The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (64 page)
“Screw you.”
“Miss Brennan!” the dean growled.
It just came out. Sorry. I’m from Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania, remember? Can’t be responsible for my sense of decorum while my new boyfriend is being hauled off for murdering my last one.
The detective backed me up and I stared at the folds of his coat. The three of us stood in the center of the hallway as several police officers escorted Josh out the doors and into the cold. A couple more searched the floor with their flashlights, looking for God knows what.
“What were you two doing here, Reed?” the detective asked me.
I looked him dead in the eye, incensed. “You do not get to ask me questions. You told me once that you would keep me informed about the investigation. You promised me,” I rambled. “Now I want you to tell me. Why are you arresting Josh? Did you find something? I don’t understand.”
The detective shook his head and turned away from me. “You need to calm down first.”
“No!”
I grabbed the sleeve of his ever-present trench coat. He looked down at my hand, surprised, and shot me a look that said,
Do you really want to be doing that?
I did not let go.
“Tell. Me.”
“Miss Brennan.”
They seemed to be the only two words the dean could say.
The detective reached down and gently removed my fingers from his arm. He let my hand go and I crossed my arms over my
chest, lifting my chin. They had nothing. I knew it. I knew they had nothing.
“We found the murder weapon, Reed,” he said quietly.
My jaw clenched. I felt myself start to drift. A defense mechanism.
“What was it?” My voice was full.
“A baseball bat.”
I blinked. My vision blurred entirely. A baseball bat. The violence that implied was too much for my brain to handle.
“Josh Hollis’s baseball bat. With his fingerprints, and
only
his fingerprints, all over it.”
One fat tear escaped and tumbled down my chin, dropping onto my sleeve.
“I’m sorry, Reed,” Detective Hauer said. “You have no idea how sorry.”
Dean Marcus walked me back to Billings. Noelle, Ariana, and Kiran all stood outside with their coats on, waiting for me. I didn’t even feel relieved to see them. I was never going to feel anything ever again.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” the dean said from behind me.
Tomorrow I would be going home. That was what he meant. Tomorrow this nightmare would be over and I would be returned to my previous nightmare.
“Reed.”
Ariana stepped forward and hugged me. I didn’t move. Didn’t try to hug her back. She didn’t seem to notice. When she pulled away, she gripped my upper arms with both hands and looked me in the eye.
“Are you all right?”
I stared at her. Looked past her to Noelle and Kiran. I walked past them all. Numb.
“I’m sorry, Reed.”
I stopped short. Noelle had just apologized. Slowly, I turned.
“I’m the one who called the police. I couldn’t let you be holed up in Mitchell Hall alone with that psycho.”
I didn’t ask how she knew where we were. She, as I was constantly being reminded, knew everything.
“Don’t call him that,” I said.
“Reed, he
is
a psycho,” Kiran told me, stepping forward. “When Noelle called the police, they were already out looking for him. They had just found the murder weapon. If they hadn’t gotten there in time—”
“Shut up,” I said, my voice flat.
“Reed. I just saved your life,” Noelle said.
I looked up from the ground and into her dark eyes. She really believed that. She believed Josh would have killed me if she hadn’t made the call. Was she right? Was Josh the insane one around here? Or was it Noelle who was delusional? Delusional enough that she could make herself believe she was innocent? That she cared about other people. That she was above reproach. I glanced over at Ariana, at her cool, ice-blue eyes. At Kiran and her expectant, self-righteous stare. These were my friends. These were the people I had chosen. Who had chosen me.
“I told you, Reed,” Noelle said, stepping forward. She reached up and flicked my hair behind my shoulder, smoothing it down. “I just wanted to protect you.”
“I know,” I said. “Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t made that call.”
It was what they wanted to hear. It was the only thing that would get me away from them.
Noelle’s face finally broke into a smile. Mission accomplished. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to bed now.”
My hand was on the front door at Billings when Noelle spoke again.
“I’ll always be here for you, Reed. We all will. We’re not going anywhere.”
The wind whistled down from the trees, and a chill raced down my spine.
“Not ever.”
Natasha was not, as I had anticipated, waiting for me in our room to shower me with concern. Most likely she was up on the roof talking to Leanne, relating everything that had happened. Good. I felt like I needed to be alone. The lights were all out, but her computer screen glowed, casting an eerie blue sheen over everything. I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared.
A baseball bat. Josh’s fingerprints. Hauer was sorry.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what Josh had said just before the police arrived. That we were all Noelle’s puppets. That she was the one who’d suggested Rick as a suspect. And he was right. Josh might have turned the guy in, but it had been Noelle who had planted the seed that day in the car. Did it mean anything, or was it just one more thing Josh had said to throw me off his scent?
Who was telling the truth? Was anyone? Did these people even know what truth was anymore, or had they just twisted its meaning to fit their needs like they did with everything else?
Natasha’s computer let out a blip. I glared at it. It was impeding my downward spiral. Then I saw that an IM screen had popped up in the corner. Every inch of me started to throb.
It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. But I had to know.
I pushed myself up and walked slowly across the room. In the box was a screen name I didn’t recognize.
Girl_with_a_Pearl:
Reed?
My blood ran cold. As I watched, the computer bleeped again. Another message popped up.
Girl_with_a_Pearl:
Reed? R U there?
I sat down in Natasha’s chair. My mouth was clammy and sour. My fingers trembled.
Rbrennan391:
who is this?
Girl_with_a_Pearl:
prove u r Reed.
My heart stopped beating.
Rbrennan391:
how?
Girl_with_a_Pearl:
ur middle name, brother’s name, dog’s name. u have 10 seconds.
What the? How could I type that fast when I was about to quake to death?
Rbrennan391:
Myra, Scott, Hershey. WHO IS THIS???
There was a long pause. I sat there, petrified, waiting for the computer to tell me that Girl_with_a_Pearl had logged off. Then, suddenly, the bleep.
Girl_with_a_Pearl:
It’s Taylor. Whatever they told you about me is not true. It’s all lies, Reed. All of it. You have to believe me. . . .
Chapter 8: These Are My Friends
Chapter 13: A Billings Christmas
Chapter 25: Good News and Bad News
Chapter 43: Return to Bradwell
When faced with tragedy, we gather as many people around us as we possibly can. Mere acquaintances become best friends. Enemies become kindred spirits. We need people so later we can look back and say, “I went through that with them.” People who can remind us that what we experienced, what we felt, was real. That we were there. So on that morning in early December, when we were all roused from our cozy dorm rooms just as the gray mist of dawn had started to rise, everyone set about finding that group to cling to. Someone to link arms with to make us feel less vulnerable, less unsure. Less like the world was on the verge of caving in.
My group had found me. They had huddled around me from the moment we stepped out of Billings House and hadn’t broken ranks once on the slow walk across the Easton Academy campus to the chapel. Noelle. Ariana. Kiran. Natasha. Then, further out, Cheyenne, Rose, London, Vienna, and the others, their shoes crunching through the frost-caked grass. They wanted me to feel safe. To feel protected.
Or so it must have looked to the outside world. In my world—in my head—I was no longer sure of anything.
Where had the police taken Josh? Was he scared? Was he cold? What was he thinking? I kept seeing his face. The look of shock as they dragged him away. The pleading in his eyes. I kept hearing him tell me he could never hurt Thomas. Could I believe him? Could I believe anyone at Easton anymore?
It’s all lies, Reed,
Taylor had written to me.
All of it.
There was a shout in the distance. Someone near me flinched. Everyone paused and turned, but there was nothing to see. Two crows cawed their way across the gray sky overhead, and for a long moment no one moved. Hundreds of steaming clouds of breath mingled in the air around us. Silence.
“Let’s go,” Noelle said finally, nudging us forward.
I looked at her face for the first time all morning. The cold had turned her cheeks pink, and her brown eyes were bright. Beautiful as ever. She smiled at me reassuringly as the wind tossed her thick brown hair across her face. I didn’t smile back.
Footsteps jogged to catch up with us. Soon Dash McCafferty and Gage Coolidge were upon us, falling into step.
“Hey.” Dash kissed Noelle’s temple. His blond hair had been blown up on the side by the wind and stuck there, making him look even more like an Abercrombie model than usual.
“What was that?” Noelle asked, glancing back over her shoulder.
“Vultures,” Gage said through his teeth. His striped rugby scarf was tossed around his neck and chin, and his hair was slick with
water from the shower. He must have been freezing, but he was too cool to show it.
“Reporters,” Dash amended. “They’re camped out down by the gates. Dean Marcus had them locked last night after the police left. My father got a phone call an hour ago informing him of heightened security measures. They must’ve called all the parents.”
“Fab,” Kiran said. “Bet my mother
loved
that wake-up call.”
“One of ’em scaled the fence, though. Trey was on his run and saw Scat ‘escorting’ some slag with a video camera off campus,” Gage informed us. He made a fist with one leather-gloved hand and pressed it into his other palm. “Fucking vultures.”