Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (20 page)

I cry out and put my hand over my mouth instinctively, even though I doubt there’s anyone left in the building. Ignoring the pain in my left foot, I run all the way around the back of the building and don’t stop until I’ve put a considerable distance between me and the edge of the forest.

Because for the first time since Isabella’s murder, I’m scared. Not the shocked,
How could this happen to someone I know?
type of scared or the way I feel every night when I double-check that my door is locked.

I don’t have a word for this type of scared. But I feel it in every corner of my body, and it’s enough to make me want to run back to New York and pretend I never got involved in any of this. Because this is not a game. There’s no telling what Andreev would have done to me if he’d found me in his office, and there’s no telling what the school will do to me if they find out how much I know. I have a feeling I’ll be lucky just to get expelled.

Andreev said Sebastian should ask the administration for help if the police become
bothersome.
Is that what happened to Isabella? Did she become
bothersome
to someone?

*   *   *

I can tell Remy is dying to ask what happened between me and Alexis in her room on Sunday, but the first time we’re even close to being alone is dance class Tuesday morning. Even then, she can’t get rid of April long enough to talk to me.

I’m glad, because I definitely can’t tell Remy the truth about Alexis’s missing clothes. If she knew I suspected her roommate of murdering Isabella, she’d either (a) think I was nuts and stop talking to me and complicate everything, or (b) believe me, freak out, and complicate everything.

Either way, I figure all of this is complicated enough already, so as we’re stretching at the dance-studio barre, I take the bait as April leads the conversation to Valentine’s Day, which is this Friday. I haven’t given much thought to it this year, because it seems silly to me to be worrying about who might send me a rose-gram when there’s a murderer running loose in Wheatley.

All right, maybe I’ve thought about it once or twice. It’s not like I expect anything to happen, though. If Brent hasn’t made a move by now, I doubt he’d make one on Valentine’s Day. It’s too predictable. Too vulnerable. And I doubt a guy who’s kept me at an arm’s length since I met him would ever let me catch him being either.

Ms. Dawson, our teacher, instructs us to come to the center of the floor for warm-ups. She’s rail-thin and probably in her late twenties, and she takes herself very seriously. I don’t like her. But I do like dance class, for the most part. It’s something I’m good at, even though that wasn’t enough to save me from getting kicked out of Donna Claire Ballet Academy in the eighth grade for excessive talking.

Normally we’re allowed to talk during warm-ups as long as we keep the volume down, so the hush that’s spread over the group tells me something’s wrong. When I turn and see Detective Phelan in the door of the studio, I feel a sense of dread and know he’s here for me before he gestures for me to come to him.

“Officer, you can’t just pull students from my class without warning,” Dawson says, her face pink. No doubt worrying she’ll be fired if she lets him take me.

Detective Phelan gives her a look that says
Shove your MFA up your ass; this is a murder investigation.
He beckons to me, and I follow him outside the studio.

“Where are we going?” I ask, suddenly aware that I’m wearing only yoga pants and a tank top.

“For a walk. You can get your coat and meet me outside.”

I do, my hands shaking as I enter the locker room. Why is Detective Phelan here? If it’s something that couldn’t wait until after classes are over, I’m sure it can’t be good.

“Did you find out who killed Isabella?” I ask him when I meet him on the steps outside the athletics building.

Detective Phelan shakes his head. “I know you think that if we haven’t found whoever did this by now, we never will, but that’s not the case. These things take time.” His voice is far off in a way that lets me know there’s something he’s not telling me.

A bird whistles in the tree above us. We’re on the path that leads to the forest. My chest constricts for a minute, worried that he might be taking me to the place they found Isabella’s body, but we make a left to stay on the path that forms the outer loop of the campus.

“Anne, I’m here because I want to help you,” Detective Phelan says. “And I can only do that if you’re honest with me.”

Wait. Help
me
? For a split second, I think he’s figured out what I’ve been doing, maybe he’s been watching me. But then I really get what he means when he says: “Did you and Isabella get along, Anne?”

I stop, and every instinct telling me to trust Detective Phelan drains from my body. “Yes. We spent a lot of time together. I mean, because we wanted to. Not just because we lived together.”

Detective Phelan nods. “You never fought?”

My skin crawls with the feeling he’s setting me up. “Of course not.”

He clears his throat. “Anne, someone’s come forward. They said they knocked on your door after they heard yelling, and Isabella was crying. The day you moved in.”

“What? When? That never happened—” I freeze. “Wait. That’s all wrong. You don’t understand.”

I can’t get the words out. I’m so paralyzed with rage. Alexis.

“Isabella was singing that night, not yelling,” I manage to say. “We weren’t fighting. She was only crying because we were watching
Les Mis.
You can’t believe Alexis Westbrook. You can’t … you can’t think I killed Isabella.”

“We’re just trying to fill in the pieces,” Detective Phelan says.

“Well, I’m not one of them.” There’s anger bubbling in my voice. “I barely knew Isabella. Why would I want to kill her?”

Apparently, Detective Phelan can’t answer this, because he changes the subject. “Can we go back over what you were doing the night she died? I just want to make sure I know everything.”

“I already told you everything,” I said. “I left Isabella around ten. I came back with my friends April and Kelsey after one and stayed in their room when Isabella didn’t open the door or answer her phone. You can ask them about it.”

“April Durand and Kelsey Emmet confirmed you were with them,” Detective Phelan says. “We also talked to some of your classmates who were also at the party.” He clears his throat. “One says the three of you were drinking heavily.”

My stomach dips. Not because two cups of wine hardly counts as drinking
heavily,
but because I get why Detective Phelan is acting like he can’t trust what I say.

When I first spoke to him, I didn’t tell him the three of us were drinking at the party, let alone that April and Kelsey were wasted by the time we got back from the dorm. I just didn’t want to get us all in trouble, because what did it matter if we were drinking? I didn’t think it would change my story, at the time.

But now I see it changes everything. If April and Kelsey were drunk that night, they can’t claim with 100 percent certainty that I stayed in their room until morning.

And I can just see how a prosecutor would spin it: me, the out-of-control arsonist, killing Isabella in an accidental, but drunken, rage. The security feed that could prove I was in the dorm until morning crapped out at three. Plenty of time for me to figure out how to get rid of the body before the hiker found her in the morning.

I’m so angry my brain can only form one word:
Alexis.

“Alexis,” I say. “You can’t listen to her, Detective. She hated Isabella, and she hates me. She may have even broken in to my room. She’s the one you should be questioning.”

“Anne, I’m not questioning you,” he says. He pauses, and I can tell the tidbit about Alexis hating Isabella is news to him. “How come you didn’t tell me earlier that Alexis Westbrook and Isabella were enemies?”

“I didn’t find out until a couple of days ago.” I stop myself there. This already looks bad enough for me without me admitting to all the snooping around I’m doing. “You have to believe me.”

“I want to, Anne. I said I’m trying to help you here, right?” He rubs his chin. “I believe you didn’t kill Isabella.”

He says it the way my mother said she believed me that the fire in the auditorium was mostly Martin’s fault: like he wants to believe me but can’t completely. Because as charming or pretty as I am, it’s like Bailey said. Trouble always seems to find me.

I’m exactly the type of girl the media would have a field day over if I were accused of killing Isabella.

“Then you won’t mind if I go back to class,” I say to Detective Phelan. I turn on my heels, in the direction of Amherst, as he calls out to me. Of course I’m not going back to class now.

But I’m definitely not sticking around for him to see me cry.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

Remy is at my door. “Anne. Please let me in.”

I don’t say anything. I’m lying on my back, my cheeks warm and stiff with dried tears. I can’t even think of all the work I missed today, or how bad it looks that I didn’t show up for classes after a detective came looking for me. And I definitely can’t talk to Remy.

I knew Alexis was going to make me pay for snooping in her room, but I never saw this coming. It’s so manipulative, so horrible, so …
Alexis.
If only I hadn’t underestimated her.

“Anne.” Remy knocks again. “Please. I don’t believe what they’re saying.”

I wonder if that’s supposed to comfort me. Of course there are rumors already. Alexis has had at least four hours to spread them, with me locked away in my room, unable to do damage control. I wonder if she threw in one about me sleeping with every guy at the party, just for shits and giggles.

Wait. The party. Alexis wasn’t there. Didn’t Detective Phelan say someone saw me, Kelsey, and April drinking? It couldn’t have been Alexis, so who the hell was it?

Eventually, Remy gives up. By the time dinner rolls around, I’m tired of sitting on my ass feeling sorry for myself. I press a cucumber-infused wipe to my face, hoping it’ll soothe some of the redness, and change out of my dance-class clothes.

Then I head to the dining hall to face the music and find out who other than Alexis feels so threatened by me that they’d go this far to screw me over.

*   *   *

A hush spreads over the dining hall as I make my way to our table. Even Murali, Cole, Phil, and Brent are silent as I sit down.
I don’t trust any of you anymore,
is the first thought that crosses my mind.
I don’t trust anyone.

When Kelsey sees me, she bursts into tears, and for a second I forget how shitty I feel for myself and wrap my arms around her.

“I’m so sorry,” she sniffles. “This is all my and April’s fault.”

“It’s not. It’s okay. I can deal with this,” I tell her.

“The evidence is all circumstantial anyway,” Cole says. “They can’t prove anything.”

“I don’t need a lawyer, Cole,” I snap. “I’m not a suspect. This is all just someone’s lame attempt to set me up. Someone who’s trying to hide something.”

I know how loud I’m being, and I don’t care. Alexis is at the table next to us, with Lizzie and Jill and whatever other spineless souls Alexis has managed to recruit. Good. I want her to hear me. I don’t care anymore.

“My parents are going to kill me if they find out about this,” April mutters. I want to slap her, not only because of how selfish she sounds, but because the remark sends Kelsey, who obviously hadn’t considered this possibility, into another fit of sobs.

“All right. Enough.” It’s obvious that I’m going to have to handle Thing One and Thing Two before I attempt to take care of myself. “Both of you come with me. Now.”

April and Kelsey stand up obediently, and Remy, who’s been sitting in silence up until now, motions to follow.

“No,” I say. “You stay here.”

She looks hurt, but I don’t care how unfair I’m being, punishing her for her loyalty to Alexis. For leaving me with April and Kelsey the night of the party.

I usher Kelsey and April into the bathroom, ignoring the countless pairs of eyes that follow us. I check to make sure that all the stalls are empty before rounding on them.

“Someone who was at the party screwed us,” I say, all business. I’m back to my old self: in control. Calm under pressure. Not letting anyone see me cry. It’s how I came to rule St. Bernadette’s, but more is at stake now. “I need to know who.”

April and Kelsey look at each other. “It had to be Jill Wexler,” April says.

Slowly, it’s like a fog has been lifted from my thoughts. “She’s the one who likes Brent.”

“She’s in
love
with Brent,” Kelsey says. “Oh God. She probably saw you two flirting at the party and flipped out.”

“Well, do you blame her?” April shoots back. “He’s been leading her on
forever—
”

April clamps a hand over her mouth, but there’s nothing more to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t,” I say. “Just don’t. I really don’t care. I have bigger problems.”

It’s true. But mixed in with the million types of anger and betrayal I’m feeling right now is the kind that makes me want to make a tiny Brent voodoo doll and run it over with a truck. I want to revert back to my fifth-grade self and write
I hate brent conroy
all over anything I can get my hands on.

“So Jill’s the one who told the police we were drinking,” I say, pushing Brent out of my head. “But I know Alexis put her up to it. She lied to the cops about me and Isabella fighting, and it’s got to be to cover her own ass. So you two better tell me everything you know, because like it or not, you’re involved now.”

April is silent, her mouth hanging open, but I can see Kelsey battling with something inside her. I can see her remembering how I gave her advice about Justin, and how she really wants to help me, too. But there’s fear in her eyes.

She’s stronger than I give her credit for, though, because she finally says, “The SGA election speeches last year. Alexis wanted to be president, but someone replaced her campaign video with a tape of her saying some really messed-up things.” Kelsey swallows. “Someone spied on her to get the video, and Alexis told us it was Isabella.”