I had to admit that there was a vague sense of disappointment when Bradley didn’t grab my hand after school. So much for the romance of the arches. I did, however, manage to get some type of bug stuck in my eye. I tried to tell myself that it had nothing at all to do with my furiously batting eyelashes. Surely that was just a natural, feminine response to the hotness that is Bradley Farrow.
“You have the address?”
“5067 Longacre Lane,” I said, trying to fish the bug out without smudging my mascara or causing permanent damage to my cornea.
Longacre Lane ran parallel to the main drive leading to PB and was still officially considered campus, so we walked through the gardens toward the road. Neat houses were tucked on the street, many inhabited by the families of teachers and administrators who worked at Pemberly Brown.
I didn’t want to think about what we’d actually do when we found the house. Sinclair was dangerous. He’d had a hand in covering up Grace’s death, snuffing out every piece of evidence to protect the school at all costs. And now that Ms. D. had demoted him to head of campus security, he’d stopped shaving and started wearing sweat suits to school. He looked like Forrest Gump after he ran across America, only with crazy eyes.
“I’ll ring the doorbell and distract Sinclair at the door, tell him I have to interview him for a project or something.” Bradley rubbed his eyes. “Go around back and see if you can enter through a back door or window. Take anything that looks interesting.”
Clearly, Bradley didn’t have any qualms about putting my personal safety at risk to further our little investigation. Liam would have flipped his shit if he was there to see me sneak around the back of the house to do Bradley’s dirty work. I tried really hard to convince myself that it was empowering, that Bradley and I were on the same page, both of us willing to sacrifice anything for justice. But mostly I just felt disposable. And a little scared. Breaking and entering into Sinclair’s house freaked me out.
I remembered reading an article in one of my mom’s boring home-decorating magazines that claimed a person’s home represented its owner’s inner psyche. If there was any truth to that BS, Sinclair’s house was the spitting image of his identity. It was smaller than the rest on the lane, sitting on a large corner lot, all smug and proud. But the grass was wild and the flowerbeds overgrown, and tall bushes covered most of the windows. It looked like a house that had given up, a house that didn’t have anything left to lose. It looked ominous.
I did my best to ignore my shaky legs and moved toward the back door, listening carefully for the ring of the doorbell, my cue.
Ding dong.
The back porch of the house was screened, and I held my breath when I tried the door.
Open. Open. God, Grace, whoever is listening, please let this door open.
Someone must have been listening, because the door slid quietly on its track and I slipped through like a whisper. The doorbell chimed a second time and my heart thundered in response to the sound, but I couldn’t hear footsteps approaching the door, couldn’t hear Sinclair’s voice or Bradley requesting a fake interview. Maybe he was out and we could both hunt for information.
But as I slid closer to the window, I noticed something red along the glass, a gross swipe of jelly or some sort of candy. Ew. I hoped I wouldn’t have to touch it as I crawled through the window.
“Ohhhhh.” I spun around at the moan, expecting Bradley behind me in the yard, but no one was there. The sound had come from inside. There was someone inside. There was someone close to the window.
More jelly on the floor. Why was there so much jelly on the floor? Where was the broken bottle? I stepped closer. And closer. And saw him. The pools of red on the floor weren’t jelly. Not jelly. Not jelly. Not jelly. I screamed as loud as my voice would let me.
Bradley sprinted to the backyard, the door slamming as he entered the back porch. His eyes were wide as he pressed his hands onto my shoulders asking if I was all right, surveying me from top to bottom.
“The window…”
Bradley pulled the screen free and opened the window farther, sticking his head in and gasping himself. “Oh my God.”
Sinclair was sprawled on the kitchen floor, surrounded by blood. My eyes blurred at the sight of him, either with tears or as some sort of automatic coping mechanism to protect me from further trauma. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t deal with another death.
But then I heard it again. The moan.
“Oh my God, Kate, he’s still alive! Call 911!”
Sinclair’s eyes bulged as we came closer and he shook his head, trying to move closer and closer to the door. His arms were completely covered in blood, and half of his face appeared severely disfigured. “Wooolf.” He said the word as I dialed 911 and tried to explain what we’d found.
Bradley gently pressed towels over Sinclair’s wounds and he moaned in response. “What happened?” he asked, searching the room.
“Wooolf,” was all Sinclair was able to say.
“Five minutes,” I said, placing the phone on the counter. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look down. And then I remembered why we’d come here, how we’d thought Sinclair was involved. Maybe he was as much a victim as anyone else. Five minutes. I rushed into the family room where a TV screen glowed, odd shadows cast along the walls and ceiling. Nothing but a broken lamp and some dirt knocked out of a planter. I searched the rest of the first floor and found nothing but tipped furniture, evidence of a break-in.
Distant sirens rang out. The second floor. I had to check the second floor. I ran toward the front of the house, toward the stairs that would lead me up. And there, perched in the middle of a step was a note on the same creamy card stock as Alistair’s message.
Part of an old yearbook page had been pasted to the card, bold words scripted in red over the faces of students.
Specta lupos. It’s your turn now. Anni 1964. Page 17.
Faciem Lupis. Wolf. “Face the wolves.” Save the Brothers. Year 1964. Page 17. This must have been what Sinclair had been mumbling about. I shoved the note under my uniform shirt just as the foyer was bathed in red and blue lights, and then I heard it. A sound so quiet, so menacing that I felt it in my bones instead of hearing it in my ears. The sirens began to wail, and for a moment, I thought I must have imagined it, but in the split second of silence, I heard it again. From the shadows. A low, menacing growl.