She pulled her hair into a ponytail, slipped into a pair of jeans, and pulled a tank top over her head. She left Margery Hall and hurried across campus to Teacher’s Row. She knocked on number four. A moment later, Dr. Hanover answered.
“Gwen, what’s happening?”
Since the events of June 21 last year, when Tanner and Andrew had been killed, every student at Westmont Prep had been watched closely. After Bridget Matthews had stepped in front of the train, those in her immediate circle had come under close scrutiny. Gwen, with her nervous demeanor, bouts of depression, weight loss, and panic attacks, had been more closely monitored than any of them. In a sit-down meeting with her parents and Dr. Casper, Dr. Hanover had announced that she would be transferring Gwen to her counseling schedule. As the dean of students at Westmont Prep, Dr. Gabriella Hanover wanted no more tragedy behind the walls of the school. Despite Drs. Hanover and Casper’s efforts, after Bridget’s suicide, Danielle and Theo soon followed. Gwen’s condition continued to worsen.
Gwen tapped her chest now as she stood outside Dr. Hanover’s house. “I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m freaking out.”
“Come in,” Dr. Hanover said, moving to the side. “It’ll be all right.”
Inside the office, Gwen sat down in her usual spot in the chair across from Dr. Hanover.
“Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on,” Dr. Hanover said in her soft voice.
“I had another dream. I’m having a panic attack and I’m out of Xanax.”
“The Xanax was a crutch I agreed to only at the beginning. The plan was to get you to better manage your anxiety without medication. Tell me about the dream.”
Gwen shook her head. It was here that she always needed to be careful. She’d not been comfortable talking with Dr. Hanover and could never be as open in these sessions as she was with Dr. Casper.
“I was in the woods. Back at the house. I saw Tanner on . . . the gate.”
“It’s natural to have strong flashbacks, especially when you sleep. It’s part of the process. Your mind is expunging those thoughts. At first, you blocked them out. Now your mind is working to purge them. Have you been journaling?”
Gwen shook her head.
“Your journal is where you are allowed to worry,” Dr. Hanover said. “Your journal is where you are allowed to stress. You should store all your anxiety and anger and fear in those pages so that when you close the journal, all those things stay there and will be unable to interfere with your everyday life.”
But they would, Gwen knew. Purging her worries onto the pages of her journal would make them real. It would bring the things she had done to life, where currently she could pretend they did not exist. Only times like this, when the reality of what they had done haunted her so deeply, did she risk exposure. She had spent an entire year fighting the buoyancy of her secret, working every day to keep it hidden beneath the surface.
“Okay,” she finally said, her voice flat and unconvincing. “I’ll try.”
“Good,” Dr. Hanover said. “Write out your entire dream. Everything you can remember. I’ll check on you tonight. We’ll discuss it all.”
Gwen nodded and headed toward the door.
“Gwen,” Dr. Hanover said.
Gwen turned back before she reached the door.
“You’ll be amazed at how useful journaling is. Every one of my students has benefitted from it.”
Gwen nodded and then turned back toward the door. When she made it outside, she finally exhaled. She hurried down Teacher’s Row and walked up the steps of the number eighteen duplex, where she rang the bell. A moment later, Dr. Casper answered the door.
“Gwen,” Dr. Casper said. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I haven’t seen you for a while.”
“I need to talk.”
Dr. Casper’s eyes squinted with concern. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”
Gwen bit her lower lip as she contemplated what she was about to say. “Last summer, and everything that happened.”
Dr. Casper’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “Haven’t you been talking with Dr. Hanover about that? We all decided it was best for you to see Dr. Hanover after everything that’s happened.”
“We all didn’t decide. Dr. Hanover and my parents decided. You went along with it, and I had no say in it.”
Dr. Casper’s expression softened as he looked at his former patient. “Still, Gwen. A decision was made, and I think it’s best if we stick with it. Speak with Dr. Hanover, she’s a very skilled physician.”
“I can’t tell her everything.”
Dr. Casper squinted his eyes. “Like what?”
A bloated moment of silence filled the space between them.
“We didn’t tell the police everything about that night.”
“Who didn’t tell the police?”
“My friends and I.” Gwen ran her hand across the top of her head and then down the length of her ponytail. “Can I come in?” she finally asked.
After a moment of hesitation, Dr. Casper nodded and Gwen walked past him into the house.
Westmont Prep
Summer 2019
Session 5
Journal Entry: GUIDANCE
I ANSWERED ALL THEIR QUESTIONS ABOUT MY FATHER. I WAS YOUNG AND IN shock. My mother was gone, and now my father had taken his own life. What a terrible tragedy. They all looked upon me with pity and sadness. They believed I had no chance in a life that had dealt me such a tragic hand at such a young age. I accepted their pity and absorbed their sadness, but I recognized it for what it really was—weakness. The police and the social workers and the court-appointed special advocate all looked on me—the suddenly parentless child—with such weakness that it made me sick.
They disguised their affliction and tried to pawn it off as sympathy. But I knew that under their sad smiles and behind their mournful eyes was fear. Working with me was like working with a leper. As if they got too close they’d catch whatever curse had touched my life. I felt their weakness and recognized it immediately. It was something that had once plagued me. I had made the decision to never allow that feeling to dominate me again. I would never again be the coward who stared through a keyhole. I vowed to rise above it all so that I could take my new perspective out to the world and begin the hard work of correcting things.
What had touched my life was not a curse, but enlightenment. It took a bit of time for me to fully realize this. Once I did, I got my life in order and came to Westmont Prep. Then I found you.
I pulled the tassel and closed my journal. The woman stared as if she wanted more from me today.
“My mother was gone. I had killed my father. I was alone in the world, until I found you. Since then, you’ve guided my life. You’ve guided my decisions. Every one of them.”
I stared at her for a long time. I didn’t need to say more; she understood my words. She understood how she had shaped my life.
“Are you ashamed of me?” I asked.
There was a long moment where she held my gaze. Then, finally, she blinked.
“Not at all.”
CHAPTER 47
THEY ALL STOOD AROUND THEIR STATIONS IN MR. GORMAN’S LAB checking text messages and playing on their phones. Summer session was different than the regular school year, when phones were never allowed in a classroom. Phones were barely allowed outside of the dormitory. But in summer, things were more relaxed. They waited for Mr. Gorman’s arrival to start their lab project.
Andrew Gross walked up to Gwen’s table.
“Here,” Andrew said as he threw a paper bag into the center of the station. Gwen and her friends stared at it.
“Better hurry before Gorman shows up,” Andrew said.
Gwen pulled the bag over and peaked inside, then she dumped the contents onto the countertop. A cheap wooden mousetrap and a roll of duct tape rolled out.
Andrew pointed at them. “One of you has to set the trap and then tape it to the wall next to the light switch in the bathroom. When Gorm
an leaves to take a leak, which he does at some point during every lab, we’ll hear about it.”
Gwen shook her head. “Tape it to the wall?”
Andrew nodded.
“No way,” she said.
“Not a chance.” This came from Gavin, who was also shaking his head.
Theo and Danielle backed away from the counter with smiles on their faces. Theo shook his head. “Nope.”
“I’ll do it,” Tanner said, reaching for the trap.
“Don’t.” Bridget grabbed his wrist. “You’ll get in a lot of trouble.”
Andrew smiled as he walked away. “You guys work it out, but remember what happens if you don’t complete a challenge.”
Andrew joined the other seniors who watched them.
“I’m doing it,” Tanner said.
Gwen shook her head. “It’ll break his finger.”
“It’s a cheap little mousetrap, it’s not breaking anyone’s finger. You should be thanking me, not trying to talk me out of it.” Tanner looked each of them in the eye. “Without me, none of you would have a chance of making it. I’m the only one with the cojones to do any of this.”
Tanner grabbed the mousetrap and the tape, looked around the lab, and then walked into the hallway. A minute later, the toilet flushed, and Tanner walked back into the lab with a stupid grin on his face. He made it back to his station just as Mr. Gorman entered the lab.
“Get to your stations,” Mr. Gorman called out.
The students abruptly quieted down, stifling their laughter with quizzical smiles on their faces. Gwen shook her head when Gavin looked at her.
“This is a bad idea,” she said.
Mr. Gorman unpacked his things onto his desk at the front of the room. He wore an ill-fitting short-sleeved button-down. His thin hairy arms hung from the sleeves, and the dark circles of his nipples showed through the thin fabric on either side of his crooked tie.
“Today we will be mixing the compounds to demonstrate the Briggs-Rauscher reaction. As always,” Mr. Gorman said, placing his large safety goggles onto his face, “eye protection should be in place at all times and the ventilation hoods set to high.”
Mr. Gorman took fifteen minutes to scribble instructions onto the chalkboard and another ten making sure each station had the correct ingredients. One of the chemicals needed to be heated to a boil, and once each group had their flasks set over the Bunsen burners, Mr. Gorman put everyone on a ten-minute watch, where they would monitor the boiling point by tracking the thermometer’s progress. With the students occupied and a lull in the experiment, Gwen watched as Mr. Gorman slipped into the hallway.
Tanner bit his bottom lip before he smiled.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
Nervous energy filled the room. They heard the squeak of the bathroom door hinges and then, a second later, a loud snap.
“Goddammit!”
Mr. Gorman’s voice echoed through the empty hallways. The students tried to muffle their laughter, Tanner being the least successful. When Mr. Gorman came back into the lab, his right hand was tucked under his armpit and he was holding the mousetrap in his left.
“Who the hell did this?” he screamed when he entered the room.
By then, every student but Tanner had managed to control themselves. Gwen was frightened, and everyone else carried expressions of shock. Tanner had his lips pressed tightly together to suppress a smile.
“Who did this?” Mr. Gorman yelled again.
Gwen walked forward. “What happened?”
“Someone taped this onto the light switch.”
“Let me see,” Gwen said.
Mr. Gorman stared at her.
“It wasn’t any of us,” she said as she stared him in the eye. “We all walked in the lab just before you.” Gwen nodded. “Let me see.”
Mr. Gorman held out his hand. His index and ring fingers were red and swollen with a clear demarcation line across the knuckles.
Gwen lightly touched his fingers. “Do you think they’re broken?”
Mr. Gorman slowly pulled his hand away and flexed his fingers. “Go back to your station.”
Gwen nodded and walked back to her spot next to Gavin.
Mr. Gorman swallowed hard and looked out at the group of students. “If your flask is boiling, move to step two,” he said before walking back to his desk and tossing the mousetrap into the garbage.
Tanner cleared his voice. It was a piss-poor job of hiding his laughter.
It was June 13.
CHAPTER 48
THE FOLLOWING DAY, CHARLES GORMAN ENTERED THE FACULTY lounge. He grabbed a tray and walked to the buffet station, where he carefully chose his lunch items—roasted chicken and vegetables, a cup of chocolate pudding, and a fountain drink. He carried his tray over to a table where Gabriella Hanover and Christian Casper sat.
“What happened to you?” Gabriella asked.
Charles had gone to the pharmacy after his lab period and purchased a splint for his aching fingers. Now his index and ring fingers were immobilized by a sponge-lined piece of metal wrapped in white surgical tape.
Charles placed his tray onto the table and sat down.
“Summer pranks have started again.”
“Who?” Gabriella asked.
“Probably Tanner Landing. Egged on, I’m sure, by Andrew Gross.”
“I spoke to Andrew last year when Jean Rasmussen was being pranked. The dead raccoon and the undergarments hanging from the library. I warned him then and had a long discussion with his parents.”
Charles shrugged. “I guess he didn’t get the message.”
“What happened?” Christian Casper asked. “We’ll have to take serious action if any assault occurred.”
Charles shook his head. “They’ll never admit to it, and the smug little bastards know I won’t be able to prove a thing.”
“How did it happen?” Christian asked again.
“They taped a mousetrap to the bathroom light switch.”
“Those little shits,” Gabriella said.
“I don’t think it was all of them. Just one or two.”
“Still,” Gabriella said. “We can’t stand for it. I’ll call a meeting of the student body to stop this before we get too far into summer.”
PART VI
August 2020
CHAPTER 49
DETECTIVE OTT PARKED HIS CAR AND TURNED OFF THE ENGINE. Eventually, his headlights faded and only the halogen of the lamppost lighted the parking lot. The precinct offices of the Peppermill Police Department were dark; only a few souls would be working the overnight shift, including the beat officers who would be out and about in their squad cars this far past shift change, the sergeant in charge who would be in his office, and the dispatchers who wouldn’t bat an eye at a detective entering the offices at one o’clock in the morning.
He could tell no one the real purpose of his presence at the precinct this morning, and he had a cover story for anyone he ran into. He weighed the odds and decided that performing this heist during regular business hours would be impossible. There were too many people in the office during the day, and his young protégé followed him like a shadow when they were on duty. The dark overnight hours afforded him the best chance to stay invisible.
He pushed open the car door and stepped into the middle-of-the-night humidity. Then he reached into the back seat, pulled his suit coat from the hook, and slipped his arms through the sleeves before walking toward the front door. He swiped his ID card to gain access to the lobby and walked past the reception desk, where the night guard gave a groggy smile and a wave.
“Detective.”
“How you doing, Donny?”
“Living the dream.”
“You and me both, pal. You and me both.”
Detective Ott walked into the pit, where he and twelve other detectives made up the team of investigators for the Peppermill Police Force. He poured a cup of coffee and stirred sugar into the Styrofoam cup while he surveyed things. Only one other detective
was present—Gene Norton—who was hunting and pecking on his keyboard with such concentration, Ott knew he must be working on a report deadline. Norton hated computers more than any detective on the force, and it took him twice as long as anyone else to type his reports.
Ott sat at his cubicle, pulled up the active cases he was working, and logged into a file so that he had a cover for being in the office so late. He had saved some work from earlier in the day and went about typing up a report. He was more efficient than his colleague, and after ten minutes he had things completed. He left the case open and stood from his desk. Norton was still pecking away, swearing as he usually did that the keys were not in the same place they were the day before—a permanent fear ever since the guys had rearranged the letters of his keyboard.
From his cubicle, Ott walked to the evidence room. He again used his ID card to gain entry and then grabbed the box containing all the evidence from the case he had pulled up on his computer. He grabbed another box, too, and carried both to his desk. He sat and waited for a minute, listening to Norton peck and swear. Finally, he grabbed the second box and walked to the copy machine. Methodically, he slipped each section into the automatic document feeder. On the outside he waited patiently as the machine did the work at an alarmingly loud but efficient clip. Once one section was finished, he placed the copied pages into a fresh box, returned the original to its proper place, and started the process over with the next section. It took a painstaking twenty-two minutes to copy the entire contents of the box, and Ott noticed Gene Norton’s head pop over the top of his cubicle somewhere in the middle of it, to which Ott raised his chin in Norton’s direction.
“Frickin’ deadline,” Norton said. “And my keyboard is screwed up again. You know anything about it?”
“Wasn’t me,” Ott said.
Norton disappeared into his cubicle, and Ott slipped the last section of the file into the feeder. Five minutes later he had the original box back together and carried it, along with the box containing the copies, to his desk. He put the copied box to the side and carried the other two back to Evidence, swiped his keycard again, and replaced them in their proper spot.
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