A new boyfriend, huh?
Dad would hate that.
I honestly don't care.
“Spencer,” I start, and then the door swings inward.
“Guys, you need to see this,” Ranger whispers, and Spencer and I exchange a look before following them out into the hallway.
There's another note from Adam, taped to my locker (my original locker that I just recently got back because, you know, student council connections and all).
It's written in purple ink, just like all the others.
Dear Eve,
That death was no suicide.
We both know that should've been you hanging in that tree.
Run, run, as fast as you can.
Love, Adam
“What in the ever-loving fuck?” I choke out as Ranger snatches the note from me and reads it, his teeth clenched, his hand tightening into a fist and wrinkling the edge of the paper.
“This is such bullshit.” He looks up and over at Church. “Can't we pay some independent forensic lab to test this shit? There must be fingerprints or fibers or something they could use to figure out who wrote this.”
“That's not a terrible idea,” Church says as Spencer gapes at the note.
“These are the sort of notes you've been getting?” he asks, raking his fingers through his silver hair. “Who the hell is this sick fuck?” A dark look flashes over his face, and I imagine that if he knew, the whole 'let's beat him up' mantra that the boys are always calling out would ring very, very true.
“This is the fourth one,” I admit, gritting my teeth. “But they're getting worse, more violent. Do you think I should show it to my dad?”
“That's up to you,” Ranger says, frowning hard. This little crease appears between his dark brows, and I have to resist the urge to reach out with my thumb and smooth it away. “But this scares me. I'm worried about you, Char—lie.” I smile. He almost called me Charlotte again.
“I've got you guys; I'm not afraid.” I stuff my fingers in the pockets and brush the condoms, lips twitching.
“But maybe you should be?” Ranger begins, his eyes far away again. The twins exchange a look as Church plucks the paper from his best friend's fingers.
“I'll send this to my parents' head of security. Surely he can do something with it.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Ranger asks, giving his president a hard look.
“Positive.” Church pockets the note just as Eddie the janitor and Nathan the night watchman come around the corner. Neither of them look particularly happy to see us.
“The school board wants the halls clear after seven. You’re gonna have to take your pow-wow elsewhere.” Nathan sniffs and reaches up to rub at his nose. His beard has what looks suspiciously like Cheeto crumbs in it, and he smells like a vat of Mountain Dew. My eyes narrow. The guy really isn’t all that old, is he? How did he even get this job? He’s useless.
“Do you enjoy shuffling around campus, stealing the students’ food, and generally being an inept, inadequate fool?” Church asks, straightening the lapels on his navy academy blazer. “Instead of harassing the Culinary Club—we have a late-night permit for this building, by the way—perhaps you could do better ensuring students don’t die on your watch.”
Nathan frowns heavily and his nostrils flare with anger, but I doubt he’s got the backbone to stand up to Church Montague. The guy is terrifying, although I’m convinced now that he’s much deeper and more nuanced than he first appears. His emotions in the woods proved as much. You can’t fake that level of feeling; it was gut-wrenching to even watch.
My eyes shift over to Eddie, this lanky middle-aged guy with a crisp, clean uniform and perfectly combed hair, gelled over, has hands rough and spattered in white paint. He's as plain as they come, but everybody's a suspect in my mind.
“Now, if you'll excuse us,” Church continues, and then he takes off down the hall and the rest of us follow.
“Has he always been like this?” I whisper to Ranger, leaning in and smelling that sugar and leather scent of his. My skin ripples with goose bumps, but I ignore the feeling, tucking my hands into my pockets to hide my reaction.
“Since we were six years old,” he says with a sigh, but I notice his mouth twitches slightly, like he's fighting off a smile. Church takes us down the hall and just happens to pass by Mr. Murphy's office, slowing slightly. He peers into the window for a moment, and then glances down the long, stone hallways.
I'm still not quite used to the history and grandeur of the place. The west coast is like, baby America. The oldest shit we have is a hundred years old. But over here, a lot of the buildings are older than the country itself. It's nothing, maybe, when compared to Europe or Africa, but it's impressive as hell to this Cali girl.
“Micah, Tobias, do you have a key to this office?”
“Not this one, Mr. President,” they say in unison, and then exchange a look.
“But we could get one,” Tobias says.
“Maybe,” Micah adds.
“Teacher's lounge would be a good place to skim keys,” Spencer muses, glancing over at me. “Like, say, if someone were to have a father who was in the lounge …”
“Wait, you want me to steal the keys?!” I choke out, and then Ranger's hand slides over to cover my mouth. His skin is warm, his palm dry, and even though I quickly slap his hand away, I liked the feeling of it. Not covering my mouth, exactly, but just … his touch, I guess.
“Mr. Murphy,” Church greets as the teacher in question comes around the corner and gives our group a bit of a skeptical look, his smile slipping just a tad. “How are you this evening?”
“Trying to maintain positivity in the face of our academy's loss,” he says, and I can't tell if he's like, secretly evil and full of shit, or genuine as fuck.
“Understandable. Actually, that's what we're here about. Ranger here,” Church gestures over his shoulder and Ranger narrows those dark eyes of his. “Has been having trouble coping. He, well,” Church splays his fingers on his chest and gives Mr. Murphy this fresh-faced, dewy-eyed look that makes me narrow my own eyes in suspicion, “has been too shy to ask: do you mind if he came in your office to talk for a little while?”
“I …” Mr. Murphy begins, and then exhales sharply. “I understand you might be hurting, Mr. Woodruff, but I'd like to direct your concerns to the school counselor—”
“I want to talk to you,” Ranger says, giving Church a sidelong look that says I'm going to fucking kill you later. “You knew Jenica. You were friends.”
“Well, I can't—” Mr. Murphy begins again, a bit of sweat beading on his brow. “I can't talk about your sister, but I suppose if you wanted to just sit and chat for a moment …”
“I do.” Ranger steps up next to Mr. Murphy, and we all watch as they head inside, and he carefully draws the shades and locks the door behind them.
“We didn't just send him in there to get killed, did we?” Micah asks, leaning back against the lockers.
“Not so blatantly, no,” Church says, and then pauses as Nathan makes his way back down the hall. This time, the night watchman simply moves past us without a word, Church's amber eyes tracking his movements.
The rest of us wait quietly while Spencer digs around in his bookbag and pulls out a box with a new phone inside, powering it on and setting it up while we stand there.
It doesn't occur to me to be concerned about anything until I feel his eyes boring into me.
“What?” I ask, and he grins at me like a shark that's just smelled blood in the water. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, Chucklet,” Spencer says, and then he moves over, captures my chin in his fingers and kisses the ever-living hell out of me. There's something different about this kiss, less vicious, more … tender. There's some of that same tenderness in it that I saw in his face that day in the hall. I shove him back and he laughs, flashing me his phone screen and all those embarrassing messages I sent when I thought he was dead.
I think we could've fallen in love is just one example.
My face goes white, and I sputter as he chuckles and reads down the list, but then the door opens and Ranger steps out. His jaw is tight, his eyes like flint.
“Let's go,” he barks, taking off down the hall in his combat boots. He doesn't stop until we're standing in front of the boys' dormitory.
“What's wrong?” Church asks as Ranger turns around, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a purple Sharpie.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“A purple Sharpie doesn't exactly pinpoint Mr. Murphy as the killer,” Tobias says the next morning, sitting on the J. Woodruff memorial bench outside the girls' dorm. I haven't been here in a while, and I miss it. This is, like, my place. But right now, with all this shit going on? I'd have to be fucking crazy to come here by myself.
“No, but it's something,” Ranger says, playing with the pen. “It was just sitting there on the edge of his desk, like he'd used it recently.”
“This is far-reaching as fuck,” Spencer says, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Mr. Murphy isn't a killer. Do you remember freshman year when he rescued a baby deer and nursed it back to health? That's like fucking Mother Theresa type shit.”
“The ink on the notes is purple; the pen is purple. There's a picture of Jenica snuggling up to this asshole, and when Chuck confronted him, he lost his fucking shit.” Ranger pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up. “We need to get into his office. I think Chuck should try the teacher's lounge thing, nab us some keys.”
“If he did write the notes, do you think he'd really leave the pen just sitting there on his desk when you waltzed in?” Spencer asks, but I notice that Church is unbelievably quiet, buried deep in thought. He's staring up at the girls' dorm with a contemplative expression. “How stupid would he have to be?”
“I still think we should keep an eye on him,” Micah grumbles, putting his chin in his hand. His eyes find mine, and I feel this shiver go through me. When he kissed me on the hood of his car, I felt something. It's confusing as hell.
I like Spencer.
I … really like Spencer.
But I also like the twins.
“Add him to the list,” Tobias says with a sigh, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “Mr. Johansen, Mr. Cruschek, Jeff Rabot, Nathan, Eddie, Mr. Murphy. Fuck, why don't we just get surveillance on the whole school?”
“I tried, but the school board blocked my request for a private security team,” Church says finally, glancing over at us. “We'll have to work this ourselves for a while. I'm still leaning toward the boys' club angle.”
“And yet that doesn't explain Eugene's death,” Ranger retorts, spiking up his inky hair with his hand. His fingernails are painted black, and even though back home, I probably would've made fun of him for that … I sort of like it now.
I bite my lower lip.
“Unless Eugene was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Like maybe he saw something he shouldn't have?”
Church glances my way.
“Why not just bribe him some other way?” he asks, and I shrug my shoulders.
“How? With money, which he already has? Quarterback of the football team? Check. Eugene wasn't bad looking, and he was fit as hell. Add in the money aspect, and I'm sure he had no problem getting girls. What could possibly get him to stay quiet?”
“Not bad looking?” Spencer asks, but I ignore him, rolling with this idea and feeling super clever about it, too.
“And,” I stand up from the bench and spin, my feet stirring the gravel. The wind blows, tousling the messy mat of blond on my head. I push my glasses up with a single finger. “If they left him alive, there'd always be this loose thread, this possibility of seeing everything fall apart. The killers would never be able to rest easy.”
“Yeah, but what could he have possibly seen out there in the woods? Some assholes in hoodies putting a rope in a tree? One good lie could explain that all away. Until Eugene's death, they hadn't exactly gone so far they couldn't come back from what they'd done. A knife chase, some notes, so what?” Tobias shrugs his shoulders. “I think something else is going on, something we're not getting.”
“Whatever it is, we have to start somewhere,” Micah says, nodding his head briskly. “One lead at a time. If you want to start with Mr. Murphy, fine. Let's do it.”
“Great. Now all I need to do is come up with a plausible reason to visit Dad in the teacher's lounge. That'll be fun.” I roll my eyes, but Spencer's grinning broadly and snapping his fingers, like he's already figured it out.
“Tell him about us, you know, dating and all that.”
“I never agreed to date,” I murmur, flushing bright. But … why not? What's stopping me here? I glance briefly at the twins and find them both staring at me. Their words ring in my head: we only share with each other.
Yeah.
No reverse harem ending for me.
“But okay.” I exhale, and Spencer grins wide.
“Yeah?” he asks, and I shrug my shoulders. “Why not?” He makes a whooping sound and a fist pump as the twins exchange a look. When he leaps off the bench and wraps his arms around me, I put my own around his neck, close my eyes, and remember that sweet, sweet moment when I woke up to find him climbing into bed with me.
For the rest of my life, I'll never forget that joy.
So … Spencer Hargrove is my new boyfriend.
And I just have to say, what a huge improvement over the old one.
Fuck you, Cody.
God, this is never going to work, I think as I stand outside the teachers' lounge. The door is locked, so I have to wait for one of the staff to come by and open it.
Just so happens it's Mr. Murphy.
Great.
He stares at me, and I stare right back.
“Is my dad in there perchance?” I ask, pointing at the door. Mr. Murphy glances that way, and then back at me.
“Let's find out,” he says, pulling out his keys.
The keys I came here to steal.
He unlocks the door and then opens it, standing to one side with his back against it, so I can look in and see my dad sitting at a table with a bunch of stuffy old academy professors.
Deep breath, Charlotte, try to be cool.
I am so not good at this.
Instead of calling out to my dad, I step into the room and head straight for him. Mr. Murphy makes a small sound, but I ignore him, laser-focused on my father. Right, and how am I supposed to get Mr. Murphy's keys from him when they're in his fucking pocket?
“Charlotte,” Dad says, standing up from his seat. “You're not supposed to be in here.”
“Yeah, but … we need to talk,” I say, hating every second of this. Am I seriously just going to blurt out that I'm dating Spencer? Dad's going to look at me like I'm nuts. He's going to wonder why I felt the need to come here and spit that out.
My mind scrambles for another plan, but instead, Dad puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze, his face taking on this dark quality that scares the crap out of me.
“Come with me,” he says, leading me toward the door and right past the coffee station where Mr. Murphy's making himself a cup. Great. We end up in the hallway, this heavy awkwardness hanging between us in a shroud. “I agree that we need to have a chat. Have dinner with me tonight at seven?”
“I … okay,” I start, blinking to clear my head. “Is Mom okay?”
“Mom is fine,” he says, looking at me with this weird mix of sadness and tenderness. It's odd, that expression, one I've never seen before. “Don't be late, okay?” he pats me on the head—totally out of character move for him, by the way—and then turns, only to realize the lounge door has shut and locked itself in the meantime.
Then Dad reaches into his pocket and pulls out a huge, bulky skeleton key.
Oh.
Well, duh.
I almost facepalm, but then I realize I'm standing in a hall full of students who already think I'm a weirdo an
d dislike me immensely.
Right.
“See you at seven, Chuck,” Dad says, and then disappears into the room.
Well, then.
I guess I have an alternate plan, don't I?
Dad calls me down for dinner that night, and I find myself greeted with a spread worthy of Thanksgiving. We don't eat this nice on my birthday. My brows raise in suspicion, but I take a seat at the table, wondering what the announcement's going to be this time.
The time before last that Dad surprised me with a dinner of all my favorite foods, he told me that he and Mom were getting a divorce. The next time, it was to tell me that Mom was going into rehab.
This time … I can't even imagine.
“What's going on?” I ask as he sits down, his face and mannerisms somber. Archibald Carson unfolds a cloth napkin on his lap (who the hell uses cloth napkins in their own home anyway?), and then pushes his glasses up the long, wide bridge of his nose.
“I've been thinking hard on some things lately.” He sighs dramatically and lifts his blue eyes from his plate to my face. “Namely, that what's best for you is not necessarily what's best for me.”
“O…kay,” I start, narrowing my eyes as I serve myself a piece of tri-tip. Seriously my favorite cut of meat; apparently it used to be called the Santa Maria steak as it was so popular in central California. Guess I’m a California girl through and through, huh? “What the hell does that mean?”
“I want you to understand that none of this your fault,” Dad continues, and I sigh, setting my fork down. This is almost word for word what he said to me the day he told me Mom was leaving. “But I don't feel it's safe for you here.”
“Why?” I ask dryly, leaning back in my chair. “Because of the 'suicide'?” I make little quotes with my fingers as Dad stares me down, slipping from dad-mode to headmaster-mode, just like that.
“Among other things. I've decided to send you back to California.”
My jaw drops open, and my heart cracks in half.
Okay, so maybe I’m not quite as attached to the state as I thought.
The Ruthless Boys (Adamson All-Boys Academy #2) Page 10