The Third Lie's the Charm (10 page)

A door previously hidden in the bricks clicked open a crack, and I pushed through, immediately swallowed by the darkness of the underground.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” Bradley's voice had dropped an octave, placing him squarely in ass-kicking-bully mode as Liam made a move to follow me down.

“Just following my girlfriend, man.” Liam's voice was lazy, practically begging to be punched.

Girlfriend? He had to be kidding, right? Only Liam-freaking-Gilmour would have the nerve to go out on a date with Bethany and then show up here stinking drunk, proclaiming that I was still his girlfriend.

“You sure about that?” Bradley was inches from Liam's face. “Go sleep it off. We don't have time for this.”

Liam didn't hesitate before throwing the first punch. Seth started screaming, and I stood frozen. It was like watching someone knock over a glass of milk. I knew something was about to shatter, but I wasn't fast enough to stop it from happening.

Lucky for all of us, Maddie managed to insert herself between Liam and Bradley before Bradley even had time to react.

“Enough. You guys can have your pissing contest somewhere else. But tonight is about Alistair. Or have you forgotten?” She gave Bradley a pointed look.

“And I need Maddie,” Seth chimed in. “I mean…she helps at the office too. So she might come in kind of handy or whatever.” Even in the darkness, I could see that the tips of his ears were screaming red.

“And we can't leave Liam up here drunk and alone. It's too risky.” Maddie grabbed his arm and dragged him down the stairs toward me.

I shot her a grateful smile.

“Well, if you guys are done with this riveting display of testosterone, we should probably get going before someone catches us.” I spun on my heel, flicked on my flashlight, and continued walking, not bothering to look behind me to gauge Bradley or Liam's reaction.

It was only a few hundred yards to the stairway that led to Ms. D.'s office. I raced up and pushed on the hatch, grateful to be leading this little mission. Grateful to have something to do aside from dealing with Liam and Bradley. But when I was temporarily blinded by a searing light, I knew something was very, very wrong.

“Well, how nice of you to pay me a visit.” Ms. D. sat in her office chair, her snowy white hair closely cropped, not a hair out of place. Her legs were crossed elegantly in the dove-gray pantsuit she had been wearing this afternoon when I saw her after seventh period.

Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. CRAP.

I sent a prayer up to Grace—or really whoever the hell might be listening—that the others would be smart enough to turn around and go back the way we came. But then Liam's head popped out of the door.

“What up?” He waggled his eyebrows at me and then noticed Ms. D. “Oh…”

“That's quite enough, Mr. Gilmour. Come on in and make room for your friends.” She stood and walked toward the door. “Ah, ah, ah, no use running, Mr. Farrow. I see you. You too, Mr. Allen. And Maddie too? I would have expected better of you.” She ushered them into her office one by one, her lips pulled back in a straight, thin line.

“Well, now that you're all here, would you mind telling me why you're sneaking into my office after hours?” She sat back down in her chair, her glance flicking over each of us.

I tried to think fast.

“Seth left something in the office and he needed it tonight.” The lie flew from my mouth before I had time to think of something better.

“Is that true, Mr. Allen?”

Seth let out a little squeak and nodded quickly.

“Well then, by all means!” Ms. D. waved her arm out. “Please don't let me stop you.”

Seth stood up and wobbled like a baby deer who wasn't quite sure where to walk.

“Ok, um, thanks. Yeah, let me just…” He spun around the room aimlessly and finally his eyes lit up a little. “Right! There it is!” He inched toward the lost-and-found box tucked in the corner. “I'm so glad it's here! What a relief!” He held up an unrecognizable piece of fabric with the tips of his fingers and wrapped it around his neck. “My scarf. My Bubby made it for me, and I was so worried about it.” He wrapped what looked like a dirty jockstrap around his neck and smiled brightly. “Okay, guess we'll be going.”

The rest of us stood up to leave.

“Sit down.” Ms. D.'s voice was sharp. Seth shuffled back next to me. Whatever was wrapped around his neck smelled wrong. Just wrong. I stopped breathing through my nose.

“Ms. Lowry.” Headmistress D. fixed her bright blue eyes on me. “I trust you will enlighten me, Sister.”

I nearly peed in my pants. She was terrifying, and she hadn't wasted any time playing the Sisterhood card, had she? After flying through about a million different alternatives in about half a second, I was forced to do something completely unexpected. I told her the truth.

Ms. D. looked thoughtful and eventually appalled as I showed her all of the evidence we'd collected. From the letters to the article about the headmaster to the yearbook picture of Ms. D., all roads led back to the Sisterhood, which led to the newly appointed headmistress with a major ax to grind against the Brotherhood.

“I see.” She pulled her glasses off and snapped the yearbook shut. “Someone is clearly trying to set me up. Or at the very least make the Sisterhood look culpable.” She narrowed her eyes toward Bradley, Seth, and Liam. Clearly she did not trust the boys.

“Kate, you have my word that I knew nothing about these attacks against our students. In fact, it pains me to think that you might have considered otherwise.”

“But…” I started to ask the obvious question. How the hell were we supposed to trust her?

“I was here tonight laying out an investigation of my own. And it just now occurred to me that we may be of use to each other.”

I clenched my hands into fists to keep from biting my nails.

“Kate, I would like you to head up the investigation for me. As a student, you'll be able to access information that I couldn't possibly get to, even as the headmistress. You can infiltrate, my dear!” Oh God, if she only knew. I thought of the Sisterhood. I was already infiltrated up to my eyeballs.

“I don't know…” I started to protest.

“You'll have my full support, of course. And you and your little gang,” her eyes moved dismissively toward Maddie and the boys, “will have full access to the tunnels and whatever other resources you might require.”

“It's just that…” I tried to figure out the right way to tell her that I'd sooner believe that Seth was wearing Bubby's scarf than that she wasn't somehow involved in this thing.

But she played her trump card before I had the chance.

“I'd hate to have to take disciplinary action against you or your little friends for this unfortunate break-in.” She smiled coolly. “After all, you were just trying to help.”

If I had balls, she would have had me by them.

“Okay.” Even as I uttered the word, I already knew it was a lie. I could still investigate without trusting her. Keeping my enemies close and all that crap.

“Wonderful. I'll expect daily updates. We can meet here after school every afternoon.” She stood, which seemed to be our cue to leave. “I'm so pleased this worked out. You and I are going to do great things together, Kate.”

But my only response was to step back into the darkness of the tunnels. Two steps forward, five steps back. I felt like I was back in ballroom dancing lessons with Grace as my partner. There weren't enough boys in our gym class so we had to pair up. She was always stepping on my toes and laughing. But tonight, there were no muffled giggles as we made our way back onto campus. Tonight, there was nothing but silence and the sharp sting of defeat.

By the time Seth dropped me back off at my house, it was past 1 a.m. And worse, both of our houses were blazing with lights. Lit up like freaking Christmas trees.

This was really not my night.

“Well, that's not good.” There was a trace of sarcasm in Seth's tone, and I was proud of him for it.

“No, it's really not.” I agreed. “Think your parents are going to flip?”

“Nah, my mom always pretends to be mad about this stuff, but secretly I think she's just happy that I have friends.” He beamed over at me when he said the last word.

I threw my arms around him. I was just so grateful for Seth and for all he was doing for me.

“What are we going to do?” I mumbled the words into the shoulder of his fleece.

“You'll figure it out, Kate. You always do.” Normally I would have made fun of him for sounding like an overenthusiastic preschool teacher, but I was too grateful for the words of encouragement tonight.

“I was so sure it was Sinclair and then Ms. D.” I shook my head. “I just can't figure it out, Seth. Why can't I figure this out?”

I was talking about so much more than just who was hurting members of the Brotherhood. I was talking about figuring out who the bad guys were and putting them in jail. It was so easy on the cop shows my dad watched all the time. I just didn't understand why it wasn't working that way in real life.

My parents came running out the front door like a pair of lunatics. I could already hear them yelling something about it being a school night and scheduling an appointment with good old Dr. P. first thing tomorrow morning.

Seth apologized and practically shoved me out of the car. Can't say I blamed him.

“This stops now, Kate. Tonight.” My mother's voice was full of anger and fear.

“We love you too much to worry like this, Kate. We're done.” My father looked exhausted.

“I'm sorry.” It was all I could say, because I couldn't promise them that this wouldn't happen again. I couldn't pretend like I'd had some epiphany that ended with me turning into the person I was before Grace died.

Because no matter how many times I lied to them, how many times I snuck out or skipped school, I would never stoop to making promises I couldn't keep.

***

“So, Kate, your parents tell me there was an incident last night. Care to fill me in?” Dr. P. tapped his fingers together like Hannibal-freaking-Lecter. I wondered if maybe he was a secret sociopathic murderer. Honestly, I might have preferred it that way. At least it would have made our time together a little more interesting.

I shook my head in response. Today I decided to see if I could make it through the entire session without saying a word. It was a huge challenge, but I was feeling pretty good about it.

“Do you think you might be acting out right now because Alistair's death has stirred up some of the same feelings you had when Grace died?” Dr. P. nodded his head slightly and made a little grimace that I suppose was meant to encourage some type of verbal response from me.

I shrugged, drunk on power. Why hadn't I thought of this before? This not-talking thing was amazing. Honestly, it made me wonder why I was talking in general. I bet if I'd stopped talking, I would have finished the Sisterhood off months ago.

“When you act out like this, Kate, you're pushing away all of the people who care about you the most. You're alienating them and alienating yourself.”

It occurred to me that Dr. P. was kind of a crappy shrink. I mean, he was literally doing all of the talking and I was just sitting there. Shouldn't he be pulling some psychiatric kung-fu moves where he matched my silence by not talking to force me to say something, anything? Not that it would have worked, but it would have been kind of awesome if he tried.

“Life is going to continue to throw curveballs, Kate. It's never going to be perfect. You need to learn how to deal with these setbacks head on, but you can't do that until you've finished grieving Grace. You're stuck, Kate. It's common, especially for those who are grieving a very sudden, very tragic loss for the first time.”

He paused to scribble something in his notepad.

“The only way out is through.”

Those words resonated with me more than I wanted them to. Hadn't I come to the same conclusion?

“And to get through it you need to move past anger, move past this obsession with revenge, and you need to let yourself be sad.”

And he lost me. I was so over people shoving me into one stage of grief or another. Did anyone ever really stop being angry after they lost someone they loved? I sincerely doubted it.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I managed to slide it out while Dr. P. was busy scrawling more riveting tidbits about our session in his little notepad.

The text was from a number I didn't recognize, and there was no message, just a picture.

Liam and Bethany. Kissing. With lots of tongue by the looks of it. He was wearing the same outfit he had on last night, so this little encounter had happened either before or after we got caught by Ms. D.

It felt like someone had dropped a boulder onto my chest. I couldn't breathe. I wanted to cry. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have assumed that he would just be waiting around for me indefinitely? How could I have trusted him? Because when it came down to it, if all of that bullshit about him caring for me and loving me and wanting the best for me had been true, then this picture wouldn't exist.

“Screw it.”

I accidentally said the words out loud and Dr. P. jerked his head up in response.

“Yes, Kate, now we're onto something! Screw the grief! Screw the anger! We've made such progress today, a real breakthrough!”

I nodded. Something had been broken all right. Unfortunately, it felt a little bit like my heart.

My parents kept me home from school, and I turned off my phone and holed up in my room for the rest of the day. I needed time to think.

If Sinclair and Ms. D. had nothing to do with the letters to the Brothers, who was sending them and, more importantly, why? The Brotherhood was over, dead. I couldn't imagine why anyone would go after their former members.

I read the letters sent to each of the victims over and over again. I scanned all of the articles on the headmaster and his half brother. I stared at the yearbook picture of Ms. D. and ex-Headmaster Sinclair. But nothing was adding up, nothing was making sense. Finally I fell into a fitful sleep.

Hours later, I woke with a start. My heart fought my rib cage, knowing before I could that something was wrong. But as my eyes swept across my bedroom, everything was in order. A book hadn't fallen off the shelf. My phone hadn't vibrated across my nightstand, and neither of my parents was awake. Everything was in place. For some reason, that only made my heart drum faster.

The neighbor's dog barked, and I jolted to a seated position. There was no going back to sleep. I could either crawl into bed with my parents in homage to my seven-year-old self or I could put on my big-girl pants and check things out on my own.

As slowly as I could manage, I untwisted the sheets from around my legs and placed my bare feet on the wood floor. It was kind of an out-of-body experience. I was that girl in the horror movie that everyone in the audience begs not to go down into the basement. Don't turn on the lights. Don't walk outside the tent to explore the creepy noise.

Just. Don't.

And yet I did. And I knew it wasn't going to end well, but I just couldn't seem to stop myself. I made a mental note to quit judging those bimbos quite so harshly in future screenings.

Inhaling deeply, I crept to the side of the window and craned my neck to peer through. The yard was empty, trees still, street clear. A car was parked a few houses down, but the lights were off and the inside completely dark. I let some air escape my lips. Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I'd just had a weird dream or something.

But then a warm glow lit the side of the house. The neighbor's dog barked again. Someone or something had triggered the motion light in the backyard. It spilled to the front. Someone was out there. I glanced at my parents' bedroom door shut tight and wondered how alarming it'd be if I threw it open and jumped into their bed. It was their job to protect me, after all. But as I hesitated in front of it, I couldn't bring myself to touch the handle. Besides, if they heard me scream, they'd be out there in two seconds flat. It's not like I was home alone or something.

So my new horror-movie-heroine persona avoided the squeaky steps and tiptoed to the first floor and into the dining room. Long shadows swept across the room from the light spilling in, and I could've sworn they shifted for a split second. Or maybe I blinked. Either way, my hands shook and my knees buckled. Hugging the wall, I inched closer to the window, holding my breath as though it'd give me away. And then the room went black. The backyard was once again doused in darkness, and I could barely see my hand in front of my face. Whoever or whatever had been back there was gone.

As fast as I could, I darted back up to my bedroom, landing heavily on the squeaky steps this time, and jumped into bed. The covers felt like armor, so I pulled them to my chin, my eyes pushed wide with fear.

And there it was.

A single notebook page lay at the center of my room, the loopy orange script visible even in the pitch black. I ran my fingers over the tiny tears that lined the edge of the paper. It looked like someone had just torn it out of her journal moments before leaving it here. In my room. For me.

Grace might as well have been lounging in my bed, pen in hand, cheek resting on her open palm. I saw her as clear as day, could practically hear pen dragging across paper as she wrote her careful words, lips moving silently as her hand slid across the page.

So much for resting in peace.