Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series

by Callie Rose

  I stay there for several long minutes, anticipating a knock at any second as Evelyn demands that I return to her damn dinner party.

  But it doesn’t come.

  Slowly, I peel myself away from the door and cross the room to sit on the bed. The house is so big and spread out that even though thirty people are talking and laughing downstairs, I can’t hear any of it. It’s eerie, like I’m in some kind of ghost house, quiet and abandoned.

  Time seems to slow to a crawl, and I curl up on the bench seat by the window and crack open a textbook, but I can’t stop looking over at the clock.

  6:15.

  6:30.

  7:00.

  They’re all sitting down for dinner now, having spent an hour schmoozing and drinking. My stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself as I wonder if the guys have been able to keep their shit together, to keep their hatred and mistrust of Hollowell hidden.

  It doesn’t help that I haven’t actually eaten dinner. It feels like there’s nothing in my stomach but churning acid, and it’s only getting worse. I think longingly of the days when Mom’s little apartment was right around the corner from me in the Black house, and I could walk over and have dinner with her without ever having to set foot downstairs.

  But there’s no food up here. I don’t even have a damn granola bar in my backpack.

  At seven-thirty, I decide everyone must be settled in at the dining room table. I don’t know the Lauders’ cook as well as I knew Gwen, but I’ve seen her in the kitchen from time to time when I was hanging out with the guys. She’s an older woman who dotes on the two boys like they’re her own sons—at least someone around here does—and she’s always been friendly with me. I bet if I pop into the kitchen, she’ll take pity on me and give me something to eat.

  My footsteps are light as I pad down the hall. I’m still wearing the dress I put on for dinner, but my feet are bare. I glance over the railing as I near the stairs, but I don’t see anyone in the foyer. On the way to the kitchen, I pass near enough to the dining room to pick up the hum of voices, but I’m careful to take the route that keeps me from seeing anyone inside the room—and vice versa.

  Inside the large kitchen, Caroline is in her zone, working hard to make sure the diners’ next course is perfect, but she points me in the direction of some leftover hors d’oeuvres I can grab.

  I load up a napkin with several bite-sized sandwiches, then hurry back toward my room. As I round the corner back into the foyer, I stub my toe on the molding that lines the walls of the room where they meet the floor. One of the sandwiches falls from my napkin, and I let out a low curse, sucking in a pained breath as I bend to pick it up.

  “I thought you weren’t feeling well.”

  The voice behind me brings me up short. I hesitate, my muscles going so tight that I practically crush the food I still have gathered in my napkin.

  Judge Hollowell’s tone is mildly curious, and when I look back over my shoulder, he’s got his head cocked, watching me with interest.

  “I—I’m not. I just thought maybe something little would settle my stomach.”

  I grab the fallen sandwich off the floor and put it on top of the others, not even bothering to brush it off. The floors here are so clean I could probably eat off of them, and besides, I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat anything at all anymore. Fear has turned my stomach into a block of cement.

  “Ah.” He nods. “That makes sense. I usually do saltines and ginger ale whenever I get sick. It helps.”

  “Yeah.” I hold my little napkin bundle in both hands, trying to subtly back away from him. I want to end this conversation as quickly as possible. I want to flee.

  “How’s your mom been doing?” Hollowell asks, taking a step forward that’s a lot bigger than the one I just took back.

  “Good. I think,” I hedge. “I haven’t been able to visit her too often because of school. But I think things are going okay.”

  Hollowell nods, seeming to consider that. A strange light shines in his hazel eyes as he cocks his head. “Huh. ‘Okay.’ And you’re satisfied with that?”

  My lungs expand too quickly inside my chest, pressing against my ribs painfully. What the fuck does he mean?

  “Well,” I stammer, “no, but—”

  “You wouldn’t rather have her found entirely innocent? Get her off scot-free? Prove someone else did it?”

  I can’t move. I can’t speak.

  We’re far enough away from the dining room here that I can’t hear the thrum of voices, which means no one inside of it can hear us either.

  We’re alone.

  Hollowell takes another step toward me, his presence invading my space, filling up my senses. Something in his tone shifts as he gazes down at me, his expression blank and unreadable.

  “What do you want to talk to Detective Dunagan about, Harlow? Why did you call him?”

  14

  Oh, fuck.

  He knows.

  I don’t know how he found out. Maybe Summer ratted on us, or maybe Dunagan mentioned my call to one of the cops Judge Hollowell has in his back pocket.

  At the moment though, the how doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he knows.

  Hollowell is still standing in front of me, his body too close to mine, his gaze steady. He’s waiting for a response, waiting to see if I’ll try to bluff again or admit the truth.

  “I just wanted to ask him some questions about Mom’s case,” I say thickly, my tongue feeling too big for my mouth.

  A little smile creeps across the judge’s face, as if he expected me to say that. As if he’s been waiting for it.

  “Now, that’s not true, is it? You wanted to tell him a few things about the case.” He pauses for a beat. “About me.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say. There’s nothing I can say, no lie he’ll believe.

  Because he knows.

  And it turns out I don’t need to say anything. Hollowell takes my silence as the admission it is and nods thoughtfully. He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one is nearby, then reaches for my arm and tugs me around the corner into the foyer, even farther away from the dining room.

  I jump at the contact, at the horrible feeling of his long fingers wrapped around my arm. But before I can jerk away, he releases me, holding up his hands as if to assure me he won’t hurt me.

  Not that I believe that for one damn second.

  “Harlow.” His voice is soft, even, and straightforward. “Your mom is going to be convicted. It’s an unavoidable fact at this point. But not all sentences are created equal. If you stop poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, if you keep your mouth shut and don’t tell Dunagan anything, I can pull some strings and make sure she gets a reduced sentence. Involuntary vehicular manslaughter. She’ll be out in five years, tops—maybe less with good behavior. She’s young. She’ll still have her whole life ahead of her.”

  “If I do what you say,” I force out, my voice unrecognizable.

  “Yes.”

  “And what about you?” A hot wave of anger rises up in me, making me stupid and reckless. My voice is still a quiet whisper, but it’s taking everything in me not to let it become a shout. “You slept with a fucking teenager and then killed her because you got her pregnant, and you just get to keep living your life with no consequences?”

  There’s a flicker of… something in Judge Hollowell’s eyes. For a half-second, I think it’s remorse, but it’s not. It’s almost like surprise. Then he clears his features, banishing the micro-expression.

  “Yes.”

  Dozens of emotions bash around in my chest, colliding with each other and making my pulse race.

  Five years. Could I let my mom go to prison for five years? Let a murderer walk free to make sure she gets a light sentence? Do I even dare trust that Hollowell will keep his word? Would he come after us again as soon as she’s out?

  I open my mouth, not even sure what I’m going to say, when a voice draws my attention.

 
“Harlow?”

  Dax and Chase round the corner, followed almost immediately by Lincoln and River. They all freeze when they see me and Hollowell standing close together in conversation. Then Dax’s face splits in a shockingly believable smile.

  “Oh, hey, Low. We were just about to come upstairs and see how you were doing. Are you feeling better?”

  “Yeah,” I force out. “A bit. I just came downstairs to grab a snack.”

  I hold up the little sandwiches I’m still clutching in my hands, although I’ve basically wadded them up so tight they’re one regular-sized sandwich by now.

  Hollowell’s gaze shifts to the boys, regarding them for a second before he returns his focus to me, his voice still pleasant and even.

  “Think about what I said, Harlow. I really would like to help you and your mom.” He tugs his cell phone from his suit pocket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I stepped away from dinner to return a phone call, and I really should get to it.”

  He gives a polite nod to the guys, then turns and heads toward the door, stepping outside as he taps the screen of his phone and brings it to his ear.

  As soon as the door shuts behind him, the four boys’ demeanor changes instantly.

  “Jesus. Fuck, Harlow, are you okay?” Chase steps closer to me, his voice low and a wild look in his eyes. “We all saw him get up to make a phone call, but I didn’t know you were down here. When he didn’t come back after a few minutes, we went to make sure, but—fuck, we should’ve followed him from the first second.”

  “What did he say?” River’s face is serious and still.

  “He knows,” I whisper, my voice shaky. “He figured out I know it’s him.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  I glance toward the front door, wondering if Hollowell is really on the phone at all, or if he’s standing on the other side with his ear pressed to the wood, listening to everything we say.

  Dax must have the same thought, because he jerks his chin toward a small anteroom off the foyer. We all pile into it, and as soon as he closes the door, I set the sandwiches on a little table by the door and look up at the boys.

  “He knows I called Dunagan. He might know we were poking around asking Summer questions too. I’m not sure if it was one thing or a combination of things. He trapped me in the hall, and it felt like he was sort of… feeling me out. Dropping stronger and stronger hints of his suspicions, waiting to see how I’d respond. Maybe he didn’t know for certain until that exact moment, but he definitely knows now.”

  “Fuck.” Lincoln’s single word contains a mountain of meaning. His amber eyes blaze as he steps forward, the muscles of his shoulders seeming to grow even broader as his hands clench into fists. “Did he threaten you?”

  I shake my head, licking my lips. “No. Yes. He… offered me a deal.”

  “What deal?” River asks.

  “He said he’ll pull strings to get my mom a plea bargain and make sure she gets a reduced sentence if I stop looking into this. If I don’t talk to Detective Dunagan. If I let my mom take the fall for him.”

  No one speaks for a long moment. I can tell the same thoughts I had are running through each of the guys’ minds. Weighing what this really means and wondering if we can trust Judge Hollowell to keep his word on anything.

  “The bigger question is,” River says slowly, fiddling with the cufflink on his suit jacket, “what will he do if you don’t play along? If you go ahead and meet with Dunagan on Monday?”

  Cold fear rushes through me like a blast of icy wind, and I lock my legs to keep from sinking down to the floor.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how safe I am here, or at school, or anywhere—but my mom’s a sitting duck. She’s locked in a fucking prison cell with nowhere to hide. And we don’t know who Hollowell’s got in his pocket. He could have someone go after her and then cover it up—”

  I break off, refusing to even finish that sentence. I can’t bear to think about it.

  Lincoln tugs me into an embrace, wrapping his arms around me. His grip is so tight it almost hurts, but I don’t want him to stop. The feeling is grounding somehow, as if being physically held this tightly stops me from feeling the metaphorical noose tightening around my neck.

  This is it. The moment I’ve been anticipating and dreading since this whole thing began. The moment when we’re out of options. When my mom’s fate becomes set in stone.

  Unless…

  I cling to Linc, my fingers digging into his back as I bury my face against his chest. The others are all surrounding us, so close I can feel the heat seeping from their bodies into mine. We stay like that for several long beats as a thought bounces around in my mind like a single stray ping pong ball.

  Judge Hollowell looked surprised.

  When I accused him of killing Iris because he’d gotten her pregnant, there was the briefest moment of hesitation, a look of surprise, before he agreed.

  Why?

  He has to know she was pregnant; that news couldn’t have caught him off-guard. Everyone knows she was pregnant. The kids at Linwood all know, which means their parents must know.

  But he still seemed taken aback by my accusation, as if some part of it was untrue.

  She was definitely pregnant.

  And he definitely killed her.

  But maybe… maybe that wasn’t the reason he killed her.

  “There’s something else,” I say quietly, pulling out of Linc’s embrace so I can look at the kings. “Something we missed, something we haven’t thought about.”

  “What do you mean?” River shakes his head in confusion.

  I pull my bottom lip between my teeth, replaying that moment in our hushed conversation over and over in my mind. I’m certain of it. Judge Hollowell was lying.

  “I don’t think he killed Iris because she was pregnant,” I whisper. “Or at least, not just because of that. There’s something else.”

  Chase’s eyes widen. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” I curl my fingers into fists, wanting to press the heels of my hands against my eyes, to block out the entire world and all of this insanity. “I don’t know. But the way he acted, the way he so readily admitted to it… It was like he wanted me to think that’s why he killed Iris. Like he wanted me to stop looking there, to leave it at that.”

  “And you think there’s more to it,” Dax says slowly, his brows lowering as he considers this.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “So what do we do?” Chase’s gaze bounces around our small circle before landing on me. “If we think there’s another explanation out there, what do we do?”

  My stomach tightens.

  God, I hope I’m not making the biggest fucking mistake of my life.

  “We keep looking.”

  15

  Silence falls in the little room, heavy and stifling.

  I lick my lips. I said “we”, but the honest truth is, this fucked up situation is reaching the point where I can’t ask these boys to keep wading in deeper with me. It only puts more of us in danger, and I hate the thought of that.

  But before I can say anything else, Lincoln dips his head once. “Okay.”

  The others are already nodding in agreement as he speaks, and a surge of overwhelming emotion chokes off my breath.

  It’s too much.

  The fear. The gratitude. The relief at not being alone. My heart can’t handle the overload of feelings across such a huge spectrum.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  River lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, his expression serious and determined. “Always.”

  “Fuck. We better get back to dinner.” Dax glances toward the door. “We’ll take you upstairs first, and if that fucker Hollowell leaves our sight again for a second, we’ll follow him.”

  “Be careful. Please.”

  I feel like a broken record saying that, praying for safety when none exists. It doesn’t matter how careful we all are, we’re playing a da
ngerous game that could have deadly consequences.

  But Dax nods, and then the four boys escort me back to my room. I hear the front door open and close behind us as we reach the landing on the second floor, but I don’t look back.

  When we reach the guest bedroom, Chase hands me my slightly squished sandwiches, which he snagged off the table in the little room. “Lock the door, okay?”

  I nod.

  And then they’re gone.

  I flip the switch on the knob to lock myself inside, keeping my gaze on the door even as I move toward the window seat. When I settle onto it, I draw my knees up to my chest, making my body as small and compact as possible. As if that will make me less vulnerable.

  The dinner party seems to go on for hours, and as the festivities continue downstairs, thoughts and ideas spiral around in my head.

  The guys all come back up again when the evening devolves into the men smoking cigars and talking in the den and the wives drinking cocktails in the dining room. Hollowell never left their sight again all evening, and he’s apparently been putting on a good show. I can see why he wants to get into politics. He’s a great fucking liar.

  We talk in hushed voices, as if afraid someone will overhear us even all the way up here, and I tell the kings my new plan.

  It’s insane.

  It’s a horrible risk.

  But instead of pointing out either of those obvious facts, they all agree, nodding their heads one after the other.

  We don’t have too much time to flesh out the details before Lincoln and River have to leave with their parents. I wonder briefly what Mr. Bettencourt thought when he saw me downstairs at the beginning of the evening. I noticed him toss a disdainful look my way, and I imagine he must think Dax and Chase’s parents are fools for letting me stay here. Or maybe he’s embarrassed about being the man who booted the charity case out of his home. Whichever it is, he definitely still hates me.

  My room is at the east end of the house, and if I put my face close to the window, I can just make out part of the driveway. Massive relief fills me as I watch the red taillights of cars pulling down the long drive.