by Kara Taylor
“On March eighteenth, 1981, Weaver attended his classes at the Wheatley School. He skipped dinner, telling his friends he had a headache. Weaver went back to his dormitory and slept until eleven, when he woke up his roommate, Blaine Goldsmith.”
The recording of a man’s voice plays. “He told me he’d be right back, so I went to sleep. Sure, it was a little weird that he was dressed and everything, but Matty was always coming and going like that.”
The screen fills up with a still of the forest behind the school as the host speaks again.
“That’s the last anyone saw Matthew Weaver alive.”
I fast-forward through a commercial break. The next scene opens with the host sitting across from an older man. The caption on the screen reads OFFICER PATRICK CARROLL, FORMER DETECTIVE.
“Mr. Carroll, what do you think happened to Matt Weaver?”
“I think he was murdered.”
The sound of voices pulls me away from the TV. I jump up and shut the VCR off and wait for footsteps in the hall. Just say you were sleepwalking.
The hall and lounge are quiet, though. That’s when I see them—the shadowy figures outside the window.
I drop to my knees and clutch my arms over my chest. Remind myself no one can see in the lounge windows. Only out. It’s impossible someone was watching me.
I wait for the voices to fade away, but they get louder. Someone is yelling. I grasp the windowsill and look out onto the steps between Aldridge and Amherst.
There are three guys standing out there by the basement door to Aldridge. In the light of the moon, I get a glimpse of Casey Shepherd’s face. He looks like he could kill someone.
I crank the window open the inch it will allow, praying the guys outside won’t notice. I peer out in time to see Casey shove a short guy with a bowl haircut. Zach Walton.
“You show this to anyone, Walton, and we’re all done. You hear that? Done.” Casey shoves Zach again, who doubles over, arms wrapped around his stomach.
“Dude, this is serious.” I can’t see his face, but I recognize Cole’s voice. He motions for Zach to bend over and pull up his shirt. Cole uses the light from his phone to show Casey what’s on Zach’s back: an oozing burn that’s turning a color no burn should be. I cover my mouth to hold in a gag.
“He has to go to the infirmary,” Cole says. Casey curses and grabs Zach by the collar of his flannel shirt.
“I’m coming with you,” Casey says in his face. “That way there’s no confusion over who did this to you. Who did this to you, Walton?” Casey gives him a shake.
“I did this to myself.” Zach’s voice is weak. Casey drops him. Before they disappear around the corner, Cole yells something at Casey. I only catch a piece of it: “Told you this would happen again”.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Zach Walton looks like he’s going to cry all throughout calculus, so I feel lousy for cornering him after class. When I smile at him, his face scrunches up like a kid who knows he’s going to be spanked. Our last conversation—and only conversation—was not very pleasant for Zach, since Alexis Westbrook had manipulated him into sending me a threatening rose-gram on Valentine’s Day.
“What do you want?” He pushes his Buddy Holly glasses up his face. Zach is a classic postpubescent disaster: greasy mushroom cut, forehead speckled with acne. I feel a motherly urge to clean him up a bit.
“Looks like you’re in a bit of pain there, Zach.”
He tenses up. “I’m fine.”
I come at him with a finger, like I’m going to poke him in the back. He jumps. “What the hell?”
“Why would you let them do that to you?” I hiss.
Zach ignores me as he picks up his messenger bag, letting it droop pathetically across the crook of his arm. I help him pull it up over his shoulder, careful not to touch his back.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, trying to wiggle past me.
“Hey. How did they do that to you?”
Zach doesn’t stop. I catch up with him in the hallway, even though my next class is in the opposite direction. “I saw! Last night, from the Amherst lounge.”
“What? Were you spying or something?” he mutters.
“Look. I know we got off on the wrong foot,” I say. “I think what you did was stupid, and you probably think I’m a bit of a psycho.”
Zach doesn’t disagree. His eyebrows knit together. “What did you see?”
“Enough to know you’re insane if you think being on the crew team is worth that.” I point to Zach’s back. He flinches, as if he’s still not sure I’m going to hurt him.
“It was an accident,” he deadpans.
I grab Zach’s shoulder and readjust him so he’s facing me. “Really? You think I, of all people, am going to believe that?”
Zach’s eyes flick to the right, then to mine. “Why do you care? It was just a dumb … thing. It’s my fault I got hurt.”
“What did they do?” I demand.
“There’s no they.” He breaks from me and hobbles away. I clench my fists and follow, even though I know he’s not going to give me anything else.
“Okay, no they. So was it Shep?”
Zach freezes, as if the name were an arrow in his spine.
“He’s the ringleader, right?” I say.
“Just leave me alone,” Zach says over his shoulder before he starts to walk away from me again.
“You might not be as lucky next time.”
Zach slows and turns his head to me.
“The Drop.” I say it just quietly enough that we could be talking about tomorrow’s calc test. “That’s the last part of initiation, right?”
Zach meets my gaze for the first time. There’s a new emotion on his face. Surprise. It hits me: He doesn’t know about The Drop. Isn’t that the point?
“Whatever they have planned for you guys,” I whisper, “I think it’s going to be really bad.”
He looks over his shoulder at the group gathering outside his classroom. Despite the fact no one seems to be paying attention to us, he lowers his voice. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He ducks into his next classroom before I can tell him I know he’s lying.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
During breakfast the next morning, Kelsey is trying to convert us all to vegetarianism, when Shep comes over to our table.
He has the type of presence that automatically shuts people up. Everyone is silent as he stands behind Cole. Shep smiles at me—at least I’m pretty sure it’s me—and sticks out his hand for Cole to slap. Cole does so without smiling. In fact, none of the guys look happy to see Casey Shepherd.
“Got something for you,” Casey says to me. I sense Brent stiffen as Casey pulls a book from his messenger bag.
“The Satanic Epic,” I read off the cover. “Hey, thanks.”
“No problem.” He slaps Brent on the shoulder before winking at me and heading back to his table.
Everyone immediately snaps their heads toward me. I shrug.
“I talked to him about Fowler’s class the other day. He said this would help with the final.” Play dumb. “Do you guys not like him or something?”
When no one answers, April pipes up, “He’s nice.”
Brent snorts. “Yeah. He’s perfectly nice. Until there aren’t girls around, and he acts like the dickweasel he really is.”
“He seems pretty interested in you,” Brent says after a beat. He’s not looking at me.
“Lots of guys are interested in Anne,” Murali laughs. “We hear things.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s just because I’m new. It’ll wear off. Plus, it’s not like that. Casey’s got a girlfriend.”
“That’s never stopped him before,” Cole says.
The table goes quiet, and I look up from my breakfast. Cole is staring at Remy, and the look on her face says he was staring at her when he made the comment about Casey.
Remy’s face falls as she waits for someone to defend her. I have
no idea what’s going on, and before I can jump in, she throws her napkin down on her tray and gets up. Within seconds of her storming off, Kelsey and April follow.
“So,” Brent says. “How about that bacon shortage?”
Cole mumbles something about needing to turn something into Robinson and gets up. Murali sighs and heads for the juice machine with his empty glass.
It’s just me, Brent, and Phil left at the table. “What the hell was that about?” I ask.
“They’re always like this.” Brent looks to Phil for affirmation. “They’re just usually better at hiding it.”
“I don’t know, man,” Phil says in his drowsy, California-esque drawl. “I’m just gonna sit here with my peanuts and hope it’s all a phase.”
When I was six, I wouldn’t leave the house or do anything without wearing my Cinderella costume. That was a phase. This is … I don’t know what it is.
But I know I don’t like it.
* * *
When my last class is over, I have a text from Anthony dated almost an hour ago.
Call me when u get out
I head back to my room without stopping, hoping Anthony isn’t at work or something by now. I’m relieved when I hear his voice after the fourth ring.
“You like my package?” he asks.
I choke. On nothing. Just air. Anthony waits for me to stop coughing. “Anne … the video I sent you.”
“I know.” Thank God he’s not here to see how red my face is. “I just had a tickle in my throat.”
“Anyway, I got something on Sonia Russo,” he says.
I collapse onto my bed and kick off my flats. “Already?”
“I have friends in important places. Sonia Russo died thirty years ago, probably.”
“Probably?”
“They never found her body. She had a heart condition, though, so she would have been dead in a few months without treatment.” Anthony pauses. “She went missing in January the same year Matt Weaver did.”
I take a couple of seconds to process this. “But … if it’s an open case, why was it so hard to find anything on her?”
“No father, drug-addict mother. She was living with a foster family when she went missing. They didn’t even report her gone until three days later.”
“So no one cared about her,” I say. “I wonder how Matt Weaver knew her.”
“She spent almost two years with the foster family in Wheatley. If she went to school, she would have gone to Thomas Hutch Junior High with him. They might have been friends.”
He’s quiet in a way that lets me know he’s thinking the same thing I am. “It can’t be a coincidence they went missing the same year.”
“I don’t know,” Anthony says. “Something feels different about her case.”
I prop up my pillow behind my back so I can lean against the wall. “What do you mean?”
“They’re pretty sure her foster parents had something to do with it, even if they couldn’t prove anything. The foster father, Dwight Miller, has been in and out of prison for years. Bunch of different domestic-assault charges.”
He says it “chaages,” as if there were no r. I used to think his accent was funny, but now it’s one of those sounds that makes me feel like I’m home. Like my dog scratching at my bedroom door, or the oven timer in my kitchen going off.
“So what have you got?” Anthony asks.
“I’m working on Shepherd. His son goes to school here.” My gaze lands on the book on my desk. The Satanic Epic. “I think I’m making progress.”
My stomach folds into itself as I think of Brent. Anthony will think I should try to get more information on the Conroys, and I don’t want to believe that Brent’s dad was involved. Not yet.
“I’ll ask around town about Sonia,” Anthony says as there’s a knock at my door.
“Hey. I’ve got to go.” I nearly drop my phone as I scramble to look through the peephole. Remy is on the other side of my door. “Let me know if you find anything.”
I hang up. I have to take a deep breath before I let Remy, even though there’s totally nothing wrong with talking to Anthony. Remy tries to smile, but her eyes and nose are red.
“Are you okay?” I ask, shutting the door behind her.
She starts to nod, then shakes her head. When she lets the tears out, I put my arms around her. Remy squeezes me, her body shaking with sobs. I give her an awkward pat on the back. I’m the world’s worst hugger. Maybe it’s an only-child thing, because Cole gives pretty awful hugs, too.
Cole. This is what this is about.
“Talk to me.” I sit on the bed and pat the spot next to me. Remy sits and wipes her face with both hands.
“Casey Shepherd is the only guy I’ve been with besides Cole,” she sniffles. “It was freshman year, and he said he and Bea were broken up. They’re always on and off.… He was my first, and I hate myself for it. Cole was the only person I trusted enough to tell.”
I know this is supposed to be about Remy, but I feel guilty she’s telling me now. Almost as if I don’t deserve her trust. “Don’t ever say you hate yourself for that. You know what I hate? The idea that we’re supposed to hate ourselves for having sex.”
“No one’s going to see it that way. Bea already hates me, and if this gets out…” Remy chokes back a sob. “How could Cole humiliate me in front of everyone like that?”
“It’s because he’s being a huge man-baby over the Phil thing,” I say.
“He has no freaking right.” Remy is moving from depressed to pissed off. “He’s been with other girls since we broke up. I’ll kill him if Bea finds out and tells everyone I’m a home wrecker.”
“You won’t have to. I’ll kill him for you.”
Remy smiles at me and blinks tears away. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I meet her gaze just as her face turns serious. “Anne, just promise me you won’t hate me. If they start saying stuff about me.”
“You definitely don’t have to worry about that,” I say. ‘Let them talk’—that’s my motto. “Let’s make some tea.”
Remy is quiet as she gets up and looks through my mug collection. She picks up my favorite one with a Henry VIII picture that disappears on the outside when you put hot liquid inside. There’s something else she’s not telling me—I know it by the way her nose is twitching like a rabbit’s. She always does that when she’s uncomfortable.
I want to probe her, to find out what she’s not telling me. She’s stubborn, but with a little dedication, I’m also capable of getting people to spill just about anything.
But she’s not the one I should be using that skill on. When Remy’s not looking, I open the copy of The Satanic Epic sitting on my bed. Once I get close enough to Casey to figure out if his father was involved with Matt Weaver’s disappearance, I’ll have to teach Casey that it’s not nice to treat girls like garbage.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
The next day is especially painful. Remy isn’t talking to Cole, Cole is still pissed at Phil, Kelsey thinks Remy is mad at her for going to the formal with Cole, and everyone else does everything they can to avoid the awkwardness of it all, even if that means getting their meals to go.
On the plus side, I get to spend more time with Brent when he’s not at crew practice. We study for Fowler’s exam Thursday night until around nine, when he has to get back to the dorm and give himself an insulin injection. After he leaves, I sneak down to the laundry room with my basket. It’s just for show, though.
I double-check all of the machines to make sure they’re empty and no one will be back to collect their clothes. I push the bookcase away and slip through the tunnel entrance.
When Anthony and I first discovered the room full of student archives, I looked for Matt Weaver’s file out of curiosity. Someone moved it. Or destroyed it.
But the other men in the photo should still have active files. I know that because I looked through Steven Westbrook’s a couple of months ago.
&nb
sp; I bypass the crew team office/hangout and head for the student archives. The door is still unlocked from the last time I picked it.
The filing cabinets toward the end of the alphabet are the closest to the door, so I start by pulling Lawrence Tretter’s and Travis Shepherd’s files. It’s all pretty boring stuff: transcripts, letters of recommendation from professors, alumni donation records. Apparently Larry Tretter was on academic probation for most of his time at Wheatley, and he only got into two colleges: the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and Fairfield University in Connecticut. He chose Lowell.
There’s a copy of Tretter’s acceptance letter and a copy of a newspaper article at the back of the file. I resist the urge to crumble it and throw it against the wall. I could be swaddled in my microfiber sheets, asleep right now, instead of in a dank basement rifling through useless information. I stifle a yawn and read the newspaper article. It’s dated 1980:
TRETTER, SHEPHERD, CONROY, AND WESTBROOK LEAD MEN’S 4 TEAM TO VICTORY
The men’s 4 team … The first article I read about Matt Weaver said he was on the men’s 4 team. I replace Tretter’s file and flip through Shepherd’s. The same news article is tucked at the back of the file, after Shepherd’s acceptance letters (he got into Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, UPenn, and Georgetown). But there’s another article after that. This one is dated 1981.
I ignore the cold biting at my fingers and hold it up to the light from my phone.
WHEATLEY MEN’S 4 ROWS TO CHAMPIONSHIPS
The headline is followed by a picture of Pierce Conroy, Steven Westbrook, Travis Shepherd, and Matt Weaver.
According to the caption, Matt Weaver replaced Larry Tretter on the men’s 4 team.
I tuck the clipping in the pocket, my thoughts swirling. Losing your spot on the men’s 4 relay team sounds like a good enough reason to hate the new kid. What if Tretter was angry enough to murder Matt over it? Like that crazy mom in Texas who killed a high school cheerleader because she became captain instead of her daughter.
