Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (29 page)

“Brent is totally gay, Jill,” Lizzie replies. “She’s probably a beard for him.”

Someone snorts. Alexis. “And she’s a
murderer
.”

They’re talking about me, I realize with a wave of horror.

“You really think she did it?” Jill says, her voice hushed.

“Of course she did it,” Alexis snaps. “I mean, she has a record, right? And people are saying she’s been fooling around with Isabella’s brother. I’ll bet they killed her together as some sort of sick game.”

I want to throw up. Are people really saying those things about me and Anthony?

My nausea quickly turns into anger. I fling open the bathroom stall and meet Alexis’s eyes in the mirror. They widen, her mouth frozen in an O, half covered with a horrendous shade of raisin lip gloss.

“Hey ladies,” I say sweetly, even though my voice is threatening to shake. “You’re going to be late for the town hall.”

I flash them a huge smile. They’re still silent, as the bathroom door slams behind me.

*   *   *

“Just so you know,” I tell Anthony after I sneak him into the basement stairwell, “there are some rumors going around. About you and me.”

Anthony’s eyes move to my neckline, sending a flush up my body. “I might be able to live with that.”

“I’m serious,” I say. “If people see us together … they might think we were both involved in Isabella’s murder. So I understand if you don’t want to do this. With me, that is.”

Anthony looks distracted, in a way that makes me wonder if he knows I’m still talking about breaking into Goddard’s office.

“Let them talk,” he says, reaching and tucking my hair behind my ear.

We enter the tunnel from the laundry room and follow the arrows to the administration building. The tunnels are quiet, except for the usual sound of water dripping on stone. Whispering, I tell Anthony about the letters in Molly’s mailbox.

“This girl,” Anthony says. “Do you know what happened to her?”

I shake my head. “My guess is the school thought she was going to talk, so they kicked her out.”

After a beat, Anthony says what I’ve been too afraid to consider: “Or they found another way to shut her up.”

The arrows lead us to a wooden staircase set within the stone wall. Anthony shines the flashlight over the first step. “Check this out. Someone carved something here.”

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

—James Madison

“Sounds about right to me.” I pull the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands, wishing I’d thought to bring a jacket. “Let’s go.”

The stairs dump us into a dark, cluttered room. I nearly trip over a mop bucket.

“Janitor’s closet,” Anthony says. “Looks like our lucky day.”

He points the flashlight at the wall. No, at the key ring dangling from a hook on the wall. It’s one of those big round ones with tons of keys on it.

“Oh,” I say. “Guess we don’t have to pick the lock to Goddard’s office.”

Anthony raises an eyebrow at me. “You sound disappointed.” I shrug and he laughs quietly. “You’re really something, aren’t you?”

I push the closet door open and poke my head out to make sure the coast is clear. We’re on the first floor of the administration building. It’s empty, dark, and completely terrifying. Those hideous portraits stare at us as we inch up the staircase.

“I know this sounds weird,” I whisper to Anthony as we approach Goddard’s office, “but I can just
feel
that we’re going to find something in here.”

“No. I kind of get that.” Anthony tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “Here goes nothing.”

A small, silver key opens Goddard’s office door. I flinch, half expecting an alarm to go off or something. But the only sound inside is the gurgling from the radiator beneath the far window.

Goddard’s office is three times the size of Bailey’s. His desk is an enormous semicircle. Behind it is a portrait of Edward P. Sedgwick, the Wheatley School’s founder. The engraving beneath the portrait is dated 1797.

“Where do we start?” Anthony asks.

It’s a good question. “I don’t know. Anywhere that looks like a good place to hide something, I guess.”

Surprisingly, most of Goddard’s drawers aren’t locked. I’ve been sifting through the contents of them for what feels like forever when Anthony says, “Anne. Check this out.”

I look over to see him on his hands and knees, looking under the desk. I join him. He points to a silver device that looks like a small remote.

“What is that?” I ask. “And how’d you know to look there?”

“Seemed like somewhere a janitor wouldn’t notice.” Anthony shrugs and reaches for the device, turning it over in his hands. There are a bunch of buttons on it: stop, rewind, play. Almost like a tape recorder.

“Oh my God,” I say. “Someone bugged Goddard’s office.”

I take the recorder from Anthony and press play. Today’s date flashes on the digital display. We listen to Goddard speaking, apparently on the phone, with someone about a meeting of the alumni board.

The sound clips are each seven minutes long. I rewind the tape to the beginning, fast forwarding through stretches of silence and one-sided conversations. Phone calls.

Anthony and I stretch out on the floor and let the tape play for what feels like forever before I hear a familiar female voice. I pause and rewind.

“Ah. Diana,” Goddard’s voice says. “Come in. I just brewed a lovely Ethiopian roast.”

“Thank you, Benedict.”

“Upton,” I say aloud. Anthony looks at me. “My Latin teacher,” I explain.

“What can I help you with today, my dear?” Goddard asks. He sounds like Santa Claus, asking a little girl what she wants for Christmas. Not a professional speaking to an employee.

“I was hoping to talk to you about Anne Dowling,” Upton says. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Time seems to stand still as we wait for Goddard to respond.

“Ah. Our newest student.” Goddard’s voice is indifferent.

“Yes. She was also Isabella Fernandez’s roommate,” Upton says. “She walked out of my class today.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, given her track record,” Goddard says. “But I doubt you’ve come here to ask my advice on a minor discipline issue, Diana.”

Upton hesitates. “Benedict, she’s noticed Molly Frank’s absence. She seemed disturbed by it. I wonder how much she knows.”

There’s a clunking sound, almost as if Goddard has set a mug down on his desk. “Are you suggesting Molly talked to her?”

“I don’t know.” Upton lowers her voice. “I’ve been watching Anne in class. She’s shown a sudden interest in Lee Andersen, which worries me.”

“You say that as if you have a reason to be worried, Diana. I’m going to ask you what I asked you last spring: Did Lee Andersen ever lay a hand on Isabella Fernandez?”

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Upton says. “But I’m wondering if we should have done more about his … obsessive behaviors.”

“Diana, if he never touched that girl, this isn’t even a conversation. A man can barely look at a woman without facing allegations of sexual harassment these days. I will not let that sort of liberal discourse dictate how I run my school.” Goddard’s voice is hard. “Lee Andersen is not violent. I know his father. And I won’t let him hang for what I know was a silly schoolboy’s crush.”

Goddard’s words hang in the air. My ears are ringing. Anthony is stone-faced beside me.

“You don’t think we should be worried … if Molly Frank goes to the police?” Upton asks.

“Dr. Harrow has made a convincing argument that Molly is a danger to herself at the present moment,” Goddard says. “I have no doubts the police will find the killer before Molly’s stay in Providence is over.”

Providence. As in Rhode Island? How did the administration pull off hiding Molly away there?

“And in the meantime, how should I deal with Anne Dowling?” Upton asks.

My insides go cold.

“Let me deal with Ms. Dowling,” Goddard says.

Anthony’s hand is on my shoulder. “We need to take this to the police. Now.”

I find myself nodding. “Wait. Then they’ll know we broke in to his office.”

“Then we’ll mail the tape to the department anonymously.”

I slip the recording device into my bag, and we make our way back down to the tunnel. I move as if in a daze, nodding dumbly as Anthony suggests we exit out by the administration garage, where he parked his motorcycle.

Lee probably killed Isabella. Goddard is protecting him.

I’m in danger.

I’m so busy repeating these three facts in my head, I don’t have time to react to the beam of light that lands on us as we come around the side of the parking garage.

CHAPTER

FORTY

“Don’t move,” the voice behind the light says. “Hands where we can see them.”

Anthony and I freeze. A security guard and two police officers emerge from the shadows. One says something into his radio. The security guard surveys my Wheatley School uniform.

“You a student?” he asks. I nod. “IDs,” he commands.

“I don’t go to school here,” Anthony says as the guard thrusts a hand at him.

“Then why are you on private property after hours?” the guard asks.

“He’s my visitor,” I say quickly.

“So if I call and check the visitor log, his name will be on it?”

I’m silent.

“Look, we got a call about a possible break-in on campus,” one of the police officers intervenes. “You two wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”

I shake my head. “Honest. We were just going for a walk.”

The cop’s radio blips, and the security guard frowns at Anthony. “You have any ID on you at all?”

Anthony sneers at the guard as he hands him his driver’s license. When the cops aren’t looking, I jab him in the side with my elbow as if to say
Don’t make this harder on us.

The security guard’s paunchy forehead crinkles as he studies Anthony’s license. “Stay here.”

He joins the cops off to the side, and they talk in hushed voices. One of the cops says something into his radio. After a moment, a crackling voice responds with something that sounds like “Cuff him.”

Panic wells in me as the cops approach Anthony. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“You’re Anthony Fernandez?” the tall cop asks, ignoring me.

Anthony nods. “What’s the problem?”

Something in my head screams
NO!
as the other officer slaps the handcuffs on Anthony. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Isabella Fernandez.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

Technically, I haven’t done anything wrong, but since I freaked out when they took Anthony away, the security guard called Dr. Harrow. They let me have a nervous breakdown in the bathroom first, at least.

Now here I am, back in the administration building, in a cushy chair in Harrow’s office. One of the police officers who found me and Anthony is in here, too. Harrow is wearing a long coat over flannel pants. The police must have gotten him out of bed for this, and I can’t help thinking …
How ridiculous is it that he was ready to go to sleep at nine o’clock anyway?

“Anthony didn’t kill Isabella,” I tell the police officer.

“You sound pretty sure of yourself, Anne,” Dr. Harrow cuts in with a sigh. His eyes probe mine, and I tense in my chair.

“We have overwhelming evidence Anthony Fernandez killed his sister,” the police officer says, and I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or to Harrow. “A 7-Eleven clerk a block away from here recognized Anthony from the newspapers. We have him on tape visiting the store the night Isabella was killed, right when he told us he was with his girlfriend in Somerville.”

Ex-girlfriend,
I want to correct him, even though that’s totally not the point right now. “How does that prove he killed her?”

Harrow gives me a sharp look, but the cop continues. “Someone withdrew a significant amount of money from Isabella’s bank account two days before she was killed. We believe she found out it was her brother, and he killed her when she confronted him.”

The floor is falling from beneath me. Any second, my chair will drop like I’m at the top of a thrill ride. Then I’ll wake up from this, right?

“Anthony didn’t need to steal from Isabella,” is all I can choke out. “He has a job.”

“We have him on a security feed using the ATM where her account was accessed,” the cop says, almost gently. “He’ll be arraigned in the morning.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I
know
he didn’t do it.”

The police officer watches me with pity in his eyes. “Mr. Fernandez—Anthony’s father—used to hunt before he got sick.… One of the knives from his collection is missing.”

I cry out. Harrow opens his mouth but closes it in favor of massaging the area between his eyes. Yes. I am a major headache. Got that. “Anne, I need to talk to Officer Deligatti alone.”

Once it’s clear I don’t plan on moving, Harrow follows the cop out into the hall. I bury my face in my hands. I don’t believe all of this. I don’t
want
to believe it. I refuse to believe that after all I’ve found out, the police have decided Isabella was killed over something as stupid as money.

A few weeks ago, I would have believed it if someone told me Anthony killed Isabella. But the Anthony I’ve come to know is not a murderer. Maybe he didn’t like his sister, and maybe he even stole from her, but he didn’t lure her into the woods and cut her throat.

That’s when it hits me: Anthony is going to be charged with Isabella’s murder, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Tears spring to my eyes and pressure builds in my chest. I let the sobs take over my body. The sound that comes out of me is small, barely louder than a distressed kitten.

I try to focus on something else. If I think of Anthony anymore, I’ll fall apart, and I can’t afford to do that here in Harrow’s office. If I can’t help Anthony right now, at least I can help myself by staying calm so Harrow doesn’t call my parents.

I wipe my eyes; when I open them, all I see is Harrow’s desk. There is a stack of opened mail positioned next to one of those inbox-outbox type plastic bins. The envelope on the top is stamped with
FROM THE OFFICE OF SENATOR STEVEN WESTBROOK.