TEENS CHARGED IN GANG BEATING
Six teenagers face charges after allegedly beating a sixteen-year-old boy…
Six teenagers? My heart beats fast. Tucker never mentioned anything about that.
The attack occurred at a party around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. Witnesses say the boy was cornered on the roof of a condo and beaten unconscious. A neighbor saw the attack and called police. The victim was taken to University Hospital in critical condition.
The attackers are being charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, and battery.
Murder? Kidnapping?
The ground shifts beneath my feet.
I pull out my phone and type “Teens Charged in Gang Beating New Orleans” into the browser. I click on the first article.
Prosecutors have dropped most of the charges against six teenagers accused of gang-beating a sixteen-year-old at a party last June. The teens had been charged with attempted first-degree murder, attempted kidnapping, and felony battery. The teens remain charged with battery. New Orleans PD declined to comment on the matter. None of the suspects have been named, as they are all minors.
The phone shakes in my hand. I should call him. Give him a chance to explain. They dropped the charges. Everything he said about his cousin could be true. He got carried away. His friends joined in.
But the bathroom—he was right there. I’d been gone only minutes.
What did he say his cousin’s name was?
Sophie, or Emily, or something else rich-sounding.
Charlotte.
I open Charlotte St. Clair’s Instagram and scroll back to last summer. Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, cruises on the Seine…For three months there’s nothing but pictures of Charlotte living the high life in Paris. I scroll through more carefully, looking specifically for pictures from around the time of the assault just in case I missed something, like a quick trip home or a block of time when she didn’t post at all and could have conceivably been home—anything to prove that Tucker wasn’t lying—but then I find it. A picture on June 11, the exact day of the assault.
Shopping on the Champs-Elysées! the caption reads.
Tucker’s cousin was in France the night he was arrested.
The car is dead quiet. Across the street watery sun peeks out over the gabled roof of Tucker’s mansion. I watch the house so intently I’m surprised it doesn’t catch on fire.
Lyla drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Hope?”
I give a bitter laugh. My palms are slick with sweat and my stomach roils with nerves, so no, I’m not sure it’s a good idea. But I need to know. I bob my knee until the car shakes. I didn’t sleep all night, but I’m not the least bit tired. Betrayal has a way of keeping you wide awake.
“Are you okay?” Lyla presses. “You don’t look so good.”
That’s what Mom said. It took all the acting skill in me to get her to go to work today so I’d be home alone. She’s going to murder me herself if she finds out I left the house. The thought would have scared me before, but not now. Not when my body has live wires firing inside it.
“Garage door around the back is opening,” Lyla says.
I quickly slide down in the seat. Tucker wouldn’t recognize Lyla’s car, but he’d know something was up if he saw me.
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
“Pulling out. Here he comes.”
I slide farther down, so that my neck is pressed against the leather seat and my legs are mashed up under the dash. Tires peel past.
“Okay, you’re good,” Lyla says.
I clamber into the seat and peer through the back windshield. His brake lights flash at the corner, and then he’s turning off the street.
“Showtime,” I say.
“I’m just going to say it,” Lyla says suddenly. “I think this is a bad idea, and I don’t think you should do it.”
“I’m not going to get caught, Lyl.” I say it with so much confidence I honestly believe it’s true. “You have your phone?”
She nods.
“Call the second you see someone coming,” I say, making sure my ringer is on.
Then I step out of the car and cross the street toward Tucker’s house. My hands are shaking when I ring the doorbell, and I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants. Footsteps clatter behind the thick door, and then the maid is pulling it open.
“Hi, Martina!” I say brightly, then flash a brilliant smile. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Tucker’s girlfriend, Hope. I forgot something in his room for our history project. He said I could run in and grab it since he’s got to meet the coach before class.”
“Of course I remember you. Come on in.”
She moves away from the door, and I smile as I pass. “Thanks so much! I’ll only be a minute.”
My instinct is to run up the steps and get this over with as quickly as possible, but I know rushing will only make me look guilty, so I force myself to walk calmly up the spiral staircase toward Tucker’s room. Martina, thankfully, doesn’t follow. I don’t know what I’d do if she insisted on supervising.
Once upstairs and out of her sight, I jog on the pads of my feet across the long hallway to Tucker’s room. I find it in just as much disarray as the last time I visited.
If I were Tucker, where would I hide my darkest secrets?
I race to the bed and lift the mattress, shouldering the weight of it while I peer underneath.
Nothing. Not even porn.
Dropping the mattress, I move to the bedside table and rummage through it, then comb through the stuff on his bookshelf headboard. Nothing. I run to his dresser and quickly scan the contents on top, then pull the drawers open one by one and dig my hands under the piles of clothes, searching for something someone might want to hide. Then I see the antique dresser with the single drawer. The last time I was here, I asked Tucker what was inside and he joked about gold bricks and steered us back to the project. What didn’t he want me to see?
I cross to the dresser in two long strides and turn the key. The drawer opens with a soft click. Inside is a black leather folder. I pull it out, then untie the leather wrap and crack the spine.
The ground falls away. It’s me. Going into the doctor’s office, talking to Ethan in the quad at school, huddled outside the apartment as firefighters put out our blazing car. Dozens of long-lens pictures of…me.
My breath freezes in my lungs. What the hell is this?
I thumb through the pictures. Underneath them is a list. A list written in frighteningly familiar handwriting, done in all different pens, as if it’s been added to over time.
DOB October 3.
Apartment 7A in Iberville Rentals.
Gold ’01 Kia Rio.
Lung disease related to prematurity and cystic fibrosis.
Mom Debbie, sister Jenny.
Absent father—gambling and addiction issues.
Unaware of his current whereabouts.
Page after page of information about me. Things I told him. Things I didn’t…
For a crazy minute I think she’s back. Sam, my stalker from last year. This would be just like her. But that’s impossible. I’m here, in Tucker’s room.
Under the stack of my life is another, labeled FARRAH WEIR-MONTGOMERY.
“What are you doing?”
A bolt of panic goes through me. I spin around.
Tucker is standing in the doorway.
Tucker takes in the open drawer and the notebook still in my hand. Heat blazes on my cheeks. I almost stuff the folder back in the drawer, but what’s the point? He knows I’ve seen it.
“What is this, Tucker?” I demand, my voice cracking as I hold up the notebook. “You’ve been spying on me?”
I want him to deny it. To say it isn’t what it looks like. But he just sighs.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” My voice is as sharp as a blade and thick with emotion. “You’re the one behind the game. Sending those invitations, the gifts. Punishing us. Acting lik
e you had no idea.”
“You don’t understand,” he starts, but I interrupt him.
“I understand perfectly. You were getting close to me so you’d know how to manipulate me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong—”
“You lied about your cousin. I read the newspaper article.”
He ducks his head.
“You—you threw the smoke bomb,” I test.
He doesn’t deny it.
The shock and embarrassment of being caught funnels away, and all that’s left is anger. “I could have died!”
“But you didn’t.” He takes a swift step closer. “I saved you. This is what I was trying to tell you.”
“I’m calling the police.” I shake my head and start to walk around him, but he blocks the path.
“Hope, please. Can’t you just hear me out first? Give me a chance to explain?”
I push him in the chest. He doesn’t see it coming and stumbles back. But when I go to push him again, he grabs my hands.
I level him with an icy glare and infuse as much venom into my next words as possible: “Let me go.” I try to pull out of his grip, but his hands clamp harder.
“Listen, Hope.”
“I’ve heard enough, and I want to go.”
He pulls my arms closer so I stumble into his hard chest. “You need to listen to me.”
“I need to leave.” I pull back as viciously as I can, but his hands are deadly strong. All hints of the begging, pleading Tucker are gone. I can’t believe this is the same guy who wants to travel the world, who ran his fingers delicately over my palm in the dark, who stole my first kiss.
“Help!” I scream. Where is that maid? Doesn’t she care that this is happening? And where is Lyla? She was supposed to call. Why isn’t she helping me now?
Tucker’s parents are at work. Mom thinks I’m at home. No one knows I’m here.
Tucker backs me farther into the room. I trip over a pile of his laundry, but he keeps me upright with his iron grip. I’m not getting away.
The doorbell rings, and Tucker glances over his shoulder. I see my opportunity. While he’s distracted, I kick him in his bum knee. He howls and buckles, and I slip free, running around him toward the door. He limps after me. His fingers graze my arm just before I’m out the door.
I take the stairs two at a time and skid into the front door. I yank on the handle, but it won’t budge. I fumble for the deadbolt, but then Tucker’s at the top of the stairs, and I see the same rage that kid must have seen just before he was beaten unconscious.
He leaps down the stairs. I give up on the door and jump out of the way, stumble-running through the house, my breaths coming in sharp gasps. Martina flattens herself against the wall as I whip past her in a hallway. Something smashes behind me, and I shriek, sprinting faster.
Through a sitting area.
Through a dining room.
Through a kitchen.
A set of patio doors. Please don’t be locked. Please don’t be locked.
They’re not. I fumble with the latch, and the door swooshes open. Just as a pair of hands closes around my shoulders.
I scream, but a palm smothers the sound. I bite his skin and taste salty flesh and the metallic tang of blood. Tucker hisses, but rather than let go, he closes his arm over my chest and yanks me back.
I grab desperately onto the doorframe. My fingers turn bone-white with strain; there’s a sharp scrape as they pop free. My heels skid over the tile as I’m dragged away from the doors. He tosses me into the kitchen. I stumble to my knees, and the door slams shut and locks. I’m hyperventilating, but I’m almost too scared to notice. Not with Tucker standing over me with his arms tensed at his sides and his chest rising and falling fast, as if he can hardly contain his rage.
I scramble up, but he grabs my arm again before I can take a single step. My skin burns where his fingers dig into me.
“Let go of me!”
“Hope, wait!” He’s right in my face now, eyes wild and dancing. “It’s not what you think!”
“I have a friend outside. She’ll call the cops, and you’ll go to jail.”
“Just listen! If you stop trying to run away, I’ll let you go.”
I bite his arm, and he yelps. I skid past him to a wooden chopping block. I’m reaching for a bread knife when he gets hold of me again.
“Jesus! I’m not who you think I am. Someone has been blackmailing me.”
I still. Just for the tiniest second, but he takes advantage of it.
“A few weeks ago I was at a gas station filling up, and I went inside to buy some chew. When I got back to my car, there was a note under the windshield wipers. It said that my secret would be revealed if I didn’t do as I was told. I couldn’t let that happen, Hope. My dad went through hell to make those charges go away, and if it got out…I’d never get into Stanford with a criminal record. My dad would disown me. At best.”
“So you thought you’d make it better by trying to kill me?” I spit.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that. I was told all I’d have to do is get close to you and Farrah, keep tabs on your locations, collect some info, stuff like that. So I agreed. I mean, big deal! And then—and then I got a note and a package last week telling me I needed to take you out. I got scared, Hope. I did it, but I immediately regretted it. That’s why I saved you! I’m so sorry.”
He runs his hands up my arms, but I recoil from his grip. This time he lets me go.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“Sorry for what? Trying to kill me with the smoke bomb, or for attacking me just now?”
He turns his palms up helplessly.
The Society wants to kill me. If Tucker hadn’t had a change of heart, I’d be dead right now. My legs suddenly feel weak, and I have to grip the counter to keep from sliding to my knees.
“And why should I believe you about any of this?” I ask, even though I already feel my surety crumbling. “You lied about Charlotte.”
He shakes his head, and a blond lock falls in front of his eyes. “Because it’s the truth. And if you ask me to, I’ll tell the cops the same.”
Tucker steps out of the way, leaving a clear path to the patio doors. My heart beats fast as I cross the black-and-white-checked tile and slide the glass door open. Birds chirp happily from the live oaks in his yard. After what just happened, it’s hard to believe there’s a whole world outside this house, existing normally.
I look back. Tucker hunches over the countertop, bent and broken. I should run far and fast, but I still have one more question. “How did you know I was here?”
Tucker looks up. His normally bright eyes are a hazy, deep blue. “I got an anonymous tip.”
But I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here. The Society was watching me again. Which means they have more than Tucker on their team.
“I’m going to find out who’s doing this,” I say. “But I want you to stay away from me.”
He looks so small now, deflated and regretful, but he nods.
Lyla’s in the grass, peering through a window, when I come out. “Hope!” she cries when she sees me.
“Let’s go.” I aim for the car. She follows obediently, and we climb into our seats.
“What happened?” Lyla asks.
I look at the house as I snap my seat belt. “Just go.”
Keys jangle, and the engine growls to life. I fumble for the inhaler in my purse and suck in two quick puffs, then slam against the seat as Lyla swerves onto the street. The house disappears from the rearview mirror.
“Hope, what happened?” Lyla glances away from the road and takes in the red marks on my arms. “Jesus, did he attack you?”
“Where were you?” I ask. “Why didn’t you call?”
“I didn’t see him coming. He came from the other way, and by the time he was in the driveway it was too late. What happened in there?”
Tucker attacked me. Betrayed me. Humiliated me.
“Idiot.” I hit the dash.
“Idiot, idiot, idiot. I can’t believe I fell for it.”
“For what?” Lyla asks.
“For Tucker. For his whole stupid act.” I remember that day with Mom, how he put on a show of being such a gentleman. He did the same thing with me, and I fell for it just as easily as she did. Blinded by the fact that someone like him was paying attention to someone like me. I could say money didn’t make anyone better than me until I was blue in the face, but that wasn’t what I felt deep inside. I put him on a pedestal, excused all his questionable behavior, ignored all the warning signs, because he let me be around him. Wanted me.
I’m pathetic.
Lyla screeches to the curb and throws the car in Park. A horn honks, and traffic streams around us.
“What are you doing?” I wheel around to see if any other cars have stopped too. Is the Society watching this?
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain what happened,” Lyla says.
I grit my teeth, but I can tell she means it, so I tell her everything. Her mouth is hanging open by the time I’m done.
“Do you realize what this means?” she asks.
“The Society was watching us. Which is why we can’t just sit here.”
She shifts into Drive and merges onto the street.
“So it’s not Tucker,” she says.
“I don’t think so.”
“Then who could it be?” she asks.
“I have no idea. Nobody knew we were coming here.” I glance across at Lyla.
“You don’t think it was me, do you? You know I’d never do that.”
“What? No, I wasn’t even thinking that, Lyl.”
I was. But the genuine hurt on her face makes me feel guilty about it now.
They had to have been watching my house for a long time. Since early this morning—at least seven. Was someone camped out there all night? That or…is there a GPS tracker in my phone? In Lyla’s car? Are there cameras pointed at my house? A shiver scuttles down my spine. How extensive is this network?
We arrive at my apartment complex. I sit up straight when I see a familiar head of straight black hair leaning against a maroon sedan.
Dead Girls Society Page 18