Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) (25 page)

I turn off the lights and climb back into bed, feeling through my sheets for my phone. When I don’t find it, I look in the crack between my bed and the wall. I don’t see it, but it had to have fallen there, because it’s not on my bed or the floor.

I turn the lights on again and crouch so I can get a look under my bed. I see my phone in the far corner, but there’s not enough space for me to squeeze through and grab it. I climb back on my bed and shove my hand between the mattress and the wall—and jump a little when I come in contact with cold metal.

What the hell? I feel around a little more. The metal thing has a handle. A security box? What’s it doing under my bed?

I tug on the handle, but the box won’t fit through the space between the wall and my mattress. I get a clothes hanger from my closet, flatten myself on the floor, and poke under the bed with the hanger until I feel it latch onto the handle. I drag the box from under the bed and sit cross-legged with it on my lap.

The box is plain and black with a keypad on top. But whose is it? My first thought was Isabella’s old roommate, but no one would buy a heavy-duty security box like this and just forget she hid it under her bed.

This has got to be Isabella’s. Hiding it under
my
bed was too clever for it not to be hers. I shake the box gently, but it makes little noise.

I run a finger over the keypad. Breaking into Andreev’s office and the room in the basement of Lexington Hall was one thing, but cracking open something Isabella obviously didn’t want anyone to find just feels wrong.

I bite my lip and enter 4-3-2-1 onto the keypad. A red light flashes, telling me I have the wrong code. I return it to its spot under the bed, a little relieved. Isabella wanted to keep whatever is in it locked away, and I should respect her wishes.

At least for now.

*   *   *

I don’t fall asleep again after that, but before I know it, sunlight is streaming through my window and I have to get ready to meet Anthony.

I can’t stop playing with my hair while I wait for him to meet me outside the student center. How do you greet a person when, the last time you saw him, you were on top of him on the floor of a parking garage with your tongue in his mouth?

Somehow, a hug just seems inappropriate.

I settle for an awkward “Hey,” when he slides off his motorcycle, removes his helmet, and shakes his hair from his eyes. A few wet pieces cling to his forehead.

“Hey.” His eyes travel the length of my body. There’s a hungry look in them that makes me flush to my toes. “Ready?”

Anthony pulls over after about five minutes. Confused, I take off the helmet. He points at the convenience store across the street. “I need to grab a coffee,” he says. “Not used to being up this early.”

“It’s ten o’clock.”

He holds the store door open for me. “Yeah, well, when you don’t have to work until four, it might as well be the ass crack of dawn.”

I linger by the magazine rack while I wait for Anthony to make his coffee. I would grab one too, but a quick look around the store says this place is violating about twenty different Board of Health laws.

That’s when I see her. Isabella, staring at me from the cover of
People
magazine. It’s the same school portrait from her funeral, but there’s also an older photo of Isabella and Anthony on a dock. Anthony is holding a fishing pole.

WHO KILLED ISABELLA?
The headline asks.

I sense Anthony behind me, and my stomach drops. I turn in time to see the anger explode across his face. He yanks the magazine off the shelf and rips the cover off. I grab his arm as he reaches to do the same to the other copies. “Anthony, stop!”

This gets the cashier’s attention. “Hey, man, what do you think you’re doing?”

Anthony tears another cover off and slams the magazine to the floor. “What do
you
think you’re doing, selling this garbage?”

I’m stepping in front of Anthony in a pathetic attempt to stop him from flipping the whole magazine rack over, when the cashier yells for us to get out or he’s calling the cops. Anthony storms out. Before I follow him, I stop and pay for the magazines he destroyed. And his coffee.

“What the hell was that about?” I’m ready to tell Anthony off when I find him sitting on the curb, his face in his hands. “Hey. You okay?”

He looks up at me, the corners of his eyes red. “It didn’t feel real. Isabella being gone. I’d walk by her room sometimes, just to try and make myself feel something, but it still felt like she was away at school.” Anthony doesn’t say what I know he’s thinking: Seeing Isabella’s face on the cover of that magazine finally makes her death feel real to him.

He rubs his eyes. “Those fucking reporters don’t get it. My sister is dead, and they’re making
money
off it. They don’t care how much it hurts us. How much that goddamn picture can hurt.”

I don’t know what to say, so I reach out and cup the side of his face. He holds my hand there and closes his eyes, and warmth swells deep in me somewhere. Everything that’s happening is so wrong, but for some reason, I wish I could put this moment on pause forever.

“My mom took that picture three years ago. We used to go to Hyannis every year,” Anthony says. “Isabella and I were fighting in the car. Probably about something stupid … I can’t even remember now. Mom had a meltdown and told us we were ruining the last vacation we’d probably be able to take as a family.” Anthony pauses. “When we got home, they told us my dad was diagnosed with MS.”

“I’m so sorry, Anthony,” is all I can manage to say.

He opens his eyes, and I realize I’m still touching his face. I let my hand slide down his neck. His skin is hot. I push aside the neck of his T-shirt, revealing an intricate black design. A tattoo.

I let myself trace the outline of the design. Anthony shudders and closes his eyes again. We sit like that for I don’t know how long, until Anthony stands without looking at me.

“Let’s go.”

*   *   *

Margaret Watts lives in a development filled with uniform white condos. When Anthony pulls up to the curb, a cocker spaniel appears in the glass door next to Watts’s condo. It barks at us once before running away.

“So I was thinking you might want to wait here,” I tell Anthony. “Chances are she’s going to be weirded out enough as it is once I tell her I’m from the school, and if she finds out who you are—”

“No, I get it,” he says. “Better to keep her away from the riffraff.”

“Why do you always do that?” I demand.

“Do what?”

“Assume that people are judging you. That I’m judging you.” I put my hands on my hips. “Stop it. Because I actually like being around you. And I’m guessing that’s not something you hear a lot.”

Anthony blinks at me, and I’m struck by how much he looks like Isabella right now. Young. Vulnerable. I wonder if the tattoos and leather jacket and crappy attitude are his way of hiding how insecure he really is.

“Okay. I’ll wait here.”

I breathe a sigh of relief and walk up to Watts’s door. I ring the bell and listen to footsteps padding down stairs. My heartbeat quickens as the door opens.

“Yes?” The woman’s eyes go up and down, trying to place me.

“Hi. Are you Dean Watts?”

Her face instantly clouds over. “Is this a joke?”

“No! I mean, I don’t know what to call you,” I say. “Is Ms.Watts okay?”

“Do I know you?” She narrows her eyes at me.

“We never met. My name is Anne. I’m a student at the Wheatley School,” I say. “I was Isabella Fernandez’s roommate.”

Dean Watts motions to slam the door. I grab hold of it. “Wait! I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but it’s not funny. Let go of my door.”

“Not until you talk to me. Please. I think you can help me.”

Her eyes probe mine, filled with the same confusion Anthony had in his when I told him I wanted to find out who killed Isabella. “I can’t.”

“I know about Lee Andersen,” I blurt, before the door slams in my face. It swings open again and Watts stares at me, her face drained of all color.

“Then you know why I can’t talk to you,” she says.

“I know you tried to help her,” I say. “Is that why you left?”

Dean Watts lets out a sharp laugh. “Left? They fired me and refused to give me a recommendation so I could find a new job. All of the schools I applied to wouldn’t even give me an interview. They ruined my life.”

“How could they do that to you?” I ask.

“They just can, Anne. And if they find out why you came here, they’ll do the same to you.” A tear rolls down her cheek. “Just stay away from him, okay? I couldn’t protect Isabella. As soon as I heard she was killed, I knew I’d never be able to forgive myself for not fighting hard enough for her.”

“What do you mean? No one believed that Lee was stalking her?”

“Even if they did, do you think it would have made a difference?” she asks. “Michael Andersen is the chair of the Wheatley School Board of Trustees. The headmaster told me to deal with Lee quietly.”

“So why did they fire you?” I ask.

“I told Lee to leave Isabella alone,” Watts says. “He did, for a while. Until Isabella came to me and said he was leaving notes and letters at her desk. I couldn’t ignore that.”

Upton’s class, I realize. “What about the proof? The letters, the painting he did of her? Couldn’t you go to the police?”

Watts shakes her head. “I made the mistake of showing the evidence to Goddard. I never saw it again.”

A chill runs through me. This is so much worse than I ever could have imagined.

“You should go, Anne,” Watts says. “Leave this to the police. If he killed Isabella, they’ll find out.”

“If I believed that, I wouldn’t be here,” I say, before her door closes in my face.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

I tap Anthony’s shoulder and lean into him. “Pull over!”

“We’re on the turnpike,” he calls to me over his shoulder.

“I don’t care! Pull over!”

Anthony slows, looking for a space on the side of the highway while the drivers behind us zip past, leaning on their horns. I stumble off the motorcycle and lean over, giving in to dry heaves. I let them shake my entire body, as if there’s something poisonous inside of me that I’ll never be rid of.

Anthony stands to the side. I can’t look at him. I’m afraid all I’ll see on his face is disgust. How could he not be disgusted with me, when my parents are writing checks to the headmaster who killed his sister?

Because that’s what Goddard did, if he purposely ignored the fact that Lee was stalking Isabella. Even if he’s not the one who cut her throat, he’s just as responsible.

I finally bring myself to look at Anthony. His face is strained, as if it’s taking all he has not to fly into a rage over what Watts told me. Maybe he knows he can’t freak out, now that the police are waiting for him to prove he’s the Violent Brother with Anger Issues. Or maybe he’s just waiting until he gets home to do it.

“I burned part of my old school down,” I blurt. “That’s why my parents sent me here. It was an accident. Sort of. I should probably be in jail, but I’m not, because my dad is a lawyer.” I pause, and add, “He’s kind of a dick.”

Anthony’s face is expressionless. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m afraid of you being right about me,” I admit.

Slowly, Anthony’s face changes. His eyes fill with a hungry intensity, like he wants me or hates me. Maybe both. “Now who’s afraid of being judged?”

I open my mouth to protest but he’s pulling my face to his. A sigh escapes me as his lips find mine, drowning out the sound of cars speeding by. There’s urgency to it this time, and I know this kiss isn’t meant to reassure me or comfort me. There’s a message in the way he’s holding the sides of my face:
Don’t fall apart now. This is about her.

“This Goddard person,” Anthony says when we break apart. “You really think he’s covering for the guy who stalked my sister?”

I picture the headmaster. Empty eyes under thick gray eyebrows. His twisted, patronizing smile. The portrait of money and privilege. “Absolutely,” I say.

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I hold Anthony’s gaze. “I’m going to take the son of a bitch down.”

*   *   *

Deep down, I knew it would come to this. But the thought of what I have to do still scares me. The last time I did something like this, I wasn’t scared. Not because I was braver. I was just stupider.

Because I should be scared of breaking in to Goddard’s office. Scared of getting caught, scared of what I might find. But mostly scared of getting caught and being dead to my parents forever if I get expelled.

Being brave isn’t the same as not being scared, though. It means going through with something even if it totally terrifies you.

At least, that’s what I’m telling myself so I don’t chicken out.

A stunt this risky requires careful planning, though. I can’t afford another close call like the one in Andreev’s office. If I’m going to pull this off flawlessly, I need to sneak in and out of the administration building completely undetected after it closes.

The tunnels are my best chance at that. So Sunday night, after studying for a French exam with Remy, I go to the library and find the Wheatley School history book—the one with a campus map before Lexington Hall burned down and the tunnels were closed.

I study the lines indicating the tunnels more closely this time. On Lexington Hall and Amherst, there are black dots. I trace the tunnel to the boy’s dorm and to the library. There are black dots over those buildings as well. As far as I can tell, the only buildings without dots are the student center and a handful of classroom buildings.

Entrances to the tunnel. That’s what the dots indicate, probably. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see one on the square symbolizing the administration building.

Okay, so, I can get into the administration building through the tunnel. That just leaves me to figure out how I’m going to get into Goddard’s office. I return the book to the shelf and put my coat on. That will have to wait until tomorrow morning, when I can get into the administration building and scope things out.