The Perfectionists (7 page)

And now there was an even bigger secret to hide.

Just like that, a crack formed in her mind, and Julie was suddenly back in the film studies classroom on the day everything started. In all other respects, it had been a completely ordinary day. Nolan Hotchkiss had made fun of three kids in rapid succession in the first minute of class—first Laurie Odenton, who had a lazy eye; then Ursula Winters, who had ham-hock legs and was, Nolan said, basically undateable; and then Oliver Hodges, who was gay and proud and pretty much immune to teasing at that point. Mr. Granger had put on a movie called
And Then There Were None
, the third movie in their mystery series.

The movie was in black and white, with a booming, old-fashioned sound track. It was about eight strangers who were all called to an island by a mysterious host—but when they arrived, their host was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a recorded message accused each of them of murder.

One by one, the guests on the island started to die: the general who ordered his wife's lover into a suicide mission. The servant who'd killed his crippled employer. The crusty old maid who had her nephew locked away in the reformatory until he committed suicide. Someone was punishing them for their crimes. By the end of the movie, Julie was perched on the edge of her seat, wide-eyed. It was weirdly satisfying to watch each person get what he or she deserved. Could you even call it murder?

When the lights finally came up, Julie had blinked in the sudden brightness. Granger assigned the discussion groups immediately, and she'd found herself facing Parker, Mackenzie, Ava, and Caitlin. Besides Parker, she barely knew the others except in passing.

Caitlin had stretched her muscular arms over her head. “That was kind of intense.”

Ava opened her notebook to a blank page, pushing her dark hair off her face. “But it makes sense. It's all about the rule of law, right? How dangerous it is for judgment to come from a vigilante.”

Mackenzie chimed in. “I didn't think some of those people deserved to be punished. What's-her-name, Miss Brent? She didn't kill anyone. She just had her nephew put in jail. It wasn't her fault he killed himself.”

“Sure it was.” Caitlin's voice was sharp. Her lips were a straight, rigid line, her jaw tight. Julie thought about her brother's suicide—everyone knew Nolan had teased him relentlessly, and then her brother had killed himself.

The other girls seemed to remember Taylor at the same time. Mackenzie wrapped her chunky knit sweater tighter around her body. “I didn't mean . . .”

“In fact, she's one of the worst of them,” Caitlin went on. “Because she didn't even care. She didn't even feel bad.”

An awkward silence fell. Mackenzie stared miserably down at her hands. Julie glanced from one girl to the next. Ava clicked her pen, again and again.

Then Parker took a deep breath. “I know it's kind of sick,” she said, her voice low, “but sometimes I think the judge was right. Some people deserve to be punished.”

Tears almost formed in Julie's eyes—it was the first time Parker had spoken in class in ages. But then she glanced around at the shocked faces. Okay, maybe what Parker said was a little harsh, but Julie didn't want her to recede into her shell again.

“Right?” she piped up. “I mean,
I
know some people who deserve punishment. Personally, first on my list would be Parker's dad. The judge let him off too easy.”

The girls' muscles stiffened, the way everyone's always did when Parker's accident came up. The whole school knew what Parker's dad had done to her that night—the evidence was all over her face, for starters, plus he'd ended up in jail, which never happened in a place like Beacon.

They continued talking, mentioning people in their lives who'd wronged them—each of the girls had someone who had hurt them, too—when suddenly Caitlin leaned forward.

“You know who I'd get rid of?” Her eyes glinted as she looked across the room, toward another group's table. Nolan Hotchkiss leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He laughed loudly at something, a mocking sneer on his handsome face. “Him,” she said in a dark voice.

The table went silent again. Admitting that Nolan was a jerk seemed dangerous somehow. If he ever found out, they'd be his next targets.

“Nolan
is
an asshole,” Ava breathed. “He started rumors about me.
Awful
ones.”

Mackenzie's cheeks were blazing red. She stared down at her hands, picking at the edge of her cuticles. “He's got . . . something he's been holding over me, too.”

Julie nodded. She hated Nolan for his role in Parker's incident. If it hadn't been for him, maybe none of it would have happened. Parker would still be her old self.

Ava scratched her pen along the table. “How would you do it? If you were going to kill him, I mean?”

A light came on behind Caitlin's eyes. “You know how I'd do it? Oxy. Everyone knows it's his drug of choice.”

“And then he'd be . . .
gone
,” Parker said wistfully.

“Or cyanide,” Caitlin had continued. “Just like in the old movies. It's completely odorless and colorless. Difficult to detect. He'd be dead in minutes.”

Mackenzie had snickered. “That certainly would do it.”

“Finally.”

Julie looked up. She and Carson had reached the front of the line, and Carson was pumping beer into a red Solo cup. He handed it to Julie. “Well, cheers, Julie Redding,” he said, touching his cup to hers. “I hope to get to know you better.”

“I hope so, too. . . .” Julie was about to say more when something on the television in the den caught her eye. The chief of police stood at a podium in front of dozens of reporters, his face lit by camera flashes. Across the bottom of the screen, the text read:
POLICE HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ABOUT HOTCHKISS DEATH
.

“Oh my god,” she said. Without thinking, she left the keg, grabbed the remote off the side table, and turned the volume up.

More kids drifted over, too. “Cut the music,” Asher Collins yelled. Matt Hill did as he'd asked, and Rihanna was silenced mid-lyric. The entire room fell quiet, and clearly sensing that something big was happening, the kids from outside drifted in to watch as well.

On-screen, the chief cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone. “The autopsy report on Nolan Hotchkiss is in,” he said. A flashbulb popped. A microphone moved closer to his face. “While we are not able to reveal the details at this point, evidence of foul play was found, and we no longer believe his death to have been caused by an accidental overdose.”

“What the . . . ?” someone breathed.

“Intense,” said Nyssa, her face pale. She had sidled up to Julie without her noticing. And Julie watched as Claire Coldwell clutched Blake's hand, tears streaming down her face. Across the room, Mackenzie's eyes fluttered rapidly behind her glasses. Caitlin and Ava exchanged horrified glances. Alex glared at the TV screen, looking dazed.

Julie sat down hard on the edge of the couch, her heart seizing in her chest.
No
, she thought.
This can't be happening
. She thought about the conversation in the film classroom. All those people around them. All those listening ears.

The officer cleared his throat, staring stonily out at the crowd of reporters for a beat. When he spoke again, it was in a matter-of-fact voice, calm and deliberate. “We're investigating all leads.” He paused for a moment, glancing at his notes. “At this time, we're treating this as a homicide investigation. Someone—or
someones
—killed Nolan Hotchkiss. And we won't rest until we find them.”

IT WAS SUNDAY MORNING, AND
the Beacon Heights Episcopal Church was filled to capacity for Nolan Hotchkiss's funeral. Parker stood at the back, tugging at the black wool slacks she'd borrowed from Julie. The air was warm and pungent, the waxy smell of candles mixing with expensive perfumes. High overhead, the gilded ceilings and ornate columns gleamed in the murky light. In front of the altar sat a glossy wooden coffin, heaped with lilies, roses, and hydrangea blossoms. The funeral was closed-casket. Parker couldn't help but wonder if that was because the marker hadn't washed off Nolan's skin.

Now you're as scarred as I am
, she couldn't help thinking, and then hated herself for her bitterness.

The pews were packed with kids, some sitting with their parents, others clustered with their friends. Everyone in school had turned up, especially now that the news had come out that Nolan had been murdered. All sorts of theories swirled. That Nolan had gotten in too deep with a bunch of drug dealers, and they'd offed him while people were partying downstairs. That Nolan had stolen a Mafia don's girlfriend, and mobsters had crept through the window. That one of Mr. Hotchkiss's disgruntled employees had finally gotten his revenge.

Parker herself didn't know what to think. She knew who'd drawn on Nolan, but as for who killed him . . . It hadn't been her and the film studies girls. It couldn't have been.

Right?

In the front row, Mrs. Hotchkiss gave a loud and anguished wail. Then Parker felt someone's hand on her arm and turned. It was Julie. “Come on,” she whispered. “This is almost over. And we need to talk.”

She tripped over her feet as Julie pulled her out to the lawn and around the corner to the parking lot, which was deserted. The flagstones were silver from the rain. A wet chill hung on the air.

Ava, Mackenzie, and Caitlin were already waiting by an alcove lush with myrtle bushes and sedge grass. A weather-beaten statue of Saint Francis stood in the center, a bird feeder full of seeds in the palm of his hands.

Julie unfolded her green-and-pink plaid umbrella, and she and Parker huddled beneath it. “Hey,” they mumbled to the girls as they approached. Parker yanked her hoodie over her head. These girls were nice—they looked at her directly without staring, as though there was nothing wrong with her—but still she felt uncomfortable around them.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Ava burst out, her voice tinged with tears.

“We should stay calm,” Julie said evenly, though she was gripping Parker's hand so hard Parker thought her nails might slice straight through her skin. “I mean, look. We didn't
do
anything. We gave him one Oxy pill—that's all. It's not enough to kill anyone. Especially not him.”

“But that conversation we had.” Caitlin's gaze flicked back and forth. “The things I
said
. The things we
did.
”

“I know,” Parker interrupted, thinking back to that night.

For hours leading up to it, she'd considered not going at all, but the temptation of getting Nolan back—
really
getting him back—was too great. She'd slipped into the party unseen, her hoodie up over her head. She'd found Julie instantly. “Ready for this?” she'd asked her, her smile wide.

Julie's smile had been much more nervous. “I think so.”

They'd gone upstairs one by one. On the landing, Parker had looked down into the crowd, but
no one
was watching them—they were either texting, or chugging beers, or hooking up with someone. She remembered seeing Asher in the corner, flirting with a girl from Brillwood Prep, and Ursula, talking to a JV player. Julie's friend Nyssa was making out with a basketball player while Julie's wannabe clone, Ashley, was talking to the hot new guy from Australia. Parker had continued up the dark stairwell, downing a beer and dropping the cup on one of the risers.

The others joined her in the third-floor bathroom. A vase of fresh yellow asters sat on the vanity counter.

Mackenzie had looked at Caitlin. “You have it, right?”

Caitlin pulled out an orange prescription bottle with her name across the top. “Yep.”

“How much should we give him?” Ava asked.

“Just one,” Parker said knowingly, thinking back to what Nolan had done to her. “It's strong, especially with booze.”

Caitlin shook one pill onto the counter and used the cap of the bottle to grind it into a powder. Julie handed her a cup of beer, and she brushed the powder in and stirred with her finger.

And then they turned off the lights. The cup passed from girl to girl: They each spat in it for good measure. Their voices mingled together.
He deserves everything that's coming to him. Everyone's going to thank us for this.

They watched in silence from the balustrade as Ava took the cup and drifted downstairs. It took them a few minutes to pick Nolan out of the crowd—he was filling his beer at the keg.

Nolan seemed surprised to see Ava, but took the drink unquestioningly from her hand. “
Hey there
,” said Mackenzie in a whispery voice faux-narrating as Ava leaned forward to murmur in Nolan's ear.
“Having fun tonight?”

Then Mac switched to Nolan's part, pitching her voice deep.
“Now that you're here I am. What's this delicious drink you've brought me? So good! Glug glug glug.”

The other girls, Parker included, giggled. She held her breath as Nolan took his first sip.

“
Tonight's been awesome
,” Mackenzie continued the joke.
“I've already pantsed a freshman, poured beer all over a girl so I could see through her shirt, and pushed four of my so-called friends into the pool. Luckily I'm super rich and all these pathetic douche bags spend all their time pandering to my every need, so there are no repercussions to my totally asinine behavior.”

Below them, Ava touched his bicep, a coy smile playing across her lips. She knew how to keep a boy's attention, that was for sure. It was a skill Parker used to have, too.

Suddenly, they were coming upstairs. The girls dodged back into the bathroom, closing the door except for a fraction of an inch. A moment later, Ava half escorted, half dragged Nolan past. He looked wasted already.