Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel

by Kara Taylor

  While there were no witnesses, an investigation into the deadly crash suggested Durham-Westbrook fell asleep and drove off the highway. Senator Westbrook filed a lawsuit against the makers of the family’s car, citing brake failure as the cause of the crash. The lawsuit was eventually dropped; due to extensive fire damage to the Westbrooks’ vehicle, investigators were unable to conclude what caused the crash with 100 percent certainty.

  Remarriage to Mary Ellen Cormier

  Steven Westbrook married Mary Ellen Cormier, daughter of Wall Street executive Jonathan Cormier, in 1997. The couple had their first child, a son, one year later.

  I close my laptop and brew a cup of chai. I sit it in front of me on the desk, unable to touch it.

  My best friend, Chelsea, is really superstitious. Not, like, won’t-walk-under-a-ladder or freaks-if-she-breaks-a-mirror superstitious. I’m talking about wastes-a-shitload-of-money-on-psychics-and-palm-readers superstitious.

  I think of all the Wheatley School students who have wound up dead (or presumably, at least): Isabella Fernandez. Matthew Weaver. Cynthia Durham. I’ve never believed in curses or any of that garbage. But I will admit it: I’m starting to worry that if I stay at the Wheatley School, I might be next.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  The last time I went to a party in Aldridge, the boys’ dorm, my roommate was brutally murdered. So naturally I’m a little hesitant when, later that night, Brent calls while Remy and I are hanging out in Kelsey and April’s room and tells us to come over.

  “I’m too tired. Can’t we stay in tonight?” Kelsey is lying on her back on her bed, her strawberry blond hair fanning out on the pillow behind her. I could jump on the bed and hug her. As much as I want to see Brent, I’d really rather hang here and watch movies than get dressed up and sneak out to the boys’ dorm.

  I don’t even recognize myself anymore. All it took was three months at boarding school to accomplish what my parents couldn’t in sixteen years.

  “Come on,” April says. “We haven’t gone over there since…”

  I’m the only one who’s listening to her. She doesn’t finish her sentence and goes back to browsing the formal dress section on Lord & Taylor’s Web site. Remy is already straightening her hair with the flat iron on April’s desk.

  “I am done staying in every weekend,” she announces. “DONE.”

  And that’s how we wind up going.

  Sneaking out requires a little more finesse post-murder on campus. The stairwell door, which the girls used to use to leave the dorms after 10:00 P.M. curfew, is now booby-trapped with an alarm. The alternative system we’ve come up with is this: Pick the lock on the first-floor kitchen window. Close it and leave it unlocked. Climb out and press ourselves against the side of the building where the security camera outside Amherst doesn’t reach. Then James-Bond it over to Aldridge.

  Of course, all of this could be avoided if I just tell the girls what I know: that the underground tunnel system the Wheatley School used for navigating campus in bad weather never really closed in 1960. That there are accessible entrances all over campus. One is even in the basement of Amherst.

  But I’m not dumb enough to tell anyone about the tunnels. People would start using them to sneak out, and if they got caught by the security guards who occasionally patrol down there, the school would probably seal the tunnels for good.

  We get to Aldridge without any major incident, although Kelsey fell out of the window and ripped her tights. Murali lets us in through the first-floor lounge window.

  As some crew-team perk or whatever, the guys live in a four-person suite with their own living room/kitchenette and bathroom. Cole and Phil are sitting on the floor around the coffee table, fooling around with a deck of cards. Phil raises a plastic blue cup and grins at us.

  “We’re playing Kings. Beers are in the fridge.”

  It appears we’re the only guests this evening. Absent, thankfully, is Sebastian Girard, who exaggerates his French accent to hit on me, and Jill Wexler, who is tall and thin and blond and in love with Brent. Which isn’t grounds to hate her. I’m not like that.

  But the last time Jill and I were at the same party, she almost got me expelled-and-or-jailed afterward. So I’m happy no one invited her tonight.

  I make my way to the iPod dock on the kitchen counter as the girls rummage through the fridge. Whoever left his iPod here forgot to make a playlist. I scroll through the library, which includes a lot of The Who, Neil Young, and Tom Petty. I choose my favorite Billy Joel song—“Vienna”—and turn the volume up.

  “Good taste.” A clean-shaven chin nuzzles into my neck from behind. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a Billy Joel fan.”

  I turn into Brent so we’re stomach-to-stomach. “He was my first concert. Madison Square Garden.”

  “There’s an old soul somewhere in this wild child.” Brent leans in to kiss me but instead brushes his nose against mine. I lean in to meet his lips. He turns his head, teasing me.

  “Do you always have to play hard to get?” I ask.

  “Says the girl who wouldn’t go out with me until I almost got knifed,” he says.

  I smooth my hand down from the collar of Brent’s T-shirt to his navel. “Hey, at least I still wanted you after I got you.”

  I don’t realize how messed up that sounds until Brent smiles and it never makes it to his eyes. He holds my gaze. “Just go easy on me, okay?”

  I want to tell him I didn’t mean it like that, that he really is different from all the Martin Paynes in my life. But I don’t get the chance, because Remy yells from the hallway, interrupting me.

  “Brent. Why do you guys have twenty bottles of Sprite in your bathroom?”

  “Why don’t you have twenty bottles of Sprite in your bathroom?” Brent’s voice is playful, but I sense him stiffen in my arms.

  “Oh, no,” April says over the sound of Murali, Phil, and Cole’s laughter. “There are tons of bananas in the fridge. You’re not doing the Sprite-banana challenge, are you?”

  “What’s the Sprite-banana challenge?” Kelsey asks over the rim of her beer.

  “You don’t want to know.” April shakes her head. “I saw it on YouTube. You eat a bunch of bananas then drink Sprite. And then you puke a lot.”

  Remy squeals. “Why would you do that?”

  “Relax,” Murali says. “We’re not. The new recruits are.”

  “What, like hazing?” As soon as the words leave my mouth I want to take them back. Brent’s mouth forms a thin line, and Phil lets out an awkward laugh. Cole shuffles the deck of cards, his eyes on his hands.

  “We don’t haze,” Murali says brightly. “We initiate. Hazing violates the Wheatley Code of Conduct.”

  This gets real laughter out of everyone. But my head is swimming. One of the articles I found online about Matthew Weaver’s disappearance mentioned that the crew team had been punished the year before for hazing new members. Projectile vomiting bananas and Sprite sounds innocent enough, but what if the team in the photo went too far and something happened to Matt in the process?

  “Come on. Relax a little.” Brent takes my hand and guides me to the table. I don’t want him thinking my mind is elsewhere tonight—and truthfully, I don’t want my mind to be elsewhere—so I grab a beer and join the game at the coffee table.

  For the next two and a half hours, we play President. The first person to get rid of all of her cards is the “President.” The last is the “Asshole.” The President gets to boss everyone around, and everyone else basically gets to verbally abuse the Asshole. Also, the Asshole has to do what everyone says. Phil is the Asshole for most of the game. Kelsey makes him distribute his best cards evenly among all of us, which prompts a drunken conversation about socialism. Remy has him strip down to his boxers, and we’re all on our fourth beer, at least, by the time Brent strips down to his boxers and demands Phil kiss his bare ass.

  “On that note,” Phil says, standing up, “I think I’ll go to bed.”

 
; We play for all of five minutes after he’s gone before Remy gets up to go to the bathroom. When she doesn’t come back, April and Kelsey snicker between themselves.

  “They’re so hooking up,” April says.

  Cole throws his cards down and gets up. “I’m done, too.”

  We’re all quiet as he storms down the hall. Cole and Remy dated for a few months last year.

  “Oops,” April says.

  “Seriously, Apes, you’ve got to cut that shit out,” Brent says.

  Kelsey hiccups and says she wants to go back to Amherst. Clearly, the party’s over now, but I’m really having fun and want to stay here with Brent. Murali agrees to walk April and Kelsey home, and then it’s just Brent and me on the couch.

  We listen to his iPod for a little while. There’s a lot of making out and some wandering hands, but Brent is too drunk to fully appreciate the beauty of a lacy front-clasp bra. I don’t know who falls asleep first, but when I open my eyes it’s 3:00 A.M. Brent’s arm is draped over me. He twitches lightly in his sleep.

  I have to pee something fierce. I don’t want to wake him up, so I plant a kiss on his cheek and slip out from beneath him. I’m still a little buzzed, so I wind up on my knees on the carpet between the couch and the coffee table. As I crawl away from the couch, my foot brushes a stack of magazines beneath the coffee table. They all spill over.

  “Damn it.” I try to push them into some semblance of order but wind up making it worse. A bunch of photos slide out of a yearbook tucked among the magazines. I spot one of Cole, asleep, with BALLS written on his forehead in Sharpie. Brent, Murali, and Phil playing beer pong in another. Phil’s California-sun-streaked hair is long, and Murali’s face has a little extra baby fat. These were probably taken last year, or earlier.

  I can’t help but give them a quick browse, especially after spotting a picture of Remy and Cole at what I assume is last year’s formal. They’re sitting at a round table, their heads tilted in to each other. Brent is behind them, sticking his tongue out in photo-bomb fashion.

  So sue me for wanting to know who his date was.

  I paw through the pictures as Brent snores lightly. A dark, poor-quality photo—probably from a cell phone—catches my attention. Maybe it’s the beer, but the picture makes me want to throw up.

  Eight guys stand shoulder to shoulder, their wrists bound in front of them with rope. I don’t recognize anyone in it. Probably because they all have potato sacks over their heads.

  Whatever this is, it’s sick and I don’t like it. I scuttle off to the bathroom and lock myself in. Then I do the stupidest thing I’ve done all week.

  I call Anthony.

  The thing is that deep down I know it’s a terrible idea. But drinking makes me feel like I’m incapable of having bad ideas.

  I know he’s not going to pick up after the fourth ring. Something in me deflates when I reach his voice mail.

  “Hey, leave a message, and I’ll call you back.”

  “Hi. Um. It’s me. Anne. Look, I know we haven’t talked in a while. But I really need to talk. To you. It’s important.”

  Then I hang up.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Approximately an entire day after I call him, I still don’t have an answer from Anthony.

  I shouldn’t have called him at all. It’s as if I’m only capable of forgetting about Anthony Fernandez long enough to forget why I even want to forget about him.

  Everyone is in self-imposed isolation today: We all got drunker than we meant to last night, and there’s lots of shit due in class tomorrow. When I finish my biology lab report, I trudge to the kitchen downstairs because I need more coffee and I’m out of pods for the brewer in my room. Darlene, my RA, is at the microwave with her back to me. She turns around when she hears me shuffle in.

  “Hey, Anne.” With two fingers, she removes a bag of popcorn from the microwave. If she suspects I didn’t spend the night in my own dorm, she doesn’t let on. Mercifully, I was able to take my Walk of Shame through the side entrance, which you can get into with your school ID starting at 6:00 A.M.

  I wave to Darlene and rub my eyes. Things you need to get over at boarding school: people seeing you without makeup; everyone knowing your secret to supersoft hair is using baby shampoo. I even had to amend my “Never Wear Yoga Pants in Public” rule.

  Darlene leaves me, and Remy wanders in. We wordlessly sit at a table and watch the coffee brew.

  “So,” I say. “You and Phil.”

  Remy groans a little. “It’s nothing serious.”

  But Cole doesn’t seem to think so. He and Remy are usually very chatty, but at dinner that night he positions himself between Murali and Kelsey and barely says a word to anyone.

  I follow Brent to the stir-fry line so he can get his second dinner. “What the hell is that about?”

  “Cole being Cole. Remy being Remy.” He dumps some broccoli into his bowl, chooses a sesame ginger sauce, and tells the chef he’d like chicken.

  Brent looks to see if anyone’s watching, then kisses my temple. It’s sweet, but it’s also his way of saying I don’t want to talk about our friends and their bullshit. “Last night was fun.”

  “Yeah.” I ignore the nagging sensation in my brain. The voice screaming that something isn’t right. I want to ask Brent what the hell that photo was—the one of the guys with their hands bound—but it’ll look like I was snooping around his dorm while he was passed out.

  “We hanging out tonight?” he asks as we make our way back to the table.

  “Why?” I tease. “Can’t get enough of me?”

  Brent laughs. “How could I possibly, when you’re so charming and modest?”

  I elbow him. He hooks a finger through the loop in my skirt and pulls me to him. “No, but really. Just you and me.”

  I try to focus on how amazing his fingers brushing through my ponytail feels, but I keep circling back to the photo. And to the thought that maybe whatever freaky thing the guys were doing in it is related to Matt Weaver’s disappearance.

  “Tempting, but I want to get a head start on Fowler’s paper,” I say. “I’m going to head to the library after dinner.”

  “Okay.” He leans in but passes over my mouth and kisses my upper cheek, almost next to my eye. It would make sense for him to ask to come with me to the library since we both have to do that paper, but I know he’s too proud to risk the rejection.

  And I feel as relieved as I do guilty. Because even though I am going to the library, I don’t plan on starting Fowler’s paper.

  * * *

  Someone’s checked out the edition of A History of the Wheatley School that has the first news story I read about Matt Weaver tucked inside. I should have taken the article when I had the chance.

  I hate to do it, but I have to go to the microfilm section. At least one of the old newspapers there has to have a mention of what the 1980 crew team did to get slapped with hazing charges.

  The librarian gives me the mandatory speech about how to use the projector.

  “What are you looking for in particular?” she asks.

  “Oh, just some history on sports at Wheatley,” I say.

  She suggests I look at old editions of The Wheatley Register, the school newspaper. I thank her and she returns to her desk. I doubt any mention of disciplinary action would be in The Wheatley Register. It’s more of a “Look at how smart our students are; they can write about foreign policy and hydrofracking” type of paper.

  I opt instead for the local paper. Once I find the bin labeled 1981, a sense of dread corners me. I don’t have time to go through hundreds of newspapers. For all I know, the hazing charges weren’t even newsworthy.

  I close the drawer of microfilm. Anne, defeated. I really am searching for a needle in a haystack. What am I thinking, wasting my time like this? Even if I do find evidence that the crew team killed Matt Weaver, there’s no way the police will touch a thirty-year-old murder without a body.

  I check out a book of cr
iticism on Edmund Spenser before I trek back to the dorm, partly because I feel bad about lying to Brent. A clap of thunder sounds in the distance. I quicken my pace so I don’t get caught in the downpour that’s sure to come. The tunnels underground would be pretty useful right now.

  The tunnels. Of course. How had I not remembered sooner the rooms in the tunnels? At one point, part of the tunnels was the basement of the administration building. When Anthony and I were searching for info on Isabella, we came across a room of old files. And there were lots others.

  I bet the answers I’m looking for are down there.

  * * *

  By midnight, all of the lights in my hall are off. My pepper spray, phone, and backup flashlight are in my bag. I crawl out of bed and take the stairs down to the first floor.

  Darlene is at the desk, her head down. A textbook is open in front of her. I slip past her and head down the laundry-room stairs.

  The rain plinks against the gutters by the basement windows. I apply some rosebud salve to my lips and start to push the bookcase against the far wall. It’s heavier than I remember, and I’ve broken a little sweat by the time I’m done.

  There’s a damp chill in the tunnels. I keep a path of light in front of me and one hand on the stone wall to steady myself. A drop of water lands on the back of my neck.

  I follow the signs pointing to Lexington Hall, an old classroom building. I figure anything of importance to me will be in one of the basement rooms there, where all of the hard-copy records are from before the system was computerized. The room that used to be Lexington Hall 180N is basic student records; I’ll have to do some poking around to find out where they keep discipline records. And since discipline isn’t really a “thing” at the Wheatley School, there can’t be many.