She Was the Quiet One Read online

  Kriscunas: You say the twins fought over this Zach—spell his last name?

  Stone: C-U-D-D-Y.

  Kriscunas: They had actual arguments over him?

  Stone: Oh, I don’t know. Ask Zach. But there’s something to it. He was stalking Bel, too.

  Kriscunas: Zach Cuddy was stalking Bel. Actually stalking her, physically, not just online?

  Stone: Yeah. Kids were saying that. I even heard Bel say it.

  Kriscunas: Thank you. That sounds significant. We’ll look into it.

  Stone: Good, because I’m tired of being the scapegoat.

  Howard: During the slipper attack itself, you mentioned that Rose fended off the girls by hitting them with a pillow. Did that include hitting her sister? What we’re trying to get at is, previous incidents of violence between the twins.

  Stone: Look, Rose went after Bel, but she did it for me. I was begging Rose to make them stop filming. Do you understand—they sent out nude pictures of me!

  Howard: Yes. That’s terrible. We’re very sorry.

  Stone: I don’t know why more isn’t being done about that.

  Kriscunas: That case is currently pending. Detective Howard and I are not personally involved in investigating it, but we can put you in touch with—

  Stone: My dad and the lawyers are handling it. I’m just saying, Bel was the one holding the camera. At first she was kind of slumped over, but Darcy egged her on, and she ended up Snapchatting the attack. Supposedly she was high on painkillers. I don’t buy that, but they used that as an excuse.

  Kriscunas: Who did?

  Stone: The administration, when they made the disciplinary ruling. Complete BS. I mean, come on, Bel basically made child porn when she Snapchatted me. If she was sober enough to work the phone, then she was sober enough to pay for what she did. Rose always said, Bel gets away with murder.

  Howard: Rose said Bel got away with murder?

  Stone: Yeah, and she hated her for it. Bel attacked me, and Rose was the one who suffered. After that night, the whole school decided we were snitches. They turned on us. It ruined our lives. My family took action to protect me, at least. Rose’s family turned on her. Personally, I think Bel was behind that. She wanted the grandmother’s money for herself. No wonder Rose hated her sister so much.

  Kriscunas: There were issues over the grandmother’s money?

  Stone: I don’t really know that for sure, but I did hear that the grandmother was pissed. She’s friends with Darcy Madden’s folks. Speaking of Darcy, have you looked into her? Darcy didn’t take it lightly, getting ratted out. She was livid—at Bel and Rose, both. Since Bel didn’t get in trouble, kids thought she snitched, too. Bel’s very close to Donovan, tells him everything.

  Kriscunas: Hold on, slow down. You’re saying—

  Stone: I’m saying, you should question Darcy, and Tessa Romano, too. They’re the biggest criminals who ever set foot on this campus. They posted threats on Facebook, you know.

  Kriscunas: We didn’t know. Threats against whom?

  Stone: Against me and Rose. I never saw them, but I heard.

  Kriscunas: You’re saying Darcy and Tessa posted threats against you?

  Stone: Darcy did, but then her lawyer made her take the post down. That’s what I heard.

  Kriscunas: All right, we’ll look into that.

  Stone: You should. Boy, were they ever pissed off about what happened. I wouldn’t put it past either of them to kill someone.

  17

  “Sarah. Sarah, wake up. Somebody’s at the door,” Heath said, shaking her shoulder.

  “Who— What, what time is it?”

  Sarah sat up and rubbed her eyes. There were tears in them. She’d been dreaming that Heath had left her for another woman.

  “It’s quarter to one. You get the baby, I’ll get the door,” he said.

  Scottie was screaming, and the dog was barking. How had she managed to sleep through that? She threw a robe on and ran to the kids’ room. It was close inside, smelling of the diaper pail. Scottie stood grasping the bars of his crib and sobbing, his face bright red in the glow of the night-light. He raised his arms to her.

  “Shush, shush, little love, don’t wake Sissy.”

  Sarah lifted him out, found his pacifier, popped it into his mouth. He immediately quieted. She walked with him over to the bedroom door, cradling him against her shoulder and swaying soothingly as she strained to hear. He was wet; she could feel the heaviness in his diaper. She caught the high pitch of a girl’s voice, speaking in an alarmed cadence. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was didn’t sound good. She remembered Darcy and Tessa’s behavior at dinner tonight.

  Sarah was eager to hear what was happening, but if she took Scottie into the living room, he’d be up for the rest of the night. It took ten minutes to get him changed and rock him back to sleep. Sarah finally emerged, bleary-eyed, to find Rose Enright and Skyler Stone sitting on the edge of the sofa, looking tired and upset. Heath stood over them, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, like he couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  “What’s going on?” Sarah asked.

  “I need to fill Mrs. Donovan in and consult her about this. Give us a minute,” Heath said.

  Heath pulled Sarah down the hall to the kitchen and flipped on the light. She sat down hard on a chair, keyed up with fatigue, and pulled her robe tight around her.

  “What happened? They look upset,” Sarah said.

  “Darcy Madden and Tessa Romano came into their room while they were sleeping and spanked Skyler with a slipper. Apparently, they filmed it, too, and she’s worried that they’ll show the video to boys. Or already did.”

  “Goddamit, I knew they were up to something. We should have intervened sooner. Do you want to call Simon, or should I?”

  Simon Barlow, the headmaster of Odell Academy, had hired them to be dorm heads, and presumably could fire them as well if they didn’t measure up. Given what had just happened, he might decide to do just that. Sarah was starting to think it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  “I don’t want to call Simon yet,” Heath said. “Let’s get the facts first.”

  “What facts do we need?” Sarah said. “This sounds like a classic case of slippering. You remember slippering from when we were at Odell, don’t you, Heath? I do. Some seniors slippered me freshman year. They didn’t even take pictures, and it was still humiliating.”

  Slippering was a hazing ritual that started before there were even girls at Odell, at the now-defunct finishing school down the road, known as Miss Chase’s. Legend had it that a few of the more precocious Miss Chase’s girls threw a slumber party and took Polaroids of themselves spanking each other with slippers. The Polaroids circulated among Odell boys like so many nudie postcards, and a tradition was born. When the two schools merged in the seventies, slippering arrived at Odell in full force, though it grew less popular over the years. Sarah assumed it had died a well-deserved death long ago, but apparently everything old was new again.

  “Darcy Madden’s mother was an old-time Moreland fast girl,” Heath said. “Darcy’s probably gotten the message at home that pranks like this are all in good fun, and she’s trying to revive the tradition.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “I’m not saying it’s an excuse.”

  “Then, what are you saying? It’s our job to address this, and we’re screwing up. This very afternoon, I said we should report Darcy over that contest idea, and you talked me out of it. If we’d done that, this never would have happened.”

  “You’re saying it’s my fault that Darcy attacked Skyler Stone?”

  “This isn’t about blame, it’s about doing our jobs. We were hired to clean up Moreland. You’re the one who wanted this job, and yet when these girls misbehave, all I see from you is laughing it off and making excuses.”

  “Sarah, what’s gotten into you?” Heath asked. “I feel like you’re turning on me. Are you angry about Darcy’s contest?”

  “I
think I took that pretty well, actually—learning that a gang of teenage girls is trying to seduce my husband. But shrugging it off was a mistake. We took no action, and now look. The same girls have gone and attacked another student. We need to take this incident seriously, Heath.”

  “I agree. But it’s a mistake to wake Simon up at one o’clock in the morning, before we’ve done any investigation. It’s bad optics, it creates a crisis atmosphere, and who knows, it may turn out not to be necessary. Let me get a handle on the situation. I’ll gather the facts, and, I promise, I’ll present them to Simon first thing in the morning.”

  “What are you planning to do exactly?” Sarah asked.

  “Talk to Darcy and Tessa. Interview them, is a better way to put it. My guess is, they’ll admit to it. Hell, they’ll probably brag about it. Once they confess, I can institute a disciplinary lockdown, and send them to the infirmary for the rest of the night. You keep Skyler and Rose here for now. I don’t want them mingling with the girls who did this to them. When I go to Simon in the morning, I can say it’s under control. We can bring this to Simon tied up in a neat little bow.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said grudgingly.

  She had to admit, that sounded like a good plan. But as soon as Heath left, Sarah realized it wouldn’t be so easy to keep Skyler Stone contained while Heath did his investigating. Sarah invited Rose and Skyler into the kitchen, and made them tea and toast. Almost immediately, Skyler started to get antsy.

  “How long do you expect me to wait?” Skyler said.

  “It may be a little while. Have some tea,” Sarah said.

  “I don’t want tea. I want justice. I want to call the police.”

  Police? The blood drained from Sarah’s face. Getting the police involved would turn this into a full-blown scandal. Even Sarah didn’t feel up to taking that on, not without consulting the headmaster first.

  “Skyler, listen,” Sarah said. “I know you’re upset, and you have a right to be. Mr. Donovan is sending the girls who did this to the infirmary on disciplinary lockdown. He’s gathering information, so we can get the headmaster and the Disciplinary Committee involved first thing in the morning. The headmaster will make the determination about whether it’s appropriate to call the police. There’s a protocol for when that’s done.”

  “I don’t care about your frigging protocol. How about picking up the phone and dialing the goddamn number?”

  “If you want to call, I won’t stop you. I’m just saying, there’s a way the school handles this, and I personally can’t go around the procedure. You can, if you want to.”

  “I’m calling my dad. He’ll sue the pants off those bitches.”

  Sarah glanced pleadingly at Rose Enright, who’d been sitting silently beside Skyler, listening to the conversation.

  “Sky,” Rose said, “I think she’s right. Let’s wait till Mr. Donovan comes back, and hear what he has to say. Then, when you call your parents, you can tell them what the school is doing about this. Seriously. Drink some tea. It’ll help you calm down.”

  Thank God for Rose. She had a good head on her shoulders, and reminded Sarah of herself at that age. If only more Odell girls were like Rose, Sarah’s job would be easy.

  It was a half hour before Heath got back. He walked into the kitchen, looking weary, and tossed two ski masks onto the table.

  “They admitted to everything,” Heath said. “You girls can go back to your room now and rest easy. Darcy and Tessa are spending the night in the infirmary on lockdown, so they won’t bother you. In the morning, I’ll convene the Disciplinary Committee, and request that they be suspended from school.”

  “Suspended? That’s it?” Skyler demanded.

  “Suspension is a serious punishment. It’ll go on their permanent records. Colleges see it,” Heath said.

  “You think that’s enough?” Skyler said, her face crimson with rage. “They should be in jail. Not just Darcy and Tessa. Bel, too. Bel Snapchatted the whole attack. That’s like making child porn. Why isn’t she locked in the infirmary?”

  “Bel?” Sarah said, turning to Heath, her stomach knotting. “Bel Enright was there? You didn’t tell me that.”

  Heath held up his hands. “Hold on a second. Bel is in the infirmary, too. But there’re extenuating circumstances in her case. She got hurt yesterday on a practice run and had a bad reaction to the pain medication they prescribed. While she was under the influence, Darcy and Tessa pressured her into participating in the attack. They’re guilty, and I assure you, they’ll be brought up before the Disciplinary Committee. Bel will, too, but her involvement is different.”

  Around the table, everybody’s jaws dropped, including Sarah’s. We can bring this to Simon tied up in a neat little bow, he’d said. Was this what he’d meant? He’d needed time to cover for Bel Enright? Otherwise, why hadn’t he mentioned Bel to Sarah when he gave her the rundown on the attack in the kitchen earlier?

  “But you’re going to tell the Disciplinary Committee she was there, right?” Skyler asked.

  “Of course. I’ll tell the Committee everything. Who knows, maybe they’ll disagree with my assessment and think Bel deserves to be punished, too. I care about what happened to you, Skyler. I take this very seriously, and the girls who did this will get what they deserve.”

  Heath told the girls to expect to be called before the Disciplinary Committee to give their accounts of the attack. In the meantime, they were not to discuss it with any other students. Heath seemed like he was in a hurry to shoo the girls out the door. When they’d left, Sarah tidied the kitchen quickly, then got into bed beside him, feeling uneasy. Heath turned to flick off the lamp.

  “Wait a minute, there’s something I have to ask you,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me about Bel Enright?”

  “Didn’t I tell you about her?” he said.

  He couldn’t really think that? Could he? Heath had a funny expression on his face—one of watchfulness, of careful listening, like he was trying to avoid some pitfall.

  Was she being paranoid?

  “You most certainly did not. You said Darcy and Tessa attacked Skyler. You never mentioned Bel.”

  “Maybe I forgot to mention Bel. I’m sorry, honey. My mistake. I was muddled from being woken up.”

  “Bel filmed the attack. She may have even shared the video with other kids. What did she say when you asked her that?” Sarah said.

  “I didn’t ask her. I told you, Bel was whacked-out on pain meds. She was in no condition to be interviewed.”

  “Wait, you didn’t ask her if she shared the video? Did you confiscate her phone?”

  “Honestly, that didn’t occur to me. I was focused on getting medical attention for her. I didn’t want to say this in front of the other girls. Especially Rose—I didn’t want to upset her. Bel’s in bad shape. Dr. Mehta almost sent her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped, that’s how bad of a shape she was in.”

  “You’re saying she abused prescription drugs.”

  “We don’t know that. It may have been an accident. It may have been a suicide attempt. The one thing I do know is, the meds were prescribed to her by the Odell infirmary, for an injury that Bel sustained during a cross-country practice that I’m responsible for. She could turn right around and blame the school, blame me personally. Sue us, even. You want me to accuse her of drug abuse, now? Be reasonable. I’m trying to handle this situation in a way that’s fair, but without making us look bad, you and me.”

  “We already look bad, for not reporting Darcy’s contest.”

  “Nobody knows about that. And nobody has to.”

  “If we lie. I don’t want to be part of a cover-up.”

  “Sarah, a cover-up, really? These are kids we’re talking about. Kids, fantasizing about a teacher. Spanking another kid with a bedroom slipper. It’s stupid stuff, and besides, I already said I’m going to Simon first thing in the morning. Nobody is covering up anything. Why are you questioning me like this? Don’t you trust me?”

 
; Heath looked at her with hurt in his eyes. The fact was, she didn’t entirely trust him. She worried that he was cutting corners again to get ahead, like he’d done years ago, with his novel. The glibness, the willingness to bend the truth when it suited him, to take the easy way out. He was doing it all over again. She could see it. Yet, Heath reacted so badly when things went wrong. She had to remember how vulnerable he was to failure. Mentally fragile, like his mother had been. She had no choice but to back him up. Otherwise, she might undermine his confidence, and the consequences might be terrible.

  They couldn’t go through that again.

  “You’re right, sweetheart,” Sarah said. “You promised to go to Simon first thing. That’s good enough for me. Tell you what. I’ll come with you, so we can present a united front.”

  “Uh, but I’m the one who interviewed the girls. I know what happened.”

  “Sure. You can do the talking. I’ll be along for moral support.”

  “Oh.”

  “Heath, I need to. We’re coheads of this dorm. Don’t exclude me, please, or I can’t be comfortable in the job.”

  “I understand. You’re right. We’ll go together. Now, let’s get some sleep. I’m beat.”

  Heath kissed her and snapped off the light. Sarah lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling.

  Something still didn’t feel right. Heath had held out on her. He didn’t tell her about Bel Enright’s involvement, and he appeared to be letting Bel off easily compared to the other girls. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation. Maybe it had slipped Heath’s mind to mention Bel, given that Darcy and Tessa were the ringleaders. And maybe Bel was really under the influence of meds prescribed by Odell, and Heath was legitimately worried about liability for that.

  Or, maybe not.

  Sarah needed to take a deep breath, and stop doubting her husband so much. That stupid bad dream about Heath leaving her was still messing with her head. Things were under control. They were going to the headmaster in the morning with the facts. If Bel warranted punishment, she’d be punished. Heath was very ambitious. He might even be willing to withhold information from higher-ups in order to advance his career. But he wasn’t a cheater, and he’d never look twice at a young girl. She was confident of that.