Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (10 page)

“It’s nothing. Really.” She shrugs.

“We should get back to the table,” Remy says, throwing a look at April. “We left our bags there, and the guys probably got up to get food.”

None of them make eye contact with me as we leave the bathroom. There’s obviously something they won’t say in front of me … and now I’m dying to know what—or whom—they’re so afraid of.

*   *   *

My ID card is missing when we get back to the dorm. It’s not in my bag, which makes absolutely no sense, because I keep it tucked in the ID sleeve of my wallet all the time.

“I just had it at the dining hall,” I say to the RA at the front desk. Even though an ID is needed to get into the dorm, since Isabella’s murder, there’s always someone at the desk to double-check them.

“Maybe you dropped it there,” Remy suggests. “We could go back and check.…”

We all look out the dorm window, at the tiny flakes falling from the night sky. I know what everyone is thinking: It’s frickin’ cold, and no one really wants to take the walk back with me.

“It’ll be there in the morning.” I sigh.

I get Darlene to let me into my room, still frustrated. How could I have lost my ID? I slipped it right back into my wallet after the dining-hall lady swiped it to let me in.

Darlene leaves and I flip the light on. My body goes stiff when I see what’s on my desk.

My ID card.

CHAPTER

TEN

I make sure whoever was in here didn’t take anything from me or Isabella before I curl into a ball on my bed and try to stop hyperventilating.

Someone was in my room. Someone stole my ID card right out of my wallet and used it to
break in to my room.

What’s even worse is the thought that I could have easily run into whomever it was. If I used my card to get into the dining hall, the person had to have stolen it while I was in the bathroom.

And the person—
she—
was able to get past the RA downstairs
and
knew the door entry code.

She lives here.

I immediately knock on Darlene’s door. She sighs a little when she sees me, as if to say
What now?
I don’t really blame her, since my knocking on her door ended with a dead body last time.

My throat is tight by the time I’m done telling Darlene what happened.

“Anne, it’s okay. Are you sure you didn’t just leave your ID there by mistake?”

“No. I had it with me at the dining hall.”

“And there’s nothing missing from your room?”

“Not that I can tell.” I sniff. “But I don’t know if they took anything of Isabella’s.”

“Anne, are you sure you didn’t forget to show your card at the dining hall? You’re probably just really stressed after all that’s happened,” Darlene says. “I can change your entry code, if that makes you feel better.”

It doesn’t. And it doesn’t change the fact that someone went through my bag and left my ID card on my desk, as if to taunt me. They could have kept my card, but instead, they just left it on the desk.

To leave the message that they were there.

*   *   *

I don’t sleep at all that night. The next morning, I skip breakfast and go straight to Dr. Harrow’s office. He’s not there.

“Excuse me, but when will Dr. Harrow be in?” I ask the secretary in the office across the hall.

“Not until later.” She doesn’t even look up at me. “You can leave your name in the book over there.”

“But this is really important,” I plead. “Someone broke in to my room.”

The woman picks her head up. Apparently this isn’t something she hears often. “I suggest you tell your RA.”

“I
did.
She didn’t do anything. I need to see Dr. Harrow.”

“Is there a problem?” A woman pokes her head out of the door behind the secretary’s desk. Her dyed red hair is in a bun, and she looks like she’s in her midforties. I recognize her from Isabella’s wake, mostly because she’s wearing the same tweed jacket.

DEAN JACQUELINE TIERNEY
, the plaque on her door says.

“Someone broke in to my dorm room,” I blurt.

The dean gives me a once-over. She doesn’t bother to introduce herself or ask who I am. Obviously she already knows, but still. I don’t trust her.

“We’ve never had a break-in in our dormitories before,” she says.

Yeah, that anyone
reported,
probably. “Well, someone was in my room. They stole my ID card.”

Dean Tierney blinks and gives me a small smile, as if this is the biggest crock of shit she’s heard in a while. “Was anything taken?”

I swallow. “No. But someone was definitely in there. Can I talk to Dr. Harrow?”

“Dr. Harrow is away,” she says. “I’ll alert him to the issue when he returns. If you’d like a new room, please go to Student Services. I’m sure they will accommodate you.”

I stand there, stunned, as the dean disappears into her office again. After everything that’s happened this week, Tierney is still so concerned with staying a
U.S. News and World Report
Safest Prep School that she’s not going to report the break-in? I don’t want a new room. Student Services offered me one right after Isabella was killed. The only open rooms are triples in the freshmen dorms, which honestly makes being murdered in my sleep look not so bad.

I wait until I’m out of the administration building to give in to a few tears. Obviously I can’t go to class now, and I don’t want to go back to my room. I could go to the police, but what would I say?
Hey, I have absolutely no evidence, and they didn’t take anything, but someone was in my room.

I wipe my eyes with my gloves and take a deep breath.
Keep it together, Anne. You can’t go home. You need to get through this.

I use my phone to search for places in Boston that sell pepper spray. Whoever was in my room might have killed Isabella. They might have been looking for something, and if they didn’t find it, they might try to come back.

But if they do, I’ll be ready.

*   *   *

It’s Saturday morning. My father is having a hissy fit on the other end of the phone because I didn’t mention that the girl who got killed was my roommate, and that’s apparently something the school sends parents e-mails about.

“Did it just
slip
your mind?” His voice crackles. He’s calling from an international phone.

“Daddy, chill out. I told you I knew her. You and Mom would only freak out and come up here if I told you she was my roommate, and that wouldn’t help anyone or change anything—”

“Do you even understand what you’ve done?” I can practically hear the veins in his neck throbbing, threatening to burst all over his Marc Jacobs tie. “The school said you gave a statement to the police.
Without legal counsel present.
”

“How could you expect me not to talk to the police when I was the last person to see her alive—”

My throat closes midsentence. Oh. It hits me again, like a punch to the stomach: I was
the last person to see Isabella alive.

My father is silent on the other end. I grab the rosebud salve from my nightstand and start slathering it on my lips.

His voice is calmer now, like he’s talking to a client. “Anne, if you had anything to do with this, I need to know
now
.”

I feel as if I’ve been slapped. “What—are you serious? You think I would—”

“Of course not. But if you even saw or did anything that could give them a reason to get you involved—”

“I
didn’t.
” Hot, angry tears pool in my eyes. This is all just so messed up. I’m five hours from home, my roommate is dead, and my own father thinks I had something to do with it. All because I couldn’t stay away from a stupid boy.

I let myself have a brief fantasy of pushing Martin Payne down the stairs for getting me into this mess. Even though I know if I wasn’t so damn stupid that day, I wouldn’t have been in the auditorium with him after school to begin with.

But I’m not going to be stupid again, and I’m sure as hell not going to sit back and let everyone here whisper and point fingers at me.

“Anne, we’re going to handle this. Do
not
tell your mother we spoke about this; it’ll kill her. I’m going to say there was an emergency at work and book the first flight out of Paris—”

“No! I mean, please don’t cut your vacation short, Daddy.”

“But—”

Knocking at my door makes me scramble out of bed in a panic. Was someone out there listening the whole time? “Daddy, I gotta go I love you
please
don’t come up here bye!”

I hang up before he can protest, and I run a hand through my hair. I’m still in the yoga pants and tank top I slept in.

Darlene is hanging in the hall, as if she’s afraid to get too close to the room. It’s a good thing, because I never did get rid of my coffeemaker.

“Hey, Anne. Um, someone is here to pack up some of Isabella’s belongings. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh. Of course not,” I say, although it’s a little weird, because Detective Phelan and some other guy were here a few days ago. They took Isabella’s computer and some laundry and other personal items.

Darlene shuffles away, and I can practically feel every part of my body turn red as I spot Anthony on the other side of my door, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. He takes one out to give me a halfhearted wave that shows he feels as awkward as I do.

“Sorry to surprise you,” he says as I let him in the room. He’s carrying two small cardboard boxes that aren’t nearly big enough to hold all of Isabella’s stuff.

“It’s fine.” I cross my arms over my tank top. “Are your parents coming?”

Anthony shakes his head. His hair looks a little cleaner than the last time I saw him, and he shaved. The thought that it’s maybe because he knew he was going to see me sends a jolt of electricity to my toes. “My mom is a PA at MassGen. She works nights, so it’s hard for her to get here. And my dad is really sick, as you probably noticed. MS.”

I nod, even though Anthony isn’t looking at me. His eyes are on Isabella’s side of the room. His body is tense as he glances from her bed to her desk, like he’s staring at the room of a stranger.

I sit on my bed and pull my knees up to my chest. I’m suddenly aware of the fact that there’s a really attractive guy in my room who also might be a little unstable, and no, I am not wearing a bra.

Butterflies swarm in my stomach as I watch his eyes rest on my chest. He totally notices the bra thing, because his cheeks and neck flush.

“So, er, do you want help with…” I point to the boxes at Anthony’s feet.

“Huh? Oh.” His gaze drops from me to the floor.

“I mean, if you want me to leave so you can have some privacy, I understand too—”

“No. Stay. If you want.”

I do. I don’t really understand why, but I want to be wherever Anthony is right now. Maybe it’s because he’s the only person who’s not afraid to talk about Isabella.

And he could be the perfect person to help me.

We pack up the things the police didn’t collect as evidence—Isabella’s DVDs, a plastic box holding nail polish and handmade braided bracelets. We work in silence for a while, until Anthony finds a file folder on her desk. “Hey, do you think I should throw all this out? It’s just graded papers and other crap.”

I shrug and he hands it to me. I rifle through its contents; it looks like Isabella saved everything she did since September. Her work from Latin is at the front of the pile. She got an A on the first assignment.

“Find something interesting?” Anthony asks.

“I don’t know,” I murmur, flipping through the rest of the assignments. Why the heck did Isabella drop this class? The lowest she got on anything was an A
−
. The stack ends in mid-October.

“Anthony, did your sister mention a class she dropped?” I ask.

“No. We weren’t close.” He’s studying me now. “Why?”

“Just curious.” I need to know what Isabella replaced Latin with. When Anthony turns back to the box of DVDs next to Isabella’s bed, I poke around her desk until I find her schedule.

Instead of Latin, Isabella’s eighth period was … study hall? This can’t be right. Isabella didn’t need a study hall. Every free second Isabella wasn’t in class
was
her study hall. It definitely doesn’t make sense that she dropped a class she had straight A’s in.

“What’s that?” Anthony’s voice behind me makes me jump.

“Isabella’s schedule. Something’s weird. She dropped a class she was getting A’s in for study hall.”

Anthony’s face scrunches up as he considers this. Even if he wasn’t close to his sister, he’s thinking what I’m thinking: It doesn’t sound like Isabella.

“She could have been trying to avoid someone in that class,” I say. “If I can find out who, then—”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? The police can’t get anyone to talk, but you think
you
can?”

“They’re more likely to talk to me. I’m not a threat to them like the police are.”

“I don’t get it.” There’s an edge to Anthony’s voice that makes my heart sink. “What’s in it for you if the school loses its reputation over this? Why aren’t you like everyone else who doesn’t give a shit who killed my sister?”

There’s a lump in my throat, but I refuse to let him see how much that stung. “So just because my parents can afford to send me here I must not care about your sister, or anyone but myself for that matter? How do you know I’m not here on scholarship, too?”

He gets up and points to a picture of me swimming with a dolphin. “I’m guessing that wasn’t taken in Florida.”

“No. Turks and Caicos. What does that have to do with anything?” I demand.

Anthony takes half a step toward me, his mouth twisted in a smirk as if I’ve just confirmed all of his assumptions about me. He’s close enough that I can see the ghost of a scar over his full upper lip.

“I’d tell you not to get involved and let the police handle my sister’s murder,” he says. “But I can tell you’re not gonna listen anyway.”

“No, probably not.”

“Look, I want to know who killed her, too. But if you’re not careful about snooping around here, you might as well attach a target to your back.”