Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (8 page)

I let out a sharp cry of pain without meaning to.

“I’m sorry,” the guy says in this really strained, low voice. He’s in my Latin class; I don’t know his name, but he’s huge and he wears Clark Kent glasses and he always knows the answer to Upton’s questions. His eyes move to the girl I verbally bitch-slapped and then back to me. He heard everything.

He’s not apologizing for bumping into me. He’s just sorry—either for what the girl said or for Isabella or maybe even me.

And I can’t handle anyone feeling sorry for me. Not after I left her for the party.

I’m out of the dining hall so fast it probably looks like I actually have somewhere to go.

*   *   *

I get to history early because the only thing that sounds worse to me than showing up for class is going back to the dorm and watching the police go through Isabella’s stuff. My professor is waiting for me with a note instructing me to go to Dr. Harrow’s office. I hope it’s because the police found something, even though deep down I know I’m in for a
Please don’t start pulling your hair out and eating it because your roommate died
speech.

Dr. Harrow looks like he’s aged about five years since I saw him a week ago. He stumbles out of his chair when I knock on the door. “Anne. Come in.”

My brain is lighting up with
Danger! Danger! He knows about the party!
I tell myself that Dr. Harrow is young and gentle and probably not the type of person who will expel me for sneaking out Saturday night.

He tells me everything I expected him to tell me. That nothing like this has ever happened at the Wheatley School before; the faculty is very shocked and saddened; it’s especially tragic this had to happen my first week here. He gives me the building and phone number for Student Support Services. It’s all so … expected. That’s why he throws me when he says, “Anne, forgive me if this is too forward, but did you and Isabella get along?”

“What? Of course we did.” I shift in my chair. “I mean, I’ve only known her since Sunday.”

Knew. Knew her.

“Did she … confide in you about anything?” Dr. Harrow presses on. “Or did she say anything at all that might have suggested she was in trouble or worried about something?”

“No,” I say. “She seemed a little off on Saturday, but she only told me she wasn’t feeling well.”

“And she didn’t say anything about going anywhere or meeting anyone Saturday night?”

I shake my head. “Shouldn’t the police be asking me this?”

“Anne, you should know that the administration and staff are cooperating fully with the police, despite any rumors you might hear to the contrary.” Dr. Harrow leans back in his chair. “Since you lived with Isabella, the police think you might be able to help them.”

Something about his voice tells me he doesn’t agree with the police, but he goes on. “The headmaster has given them permission to contact you again. For an official statement.”

“Okay. But they should probably talk to people who knew her better than I did.”

“Of course they will.” There are grayish brown bags under Dr. Harrow’s eyes, which are a brilliant blue. I believe him. “But right now, you’re the closest the police are to finding out where Isabella may have gone Saturday night.”

As I collect my bag and let him walk me to the door, I get the feeling he probably wasn’t supposed to tell me that.

But there’s something else bothering me. Something that doesn’t make sense about what Dr. Harrow said.
Nothing like this has ever happened at the Wheatley School before.

I think of what Brent told me last week, about Matthew Weaver. A missing student who is probably dead hardly counts as nothing. Have they really forgotten about him?

And will everyone forget about Isabella just as easily?

*   *   *

The only reason I go to dinner that night is because Remy and Company won’t get out of my room unless I agree to. And I can’t keep watching them eye Isabella’s side of the room like she’s going to jump out of the closet any minute and yell that this is all a big joke.

Even though I wish it were.

The dining hall is the quietest I’ve ever heard it when we walk in. Everyone is talking in hushed voices, and the looks on their faces say they’re all talking about the same thing. A few pairs of eyes linger on me as we find the most private table possible.

Cole and Murali spot us from a table not far away. They pick up their trays and move toward us, leaving Alexis completely alone at the table. My gag reflex goes off as she rolls her eyes and follows them.

Murali squeezes my shoulder and Cole nods to me. Alexis, of course, ignores me and sets her tray down on the table a little too hard. A male RA walks by us, depositing a white sheet of paper on the table.

“We have an assembly after dinner. Goddard is going to talk to us,” Alexis announces without even looking at it.

No one questions it, because it’s just the sort of thing Alexis would know about and we wouldn’t. Apparently the headmaster showing his face is a Really Really Big Deal, though. Everyone suddenly looks antsy in a way that makes me seriously wonder what this Goddard guy has done to strike such fear in their preppy little hearts.

I reach for the white paper.
Mandatory assembly in Blackwood Hall at 7:30 this evening. Attendance will be taken.

“Do you think they know who did it?” Kelsey asks.

“It was probably some drug dealer,” Alexis says. “Why else would she be in the forest in the middle of the night?”

I set down my fork. “Did you get that idea from your ass, Alexis? Because I know you didn’t get it from the news.”

Murali looks like he wants to give me a high five. Everyone else looks at Alexis. Her cheeks flush as deep as her sweater, and she’s about to open her mouth when someone loudly shoves a chair between me and Remy.

“Scoot over,” Brent says to her. Wet curls poke out from beneath his knit hat.

“You okay?” Remy purses her lips at Brent. She pushes her bowl of sliced strawberries toward him, but Brent ignores it and turns to me. “Have you heard from that detective again?”

“Not since I talked to him yesterday.”

Alexis’s voice is clipped. “You talked to the cops?”

“Of course I did,” I say. “Isabella was my roommate.”

“They told us not to.” Alexis stares at me like I belong in a school where the main subjects are shoe-tying and counting change. It’s the same way she looked at me my first day, and then again when I walked into her Calculus class.

If I didn’t have more obvious things to worry about, I would take this bitch down.

“I talked to my dad today,” Cole cuts in. That gets everyone quiet.

“He’s the attorney general of Massachusetts,” Alexis says without looking at me, even though I’m obviously the only person at the table who didn’t know this.

Remy shushes her. “What’d he say? Does he know anything?”

“He wouldn’t tell me much. He said the police commissioner is going to release more information tomorrow … but they’re saying this probably wasn’t random. Whoever killed Isabella probably knew her.”

A hush falls over the table. April opens her mouth as if to say something, but Alexis gives her a hard look. April picks up her fork and turns it over in her hands.

No one is looking at one another.

*   *   *

I know the man who’s stepped out onto the auditorium stage is the headmaster, based on the sheer fact everyone looks like they’re about to wet their pants. Bailey has the same effect on people, until you do something totally ridiculous, like program your best friend’s cheating ex’s laptop with a virus that blasts “I’m a Slave 4 U” on loop during theology class. Then she’ll crack and laugh at your moxie while sharing peanut M&M’s with you in her office.

Headmaster Goddard doesn’t seem like the M&M-sharing type.

The auditorium is so quiet I can hear my heartbeat.

“The Wheatley School and community lost a valuable member this weekend,” he begins. “Isabella Fernandez was a hard-working, generous, and kind-hearted student and friend. We ask you to respect her memory by avoiding the temptation to speak with any members of the media you may see in the surrounding area.

“I understand many of you have questions regarding the senseless nature in which this promising young woman’s life was taken away. Unfortunately, the faculty does not have the answers to your questions at the current time. Rest assured that the staff, administration, and Suffolk Police are confident in your safety on campus. Security will be increased in light of the pending investigation. However, this incident should serve as a tragic reminder that
leaving
the dormitories after proscribed curfew hours is a serious infraction.”

Is he trying to say that this was Isabella’s fault? What an asshole.

Goddard clears his throat. “Any student with pertinent”—he pauses on the word—“information that may aid the investigation is reminded to see me, Dr. Harrow, or Dean Tierney, Dean Watts’s replacement. Thank you for your respectful attention. Memorial service information will be available in the coming days.”

Goddard exits, and Harrow steps onto the stage. The climate in the auditorium immediately relaxes. Harrow clears his throat and taps the top of the microphone. He tells us how sorry he is that we’ve lost a classmate in such a brutal and senseless manner, but I tune out once he starts playing rumor patrol. I’ve been reading enough news articles to know the facts:

1. Isabella’s throat was cut.

2. She had no personal items on her except her Wheatley Student ID.

3. No one in the teachers’ cottages across from the forest heard or saw anything.

My roommate is dead, I realize, as if for the first time. I turn my head and survey the sea of bodies behind me. Almost everyone is watching Harrow with unsettled looks on their faces; some have their eyes cast downward, whispering to the people next to them. How could no one have seen Isabella the night she was killed? By sheer probability alone, someone must have run into her.

My roommate is dead. And someone here knows more than they’re telling.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

I really wish I could take back whining about not being able to wear my new BCBG dress, because it’s the only thing in my closet appropriate enough for Isabella’s wake. The sleeves are long and the skirt comes up to my mid-thigh, but with black tights and a sweater, I almost look like I know what I’m doing.

I was six at the only funeral I’ve ever been to. Grandpa Harold died. Enough people came to fill up St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and when my mom wasn’t listening, my father said all of them probably just wanted to make sure he was dead. I don’t really remember much other than that St. Patrick’s was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, so I spent the whole service pretending I was Esmeralda and inside Notre Dame.

After getting dressed, I French-braid my hair and sit on the edge of my bed. My stomach hurts and I just want to go home. I know my parents would let me, considering the circumstances, but there’s no check big enough from Kenneth Dowling to convince any school in New York to accept mid-semester the arsonist from the Upper East Side.

I can’t switch schools again without totally screwing up my transcript and whatever chances I have left of getting into a decent college. I have to stick it out, even though the coolest person I met here is laying in a casket instead of tormenting me with corny songs she made up to remember dates for her history test, like she should be right now.

Remy, April, and Kelsey are waiting for me downstairs. They’re all in gray wool skirts and ruffly black blouses, their hair held back by headbands. I look so out of place in my heels, and I feel even more out of place because I’m not related to a president and I’ve never been to Nantucket. I can’t even figure out the train system here by myself, which is the only reason I’m not going to the wake alone.

We meet Brent and Cole by the bell tower between the dorms. The service is being held in Somerville, which is about a fifteen-minute “T” ride outside Wheatley. (I now know that the T is the Massachusetts term for the subway, thanks to an embarrassing dinner conversation where I thought everyone was talking about golf.)

It’s too cold to talk as we walk to the station and wait for the train. There are a couple of people from our class waiting on the platform, their eyes on the ground, on their cell phones.
They don’t want to make eye contact with us,
I realize. It annoys me, because we all have something in common right now—our classmate died—and it really wouldn’t freaking kill anyone to act like it.

There aren’t many free seats open on the train. I sit between Remy and April, watching as Brent offers the last open seat to a girl who flushes like she’s both nervous and enthralled that he actually spoke to her.

When she sits down, I get a good look at her round and freckly face. She’s Molly, the girl I saw Isabella talk to after class sometimes. Without thinking, I get up and squeeze through the standing bodies, nearly causing a super-embarrassing scene when the train lurches forward and my heels threaten to give out beneath me.

“Excuse me,” I say to the boy sitting next to her. “Do you mind if I sit next to Molly for a sec?”

The boy looks from Molly to me and shrugs before leaving me his seat.

“How do you know my name?” Molly asks. Her voice isn’t accusatory. Just curious.

“Isabella told me you guys were kind of friends,” I say.

“We weren’t close or anything.” Molly casts her eyes down and flicks a piece of lint from her skirt. “But she was a townie, too, so—”

“A townie?”

Molly’s cheeks redden. “It’s what everyone calls kids from the suburbs who go to the school on full scholarship. Isabella’s family lives in Somerville.”

“Oh.” I’m not surprised or anything, since I knew Isabella didn’t really fit in with the rich kids. It’s just weird that I’m learning all of this stuff about her now. Would she ever have told me herself?

“I’m Anne, by the way,” I say.

Molly bobs her head. “I know. Isabella liked you a lot.”

Now I’m surprised. I mean, I really liked Isabella, and we had a lot of fun together, but in the back of my mind I had this feeling that she was only … tolerating me. Like she was stuck with this princess-y new roommate from New York City, so she might as well make the best of it.