“Or someone else will be murdered,” grumbled Karlee.
“No.” Mrs. White’s tone was firm. “It was a horrific, singular event. It was a looter, seeking to take advantage of what he saw as a fancy, abandoned house. He’s long gone. He won’t be back.”
“You can’t guarantee that, Mrs. White,” Karlee said, her voice louder this time. She turned to Mustard, who was digging in the bread basket. “I can’t stay here. What if there’s another attack?”
“We could all sleep in the ballroom,” he suggested. “There’s safety in numbers, and there aren’t any windows or anything in there that might serve as an entry point.”
“But that’s right next to the conservatory!” Kayla squeaked. “That’s where the dead body is!”
“I don’t think he poses a danger at present,” said Mrs. White.
Beth, at Scarlett’s side, was loading up her plate. Orchid, at her other side, was still talking animatedly to Vaughn on the other side of the table. Her smile was blinding. She looked exactly like Emily Pryce.
How had Scarlett never noticed it before? Well, this would never do. She could not allow her new best friend to be so careless with her secret identity. The glasses would have to make a comeback, at the very least. And the mousy, straggly bangs, back in the face. And the anti-contouring makeup, definitely.
Strange, she’d always been so dismissive of superheroes before, but now she supposed the whole disguise thing worked better than she’d thought.
That was, of course, if Orchid planned to keep her secret identity, a strategy Scarlett would encourage Orchid to reconsider. Geez—Orchid. Scarlett should have tagged that as a fake name from the start. It was almost as bad as Mustard.
Vaughn and Peacock seemed to be in a race to see who could go for seconds more quickly.
“I think all of us being in the same room is a good idea,” Scarlett said.
“You don’t worry this cold-blooded murderer you imagine will take advantage of it and kill everyone?” Peacock asked, slicing her ham up with unnecessary vigor.
Karlee and Kayla looked appalled. Peacock forked a piece of ham and brought it to her mouth with relish. Then she sneered in Finn’s direction. Finn pretended to be fascinated by the beans on his plate.
“We did well this afternoon with splitting into groups to search the house,” Scarlett went on. “Maybe we can do three groups tonight, too, with watches, so no one is ever alone.”
“Or with only one other person,” said Peacock dryly. “You know, because one of us is supposedly a murderer.” She stabbed another piece of ham with her fork. “Question—if you all are going to be sleeping on the floor together in order to avoid being alone with me, can everyone’s favorite suspect claim one of your beds? The floor actually is murder—on my back.”
“You know,” Finn said, still studying his plate, “logically, if you’re not a murderer, you should be the one most worried about being left alone in the house.”
“Logically,” Peacock shot back, “a murderer is probably someone who is already well-known for stabbing other people in the back. Right, Phineas?”
All other conversations ceased. Everyone looked at Finn.
Scarlett couldn’t help but smile. This was going to be good.
Finn threw down his spoon. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. How about you go ahead and tell everyone here why you think I’m so evil, and then I’ll tell my story, and then we’ll let the others decide which of us is more likely to have killed the headmaster last night.”
Peacock’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
“Yeah,” sniffed Finn. “Thought not.”
“Enough!” shouted Mrs. White. “I don’t want to hear any more discussions about there being a killer in this house.”
“Why?” asked Karlee. “You’d prefer we just sit here, getting picked off one by one?”
Mustard cleared his throat. “I think we could bring this whole thing to a close right now if Beth decides to share with us why she and the headmaster got into an altercation last week.”
“I told you already!” cried Peacock. “I asked for time off school to attend an event, and he wouldn’t let me go.”
No one said anything in response to that. Several people frowned. Karlee made a skeptical sort of hum in the back of her throat.
Scarlett sighed and ate another forkful of beans. If only the poor girl had come to her for advice. This was not a good way to handle the types of problems Peacock was facing. If she did end up a famous tennis star, she was going to need a good PR team.
Peacock threw her napkin down on the table, then seemed to think better of it, and used it to wrap up the rest of her roll and her ham. “That’s it,” she said. “I’m not staying another minute in a house where everyone thinks I’m a killer. I don’t care if I do freeze, or drown, or whatever. I’m out of here.” She stood up so fast she knocked her chair backward. Kayla flinched. Peacock saw it, groaned, and stormed off with the remains of her dinner.
For a second, everyone just sat in stunned silence.
“Stop her,” said Mrs. White. “We have to stop her. It’s too dangerous for her to go out in these conditions.”
“Isn’t it too dangerous for her to stay here?” Karlee asked.
Finn leaped to his feet and headed toward the door. “Beth!”
After several shocked moments, everyone followed.
By the time Scarlett and the others reached the stair landing in the hall, Peacock had her coat and boots on and was pounding down the stairs, Finn hot on her heels.
“Leave me alone!” she growled at him. “None of this would be happening if you hadn’t started it.”
“Is she saying Finn’s involved, too?” Kayla asked.
“Miss Picach,” ordered Mrs. White. “You must stop at once. I cannot allow any students to leave Tudor House during this storm.”
“Go ahead and stop me then!” cried Peacock. “I’m not just going to stand here and take these baseless accusations against me. It’s—it’s—” She raked her hand through her hair, and the static made all the blue ends stand out around her head like real peacock feathers. “It’s crazy!”
“Peacock,” said Mustard, and he stepped between her and the door. He was the only one in the house taller than she was. “Just take a minute. Think this over. Don’t put yourself at risk. More than that, don’t add to the suspicion that you have something to hide by running out of here. It’s not a good look, any way you cut it.”
And then, Elizabeth Picach, the Peacock of Blackbrook, the terror of the tennis court, pulled back her well-muscled serving arm and landed a haymaker right on Mustard’s square-cut jaw.
He dropped like a rock and his head hit the parquet floor with a sickening thud.
And Peacock, possibly two times a killer, disappeared into the night.
21
Peacock
— EP WORKOUT LOG—
DATE: December 6
AFTERNOON SNACK: Lemon-custard-flavored nutrition bars (210 calories, 6g protein)
DINNER: Ham, 10 ounces (500 calories, 30g protein), roll (80 calories)
AFTERNOON WORKOUT: 150 stair reps, arm weight with bar, 50 crunches
EVENING WORKOUT: Ran across the trash heap ninja obstacle course that used to be the Blackbrook campus.
NOTES: YOU KNOW WHAT, I DON’T EVEN CARE WHAT THEY THINK. NONE OF THOSE JERKS MATTER TO ME ANYWAY. THIS WOULDN’T EVEN HAVE HAPPENED IF STUPID FINN HADN’T TOLD STUPID EVERYONE IN SCHOOL ABOUT THAT STUPID DAY IN THE STUPID OFFICE.
THE SCUMBAG. HOW COME NO ONE SUSPECTS HIM????? HE’S THE ONE EVERYONE KNOWS WILL STAB YOU IN THE BACK.
MAYBE HE JUST STABBED BODDY IN THE FRONT THIS TIME.
I feel hot all over. It’s freezing in here and it’s like there are flames licking the side of my face. Flames of rage!
It’s creepy, being all alone. And cold. If I do die, do NOT let Phineas Plum anywhere near my funeral.
22
Mustard
Mustard didn’t
know if it was the punch or the way his head hit the floor that had him seeing stars, but for a long moment, nothing in the hall made sense. Everyone was yelling and rushing, and somehow, in all the hubbub, someone helped him up off the floor and someone else was pressing a cold cloth to his nose and a third person was waving fingers in his face and asking him the date and his favorite color and who the president was, all quickly and without even waiting for his answers.
This person turned out to be Kayla, and his headache got a whole lot worse very quickly, until Mrs. White waved her away.
“Are you all right, Mr. Maestor?” she asked before turning to Scarlett and barking, “Get a mop for this blood on the floor!”
This was going to be the third mopping the hall floor had had in twenty-four hours.
Wait . . . Blood?
“I’m all right,” Mustard said, holding a hand to his pounding head. “Just a little dizzy for a second.” He pulled his hand away. More blood. How did it get from his nose to the back of his head?
“Gross!” Kayla exclaimed. “Look! It’s running all down his sweater.”
“He’s really bleeding,” Karlee observed. “What if he needs stitches?”
“Head wounds bleed a lot,” said Mrs. White. “Let me get my first-aid kit from the study.” She vanished.
Mustard knew that was true about head wounds, but when it was your own blood coating your hand and making your hair and neck all sticky, it wasn’t much of a comfort.
Mrs. White reappeared and pressed a rag to his scalp. “Just sit still for a minute and keep pressure on this, and we’ll get this bleeding to stop.” She put his hand over the rag, then handed him some pills and a cup of water. “Take these for the pain.”
Mustard gave in to all of it. He sat still, and applied pressure, and swallowed the pills. He was on the bottom step of the stair landing, kind of sprawled out, while the girls bustled around him. He’d never been surrounded by so many girls in his life.
Presently, he saw another boy: Vaughn. Vaughn was standing by the big front door to Tudor House, looking out, his face like a soldier’s in the midst of a battle.
Orchid stood at the door, too. They were talking. Mustard listened harder, to hear them over the girls babbling near his ear.
“—can’t leave her out there.”
“I know.” Vaughn shrugged. “But what are we supposed to do?”
Orchid looked surprised. “You’re the one who has been out there already. I kind of thought you’d want to go out again.”
Vaughn snorted. “Did you see what Peacock did to Mustard? I appreciate the flattery, but trust me, she can take me. I already suffered one bloody nose today.”
“So then . . . what?” asked Orchid. “We just leave her to die? You and Rusty nearly drowned, and that was during the day.”
“The storm was a lot worse during the day,” Vaughn said quietly. “And the storm surge. Most of the floodwaters have receded by now, and the wind’s gone down. It’s barely even sleeting anymore.”
“It’s also pitch-black out there,” Orchid said. “Does Peacock even have a flashlight?”
“I understand what you’re saying,” said Vaughn. “But I’m worried chasing after her might only escalate the situation. Maybe she’ll get cold, realize her mistake, and then either come back or seek shelter in one of the other campus buildings. Chasing her is only going to make her more upset than she already is, not to mention put whoever goes looking for her in danger. There’s been enough violence.”
Orchid fell silent as she considered what Vaughn had said. Mustard thought it all sounded very reasonable, though he hated that it had come to this. He shouldn’t have tried to stop her.
Nearby, Scarlett was proving she’d never used a mop before in her life as she shoved dirty water around the floor in a haphazard manner that seemed pitched only to undo Mustard’s own mopping job from that morning.
Above their heads, the wind batted at the tarp covering the broken stained glass, and a burst of cold wet air blew in around the edges.
If Peacock stayed out there, she might die. But so might anyone who was stupid enough to go after her.
“How did his blood get all the way over here?” Scarlett asked, dragging the mop in untidy circles over the hardwood floor outside the door to the library.
“How can you even see it in the dark?” Karlee asked.
“I eat a lot of carrots,” Scarlett replied dryly.
Carrot consumption actually had no bearing on a person’s ability to see in the dark. That was a myth made up by the British military during World War II to hide the fact that pilots were using radar, not gorging themselves on root vegetables. But somehow, it felt like way too much effort to say any of that out loud.
Mustard wanted to lie down, and he also had a strange inkling that it might be an incredibly bad idea to do so.
“Enough with the mopping, Scarlett,” Mrs. White called. “If you want to mop, go clean up the blood in the conservatory.”
“She can’t do that,” said Karlee. “What if it’s destroying evidence?”
“What evidence?” asked Scarlett. “We’ve been running in and out of there all day.”
Mrs. White pulled back on the cloth. “It’s stopped bleeding. Doesn’t look too deep. I think a bandage will suffice. You had a lucky break, kid.”
“Yeah,” he said blankly.
“But doesn’t it just prove how violent that girl is?” Karlee asked. “What if she comes back and tries to finish us all off for guessing that it was her?”
“We don’t know that!” Orchid said.
“She’s certainly not acting like an innocent person,” Karlee said.
“And what does an innocent person act like?” Orchid replied. “Especially when she’s being accused of murder.”
Mrs. White opened up the first-aid kit and pulled out some bandages and cleaning supplies.
Orchid looked at Scarlett, a pleading expression on her face. Even through the haze, Mustard noticed it.
“I don’t think we can worry too much about Peacock right now,” said Scarlett. “She made her choice. The real issue, as I see it, is making sure everyone in this house is safe.”
“Agreed,” said Vaughn. He still hadn’t left his post by the door, as if, with Mustard injured, he’d taken on the part of watchman.
Mrs. White put something stinging on the back of his scalp and he hissed through his teeth.
“I still think the idea of all of us sticking together in the ballroom tonight is a good one,” said Scarlett. “There’s no windows, one door—we’ll be secure in there.”
“As long as there aren’t any secret passages to the ballroom,” Mustard drawled.
“There are no secret passages,” said Scarlett.
He turned his head, and the hall swam around him for a moment. “No, there are. I found one this afternoon.”
Several heads turned in his direction, all of them wearing faces that were completely dumbfounded.
“What?” asked Scarlett.
“What?” asked Orchid.
Did he not share that information with anyone? Oops. “Yeah. This afternoon. Finn and I were down in one. Finn, back me up.”
Finn did not reply.
“Oh God,” said Scarlett, all of a sudden. “Where is Finn?”
“He must have gone after Peacock!” cried Vaughn. “I didn’t notice because we were all trying to help Mustard.”
“Did he even have a coat?” Orchid asked.
“Wait a second,” Mustard said, and tried to stand. “Just everyone hold on one—”
That was the last thing he remembered.
23
Plum
Finn’s teeth had started chattering even before he’d stepped into the waist-deep puddle of icy water. The puddle in which he’d also lost his glasses. Which didn’t matter so very much, as he couldn’t see anything in the dark, anyway.
Like puddles. Or Beth.
Funny. He hadn’t stopped to grab his coat or hat beca
use he’d been so worried he’d lose sight of her in the dark.
But he had completely lost sight of her anyway. And with the power outage and the utter lack of illumination from either streetlights or windows, he had no idea where he was on campus. All the usual landmarks seemed strange and unfamiliar in the total darkness. Was it really this far between Tudor House and the science building? Or had he somehow gotten turned around in the night and was about to drop into the ravine?
He wrapped his arms around himself tighter, tucked his head down into the upturned collar of his sweater, and looked for something—anything that would give him a hint of where he stood.
There might have been a moon, somewhere behind the clouds. There must be some source of light, coming from somewhere, because Finn could just make out his hand in front of his face, and he was pretty sure the power wasn’t on anywhere for miles around.
Up ahead he caught a flash of light. He picked up his pace, then stopped again as he smacked into the wet branches of a tree. Twigs and bark scratched his face.
He cursed, rearing back, slipped on a patch of ice, and went down hard onto the ground.
But it wasn’t frozen earth under his numb fingertips. It was stone. One of the stone walks outside the administration building!
Finn looked up. Okay, so he was off course, but not that far off. He could just turn right from here and hopefully follow the path down the hill toward Dockery, where Beth lived.
The light flashed again, this time from far above him. He looked up and even in the darkness could make out the ornate gables and bay windows of the administration building. And the light . . . coming from a window on the third floor.
It was probably Beth. Right?
The wind buffeted him back and forth, howling like the wolves everyone said didn’t live in Maine anymore. He’d stopped shivering by now, and tried to remember from his one stab at camping if that meant he was about to die from hypothermia.
In the Hall with the Knife Page 16