ouch. Guess $300 jeans didn’t fix everything. “Why Streep?”
“To piss my mother off.” Brooke smiled as she said it. “Streep was my idea.”
Maryanne nodded. “You must find it a real... culture shock, being in such a small town.”
“I get by. And it’s almost over. Last year.” Brooke turned to the other girl. “Your last year too, huh, Alex?”
Alex stared at her for a moment, as if hitting an internal rewind button to trace back the conversation. “Yeah, one more year.”
“What brings you to Harvell House?” It was Brooke’s turn to ask the questions, and she was pointing them at Maryanne.
Under Brooke’s sharp gaze, Maryanne fought to control the sudden pounding of her heart in the long and empty pause. She couldn’t tell. Didn’t want to. Not yet.
She smiled, lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You know, just needed a change of pace.”
Brooke smirked, “Which translates into... ?”
“Just that. Change of pace.” Maryanne stood and walked to the window overlooking the Saint John River. Traffic was picking up. School would be starting tomorrow. Not just Streep, but the nearby community college, high school and grade schools. God, but it was a pretty town. Picture-book pretty, with the cozy little shops lining the streets, the trail along the river, the sidewalks and crosswalks. She had to smile as she saw a black cat scoot out to the crosswalk. Every car came to a stop for the feline and the drivers seemed to wait each other out after it passed. Just who was going to go first to cross the black cat’s path?
“I think I’ll go for a walk tonight,” Maryanne announced. “Explore a little.”
“Don’t!”
Maryanne startled at Alex’s near shout. Their eyes met.
Alex ran a hand over her hair. “Things... things aren’t always as safe as they seem around here.”
Someone’s hurt her. Maryanne knew it instantly. She didn’t know who nor why nor how, but she knew that someone had hurt this girl to make her so on edge. So cautious and quiet.
“Well, aren’t you the little den mother all of a sudden,” Brooke said.
Alex sent her a quelling look. “She’s new here, Brooke. She doesn’t know her way around town yet. And you don’t... you don’t know who’s around.”
There was a knock at the door. Maryanne saw Alex stiffen, her eyes growing wide.
“Come in,” Brooke called, and the door swung open.
It was the caretaker, the one who’d carried Maryanne’s bag up to this second floor room when she’d arrived. He didn’t glance up at any of them, but instead looked down at the floor like a meek boy rather than the man of sixty-some years he had to be. “Mrs. Betts needs to see you all,” he said. “In the main parlor. Right away.”
“Problem?” Maryanne asked.
“Nah, she just likes to lay down the house rules,” Brooke answered for John Smith, and the man backed gratefully away from the door. “Study hard. Be good. No drinking. No boys. Bet you can’t wait to break them all again this year, huh Alex?”
The look Alex returned was ice cold. “It’s a new year, Brooke.”
“Yeah, but same old Alex. You’ll be on probation within a week.”
Alex bit her lip, the lower one with the double piercing. “People change.”
“Not so much, in my experience.” On that note, Brooke stood. She tucked her purse under her arm and headed toward the door. Stopping with her hand on the doorknob, she turned to Maryanne. “Coming?”
“I’ll be right along.”
“Suit yourself.”
Alex stood. She drifted over to the window and stood gazing out of it, hands tucked deep in her jeans pockets.
What was it with this girl? What was her sad story?
“Hey,” Maryanne said. “At the meeting downstairs... mind if I sit with you?”
There was a worry in Alex’s eyes as she contemplated the idea. “Whatever,” she finally said, and stalked out into the hallway.
Chapter 3
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br /> The World That Tightens Around
Alex
Alex flopped into the first empty seat she came to. Not because it was the most comfortable one left in the old parlor. It wasn’t. If anything, the old, narrow-bottomed, straight-backed dining chair looked as if it could be transformed into a fairly efficient torture device with very little effort. Or very little imagination. But Alex claimed it because it was the closest one to the door. And she wasn’t sure she could catch her breath if she went further into the room.
The panicky feeling she’d woken with in that damned attic was still with her. Instead of fading over the intervening days, it seemed to have burrowed down inside, surfacing at odd intervals. It was making itself known in this crowded room. This crowded room with only one exit.
From across the room, Alex saw Leah give a head jerk over here gesture. Beside Leah, Kassidy scowled off a freshman who was about to claim the empty seat between them. They were obviously holding it for Alex. But with her left foot flat on the floor, and her right jacked up on the bottom rung for emphasis—Alex stayed put in the chair by the door.
A second later, Maryanne sat down in the equally narrow-bottomed, straight-backed piece of crap beside her. Alex shot her a quick look. Maryanne flashed her a smile, then turned away to scan the faces of the assembled students.
Huh. After Alex’s less than warm reception of Maryanne’s suggestion that they sit together, she really hadn’t expected the other girl to park it next to her. Especially when there were more comfy chairs further inside.
Alex shrugged. Whatever. If Maryanne wanted to sit in that torture device, so be it.
The room filled up quickly. Alex glanced around the large parlor, then stared out the door into the hallway. She’d leave. If it got to be too much, she’d just walk out. Already she could feel the closeness of the room pressing in around her. Felt the first trickles of warmth, then the tightness in her chest. It hadn’t been like this before. It shouldn’t be like this. But everything felt entrapping now. Threatening. Like she was suffocating within her own skin.
While she battled that feeling of suffocation, Patricia Betts came up behind her and laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. Alex jumped in her seat and swore.
Those who dared, and those who’d never met Alex Robbins, snickered.
“Good heavens, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mrs. Betts thrust a handful of colorful pages out toward her. “Hand these out for me please, Alex.”
Alex didn’t budge as the seconds ticked by. Not in defiance, but because the room suddenly did feel that close. She felt her knees tremble.
“I’ll do it, Mrs. Betts. I need to stretch my legs.”
Maryanne was on her feet with papers in hand before Betts had time to utter a protest. But in true Patricia Betts fashion, she just rolled her eyes, sighed and let it go as she took her place at the front of the room behind the podium, an old scarred-up music stand that was almost guaranteed to get knocked over before the meeting was done. Betts took a pair of reading glasses from a case and perched them on her nose. She looked down at the pages before her—the same ones Maryanne was handing out—as if she’d bothered to add anything different from all the previous years. As if she’d actually take the time to—He’s looking at me.
Alex knew John Smith’s eyes were on her even before she looked his way. Her darting eyes were quick enough to catch the caretaker staring. Quickly he lowered his glance. He almost seemed to lower his head.
Was it him? The old dude who always looked so harmless?
Smith could have slipped into her room while she was in the bathroom and put something in her flask. He knew Alex was back at Harvell House. He could access the attic. Maybe he only seemed harmless. Maybe it was all an act. Maybe he’d been stalking her for years. Watching her. Waiting until he could—Alex shook her head. Fought down the breaths that she just now realized were coming far too fast. She was driving herself crazy. But dammit, who wouldn’t be driven out of their mind if they’d been drugged and raped and left to wake half-naked and confused in a dingy old attic? Left there like a used tissue or some bit of garbage they were finished with.
The only thing worse than that, was not knowing who’d done it.
Alex bristled as Maryanne sat down again beside her, passing her the last of the handouts.
“Now, we’ll start with the yellow sheet,” Mrs. Betts said. The yellow sheets were two sheets down in the small packets of colorful pages, which made no sense to anyone. The rustle of turning pages filled the room. Alex glanced down.
Oh God, the yellow sheet. Introductions.
Before Mrs. Betts even announced his name, the school’s benefactor C. W. Stanley rose from his chair beside the podium. He bowed like a Southern gentleman in an old Civil War movie, removing his hat as if he were being introduced to a room full of genteel ladies rather than the collection of cast-offs and hard cases most of them were. C. W. slicked a hand back over his yellow-white hair. “My, my,” he said, smiling around the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in the company of such fine young ladies.”
What an ass. And unfortunately a long-winded one.
“We are joined here once again at the beginning of another school year in this majestic home,” C. W. began, leaning back as he pontificated. “It’s a house full of history. Harvell House is one of Mansbridge’s oldest homes. When I first came to this fine town, I marveled at the place. I would walk along the sidewalks, look up at this grand structure and vow I would own it.” And here, as he always did, C. W. raised an arm for dramatic emphasis. “And now, by the grace of God, Harvell House is mine, and I am so pleased to open it up to all of you promising young ladies.”
Kassidy snorted and some of the other girls tittered, but it was lost on Alex. She was too busy trying to imagine C. W. in the role of her attacker.
Could it have been him?
He was known for lurking around the house, although she’d never heard of him entering a room without knocking. And quite a few of the girls said he sometimes looked at them in a leering, old-man way. Kassidy herself, just last year, had sworn she saw him peeking through the curtains one night after lights out. But Kassidy always said men were looking at her. Once when they’d snuck into the local tavern with fake IDs, Kassidy had insisted that every guy in the place waved to her at least once over the course of the night. Alex and Leah had just about peed themselves laughing, knowing Kassidy’s ‘admirers’ were just signaling for another round of draft.
On the other hand, Harvell House belonged to C. W., and he clearly took pride in its history. Why wouldn’t he check in on the place?
But had he raped her?
She studied him with narrowed eyes. Man, he looked as if he could barely get himself up the stairs, let alone manage it while burdened with Alex’s weight. Because she must have been unconscious, to have no memory whatever of the event or even of preceding events.
Alex felt tears sting the back of her eyes. Was this the way it would always be? Would she be looking for the bastard who’d done this in the eyes of every man she encountered for the rest of her life?
All of a sudden, Alex felt something else. Maryanne’s elbow in her ribs.
“What the—”
“I’m Maryanne Hemlock,” Maryanne announced. “From Burlington, Ontario. This is my first year attending Streep Academy. And so, of course, it’s my first year at Harvell.”
Okay, she got it. Alex was next. She drew a shaky breath.
“Burlington. That’s near Toronto, isn’t it, Miss Hemlock?” C. W. asked. He always tried way too hard with the new girls.
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope you’ll enjoy life at Harvell House.”
“I’m sure I will, Mr. Stanley.”
“Tell us a little about yourself. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Even as distracted as Alex was, she felt Maryanne go tense beside her.
“No,” Maryanne said, her voice flatter than before. “No. I’m an only child.”
> Maryanne lowered her head, as if all of a sudden something was terribly interesting in the tiny ring she twisted now around her finger. Alex glimpsed the stone—Apache tear—she was almost sure. Anika had been into stones the summer before last in Halifax. She’d spent a small fortune on them at a little store on Barrington Street that specialized in things like that.
It was Alex’s turn. Short and sweet. To the point. That’s how she’d get through this.
“I’m Alex Saunders. Last year. Going to... going to see what I can make of it.”
“Party time!” Leah shouted.
“No!” The automatic denial was out before Alex could even think about it. Dammit, she should have just let it slide. After all, that was the Alex everyone knew. That’s how she’d ended up at Streep in the first place three years ago, a whole province away from her parents and little sister back in Nova Scotia. Her parents just couldn’t handle her. The drinking, the fights, the staying out all hours, the early run-ins with the law. She’d been kicked out of a handful of schools in Halifax, including two Catholic ones within the same month. Streep had been a way out for all of them. For Alex to get away from her parents, for her parents to get away from her. And for the sake of her impressionable little sister Eva, of course. Alex was well aware of that unspoken fact, too. The thought of her family and her friends back home suddenly made her want to cry. But she had to keep it together.
Say something, Robbins. “I... that’s not what I meant.”
Audibly, Leah pffted her disbelief, but it was Kassidy whose glare burned her from across the room. “What is it with you, Alex?” Kassidy demanded. “What’s your problem?”
All the other girls were looking at her now. Mrs. Betts, John Smith, C. W. Stanley—everyone’s eyes were on her. What did they know? Who were these new girls anyway? And what about the ones who’d known her before? Could they... oh, God, could they see it in her eyes? Could they look at her and know how close she was to screaming?