Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (14 page)

*   *   *

After dinner, I head to the library to see what else I can find on Lexington Hall. Remy offers to come with me and study for French, so I make some excuse about just needing to pick up a book really quickly. I don’t want her asking questions, and besides, I’ve been doing practically
everything
with her and the girls lately. Blame it on the only-child thing, but I need some alone time.

I didn’t realize how late we’d all stayed at the table talking after dinner, so it’s pitch black out as I walk to the library. I also only have a little over an hour before the ten-o’clock curfew.

The library steps extend the entire length of the building. It reminds me of the steps of the American Museum of Natural History, and the homesick pit in my stomach grows a little.

I decide against asking the librarian for help and head straight to the second floor. Believe it or not, I’m actually pretty library-savvy. So I know if I go to the archives in the basement, I’ll probably have to sign in and ask the person working down there to get the old campus maps for me. I might as well tap dance outside the headmaster’s office and yell, “HEY! LOOK WHAT I’M DOING!”

My best bets are probably books on the Wheatley School’s history—and I know they exist because Professor Matthews mentioned that one of the older teachers wrote them.

The second floor of the library is empty and quiet except for the hum of the lights overhead. I didn’t expect anyone to be strolling the stacks instead of watching whatever crappy cable sitcom is on tonight, but I still get an uneasy feeling at being up here alone. I keep my eye on the stairway as I browse the stacks for the history section, the polished wood floor planks creaking under my feet.

I don’t have to look far: There’s a special section dedicated to the school’s history. I run my fingers along the bindings, leaving a trail in the thin layer of dust covering them. I pause on a cranberry-colored binding with
A History of the Wheatley School
in peeling gold lettering.

I flip through the yellowing pages of the book until I find the index. The book was written in 1940. There’s no chapter about Lexington Hall or a fire, but there’s a campus map in the glossary. The print and illustrations are minuscule. I can make out some familiar buildings, though: Amherst dorms, the clock tower, the William J. Brown Refectory, AKA the dining hall. There’s a weird bunch of solid and dotted lines connecting all of the buildings. I scan the outer loop of campus until I see it—a square labeled “Lexington Hall.”

I pull the map Barbara gave me out of my purse and compare it to this map. Right where Lexington Hall used to be, looming over the edge of the forest is … a parking garage.

I’m pretty sure that means nothing. I sigh and spend some time combing through the history books for mentions of Lexington Hall, but all I can find is that it was a regular old classroom building until it burned down in 1965 from an electrical fire.

As I flip through an edition that was written in 1960, a yellowed newspaper article falls to my feet. There’s a black-and-white photo of a guy with a terrible mushroom cut. He’s wearing the Wheatley School uniform blazer. The article is dated 1990. My heartbeat picks up as I read the headline.

What Happened to Matthew Weaver?

Donald and Joan Weaver have not taken down the photo of their son Matthew from the window of their diner in Wheatley. For nearly ten years, the smiling portrait of the sixteen-year-old has symbolized the hope of family and friends that one day Matthew might return.

The son of two small-business owners who never finished high school, Matthew Weaver was accepted to the Wheatley School in 1978 on a full academic scholarship. During his junior year, Weaver helped lead the nationally ranked Wheatley crew team to a victory at the Harvard Invitational.

Three weeks later, he left his dormitory in the middle of the night and never returned.

For years, police have been mystified by a case that has presented no suspects, no leads, and, above all, no body. Conflicting stories among Weaver’s friends about what he was doing the night he disappeared prompted police to question members of the Wheatley crew team, which had previously been the subject of disciplinary action by the school for partaking in hazing rituals.

Police dropped the investigation after being accused of using the crew team members as scapegoats in the face of the family’s pressure for answers. While Weaver’s case remains open, investigators today maintain there is no evidence of foul play.

Weaver’s parents feel differently. “We believe someone knows something about what happened to Matthew,” Don Weaver tells us. “We only hope that enough time passes for them to gather the courage to come forward, so my family can have closure.”

I fold the article and put it back. The similarities between Matthew Weaver’s case and Isabella’s are frightening. Not
axe murderer hiding in the shower
frightening, but
holy shit, this is messed up
frightening.

Over thirty years have passed, and no one knows what happened to Matt Weaver. How is that even possible? Even if someone was afraid of getting in trouble back when he disappeared, you’d think thirty years would be enough time to grow a pair and come forward.

A sickening thought hits me: Is the same thing going to happen with Isabella’s case? Is the school just going to keep scaring people out of coming forward until the police have to declare her murder a cold case?

Now I’m really hungry for more details about Matt Weaver. Forgetting Lexington Hall and the reason I came up here, I flip to the front of the history book the article fell out of. This one was written in the early sixties—it’s too early to have any mention of Matt Weaver. He must have disappeared around 1980 if this newspaper article was written in 1990.

I browse the shelf for the 1980s edition of
A History of the Wheatley School.
I can’t find it; my eyes hurt from the lousy lighting up here; and I’m frustrated because I just wasted an hour searching for info on a building that doesn’t exist anymore.

The library is pretty much cleared out by the time I get downstairs. The woman at the circulation desk spots me and smiles as I make my way to her. I tell her the book I’m looking for, and she types something into the computer.

“Looks like someone has it checked out.” She frowns. “It was due almost a month ago.”

“Could you tell me who has it?”

The librarian clicks around. Her expression darkens. “According to the system, Isabella Fernandez does.”

“Oh.” For some reason, I can’t process the thought of Isabella doing something mundane like checking out a book. Dead people aren’t supposed to have things like unreturned library books.

“She was my roommate,” I tell the librarian, although I’m not sure why I do.

As I turn to leave, she gives me a sympathetic smile.

On the way back to my dorm, I tell myself Isabella probably checked out the book to do a report on Lexington Hall. It’s the only thing that makes sense; at least it makes more sense than Isabella researching Matthew Weaver right before her own death.

There’s no way Isabella could have known something similar would happen to her, right?

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

I don’t know what to do with the million questions haunting my mind, so the next morning, I sit down to e-mail Anthony. But I already have a message from him.

I have something you should see. I can meet u at the school when u get out of class. Can’t say anything more in e-mail.

His phone number is at the bottom of the e-mail. My fingers prickle with anticipation as I type out a response. Maybe Anthony found Isabella’s flash drive, or some other clue. I’m so busy running through the thousand possibilities that I don’t even feel my usual pang of disappointment when I get to breakfast and see that Brent isn’t there. But Remy is missing today, too.

“Where’s Remy?” I ask Kelsey and April.

“Doing Lex Luthor’s bidding,” Murali cuts in.

No one confirms he’s talking about Alexis, but I know it’s her.

“I don’t see why Resident Council needs to have a fund-raiser at the same time as SGA,” April says. “People aren’t going to buy rose-grams
and
candy-grams.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Murali says. “Alexis is just trying to piss SGA off.”

“Why? I thought she was on the student government,” I say, waiting to be struck down for my ignorance. Instead, everyone kind of pokes at their food or looks into their coffee cups.

“Alexis is only a class representative for SGA,” Cole finally says. “She’s president of the Resident Council. She wanted to be SGA president.”

The way he says it, I can tell that Resident Council is the equivalent of SGA’s fat, ugly cousin.

“So who’s president of SGA then?” I look around the table. It’s got to be one of them, right?

“You asked for me?” Brent slips into the empty seat next to Kelsey, where Remy usually sits. He imitates the look of shock on my face. “What? I’m not leadership material?”

“So that’s why Alexis doesn’t like you,” I say when Kelsey gets up for more coffee and Brent drags his chair next to mine. “And here I was thinking you just wouldn’t sleep with her.”

Brent snorts. “Trust me, if she ever got me naked, it’d be to hang me off a bridge by my—”

“EW!” April shouts. “God!”

“I prefer to be called ‘Brent.’” He turns to me and lowers his voice. “We still on for tomorrow night?”

“As long as you’re sure Sebastian will be in his room,” I say.

“On a Friday night? I’m positive.”

I take a long sip out of the Big Ben travel coffee mug Chelsea brought me from London. “Hey, do you know Lee Andersen?”

“Creepy Lee?” Kelsey is back. “Why are you talking about Creepy Lee?”

April shushes Kelsey. “That’s so mean. What if he hears you? You know how he’s always lurking.”

Kelsey shudders and pushes her glasses up her nose. “I saw him hanging outside the girls’ locker room with a
camera
once. I almost vomited.”

“Did you tell anyone?” I ask, alarmed. “That sounds sick.”

Kelsey shrugs. “Danielle Wilson was with me and asked him what he was doing, and he just mumbled that he was taking pictures of the new gym for the newspaper.”

“That guy seriously just looks like he’s going to snap and shoot up a Burger King someday,” Cole says, shaking his head.

I notice that Murali is stabbing his potatoes a little harder than necessary.

“Murali and Lee are duking it out for valedictorian,” Brent explains. “Lee knocked him into second place next year.”

A piece of potato sails across the table and hits Brent in the forehead. “Screw you, number four.”

“Number three.” Cole’s voice is quiet. “He’s number three now.”

Everyone is silent, but the uncomfortable looks on their faces are obvious.

Isabella was number three.

A thought crystallizes in my brain: A girl accusing a guy at a prestigious school run by an old boys’ club of sexual harassment is a recipe for a scandal. But a girl in the top three of her class accusing the
valedictorian
of sexual harassment? That would be a scandal of epic proportions.

Sounds like a perfect reason to intimidate a student like Molly into shutting up about it.

*   *   *

The whole conversation leaves me without an appetite, so I leave my breakfast untouched. Two things are clear to me though: Alexis and Lee Andersen are two people I definitely don’t want to be alone with. Whether or not they’re scary enough to commit murder, though, is what I need to find out.

I’m anxious to get Brent alone and tell him my suspicions about Lee and Isabella, but it seems the school has other plans for me today. At the beginning of class, my biology teacher tells me Dean Tierney wants to see me in her office at the end of the period.

The administration secretary tells me to have a seat outside the dean’s office. I steady my hands by applying rosebud salve. If this shit keeps up, I’m going to need to order it by the case.

“Anne?” Dean Tierney pushes the office door open. “Come in.”

My heart catches in my throat when I see that Tierney and I aren’t alone in her office: My father is sitting in one of the chairs opposite her desk.

He’s here, in Massachusetts. I don’t know what I was expecting after I hung up on him. My father has a reputation in the legal world of nearly knocking down the doors of people who don’t return calls.

“Hello, Anne,” he says over his shoulder. Dumbstruck, I walk over to him. He gets up and pulls me in a tight hug, but I can tell he’s pissed off.

“You’re supposed to be in Paris,” I say when we break apart.

“I got here as soon as I could,” my father says. He sits back down and I follow suit.

Dean Tierney gives a hawklike smile, showing off her gross snaggletooth. You’d think an institution that’s practically crapping alumni donations could spring for an employee dental plan. “Anne, I asked you here because your father and I are concerned.”

I swallow and glance at my father. “Concerned?”

“Yes. And I think you know why.”

I stare at Dean Tierney, wondering what sort of brain seizure she had that made her go into education. Because with her personality, she’d make a pretty good butcher or undertaker.

“Jackie says you haven’t seen any school counselors since Isabella died,” my father cuts in.

Jackie? A horrible thought strikes me: My dad
knows
Dean Snaggletooth?

“My husband and your father went to law school together,” Tierney explains, as if reading my thoughts.

“Oh,” I say stupidly.
Tierney is the one who got me in to the school.
My palms begin to sweat; I’m sure she’d have no trouble getting rid of me if it came to it.

“We’re concerned about how you’re coping with the stress,” Dad says. “Jackie tells me you don’t feel safe in your room, yet you refuse to accept a new one.”

“That’s because someone stole my ID and used it to get into my room,” I say angrily.

I expect my father to flip a shit over this, but he exchanges a look with Snaggletooth that lets me know this isn’t the first he’s hearing of the break-in. Tierney clears her throat.