She Was the Quiet One Page 8

  Shit. Tessa must have told Darcy what she saw, and Darcy had a big mouth. This story would be all over school the second Darcy walked into the dining hall. If Bel wanted to protect Heath from the fallout, she needed to convince Darcy that nothing had happened out on the trail this afternoon.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she protested, widening her eyes innocently.

  “Don’t give me that BS. Tessa saw you with him in the nature preserve this afternoon. She said you were practically in a lip-lock.”

  Bel pointed to the bandage and ice pack on her knee. “Uh, hello, you see my injury? I fell and blew my knee out. Mr. Donovan helped me up. That’s all Tessa saw. He had to put his arms around me to lift me. He’s the coach. He’s not gonna leave a runner lying on the ground.”

  Darcy looked at Bel’s knee and frowned. “That’s not what she said. She said he pays all sorts of attention to you. The other girls are jealous.”

  “Well, she’s lying then—exaggerating anyway.”

  “Tessa’s been loyal as a dog for three years at this school. You, I’ve known for like five minutes, and you expect me to believe you over her? Sorry.”

  “I swear, Darcy, nothing’s going on. I would never horn in on your contest. Not without your permission.”

  “I should hope not. I don’t need anybody cock-blocking me, especially not you, after all I’ve done for you. If I thought you were trying to steal my prize—”

  “I would never. Tessa has a wild imagination, and she misinterpreted, that’s all. Swear to God.”

  Darcy put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know who to believe. What you’re saying makes sense on the surface, but I get the feeling you’re holding out on me.”

  Bel placed her hand over her heart. For a skeptic and a liar herself, Darcy was surprisingly susceptible to flattery. Bel laid it on thick. “Believe that I’m your true friend, Darcy. There’s nothing but love and gratitude in my heart for you.”

  “Okay, then prove it.”

  “How?”

  “It’s almost November, and the Moreland seniors haven’t pulled any good pranks yet. We need to keep up our reputation, and I have something radical in mind for tonight. A revival of a prank my mom’s gang used to pull back in the day. You’ll see.”

  “You want me to help with that tonight? You see the shape I’m in. I’m not mobile.”

  “Aww, your widdle boo-boo huwts? Tough titties, Enright. Take a Vicodin or smoke some weed, whatever you need to do, but you’re not getting out of this one. Time to earn your keep. If you want the benefits of hanging out with me, you have to do some dirty work.”

  That gave Bel a chill. Darcy at her worst could be savage.

  “What exactly is this prank?” Bel asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” Darcy said, snarkily. “Be at my room at midnight, and you’ll find out.”

  She turned on her heel, and was gone.

  Bel laid her head on the pillow and wished she’d never come to this damn school. The two things that had kept her going had both fallen to shit today. Her friendship with Darcy was supposed to be easy and fun, but now it just seemed sick and twisted. And her love for Heath—which just a couple of hours ago she believed was reciprocated—would never amount to anything now that her conduct had exposed him to gossip and ridicule. Everything was ruined, and she couldn’t face it.

  Her glance fell on the bottle of pain pills on the dresser.

  13

  Transcript of Witness Interview conducted by Lieutenant Robert Kriscunas, State Police—Major Crime Unit, and Detective Melissa Howard, Odell NH, PD, with Mrs. Sarah Donovan.

  Kriscunas: Mrs. Donovan, you and your husband were the dorm parents for Moreland Hall, so that meant you were in charge of supervising these girls, correct?

  Donovan: Uh, sure, yes. We ran the dorm. We did curfew check, room check, ran dorm meetings, that sort of thing. We did milk-and-cookies socials in the common room two nights a week. But there were forty girls in Moreland. Or—thirty-nine, after the, the— My point is, we couldn’t possibly know everything that was going on with each girl. If you’re suggesting—

  Kriscunas: This isn’t about your job performance, ma’am. We’re investigating a murder. I’m trying to get the background on these two sisters, and how closely you monitored them. This is standard procedure. Just tell the truth, and it’ll all be fine.

  Donovan: Yes, of course I’ll tell the truth.

  Howard: Now, Rose Enright—she was your advisee, correct? You must’ve known what was going on with her.

  Donovan: Yes, I knew Rose quite well, much better than I knew Bel. I have only the most wonderful things to say about Rose.

  Kriscunas: What can you tell us about Rose’s relationship with her sister? Conflicts they might have had with one another? Or other people who got drawn into their conflict, who might wish harm to one of them because of a relationship with the other, if you see what I’m getting at?

  Donovan: All I can say is, Rose told me from when I first met her that she and Bel were very different. But those differences were not enough, in my view, to explain this murder. Rose was very responsible, and believed in following the rules. Bel’s judgment was not as good. She made friends with some questionable elements in the dorm, and that got her into trouble. Those people ought to be looked at. This is not necessarily about the relationship between the sisters. If you focus too much on that, you may miss other important aspects of the Enright girls’ lives.

  Kriscunas: Don’t worry. We’ll get to the other stuff. This is just background right now, so we can understand the relationship between Bel and Rose.

  Donovan: To understand it, you need to know that they tried to be friends. Rose made a great effort to be closer to Bel, and not to criticize her. They got along fine right up until the slipper attack.

  Kriscunas: The slipper attack drove them apart?

  Donovan: It was a huge deal, and they were on opposite sides of the incident. There were repercussions, terrible repercussions for a number of students, and for the school itself.

  Kriscunas: We think this incident is very important to the case. You were in a unique position to know what happened that night. So, if you could, walk us through that incident in Moreland Hall, in detail.

  14

  Those girls are up to no good.

  Sarah sat at the head of one of the Moreland Hall tables in the Commons, eyeing Darcy Madden and Tessa Romano as they smirked behind their hands. Once a week, in imitation of bygone days when masters and students dined together, the entire school gathered in the old dining hall, affectionately known as the Commons, for a formal meal called family dinner. The Commons—with its cathedral ceiling and stained-glass windows, dark paneling and dusty chandeliers—was a suitably grand and gloomy setting for the occasion. Everybody got dressed up and made polite conversation. In her own student days, Sarah had found family dinner excruciating to sit through. She was sympathetic to students who got the squirms or the giggles. But Darcy and Tessa were not your average students. They were a bad lot, and they’d been planning a sick piece of mischief that targeted Sarah and her family personally. She thought it had been nipped in the bud. Heath had told her so. But if it had, why were they smirking like that?

  The girls looked pointedly in Sarah’s direction and burst into a raucous fit of laughter.

  “Darcy, is there something you’d like to share with the rest of us?” Sarah asked, fixing the girl with a cold glare.

  Darcy gave a brazen smile. “Yes, Mrs. Donovan. I was just saying that the cod is especially tender tonight.”

  Tessa guffawed, and some of the other girls at the table shook with suppressed laughter. Sarah’s face went hot. She was blushing, just like when the mean girls were nasty to her back in her student days. She’d never mastered the art of the snappy retort, and had never succeeded in putting a girl like Darcy Madden in her place. Then again, she hadn’t expected to be dealing with high school bullies at her age.

  “I wish
you would set an example for the younger girls, and behave appropriately at the dinner table,” Sarah said. “You’re a senior. You ought to understand basic decorum by now.”

  Darcy had the good sense not to reply this time. Sarah turned back to her food, but her appetite was gone. She was upset about more than disruption at the dinner table. Earlier today, the head of the math department had knocked on Sarah’s office door and passed along some disturbing news.

  * * *

  Patricia Banks had been mentoring Sarah since the day she’d started teaching. They weren’t exactly friends, since Patricia, or Pat, as she was called, was her boss and much older, but Sarah was always grateful for her advice and her company.

  “Free for lunch?” Pat asked.

  “I’d love to, but I have a pile of grading to do, so I’m eating at my desk. Rain check?” Sarah said.

  “Fine. But there’s something I need to talk to you about right away.”

  Pat stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. She was a trim woman, conservatively dressed, in her late fifties, with graying hair. She reminded Sarah a bit of her own mother—practical, competent, with a reserved way about her that could be off-putting. Especially at a moment like this, when her tone was ominous.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

  “I heard a rumor about the girls in your dorm. I thought I should pass it along, in case there’s any truth to it. They may be plotting something pretty crazy.”

  “Drat, and here I was thinking we were keeping a lid on things.”

  “You have been. The faculty is very impressed that there haven’t been any incidents in Moreland yet this year. But it’s a challenge to keep it that way with some of the girls you’ve got. Then I heard this crazy rumor—so crazy, I hesitate to repeat it. But I thought, What if it’s true?”

  “What is it?” Sarah asked, nervously.

  “Eduardo Mendez heard it from one of his students,” Pat said, “and brought it to me since he knows I’m close with you. Neither of us felt comfortable raising it with Heath directly. We thought it would be best if you did that.”

  “With Heath? I don’t understand.”

  “Eduardo’s student claims that Darcy Madden is sponsoring a contest among the Moreland seniors to seduce your husband.”

  Sarah gave a shocked laugh. “A contest? Like, with prizes and everything?”

  “I don’t know about that part. But girls are supposedly being dared to—and please, forgive me, Sarah, I know this is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for me to raise it, so I can only imagine how you feel. They’re being dared to come on to him. I have no doubt that even if this is true, your husband would behave impeccably. But given the sensitive nature—well, Eduardo worried it might sound like an accusation if he brought it to Heath. Nobody means it that way. Your husband is known as a completely upstanding, honorable man. I’m sure he’ll be as horrified to hear this as the rest of us. But, if this is true, these girls could put him in a compromising position, through no fault of his own. Defensive measures may be called for. That’s why I felt I should warn you.”

  Sarah shook her head in amazement. “I expect bad behavior from Darcy. Drinking, boys. But this? It’s bizarre.”

  “I know.”

  “Who did Eduardo hear it from?”

  “The girl didn’t want her name used. He says she’s not in your dorm, and she’s not involved in this herself. But she has friends in Moreland, and she heard it from them.”

  “He believes her?”

  “Yes, which doesn’t make it true. Maybe it’s a joke, maybe the student misunderstood. We can always hope. Still, my advice to you is to raise it with Heath. Better safe than sorry. If he’s noticed unusual behavior, we can go to Liz Geller to discuss what steps should be taken.”

  Liz Geller was the dean of students, just below the headmaster in the chain of command at Odell. But Liz had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

  “Isn’t she on health leave?”

  “Oh, you’re right. Well, let me know what Heath says, and we can take it from there.”

  “Thank you. Really, Pat, I mean it. Thanks for looking out for us.”

  “Happy to. You two have taken on a lot with Moreland. Everyone on the faculty is pulling for you. Let me know if there’s more I can do.”

  As soon as the door closed behind Pat, Sarah got out her phone and texted Heath that she needed to talk to him right away. He wrote to say he was at lunch; she should come to the dining hall.

  Grading the tests could wait. Sarah had to find out if Heath had noticed any odd behavior from the Moreland seniors. Pat was right: Those girls could cause trouble. Ever since that first day, when Heath moved the welcome reception to the Quad and rebranded it as a party, Sarah had worried that he was too innocent for this job, too easygoing. His approach to reforming Moreland seemed to be to make friends with the girls, to be their buddy. He didn’t see the pitfalls. The dorm head job hadn’t been her idea. But she wanted them to succeed; she wanted Heath to succeed. Sarah needed to protect him.

  Sarah looked around for Heath when she got to the dining hall and didn’t find him right away. Then she spotted him, near the conveyor belt where trays were bused, talking to a dark-haired girl whose back was turned to Sarah. Bel Enright, maybe? As Sarah approached, something in Heath’s expression caught her attention. The intensity of his gaze, the rapt way he listened as the girl spoke—he looked … enthralled. She looked at Bel, and saw why. Bel possessed an epic sort of beauty that Sarah never had, even in girlhood. The willowy limbs, the lustrous skin, the long, shiny hair. Sarah felt a momentary pressure in her chest, as if she couldn’t breathe. Then the girl walked away, and Heath looked up and saw Sarah watching. He smiled at her like everything was normal.

  The gossip is making you paranoid.

  “Hey, babe,” Heath said, walking over and giving Sarah a peck on the cheek. “What’s up? Your text sounded urgent.”

  “Can we find somewhere more private to talk?”

  He looked concerned. “Sure. The Commons is empty. Come on.”

  “Was that Bel Enright I saw you talking to?” she asked as they walked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “Tomorrow’s reading assignment,” he said. “Why?”

  “Just curious,” she said.

  He shot her a puzzled glance. She decided not to elaborate because, really, there was no basis to worry. Heath had never given her cause to think he’d cheat. And certainly not with a kid. He would never do that, in a million years. The warning about Darcy Madden’s contest was messing with Sarah’s head. She needed to get a grip. Focus on the problem at hand.

  The Commons was deserted, echoing and dim. They sat down facing each other at a long, empty table.

  “What is it?” Heath said.

  “Pat Banks told me something crazy, and I need to ask you about it. Supposedly Darcy Madden is running a contest to see which Moreland girl can seduce you first. Do you know anything about this?”

  She’d expected Heath’s jaw to drop, or for him to burst into hysterical laughter. Instead, he nodded.

  “Yes, but it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “Wait a minute. You knew about it?”

  “It’s just talk, among a bunch of silly teenage girls. No need to get upset.”

  “Is it true, or it’s not true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “Is there a contest to seduce you, or not? And if there is, how did you find out about it?”

  “Honey, it’s nothing. I noticed some of the girls acting strangely around me, just within the past couple of weeks. They’d flash some thigh or twirl their hair seductively, then giggle. I could tell something was up, so finally I said something to one of them.”

  “To who?”

  “To whom. To Ashley Wetherby. She’s captain of cross-country this year, and I know her fairly well.”

  “I know who she is. She’s part
of Darcy Madden’s gang. Are you saying Ashley made a pass at you?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a pass. She was just acting silly. She came to my office one day wearing these itty-bitty shorts and a sports bra, and leaned on the edge of my desk. I said, Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in the chair, aren’t you cold, and by the way, what’s up with all you girls flashing me lately?”

  Sarah could picture the scene. Ashley Wetherby was petite and curvaceous, with long strawberry-blond hair. If girls like that were throwing themselves at her husband, Sarah wanted to know.

  “And? What did she say?” Sarah demanded.

  “She said it was a game, that Darcy started it. I told her to cut it out, and to tell that to the rest of them, or else I might start to think I was being harassed, and feel compelled to report them. I’m pretty sure she delivered the message, because they’ve cooled it noticeably. So, problem solved. Nothing to worry about.”

  “I can’t believe this happened and you didn’t tell me. I’m your wife. The mother of your children. And the cohead of Moreland. I deserve to know.”

  Heath took her hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “Darling, you’re right, I’m sorry. That was a mistake.”

  “How could you withhold that?”

  “To be honest, I’m worried that you’re not happy with the new job. That you only took it for me, because I wanted so badly to get into the administration. I feel guilty about that. When something comes up that seems particularly annoying, or stupid, I want to protect you from it. The bottom line is: I handled this stupidity on my own, so as not to upset you.”

  So, he wanted to protect her from the unpleasant aspects of the dorm-head job. Sarah wished it was that easy. As much as she adored Heath, and appreciated his efforts to take care of her, she didn’t always trust his judgment. In this case, keeping Darcy’s little plot to himself could have serious consequences. Sarah took her hands away.

  “Your heart was in the right place,” she said. “But in the future, please, don’t shelter me. Think about how dangerous this situation is. If it comes out that this contest was going on, and that you knew but did nothing, it might look like you condoned it. It still might. In fact, I think we should say something. Report it.”