MS. LACKMANN REVEALS A SECRET
BLAIR and Cam have assured Mr. Park that they are hard at work on their cowritten piece for the Oreville High School Star. Which, they have decided, will be a long-form editorial on the widespread cultural effects of America’s true-crime obsession. Since, as they pointed out, they are uniquely qualified to cover this topic. (Jenna the irritating junior snorted aloud at this.)
They will write this piece.
For sure.
Soon.
Just not right now. Because right now, telling Mr. Park they are still hammering out a draft gives them a perfect cover for dissecting the mystery of Lola Brosillard during group work time.
Cam feels rather bad about this. Between the two of them, they have put poor Mr. Park through so much already. Lying to him is not nice. And they spend enough time together after school to think about Lola in their off-hours.
Still, a true crime that is maybe in the process of occurring is more compelling than the problem of true crime in the abstract, even if this means they are contributing to societal failure.
Plus, Blair points out, they could use their own fixation on the mystery of Lola as further personal experience for their article.
Blair can be quite convincing when she’s on a roll.
Cam hopes she is as convincing on the page, if they ever get around to writing what they’re supposed to.
“Becca doesn’t want to tell us anything else; that’s obvious,” Blair is saying now. They’re hunched together over her desk, pretending to take notes. Or, more accurately, they are taking notes; their notes are just about Lola instead of their assigned task. “And Darren’s not going to talk to us again.”
“What about Luke?” Cam asks.
Blair chews the end of her pen. “Now it’s sort of awkward,” she says. “But maybe I can find a way to bring up the night Lola disappeared.”
“On your next date,” Cam says, enjoying watching Blair squirm. “Maybe when he’s naked he’ll be more vulnerable.”
“Leave me alone,” Blair says.
Cam grins at her. “Never,” she says. “What about the rest of the people who were at the party? Mattie has all their names.”
Blair frowns. “If they had something to do with Lola’s kidnapping, she would’ve recognized them and said something, right?”
“Maybe they saw something and didn’t realize it,” Cam says. “They all gave the police the same story, but it doesn’t sound like the cops got too deep with their questions. Or maybe one of them helped Lola run away.”
“If they did, they’re hardly going to tell us,” Blair says. “We could try calling them, but we don’t even know what to ask.”
“‘Did you by chance notice a sinister van driving away with Lola and forget to mention it to anyone? Or perhaps help your friend fake her own kidnapping in order to hustle ransom money out of her mom?’” Cam suggests.
“Yeah, no,” Blair says. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. Luke said Lola wanted to be a writer.”
“You’re the Luke expert,” Cam says.
Blair ignores this. “So, where’s her writing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Lola was fifteen the summer she disappeared. She would’ve been a freshman the year before.”
“At Oreville,” Cam says, realizing what Blair’s getting at.
“Somebody must remember her. We could ask Mr. Park if she was in Journo. Or find out who her English teacher was. Mr. Stone only started a couple of years ago, but Ms. Lackmann has been at Oreville forever.”
“What do you think her teachers could tell us that Mattie can’t?”
“She didn’t tell Mattie everything,” Blair says. “Mattie was a kid. They didn’t know Lola was using drugs.”
“Did you tell them about that?” Cam asks.
Blair’s mouth tightens.
“Blair,” Cam says. “You’re going to, right?”
“Do you think they need to know?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Mattie’s already having such a hard time. How can I tell them that their sister was also a drug addict dating a drug dealer? Everything we find out is like tearing up this image they had of their sister as perfect.”
“Mattie was the first person to tell us Lola wasn’t perfect,” Cam says.
“True. But we know she kept a lot of secrets from them. If she faked her own disappearance, she didn’t tell them that. She wouldn’t have told her teachers that either, but maybe she told her teachers something she didn’t tell anyone else. Or kept a journal. Maybe they remember something that could help us.”
“We can’t ask Mr. Park,” Cam says, shooting a glance toward the front of the room, where Mr. Park is obliviously marking papers.
His brow is furrowed mightily; his owlish glasses are slipping down his nose. Cam feels a surge of affection so strong it’s almost a physical force.
What are we doing? she thinks. Why are we lying to him? Again?
Not for the first time, she ignores her better self. “He’s going to know we’re up to something the second we ask him a question,” she continues.
“Anybody we ask is going to figure out we’re up to something,” Blair says.
“We are up to something,” Cam says. “But what if we use the truth? A version of the truth, anyway. We can say we’re mentoring Mattie and their sister was a big influence. We’re trying to find any of Lola’s old writing to share with them.”
“Why wouldn’t they ask Lola?”
“Ruth didn’t want people looking too hard at Lola’s kidnapping story. It’s not like her return was in the newspaper. Her old teachers might not know she’s back.”
“That’s a big ‘might,’” Blair says.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No,” Blair says. She glances at the clock. “We’ve got fifteen minutes left. Let’s go talk to Ms. Lackmann after class.”
Cam looks down at her notebook, covered with scribbled notes detailing the increasingly dense mystery of Lola.
“True crime,” she says. “Poisoning the minds of Americans.”
Ms. Lackmann is an ageless white woman who has taught Freshman Comp and Introduction to Shakespeare for longer than Blair and Cam have been alive. (Since Introduction to Shakespeare is the only class on Shakespeare Oreville High has ever offered—and was, in fact, Ms. Lackmann’s own creation—it is unclear what relationship to the Bard Oreville students are meant to progress to once their initial encounter has been established.)
Cam never had her, but Blair took Comp as a freshman and Shakespeare as a sophomore, and Ms. Lackmann has remained one of her favorite teachers ever since. She is a universally beloved Oreville institution, famous for pushing even the surliest Oreville miscreants into at least a grudging respect for the powers of Shakespeare, and also for creatively wording permission slips so that even the most Christian-parented students are granted leave to view Claire Danes’s breasts in the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet each year.
They find her after the last bell, sitting at her massive old desk in her empty classroom gazing pensively out the window at the lowering December sky. The classroom is exactly as Blair remembers it—windowsills overflowing with plants, walls papered with faded posters from various Shakespeare productions around the world—and Ms. Lackmann is exactly as Blair remembers her, in ostentatiously arty black platform boots and flowy black garments of the sort generally sported by wacky substitute art teachers who like to talk about fermentation and shadow work.
“Blair!” Ms. Lackmann says, with such warmth that Blair feels a pang of guilt she’s never thought to drop by Ms. Lackmann’s room after school before. “And this is Cam, isn’t it? To what do I owe the honor? Am I to be featured on a podcast?”
“Nothing like that.” Blair laughs.
Ms. Lackmann winks. “Thank goodness,” she says. “I forgot to put on my mascara this morning.”
“We have a question for you about a former student,” Blair says. “Lola Brosillard. Remember her?”
Ms. Lackmann raises an eloquent eyebrow. “Lola Brosillard, who disappeared mysteriously? Are you sure this isn’t for a podcast, Blair?”
“No podcasts, I promise,” Blair says, relieved that this is the truth. Not the whole truth, but she doesn’t want to lie outright to Ms. Lackmann if she doesn’t have to. “We’re mentoring her sibling, Mattie. Like an informal after-school kind of thing.”
“I know Mattie,” Ms. Lackmann says. “I don’t have them this year, though. They’re in Mr. Stone’s second period.”
“But you had Lola?” Cam asks.
Ms. Lackmann’s expression is neutral. “I did.”
“Mattie really worshipped Lola,” Blair forges on. “And we don’t know much about her, other than what Mattie tells us. We were wondering—I know this is sort of unorthodox, but do you remember anything about Lola’s writing? Anything that could tell us more about what kind of person she was?”
Ms. Lackmann leans back in her chair, giving Blair a long look with her sharp blue eyes. “You know I can’t tell you anything confidential about a former student, Blair,” she says, and now her voice is not warm at all. “Even if she is missing. And even if it isn’t for a podcast.” The stress on “isn’t” suggests Ms. Lackmann is not buying what Blair’s selling.
“No, of course not,” Blair says. “Nothing confidential. But maybe you have some of her old assignments, or something like that? Something we could look at?”
Again with that piercing stare. Blair tries not to fidget.
“If I did,” Ms. Lackmann says finally, “I certainly wouldn’t give them to you.”
“Right,” Blair says. There is a brief, uncomfortable silence. Then Ms. Lackmann relents.
“She kept an online journal,” Ms. Lackmann says. “So I suppose that isn’t private.”
“An online journal?”
“An Instagram,” Ms. Lackmann says, and smiles. “The technology keeps changing, but young people will always find ways to become poets and writers. She was tremendously talented.” A shadow crosses her face. “It’s devastating, what happened.”
“She’s—” Cam begins. Blair kicks her ankle.
“Cam looked at her Instagram,” Blair says. “She didn’t see anything like that.”
“She only ever showed me on her phone,” Ms. Lackmann says.
“Maybe it was a Finsta,” Blair says thoughtfully.
“A what?” Ms. Lackmann asks.
“Never mind,” Blair says. “Thank you. That’s a big help.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Blair,” Ms. Lackmann says.
“What do you mean?” Blair asks.
“You know perfectly well what I mean,” Ms. Lackmann says, standing up. “Come and visit me anytime, if you want to talk about something other than my former students. But I’m afraid I have to get home now.”
“Yikes,” Blair says in the hallway.
“I think she might be onto us,” Cam says dryly.
“You’d think she’d want to help us more,” Blair says. “Since we solved the last one.”
“She’s protecting Lola,” Cam says.
“Who she thinks is dead. Or missing. Or—something.”
“Even dead people deserve privacy,” Cam says.
“You didn’t think that last year,” Blair points out.
“Yeah, and look what happened.”
Blair frowns. “I wonder if Lola told Ms. Lackmann anything else.”
“About the drugs, you mean? Or if Darren was hurting her?”
“Something like that,” Blair says. “Teachers are mandated CPS reporters, aren’t they?”
Cam looks away from her, toward the fountain. Which, once again, someone has filled with dish soap.
“This is getting dark,” she says.
Blair thinks of Becca’s words. I think it’s pretty obvious something bad happened to her.
“If Ms. Lackmann filed a CPS report, the police would know,” Blair says.
“Detective Reloj didn’t say anything about that when I talked to him.”
“He wouldn’t,” Blair says. “I doubt he’s allowed to. What was the name of the detective who worked the case again?”
Cam flips through her notebook. “Tom Bradshaw. He’s retired, but maybe we could find him.” But there’s no enthusiasm in her voice.
“Is this really okay with you?” Blair asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Cam, I dragged you into all this. You don’t have to help anymore if you don’t want to.”
“Are you kidding?” Cam’s angry now. “You think I’m going to let you end up in a basement at gunpoint?”
“I’m not going to end up in a basement at gunpoint, Cam.”
“I would’ve said the same thing last year. Blair, if Mattie’s right, and that girl isn’t Lola—that means she’s scary. Or if she is Lola, and Darren hurt her back then, or kidnapped her, and is trying to stop us from finding out—I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”
“I can drop this,” Blair says.
“Don’t lie to me,” Cam says in disgust. “After everything we’ve been through? I deserve better than that. You’re not going to drop this. And I’m not going to let you do this alone.”
Blair squares her shoulders. “Sorry. You’re right. Let’s go talk to Mattie,” she says. “Together.”
A BRIEF STOP AT THE BROSILLARDS’
This time, it’s Lola who answers the door. She’s wearing a soft gray cashmere sweater that brings out the siren green of her eyes. Cam had no idea you could tell a person’s jeans were expensive. Except, looking at Lola, she can tell that Lola’s jeans are expensive. How? she wonders. How can a pair of pants scream I’m expensive? She doesn’t know. But she knows Lola’s clothes cost a lot.
Maybe that’s why you say someone looks like a million bucks.
Lola, she thinks, looks like a million bucks.
“Hi,” Lola says. She gives Blair a knowing smile. “You here for Mattie, or my brother?”
Blair blushes a fetching pink. “Mattie,” she says.
“That’s good,” Lola says, standing aside to let them in. “Since my brother’s not here.”
“Where is he?” Cam asks, trying not to fall over as she pulls her shoes off in the hallway.
Lola is so graceful, it’s like she emits a force field that causes Cam to be even clumsier than usual.
Or maybe it’s that Cam can’t stop staring at her face.
Great, she thinks.
As if one of them sprung on one Brosillard twin isn’t enough.
But that’s not really what Lola makes her feel. It’s nothing like the fizzy, giddy joy that floods through her every time she sees Sophie.
Lola’s beauty is almost frightening. Like a tall mountain that would kill you real fast if you fell off it.
Ah, yes, Cam thinks. Ye olde beauty of mountainous death.
It’s a good thing she’s not the writer.
“I don’t know where my brother is,” Lola says. “I’m sure Blair has his number, if you want to ask him.”
She walks away from them on light feet. Cam, hurrying after her, trips over her own shoes and crashes into the wall.
“You gonna make it?” Blair asks.
“Shut up,” Cam says.
Mattie is in their room, hunched over their desk, scribbling furiously in the thick notebook Blair recognizes as their Lola case file. They start at Lola’s soft knock on the doorframe, a scowl creasing their features until they see Blair and Cam behind her.
“Hi, Blair. Hi, Cam.” They give Lola an irritated look. “I was hoping for some privacy,” they say stiffly.
Lola holds her hands up with a smile. “Of course,” she says. “But I was wondering if you all might want to do something together.”
“Like what?” Mattie asks, bristling.
“We could go get something to eat,” Lola says. “I would love to get to know your friends.”
“Right,” Mattie says. “Your treat. Since you have Ruth’s credit card.”
An expression of hurt flashes across Lola’s face and then is gone.
Either Lola is the best actress Blair has ever seen, or the hurt is real.
Interesting, Blair thinks.
“Okay,” Lola says lightly. “I’ll leave you all alone.” And like that, she’s gone, trailing a subtle perfume that smells like summer.
“Shut the door,” Mattie says. “I don’t want anyone eavesdropping.”
Blair obeys. If Mattie weren’t so serious, it would almost be funny.
Because there’s one person who Mattie reminds her of to an uncanny degree. The explosive chaos of their room, their untidy laundry piles, their overstuffed bookshelves, their prickliness, their absolute certainty that they’re right.
Cam runs a hand absently through her hair. The back is sticking up, the way it always does.
Mattie and Cam even have the same cowlick.
“Did you find something?” Mattie asks.
“Sort of,” Blair says. She sits on Mattie’s bed. Cam gingerly clears a place on the floor and sits there, looking around at Mattie’s noir-movie posters. Blair tells Mattie about their visit to Ms. Lackmann, Lola’s writing Instagram.
“I think it must’ve been a Finsta,” Blair says. “We looked at her public one, and there was nothing like that on there. Do you know anything about another account Lola might’ve had?”
Mattie shakes their head.
“What about a journal?” Cam asks.
“She had one,” Mattie says. “She kept it with her all the time. But I never found it after she disappeared.”
“Do you think she took it with her?” Blair asks.
“I don’t know,” Mattie says. “She didn’t take anything else.”
“You don’t know her passwords, do you?” Cam asks hopefully.
Mattie shakes their head. “If she had a Finsta, I don’t know anything about it,” they say. “I wouldn’t know how to log in.”
“Mattie,” Blair says carefully. “Do you think … is it possible that Darren was…”
“Darren was what?” Mattie asks.
“Hurting your sister,” Cam says, since Blair can’t seem to get the words out.
“What do you mean, hurting my sister?” Mattie’s confusion is genuine.
“You know,” Cam says. “Abusing her.”
“No!” Mattie’s protest is immediate. “No way! He loved my sister! He was so nice to us! He was the nicest person I knew back then!”
“Got it,” Blair says.
“I mean it,” they say. “Darren was great. He was special. He never would’ve hurt Lola.”
“But he was—” Cam begins.
Blair cuts her off. “We’ll keep looking,” she says. “I’m sure you’re right about Darren. What about Becca? The girl who showed up at Lola’s welcome-home party? Did you know her back then?”
“I remember her from before, but not that well,” Mattie says. “She was nice, though. She would always talk to me when she came over. Most of Lola’s friends ignored me.”
“Were she and your sister close?”
Mattie thinks for a moment. “I think so,” they say. “She was over here all the time. But so were other people.”
“We talked to her too,” Cam says. “But she didn’t want to tell us anything.”
“You did? What did you ask her?”
“You didn’t tell them?” Cam asks Blair accusingly.
“I was going to,” Blair says.
“She didn’t tell us much, honestly,” Cam says. “But she did confirm the drugs. Sort of.”
“What drugs?” Mattie asks.
“I, uh…” Blair says.
Cam gives her an incredulous look. “I talked to a police officer we know,” she says. “He let it slip that Lola was using drugs. Like, hard drugs. I thought Blair told you.”
“I was going to,” Blair says again.
“But you told them about the book, right?” Cam asks.
“Book?” Mattie asks.
“Blair,” Cam says. Blair is turning bright red. “Blair, you promised.”
“What book?” Mattie asks.
So Blair tells them. Slowly. Painfully. About Meredith Payne-Whiteley. Her book proposal. Her big idea.
Which is, of course, Mattie’s story.
When she’s done, Mattie is silent.
“I’m sorry,” Blair says. “I should have told you. I should’ve asked you. In Cam’s kitchen. That first day.”
“Yeah,” Mattie says. Their voice is cold. “You really should’ve, Blair. Why didn’t you?”
Cam doesn’t say anything. Briefly, Blair resents her best friend for letting her dangle. But she knows that’s absurd.
She doesn’t get to be mad at Cam.
She dug this hole herself.
She takes a deep breath. “At first, it seemed like the wrong time. And then, I thought you’d say no. And the further we got, the harder it was to ask you.”
“What if I do say no?” Mattie asks. “Are you going to go ahead without me?”
Blair meets their eyes. “No,” she says. “If you say no, I tell Meredith to forget it. You have my word.”
“But then you won’t help me,” Mattie says.
“We’ll still help you,” Blair says. “I mean, I’ll still help you. I don’t want to speak for Cam.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Cam says.
“I’m sorry,” Blair says. “I really, really screwed up.”
“Yeah,” Mattie says. “You did.” They slump in their chair, run one hand through their unruly hair in a gesture that’s a precise echo of Cam. “How long have you known my sister was doing hard drugs?”
“A few days,” Cam says. “I could’ve told you that too. I thought Blair did. It might not be important.”
“Of course it’s important,” Mattie says. “How could it not be important? Did you leave anything else out? You found out Lola could fly? You’ve been filming me this whole time without me knowing it? Ruth paid you to keep me busy? All of this is for another podcast?”
“No podcasts,” Blair says. “Hand to my heart.”
“It’s ‘hand to god.’ Why should I believe you?” Mattie snaps.
“No podcasts,” Cam says. “Unless Blair’s making one she hasn’t told me about.”
“I’m not,” Blair says weakly. “I promise. Do you want us to go?”
“Do whatever you want,” Mattie says dully.
“Do you mean…” Blair shifts on Mattie’s bed. “Does that mean I should leave?”
“Write your book,” Mattie says. “I don’t care. Why should I care? All I want to do is find my sister. You want to sell a book about it, suit yourself. I already told you I can’t pay you. So you might as well get something out of all this.”
Mattie blinks hard. Cam recognizes a person who is fighting valiantly not to cry because crying is too humiliating to bear in the situation that person finds themself in.
She sees it immediately, because she’s been that person herself.
“Blair will show you anything she writes before she sends it to Meredith,” Cam says. “She’s going to swear in blood. And we’re going to help you, the best we can. We don’t know anything else that we haven’t told you. Or at least, I don’t.”
“That’s all of it,” Blair says.
“And we think that Darren might’ve kidnapped your sister,” Cam says. “For the ransom money. But that’s just a theory.”
Here it is, she thinks. This is the part where she and Blair tell Mattie the other thing they think: that if that’s what happened, Lola might’ve been in on it too.
Despite all the lecturing she’s been doing about honesty, the words won’t come.
“There was no ransom money,” Mattie says.
“That you know of,” Cam counters.
“I would’ve known,” Mattie says. “Darren couldn’t do something like that. He wouldn’t.”
“He was a drug dealer, Mattie,” Cam says.
“So?” Mattie stands up. “So what? So he brought drugs to parties sometimes, what’s the big deal? He shouldn’t have gotten arrested. We’re not talking about an episode of Narcos. I thought you hated the police.”
“I do hate the police,” Cam says patiently, “but that doesn’t mean Darren was a good guy.”
“He was a great guy,” Mattie says. “He was good to my sister, and he was good to me. He didn’t have anything to do with what happened to her. He wouldn’t do that.”
Cam doesn’t know what to say. She looks at Blair, who’s looking at Mattie with pity. Cam might not be the most astute person in the world, but even she can work it out.
It’s too much for Mattie to admit that their sister’s entire life was a secret from them.
That Darren wasn’t the gentle, dad-like older boyfriend, bringer of lollipops and mender of scraped knees, that Mattie remembers.
It’s too much for them to take in all at once.
And if the girl in the bedroom next door is Lola, if she faked her own disappearance, or is keeping her mouth shut to protect Darren—
It’s going to be worse.
And, on top of everything else, Mattie just found out the real reason Blair’s helping them.
Cam can’t imagine how alone they must feel. How close to the edge. She can’t force them into the truth. All she can do is be there for them.
All she can do, now, is stay.
“I don’t know who else to talk to at this point,” Cam says. That much, at least, is the truth. “I’m not sure we can find out anything you don’t already know. But we’re going to try. And Blair isn’t going to do anything that you’re not okay with. Ever. And if you don’t believe her, believe me. Because if she screws with you again, I’m going to kill her.”
And then, to Cam—and Blair’s—relief, Mattie laughs. “I’d like to see that,” they say. “Isn’t Blair the one who shot the man who killed Clarissa?”
“I’m a master of the ambush,” Cam says. “Also, the guy who owns the gun range is sleeping with my mom. I can cut off Blair’s supply of small arms at any time. Never make the mistake of underestimating my powers.”
Mattie smiles at Cam. A real smile. “You can keep helping me. I still don’t have a driver’s license.”
“Mattie, I’m so so—” Blair begins.
Mattie interrupts her. “Forget it,” they say.
“I’ll show you—”
“I don’t care,” Mattie says. “I don’t want to talk about your stupid book. How are we going to crack my sister’s Finsta? We don’t even know how to find it.”
Cam, idealess, looks at Blair.
“If that girl is your sister, she’s going to be the first person to find out we’re trying to get into her old social media,” Blair says.
Mattie stares at her. “After all this, you don’t believe me?”
“I’m just asking if you’re sure you want to do this,” Blair says.
“Are you serious?” Mattie snaps. “What do you think?”
“I have an idea,” Blair says. “But Cam’s not going to like it.”