Wicked Little Secrets: A Prep School Confidential Novel
Page 23
“What is this?”
“Open it.” Dennis’s voice is flat.
The bag is heavy. I get a sour taste in my mouth for a minute. Please don’t be a gun. I reach in the bag and pull out something that looks like a men’s facial-hair trimmer.
“It’s a Taser,” Dennis says. “Put it back until I show you how to use it.”
“Whoa.” I can barely contain my glee. “I’ve always wanted one of these!”
Dennis turns around and gives me a look that shuts me up instantly. “Sorry, sorry.”
Anthony throws me a dirty look as Dennis gets out of the car. When Anthony and I don’t motion to follow, he sticks his head in the door. “C’mon.”
We follow Dennis to the railing separating us from plunging two hundred feet to our deaths. Beyond the Wheatley School, I see the shape of a cliff over the river. The quarry.
“Before I give you anything, I need you to tell me everything you know about the Matt Weaver case,” Dennis says.
By the time I’m done, Dennis’s expression has darkened.
“It’s like you guys have a freakin’ death wish or something, man.” Dennis runs a hand over his buzz cut. “I can’t even—do you know how stupid it was to get involved in this? Especially after all the attention you guys brought to yourselves a couple months ago.”
I grit my teeth. I don’t need a lecture right now. I need to know whether Dennis can find the man who, after the pepper-spray incident, probably wants to find me and cut up my body into little pieces.
Anthony says as much, ad-libbing with a few choice words. Dennis looks like he wants to hit him. He catches himself and leans against the guardrail.
“JR’s Electric is a real company. Based out of Southie. A few weeks ago, someone robbed the place. Stole some uniforms and cash,” he says. “The cops talked to all the employees, since it looked like the guy knew his way around the alarm system.”
“An employee,” Anthony says.
Dennis nods. “Tom Petrocelli was one of them. I looked him up. Middle-aged guy. Big scar on the side of his head from a surgery a while back.”
“That’s not our guy,” I say. “He was young, like late twenties.”
“What about the other employees?” Anthony asks.
“They all checked out fine,” Dennis says. “But according to the police reports, a few of them mentioned a guy that worked there eight months ago. Sketchy kid. Got fired for lying about having a record. Jeff Kowalski. Couple of petty-theft and assault charges. Mostly bar fights.”
The ground seems to sway beneath me a little bit. I can’t get rid of the image of the guy in my room, trying to crush Anthony’s trachea.
“So what happened with him?” Anthony asks, an edge to his voice as if he’s picturing the same thing.
“Didn’t have enough to hold him, I guess,” Dennis says. “The case is still open, but the guys over in Roxbury are stretched too thin to waste time on a small business robbery.”
“And this Tom Petrocelli guy,” I say, “—he didn’t report his ID stolen or anything?”
Dennis shakes his head. “Not according to the report.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a black-and-white mug shot. “Is this the guy that came after you?”
With his thumb, Dennis covers the name on the mug shot. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to influence my answer, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the guy standing against the wall is Jeff Kowalski. His blond hair is an inch or two shorter than the fake electrician’s, but there’s no mistaking the sharp planes of his jaw and the hollow-looking eyes. The eyes of someone who just doesn’t care about human life. Someone who would stamp it away like a spider under his boot.
“That’s him.” I have to look away.
“What are we gonna do to find him?” Anthony is behind me. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You’re not doing shit,” Dennis says. “I’ll try and track down Kowalski, and you two please, for the love of God, stay away from this. Pretend you never even heard the name Matt Weaver. You’ve already put me in a crappy spot. If they find a body at that house in Brody, I have to act like I didn’t know a damn thing about it.”
Anthony’s eyes flick to the ground. I’ve only seen the look on his face once before: when I confronted him about stealing money from Isabella. Dennis means more to Anthony than I realized, and because of me, they’re both involved in this mess.
“I’m really sorry,” I say, to no one in particular.
Dennis turns to me. Takes me in. I do the same. He can’t be more than twenty-three, twenty-four. He looks like any one of the marines I used to see outside of the recruiting building on Broadway back home, minus the USMC uniform. I have to believe he chose this life, staying in this shitty town, for a reason.
Dennis sighs but gives me a brotherly pat on the shoulder. “Don’t be sorry. C’mon, I better show you how to work that taser so you don’t kill anyone.”
CHAPTER
FORTY
There are no surprises waiting for me back at Amherst. No angry voice mails from my father to suggest he’s heard I punched out a classmate. No security guard to drag me to Goddard’s office and expel me. No ex-cons hiding in my room.
It’s a quiet night, as well. Wheatley lost this afternoon’s race against Downington, so the guys are having a beer-soaked pity party over in Aldridge. Remy, Kelsey, April, and I are in Remy’s dorm, piled onto her bed, watching movies on her mini LCD TV. She’s pushed Alexis’s bed into hers to make a double.
Remy has cracked open the bottle of 2007 Chardonnay she was “saving for a special occasion,” for no reason other than that we all need it. Remy is tired of Cole not speaking to her, and people are calling her a skank, and Kelsey is tired of having to choose between Cole and Remy. April … well, I guess she wants to get out of April-Land for a little while. It’s not that she’s completely vapid—she would just rather live there than in Wheatley-Land most of the time.
I really don’t blame her.
As for me, I need a little liquid assistance with Dennis’s command to forget I ever heard the name Matt Weaver. Especially since I’m now toting around a taser, like I’m in Trenton, New Jersey, and not a small town outside of Cambridge.
The girls are recounting the drama of the race, which includes Cole melting down and screaming at Justin Wyckoff after a disastrous performance in the men’s 8.
“You should have seen it,” April says. “It was hilarious.”
“Well, I doubt I would have been welcome there.” I dip a piece of celery into the container of hummus sitting on top of the latest issue of Marie Claire. “By the way, how does Casey’s face look?”
“His nose is swollen and bruised,” Remy says, as if it made her happy to study the damage. “You did a nice job. It was almost as awesome as Mr. Shepherd screaming at Coach Tretter after the race.”
I swallow. Try to forget the sound of Travis Shepherd’s threat in my ear. “He screamed at him?”
“Yeah,” Kelsey jumps in. “You should have seen them nearly going at each other.”
“What were they fighting about?” I ask.
“Probably losing the race,” Remy says. “Men are such babies about that stuff. Mr. Shepherd kept yelling, ‘I told you this would happen!’”
A chill creeps up my spine.
“He’s just pissed because the naval academy recruiters were there to watch Casey,” she adds. “I heard him shout something about ‘that bastard Conroy.’ They’re blaming Brent for choking at the end of the race.”
Kelsey adds her own commentary, but my mind is racing. It’s possible Shepherd wasn’t yelling about Brent but another Conroy: his father. I swallow away a wave of anxiety, thinking the argument might be related to the box and Jeff Kowalski.
“Speak of the devils,” Remy says. She nods to my phone. Murali is calling me, and I hadn’t even heard it ring.
Murali?
There’s arguing and what sounds like a scuffle on his end. “Hello?” I say.
“Who?” I say at the same time as I hear Brent’s voice let out a blistering yell.
He’s singing.
“I am so not in the mood for this,” I tell Murali. “But I’ll be right down.”
* * *
Murali calls me again when Remy and I get downstairs.
“Outside,” he says. “By the back door.”
There are a few people hanging in the lamplight outside the dorms, along with a few stragglers on the quad. Remy and I turn the corner to the back of Amherst, where Murali is holding Brent by the sleeve of his shirt. Brent is clawing at the air, trying to break away from him.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask Murali. As soon as I say it, I smell the awful stench: a cross between beer, skunk, and vomit.
“I don’t know,” Murali says. “He was normal until he got a phone call a little while ago. Then he flipped out and started ranting about how he needs to talk to you.”
“I was not ranting. Anne.” Brent’s eyes light up when he sees me. Or maybe it’s the fact he is totally, completely, 100 percent shitfaced. “I need to talk to you.”
There was a time when I might have found this whole situation slightly adorable. Now I want to slap him. “You need to get back to your room.”
“Please.” Brent yanks himself away from Murali and holds his hands up as if he’s surrendering.
“Fine,” I say. “Five minutes.”
“Just you, though.” Brent glares at Murali.
Remy looks at me if she’s about to protest. “It’s okay.” I stare Brent down. “I can handle him.”
Murali walks Remy around to the front lobby, leaving me with Brent. “You have five minutes,” I say. “I’m cold.”
“Don’t be like that,” he slurs. “I came to apologize.”
“For what?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He smiles. “For being me.”
“I have bigger problems to deal with than your existential crisis, Brent.”
“I know. That’s why we broke up, right? You think I’m part of the problem.” His eyes are glassy. “And you’re right. I’m just a fucking monkey in a uniform. That’s all I am to everyone. A GODDAMN MONKEY!” He yells the last part to a pack of freshmen guys walking back to Aldridge.
I grab Brent and pull him to me, so it looks to the casual observer as if we’re embracing. His face is an inch from mine. I wish I could forget the little details of it. The freckle on his lower lip. The way his hairline comes to a point at his forehead. Suddenly I’m back on the floor of the woods with him, my chest pressed to his as he kisses me for the first time.
“Tell me what you want from me,” he pleads. “I’ll be whoever you want me to be, because I’m better with you.”
I want to believe him. I want to believe him so badly, ’cause up until all this Matt Weaver nonsense, I felt the same way. But I’m also furious that the only times he’s capable of telling me how he feels are when he’s drunk or on the brink of death.
“Funny how you waited ’til you got obliterated to tell me this. Come talk to me when you sober up, okay?”
“No, it has to be now.” Brent breaks away from me, swaying slightly. “I have to tell you now that you were right. About everything.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask at the exact moment he trips over his feet. “Brent!”
He looks up at me with bleary eyes as I kneel beside him. “I don’t feel good.”
“What do you mean, I was ‘right about everything’?” I give him a little slap on the face when he closes his eyes.
Voices sound in the distance. Panicked, I think about calling Murali to come help me get Brent inside. Then I remember what Murali said earlier: Brent freaked out about a phone call before he came over here.
“Brent.” I put my face in his. “Who called you earlier? Did they tell you I was right about everything?”
“You … are so pretty,” he slurs.
Then he passes out.
* * *
Five minutes later, Cole is holding Brent beneath the armpits as Murali lifts him by the feet. Brent’s face is a shade of gray that makes me sick to my stomach.
“Is he going to be okay?”
Cole ignores me. Murali shrugs, and I want to grab him by the neck and shake him for not having the balls to talk to me while Cole is around.
“Hey,” I call as they cart Brent off toward Aldridge. “You need to get him to the infirmary before he chokes on his own puke.”
“No. We need to get him to his room, before he gets us expelled,” Cole says without looking back at me.
Screw all three of them. I stalk back to Amherst, bypassing Remy’s room and making a beeline for mine.
I let the door slam behind me. I yank off my boots and hurl them into the closet. My heel leaves a black scuff mark on the wall. Damn it. I’m trying to rub it away with my thumb when my phone starts ringing.
I don’t get to it in time. When Anthony immediately calls me again, I know something is wrong.
“Are you alone?” he asks.
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Dennis just called. He got something on Kowalski.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “Okay.”
“You might want to sit down,” Anthony says.
“Just tell me already.”
“Okay.” Anthony lowers his voice. “Dennis pulled Kowalski’s rap sheet. Kowalski beat up a guy a couple years ago, but he had help. From the Grabiecs.”
“Who are the Grabiecs?”
“They’re a crime family,” Anthony says. “Eastern European, I think.”
“Great,” I say. “The guy who came after us has ties to the mob.”
“They’re not the mob,” Anthony huffs. “They’re like the Kardashians of organized crime. All for show. They’re known for doing sloppy jobs, like the one Kowalski did the other night.”
“But Shepherd, Conroy, Westbrook—they all have enough money to get someone who could do a decent job.”
Anthony is quiet for a beat. “There’s something else. Jeff Kowalski is Bill Grabiec’s great-nephew.”
“Bill Grabiec. I’ve heard that name before.” I sit up straighter and rack my brain. “Wait. I remember my dad talking about his case. He’s the guy that killed all those women at truck stops. Isn’t he on death row in Ohio or something?”
“Pennsylvania,” Anthony says. “He was sentenced three years ago. Dennis says it caused a lot of chatter on the force, since Grabiec killed his first victim in Boston.”
“What does that have to do with any of our guys?” I ask.
“Grabiec tried to get his sentence down to life in prison. He told the DA he’d exchange a plea for information about a hit he carried out in 1995 Said there was a politician involved. The DA rejected it as a last-ditch attempt—Grabiec trying to save his ass from death row.”
I tighten my grip on the phone. “1995. That was the year of Cynthia Westbrook’s car accident.”
“I don’t think the senator hired Kowalski to come after you,” Anthony says. “Because it looks like Bill Grabiec killed Westbrook’s son and wife.”
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
“What are we going to do?” Anthony and I ask at the same time.
“I don’t know,” Anthony admits. “This is so much bigger than us, Anne. I think we have to admit that we’re out of our league.”
“No.” My grip on the phone tightens. “I don’t care if this is bigger than us. Maybe I should have dropped the Matt Weaver thing weeks ago, but that asshole was in my room, Anthony. I know too much. And now you see what happens when you know too much at this school. You go for a car ride in the middle of the night and you never come back.”
“Anne. Shh. Calm down.” Anthony’s gravelly voice is anything but soothing, but it’s sweet he’s making the effort. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I cough—a big, snot-and-tear-fueled cough. I’ll bet Sonia Russo and Cynthia Westbrook heard the same thing, and they’re still dead. My heart pounds as the weight of it hits me: I could wind up dead, too.
“I’m going to find out who sent Kowalski,” I say. “Whoever it is was stupid enough to hire someone who could tie him to Grabiec—”
I own you, dumbass.
“Anne? You there?”
“Larry Tretter,” I say. “It had to be him. Who else would have access to my room number? I bet he even helped Kowalski get past the security gate.”
Anthony’s response is drowned out by a knock at my door. “I’ll call you back,” I say.
I pad over to the door and peer through the peephole. Darlene stands with her hands in the pocket of her Harvard hoodie, her expression nervous.
Because Detective Phelan, the officer in charge of Isabella’s murder investigation, is standing behind her.
* * *
The detective and I sit across from each other at a table in the first-floor lounge. Darlene puts on a pot of coffee for him at the kitchen counter. He didn’t ask for it. I think she just wants an excuse to be in the room.
Detective Phelan knits his hands together and watches me over the top of them. I’ve always liked Phelan. Twenty years ago, he probably looked like Ben Affleck.
He leads off with, “You’re not in trouble.”
It’s probably not in my best interests to admit that being in trouble with the law would be welcome news to me at this point. At least Larry Tretter can’t have me killed if I’m in prison. “Okay.”
“Campus security called us,” Phelan says. “They saw something on last night’s security feed that worried them.”
The coffee pot gurgles behind us. I give Phelan my best vacant stare. “What does that have to do with me?”
“You signed in right after someone named Thomas Petrocelli. Did you see anything out of the ordinary on the way to your room?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Darlene stiffen. She’s probably thinking of my “sleepwalking” incident last night. I swallow.