Deadly Little Sins (24 page)

“I’m gonna let you go back to school like a good girl,” he says. “And we’re not going to meet again. At least until you turn eighteen.”

He winks and unlocks the door. I scramble out of the car, my legs threatening to give out beneath me. I don’t stop running until I’m back at the campus gate.

Shovels. Goddard.

I’m bursting to tell someone. If I keep this to myself one second longer, I’m afraid it will eat away at me from the inside. Problem is, I have no one left to tell. Anthony is definitely out of the equation, and Brent … I don’t know what Brent is.

If Ms. C were here, she’s exactly the person I would tell. But she’s not, and it’s finally hitting me why I can’t let that fact go.

The good people never seem to get out of here.

I need to get out of this room. I need to
do
something. But leaving campus is out of the question—especially after my run-in with Spencer.

The first-floor lounge is still empty. I park myself there with an empty notebook. It was supposed to be for World Literature, but Professor Knight prefers that we don’t take notes during class discussions. We can’t engage that way, she says.

I scribble a list on the page.

1998: SETTLEMENT IN NESBITT’S CIVIL SUIT

1998: ANNEX ACQUIRED BY WHEATLEY

2002: NATALIE EXPELLED

2006: ANNEX CONSTRUCTION COMPLETED

I let my pen hover back over 1998—the same year the state paid off Nesbitt to stop telling his Plymouth horror story, Goddard was finally able to get his paws on the land.

The paper had said Nesbitt’s settlement was worth somewhere in the mid-six figures. Like Artie said, it’s not exactly a buttload of money. Especially if he was initially seeking somewhere in the millions.

I comb over all the articles about the settlement. There’s no mention about the terms—nothing that indicates Nesbitt would have to keep quiet, stop the stories about the abuse and missing boys in exchange for the money.

“You look … focused.”

Brent slides into the seat across from me.

I slam my notebook closed. “How did you get in?”

His face says that’s not the reaction he was expecting. “Not everyone in this dorm is pissed at me.”

“I’m not pissed. I didn’t leave last night because of you.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “And please stop looking at me like that.”

Brent blinks. “Like what?”

“Like I’m a fragile bird.”

He meets my eyes. “Fragile is the last thing I think you are.”

He doesn’t say what he
does
think I am. Hurt, maybe, that he didn’t tell me he was bringing Kaylee to the party? It must have somehow slipped his mind while he was telling me how glad he was that I was going, too.

Of course it hurt, seeing him with her. Even if he’s not mine and I have no right to be hurt by him moving on when I was ready to do the same thing so quickly, it sucks. She’s not me, and it freaking sucks.

Brent’s gaze drops to a newspaper on the story about the annex. There’s a photo of Goddard, Harrow, and another man at the annex opening ceremony and festival. His smile fades as he slides the paper away from me.

I try to grab it back.

“Anne.” His eyes lock on mine. “What…”

“I don’t know,” I murmur. Because Brent’s thumb is next to the third man’s face.

The face of the man who followed me into the administration building.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-THREE

Nathan Roe. The attorney who represented the Wheatley School in the acquisition of the former Plymouth land.

“Anne.” Brent’s voice drags me back to reality. “What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say.

“I wish you’d let me decide that for myself.” His eyes are pleading.

So I tell Brent everything: About Ms. C, Natalie Barnes, the annex. Spencer and Goddard, and Luke Barnes. He sits, silent, absorbing everything. By the time I’m done, people are pouring out of the dorm in droves, heading for lunch.

“Dr. Muller told you all this? In New York?” Brent sounds troubled.

“Not all of it. Only the part about Natalie Barnes.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “Everything else I found out on my own.”

Brent stretches, and I realize how long we’ve been sitting here. I fish around in my purse and show him the journal entry I found in the tunnels.

“I think one of the boys at Plymouth wrote this,” I say. “What if Goddard and the attorney never turned the records they found over to the state once the school was bulldozed?”

Brent frowns. “Why would they do that? It’s illegal.”

“Because.” My mind is racing. I point to the article about the annex. “
Five million dollars
of the school’s money was tied up in the contract with the construction company to level the school and build the annex. Not to mention what they spent on the land. If the state reopened an investigation based on documents like
these
—I point to the journal entry—“then Goddard would have fallen on his sword.”

“His legacy project would be a multimillion dollar embarrassment,” Brent says. “Anne, this is crazy. I mean, you’re not crazy. This makes sense. But it’s crazy.”

“Natalie must have heard them say something that night on the annex,” I say. “Whatever it was, it was enough for her to risk everything to come back and try to prove that Goddard was covering up the truth about Plymouth. Except I think she got caught, snooping around in the tunnels.”

I tell Brent about the security feed the night before Ms. C left. How she went into the tunnels. “Let’s say Goddard or Tierney pulled up the feed. They saw she was sticking her nose where she wasn’t supposed to, so they gave her the axe.”

“But Goddard was gone that morning,” Brent says. “It must have been Tierney who fired her. And why would Tierney know to pull the security feed and look for Ms. Cross on it that morning?”

“She didn’t,” I mutter. “She was looking for me. And Coach Tretter.”

Brent is quiet. “You think Tierney is involved with whatever happened to Ms. C next?”

“I don’t know.” My mind is racing. “She had Natalie’s file on her desk. So maybe she busts Ms. C for snooping, fires her. Then does some snooping of her own. Discovers Jessica Cross is a lie. She tips off Goddard—they put two and two together, and he realizes who she really is.”

“But then what?” Brent asks. “Goddard is a lot of things, but a killer?”

“It could have been Roe,” I say. “He had just as much to lose if they were covering something up. Goddard could have told him to find her, talk to her—maybe things got out of hand. She wouldn’t agree to shut up.”

Brent drums his fingers against the table. His leg jiggles. He believes me.

“So what do we do now?” he asks.

“You have your car here, right?”

Once Brent and I arrive at the Worcester nursing home, I offer to pay for the gas it took to get here.

“Knock it off,” he says as we pass through the automatic doors at the front entrance.

“I’m serious,” I say. “You probably have a thousand better things to be doing.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But nothing I’d rather be doing.”

We make our way to the visitor’s center and ask to see Mr. Nesbitt.

“He’s on his way to lunch,” the woman at the desk says. “And he’s not feeling real friendly today.”

“It’ll only take a minute,” I say.

She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you a reporter?”

“No,” I say. “I’m a friend.”

“Hmph. Now that’s a new one. I’ll call his room.”

The woman rolls away on her chair and makes a call. She covers her mouth so Brent and I can’t hear what she’s saying.

“Have a seat,” she says. “He’s on his way down.”

Brent and I sit on the couch across from the circulation desk, watching an ABC Family movie with a few elderly people in wheelchairs who eyeball us. Brent’s knee bounces up and down as we wait.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“Nursing homes freak me out.”

“They’re not so bad,” I say. I tell Brent how I had to visit my grandpa Harold in the nursing home for three years. My dad says my grandfather was like
Law & Order.
He held on for five seasons longer than he should have.

“Is that them?” a throaty voice booms. It’s followed by a phlegmy cough.

Brent and I turn to see a man in a wheelchair rolling toward us. There’s an oxygen tube running into his nose. In the photo, Raymond Nesbitt looked like a sick young man. Now he looks like a sick old one: paper-thin skin, gaunt body hunched over his chair..

“Hi, Mr. Nesbitt.” I extend a hand. “My name is Anne.”

“This about Plymouth?” he asks automatically.

I’m taken aback. “How did you know?”

“Don’t got any family. I’m all settled up with the IRS. And Dolores here says you’re not a reporter.” Another cough. “Unless you lied about that bit.”

“I didn’t,” I say softly. “I’m a student. At the Wheatley School. It’s not far from the old Plymouth site.”

Mr. Nesbitt contemplates me. Jerks his head toward Brent. “Who’s he?”

“My ride.”

Brent jabs my ribs. Mr. Nesbitt coughs again. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

“I read about you,” I say, as he leads us into the empty dining room. It smells like slimy hotdogs and coffee. “About the things they did to you.”

Mr. Nesbitt is quiet as he watches Brent and me sit. “What’s it you want?”

“Those twenty boys—the missing ones,” I say. “Do you know what really happened to them?”

“Not supposed to talk about that.” Mr. Nesbitt’s tone has changed. There’s a protective edge to it now.

“Why not? Was it part of the settlement terms that you couldn’t talk anymore about what they did?”

“I just can’t girl, all right? What’s it matter when they’re all dead anyway? All them men who beat me are dead, and there ain’t nothing more to do about it.”

“Please,” I say. “I’m trying to find my friend. She disappeared, and I think she was trying to find the truth about Plymouth—”

“You want the truth?” Mr. Nesbitt gives another hacking cough. “That place is a goddamned graveyard, and you’d best stay away from it.”

Graveyard. Shovels. Goddard.

“You think those boys … are buried on the land?” I ask.

Mr. Nesbitt is silent.

“We found something that might change your mind,” Brent says. “About nothing being left to do. I’m sure some of those boys have family who are alive. Sisters, brothers. They deserve to know what happened.”

Mr. Nesbitt is still silent. Brent nudges me. I put the journal entry on the table and push it toward Mr. Nesbitt. He grunts and looks away. I read it aloud to him.

His face contorts at mention of “the jail.” He puts a waxy, wrinkled hand on the paper and pulls it toward him.

“Charlie,” he says. “Charlie kept a journal. One of the only boys who could read ’n write. Said the police caught him with a gal in a car and sent him to Plymouth. His drunk old daddy never come looking for him. That’s what they did: rounded up all the troublemakers and sent ’em to Plymouth to get the piss beat outta them.”

“What happened to Charlie?” I say quietly.

“One day he didn’t show up for breakfast. Rumor was he got transferred to another block, but we knew better than to ask questions or we’d get sent to the jail ourselves. Then I saw two of ’em head for the grounds with shovels.”

“Mr. Nesbitt.” Brent leans forward, sets his hands palms-down on the table. “Did someone threaten you, or pay you, to stay quiet about the things you saw at Plymouth?”

Nesbitt is quiet, and I realize it’s his way of telling us
yes.
I take out the news article about the annex with the photo of Goddard and Roe.

“Was it any of these men?” I ask him.

Nesbitt’s eyes widen. He lifts a shaky finger, and taps Dr. Harrow’s face.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

We’re quiet as we exit to the parking lot. Brent starts his car and grips the steering wheel. “This is so fucked.”

“Goddard obviously sent Harrow to do the dirty work for him,” I say. “He was Goddard’s right-hand man at the time of the settlement.”

“It couldn’t have been Harrow with Goddard at the annex that night, though,” Brent says. “Harrow only taught at Wheatley for five years.”

“I think it was Roe, the attorney, with Goddard,” I say. “They obviously found the records together and decided to hide them at Wheatley instead of turning them over.”

“Until someone found them in the tunnels,” Brent says.

Natalie.

I call Dennis when I get back to the dorm and tell him I need to speak to Dr. Harrow. I think he’s going to hang up on me.

“Anne,” he finally says. “When I told you not to do anything drastic, this was kind of exactly what I had in mind.”

“Well that’s silly,” I say. “It’s not like I went ahead and did it.”

That’s why I need Dennis’s help: As a minor, I need to be accompanied by a parent if I’m going to visit an inmate at the prison Dr. Harrow was transferred to once he pled guilty and got eighty years in prison.

I need to be accompanied by a parent—or a law enforcement officer.

“I know,” Dennis sighs when I remind him of this. “I just don’t think this is a good idea. At all.”

I’m not afraid of James Harrow. I know it sounds crazy, because he tried to kill me, but you’d have to have seen the look in his eyes when he pointed the gun at me. He didn’t want to do it. That’s why I believe that he didn’t mean to kill Isabella. He’s greedy, arrogant, and pathetic, but he’s not a sociopath.

I know because I remember the way Travis Shepherd looked at me. He was going to kill me, and he was going to enjoy every second of it. He was going to kill me to shut me up, just like he did to Sonia Russo, Matt Weaver, and Alexis’s mother. If there was one thing Travis Shepherd wanted more than anything else, it was to control the narrative of his own life. He didn’t just want control—he enjoyed taking control. Even if it meant taking people’s lives.