“What? You think—you think Ted killed Hugh?”
“We’re investigating all the factors that might have contributed to the circumstances surrounding Hugh Marsden’s death.” Soleto sat back in her chair.
“It’s not possible. They were best friends. They thought of each other as brothers.” I looked at Detective Soleto, with her warm brown eyes and firm, determined mouth. I should have come to her that first night, sat here in this room with her and told her what Hugh had done to me. Then all that determination would be behind me, aimed at Hugh, instead of at Ted. I was ruining his life.
“Courtney, I’ll level with you. Based on the accounts of your movements at this party, I think that you might know something about how Hugh died that I don’t. I’m not going to come down hard on you just yet, but you can bet that once I’ve done a little more digging, I will come up with something that will make you want to tell me the truth. I’d hate to see you get in trouble down the road.”
I gave her a blank face. “I’m sorry, Detective Soleto,” I said, my voice hollow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Chapter 21
By the time my mother dropped me off at school, I had broken into a cold sweat. It seemed inevitable that I’d be caught and blamed for everything: Hugh’s death, the 2C-I at Revelry, failing to report my own rape. My thoughts were jumbled, and the only one that I could focus on with any clarity was that it was my fault, all my fault. I walked through the front doors and heard a smattering of applause from the auditorium to the left. A sign posted on one of the doors stated that morning classes had been canceled for an “assembly of celebration and remembrance.” No way was I going in there. I decided to walk around campus a bit. I hoped the fresh air would clear my head, and I had a feeling that the assembly of celebration and remembrance would drag on, and no teacher would bat an eye if I turned up late for class. I walked through the woods toward the river on the northwestern edge of campus.
I began to feel better. The leaves underfoot were soggy from all the rain we’d had, and the air was cold and sharp in my sinuses, but it smelled like snow. The cold on my cheeks was bringing me out of the zombie state. I could hear the river through the trees. The Souhegan was usually flat and shallow, but it was swollen with rain and rushing along with a gentle, insistent sound. Over the sound of the river, I heard a loud thwok, and paused. Then came another. They made a slow rhythm, as if someone were pounding a nail one steady whack at a time, taking a break after each one. I saw a flash between the trees down the bank of the river. Someone was out there. I crept closer, grateful I had a black coat and dark hair, the better to blend into the bleak November woods. The person on the bank was blond and had a red nylon jacket. About twenty paces away, I recognized Elaine Winslow and relaxed. I guessed she was avoiding the assembly of celebration and remembrance, too. She was holding a driver and hitting golf balls over the river, fishing them out of the pouch pocket of her windbreaker and dropping them on the mossy bank between swings. The balls arced through the air and occasionally made answering thwoks when they hit trees on the far bank.
“Hi,” I said, stepping out of the woods.
Elaine whirled around, her golf club raised over one shoulder, a frightened look on her face. She opened her mouth in surprise and then swung the club down by her side. “Oh. Hi.” She squeezed a golf ball in one hand.
I pulled out a cigarette. “You weren’t up to it, either?”
“Uh, no,” Elaine squawked, as if she were laughing, but there was a strange edge to her voice, and as I stepped closer, I could see that her cheeks were wet.
I kept one eye on that golf club. “Tell me what he did.”
“Molly told you. He tried to attack her.”
I held the pack out to her. “Tell me what he did to you.”
Elaine took my pack of Parliaments. She dropped the golf club and sat down on the wet ground. I crouched next to her as she lit her cigarette.
“We were at Hilary’s house on the Cape. This was a weekend in the spring of sophomore year, when I was still with Ted. It was that same crew you hang out with now, only I was there instead of you.” She spoke frankly, and her blue eyes were dead. “I guess you’ve probably been to that house, so you know it’s huge, and we all had our own rooms. I woke up one night and Hugh was in mine. He said if I didn’t do what he wanted, he’d do it to one of my sisters, since they were too little to fight back. Molly was in eighth grade and Kara was in sixth. What was I supposed to do?” She looked at me like I might actually have an answer. There was a pause, and I could hear how loud the river was, drowning out whatever other sounds there might have been. Birds, or the rustle of footsteps. Then Elaine said, “I’ve been with Marshall for a year. He wants to sleep together. I mean, he loves me; he wants it to be special.” She looked at me and bugged her eyes as if she couldn’t believe it. “It’s not like he’s mad he’s not getting any. He’s hurt. He feels like I don’t trust him. But I can’t. I can’t.” She curled in on herself in a way that I recognized, and I could feel my skin crawl just looking at her.
“How come you never said anything?” I asked. “Especially once he asked Molly out?”
“Why didn’t you?” she returned.
We smoked in silence. I was grimly aware that I was not surprised by Elaine’s story, only sickened. But I felt a sudden burst of realization, as if a flare had momentarily lit up the fog in my brain. At the end of sophomore year, right after Hugh raped Elaine, Ted broke up with her and began dating me. I could still hear Hugh’s voice: This is what we do… It’s our secret.
“Did you ever say anything to Ted?” I asked Elaine.
She looked at me with flat, dead eyes. “He was there.”
Putting our whole lives on the score sheet like he did, Hugh pushed me…
“No,” I said. The denial put life in her eyes for the first time. “You’re lying.”
She squawked again. “Why would I lie about that? Here, now, to you?”
“You’ve always hated me, because of Ted.” I put my hand to my head. That was it. That had to be it. Elaine Winslow was an ice queen. This was teenage girl bitchery. It wasn’t real.
“Oh, Courtney,” moaned Elaine. “You’re blind.”
The fog churned through my mind. You go lay down in the guest room. I know what a good actress you are. I can’t wait to get you all to myself later. Take off your dress. I want to see all of you. My skin kept crawling, and I wanted to scrub it with steaming hot water and a pumice stone so badly I nearly jumped in the river.
“Oh, oh, God,” I gasped. The black dots swarmed in my eyes like bees, and I dropped out of my crouch into a sitting position, head bent between my knees.
“I’m sorry,” said Elaine thickly. “If I hadn’t been so afraid, if I had told someone—”
“Don’t,” I said. “I’ve already done enough of that myself.”
Elaine and I sat by the river and smoked three cigarettes each. When I thought I could walk, I began to make my way back up to the schoolhouse. I needed to find Lexi. We’d ditch school and drive off campus and come up with a plan, even if that plan turned out to be telling the police everything immediately. As I walked up to the main entrance, I could see people streaming past the windows; the assembly had just ended and everyone was heading to class. I peered in one window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lexi, but before I did, Ted caught a glimpse of me.
He burst through the front doors. His keys were already in his hand. “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to talk.”
I drew away from him. The panic was a hot ball, low in my belly. “Now? Where? What about class?”
Ted waved dismissively at the doors. “They’re all just going to be group therapy today, with everyone processing their grief. No one’s going to kick up a fuss if two students who were close to Hugh cut out.” He reached out and clamped onto my arm, much the same way Hugh had on the night he died.
“Ted,” I said. “You’re hurting me. Can’t we stay here and tal
k?”
Ted took a deep breath. “Courtney, shut up and get in my car.” His voice was flat and furious in a way I’d never heard before. He kept his grip on my arm and began dragging me toward the senior lot.
“Let go of me!” I tried to yank my arm away from him with one sharp movement, but he held firm and I felt my shoulder strain painfully.
“Ted, Courtney.” The voice came from behind us and was calm, adult. We turned. It was Headmaster Farnsworth. Ted’s grip on my arm relaxed instantly, his hand sliding down to my elbow.
“Good morning, Headmaster,” said Ted, and his voice was so different from how it had sounded a moment before, he might have been a different person altogether. He sounded like he was filled with emotion, as if the assembly of celebration and remembrance had really affected him, and as if he was maybe a little embarrassed to have been caught trying to ditch school.
Farnsworth crossed the driveway toward us. He clasped Ted’s shoulder. “We’re all having a very hard time right now. I understand that. But in times of emotional chaos, we must seek out order. The rules of conduct are more important than ever when we are in mourning.”
Ted finally dropped my arm and we stood there staring at Farnsworth. The headmaster was infamously wordy, and it was not unusual for students to listen to several minutes of oration before picking up on what they were actually being punished for.
“I can certainly understand that you both might want to grieve in private following such a moving assembly”—he nodded to Ted—“and another meeting at the police station.” Farnsworth’s eyes traveled to my face, and from the corner of my eye I saw Ted’s chin snap toward me. “But if you had stopped to sign out with the secretary, you would know that all off-campus privileges have been suspended for the remainder of the semester. Understandably, the board and many parents have expressed concern about our students’ safety. It will be my pleasure to arrange for you both to be excused from your classes for this period, but you must remain on campus until the end of the school day.”
I had felt Ted tense up when Farnsworth said we couldn’t leave, but now he was all solemn respect. “Yes, sir. That makes perfect sense. We appreciate your understanding, sir.”
“We’ve brought in a grief counselor and set her up in the old music wing. She’s using one room as an office, but we’ve opened the others to allow students space to speak one-on-one and in small groups. I do hope you both will take advantage of the counselor and the space.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ted. He took my hand, and the three of us began walking back toward the schoolhouse door.
I looked from Ted to Farnsworth. It was a relief not to be leaving with Ted, but I knew better than to try to tell Farnsworth that I felt threatened. At least there was nowhere we could be alone at school, but already my mind was spinning ahead to the end of the day, how I could get off campus without him cornering me, what I’d do if he showed up at the house. How was I ever going to get through the rest of the semester, the rest of the year? How could I ever begin to explain everything that had happened to anyone? I was scared of Ted, but what evidence could I actually provide to prove that there was something wrong with him? Hugh had raped me, and I hadn’t even thought that was enough to put him away. What had Ted done, other than take me out and treat me right for almost two years? I realized that my pace had slowed and Ted was practically dragging me to the door.
Farnsworth walked us to the old music wing and explained to the grief counselor that we’d be using one of the adjacent rooms, and to please not let other students disturb us. He delivered a healthy dose of subtext indicating that while we were in pain and needed privacy, we shouldn’t be allowed to get up to anything inappropriate. I couldn’t imagine getting physical with Ted after what Elaine had told me, but I remembered reading somewhere that death was a wild aphrodisiac. The thought turned my stomach. And then I was in a small, soundproof practice room with Ted, alone, the door closed. We stared at each other.
“The cops think I killed Hugh,” he said in a low voice.
“What?” I said. This was not what I’d expected. I felt my legs buckle, and I managed to sit myself on a stool before I fainted again. Ted stepped closer, looming over me. I shrank away, hating how small I felt, wishing I were tall like Lexi, tough like Molly.
“They think I caught you two screwing around and killed him in a rage,” he said. “What did you tell them?”
The absurd irony of this pierced my daze. The only thing I could think to say was, “We weren’t screwing around.”
“I know.” Ted leaned against the wall, his shoulder sinking into the gray soundproof foam. “He said you gave him hell.”
Oh, God. It was true. I’d believed Elaine, but I had hoped she was somehow, in some way, wrong about Ted. But she wasn’t. I closed my eyes as the black bees swarmed. I felt like the world had slid sideways, like the sky had fallen or gravity had disappeared. I was spinning, untethered, and there was nothing to grab onto. I opened my eyes. I looked up, straight into Ted’s face.
“Did you kill him?”
Ted turned away from me. He sighed, and his posture deflated a little. “I wanted to talk to him. But he was belligerent. He just kept yelling about you, how you couldn’t get enough of him.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. I knew you’d come around, Hugh had said to me the night he died. “He wouldn’t listen to me. I shoved him, I thought it would get his attention—” Ted bit off his sentence and turned toward me. “I didn’t expect him to stumble onto the trap door, and then the way he fell… it was an accident. I meant what I said at the funeral. I loved Hugh.”
I stood up and backed away, trying to put some distance between us. The room was too small, too close. I couldn’t breathe. I could hardly get out of his arm’s reach. I pressed my back against the wall, staring at Ted. How could I not have known? A thousand pictures flashed through my mind: Ted with those red and white roses backstage sophomore year; the way he’d kissed my nose on his way to my lips the first time we really kissed; the sun shining on his hair the morning after we stayed up all night talking on the beach in front of Hilary’s Cape house; the curve of his neck and shoulder the first time we made love; Ted on the soccer field, shouldering past players wearing other schools’ colors; Ted narrowing his eyes as he aimed the rifle; Ted shooting the cardinal and holding Rory Swanson by the neck. What was wrong with me? What was wrong with everybody? Melissa, Molly, Benji, Horse, Madame Bergeron, Headmaster Farnsworth, my own parents—Hugh and Ted had everyone fooled.
“I needed him to listen to me, though,” Ted said fiercely, moving toward me. He seemed like he was trying to convince himself. “He just wouldn’t listen. And he was getting dumb. That thing with Lexi, it was dangerous.”
“What are you talking about?” At the mention of her name, I felt stronger, like some powerful muscle deep inside me was flexing.
“Me and Hugh, we always had a plan if we wanted a girl. Plenty of them were willing. But if one wasn’t, the rule was that there had to be some kind of threat. Leverage.” He met my eyes. “You know what I mean?” You dragged me up here after Ted blew you off. “But Lexi…Hugh didn’t think about it. He just did it. He didn’t think anyone would believe her if she did say something.”
“They didn’t,” I said hoarsely.
“We were lucky she went to Farnsworth instead of the cops,” Ted said.
Lucky.
He was sick. I closed my eyes against my wavering vision. I couldn’t lose consciousness—not here, not now. “She still can. We both can. And if there are others—”
“No, you can’t,” Ted said softly. He looked at me almost pityingly. He pulled out his cell phone and held it out to me.
I could see myself moving on the screen. It was a video of me with Ted, dropping my dress on the floor and climbing onto his parents’ couch. The night of Revelry. He’d blurred his own face out, but my entire body was there in excruciating HD detail.
“There’s more. I’ve got enough for a whole franchise. Rem
ember that time in my parents’ shower?”
I sat back down on the stool. I put my head in my hands. The bees were threatening to overtake me. “What do you want?” I ask numbly.
“Right now, I want you to keep your mouth shut,” said Ted. He took the phone back and shoved it in his pocket.
I stared at him in despair. There was no way out.
Chapter 22
The grief counselor knocked on the door, and I realized that Farnsworth must have told her not to leave us alone for too long. I gave silent thanks for the fact that he seemed to assume teenagers left to their own devices would spontaneously combust (Nice Girls Don’t Explode, 1987). Her vague platitudes were cut off by the bell, and I burst out of the room like I was on fire, brandishing my bag and saying something about a physics quiz, quickly and loudly, because that is the best way to avoid interruption. I sprinted down the hall and up a narrow staircase paneled with dark wood. It opened into the main hallway, about twenty feet from Thistleton Hall. Ted wouldn’t dare come after me out in the open.
I paused just outside the wide doors of Thistleton, trying to think. It was Tuesday, but we were on a Monday schedule because school had been preempted by Hugh’s funeral. Lexi and Farah, I remembered, had early lunch on Mondays. I almost fell down the few steps to the main stairwell down to the refectory, I was so relieved at my good timing. They were sitting together at a table in the corner. It was a few minutes after eleven, and the ref was nearly deserted.
“We need to leave,” I panted at them. “Right now. We have to get out of here.”
“Courtney?” Lexi stood up. Farah was already leaning down for her bag. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ted,” I said. “You have to help me get away from him. Please, right now.”
“What happened?” Lexi stared at me, her mouth agape.
Farah was standing now, too, her phone in her hand. With the other, she reached into Lexi’s purse and fished out her keys, pushing them into Lex’s hand. “You heard her. Let’s go. Rahim’s waiting.” She shook the phone.
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