Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (16 page)

“Hey,” I say after he parks, “I found out some stuff.”

He raises an eyebrow at me, but I can see his curiosity is outweighing whatever’s left of his anger. “Is it about the flash drive?”

“I’m still working on that. Did Isabella ever talk about a guy named Lee Andersen?” I ask.

“She didn’t talk about her love life with me, if that’s what you’re asking.” The area between Anthony’s eyebrows creases. “But as far as I know, Iz never even had a boyfriend.”

“I’m not talking about a boyfriend. I think this guy might have been bothering her … maybe even stalking her.”

Anthony’s expression is pained. “Isabella never would have said anything to us about something like that. She would have been too afraid of worrying my parents and making my dad sicker.”

“That’s pretty selfless,” I say.

“No.” Anthony looks angry again. “It’s stupid. Especially if this guy killed her. What do you know about him?”

“Not much,” I say. “But once I have proof she complained about him, it should be enough for the police to—”

“You can’t go to the police. Not unless you have something solid.”

“Um, why? You’re the one who told me I should leave all this to the police anyway.”

“That was before.” Anthony pauses and looks around, but we’re alone outside the student center. “That was before I looked into things a little more.”

I feel a coil of unease unfold in my stomach at the thought of Anthony knowing something I don’t. “And?”

“I knew there had to be a reason the cops are so afraid of stepping on the school’s toes,” Anthony says. “So I asked around, and I found out a Mass senator’s daughter goes here. The same senator who donated a shitload of money to the Police Benevolent Association and voted to increase police pension and retirement benefits.”

I feel like the air has been squeezed out of my chest.

“Alexis Westbrook,” I say. “Steven Westbrook’s daughter.”

“Yeah, that’s him. You saying you know her?”

“Unfortunately.” I chew the inside of my lip, debating whether or not to tell Anthony my suspicions about Alexis. I go with not. I don’t need to risk setting him off again, and I figure if I’m going to accuse a senator’s daughter of murder—even if it’s only saying it to Anthony—I’d better have more to back it up than the fact that Alexis is a bitch.

“Look, Steven Westbrook can’t buy off the entire police force,” I say. “Even
he
’s not that powerful.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself. Who do you think tampered with the security tape, if it wasn’t someone at the school? Gremlins?” Anthony’s eyes flash. He’s mocking me. Anger swells in my chest.

“They don’t even know for sure if the tape was tampered with. All I’m saying is that I don’t think it’s the police we should be worried about,” I say.

“Why? Because all police officers are good?” Anthony snorts and shakes his head. “Maybe where you’re from.”

“I’m from New York, jackass. Not some magical place where bad things never happen.”

Anthony laughs. He actually
laughs
at me. “Got it. I’m sure your life was so tough there that Mommy and Daddy had to send you to school here.”

“Shut up,” I snap. “Just shut up. You don’t know anything about me, and you know what? I don’t think we can help each other.”

“Fine.” The anger dissolves from Anthony’s face and for a moment I can see the hurt he’s been hiding beneath the tough-guy act. Now he just looks like someone who’s sad and angry because his sister died and no one will give him answers.

But the violence in his expression comes back as quickly as it left. “Go ahead and think I’m being paranoid. The only reason you don’t believe it is because you’re too scared to admit that if you can’t trust the police, everything you were taught to believe is a lie.”

“You don’t know what I believe,” I say to his back as he climbs onto his motorcycle.

Anthony speeds away from the curb without looking back at me, and I can’t shake the thought that maybe I
don’t
know what I believe anymore.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

I can’t sleep that night. I’m anxious that Brent and I won’t be able to pull off Operation Sebastian, and I’m angry at Anthony—angry because he didn’t seem to care that we may never see each other again, and angry because he exposed the gaping hole in my plan.

What am I supposed to do if I figure out who killed Isabella? Will the police even believe me? Will they charge me with interfering with an investigation? Or worse, if Anthony is right and the police are corrupt, how do I know I won’t wind up like Isabella?

Anthony can’t be right, I decide. The police are doing all they can to find Isabella’s killer. They just really suck at it.

It’s Friday evening. Dinner is in an hour, which means it’s about three hours ’til showtime. I narrow the pile of clothes on my bed down to a cashmere black V-neck and a gray sweaterdress. I go with the V-neck and put my hair in a ponytail to draw more attention to the subtle bit of skin I’m showing. I really don’t need to go overboard for a guy like Sebastian: I could probably show up to his room wearing garbage bags and still achieve my goal.

But since I’m seeing Brent too, I spray some perfume on my wrists and put on a pair of dangling silver earrings.

I have time to kill, so I wander the dorms looking for Remy. I find her in the basement, doing laundry.

“Why are you so dressed up?” she asks when she sees me. She hasn’t changed out of her uniform yet.

“Oh, I don’t know. Got bored, I guess,” I lie.

The stair door creaks, and a tall blond girl walks into the room.

“Hey, Jill,” Remy says.

“Hi.” Jill smiles at Remy, and I don’t miss the obvious nasty look she throws me before turning to one of the washing machines and beginning to unload her clothes. What the hell did I do to her? I look at Remy to see if she noticed, but she’s leaning against her dryer, head tilted back in a dramatic sigh.

“I’m so bored. What should we do tonight?” She looks at me expectantly, and it hits me: I’m pack leader now. I get to decide these things.

“Um, there’s actually this thing that I have to do.” I examine my cuticles casually. “With Brent.”

Remy squeals, and Jill looks over at us, her hand frozen on the dryer door.

“It’s for class,” I tell Remy quickly, aware of Jill’s laser gaze. I don’t need her starting rumors about me doing
things
with Brent Conroy on a Friday night.

“Jill, are you coming?” an impatient voice yells from the stairwell. Alexis’s.

“Yeah,” Jill calls back, her face red as she slams the dryer door and leaves without looking back at us.

“Um, did I miss something?” I ask Remy. “’Cause I barely know that girl, and she looked like she wanted to choke me.”

Remy’s mouth forms a small
o.
“Omigod. I’m such an idiot.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything,” I say.

“No. I did. Crap.” Remy puts her hands on her cheeks. “Jill is totally in love with Brent.”

“Oh.” I don’t know why this tidbit of information makes me nauseous. I mean, I pretty much assumed half the school is in love with Brent.

“But it’s okay,” Remy blurts. “They’re just friends. I know you like him, and I think he really likes you, so…”

“Brent and I are just friends, too,” I say coolly, even though I’m imagining Jill getting hit in her perfect little nose with a softball.

“Didn’t look that way at the party,” Remy says.

I hate thinking about that night, and I guess it shows on my face, because Remy’s smile fades. I remember the security tape and bite the inside of my lip.

“Hey, Remy. Is there another way to sneak out of the dorm?” I ask. “Besides the back door?”

“Not that I know of.” She eyes me. “You know what would happen if you got caught now, right?”

“Don’t worry, I don’t want to sneak out. I’m just curious.”

“Oh. Well, they put alarms on all the doors so unless we dig ourselves out of here, looks like we can’t sneak out anymore anyway.” The dryer buzzes, and Remy begins to unload her clothes.

But there
is
a way out. I know because Isabella used it the night she was killed.

I look around the laundry room, thinking maybe there’s a door down here that we don’t know about. There’s only the stairs leading up to the first floor.

But I notice something else. The basement is small. Too small. Basements are supposed to be the same size as the first floor of the building they’re under, right?

I look around and notice there are only windows on one side of the room. They’re high up on the wall, level with the ground outside. I stare at the opposite wall. It’s like the basement is divided up into two rooms, but there’s no way to get to the other side. The first floor lounge is the only place with stairs to the basement.

“Ready?” Remy asks me, cocking her head to the side.

“Yeah.” I shoot a glance back down the stairs as I follow Remy, wondering where I can get a floor plan of Amherst Dormitory.

*   *   *

“So tell me what you think you’ll find in Andreev’s office again?” Brent asks, after he signs me into the boys’ dorm after dinner.

“Hopefully something that tells me why she didn’t want the research position again this year,” I say. “It sounds like it was super competitive.”

Brent nods as I follow him into the elevator. He pushes the button for the fourth floor. “A recommendation from Andreev could get a monkey into MIT. It was a pretty big deal for him to want the same student two years in a row. He kept Isabella after class almost every day when school started … probably to see if she changed her mind.”

“It sounds like he was obsessed with her,” I say. “Maybe she quit because he made a move.”

“I don’t know if that fossil has it in him,” Brent says. “She could have seen something in his research she wasn’t supposed to see.”

I don’t tell Brent I’m already considering that possibility, because I don’t want to explain how I found out about Isabella’s missing flash drive. Just the thought of explaining my relationship with Anthony to Brent gives me a headache.

It also makes me feel guilty, because I’m really into Brent, but I can’t deny that lately, Anthony is the last thing on my mind before I fall asleep. Even though Anthony thinks I’m nothing but a spoiled brat and I basically told him to screw off yesterday.

“Getting cold feet?” Brent asks.

I shake my head and put on some more lip salve. “Let’s do this.”

*   *   *

Sebastian’s face floods with surprise and delight when he opens his door and sees me leaning against the frame. He’s so surprised, he forgets his accent when he greets me.

“Do you have a few minutes?” I twirl a lock of hair around my finger. “I’m trying to do the French homework, and I just don’t understand the short story we were supposed to read.”

“Of course. Come in,” he says. He doesn’t question why I’m doing Monday morning’s homework on a Friday night, but that’s the whole point. Say what you want about guys like Sebastian, but at least they’re dependably predictable.

Sebastian frantically pushes a pile of books and laundry off his bed while I scope out his room. My gaze rests on the black leather messenger bag on his desk chair. I cross my fingers that he keeps the key in there. Or in the worst-case scenario, that Brent’s plan gives me enough time to figure out where else Sebastian could keep the key.

“You don’t have a roommate?” I sit down next to Sebastian on the bed, hoping I can keep my gag reflex in check for long enough to pull this off.

“No. I ’ave, ah, a medical condition, so they gave me a single. Lucky, no?” He inches closer to me and grins.

Ugh, gross. Sebastian actually thinks I want to hook up with him. He’s either delusional, or I deserve an Oscar for my performance so far. “Very lucky,” I purr. “So … the short story?”

“Oh.” Sebastian scrambles through the pile on the floor until he finds the packet Monsieur Gillette gave us. “I think it’s about a man who wants to win a race.”

Wrong. The main character of the story is a mouse, and I’m pretty sure the entire thing is a metaphor for communism. I try to count the minutes that have gone by. Where the hell is Brent? He should have put phase two of the plan into motion by now.

“It’s really a boring story,” Sebastian murmurs, closing the centimeter gap between my leg and his.

That jerk,
I realize. Brent is totally messing with me right now by stalling. I’m going to kill him. Actually staying in Sebastian’s room long enough for him to make a move was
not
in our plan.

“Maybe you could help me with the questions we’re supposed to answer about it,” I say, trying to disguise that I’m inching away from him by making a big show of sliding the elastic off my ponytail.

“You have beautiful hair,” Sebastian trills. “May I touch it?”

Now I’m
really
going to kill Brent.

The frantic knocking at the door nearly makes me sigh with relief. Sebastian apologizes to me and answers it, his face twisted with annoyance.

“What do you want, Conroy?”

“Dude, I heard Kyle is doing a surprise room check tonight,” Brent says. The door is obscuring his face. “Just a heads-up.”

Sebastian looks disturbed by this. “But we just had one last week. What am I supposed to do with all that leftover beer?”

“Hell if I know,” Brent says. “But you better get rid of it. Now.”

“Now isn’t a good time,” Sebastian whines, with a look over his shoulder at me. I shrug at him sympathetically.

“How many bottles of beer are there?” I ask. “You could hide them in one of the washing machines downstairs until the room checks are over.”

Sebastian contemplates this as Brent sticks his head in the room. “Anne! Fancy seeing you here.” His grin takes up half his face. When Sebastian turns his back to me again, I mouth the words
You’re an asshole.

“You have to guard the elevator for me,” Sebastian says to Brent, panic creeping into his voice.

“Just put the bottles in your laundry basket and cover them with clothes,” Brent says. “No one’ll know. I’ve got to go ditch my own stash.”