The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (59 page)

“Yeah. Soon,” Josh said with a small smile, and I knew he got my message.

He kicked the soccer ball back to me as he walked off. The two policemen flanked him, and even though he was quite tall, he looked like a child between them, his head hanging. I glanced at Dean Marcus.

“I’ll escort you back to Billings, Miss Brennan,” he said sourly.

There had been a point in my career at Billings, however brief, when the dean had no idea who I was. What I wouldn’t give to reclaim that anonymity.

Mrs. Lattimer confined me to my room for the rest of the day. She came to get me at lunchtime and walked me over to the cafeteria. Josh was not there. She then walked me back. This was, of course, not necessary—I wasn’t about to make a break for Hell Hall and bust in on Josh and the cops—but I kept my mouth shut. Lattimer smiled more during those walks than I had ever seen her smile before. Putting those hawklike qualities to good use made her happy, I suppose.

Alone in my room, I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t stop thinking about Josh. Worrying about him. Wondering what they were asking him. What more could he possibly have to tell them? They had already interviewed him several times. It wasn’t Josh’s fault they couldn’t do their jobs and figure out what had happened to Thomas. It was amazing how I had come to this school to study and better myself and ensure that I would never have to go back to Croton, Pennsylvania, after high school again, and instead I was spending the bulk of my time worrying about guys. Where had I gone wrong?

Just to compound my feelings of loneliness and confusion, Taylor still had not e-mailed me back. The more I checked my e-mail, the more disheartened I became. It looked like I was going to have to wait until she returned on Sunday night to talk to her, but I still wasn’t quite ready to give up. I wrote another quick plea and sent it into the ether. Maybe she would message me to quit stalking her. At least it would be something.

Between the Josh situation and the Taylor disappearance, I was driving myself crazy with questions that couldn’t possibly be answered, so I decided to force myself to study. Once I cracked open my books and got started. I was absorbed again. I had a lot to catch up on, and with each item I ticked off my list, I felt a distinct sense of accomplishment. What better way to keep my mind off Josh’s troubles than to concentrate on thwarting my academic demise? It was definitely better than pacing the floor.

The sun started to go down early—as it did these days—and I flicked on my desk light. When my cell phone rang, it nearly startled all the major organs right out of me. I was surprised to see Noelle’s name on the caller ID.

“Hello?” I said, pushing away from my desk.

“Hey, Reed. How’s Siberia?”

“Fine,” I said with a smirk. “How’s New York?”

“It’s New York,” she said. “I spent half the day at Bergdorf’s watching my mother try on slacks.”

“How very glamorous,” I said.

“At least I got a new purse out of the deal.”

Like she needed one. She had about five hundred already, stuffed in every crevice of her room.

“So how’s Thanksgiving at the caf? It’s hard to believe anything actually goes on when we’re not there.”

I blinked, surprised. Was she really just calling me to chat? About me, of all things? She must have been really bored. Still, I was touched that she’d chosen to call me instead of . . . well,
anyone
else. I stood up and walked over to my bed, then settled back against the pillows for what might turn into my first-ever pointless phone conversation with a girlfriend. Yet another random way in which becoming a Billings Girl seemed to be paying off.

Maybe if I kept her on the phone long enough—got her guard down—I could ask her about Taylor. Find out what they had fought about, and whether or not Noelle had actually known Taylor was leaving early.

“It wasn’t bad, actually, but today kind of sucked,” I told her.

“Why? What happened?”

“The police dragged Josh off for more questioning,” I replied. “They made it sound like they were back to square one with the investigation.”

“And they think Josh knows something?” Noelle asked, sounding suddenly very alert.

“I don’t know, maybe. They think he might have forgotten to tell them something that might help,” I said, my heart turning over. “Actually, they sort of implied that they thought he might have purposely not told them something.”

Silence. I expected a scoff or a laugh or some kind of reaction. All I got was silence.

“Noelle?”

“So what happened?” she asked.

“I have no idea. I haven’t seen him all day,” I replied. “God, what if they’ve had him holed up
all day
questioning him?”

“You seem more than a little concerned,” Noelle said, suddenly sly.

I blushed and was happy she wasn’t in the room to see it. Part of me would have loved to dish with a girlfriend about my new crush. But I already knew from my experience with Constance that this whole thing might not go over well. I didn’t want to risk any negative feedback. Not when I still shivered every time I thought of our kiss.

“There’s really nothing else to think about around here,” I told her flatly. “I just hope he’s okay.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll be fine,” Noelle said.

“Yeah, but—”

“Believe me. If anyone can handle an inquiry, it’s Josh Hollis,” Noelle said.

I froze. “What does that mean?”

Another beat of silence.

“Nothing. It’s just Josh. You know Josh. He’s the most mature person at Easton,” Noelle said quickly. “He’s more mature than most of the professors.”

She wanted me to laugh, I could tell, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t shake the feeling she had meant something by her comment.

“Noelle—”

“Hang on.” She covered the phone with her hand and I heard her shouting something, but it was muffled. Then, a moment later, she was back. “I’ve gotta go, Reed. We’re late for drinks before the opera. It’s kind of a family tradition. But I’ll see you on Sunday.”

“Wait a second.”

“Don’t read so much into every little thing, Reed. I was just talking,” Noelle said in that patronizing tone that always made me feel like I was five. “You’ll see Josh at dinner and everything will be fine.”

I sighed. She was rushing and I knew I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. “I hope so.”

“I have to go,” Noelle said. “Later.”

Then the line went dead.

My books sat on my desk, ready and waiting, but suddenly the very idea of getting up from my bed exhausted me. I hunkered down and decided to wait there until Lattimer sprang me for my next meal. Wait there and obsess.

Noelle was right about one thing: I did see Josh at dinner. He walked in half an hour later than everyone else, with Mr. Cross, and he looked like roadkill. His skin was waxy, his face was drawn, and his curls were in desperate need of a hot-oil treatment.

Yes, that was the first thing I thought when I saw him. Apparently, pilfering things from Kiran’s room was causing her worldview to rub off on me.

But in the next second, I felt an overwhelming, almost suffocating anger. That this was happening. That they were keeping us away from each other. That Josh was being put through hell. That nothing could just be normal.

I sat up straight and Josh glanced at me from the corner of his eye. In that one look, there was more anger and fear than I could even comprehend. He said a few words to Cross, they argued, and then Cross finally sighed and pressed his lips together in a disapproving manner. Then he nodded. Josh walked away from him so fast it was like he’d been pushed.

“Hey,” I said, standing up as he approached.

I felt extremely conspicuous. My face was red. I could feel it trying to burn itself free. All I wanted to do was hug him, but every pair of eyes in the room was on us. Like we were suddenly the black sheep of the student body.

“Hey.”

Dean Marcus glared at us as Mr. Cross came over and leaned toward his ear. My heart pounded with anger and trepidation. I focused on the anger and stared back at the dean.

Just try me.

He looked away.

Josh slumped into the chair across from mine and put his head in his hands. I deflated from my own exertion and sat down.

“Are you all right?” I whispered.

“No. Not really,” Josh said. He dropped his arm down on the table and his watch smacked against the surface, making me jump. Up close, his eyes looked bloodshot and his pupils were huge. “They’ve been on my ass all day. They just keep making me go over that night over and over and over again, like they’re waiting for me to crack or something.”

“They don’t think you had anything to do with it, do they?” I asked.

My heart was beating behind my eyes. They couldn’t think that. It wasn’t possible. Josh was the nicest, kindest, most decent person in this pit of egotistical, overprivileged psychosis they called Easton. If Hauer and Sheridan thought he had anything to do with
Thomas’s death, they should seriously consider a change in profession, to something that required no intuition or insight into the human mind.

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Josh pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. I’d never seen him like this. “It’s like they think that since I didn’t tell them Thomas was dealing, there must be something else I didn’t tell them. They just keep pressing and pressing and
pressing
.” He said the last word through his teeth, gnashing them together so hard I thought they would shatter. He put his hands down again and I reached for one, holding his fingers in mine.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone in the student body knew Thomas was dealing and no one told on him,” I said. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but it was close to true. And I tend to exaggerate when I’m seething. “They should suspect every last one of us of lying now.”

Josh blew out a sigh. “True. But they don’t. They just suspect me.”

I wanted to do something, but I had no idea what. I wanted to say something, but I had no clue what would help. I felt like I was being torn apart.

This was the definition of
unfair
. Josh was a good person. He was a good person who cared about his friends and tried to do the right thing, and here he was, upset and tortured and scared. And why? Because he had tried to protect the
wrong
friend. He had tried to protect a lying, scheming drug dealer.

“They have to stop,” I heard myself say. “Sooner or later, they
have to realize you don’t know anything and they have to stop.”

Josh crossed his arms on the table and lowered his chin to rest on them. With his fingertips, he grasped at the ends of his sweatshirt sleeves, pulling them up toward his palms and gathering himself in, like a little kid hiding from the cold. He looked so small. So scared. We stared at one another for a long moment, and I felt like I could hear our hearts pounding out a frantic rhythm together—an angry, confused, frantic rhythm.

“God, I hope so. I can’t do this again.” Josh was close to whimpering. “I really can’t.”

“I know.”

I wanted to hit someone. Anyone.

Who was I kidding? I knew who I wanted to hit. Pummel. Beat with my fists until I was spent or he was dead, whichever came first. Only problem was, he was already six feet under.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, when nothing else coherent came to mind.

“I hope so.” Josh shuddered slightly and squeezed my hand. “God, I really hope so.”

In that moment, I hated Thomas Pearson. Dead or alive. I hated him.

I walked back into Billings on Sunday afternoon to a gaggle of voices and laughter and an occasional screech. I smiled as I closed the door behind me. The Billings Girls were back, and it was as if they hadn’t seen each other in two months.

With a quick glance I noted that Taylor was not among the revelers in the lobby. I greeted the group, which included the Twin Cities, Rose, Cheyenne, and a few others, and made my way up to my room to drop my stuff. Noelle, Ariana, Kiran, and Natasha all turned to look at me when I opened the door. There was a brief moment of stunned silence, as if they were surprised to see me walking into my own room.

No Taylor. Everyone was there but her.

“Reed! Hey!”

Natasha broke away from the pack and hugged me. She was positively glowing. “How
are
you? How was your Thanksgiving?”

“It was . . . fine,” I said. “How was yours?”

“Good,” she said, lifting her shoulders. “Leanne and I hung out.”

Ah. Hence the glow.

“Reed!” Kiran strode over in her tasteful shift dress and black heels and air-kissed each of my cheeks. She looked perfectly scrubbed, polished, buffed, and waxed and had adopted a new scent in her few days off—something flowery and soothing. Apparently, she was no longer irked over our last conversation. Unfortunately, I still was.

“How was it here without us?” Ariana asked as she hugged me lightly.

“Boring as sin, I assume?” Noelle put in.

“Like sin is ever boring,” Kiran said.

Noelle smirked. “Touché.”

“Okay, enough chitchat,” Kiran said. “Let’s do presents!”

“Presents?”

Kiran turned and picked up a big black shopping bag from the floor, dangling the rope handles from her thumb.

“For you,” she announced. “For having to endure four days all alone at Easton.”

I was stunned. Did these girls use any excuse they could find to buy stuff? And why did I get the idea that this was more of an apology/bribe?

“What is it?” I asked.

“Open it!” Kiran exclaimed.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said, taking the bag from her. It was heavy. I slipped a big, sleek box out, and Natasha grabbed the bag before it could hit the floor. I laid the box down on my bed and
lifted the lid. A clean, crisp scent hit me in the face as tissue paper fluttered. The scent of wealth. I carefully unfolded the paper and froze. Inside the box was a black cashmere-and-wool coat with a tufted silk lining. The tag had one word embroidered on it:
DIOR
.