The wind picked up as he spoke, rattling the branches of the trees and throwing wet leaves against the windowpanes. Somewhere, far away, a faint police siren began to sound.
The high, keening wail made the hair on the back of Ivy’s neck stand up. Suddenly, more than anything in the world, she wanted to leave. She should have turned in her half-finished test and left with Mattie. She stared toward the door and back at her test.
She wasn’t even close.
The sky darkened further. Thunder exploded and shook the room. The electricity flickered off for just a moment, and the room was utterly silent—no air-conditioning, no buzz of electric lights—save for the wind battering at the window, making the glass creak and click in the panes, and then the electricity came back on with a rush of sound.
There were four of them left. Cade, Tyler, Ivy, and Kinley, who was scribbling furiously, completely blind to anything happening around her. Every once in a while, she paused, flexed her hand, and then went back to writing furiously.
“I can’t stay here all night.” Mr. Stratford put his hands on his hips. “Kinley, you have five minutes.”
Ivy put her head down. She wasn’t sure if Stratford would even accept her test, but she was going to do her best, and she was damn well going to fight to stay here. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And with everything else, the last thing she needed was to go down in a cheating scandal with Cade Sano.
“Time,” Stratford called, tapping two fingers on his wrist. “Okay, please bring your tests forward.”
Kinley’s head jerked up, and her lip trembled. She put her hands on her neck for a moment, and then she walked very slowly to Dr. Stratford’s desk, like she was visiting the executioner instead of just a professor, and, very deliberately, laid the test on the top of the pile.
She turned around. “Dr. Stratford, I don’t suppose I might discuss some of those questions with you?”
He chuckled. “I’ll tell you what, Kinley. If you can wait out Thing One and Thing Two here”—he gestured to Cade and Tyler—“and then let me finish dealing with Ivy, I’ll let you ask one question.” He tapped his forehead. “Use it well. Now, Mr. Sano.” He fixed his eyes on the back of the room, and Cade came slumping out of his desk, never once breaking eye contact with the professor.
Kinley stood behind the desk. She pulled her test from the pile and crushed it to her chest, like Cade might actually be trying to steal her precious answers.
Ivy stood up too, hesitantly, and behind her, she heard Tyler’s seat squeak across the floor.
Everything happened very quickly from there.
It started at Cade’s neckline. The redness began as a slow build from the top of his chest to his chin, and then blossomed over his face.
“Sir,” Cade began, “my father—”
Dr. Stratford stood up, and looked Cade straight in the eye. “Son, do you think I give a flying fuck about who your father is?”
Behind Dr. Stratford, Kinley covered her mouth. Stratford, as if this conversation were taxing him more than anyone could imagine, took off his glasses and set them on the desk. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, like he was in some sort of great pain.
Cade’s face reddened further. “You should, sir. Everyone else does. And I think he’d be very disappointed to find that you failed me for notes I wasn’t even using.”
Dr. Stratford’s face didn’t change. “So you regularly go around with notes in your lap that you aren’t using? Did you wear them to dinner last night, Mr. Sano? Did they accompany you to the gym?”
“No, sir.” Cade’s fists tightened at his sides. “I was just studying right before class, and I forgot to put them in my bag. I’m sure you understand.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Sano, as I noticed you looking down at your lap many times during the test. I’m sure that other things you have down there aren’t all that interesting.” He parted his lips into something like a growl, showing a crowded row of yellowed teeth. “I’m afraid that you will not be invited to return to class. Please leave.”
Ivy’s heart sped up in her chest. This was bad. This was really bad.
“I didn’t give them to him!” Ivy burst out. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t let Stratford do this to her, too. “I thought I lost them but he stole them out of my bag! I wasn’t helping him cheat, I swear!”
Stratford cast a look at Cade, who was sucking in these deep, loud breaths. “Is this true, Mr. Sano?”
Cade looked at Ivy. And then he nodded. “Yeah, I swiped them. Ivy didn’t know.” Every word that came out of his mouth was like being dragged across broken glass.
Dr. Stratford looked at Ivy for a half second. “I suppose in this specific scenario, the best thing I can say is that you should have taken better care of your things. Perhaps you can retake my class next summer, Ivy.”
For a moment, Ivy felt like she couldn’t see anything. Her body went stiff and cold and her heart felt like it had turned to scar tissue. And then, what she said next was, quite possibly, the worst thing she’d ever said to anyone.
“I’ll kill you, you bastard! You can’t ruin my life like this!” she said, her voice coming out in a high, windless shriek.
Dr. Stratford smiled.
He didn’t see Cade’s fist coming.
But Ivy did.
She saw the way it collided with his face.
How it knocked him backward.
The way his heels caught the toes of Kinley’s patent-leather shoes.
Dr. Stratford’s face went slack and blank, like everything, all at once, had gone out in him.
His head hit the eraser tray on the chalkboard, and like a soft cloth doll, he fell to the tile floor.
And outside, the rain fell harder and louder, and on the floor, their professor lay, still and silent, with the tiniest trickle of blood coming from his nose.
There should have been more.
“Is . . . is he dead?”
All four of them turned toward the voice, and there he was—Mattie, probably coming back for his phone, staring at their still professor on the floor.
Tyler grabbed Mattie by the collar and pulled him into the room, and then shut the door and lowered the shade.
Mattie rushed to the professor’s side and knelt down, his fingers searching for a pulse.
Ivy dropped to her knees. She held her hand over his mouth. There was no breath.
She looked up at Mattie. He looked back at her. And they both knew.
“He’s dead,” Kinley whispered, her test papers falling slowly to the floor. “You killed him, Cade.”
A crash of thunder shook the room, and the lights went out.
Mattie
Friday, June 12
Mattie rolled back on his knees.
The lights flickered back on. His professor was in front of him. And he wasn’t breathing. He had no pulse. He looked waxen already, and the small bit of blood that had leaked out of his gaping nostril was black-red.
Ivy tipped the professor’s head back, trying frantically to give him CPR. She pumped at his chest and breathed into him. “You have to press hard,” she whispered, half to herself, as she pushed down. The professor’s body jerked under the compressions, but he didn’t open his eyes.
Didn’t take a breath.
Mattie stared. He needed to do something. Anything. He needed to fix this.
Stratford’s blazer fell open, revealing an inner pocket of used tissues.
Mattie almost gagged. The professor had a cold.
“Cade,” Kinley whispered again. “You killed him.”
“We have to call 911!” Mattie said, pushing himself up. “We have to get help.” It was the right thing to do. Where had he left his phone? They had to get help. They had to report this.
“He’s dead as shit,” Cade pointed out, motioning at the body. “No ambulance is going to help him.”
“We can’t just leave him! We have to try.”
“You killed him!” Kinley’s voice was now a whi
sper-scream. She pushed Cade. “You killed Dr. Stratford.”
Cade stared at her. “No. I punched him. You’re the one who fucking tripped him. I didn’t kill him—you did!” He turned on Ivy. “And you threatened to murder him! Everyone here heard you!”
Kinley’s hands moved to her throat, as if it were choking her. Mattie put his hand on her back. “Kinley. It’s okay. We just need to use the phone. We need to report this.”
Kinley swung around to face him, and her eyes were wide and glassy. “It’s not okay, Mattie. It’s not okay.” Her hands scrabbled at her neckline. “It’s not okay at all.” She clung to him, suddenly and hard, her arms around him so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe. Mattie motioned to Tyler.
“My phone’s on the desk. Get it and call the police. Now.”
Tyler sprinted back to his desk and dialed the three numbers.
And then he stopped. His face froze, his panicked expression dropping slowly away.
“No,” he said. “We can’t.”
He put Mattie’s phone back on the desk.
“What the hell?!” Mattie cried as Kinley burrowed deeper into his neck. “Don’t you want to try to save him?” He didn’t understand. When someone got hurt, you didn’t just pretend it didn’t happen. You got out electric paddles. You called EMTs. You tried everything.
Tyler shook his head. “No. I don’t. We all need to get the fuck out of here before we get blamed.”
Ivy looked up. A vein pulsed wildly in her jawline. “You didn’t do anything, Tyler. Neither did I. It was an accident.”
“An accident? No way. You think Captain Wonderful here punching him in the face and then Kinley tripping him is an accident? No. At best, it’s temporary insanity. And me? Do you think I ever get accused of something and get out of it?” He put both his hands behind his head and dipped forward. “Fuck!” he said. “We need to get out of here. Let’s just leave him. No one’s here. No one will find him until morning. Let’s just get out, all right?”
Mattie bent down to look at Stratford. He looked dead. He didn’t look like a body—he looked like a thing. And Mattie looked at Ivy, who was still kneeling beside him, wiping her eyes and smearing mascara across her face.
“Kinley,” Mattie said pleadingly. Kinley was a good girl. She never did anything wrong. She wouldn’t want to leave him. She’d help Mattie do the right thing. “We can’t abandon him.”
But Kinley just looked at him. “We need to go, Mattie.”
Mattie stood up, his knees shaking. His whole body felt like he was running a fever—he felt hot and cold and hot-cold and strange, and he was half sure that the hot dog he’d eaten before the test was slowly edging its way out of his stomach and into his throat.
And without really feeling like he was making a choice at all, he was grabbing on to Ivy’s hand and leading her outside, with the whole group behind them. They shut the door and walked down the hallway, out the double glass doors, and into the rain, and they stood outside in a clump, blinking through the wetness. The rain was still falling steadily, and it soaked through their hair and into their clothes. A clump of wet leaves stuck to Mattie’s ankle. He didn’t bother to shake it loose.
They stood together and stared back at the building. Through that entrance, through that hallway, in that classroom, was their dead professor.
Mattie looked at Ivy in the rain, beautiful and perfect and somehow completely ruined, and he felt strangely terrible for her, most of all her. Ivy had just tried to save him. He wanted to hold her, suddenly, wanted to put his arms around her and draw her to his chest while they were all the only ones in the parking lot.
Except—
“Hey, guys!”
Kip Landers jogged up, panting. His blond hair was matted into a dirty brown by the rain.
“What are you doing here?” asked Cade, his voice sharp.
“I realized I forgot to do the back of page four.” Kip bent over and put his hands on his knees, breathing hard. “I came back to see if Stratford would let me take another look. Think he would?”
Mattie, who had never wanted to hurt anyone in his entire life, wanted to slug Kip. Hard. “When has Stratford ever done a favor for anyone?” he asked bluntly.
Kip stuttered. “Well—uh—well, what’s the harm in asking?”
Kinley smiled at Kip, her upper lip stretching over her teeth like she was snarling. “I get it, Kip. But he’s gone. He left a while ago. We were just late getting out because we were bitching about him.”
Mattie frowned. Kinley wasn’t the type to curse. Kinley, who had teacher’s pet written all over her, was acting least like herself.
But Kip actually nodded. Apparently, he believed Kinley. And who wouldn’t? Once, Mattie had heard people whispering about how Kinley would tell on just about anyone for just about any reason. (Thank God she was here.)
“I’ll just try back in the morning. Maybe he’ll be here.”
Kip turned away, and Ivy grabbed on to Mattie. “We have to go back,” she hissed into his ear.
“No.” The word came out before Mattie could reel it back. The last thing he wanted was to go back to see Dr. Stratford, cold and dead on the floor.
But she was right. Ivy was right. They should leave everyone and go back right now. They should call 911 and try to get help and just deal with the consequences.
But now that they’d lied to Kip—well, what if Kip changed his mind and came back tonight? Or hell, what happened when he came back in the morning? Then he’d know that Kinley had lied. He’d know they all lied.
And they’d all be linked to Stratford’s death.
Forever.
Mattie watched Kip vanish. Vanish like his biggest problem in the world was a page of forgotten test answers. And Mattie hated him a little for that. He hated him for not being pulled into a room. He hated him for not having to witness a death.
He hated him for not knowing.
And more than anything, Mattie hated Kip because he wanted to be him.
“Someone should go back,” Mattie said, echoing Kinley. “We can’t just leave Dr. Stratford in there to be found by whoever wanders in there. We have to go get him.”
“I’m not going back in there,” Tyler said. His face was almost as pale as the body. “Let the janitor find him and call 911 on his busted ass.”
“And then Kip will know we lied, and he’ll know that we had something to do with it,” Kinley said. She reached out and rested her hand on Tyler’s arm. “We have to go back, Tyler.”
He looked at her. Really looked at her. And then he looked out at the parking lot. He swallowed hard. “Fine,” he said. “But we all go. All of us. No one gets off easy here. If we do this, we do it together.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Mattie snapped. “I got pulled into that freaking room, but I didn’t touch the guy. Just let me go and I’ll act like I was never here.”
Cade’s eyes glittered. “I don’t know. You touched his neck. Don’t play like your DNA isn’t all over that man.”
“I was trying to help,” Mattie snapped. “I was trying to save him. That’s all Ivy and I were trying to do.”
Beside him, Ivy looped her arm into his and drew him tightly to her. She wanted to leave too. Mattie could tell. Her skin was gray and her lips were drawn.
“That’s funny,” Cade said slowly. “Because Ivy slobbered all over him doing mouth-to-mouth. So both of your DNA is everywhere. All I got in was one quick punch. So I’d say you two look the guiltiest of all.”
“For trying to save him?”
Cade laughed. It was a low, ugly sound. Almost guttural, like it was torn from somewhere deep inside him. His eyes rolled in his head like blank marbles. “If either of you—no, any one of us—if anyone goes to the cops, then we will all hold that person responsible. Got it? That means if one of us narcs—the rest of us will personally ensure that person is held solely accountable for the murder of Dr. Stratford. Do you really want homicide on your record, Mattie?�
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Something deep inside Mattie twisted and writhed and went out. “No,” he said, very quietly. Looking at Cade, at his flat, emotionless face, he knew that he’d do it. There was something off about him. Something soulless and strange. “No, I don’t.”
“Then help us. We’re going in there, and we’re going to move the body.”
The hot-cold feeling intensified. But he followed the other four inside. Ivy kept squeezing his arm, but he wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or not.
Kinley
Friday, June 12
Kinley half wanted Stratford to be gone when they returned. Just vanished. Or maybe he’d be fine. Maybe Mattie had been wrong about the pulse, and he’d be rolling around, groaning, clutching his head. Maybe he’d be up, walking around, and fail them all for almost killing him.
It was the first time in her life that Kinley wished for an F.
But he wasn’t any of those things.
Stratford was still lying there. Only now his left eye was partly open, and half of the milky white was exposed. Kinley gagged when she saw him.
“There should be more blood,” Ivy whispered into Mattie’s shoulder. “If he’s dead, why isn’t there more blood?”
Mattie shushed her, and Kinley shot her a look. Some people just couldn’t hold it together.
Kinley wasn’t one of those people. She knew she was screwed, but in that knowledge she felt strangely okay. In control. She had the facts, and now she just had to figure out how to arrange them to her advantage.
It was how she lived her life. With facts. Finding the advantages. Making them hers.
Kinley straightened and took a deep breath. “I’ll go keep watch. Tyler, Ivy, grab his arms. Mattie and Cade, his legs. We’re going to get him out of here.”
“What about cameras?” Tyler asked.
Ivy shook her head. “No.” Her voice shook. “They’re being refitted. The new eco-friendly cameras should be in by next week.”
“She’s right,” Kinley said. “Student council voted on it. Now, let’s do this. We’re going to put him in my trunk.”
Secrets, Lies, and Scandals Page 6
