Very Bad Things (23 page)

He heard a thud as someone hit the stone floor, and the noise of legs and arms slapping the rock in convulsions.

“Mark!” Katie sobbed his name. “Say that you’re okay!”

“I’m … okay,” he breathed, rolling onto his back, gulping in musty air. He felt Katie’s hands touch his face, the twine around her wrists scratching his cheek.

And somewhere very near, Mark heard Tessa say over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Mark felt Katie’s head turn, and she asked in a shaky voice, “Tessa, you stunned Peter, not Mark?” Then she was crying. “You did that for me,” she said, sobbing. “You did the right thing.”

“I had no choice,” Tessa replied in an eerily calm voice. “I lied to you, Katie. He wanted to keep you down here. He wasn’t going to let you go. I couldn’t let him do that, could I?”

“No,” Katie said. “No.” She wrapped her arms around Mark and held on to him tightly. “Don’t let me go,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” he told her. “I swear to God, I won’t.”

T
he sun shone down brightly, as if nothing in the world were out of place and this day were like every other spring day before it.

But Katie knew good and well that it wasn’t.

Rose Marie Tatum had been buried a half hour earlier. And she’d been wearing the St. Sebastian medallion, the one the police had found around her neck in that shallow grave in the woods. Katie had given it to Mark to protect him. Since Rose hadn’t had anyone to protect her in this life, Katie hoped maybe St. Sebastian would protect her in the afterlife. It was worth a shot.

Dozens of students from Whitney had attended the service and the school had paid for Rose’s burial, along with the huge spray of red roses that covered her casket. Katie was glad for the turnout since she didn’t see anyone show up who acted
like Rose’s family. A number of townsfolk had paid their respects, too, and the other waitress from the diner who had been Rose’s roommate. Katie heard that Rose’s mother had always been fonder of alcohol than she was of her own child, and no one had ever really been sure who her father was.

In a way, Rose had been as much an orphan as Tessa.

They’d both experienced plenty of pain way too early in life.

The police ruled Rose’s death an overdose and charged Steve Getty with manslaughter. Only Steve had disappeared from the school’s clinic in the middle of the night—twelve fresh stitches in his face—before the Barnard police could arrest him. Word had it that his ambassador father had swooped in and jetted off with him, taking him out of the country this time, most likely to a place where he couldn’t be extradited.

Slimy bastard
, Joelle had texted Katie when everyone learned what Steve had done and that he’d skipped town.
Now he got away with murder
.

On the other hand, Peter Lupinski wasn’t getting away with anything, not this time around. He’d survived getting Tasered but faced three counts of murder in the first degree. Peter Mikhail Lupinski—the
real
Peter—would likely be locked up for the rest of his life. Cutting off a dead girl’s hand was the least of it. Dr. Capello wanted him committed to a psychiatric facility rather than the state prison. She was quoted in the
Barnard Gazette
as saying, “He’s severely physically and emotionally scarred. He isn’t fit to stand trial.”

In that same article, Katie read that they’d be digging up
the bones from Peter Lupinski’s grave. Dr. Arnold and his associates at the hospital’s cadaver lab would consult with a forensic anthropologist to try to determine who had really died in the fire instead of Peter.

“He didn’t belong to anyone. No one missed him,” Tessa had said so dismissively. But Katie knew she was wrong.

Everyone belonged to
someone
. Everyone came from somewhere. Everyone had a name and a right to be properly put to rest.

How had Katie not guessed that her best friend was hiding something so big, so dark? Tessa had kept the secret well. Had guarded it fiercely. All to protect a brother too damaged to lead a normal life.

And Tessa had been damaged, too. According to the
Gazette
, the local prosecutor was still trying to decide what charges to press against her. Katie hoped Dr. Capello would help Tessa get treatment, too. Maybe she wasn’t too broken to be fixed.

No matter what Tessa had done, Katie felt incredibly sorry for her. She’d hardly had a chance to be anything but broken.

How she wished things had been different! If only Tessa had opened up to her, had let her help. In a way, Katie felt like she’d buried her best friend today, too.

And it sucked.

“Time to go,” Mark said, and tugged her hand as the crowd of mourners began to disperse.

Katie looked away from Rose’s grave and into Mark’s face. His neck was still mottled with bruises from Peter’s hands.
But his eyes were calm, and she knew he was relieved to have the truth come out despite the rough path to get there.

“Do you believe in heaven?” she asked on a whim, thinking of her father and her grandfather. Of Rose Tatum and the Lupinskis. Surely they were in a better place.

“I guess I do,” Mark said, and glanced above them at the endless blue sky. Then he looked at her so warmly her heart melted. “If you don’t believe in something, you’ve got nothing, right?”

“Right.” Katie squeezed his hand and smiled.

T
he ice rink was packed.

Katie figured every Whitney Prep student was there, filling the stands, eager to cheer on what was left of their hockey squad. It wasn’t the state championship, which they’d had to forfeit because of all the turmoil. But the Briarcliff Bears, state champions by default, wanted to play the Soaring Eagles nonetheless, and the Eagles had accepted.

Everyone on campus was stoked. It was something fun and light after weeks that had seemed so dark and harsh.

“It’s just a friendly match, nothing at stake,” Mark had told Katie when she’d talked to him before he’d gone into the locker room to gear up.

But Katie knew it was way more than that.

This was Mark’s last game as a senior, his last game as captain, and he wanted to win. With Steve Getty gone to God knows where and Charlie a scratch while he recovered,
the team wasn’t at full strength. But Mark had something to prove. If anyone could lead them to a win by guts alone, Katie was sure it was him.

It felt odd, at first, sitting in the stands without Tessa attached to her hip. But Katie knew Tessa was attending daily counseling sessions and trying to get her life back together after losing her scholarship and being expelled from Whitney. She was being held at a juvie detention center the next town over until the judge presiding over her case decided how to proceed. Katie had already gotten a letter from Tessa, apologizing for everything. She planned to write her back one of these days. Just not yet. Soon. When she knew better what to say.

“Hey, move the ugly hobo, would you?” Joelle Needham scowled down at her from the aisle. “You’re taking up two seats with that thing.”

Katie murmured, “Sorry,” before putting her bag between her feet.

“That’s better.” Joelle wiggled her curvy backside into the space beside Katie and shoved a bag of popcorn into her hands. “Eat up, Barton,” she said, before drawing out a compact and touching up her lip gloss. “You’re looking scary scrawny these days. I swear, you wouldn’t even have matching socks if I didn’t keep an eye on you.”

Katie suppressed a giggle. That Joelle had decided to shuck her posh friends and start hanging around her was downright funny.

She started stuffing her face with popcorn, then mumbled with her mouth full, “Are you happy now?”

Joelle gave her a sideways look and sighed. “I swear, you’re like a new puppy. Am I going to have to paper-train you?”

Katie almost choked on a kernel laughing.

She stopped goofing off when the lights went down and a spotlight appeared, shining on the open slot in the boards where the home team would come skating out.

The crowd began to roar as the announcer wailed, “Your Soaring Eagles starting lineup!”

Katie held her breath until she saw Mark appear, a huge smile on his face like she hadn’t seen in weeks.

“And introducing the captain, Mark Suuuuummers,” the announcer said, dragging out the name like he’d never stop.

Katie’s heart felt near to bursting. She couldn’t help it. She jumped to her feet, clapping and hooting, showering Joelle with popcorn.

“For God’s sake,” Joelle muttered, brushing the buttery stuff from her lap. “You’re not just a puppy, you’re a puppy on crack. I think being your friend is going to take some getting used to.”

But Katie was screaming “
Gooo
, Eagles!” so loudly she couldn’t hear much of anything except the sound of her own voice.

She realized something in that moment: it didn’t matter that this game didn’t count and Mark wouldn’t get the state championship MVP award to add to Whitney’s trophy case. Maybe it wasn’t the picture-perfect ending to their senior year that either of them had dreamed of. But considering what they’d been through, it wasn’t half bad. No, it wasn’t bad at all.

Many thanks to Wendy Loggia and Krista Vitola for their insightful and meticulous notes during the creative process.
Very Bad Things
would not be the roller-coaster ride that it is without such brilliant direction. Big hugs to Christina Hogrebe for all her hard work behind the scenes. And much love to my husband, my daughter, Grandma, and Nana, who gave me time to write (and kept me sane throughout!).