Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel (22 page)

“Anthony—”

“No, there’s more. I don’t want to pretend I don’t give a shit what you think of me. Because I do. I don’t want to be the waste product you think I am. It’s all I think about lately.” His eyes are pleading, begging me to understand what he’s really saying. “You’re all I think about, and I can’t stop.”

I can’t breathe. It’s not that I haven’t imagined him coming back and saying that to me. Part of me even wanted him to. Desperately.

I step toward him, taking his face in my hands. “Then don’t.”

He stares at me, stunned. “What…”

“It’s over.” I’m choked up, as if saying it finally makes it true. “And before you ask, it’s not because of you. But
you
left me there that night, with Brent. You made the choice for me. I’m still pissed about it. And I’m probably stupid for forgiving you … so please just kiss me before I change my mind.”

So he does. His lips are even better than I remember: smooth and full of heat. I keep holding his face, tracing the side of his jaw up to his sideburns. I run my fingers through his hair and pull as his tongue finds mine. His hands move to my lower back, pressing me into him.

His lips move to my ear. “Are you sure you want this? Because I don’t know any other way to be around you.”

Losing Brent is still raw, but this is definitely what I want. I’ve wanted it for longer than I admitted to myself. But the thrill of kissing Anthony again dulls the guilt flooding me. Seriously, not even an Adele album can cover the range of emotions in me right now.

And I can’t help but feel that this was supposed to happen. That the picture was supposed to lead me back to Anthony so we could finish what we started. So we could solve the case his great-uncle couldn’t. So we could help Mr. Weaver bury his son.

Brent was wrong: It’s not that I can’t let Matt Weaver go. I just don’t want to.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Anthony and I lie facing each other on my bed. For the record, we’re fully clothed and have been since I brought him up here an hour ago. For once, he’s doing most of the talking. He wants me to know the truth about Isabella, he says. Not because he wants to speak ill of the dead, but because he thinks I should understand how different they really were and why he had to do some of the things he did.

I trace the tattoo on his neck as he tells me things were different before his father got sick. Mr. Fernandez worked for a construction company in Boston. Their family used to drive to Hyannis every summer and rent a cabin. Anthony’s father liked to hunt, and he took Anthony all the time. Isabella would get jealous, so eventually they brought her along. Iz was the center of her father’s world, Anthony said.

Isabella never had a lot of friends at public school: She was smarter than the other kids and didn’t have anything in common with them. The school wouldn’t let her skip ahead a grade, so her parents pulled extra shifts to send her to precollege programs at MIT. Isabella worked her ass off to get into the Wheatley School. That was the year her father was diagnosed with MS.

That’s when she changed, Anthony said. He dealt with his father’s illness by getting angry and fighting anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Isabella went off to boarding school and rarely came home. Anthony thinks it was too difficult to see her father’s deteriorating condition.

“I was in denial about her and the vice-principal.” Anthony’s eyes are on my ceiling. “My sister was too smart for that. But she needed someone. And we weren’t there for her.”

“Why did you steal from her?” I whisper.

Anthony faces me. “You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”

I shake my head and take his hand. It’s warm, and he relaxes into me. I missed the way he smells up close—like hair gel, Eclipse spearmint gum, and a hint of motor oil.

“Okay.” He sighs through his nose. “I’ve always been kind of good at poker…; my cousin taught me. I play every week with these guys at the firehouse. It’s how I met Dennis. Before he became a cop.”

I nod. I never actually believed the first version—that Dennis is the older brother of one of Anthony’s friends from school.

“So I started winning almost every week,” Anthony continues.

“Sounds like you’re more than ‘kind of good,’” I say. “Were you counting cards?”

“Jeez, can I finish my story? It’s almost impossible to count cards in poker.”

“Okay, so maybe I don’t even know how to play poker.”

A smile twitches at the corner of Anthony’s mouth. “So, a couple of the guys got pissed I was winning every week. But this guy Tank came up to me one night. Asked if I wanted in on a higher-stakes game.”

“Sounds sketchy.”

Anthony gives me a look. “Sorry,” I say. “Go on.”

“The buy-in was a grand. Fifteen people. The winner would get ten grand,” Anthony explains. “I
knew
I had a shot at it. Or at least second place. Do you know how much that kind of money could have helped my family? I could have helped my mom with mortgage payments, or gotten someone to come take care of my dad.…”

I run my thumb over his palm, feeling all of the ridges and hardened skin. I still can’t believe he’s here. “You asked Isabella for the money?”

He nods. “I didn’t have the cash. Most of my paychecks went toward groceries, gas, and stuff. My mom was too caught up in her own shit to realize how much I was paying for. She’d kill me if she knew. Isabella didn’t even know. When I asked her for the money, she laughed in my face. So I took it. I lost it all in the tournament … the same night she was killed.”

Anthony’s face is stony. All of the anger I’m used to seeing in his eyes isn’t there, though. He’s not the same person I met after his sister’s death. Or maybe he’s always been this person and I never looked closely enough.

I don’t know what to say. I can never understand what Anthony’s been through—the responsibility of keeping his family afloat, the pain of losing his sister, and the crushing knowledge that his father is next.

I’ve been so lucky by comparison. I’ve always had it all—popularity, friends, parents that would forgive me for just about anything—and I threw it all away by almost burning my old school down. I press my lips to Anthony’s cheek and whisper in his ear, “I’m never going to be good enough for you.”

“Stop.” He takes my face in his hands and kisses me, slowly, deeply. I let him.

Being sent to Wheatley was my fault, but it was also my chance to do something right for once in my life. I thought that was getting justice for Isabella, but now I see that was just the beginning.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

Sunday morning, Anthony comes by to drive me to the Verizon store, but since I’m not the account holder, I have to wait for them to call my dad and get permission to give me a new phone. Apparently, being a dumbass and spilling Smirnoff on one’s phone is not covered by insurance.

We decide to walk around on Boylston Street after, because I can’t stomach the thought of going back to campus. I update him on my weekend—leaving out the epically ugly breakup.

“I can’t believe you were in Shepherd’s house.” Anthony shakes his head. “He’s the richest guy in Boston.”

“Believe it, because I got a souvenir.” I hand him the photo I took from the office. Anthony peers at it. “Is that—”

“Yeah, that’s Matt. But look closely at what’s on the desk.”

Anthony and I stop at a crosswalk while he studies the picture. “M.L.W.… What’s Matt Weaver’s middle name?”

I snatch the photo away from him. “Don’t you see? There’s a padlock on the box.”

I watch Anthony’s face change as the gears turn in his head. “Oh…”

“We’ve got to go back to the Weavers and see if they have that box.”

The light changes. Anthony is parked across the street, and I start there with a new sense of purpose. He trails after me. “Anne, that box is more than thirty years old. Don Weaver looks like he has trouble finding his dentures every night. And if they’ve found it already, wouldn’t they have thought it might help the police? They left no stone unturned, remember?”

“The stones they were allowed to touch, at least,” I murmur.

Anthony studies my face. “You think the box could be somewhere on campus?”

“Could be,” I say. “It was in his dorm room in that photo. In any case, we should find out if his parents have seen it before.”

I go to check the screen of my phone, forgetting that it’s dead. Anthony smirks. “Time to get a watch.”

I sigh. “What time is it?”

Anthony glances at his wrist. “Early enough to make a detour.”

*   *   *

Joan Weaver is sitting in an Adirondack chair, facing her house. She looks up at the sound of a motorcycle approaching her curb. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed hat and garden gloves. There’s a stack of weeds next to her chair.

Unlike last time, she doesn’t smile when she sees us. In fact, she looks like she’s been expecting us. I almost lose my nerve as Anthony presses a hand to my back, guiding me toward her.

“Hi, Mrs. Weaver,” he says, as if sensing my hesitation. “I hope we’re not intruding.”

Joan gives me a look that cuts right through me. “Did you need more for that newspaper article on Matty?”

Anthony’s hand moves down my back reassuringly.
Lie.

“Mrs. Weaver…, I was hoping we could ask you a few questions,” I say, “not for the paper.”

Anthony stiffens beside me as Joan takes off her gloves. “You never were writing an article on him, were you?”

“I’m so sorry I lied to you.” Pressure builds behind my eyes. “But I think I can help you and your husband find out what really happened—”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard that over the years?” She doesn’t sound angry. Just tired, which makes me feel worse.

Anthony slips his hand in mine as Joan turns toward her house.

“Wait.” I step away from Anthony, searching my bag. “I need to show you something.”

Joan faces me, her mouth settling into a line. Before she can decide it’s not worth it to humor me, I show her the photograph I enlarged yesterday morning.

“Have you seen this box before?”

Joan peers at the photo, silent. The look of sadness on her face tells me she couldn’t care less about the box. Her wrinkled thumb moves over her son’s face. She swallows and hands the photo back to me.

“Please, Mrs. Weaver. Do you have this box?”

She shakes her head. “He kept his important things in there. Baseball cards, his coin collection. We never found it in his room. Figured he brought it to school and it got lost in the shuffle.”

Or someone stole it.

Joan Weaver retreats into her house without saying good-bye to us. I want to kick something.

“Excuse me.”

Anthony looks to our right, and I realize the voice is coming from next door. The woman there has a hose at her side, trickling water onto the driveway. She waves us over.

I look at Anthony, who shrugs. We walk to the street, then up the woman’s driveway. She’s in jean shorts and a sweatshirt, her hair tied back with a bandana. She looks like she’s in her late thirties.

“Couldn’t help but listen to you guys,” she says. “You know, Joan and Don don’t really like people coming around about Matty.”

“We gathered that,” Anthony grunts. I jab him in the ribs.

“We’re just trying to help,” I say.

“Yeah, I heard you found a box. What does it look like?” Her forehead creases.

I pull the photo out of my bag and hand it to the woman. She wipes her hands on her sweatshirt before taking it.

The woman’s forehead creases. Then she laughs. “
That
box? No, he definitely didn’t have anything important in there.” She looks up from the photo. “If this is the same box I’m thinking of, there’s nothing in there but Jingles.”

“Jingles?”

The woman hands me the photo back. “My hamster. He died when my parents weren’t home, and Matt helped me bury him in the garden. I wanted to use a shoebox, but Matt went home and put him in that box. He said the cats wouldn’t be able to dig him up that way.”

I blink. “Oh.”

“Sorry you came out here for nothing,” the woman says. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing.”

She doesn’t say it unkindly. More like we’re a couple of kids playing Sherlock Holmes and she wants to humor us. We thank her for her time and head back to Anthony’s motorcycle. “I can’t believe we came out here for a dead hamster,” he says.

I put my hands on his shoulders. It’s weird how much taller than me he is. Brent was my height. I push the thought out of my mind. “We have to come back and dig up that box.”

“Are you crazy? You heard her.”

“Yeah, but did that woman say she
saw
Matt put the hamster in the box?”

Anthony rubs his eyebrow. “You really think he buried evidence along with a dead pet?”

“I don’t think he buried the hamster at all. But yeah, I think there’s something important in the box. Why else would he hide the key as well as he did?”

Anthony doesn’t have an answer for that. “I just…”

“What?” I ask, as we climb on his motorcycle. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at me.

“I really don’t want to know what he did with the hamster, then.”

*   *   *

Anthony and I stop at a place called Tia’s Taqueria for lunch. I hang back and let him order, my mind racing around everything Joan Weaver told us.

He accepts a paper bag from the cashier, and we sit at the counter by the window. “I got tacos and burritos. Which do you want?”

I shrug. “Whichever.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “You want me to pick for you, don’t you? I’m half Mexican, so that makes me real qualified, right?”

“Actually, I’m just not hungry and didn’t want to be rude,” I mutter. “Ass.”

A ghost of a smile plays on Anthony’s mouth. “I like when you curse at me.”

“Trust me. That’s not cursing.” I break off a piece of the shell from the taco Anthony placed in front of me. I can’t bring myself to eat it.

“What are you thinking?” He asks me around a bite of burrito.

“That we’d better come up with a plan fast if we want to get to that box before someone else does.”