Deadly Little Sins (5 page)

I realize I’m clenching my fist as I sit down next to Murali. I let it go as Remy sits next to me. Cole is on the other side of Murali, talking to Graham.

“I heard the new vice principal is this guy who ran a public school in Roxbury for like, twenty years,” Remy says to me and to Kelsey, who’s on the other side of her. Murali and April are both glued to their phones, not listening; April’s playing Candy Crush Saga and Murali is on his Associated Press news app. He told me last year that he wants to go to Northwestern for journalism, but his parents practically have his medical school picked out already.

“Roxbury?” Kelsey’s nose twitches. “That’s really different from Wheatley.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” Remy says, her voice quiet.

I don’t say it, but she’s on to something. Why else would a tier one prep school hire a vice principal from the inner city unless they were trying to send a message: Wheatley is done with scandal. Wheatley means business.

Professor Matthews, my history teacher from last year, walks down the center aisle and sits in the empty end seat next to April. He tells us he volunteered to help out with Senior Week and nudges April to put her phone away.

Tierney has taken the stage. She doesn’t need a microphone; there are only fifty kids in the senior class. Fifty teenage bodies in the auditorium.

Well, forty-nine. Brent still isn’t here.

“Welcome back, everyone,” Tierney says. “You all look well rested.”

A few polite chuckles. Remy whispers at Murali, who’s still on his phone, “Matthews is gonna yell at you.”

“Shut up for a second,” Murali hisses back. Remy blinks at him, shocked. Murali is not the type of guy to tell a girl to shut up.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper to him, at the same time as I see the headline of the news story he’s reading on his phone.

Dorchester home invasion victim identified as MIT graduate

Murali scrolls down, revealing a picture of Dr. Muller.

CHAPTER

FIVE

“What?” It spills out of me, loudly enough for Matthews to turn his head. Cole looks over Murali’s shoulder, at the screen of his phone.

“Holy shit,” he says.

“Gentlemen,” Matthews hisses.

My pulse races. Murali slips his phone into his pocket, frowning. Matthews seems mollified. I pinch the inside of my wrist, hard. There’s no way this is real life. There’s no way Dr. Muller is dead. I just saw him two weeks ago.

He texted me three days ago.

But of course, I can’t tell anyone that.

When Matthews isn’t looking, I get out my phone. I search “Rowan Muller” and click on the first news article. It’s dated yesterday.

The family of Rowan Muller, PhD, arrived at the South African Embassy in Boston, Massachusetts, this evening to identify their son’s body. Muller, 29, missed his flight from Boston’s Logan Airport to Cape Town last Monday. Police visited his apartment in Dorchester and found Muller dead of a single gunshot wound.

“What’s it say?” Cole leans over Murali.

“Mr. Redmond and Miss Dowling.” Matthews whispers so loudly that people in the row in front of us turn around. Fucking Cole. I put my phone away and try to focus on Tierney. My cheeks heat when I see that she’s paused, and staring straight at my row.

“This week, I implore your help in setting an excellent example for the incoming freshman class. In light of recent events, Wheatley’s reputation has suffered. But not its morale.” She clears her throat. “That’s why you may notice several changes around campus this year.”

Yeah
, I think.
Like a disturbing trend involving teachers going missing.

As soon as we get back to the dorm, I turn on the local news. April and Kelsey crowd into our room, since they didn’t hook up their television yet. On screen, police officers tape off the area outside an apartment complex.

“This is so horrible,” Kelsey says. “I didn’t have him, but everyone says he was the nicest—”

I don’t have it in me to tell her to shut up, so I raise the volume on the television to the maximum.

“… an apparent home invasion gone wrong. Several personal items were stolen from Muller’s home, including a laptop and the victim’s phone.”

A photo of Dr. Muller with his family in South Africa flashes across the screen. Remy, Kelsey, and April are still talking. I resist the urge to choke them all.
Shut up. You don’t know what this means.

“Anyone with information is asked to call 1-555-CRIME.”

And then the anchor is onto the construction delays in the Back Bay.

“So horrible,” Kelsey repeats. The girls shake their heads reverently.

“That’s why they call it Deathchester, I guess.”

Remy jabs April in the ribs.

I can’t take much more of this. I grab my cell phone and find a quiet nook in the hallway on the floor above us. I call the number from the new spot and get an automated message assuring me that my call will remain anonymous. I swallow away the sour taste in my mouth.

A bored voice cuts off the hold music. “Mass Crime stoppers.”

“I think … I think I have information about a murder case,” I say. “Rowan Muller. I saw him, two-ish weeks ago, and he told me—”

“Hold on, hold on,” the man says, as if I should know how this works. “I’ll transfer you to the officer assigned to the case.”

A click. More elevator music accompanied by a recording about how together, we can stop crime. My eyelids are drooping before a woman picks up the phone.

“Officer Gonnelly.”

I try to launch into my story, but she cuts me off with a stream of generic questions. How long did I know Dr. Muller? When did I last see him? Did anything seem suspicious when I last saw him?

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I say. “He was looking for his girlfriend. They were both teachers at the Wheatley School. She disappeared last May.”

A pause. “So Rowan Muller was dating another teacher. Can anyone confirm this?”

I pull my knees up to my chest. “I don’t know—they didn’t tell anyone, I don’t think. They were both new, and wouldn’t want to get in trouble—”

“Got it.” Officer Gonnelly is gruff. No doubt, if I were there in person, she’d be the type of cop who wouldn’t stop scribbling notes long enough to look me in the eye. “Does this girlfriend have a name?”

This girlfriend.
Like I’m making it up. Officer Gonnelly is definitely not going to like my response. “That’s the problem. She went by Jessica Cross at the school, but Dr. Muller said that wasn’t her real name. She stole the identity of some woman who died years ago.”

Another loaded pause. I picture Gonnelly waving over her partner, covering the mouthpiece of the phone and whispering,
Come listen to this crap.
“So Mr. Muller was seeing another teacher. Can anyone else confirm the stolen identity story?”

“No, but he texted me before he went missing. He gave me the name Natalie Barnes. Just look up Jessica Cross from Acworth, Georgia, and get Ms. Cross’s personnel file from Wheatley—”

“Thanks, honey. We’ll look into it.”

My toes curl. Once someone drops a
honey
bomb on you, it’s pretty much a given they’re not going to take anything you say seriously.

“Wait,” I say. “I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I’m not making it up.”

“We’ll call you if anything comes of your tip. What’s the best number to reach you at?”

I clench my jaw and give her my cell.

If the BPD won’t find Natalie Barnes, then I will.

By lunchtime, we all have an email from Dean Tierney in our in-boxes.

Faculty, staff, and students,

I regret to inform you that Dr. Rowan Muller, a former teacher at Wheatley, has died in tragic circumstances.

Although Dr. Muller was not with us for very long, he was well liked among faculty and students. Anyone wishing to pay their respects may note that Muller’s colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are holding a small memorial service this Thursday at ten in the morning.

“Do you think they’ll let us out of orientation if we want to go?” Murali’s upper lip quivers for a millisecond. He catches me staring at him and turns his head.

“I doubt it.” Cole spears the hard-boiled egg on top of his spinach salad. For some reason, it only reminds me that Brent still isn’t here. Brent is the only one who would listen to me about Dr. Muller—that this isn’t some random murder.

And then I realize that I’m thinking of the old Brent—the one who helped me find Isabella’s killer. The new Brent is the one who called me crazy for even thinking I could find Matt Weaver—and then pulling farther away from me when I did.

We all start our walk to the quad, where we’re breaking into groups of four to start “orientation leader training.” (Read: Get a stupid T-shirt and do trust falls.) It’s a picturesque late summer day—it’s early enough that it’s balmy, even though it’ll be hot as Satan’s balls by the afternoon. The flowers lining the walkways are in full bloom, and the whole scene looks like it was torn out of a brochure for the Ivy Leagues. The occasional shout and high-pitched giggle from the quad punctuate the calm.

It’s eerie as hell. After Isabella was murdered, the quiet was different. It was a loaded silence—as if everyone was afraid to talk. Now that a teacher we barely knew has been killed, it’s as if the quiet stems from the fact that we have nothing to say.

Damn shame the physics teacher got shot in the head. Wonder if they’ll have potato salad at the welcome barbecue?

Campus is swarming with families, their attention focused on freshmen who look mortified to be breathing the same air as their parents. A woman in a pantsuit holding a map in front of her face steps sideways into me on the quad path. She doesn’t apologize. I almost spit a snotty remark at her—then I see the mortified girl standing to the side of her.

“Mama.” Her deep brown eyes are wide. Her mother ignores her and loudly wonders where the freshman dorms are.

“I’m so sorry,” the girl says to me. She’s pretty, with bronze skin and a thick black braid that reaches almost down to her waist. I soften a bit.

“It’s okay.” I smile at her. She flushes. “If you’re looking for the dorms, just pick a path and go straight.”

There’s chaos on the quad; apparently our first task for the day is picking up orientation leader T-shirts before we meet up with our groups. I wait for small shirts with April and Kelsey as Remy trots off to the extra-small line. Someone taps my shoulder, and I turn around to face Brent. He’s wearing half a smile, and a Black Keys concert T-shirt with his aviator sunglasses hanging from the collar.

“Brent!” Kelsey and April shriek. He gives them both a one-armed hug. Steps back instead of reaching for me. With his thumb, he scratches the outermost point of his eyebrow. It’s his nervous tic.

I wonder what mine is. Whether I’m doing it right now, and if Brent notices.

“Hey, ladies.”

April and Kels start asking him a million questions about England, but they all fall short of my ears. I know it’s selfish to want him to myself right now. Brent was their friend first, and now that I’m not his girlfriend, I’d better get used to being just one of the girls.

We take a collective step forward as the group in front of us moves away, shirts in hand. Brent’s voice is in my ear.

“You’re back.”

“I am,” I say.

“You could have texted me or something.” His voice is light. Not accusing. And he doesn’t seem all that surprised to see me. Remy must have told him already.

“I had my phone taken away,” I say. “But I’ll be sure to tell you next time I’m expelled then sent back here against my will.”

Brent lowers his voice. “This isn’t easy for me either.”

“What? Seeing me?”

His lips part, but nothing comes out.

We don’t talk as we get our T-shirts and break away to find our groups. The sad thing is, I’m not even offended that he basically admitted he was dreading seeing me.

I wish the worst thing that could have happened this week was realizing I would have to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my ex-boyfriend. Dr. Muller’s murder eclipses all of my BS problems.

His murder is a reminder that what happened last year isn’t over.

I make my way to the table marked GROUP 10. The other three members are already there—Peter Wu, a sullen kid who carries a briefcase to class; Peepers, a boy with enormous glasses who looks like a future serial killer, but who happens to be really nice; and Jill Wexler, future Yale Division I volleyball player who is not very nice at all. At least not to me.

“Hi guys,” I say, settling into a free spot on the bench next to Peepers. He beams at me—he’s wearing a nametag that says ARTIE. Jill is writing out hers with a Sharpie, drawing a little heart over the
i
in her name.

The rest grunt hello. I look around at the other groups—everyone but me seems to have gotten a chatty bunch. Remy is with April, Dan Crowley, and Diego, and they’re all laughing at something together.

I find Brent at a table with Lizzie Hansen, creepy Lee Andersen, and Zach Walton. At least someone got a worse group than I did.

But I don’t really mind—it’ll make it easier to break away from them this week and figure out what the hell is going on around here.

CHAPTER

SIX

When orientation breaks for the day, I call Anthony again, even though I have a feeling he won’t pick up. Again.

Hey, it’s me. Leave a message.

I don’t leave a message this time. Instead, I call Dennis, Anthony’s friend who works at the Wheatley Police Department, and ask if I can stop by. His shift starts at four—if I leave now, I can get there as he’s arriving and still be back in time for dinner at six.

“Hey,” Dennis calls to me from outside the front entrance of the police department. Dennis is built, with a close-shaved head and blue eyes. He looks like he should be in a box-office flop about a band of Navy Seals. Really, really good-looking Navy Seals.