Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel (31 page)

Mr. Fernandez is in pajama pants and a Denver Broncos sweatshirt. He’s thin, with ghastly white skin. His hair is thick and curly like Isabella’s was.

He takes me in and looks over at Anthony. “Is she here to wipe my ass, too?”

I stand in the kitchen archway. Anthony looks at my face and bursts into laughter.

“Apparently you found Dad’s sense of humor on your way here,” he says.

I take a tentative step toward Anthony’s father. He closes the rest of the distance between us by wheeling himself toward me. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Fernandez,” I say.

He surprises me by clasping my hand between his. He doesn’t speak. His soft brown eyes probe mine. Does he know who I am? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I squeeze his frail hand as tears slip down his cheek.

I can’t bring myself to give Isabella’s father the empty condolences I was raised to say when something terrible happens. I can’t do anything to change the fact that it should be his daughter holding his hand right now, and I can’t drive away the cloud of darkness that will follow him for the rest of his life.

So I hold on to Mr. Fernandez and let him cry, for I don’t know how long, before I feel Anthony’s hand on the small of my back.

*   *   *

I’m in Anthony’s room, sitting on the edge of his bed. He has flannel sheets.

He doesn’t say anything as he climbs behind me and brushes my hair away from my neck. I close my eyes, feeling guilty at how much I’m enjoying his lips on the area right below my ear. He hooks a finger in the back of my collar, pulling my sweater down so he can trace kisses along my back.

I turn enough for my mouth to meet his. “What are we doing?”

He ignores my question and kisses me. I put a hand to his chest and push him away, gently. “No. Really.”

Anthony stares at me. “What are you talking about?”

“All of this … fooling around,” I say. “Does it mean anything to you?”

Anthony takes a lock of my hair between his fingers. His eyes flick downward in a way that makes my heart sink. He can’t even look at me.

“I like you,” he finally says. “And it scares me.”

“Am I
that
bad?”

“No.” A smile plays in his eyes. “It’s just that most things I like aren’t good for me.”

“I’m going to pretend you
didn’t
just compare me to a cheeseburger.” I hold his gaze. “There’s something you should know.”

“Oh, really?” Anthony’s voice is playful. He leans in to me, but I put a hand to his shoulder to stop him. His smile lilts.

“When people were accusing you of … those awful things, I didn’t stop caring about you.” I take a breath. “I still do. A lot. But Brent…”

Anthony stiffens at his name. I force myself to keep going.

“I care about him, too. Maybe in a different way, I don’t know. Everything is so screwed up and confusing, and I shouldn’t even be thinking about this right now, but you need to know I care about him,” I say. “And if there’s any chance his dad isn’t involved in this, I want to prove it.”

Anthony’s eyes are on his wall. I knew he wouldn’t understand, but I can’t tell if he’s angry. He inhales as if he’s going to reply, at the same moment a crackling sounds from his dresser.

“Eighty-nine Glendale Drive … officers on the scene.”

I look at Anthony. “Is that a police scanner?”

“Yeah. Got it this week to see if I could pick up anything,” he grunts.

“Isn’t that illegal?”

“Man, you say that like
you
haven’t broken three different laws since you woke up today.” Anthony goes over to his dresser and picks up the scanner. It looks like a car radio.

“Guy who called us is Dwight Miller … isn’t he that nasty son of a bitch?”

Another voice on the scanner responds:
“Yep. Usually his wife is the one making the calls. What’s his problem?”

“Dwight Miller,” I say. “That name sounds familiar.”

“Sonia Russo’s foster father,” Anthony deadpans.

There’s more crackling on the scanner:
“Complained about a disturbance. Woman started banging on his door and screaming at him to come outside so she could kill him. She seems to think the body they found over in Brody is her daughter.”

“She still there?”

“Yeah. Officer Manfrate’s talking her down.”

“Got a name?”

“Russo,”
the voice crackles.
“Antonella Russo.”

*   *   *

According to White Pages, there’s one Antonella Russo in the Wheatley area. She lives in Harrison, which is about twenty minutes from here. Anthony sets his father up in front of the television and tells him we’ll be back within the hour and to call Mrs. Hanley, the neighbor, if he needs anything.

We have to get gas for Anthony’s motorcycle, so we don’t leave until almost half an hour later. Antonella Russo lives in a federal low-income housing development on the outskirts of Harrison. As soon as we pull into the development, I want to leave.

Antonella’s neighbor, a nosy elderly woman, tells us she’s not home. “She works afternoons at the salon on Main Street.”

We thank her and head back the way we came, getting lost twice before we wind up on Main Street. There’s only one salon—a dumpy little place called Hair Razers. Anthony slips a few quarters into the parking meter as I stake out the salon.

“I don’t see what she’s gonna be able to tell us,” Anthony says. “Dennis said she’s been in and out of jail for years.”

“She obviously knew Dwight Miller was Sonia’s foster parent.” My patience with Anthony is wearing thin. “Maybe she had more contact with Sonia than we think. Look.”

A sickly-looking woman stubs out a cigarette on the sidewalk outside the salon. She’s wearing a black apron, which does little to conceal the sharpness of her limbs. I glimpse her face before she enters the salon.

“I think that’s her.”

I run across the street and ask the girl at the reception desk if I can speak with Antonella.

The girl narrows her eyes, which are thickly rimmed with liner. “You her probation officer?”

“No. Please tell her I need to speak with her about her daughter.”

I wait outside after the girl disappears into the back room. Anthony watches me from across the street, his satisfaction tugging at his mouth as the minutes tick by. Antonella Russo is not coming to talk to me.

I’m about to go back inside the salon when the door swings open. The most frightening woman I’ve ever seen stares back at me. At one time, she was probably beautiful, like her daughter. Now her cheeks are sunken like something from a Tim Burton movie.

“You askin’ for me?” Antonella Russo is missing more than a few teeth. The rest are brown and chipped. I’m speechless.

With trembling hands, Antonella Russo lights another cigarette. Her skin is tissue-paper thin. “Thought you might be the cops, come to tell me they found my baby girl.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Ms. Russo.” Across the street, Anthony watches us. “I think I may have some information about your daughter.”

Antonella coughs into the crook of her arm. I find the yearbook photo in my bag—the one where Vanessa Reardon and Sonia Russo stand together to the side, talking as if they’re both in on a secret.

I hand the photo to Antonella. Her eyes go straight to Sonia. An animal-like cry slips out of her. “Where’d you get this?”

“A yearbook at the Wheatley School.”

Antonella grips the picture and speaks as if I’m not even here. “My baby girl. My beautiful baby girl.”

I look over at Anthony. His eyebrows knit together and he motions to step off the curb. I shake my head at him.

“How old are you?” Antonella Russo asks, taking me by surprise.

“Seventeen,” I say.

She lets out a phlegmy laugh. “I was your age when I had her. My daddy threw me out. Doctors called Sonia my miracle baby. Even with all the poison I put in my body, she was perfect.”

Antonella hands me the picture. “They took her from me. I spent the first ten years of her life in an’ outta jail. Court said I couldn’t see her. She found me, after they sent her to live with that monster.”

She must mean Dwight Miller. It occurs to me that Antonella is speaking to herself.

“She was fifteen and so beautiful. She loved to read. Gonna get a job at the library that summer, she told me.” Antonella wipes her eyes. “She was seeing a nice boy. One of them Wheatley kids. Bought her a name necklace, real diamonds and everything. Told her he’d marry her when they were old enough. My baby girl was so, so happy.”

My throat tightens. “Did she tell you the boy’s name?”

Antonella shakes her head. “She was real secretive about it. But she showed me his picture.”

My blood pounds in my ears as I shuffle through my bag. I find the picture of the crew team and show Antonella. “Is he in this photo?”

Antonella’s eyes sweep over Matt Weaver. Over Pierce Conroy.

“That’s him,” she says, pointing to Travis Shepherd.

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

“Do you believe her?” Anthony asks. We’re still outside Hair Razers. Antonella Russo is inside, sweeping the floor as if we never spoke.

“She’s definitely not playing with a full deck,” I say. “But it fits. Most of Matt’s letters to Cynthia say he needed to tell her something. He must have known Travis was cheating on her with Sonia. He was going to tell her.”

“So Shepherd killed Matt Weaver to stop him?” Anthony’s voice is skeptical. “Seems a little extreme.”

“He wasn’t going to tell her he was cheating,” I say. “Think about the box. Sonia’s necklace. The note inside.”

Realization dawns on Anthony’s face. “You think Shepherd killed her? And Matt knew about it?”

I run through the facts in my head, trying to fill in the story’s holes. “The woman who witnessed a boy going into the woods the night Matt disappeared … maybe she didn’t see Matt after all.” I show Anthony the picture, pointing to Travis Shepherd. He and Matt are the same height. Around the same weight. Both have brown hair.

“Holy shit,” Anthony says. “But what about Jeff Kowalski and Grabiec? If Shepherd was going to pay someone to kill Westbrook’s wife, he had the money to do it right. And why would he wait almost fifteen years to get rid of her if she knew something?”

“I don’t know,” I murmur. “Maybe we were right about Coach Tretter being involved somehow. Shepherd definitely has something on him.”

“So how does Conroy fit into all of this then?”

I pull the yearbook photo out of my bag. The one I showed Antonella, where Travis Shepherd is on the couch with Matt Weaver and Cynthia. “Look at the room. It’s not anywhere on campus. They could be at Pierce Conroy’s lake house.”

Anthony leans against the parking meter. “But we can’t prove any of this. At least not until they identify Sonia, and the papers are saying it could take months with a body that old.”

I curse under my breath. By then, Travis Shepherd will have destroyed any remaining evidence linking him to Sonia Russo and Matt Weaver. I did
not
come this far and risk this much to sit back and let that happen.

“Oh, man,” Anthony says. “You have that look on your face. The scary one.”

I close my eyes, trying to stay one step ahead of Travis Shepherd. Somehow, he must have figured out it was me who called Thom Ennis and sent him and the others that e-mail. That I would go after Matt’s box once I knew it existed.

The photo. The one I stole from Travis’s office. I was dumb enough to think he wouldn’t notice, or that his wife wouldn’t tell him she saw me in there the night of the party.

But the photo of Isabella’s dead body … someone left it for me before I put the pieces together, before the party and the photo. Someone who knew I was in the crew team office. Someone who saw me hounding Zach Walton about the hazing.

Someone who has been able to watch my movements here.

“Take me back to school,” I tell Anthony.
Take me back so I can find Casey Shepherd and end him.

*   *   *

After sitting in traffic, it’s nearly five by the time Anthony drops me off at Wheatley. Sports practice is ending. I hurry past Sebastian, who tries to stop me on the quad to “help” him with his campus-engineering-survey project for physics.

I stop outside the athletic complex, watching people trickle out. Jill, Brooke, and Lizzie, in their track and field uniforms. Lee Andersen, holding what looks like a squash racquet. I avoid his eyes and accidentally meet Cole’s. He pretends he doesn’t see me and turns to Murali and Phil, jumping in on their conversation.

I run up to him. “Have you seen Casey?”

“Are you serious?” Cole lets out a breathy laugh and shakes his head at me.

“I’m trying to help Brent,” I snap. “So if you could stop hating me for like two seconds and tell me where Casey is, I’d really appreciate it.”

Cole blinks at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t have time to explain. I need you to trust me. You know I wouldn’t lie, Cole.”

He scratches his shoulder and lets his hand rest there. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out at first. “I think … Casey hung back. Coach wanted to talk to him. He seemed pretty pissed off.”

“Is he alone in there with Tretter?”

“I—I think so. Why?”

I take off for the entrance of the athletic complex. There are a few stragglers in the lobby by the trophy cases, but almost everyone has cleared out. I head straight for Tretter’s office. It’s locked. I press my ear to the door. Nothing.

That’s when I hear the shouting come from down the hall. The boys’ locker room.

I run for the door, which is also locked. I wind up and give it a kick without thinking. I cry out in frustration, then I search my bag for a bobby pin. When I wedge it in the lock, I hear Casey’s voice.

“Get
off
me.”

The sound of a body slamming into a locker makes me jump. “Where is it?” Tretter demands.

“It doesn’t matter,” Casey says. “You’re done, dickhole.”

Something that sounds sickeningly like a skull crashing into a locker. Casey cries out. The bobby pin nearly slips through my fingers, but the lock clicks and I push my way into the locker room.