Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel (26 page)

“I told her I would speak with him. When I asked him what happened, he broke down. He hadn’t realized Vanessa wasn’t in her right mind. He said that his friend pressured him into … doing what he did. He’d even brought Vanessa to his room.”

“And that friend was Pierce Conroy.”

Robinson doesn’t confirm or deny this. “I sat Matthew and his friend down and told them that if they didn’t confess to the dean, I would do it for them. They seemed very ashamed. Contrite, even. But the next morning, Vanessa came to me crying, begging not to tell on the boys. She said she had remembered the events of the night wrong.”

Robinson looks at me, the skin beneath his eyes drooping as if weighed down with sadness. “I told the police all of this when Matthew went missing, of course, but Vanessa was sticking to her changed story. That Matthew hadn’t pressured her into anything.”

“Is that what you regret?” I ask. “Not doing more when Matt disappeared?”

“Matthew was lost long before he went missing,” Robinson says. “I only regret listening to Vanessa when she asked me not to tell.”

My phone vibrates in my coat pocket. If Robinson hears it, he doesn’t react. “I’ve been teaching at Wheatley for over forty years, Anne. It should be something I’m proud of, but recent events have reminded me exactly how little has changed since I first started there.”

“Do you think Vanessa Reardon knows what happened to Matt?” I ask.

Robinson looks at me. “I can’t say, Anne. I would assume she would have said something by now if that were the case.”

I’m not so sure I agree. Dr. Rosenblum’s voice fills my head.
Sometimes it’s best … to let sleeping dogs lie.

My phone buzzes impatiently. I sneak a glance at the message. It’s from Anthony.

Ready soon?

“Professor, I promise I won’t tell anyone about this. I just really needed to know.”

Robinson’s eyes twinkle. “I’m an old man. They’re all biding their time until they can force me to retire, anyway.”

We smile at each other. Robinson reminds me it’s getting dark, and I promise to be careful getting back to school. My phone says it’s 8:15.

“Anne,” Robinson says, when I reach the bottom of the museum steps, “they’re not all bad, you know.”

I nod to him and retrace my steps to the T station, thinking of Matt Weaver’s weird obsession with
Paradise Lost.
Maybe we
are
all bad, and getting by on the moments where we try not to be.

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

The platform for my train is packed. Frat boys, couples dressed up in date clothes, high school kids listening to iPods.

But he stands out. The tall man in grease-stained jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Hollow cheeks, thick blond beard. On his cell phone.

His eyes flick away when I return his stare. Something clicks in my brain. He was behind me on the stairs leading down to the platform. Could he have been behind me for longer and I wasn’t paying attention?

My thoughts twist together until they form a single word:
Move.

When the train pulls in, I push my way through the crowd. A couple of people snipe some choice insults at me, but I’m the first person on the train. I look through the window and see the man’s head towering over the crowd. He tries to push his way past a woman with a stroller, who promptly begins to scream at him.

Now
I run. As the crowd fills up the train car, I make my way through the doors on the opposite side so I’m on the other side of the platform. The train pulls away, leaving behind a few pissed-looking guys in BU sweatshirts who couldn’t fit.

Hooded-sweatshirt guy is on the train. My hands tremble as I call Anthony.

*   *   *

It took fifteen minutes for another train to come. Nearly forty-five minutes after I called Anthony, I’m emerging from the tunnel entrance in the administration parking garage. I hop over the cables and run until I spot the outline of a white car in the distance. Anthony flashes the headlights twice.

If the guy at the T station was following me, he would have headed back to campus to wait and see when I show up. Assuming he found a way to get past the guard at the gates (and believe me, there are ways), he’s probably staking out my dorm right now.

In case that’s true, I make sure to be spotted going back into the dorm at exactly 9:30
P.M
. As far as anyone knows, I never left after that. I even left the sound of my thunderstorm sleep machine on loop so everyone will believe I’m sleeping.

If hooded-sweatshirt guy has his eye on my comings and goings, he’s going to be very bored tonight. At least I hope so.

Anthony scratches the space behind his ear as I tell him all of this. “We have to circle campus. See if we can spot him.”

Anthony turns the key in the ignition, and I shudder along with the engine. “Absolutely not.”

“Anne, if he’s following you, then
tall with a beard
isn’t going to help us figure out who he is.”

“I don’t even know if he was following me!” I say. “I’m probably being paranoid. Besides, if he did follow me back to Wheatley, he won’t be able to get into the dorms.”

Anthony makes a
That’s what you think
snort. “I’m calling Dennis.”

“Please.” I grab his bicep. It’s so warm I almost draw my hand back. He relaxes a bit at my touch. “Anthony, I probably imagined the guy. Let’s not get freaked out. We only have two hours to find the box before the neighbor gets home.”

Anthony turns the radio on and signals to turn right. Away from the school. I sigh with relief.

“Nice dress,” he says, after a beat.

“Is it going to be a problem?” I ask.

Anthony takes his eyes off the road for a second, taking me in. One side of his upper lip quivers. The side with the thin scar.

“Yeah. For me maybe.”

I look down at the hem of my dress. When I’m sitting, it rides almost all the way up my thighs. I desperately want Anthony to put his hand there, to feel his skin on a part of me he hasn’t touched before.

Anthony keeps his hands to himself, but I notice he’s running them through his hair more than he usually does. Rubbing his chin. Adjusting the radio station and volume.

I smile to myself and lean back in the seat. I’ve still got it.

*   *   *

Anthony parks in an unfamiliar neighborhood, all the way down a dead-end street. There are no streetlamps. I look out the window. The dead end leads into a small wooded area littered with beer cans, cigarette butts, and Styrofoam coffee cups.

“This isn’t the house,” I say.

“I know. But the Weavers’ street is well lit. These woods lead to the neighbor’s backyard.”

My eyes are on the woods. A dirt path cuts through the trees and bramble. “So we’re going the back way.”

“Yes,” Anthony says, humoring me. “It’s the best chance we have at not getting caught.”

“Getting caught,” I repeat. I don’t know why this possibility hadn’t occurred to me earlier.

One of Anthony’s knees bounces up and down. “Anne, if you want to wait here, it’s okay. You have a lot more to lose than I do—”

“No.” I swallow. “I dragged you into this. If we go down, I’ll take the fall.”

He reaches and touches my jaw, as if to pull me in for a kiss. But he only runs his thumb over my bottom lip and turns to get out of the car.

I follow him to the trunk, hopping from foot to foot. Anthony pulls out a shovel—not like a little one you plant daisies with; it’s a
big ass
shovel, with a square head. The kind Mel Gibson defended his house with in that awful movie about aliens.

My breathing becomes shallow as I follow Anthony through the woods. I stare up at the back of his head, wondering if he’s also trying to tune out the noises: the crunching of leaves under our feet, the snapping of branches overhead—all of the sounds I’ll forever associate with the moments before Dr. Harrow almost shot me.

There’s a light on over the Weavers’ back porch. An eight-foot fence surrounds their backyard.

The neighbor’s house is dark, save for a small lamp in the second-floor window. Their chain-link fence is considerably shorter. It’s too dark for me to make out much in the backyard except for a rotting picnic table and brick patio.

Anthony sticks the toe of his boot into one of the chain links and hoists himself over the fence. He lands on the other side without a sound. Panicked, I point to the window with the light in it.

“What if he gets up?” I whisper.

“We won’t give him a reason to.” Anthony reaches for me over the top of the fence. “C’mon.”

I look down at my sequined black ballet flats.

“Dear God. Just take them off if you don’t want to ruin them,” Anthony hisses.

“That’s
not
what I was thinking. I was just happy I didn’t wear heels.” I grab Anthony’s hand. He’s so strong that I feel my feet coming off the ground. I feel around with the ball of my foot for one of the links.

“Swing a leg over the top now,” Anthony says.

“But I’m wearing a dress.”

“Anne. Seeing what kind of underwear you’re wearing is the
last
thing on my mind right now.”

I don’t point this out, but he kind of implied it’s
one
of the things on his mind, at least. I swing a leg over and let myself do a little roll-fall into Anthony’s arms. He sets me down and picks up the shovel.

We survey the backyard together, although it seems as if Anthony has already scoped it out from this angle. He points to the garden extending from the patio to the far corner of the fence.

I inch closer to it, examining the plants. The fence is lined with bushes covered in delicate yellow flowers shaped like four-pointed stars. “Forsythia,” I whisper. “Perennial. Not a good place to bury something.”

Anthony raises an eyebrow at me.

“My mom is the editor of a garden magazine,” I explain.

Anthony’s eyes sweep across the garden. He kneels down and cups a handful of dark brown wood chips in his hands. I kneel down beside him, examining the pansies planted in a row. I run my hand over the wood chips, exposing a few rocks arranged in a circle.

“Check this out.” Anthony reaches for one of the rocks. Someone has painted the name
JINGLES
on its smooth, tan surface.

Anthony and I look at each other. He stands up and plants the head of the shovel in the garden. A whimper catches in my throat. I can’t believe we’re doing this.

“It’s okay.” Anthony steps on the base of the shovel and tosses a pile of dirt and wood chips aside. “Why don’t you keep watch, make sure no one pulls into the driveway?”

I know he’s just trying to get me out of his hair so he can focus on digging, but I nod and walk the perimeter of the backyard. I try to peek over the fence and into the yard of the house on the other side—at the same moment a screen door slams on the porch.

I press myself against the fence. Anthony looks over at me, frozen.

I don’t breathe as the sound of jingling metal comes toward me. A dog collar.

Anthony presses a finger to his lips and keeps digging. I nod and stay still against the fence. I look down at my feet to see a black nose peeking out from the space between the fence and the ground.

The dog sniffs my feet. And barks.

I look over at Anthony, who mouths,
Don’t move.
He drops the shovel and gets on his knees, clawing at the ground. He found something.

The dog barks at me again. “Nice puppy,” I whisper. “Nice, nice puppy.”

The nose disappears from under the fence, followed by a howl. I run over to Anthony.

“Now might be a good time to wrap up over here.”

“Look.” Anthony wedges his foot in the hole he’s dug. More dirt falls away, exposing the corner of a metal box. I drop to my knees and help him dig. The wall of soggy earth surrounding the box collapses.

Bark. Bark. Bark. Bark.

Someone opens the screen door over at the Weavers’ old house. A male voice calls out, “Chiefy! Get inside.”

Anthony puts his hand on my back.
Don’t move.
By the light of the half moon, I can make out the letters stamped on the metal box:
M.L.W.

The dog next door scratches at the wooden fence and whines. The man on the porch is quiet. I can almost hear him think:
Is someone out there?

I yank on the sleeve of Anthony’s flannel shirt. He hands me the box while he grabs the shovel and kicks some dirt back into the hole. Chiefy barks his head off as Anthony mouths,
Go!.

We run for the chain-link fence, making Chiefy go berserk. A light flickers on in the house. Anthony throws the shovel over the fence and climbs over in two fluid movements. I hand the box off to him, but for some reason, I can’t get a good grip on the fence this time.

“Come on,” he urges me. “You did it before.”

I lift one leg over the top of the fence at the same time I lose my footing with the other. I fall sideways, my dress getting caught on a gnarled piece of chain link. Pain slices through my side, but I don’t stop to look down. Anthony holds his hand out to me and we run.

*   *   *

“Do you think anyone’s coming?” I can barely get the words out as Anthony starts the car and peels away

“Depends on if he saw us.” Anthony tugs at his ear, leaving a streak of dirt behind on the lobe. I examine my own shaking hands. The spaces under my fingernails are filled with dirt, my thumbnail almost torn clean off.

The metal box on my lap isn’t heavy. When Anthony makes a wide turn, something slides around inside.

“Did you bring the key?” Anthony asks.

“No. I hid it in my room.” I run my finger across the initials, feeling the grooves in the metal they form.
M.L.W.

“Guess that’s where we’re headed, then.”

Normally, the thought of Anthony coming to my room would invoke a different reaction in me, but all I can think about is the pain in my side. “We have to sneak in through the tunnels,” I say. “I never signed out of the dorm earlier. Don’t want to make anyone suspicious.”