Dead Set

by Melissa Pearl

  He’d come up with some excuse—he couldn’t remember what—and had extricated himself as gently and as quickly as he could from her embrace.

  And he hadn’t given her a second’s thought since.

  He glanced at her again. Yeah, definitely not interested. She wasn’t petite enough. Blonde enough. Sassy enough.

  Lucas cleared his throat. “I’m actually here about a student of yours. A former student.”

  Mariah wrinkled her nose. “A former student? But I’ve only been here a couple of months.”

  “Noah Dans.”

  Her expression immediately sobered. “Oh.”

  “He was in your class, right?”

  Her eyes immediately welled with tears and she cast her head downward. She gave him a feeble nod. “Yes.”

  “How well did you know him?” Lucas asked.

  “Not very.” She sat down on her desk. Her book bag was still next to her, the folders still in her hands.

  “Was he a good student?”

  “He did his work,” she said. “Not terribly motivated, but what high schooler in regular English class is? The kids who like English take the advanced classes, you know?”

  He couldn’t argue with her there.

  “Did you ever see anything that led you to think he might be depressed? Anxious?” He paused. “Or that he was being bullied somehow?”

  Mariah thought for a moment, tapping her long fingernails against the desk. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing that comes to mind, anyway. His journal entries were a little dark, but nothing I didn’t see from other kids, too.”

  “Dark?” Lucas raised a brow. “How so?”

  She shrugged. “Just the themes.”

  She was being maddeningly evasive, but he didn’t think it was on purpose.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Typical teen angst, I guess. But you have to remember everything this generation is dealing with, what they’re growing up with. Skyrocketing college costs. Gun violence. Health care uncertainties. Climate change. I know most adults don’t think kids worry about this stuff, but they do. They are the future, and when the future looks this bleak, they notice. And then journal about it.”

  It made sense. “So his were more generic worries and concerns, not necessarily personal ones?”

  “For the most part,” she said.

  But there was something in the way she said this that made Lucas cast a sharp glance in her direction.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “There’s something else,” he said. “Something you’re not telling me.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. It must’ve surprised her, because her eyes widened and she hurriedly wiped it away.

  “I don’t know that it’s my place to say,” she murmured.

  Lucas pressed his lips together. He needed to find a way to make her talk.

  He crossed the room so he was next to her and, ignoring the voice in his head that screamed at him that he was going to hell, he put his arm around Mariah’s shoulder and brought her in against his chest. He kissed the top of her head and tried not to notice how good her hair smelled.

  “Tell me,” he whispered, his breath blowing hot against her scalp.

  She sighed as his fingers caressed her shoulder.

  “What do you know about Noah?” he asked.

  She shuddered. “Not about Noah.” Her voice was quiet. “About Lindsay.”

  Lucas forced his hand to stay on her shoulder, concentrating hard so he wouldn’t clench his fingers. “Lindsay?”

  “Lindsay Hopkins.”

  His hand stilled. “Who is Lindsay Hopkins?”

  “Yeah. Who is Lindsay Hopkins?” A voice echoed his question from the doorway. A familiar voice that he was not expecting to find at Aspen Falls High.

  16

  Thursday, March 22nd

  3:50pm

  Alaina wasn’t prepared for Lucas’s reaction when he turned around and saw her standing in the doorway of the classroom.

  She’d expected surprise. After all, she hadn’t said anything about coming to the school. The last thing he’d said was that he was going to the high school and that he’d be in touch.

  But waiting wasn’t something Alaina was particularly good at. She was a go-getter. Always had been. When she saw something she wanted, she went for it. And that day, she wanted information.

  They’d made progress in Noah’s room. She was sure of it. And even though every discovery was like a knife wound to her already damaged and tattered heart, she kept going because she knew they would ultimately find answers.

  They had to.

  That day, she’d had to drive out to the Hyacinth property. Rob Grimmer had texted her pictures of the license and insurance late yesterday, so she’d given the verbal go-ahead to begin work on the house. She wanted to stop by to see how it was coming, but also to make sure Rob knew who was in charge of the project.

  Her.

  That had taken all of twenty minutes. After she finished, she’d contemplated driving home and diving into one of her many waiting projects. She had a house on the west side of town that she’d put an offer in on, and another home that was in the process of closing. And she was always scouring the internet, looking for more properties that she could pick up for a song. It was like a treasure hunt, and she’d become amazingly adept at finding the gems among the rubble, the decrepit homes that she knew she could transform with just a little TLC…and turn some serious profit doing so.

  But her mind had other plans, especially as she approached the high school. Classes had let out for the day, and the parking lot was empty of school buses. A couple of kids scurried out of the building, their arms ladened with books as they rushed to a waiting car that had just screeched to a stop—most likely an apologetic parent who’d been running late.

  Alaina slowed at the stop sign one block away and wondered what, if anything, Lucas was finding. She’d given him the names of the two students who’d written messages in Noah’s yearbook, and she’d given him his class schedule, too. She took her foot off the brake but didn’t accelerate, just let her SUV coast on through the intersection.

  She could go in there and help, she thought. Take half of the class schedule and talk to Noah’s teachers. See if she could find Hannah or Jack.

  Making her decision, she pulled into the visitor lot and quickly headed inside the school.

  She’d gone to one classroom first, the computer science one, but no one was inside. The lights were still on, and a duffel bag was on the floor by the teacher’s desk, so Alaina assumed Mr. Ripley had stepped out for a minute. She headed for the English class instead since she knew it was nearby.

  And that was where she was now, watching Lucas’s face screw up in irritation as he stared at her. He had his arm around a beautiful woman, and she was nestled against his chest, her hand clutching his jacket.

  The woman’s eyes widened when she saw Alaina, and she pulled away from Lucas—reluctantly, it seemed.

  Lucas dropped his arm from the woman’s shoulder and stood up. “Will you excuse me for a minute?”

  His strides were long as he crossed the room. He reached for Alaina’s forearm and led her out of the room. Her pulse quickened at his touch.

  Halfway down the hall, he stopped.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked flatly.

  She blinked. This was not the reaction she’d expected.

  “I’m…I’m here to help,” she stammered, heat rising in her cheeks.

  “Why?” Lucas demanded.

  “What?”

  “Why are you here? I didn’t ask for your help.”

  Anger bubbled up inside her. “I wasn’t aware I had to ask permission,” she said stiffly. “Considering it’s my brother who’s dead.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, but as soon as she saw it, it was gone. “I’m well aware of that,” he said evenly. “But this is my job. Not yours.”
>
  “I want answers.” She looked at him, her expression defiant. “And I’m not leaving.”

  “Alaina…”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  He huffed out a breath and shook his head. He pressed his lips together and stepped away from her, obviously struggling with his emotions.

  After a beat, he threw his hands up and snapped, “Fine. Finish it yourself, then.”

  “What?” She stilled, taken aback by his reaction. She knew he was irritated, a little angry even, but she hadn’t been prepared for this.

  “You heard me,” he told her, his eyes dark with anger. “You think you know how to run an investigation, by all means, have at it.”

  “I never said that—” Tears filled her eyes and her throat tightened. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself not to cry. She didn’t know what was upsetting her most, but she knew one thing. She didn’t want Lucas to be angry with her. She needed him. He felt like her only ally in this whole stupid mess, and if he walked away…

  “Please. Just let me do this,” she whispered.

  Her eyes were still closed but she knew he was there. He moved a little closer and she felt the heat emanating from his body, heard him breathing. She found an odd comfort in that.

  He hadn’t left her.

  She slowly opened her eyes. A tear streaked down her cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away. “I want to be here.” She swallowed against the lump still building in her throat. “I wasn’t there for him when he needed me.” She choked off a gasp and took a steadying breath. “I need to be there for him now.”

  Lucas was quiet. He stared at her intensely, but she could see that the anger and frustration from before were starting to ebb. His eyes held the hint of a smile and she focused on that—those warm brown eyes.

  Alaina breathed deeply, trying to get her racing heart to slow down. She hadn’t expected Lucas’s reaction…or her own, if she were being honest with herself.

  She worked on getting her emotions under control. She was always cool, levelheaded, in charge. Her brother’s death had obviously shattered her, but Lucas was doing a number on her, too, in his own way.

  “Fine,” Lucas murmured. He narrowed his gaze, like he was striving to curb the last of his irritation. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

  He put his hand on her waist, a gesture to guide her back into the classroom. His hand slipped off her coat as she pivoted, and his fingers made the briefest of contact with her bare skin. She sucked in a breath at the feel of his warm hand, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies stirred in her stomach. Just as quickly as she felt his touch, it was gone, her coat once again becoming a barrier to skin-on-skin contact.

  A pang of disappointment ricocheted through her.

  Mariah had finished packing her bag and was tidying her desk when Lucas and Alaina reentered the classroom. Her gaze immediately focused on Lucas’s hand, which was still resting on Alaina’s waist.

  Mariah arched an eyebrow.

  “Lover’s quarrel?” Her tone was light, but the expression on her face suggested she wasn’t as amused as she’d tried to sound.

  Lucas ignored the question, but he dropped his hand from Alaina’s waist. “You mentioned a student. Lindsay Hopkins.”

  Mariah nodded, but she looked hesitant.

  “What about her?” Lucas pressed.

  She busied herself at her desk, gathering papers and stacking them into a pile. “It’s not really my place to discuss students with you,” she said, her tone suddenly brisk.

  Alaina’s eyes were on Lucas. He frowned and gave a slight shake of his head. She knew what he was thinking. This woman had been more than ready to spill just a few minutes ago. What had changed?

  Guilt bubbled inside of her. Alaina knew exactly what had changed.

  She’d walked in and interrupted them.

  “What about Noah Dans?” Alaina asked, speaking for the first time since she’d appeared in the doorway.

  Mariah pursed her lips. “Privacy laws prevent me from discussing my students.”

  Alaina didn’t back down. “He was my brother,” she said flatly.

  Mariah’s eyes widened.

  “I planned his funeral,” Alaina continued quietly. “I took his dog because my mother can’t look at him without crying. I’m the only one who can bear to step foot into his room.”

  Mariah stood frozen at her desk, the color slowly draining from her cheeks.

  “And I’m the one who would like some answers about what my brother’s final days might’ve been like.” Alaina folded her arms. “Is that too much to ask?”

  Mariah blinked. “I…I didn’t know.”

  “Well, now you do,” Alaina said simply.

  The teacher nodded.

  “You mentioned this Lindsay person,” Alaina said. “What does she have to do with my brother?”

  Mariah hesitated.

  “My brother is dead.” Alaina enunciated each word. There was no anger in her words, just a simple statement of fact.

  “They were partners for a group project,” Mariah finally disclosed. “A creative writing assignment.”

  Alaina and Lucas both waited for her to continue.

  “The idea was to demonstrate how creativity flows from one person to another, how someone else’s idea can be a launchpad for your own unique idea. And then we shifted the focus to learning how to prune those thoughts and ideas, how to work together to use the best bits and pieces to formulate a story.”

  “That’s an interesting approach to the writing process,” Lucas said.

  Mariah smiled. “Is that a compliment?”

  “Just an observation.”

  “The assignment wasn’t just about writing,” Mariah continued. “It was more of an interdisciplinary approach, to help these kids recognize how to brainstorm ideas and how to work with other people. These are real-life skills, and applying it to an assignment to co-write a story gave them hands-on experience with what happens when multiple hands are involved in a project. There’s give and take, compromise.”

  Alaina didn’t want to like this woman, but she had to admit that she was impressed with the assignment and the thought Mariah had put into it.

  “So what happened with this project?” Lucas asked.

  Mariah leaned against her desk and cradled her hands. “The kids worked on it over the course of a couple of weeks. We were reading All American Boys, which is a novel co-written by two authors and has plenty of themes of its own to tackle, so it was a slow process. But the kids turned in their folders a few weeks ago so I could check their progress.”

  “And?” Alaina was quickly growing impatient.

  Mariah hesitated. “And there were some…themes that were pretty deep in their writing.”

  “I want to see it,” Alaina demanded. She glanced around the room, as if she expected to see the folder sitting out on a desk somewhere. “Where is it?”

  “Look, I can’t just hand it over to you,” Mariah argued. “That project involves another student, a student whose privacy I am obligated to protect.”

  “You said there were some deep themes in what was handed in,” Lucas said. “Were they concerning enough to report? Considering you are a mandated reporter?”

  Mariah shook her head. “No.” She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “The piece they were working on was about a secret. A character who carried around a secret that was eating at him. The way they described it…” She closed her eyes. She reached into her book bag and thumbed through the folders, finally pulling out a blue one. She thumbed through the pages inside of it, then stopped. She began to read. “The secret was like a fungus growing inside of him, spreading slowly at first, but soon threatening to overtake every square inch of his body, until there was nothing left but this gelatinous mass, pushing everything else aside, consuming him.”

  Alaina’s eyebrows shot up. “They wrote that?”

  Mariah nodded.

  Alaina’s fingers itched to reach out and snatch the
file from the woman’s hands. She wanted to read all of it, to see every last word her brother might’ve recorded.

  Lucas must’ve sensed this because he stepped closer and put his hand on her arm. It was a quick touch, but the message was clear.

  Stay calm. Stay focused.

  “Anything else that caught your eye?” Lucas asked.

  Mariah’s eyes were still locked on the folder in her hands. “Not at first,” she said. “You have to understand, the book we were reading at the time deals with secrets and telling the truth. With bravery and courage. So when I saw these same things mirrored in their writing, I thought they were feeding off the themes being explored in the novel.”

  “And you don’t think that anymore?” Lucas asked. “What made you change your mind?”

  She frowned. “Noah’s suicide.”

  “I’d like to look at his writing,” Alaina said, her voice noticeably shaky.

  Mariah fidgeted, her fingers tightening on the folder. Eventually, she nodded her acquiescence. “I…I would need to go through the material and pull out Lindsay’s writing. But I can do that for you. I’ll just need some time to talk to her, to make sure she can identify what’s hers and what was Noah’s. A lot of it was done on the computer.”

  Alaina glanced at Lucas. He’d acknowledged Mariah’s response with a nod, but Alaina could tell that something was bothering him.

  “One last question, and then we’ll get out of here,” Lucas said.

  Mariah looked toward him.

  “You mentioned there was something about Lindsay, that she was the one you were worried about, not Noah. I know there are privacy concerns, but if you could share…”

  Mariah’s expression betrayed how conflicted she felt over the request.

  “I think the two of them hit it off doing this project.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. “Something clicked between them.”