by Lisa Roecker
“That’s 1964, right?” Liam asked, running his fingers over the leather spines.
I referenced the card and nodded my head. “Bradley said it’s the year Sinclair graduated. There have to be more clues in there.”
Seth continued to mumble into his Dictaphone as Liam typed into the database. I had to work to focus on the screen instead of the way his hair hung over his eye, the way it needed to be cut, the way he shook his head slightly so he could see.
“Aisle 7, second shelf down,” Liam said. I rushed to the door, grateful for the distraction.
I turned down Aisle 7 and sent a quick prayer up to Grace. If I’d learned anything about investigating at Pemberly Brown, it was that nothing was easy. Let this be easy, I asked Grace. Let this go quickly.
My fingers ran over the leather-bound books, the gold lettering on the spine. 1961, 1962, 1963, and a space. There was a very obvious hole where Pemberly Brown’s 1964 yearbook had been. Despite the fact that Liam suggested we look in other rows for the misplaced book, I knew it had been taken. I knew we were too late.
“Let me just check…it might have been signed out.” Liam typed into the database again, referencing the system the staff used to maintain the archives.
And then I remembered the old yearbooks scattered throughout Mr. Sinclair’s office.
“Wait, I think I might know where they might be.” I made my way out of the maze of books and up the stairs to Sinclair’s office. The kid manning the desk protested as I pushed my way into the office. But it didn’t matter. When I opened the door, I knew something was very, very wrong.
It was clean. All the papers were stacked neatly on his desk. The stacks of books that had been scattered across the floor had disappeared. The old coffee cups and napkins had all been cleared away. It looked like a normal office. Not a yearbook in sight.
“Unbelievable.” My hand flew to my mouth. There was no doubt in my mind that someone had been here. Someone had been looking for something. Maybe the yearbook, maybe something else, but whatever it was, it was gone now.
“Don’t see any yearbooks lying around.” I hated the quiet note of satisfaction in Liam’s voice. Even when he was helping me, it felt like he was silently cheering for me to fail.
“Mrs. ConspiracyLuvR.” Seth spoke the name into his Dictaphone and pressed the stop button loudly for dramatic effect. He nodded silently to Liam and me from the doorway of the office. “She’s our only hope.”
Chapter 18
The nauseating smell of bacon and broken dreams overwhelmed me at the sound of her name. Oh no. No. No.
“Linda graduated in the class of ’64. She’ll have the book.”
“But Seth, you have a rule.” ConspiracyLuvR was one of Seth’s online buddies who had an extraordinary amount of useless local conspiracy-related knowledge but also a fairly solid understanding of the inner workings of Pemberly Brown. As much as it killed me to admit it, we had depended on someone named ConspiracyLuvR in the past and we would probably have to depend upon him again in the future. The guy’s mom? Not so much. Mrs. ConspiracyLuvR was obsessed with Seth, and from what I could recall, it had something to do with his red hair. I shivered as I considered my own newly crimson locks.
“I do have a rule against engaging the Mrs., but what’s your rule about breaking rules?” Seth shook his head quickly. “Never mind…you know what I mean. We’re going in.”
And we were. I only wished I’d brought a gas mask.
ConspiracyLuvR’s house was shockingly close to my own. My mom spent way too much time with that sex offender locator tool on the computer, and I couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t have some sort of app to identify houses where grown men still lived in their childhood bedrooms. Might come in handy for women screening potential dates on Match.com.
As usual, there were about fifteen beat-down cars parked in the driveway and on the grass. I hoped to God they weren’t having some sort of party, couldn’t imagine the delays associated with social hour at the LuvR residence. If there was a way to break in and steal the yearbook without getting caught, I would so be on board, despite the fact that a stolen yearbook had gotten us into this mess in the first place.
“In and out, guys,” Seth whispered. “We get the yearbook as quickly as possible.”
He didn’t have to tell me.
Movement in one of the cars caught my eye, and despite my better judgment, I peered in. And there, smack dab in the middle of his parents’ yard, parked in some god-forsaken car, was none other than ConspiracyLuvR making out with a woman who was clearly in need of the aforementioned boyfriend screening app.
I slapped my hands over my eyes and started screaming. “Ew, ew, ew, ew.”
“Jesus!” Liam said, cracking up. “Who the hell are these people?” He hadn’t had the pleasure of a previous visit. We ran the rest of the way up the drive.
The doorbell didn’t even have to be pressed. Instead, the door swung open and Mrs. ConspiracyLuvR filled the doorway, permeating the air with her eau de bacon grease.
“I thought that was you!” She spoke in some strange accent—a mixture of faux-British and Southern twang that was probably the result of watching too much reality television. And then she screamed some obscenities in the direction of her lip-locked grown son, who either couldn’t hear her or ignored her completely.
Liam widened his eyes at me, his face beet red to stifle his laughter, as Mrs. LuvR yanked Seth into the house. I wasn’t sure if I should be thankful or scared that she still concentrated her redhead-loving efforts on Seth. I was a lot of both.
“Just a quick visit, now!” Nervous laugh. “Actually came for a yearbook.” Nervous laugh. “No, no. We already ate.” Nervous laugh. Poor, poor Seth.
Seth continued to focus Mrs. LuvR on the yearbook and refused four tours of her “renovated” master bath, a couple offers to feed some random parrot named Jimmy that squawked in their family room, and two requests to help load her dishwasher. Finally, she led us into the basement. I hesitated at the top of the stairs. I was 99 percent sure that we were walking into a hoarder’s den, and I was afraid that if we descended beneath the ground, we might never come back up. I thought about waiting in the kitchen or, better yet, back in Liam’s car, but I couldn’t let Seth face this particular wolf on his own. We were in this together. Like old times.
“Y’all excuse the mess, now.” Yikes. A mess warning from a woman who reeked of bacon grease was definitely not a good sign. I kept my gaze trained on Mrs. LuvR’s yellow muumuu as we wove our way through a maze of junk that included everything from old fax machines to piles of Playgirl magazines. She paused for a minute and started digging through a pile of boxes.
“I know it’s in here somewhere…” She threw something that looked suspiciously like a dead cat over her shoulder. Seth yelped.
“Ah, yes, here it is. My old memory box. My senior yearbook should be in here somewhere.”
I steeled myself for whatever we might find in that box and prayed she’d return upstairs so we could at least have the freedom to make fun of some of it.
“I’ll leave you and this young thang to it.” Mrs. LuvR pointed a long, acrylic nail in Liam’s and my direction. “Seth? How about helping me out upstairs?”
Seth looked from the box to Liam, from the box to me, from the box to Mrs. LuvR, and his face fell as though to say, “I quit.” If Seth’s loyalty to me and my endless battles could be summed up, it would look a little like the rueful resignation on his face. He patted the box and walked up the stairs with his plus-sized cougar, leaving Liam and me to fight back both laughter and fear for our friend.
We tore through the box with careful precision to avoid things like gray, cotton somethings (we could not bring ourselves to investigate), dried flowers that disintegrated with one touch, chewed pencils, crumpled papers, even a journal, which would have been fascinating to read if we had
more time. Finally, at the bottom of the second box, which was full of maternity clothes and yellowed pacifiers, Liam unearthed the old yearbook.
“I need to wash my hands,” he said, handing it over with two fingers.
I pulled the card stock from my blazer and flipped to the page scrawled in the message.
A boy cradled a girl in his lap, her cheek resting on his shoulder, smile stretched wide. The boy’s brittle smile and flinty gaze made it easy to identify him as ex-Headmaster Sinclair. I pulled the yearbook closer to my face to get a better look at the girl perched on top of him. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a pin-straight waterfall. She was pretty, but there was something familiar about the way she looked at the camera, hard eyes beneath lowered lashes.
We gasped at the same time, even though we shouldn’t have been surprised.
Ms. D.
Chapter 19
“Holy sh…” But before I could spit out the rest, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Taylor.
Headquarters. 6 a.m. Emergency Meeting.
“Shit.” I slipped the phone back into my pocket and looked at Liam.
“Yeah, yeah. What happens if you don’t show? Will the queen have you beheaded?”
I gritted my teeth. He had no right. “First off, that was a private text. Second off, she’s not my queen and you have no idea how any of this even works. If you’d just take a minute and let me…” But I stopped myself right there. I didn’t owe Liam an explanation anymore. He didn’t get a vote about where I went and what I did. I grabbed the yearbook and made my way toward the stairs.
“I’m trying, Kate. Trying to be your friend. But it’s not working. I’m sorry.”
I tried to think of a good response, but I came up completely empty. He was trying and I was being a huge bitch. No way around it. No way under it. Only thing I could do was get through it. To figure out who killed Alistair and to end the Sisterhood. Based on this most recent snippet of information, it looked like I might get lucky and end up killing two birds with one stone.
“I’m sorry too.” I turned around to look at Liam. I had to say this face to face. “But maybe we’re just not meant to be friends right now.” Maybe we’re meant to be more. And maybe after I figure all of this crap out, I’ll actually be able to give it to you. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words to him because I knew five seconds later I’d be thinking about Bradley-freaking-Farrow and would be more confused than ever. I had some major work to do before I’d be ready to say anything out loud.
We made our way slowly, silently up the stairs, only to find that Mrs. LuvR had Seth cornered in the kitchen and appeared to be trying to feed him some type of quiche. The fact that Seth had his lips pursed and his head turned to the side spoke volumes about his mental state. The word “Victim” should have been written across his forehead like a bull’s-eye. Poor guy.
“C’mon, Seth. We’ve gotta go.”
Seth ducked under one of Mrs. LuvR’s outstretched arms and sprinted to the front door. “OkThanksForEverythingBye!” By the time I made it outside to the Jeep, Seth was panting in the front seat, buckled in and ready to go.
“Did you get it?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it right here.” I slid into the backseat.
“And?” Seth swiveled around to face me in the backseat.
“And…it’s a picture of Sinclair and Ms. D.”
“Shut. Up.”
Liam threw open the door and started the car without saying a word.
“Now what?” Seth asked.
“Now I go to the Sisterhood and I find out what the hell is going on.” I waved my phone in Seth’s direction. “They’ve called an emergency meeting first thing in the morning, and I’d bet my nonexistent trust fund it’s about what happened to Alistair and Sinclair.”
Liam sped silently to my house. Every shift of the gears felt like an accusation. Seth must have picked up on the tension in the car because he never asked a single question, just did a lot of heavy mouth breathing from the passenger side.
When Liam finally ripped up the parking brake, I scrambled out of the car.
Seth looked worried. “Be careful. We worry, you know.”
“I’ll be fine. Promise.” I took off into the garage. It was only a few yards, but it felt like miles. I wanted to look back at them so badly, but I knew I’d crumble if I did. Seth had this weird way of stripping me down and making me feel vulnerable. He didn’t care about looking cool or impressing anyone; he just said whatever he felt. It was unnerving, and unnerving was pretty much the last thing I needed.
And Liam. I’d broken his heart tonight. And mine too. Looking back was pretty much the worst thing I could do for either of us at this point. I reminded myself that there was only one way out of this thing, and that was through. And the more I found out about Alistair and the Sisterhood, the more I realized that this might be something I’d have to get through alone.
Chapter 20
As I peeled my eyes open in the morning, I cursed stupid Taylor and her stupid 6 a.m. emergency meetings with her stupid secret society. Uttering one word to someone before 7 a.m. should be illegal. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would intentionally schedule an important meeting where they actually expected people to converse fluently at six in the morning.
A too-hot shower helped a little. Coffee a little more. By the time I made it back to campus, I felt semi-human. I breathed deeply before throwing my weight into the door of the clock tower. My first official Sisterhood meeting lay ahead of me, and I had no idea what to expect.
The old stone walls were covered with pictures of students who had won the prestigious Time Keeper award, and I flipped over prim-looking Veronica Garvey’s photograph. She looked a little like pre-makeover Sandy from the movie Grease, and I suspected that was one of the reasons Taylor had selected her. After all, Taylor was pretty much the modern-day equivalent in all of her blond, blue-eyed, perpetual-stick-up-her-ass glory. After punching in the code abscondito, “secret,” a new trapdoor hidden between the planks of the floor popped open and I began my descent into the bowels of Pemberly Brown.
The tunnels have always freaked me out. Ever since learning about the catacombs in Paris in World History when I was a first-year, I could never quite shake the feeling that the walls were lined with the bones of previous Pemberly Brown students. It was impossible not to feel like someone was watching you when you walked down the rickety steps and descended into the dimly lit underground where every footstep echoed and it was at least ten degrees cooler. Not to mention that these tunnels and me? We had a history. And it wasn’t really a happy one.
As I turned the corner, I saw the exact spot where Alistair had tackled me and I had stabbed him with one of the swords stolen from the Sisterhood’s headquarters. After that, I passed the spot where Liam had been knocked unconscious. And then finally the door to the headquarters where almost six months ago, I had believed I would find my best friend, Grace. Alive and well.
But instead I found Taylor. The Sisterhood. Instead, I found the truth.
And this morning I had to face it all over again. I had to press the buttons on the massive oak door and swing it open and walk back into the belly of the bitch.
Push through. I pressed the code. Push through. I held my breath. Push through.
The first thing that struck me as the door clicked open was the sheer number of girls in the room. The Sisterhood wasn’t huge by any stretch of the imagination. Twenty-one girls total. But having them all in the headquarters at the same time—legs strewn across leather couches, hair streaming over the high backs of antique wood chairs, the high-pitched buzz of excited female voices all talking at the same time—was striking.
For a girl who had spent the better part of her year hanging out with a couple of dudes, it was all a little overwhelming.
Taylor was standing behind a podium, and the
instant she saw me walk through the door, she rapped her tiny bejeweled gavel three times. The room went completely silent.
“Now that we are all present…” She shot another pointed look in my direction. I twisted Grace’s pearls nervously. “I’d like to call this meeting to order.” She lowered her eyes for a second, concentrating, and then lifted her long lashes. “Una simus,” she said. “We are together.”
“Una simus,” we responded at once.
“Tenemur,” Taylor continued. “We are bound.”
“Tenemur,” we repeated.
“Sumus sorores,” she finished. “We are sisters.”
“Sumus sorores.” The words filled every inch of the space, and I let the meaning wash over me. We are sisters.
I am a traitor, I added silently.
“In light of recent events, Headmistress Bower has asked that I clarify our stance on interactions with members of the now-defunct society, the Brotherhood.” Taylor took a deep breath and looked around the room, slowly locking eyes with each and every member. “Sisters are not to have any interaction with former members of the Brotherhood. We are unsure of who or what is behind the recent tragedy involving Alistair Reynolds and ex-Headmaster Sinclair, but rest assured the school’s administration is working toward a resolution.
“Now that we, the Sisterhood, are the sole surviving society at Pemberly Brown, we have an obligation to our peers and students to keep our school safe, so if you have any information as to who might be involved with this accident, we ask that you report directly to me or the Headmistress. Thank you.”
Taylor rapped the gavel again and the girls in the room began to disperse. But not before Naomi’s voice rose above all the others.
“Wait,” she said, raising a hand and standing. A hush spread over the room, and it became clear that no one usually spoke during these meetings unless they were holding a gavel. Eyebrows raised and eyes widened. “I know Headmistress Bower wants us to stay out of this, but Alistair was my brother’s best friend. It’s just wrong to ignore it.” Naomi lowered her chin and breathed deeply as though she was fighting emotion. “No one wants to talk about Conventus, but can’t we work together? Can’t we protect each other? Why does it have to be one or the other?”