“Go check with Scarlett,” Mustard said. “If she’s done downstairs, then I think we’ve covered our bases.” But as she turned to leave, he said, “Wait.”
She looked at him.
Best get this from the horse’s mouth. “Why were you arguing with the headmaster in his office last week?”
“None of your business,” she snapped. “Wait . . . What are you asking me?” She glared at them both.
“We were just wondering,” Orchid said, “because—”
“None of your business!” Peacock seethed. She shook her head, and the electric-blue ends of her ponytail whipped back and forth like live wires. “What were you in his office for?”
“There was a problem with my tuition check,” Orchid responded instantly. “But we got it resolved.”
She looked pointedly at Peacock, who pursed her lips.
“Okay, if you must know, he was denying my request to go watch the Grand Slam in Australia next month. I got an invite and needed to be excused from school.”
Orchid frowned. “Why would you need to keep that a secret?”
“Whatever, we’re done, right?” Beth whirled around and marched back down the stairs.
Orchid looked at Mustard. “Do you buy that?”
“No.” But he wasn’t sure he bought the looter story, either. “I’m going to see what’s going on downstairs.”
“Me too,” said Orchid. “We should also let Mrs. White know that Vaughn came back, and that Rusty probably made it to the village. She’ll be worried.”
Downstairs, Orchid went off to check on Mrs. White, and Mustard found Karlee and Kayla snacking in the dining room.
“Have you seen Scarlett?” he asked.
They had not, which meant they had not checked with her before ceasing their search, like he’d asked them to. The chain of command had completely broken down. This kind of thing would never fly at Farthing.
He checked the kitchen next, but it, too, was empty. Nothing in the larder but food, and nowhere to hide behind the cabinets or the stove or the fridge. Through the window set in the door he caught sight of Vaughn on the back stoop, looking out into the flooded woods and park that surrounded Tudor House. Weird. Hadn’t he come downstairs to wash up?
Mustard tapped on the window. “Everything all right?”
Vaughn crossed the porch to the door and cracked it open. His coat was still soaked and muddy from his failed attempt to reach the mainland this morning, but he’d clearly put it all back on and gone outside anyway. Mustard quickly revised his assessment of the boy. He was definitely Farthing boot camp material.
“Hey,” he said. “I was thinking maybe we should gather some firewood and get it inside—in case the furnace runs low on oil.”
“Might be a good idea.” Mustard doubted there was much in the way of dry wood. “Think there’s any chance Rusty will be able to get back here soon with the cops?”
Vaughn was silent as he handed over some logs from under the tarp on the porch. “I don’t know. The currents over the ravine are still wild. I don’t know how anyone could get out here.”
“We didn’t see any sign of a looter upstairs or in the attic. I still have to talk to Scarlett about the downstairs, though.”
“Of course Scarlett thinks there’s a looter,” Vaughn said with a rueful shake of his head. “First a suicide, now a looter . . .”
“Hey, it’s easier than believing your theory,” Mustard said. “That someone in this house is a murderer.”
Vaughn straightened with another log in his arms. “My theory?”
“Yeah, you know, the one you almost started a war over at lunch?” Vaughn had been the one to start pitting them against one another.
But Vaughn didn’t respond, and then Mustard noticed blood dripping down the boy’s nose.
“You’re bleeding.”
Vaughn rubbed the back of his glove against his face, then looked at the red smeared across the fabric. “Oh.”
“Probably the cold,” Mustard said. “Let’s get you a rag.”
They carried the few logs they could find inside, then Vaughn got himself set up at the kitchen table with some paper towels to let his nose drain, and Mustard heard voices outside the door. He looked to see Scarlett standing with Peacock outside the ballroom, and went to have words with her.
“All clear on the lower level?” he asked.
Peacock glared at him. Scarlett didn’t exactly look happy, either.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Finn and I didn’t finish checking.”
Mustard bit back his frustration. Sure, order them all over the house, but then don’t do your own work. “Which rooms are left?”
Scarlett gestured in the direction he’d come. “That side.”
“So the kitchen, dining room, and lounge?”
“And the secret passages,” Scarlett said, rolling her eyes. “Which don’t exist.”
“Yes they do,” argued Peacock. “I had a friend living here when I was a freshman, and she said they were real.”
“Did she say where they were?” Scarlett asked.
“Well . . . No.”
Scarlett gave Mustard a look which said, See? She was standing close to Peacock, clearly unconcerned that the taller girl might smack her with the lead pipe she was still carrying, despite the gossip from Finn about Peacock’s fight with the headmaster.
So Scarlett, at least, didn’t think Peacock was a murderer. To own the truth, Mustard wasn’t sure he thought it either, though as far as he could tell, she was the only one with an established motive.
So much for leaving the investigation up to the cops. From Vaughn’s description of conditions outside, it might be a while before any police arrived at all.
“Okay,” said Mustard. “Do you want to help me finish?”
“Not really,” said Scarlett. “I’ve had a rough morning.”
“Me too,” chimed in Peacock.
They both stared pointedly at Mustard, who raised his hands defensively.
A millisecond later, Peacock had turned back to Scarlett. “Anyway, we’d been together for about two months, and I told him I was first on the wait list for honors chem.” Peacock whirled. “Excuse me, did I invite you to this conversation?”
Mustard had heard enough. The kitchen and the dining room were covered, so he headed down the hall to the lounge. If he’d been in charge of surveying this level, he would have started with the room that had actually been looted, but whatever, Scarlett.
The lounge door opened with a strange little pop, as if there were a pressure differential between the hall and the room. Strange. Might be because of whatever air was leaking in around the edges of the tarp in the hall. Might be because this house was ancient and creaky.
So many questions and almost no answers.
The sofa in the lounge was still made up with sheets and pillows for the headmaster’s bed. The covers were rumpled and thrown back, as if he’d only gotten up to go to the bathroom.
Go to the bathroom, get surprised by a looter, and get stabbed.
Or maybe someone had knocked at the door. Or maybe he’d heard a sound and gone to investigate.
The headmaster’s things were piled in a corner of the room, just as they had been last night. There was a suitcase and several boxes filled with file folders. On the end table next to the sofa sat a pair of eyeglasses—the headmaster’s— resting upside down, their arms not even folded. He’d never need them again.
Mustard shook off the gloom and got to work. He checked behind every stick of furniture and poked at the curtains to make sure they weren’t hiding anything either. Nada.
There was a thump from somewhere behind him. Mustard spun around, but the room was still empty. Still, he knew he hadn’t imagined it. He walked to the center of the room, turning slowly. Nothing appeared out of place, but after a moment he could smell wood ash. He looked at the fireplace, where the charred remains of last night’s fire still lay in the grate. Maybe one of the burnt l
ogs had crumbled.
He bent over to examine inside the fireplace. It wasn’t the world’s largest hearth, though the mantel above it was big and ornate, practically encrusted with carvings of ladies in skimpy togas and cherubs in even less. Along one side stood a lone male figure, his muscular physique garbed only in a single fig leaf.
He peered closer. No, not a fig leaf. A maple leaf. How appropriate for Maine. He wondered if the reform school girls pictured in Mrs. White’s framed photos had found this poor gentleman amusing.
His finger brushed the leaf, and it flipped open, revealing . . .
Mustard’s eyes widened, and then, when he realized what he was actually looking at, they widened even more.
Yeah. The reform school girls definitely knew about this dude.
It was not an engraving of the figure’s anatomy—not an accurate one, anyway. But it was, unmistakably, a switch. Currently, it was pointing down. He didn’t even hesitate before flipping it up.
A panel opened in the back of the grate.
It was a flue. Just a flue. Or an ash trap, he told himself.
Or a secret passage.
Mustard took a deep breath, crouched, and squeezed his way inside. Stone walls rose up around him, and there was a short set of stairs, curving around a corner and underground, following the architecture of the house.
He should go get someone. If there was a looter—a murderer—hiding here, Mustard shouldn’t confront the guy alone.
He took another step down into the passage. The light from the lounge behind him was almost gone down here. He could barely see his hand in front of his face. But as he took another step down the curving staircase, he noticed there also seemed to be some kind of glow up ahead.
Emboldened, he continued. Five more steps, and the floor evened out into a long, narrow passageway, with a sickly, dim-looking light coming from some unnamed source. The stone walls were freezing to the touch, and the floor was littered with dirt, dust, and small crunchy bits that Mustard did not want to examine too closely. The passage seemed to dead-end up ahead, but after another few steps, he saw the glow only got brighter.
It was a corner. He caught his breath.
Back in military school, they’d do drills like this all the time. MOUT drills, they’d called them. Dust, close quarters, flashlight beam at the end of your muzzle your only source of light. They’d practice being Green Berets or SEAL teams. Mustard had been very good at them.
He’d hated it, every time. Even when he knew that there were only flash bombs and blank adapters to fear. He didn’t like that moment when he turned the inevitable corner and stared down the barrel of the inevitable enemy combatant. He was trained never to hesitate. To shoot first.
Like now.
One more step brought him in full view of the tiny chamber around the corner. The sickly light, the bags and equipment on the table, and the person standing before it.
Plum spun to face him, his expression a mask of terror.
“Oh,” he gasped. “It’s you.”
16
Peacock
— EP WORKOUT LOG—
DATE: December 6
LUNCH: PBJ on wheat (450 calories, 15g protein), chicken drumstick (70 calories, 10g protein), 5 carrot sticks (25 calories, 1g protein), see notes
NOTES: Very concerned about losing muscle mass unless I get a real meal and workout in. They think it’s possible Boddy was murdered by a looter last night. Now Scarlett and Mustard actually want us to go SEARCH for the looter, if there is one. Scary stuff.
I HATE HIM
I HATE HIM
I HATE HIM
I HATE HIM
I HATE HIM
DOES EVERYONE IN THIS FREAKING HOUSE THINK I’M A MURDERER????
P.S. Found a bar weight in the attic while we searched for clues. That’ll come in handy.
17
Green
The kitchen chairs in Tudor House were old and rickety, with frayed caning and hard backs, but Vaughn thought he might never get up anyway. His nose had stopped bleeding, but a deep weariness seemed to suffuse his bones, despite his having fully enjoyed the rare opportunity to sleep in past sunrise that morning.
You know, before they’d found the dead body. Before he’d gone off on an hours-long failure of a quest to reach the mainland.
Before he’d battled his twin brother in the flooded-out yard.
According to that new Mustard kid, Vaughn had had a very busy morning, starting fights. It figured Oliver would find a way to cause trouble. As if anyone here needed any more, after what had happened to Boddy.
Murder. It fit so well with everything else he had come to understand—about this house, this school . . . about the way life always seemed to go. What was that line? Nasty, brutish, and short.
Anything else was just an illusion. He should learn to accept that.
Seventeen years, and it had just been crash after crash. Left with Gemma for long stretches when his parents went on tour, then permanently a few years later, after they died. When Gemma died, too, and everything looked like it was falling apart, he could see Rocky Point closing in around him—the noose pulling tight.
And then he’d gotten the scholarship to Blackbrook. A way out.
Only, maybe it had been nothing but another illusion. The idea that if he just played along for a few more years, he could be free forever. Free from Rocky Point, free from his family’s sad history, free from his brother’s machinations. If he kept his head down and worked his butt off and never listened to Oliver’s vicious little whispers in his ear that it was a waste of time, and that no one would ever give them a chance, so they had to steal it, no matter what the cost.
He’d loved it at Blackbrook. But he had no idea what would happen now. The storm wouldn’t break them, but a murder might.
And that was supposing it didn’t get any worse from here.
As far as Vaughn could tell, everyone in this house had spent the morning running in circles. Searching for a looter who probably didn’t exist, and turning on one another as that became more and more obvious. And meanwhile, as far as he had been able to ascertain, not getting one step closer to discovering the real culprit.
He was in danger of falling asleep on the chair. Also, he was starving. He could probably scrounge for some food here in the kitchen. Surely they’d all eaten lunch. No one was in the kitchen now. No one would be suspicious if they caught him foraging for food.
But he should go see Mrs. White. She was probably having a nervous breakdown, between all the people tromping over her house and the corpse in her conservatory. She’d also be the only one in Tudor who would recognize Oliver. Vaughn would be able to get the full story of what had transpired the last few hours from her.
Vaughn hauled his body off the chair and lumbered down the hall, pausing only to shed some layers in his makeshift room, the library. His clothes weren’t where he remembered leaving them, but his brother was probably responsible for that. He changed into a drier, less-bloodstained sweater. His ribs hurt. They’d probably bruise tomorrow. Vaughn may have won their fight just now, but Oliver had certainly left his mark. He caught sight of his face in a mirror. The blood had been wiped away, but his nose was a bit swollen, and his cheeks were raw from the biting cold.
His twin would be worse off, though. Vaughn figured he’d given his brother a black eye at least. Oliver wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Couldn’t be.
He left the library, headed down the hall, and knocked on the door to the study.
Orchid opened it.
“Oh,” she said flatly. “It’s you.” Uh-oh. Something had changed. It always changed when Oliver got involved.
“Hey, is Mrs. White in there?”
“Vaughn?” The woman’s voice floated out. Orchid held the door open for him and he stepped inside.
“Hey. I wanted to check in and see how you were doing.” Mrs. White smiled, but Orchid’s expression remained closed off and suspicious. He hated it when he got those looks.
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“You’re always so sweet,” Mrs. White said. Orchid’s eyebrows hit her hairline. He refused to react. “I’m sorry I slept through all the commotion. I think, between the storm and the shock of Brian Boddy’s death, it was all too much. I certainly would not have allowed you all to search the house like this. It’s far too dangerous. What if the looter was hiding somewhere?”
So Mrs. White was on board with the looter theory, too. Vaughn’s head hurt. “If there’s an intruder in this house, we’d be in danger anyway.”
“It was fine,” said Orchid. “We didn’t find signs of any intruders.”
“Well, at least we’ve determined that. He must be long gone by now.”
Orchid glanced at him. “Vaughn thinks there’s no way any looter, if he got onto the campus, would have been able to get out.”
Vaughn didn’t confirm or deny this, though he had to agree with Oliver that a “looter”—or anyone else who made it out here—would not be able to cross the ravine again. Vaughn and Rusty’s attempt had only been half-successful, and he still had no idea how Oliver had made it across without a boat.
Which meant his brother was probably still skulking around somewhere on the Blackbrook campus, looking for mischief. Still, he wasn’t sure what Oliver had been up to, making that point to the others.
Other than causing them to fight amongst themselves. That was his brother’s signature move. He looked at Mrs. White, but she gave no indication that she knew Oliver had even been here. Maybe she really had slept through his entire visit.
“Maybe not,” said Mrs. White, “but I don’t think the person is going to stick around the scene of a crime, either. No, the looter is either long gone or hiding out in some other building on campus. There would be plenty to choose from, even with the flood.” She looked rueful. “But my bet is on gone, and with the headmaster’s things, too. Such a shame. Hopefully, when the police get here, they’ll be able to get to the bottom of the matter.”
Vaughn looked out the window at the devastation on the street. When he and Rusty had left that morning, they had considered the headmaster’s death to be a suicide. Would the police come running under such circumstances, when there were probably life-and-death scenarios occurring all over from the storm? “I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
In the Hall with the Knife Page 12
