Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel (30 page)

“Brent.” I put my face in his. “Who called you earlier? Did they tell you I was right about everything?”

“You … are so pretty,” he slurs.

Then he passes out.

*   *   *

Five minutes later, Cole is holding Brent beneath the armpits as Murali lifts him by the feet. Brent’s face is a shade of gray that makes me sick to my stomach.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Cole ignores me. Murali shrugs, and I want to grab him by the neck and shake him for not having the balls to talk to me while Cole is around.

“Hey,” I call as they cart Brent off toward Aldridge. “You need to get him to the infirmary before he chokes on his own puke.”

“No. We need to get him to his room, before he gets us expelled,” Cole says without looking back at me.

Screw all three of them. I stalk back to Amherst, bypassing Remy’s room and making a beeline for mine.

I let the door slam behind me. I yank off my boots and hurl them into the closet. My heel leaves a black scuff mark on the wall. Damn it. I’m trying to rub it away with my thumb when my phone starts ringing.

I don’t get to it in time. When Anthony immediately calls me again, I know something is wrong.

“Are you alone?” he asks.

“Yeah. What’s going on?”

“Dennis just called. He got something on Kowalski.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “Okay.”

“You might want to sit down,” Anthony says.

“Just tell me already.”

“Okay.” Anthony lowers his voice. “Dennis pulled Kowalski’s rap sheet. Kowalski beat up a guy a couple years ago, but he had help. From the Grabiecs.”

“Who are the Grabiecs?”

“They’re a crime family,” Anthony says. “Eastern European, I think.”

“Great,” I say. “The guy who came after us has ties to
the mob.
”

“They’re not the mob,” Anthony huffs. “They’re like the Kardashians of organized crime. All for show. They’re known for doing sloppy jobs, like the one Kowalski did the other night.”

“But Shepherd, Conroy, Westbrook—they all have enough money to get someone who could do a decent job.”

Anthony is quiet for a beat. “There’s something else. Jeff Kowalski is Bill Grabiec’s great-nephew.”

“Bill Grabiec. I’ve heard that name before.” I sit up straighter and rack my brain. “Wait. I remember my dad talking about his case. He’s the guy that killed all those women at truck stops. Isn’t he on death row in Ohio or something?”

“Pennsylvania,” Anthony says. “He was sentenced three years ago. Dennis says it caused a lot of chatter on the force, since Grabiec killed his first victim in Boston.”

“What does that have to do with any of our guys?” I ask.

“Grabiec tried to get his sentence down to life in prison. He told the DA he’d exchange a plea for information about a hit he carried out in 1995 Said there was a politician involved. The DA rejected it as a last-ditch attempt—Grabiec trying to save his ass from death row.”

I tighten my grip on the phone. “1995. That was the year of Cynthia Westbrook’s car accident.”

“I don’t think the senator hired Kowalski to come after you,” Anthony says. “Because it looks like Bill Grabiec killed Westbrook’s son and wife.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

“What are we going to do?” Anthony and I ask at the same time.

“I don’t know,” Anthony admits. “This is so much bigger than us, Anne. I think we have to admit that we’re out of our league.”

“No.” My grip on the phone tightens. “I don’t care if this is bigger than us. Maybe I should have dropped the Matt Weaver thing weeks ago, but that asshole was in my
room,
Anthony. I know too much. And now you see what happens when you know too much at this school. You go for a car ride in the middle of the night and you never come back.”

“Anne. Shh. Calm down.” Anthony’s gravelly voice is anything but soothing, but it’s sweet he’s making the effort. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

I cough—a big, snot-and-tear-fueled cough. I’ll bet Sonia Russo and Cynthia Westbrook heard the same thing, and they’re still dead. My heart pounds as the weight of it hits me: I could wind up dead, too.

“I’m going to find out who sent Kowalski,” I say. “Whoever it is was stupid enough to hire someone who could tie him to Grabiec—”

I own you, dumbass.

“Anne? You there?”

“Larry Tretter,” I say. “It had to be him. Who else would have access to my room number? I bet he even helped Kowalski get past the security gate.”

Anthony’s response is drowned out by a knock at my door. “I’ll call you back,” I say.

I pad over to the door and peer through the peephole. Darlene stands with her hands in the pocket of her Harvard hoodie, her expression nervous.

Because Detective Phelan, the officer in charge of Isabella’s murder investigation, is standing behind her.

*   *   *

The detective and I sit across from each other at a table in the first-floor lounge. Darlene puts on a pot of coffee for him at the kitchen counter. He didn’t ask for it. I think she just wants an excuse to be in the room.

Detective Phelan knits his hands together and watches me over the top of them. I’ve always liked Phelan. Twenty years ago, he probably looked like Ben Affleck.

He leads off with, “You’re not in trouble.”

It’s probably not in my best interests to admit that being in trouble with the law would be welcome news to me at this point. At least Larry Tretter can’t have me killed if I’m in prison. “Okay.”

“Campus security called us,” Phelan says. “They saw something on last night’s security feed that worried them.”

The coffee pot gurgles behind us. I give Phelan my best vacant stare. “What does that have to do with me?”

“You signed in right after someone named Thomas Petrocelli. Did you see anything out of the ordinary on the way to your room?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Darlene stiffen. She’s probably thinking of my “sleepwalking” incident last night. I swallow.

“Um. I don’t think so,” I say.

Detective Phelan’s radio blips. He turns it off. “Are you sure there was no one in the elevator with you?”

“I took the stairs.” I study Phelan’s face. It’s expressionless. I try to picture what he saw on the security tape: me leaving Amherst. Kowalski entering Amherst. Me taking off after him, and Kowalski leaving Amherst again shortly after that. “I was heading to the convenience store, but I forgot my wallet. So I ran back to the dorm to get it. I didn’t want to wait for the elevator.”

Phelan nods. I can’t tell if he’s buying it. He must know by now that the fake electrician was Jeff Kowalski. All he had to do was cross-reference JR’s Electric and make the connection with the robbery, like Dennis did.

“Actually, I think I did see someone.” I grip the edge of the table. “An electrician. A younger guy. I didn’t think anything of it until now.”

The detective raises an eyebrow at me. “What was he doing?”

“I dunno. Wasn’t really paying attention.” I feign a yawn, hoping Phelan will take the hint that he’s not getting any more out of me.

“Thanks, Anne.” He motions to get up. “We think we know who the man is, but we’re not sure what he was doing here. We thought you might have some insight.”

He holds my gaze. I command myself not to look away. “Is he dangerous?”

Phelan is the one who finally blinks. “Not to you.”

It kills me that I can’t tell him he’s wrong again.

*   *   *

Brent’s phone goes straight to voice mail in the morning. I decide to wait until after breakfast to swing by Aldridge to check on him; I need time to figure out what I’m going to say. I don’t know what prompted him to tell me I was right about everything, but I have to warn him about Tretter.

I meet Remy, April, and Kelsey downstairs. I know they must have been discussing Brent’s little performance last night, because Remy switches to her
Let’s change the subject
voice when she sees me.

“Ugh. Finishing that wine was an awful idea.” She slips on a pair of oversize sunglasses as we head outside. “I’m never drinking again.”

“You always say that.” April yawns and stretches. “Then you forget.”

Kelsey grabs a copy of
The Boston Globe
from the dining-hall lobby. Wheatley kids are superneurotic about reading the news. At my old school, the kids
were
the news. When you’re the son of the owner of the New York Jets and the daughter of a notorious rapper, it’s headline worthy if you get high and try to free the macaques at the Bronx Zoo.

“Did you guys see this?” Kelsey’s nose twitches. It’s her nervous tic when she’s not wearing her glasses. She holds the front page of the paper for us to see.

“Oh my God,” Remy says.

I snatch the paper from Kelsey. I almost black out when I read the headline:

H
UMAN
R
EMAINS
F
OUND AT
B
RODY
L
AKE
H
OUSE
O
WNED BY
L
ATE
M
EDIA
M
OGUL
M
AXWELL
C
ONROY

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

Matt Weaver is the name on everyone’s lips Monday morning.

“It has to be him,” I hear Dan Crowley whisper to Zach Walton in Matthews’s class. “They’re saying the remains are
wicked
decomposed.”

“Mr. Crowley,” Matthews snaps. “If your conversation is so riveting compared with my lesson, please feel free to finish it outside.”

An awkward quiet fills the room. Yelling is not Matthews’s style. His upper lip quivers as he stares out at us, daring someone to bring up Matt Weaver or the Conroy family again. When he resumes his lecture, I check my phone for a message from Brent that I know isn’t there.

I have to know if he’s okay. I heard the guys saying this morning that Brent went home yesterday morning. Cole looked right at me as he said it, as if to tell me he knows this is all my fault.

I bite the inside of my cheek, hoping the pain will distract me from the urge to lose it in the middle of class. Brent was right. I didn’t care whose lives I ruined. But I never actually believed his father was capable of murder.

A fifteen-year-old girl is buried in the backyard of a house that Brent’s dad owns. Matt Weaver knew about it—he might have even helped him put her there. Did Sonia Russo fight back, unlike Vanessa Reardon?

When I’m confident Matthews isn’t moving from his spot in front of the blackboard, I pull up the news article on my laptop. I practically have it memorized by now.

Brody, Massachusetts—Human remains were uncovered behind a home on Lake Brody Saturday night. Authorities say they received a “credible” tip about a body buried at the location. Few details are available at this time, but sources say preliminary decomposition estimates posit the remains are at least twenty years old.

Late Saturday night, the
Boston Herald
confirmed that the property on which the remains were uncovered was owned by media mogul Maxwell Conroy from 1959 until his death in 2003. Pierce Conroy, owner of the
Boston Times
, released the following statement this morning:

“The Conroy estate was shocked to learn of the discovery of human remains on a property that has been in our family for decades. In response to initial allegations that my father is somehow connected to the existence of said remains, I feel compelled to point out that hundreds of persons have had access to the lake house and its adjoining property over the years. Lake Brody is located within five miles of a well-known Native American burial site. Conroy Media denies any involvement with this discovery and is cooperating with Brody authorities completely at this time.”

Authorities have not commented on early speculation that the remains belong to missing Wheatley School student Matthew Weaver. Weaver disappeared from his dormitory in 1981. His body was never recovered. The Brody Police Department is working with local precincts to compose a list of active missing-persons cases in light of Saturday’s discovery.

It’s only a matter of time before the media hears about the box, and Sonia’s necklace, and the note in Matt Weaver’s handwriting. And then where will that leave Brent’s family? If Tretter, Shepherd, or any of the other guys in the photo were involved, they’ll be on their private jets to Europe before you can say
subpoena.

Pat Carroll’s words haunt me:
Whatever it is you’re looking for … I hope it’s not a happy ending.

I don’t know what sort of ending I was looking for, but it wasn’t this one. It wasn’t Brent’s father being the one who killed Matt, and Sonia, and God knows who else.

I get up and push my chair in. The sound is so loud Matthews stops lecturing. But he doesn’t try to stop me from packing up my things and leaving.

*   *   *

I don’t know how long I have before someone realizes I’m cutting all my classes and sends Dean Snaggletooth after me. I don’t even know what the punishment is for cutting at Wheatley: It’s kind of an unwritten rule that when you live at school, you have to show up for class every day.

I sneak past security and head into Wheatley. Once I reach the bottom of the hill separating campus from the townie plebs, I call Anthony. I have to bite back tears when I hear his voice.

“Can I see you?” I ask.

“Now?” He pauses. “I kind of can’t leave until tonight.”

“It’s okay.”

“Wait. I’ll give you directions to my house. I’m a quick walk from the T.”

The air rushes out of my lungs. Anthony’s house.
Isabella’s
house.

*   *   *

Anthony lives in a brown ranch-style house surrounded on all sides by rhododendron bushes. There are four wooden birdhouses on the porch alone. It looks like someone carved them all by hand.

I ring the bell and Anthony calls for me to come in. I don’t know what kind of scene I was expecting to see inside, but it wasn’t Anthony and his father sitting at the kitchen table eating mini pizza bagels.