The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (67 page)

As my last class drew to a close the next day, I was out of my desk so fast my chair might as well have been an ejector seat. I speed-walked out of the crowded class building, nearly tripping a few people along the way, and went directly to Hell Hall. After bounding
up four flights of carpeted steps, irritating several teachers and administrators along the way, I opened the door to the dean’s outer office, winded like I’d just run a marathon.

Ms. Lewis-Hanneman looked up from her desk. There was an almost imperceptible twitch of her eye when she saw me. Her grip on her pen tightened. She looked small at her monstrous desk, surrounded as she was by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with leather-bound books.

“The dean isn’t in,” she said, her tone clipped. “If you’d like to make an appointment . . .”

I stepped up to her desk and really looked at her for the first time. And for the first time, I saw it. Sure, she had the austere hairstyle and the big glasses, but add to that the blond hair, high cheekbones, and big blue eyes and she was like the saucy, repressed librarian in that fantasy that all guys seemed to harbor. No wonder Blake was attracted to her. All she had to do was take the pins out of her hair and you could cue the sexy music.

“I’m not here to see the dean,” I told her. “I want to talk to you.”

My heart was in my throat, but my adrenaline allowed me to take on a commanding tone, one that made Lewis-Hanneman’s eyebrows arch.

“If you’re selling that sinful fudge for the field hockey team, I’m not interested,” she said.

I clutched the books I was still carrying to my chest. “Actually, I wanted to ask you what you were doing in Mitchell Hall the night of Thomas’s murder.”

Ms. Lewis-Hanneman lost all color. It was like watching a milk bottle empty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Oh, you
so
do.

My heart pounded. She was lying right to my face. Did she not know what was at stake here?

“You don’t,” I challenged.

“No. I don’t?” she replied. “Now, if you’d like to make an appointment to see the dean, I can arrange that for you. Otherwise, I have a lot of work to do.”

Her pen shook in her grasp as she pretended to make some important note on her legal pad. I didn’t move a muscle. I had gotten to her. I had this adult squirming. And I felt . . . powerful. I wondered if this was how Noelle felt every moment of every day. I stepped closer to her desk to see how much “work” she could get done with me breathing down her neck. Finally, she blew out a sigh and placed the pen on the desk.

“I believe I asked you to leave,” she said firmly, looking up at me.

“I know you were there,” I said, channeling Noelle. “And I know who you were with.”

Let’s see how you take that.

Her eyes never left my face. “Are you attempting to blackmail me, Miss Brennan?”

I blinked. Okay. So maybe I’d been thinking about blackmailing her, but just hearing her say it made me back off. That was Noelle’s M.O., not mine. And I wasn’t about to go there, as tempting as it was. A girl had to draw a line. Eventually.

“No. I’m asking you to just do the right thing,” I said, deciding on a different tack. “If you have an alibi for Josh Hollis, you have to go to the police. This is his whole life we’re talking about here.”

She held my gaze for a long moment. There was a second in which I saw the pity in her eyes. Saw that she knew what I was dealing with here. Knew how scared I was. In that second I was sure she was going to agree with me, but it passed as quickly as it had come.

“Miss Brennan, I already told the police everything I know, which is exactly nothing,” she said coolly. “I was at home by myself that night. My husband was away on business, and he and I spoke on the phone. That is the extent of my memory of that night.”

“You’re lying,” I spat.

“At the risk of sounding like a five-year-old here, Miss Brennan . . . prove it.”

I wanted to smack her across the face. Pull her hair out. Rip her glasses off and throw them at the wall. But at that moment, the door opened and the dean walked in, and I never had the chance to find out if I was actually capable of such a tantrum.

“Miss Brennan,” Dean Marcus said, surprised to see me. He removed his tweed hat and held it before him. “How are you?”

I took a step back from Ms. Lewis-Hanneman’s desk. Putting some distance between us seemed to assuage the need to hurt her.

“I’m all right,” I said, my voice quaking.

He looked at me as if I was some foreign creature. Something he was wary of approaching. Should he hold his hand out under my nose so I could sniff him out, or would I bite?

“I . . . I know this must be a difficult time for you,” he said finally, squaring himself to me. “If you ever need to talk . . .”

Part of me wanted to laugh. Like Dean Marcus was the person I’d come to in that situation. But then I realized he was trying to be kind, and guilt squashed the laughter.

“That’s okay,” I told him. “Thanks for the offer.”

I glanced at Ms. Lewis-Hanneman, and there was a triumphant look in her eye at the level of discomfort in the room. At that moment I resolved that I was going to get her to confess what she knew. One way or another, she was going to help me get Josh out of jail. Whether she liked it or not.

I needed Noelle. That much was clear. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that she would have gotten the truth out of Ms. Lewis-Hanneman. She wouldn’t have backed off. She wouldn’t have stopped until she’d gotten what she wanted. I couldn’t do the things Noelle could do. Maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe it was a good thing. I hadn’t entirely decided yet. But at least in the meantime I had the girl who was capable of anything in my corner.

At least, I was pretty sure I did.

As I walked across the frigid campus toward Billings House that night, I had to wonder. Yes, Noelle had been a good friend to me. At least, she had since we’d gotten past the Walt Whittaker double-blackmail debacle. All she had done was try to protect me. There was no denying that her methods had been somewhat questionable, but that was just Noelle. Whatever her tactics, her motives always seemed clear. She wanted to keep her friends from making mistakes. She wanted to make sure we were on the right path. And she
would do pretty much anything to ensure that we stayed out of trouble.

But then there was Taylor. She’d told me I couldn’t trust the other Billings Girls. That they had been lying to me. But about what? And why? Had they only lied about Taylor’s reasons for leaving, or was it bigger than that? And if they had lied about Taylor, then where was she, and why had she left school? Maybe I should start by confronting Noelle about that. I deserved to know the truth, after all. Taylor was my friend. They were all supposed to be my friends. So why was I always the only one in the dark?

I stopped outside the front door of the dorm. In the distance a siren wailed—the town of Easton’s fire siren. I listened to the sound echoing through the bare trees.

Did I really need Noelle’s help? I knew Lewis-Hanneman was lying. Maybe I should just try to break her myself. But how? I didn’t even know where to start. Begging? Back to blackmailing? No. She’d already seen me back off of that option. She’d know I was bluffing. That I was too weak. And this was Josh’s life we were talking about here. I couldn’t afford to mess this up.

Noelle would know what to do. Noelle would get results. Noelle was my only option.

Finally resolved, I grasped the cold door handle and walked into Billings.

“We have less than three weeks left until finals and he wants to keep us caged up in here like we’re animals? As far as I’m concerned, he’s just asking for trouble.”

Noelle. Her voice as authoritative as ever. I paused in the entryway. The lobby area was deserted. Noelle was holding court in the parlor to my right.

“But you heard what he said,” Cheyenne Martin replied. I recognized her voice by its superior tone. “We have to stick together right now. For Easton.”

“Screw Easton,” Noelle said.

Cheyenne actually gasped, and I bit back a laugh.

“All I’m saying is, we should do what we always do this time of year,” Noelle said.

“Party!” one of the Twin Cities called out. I wasn’t sure if it was London or Vienna, but it didn’t make much difference: They pretty much shared the same brain. I felt a curl of black anger winding its way around my heart as a few of the other girls laughed and shouted. That’s what they were discussing? Sneaking off campus to party? Did no one understand what was going on around here?

“Exactly,” Noelle said. “Don’t we deserve to let off some steam after the semester we’ve had? It’s been one downer after another.”

Downer? That was how she was classifying Thomas’s disappearance? His death? Josh’s arrest? As
downers
?

“I say we get the hell out of here,” Noelle continued, apparently sensing that the girls were aligning with her. “Have a little fun. Try not to think about all the . . . unpleasantness.”

“Yeah.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What’s the dean going to do, anyway? Expel us?”

I felt weak with anger. These were my friends. The people I had wanted so badly to be with. What the hell was wrong with me?

“That’s exactly what he’s going to do,” Cheyenne piped up. “Listen, girls, I understand that you want to get your minds off everything. Everyone on this campus does. But those people are out there just waiting to write another story about how hedonistic all us private school kids are—”

“Hedonistic. Big word,” Kiran joked. “Trying to bring up that SAT verbal, Shy?”

“I’m serious,
Kir
,” Cheyenne said. “Do you really want to give them what they want?”

Noelle snorted a laugh. “You were born in the wrong generation, Martin.”

“Or maybe I was just born with a conscience,” Cheyenne replied. “I say if you want a night to chill, we do it here. We’ll have a nice, casual, sophisticated soiree right here in Billings. The dean can’t object to that, and we’ll all just be able to kick back and relax.”

“Okay, Carol Brady. You do that, and the rest of us will have some real fun,” Noelle said.

“R-rated fun,” Kiran added. “Illegal substances, adult language—”

“Maybe even some sexual content,” Noelle put in.

The room filled with cackling laughter and something inside of me snapped. I stormed over to the doorway and, since there was no other way to make my presence known, dropped my book bag on the floor with a thud. Everyone turned to look at me.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” I shouted.

Noelle stepped forward. “Reed—”

“No. You’re talking about
partying
right now? When one of your friends is dead and another one is sitting in jail for his murder? Oh, yeah! This is cause for celebration, people! Let’s go into the city and get R-rated!”

Kiran scoffed and looked away. No one else moved.

“I don’t know about you people, but this kind of . . . of
horrifying
thing doesn’t happen every day in my world!”

“It doesn’t happen in ours either,” Ariana said quietly.

I grabbed my bag and glared at her. “Well, you wouldn’t know it.”

“We didn’t do anything, Reed,” Kiran blurted suddenly, standing.

“Kiran,” Ariana said.

“No! I’m so sick of this. We’re not the ones who did in your little boyfriend, Reed,” Kiran snapped. “Josh did. Your precious Josh. But you walk around here being all accusatory all the time. Like we did something wrong. Well, guess what? We didn’t do anything!”

“Maybe not,” I said calmly. “But
someone
did, and you’re acting like you’re perfectly okay with it. And that’s what I’m mad about.”

For once, no one tried to stop me and talk me down when I turned to go.

Hands shaking, I pulled my cell phone out of my bag. I couldn’t believe I was about to do what I was about to do, but if I was going to, I had to do it now, before I lost my nerve. Before the angry adrenaline surge fizzled and died.

I scrolled through my contacts until the icon landed on “Thomas.” A bubble welled up in the back of my throat. I wouldn’t even have this option if it wasn’t for him. For that playful night when he’d programmed his numbers into my phone, saying he wanted me to be able to get ahold of him wherever, whenever. Like we would always be together. Like we might have been, if not for . . .

I closed my eyes and swallowed. I had to focus. I had to be strong. This was for Josh
and
for Thomas. I highlighted the home number. I had thought about deleting this so many times but just hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it. Now I was glad I’d been so sentimental. I pressed “send.”

The phone was cold against my ear. I hugged myself and sat on the edge of my bed.

“Pearson residence.”

The voice was clipped. Slightly accented. Something European.

“Yes, may I speak to Blake, please?” I squeaked.

“I’m sorry, but Blake is away at school just now.”

“Oh, right.” Of course, Reed. You think a guy like Blake Pearson doesn’t go to college? “Can I . . . uh . . . get that number?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to divulge that information,” the woman said, with a laugh in her voice.

“Right. Right. Of course. Well, could I—”

“Good evening.”

She hung up the phone. I threw the cell down on the bed and went to Natasha’s computer. If I could find out which college Blake attended, maybe the school’s information system would give me his number.

I searched for “Blake Pearson.” Thousands of results appeared. Blake Pearson was a more common name than I ever would have thought. Blake was an artist, a businessman, a lawyer, a dancer. Blake was everywhere.

I started to crash from my adrenaline high. This was pointless. Did I really think I could do something? That I could effect some change? Feeling utterly defeated, I sat back in the desk chair. Just as my shoulders started to roll forward, there was a rap on the door and it opened.

Noelle. At least she had knocked.