The next morning, Belk knocks on my door.
“Director’s office. Five minutes.” He doesn’t explain why I’m being summoned before 8:00 a.m., only stares expectantly at me until I say, “Okay,” then retreats down the hall.
In a heartbeat, my bleary eyes clear and last night’s guilt is washed away by panic.
I’ve blown it with Grayson. That’s the only explanation for this early Sunday morning order. As I scramble to throw on clothes and wipe away the dark rings of makeup beneath my eyes, I think of the look on Grayson’s face when he left me on the stairs last night.
Broken.
There was no way to fix it. Nothing to do but let him go.
He trusted me. He liked me. And I couldn’t keep my hands off Caleb, who followed me and broke up with me and can’t tell me the truth even after his lips have been on mine.
I hesitate outside Charlotte’s door on my way to the stairs. I heard her come in late, but didn’t go over to say happy birthday, or ask how the cake was, or see how her night went. I didn’t even give her my present.
Good thing there’s enough room on my wall for the All Around Great Person Award, because I’ve just clinched it.
My socked feet pad down the steps I sat on just hours ago with Grayson. If Dr. O wants to see me now, it can only be because he knows how epically I’ve screwed up my assignment.
Wariness is gnawing at my gut as I place my hand on the office door. Whatever Grayson’s told him, I can fix. It’s what I do.
I wish I knew what Grayson told him.
“Brynn, come in.” Dr. O motions me toward the chair in front of his desk as I enter the room. With heavy steps, I walk toward it, ignoring the Latin motto carved into the stone tablet in the corner. Truth conquers all.
This is my first time alone with him since Mom told me about the new job with Wednesday. I should bring it up, thank him maybe, but I have a feeling that isn’t why I’m here.
The closer I get, the rougher Dr. O looks. His eyes are bloodshot, the thin, pale skin beneath smudged by exhaustion. His button-down shirt is wrinkled, tucked into his belt unevenly. Automatically, my gaze shoots to the fireplace and the safe hidden in the stones beside the chair, then bounces off.
“I’m sorry for the early wake-up,” he says. “I have business in the city today, and wanted to check in with you before I left.”
I wonder if he slept at all last night. My mind is already shooting through reasons why that might be—if it has to do with Grayson, or those detectives that searched the house, or something else.
“No problem.” Half a dozen papers litter his desk, but they’re not neatly organized as usual. My worry stretches thin as he frowns down at them. “Sir, are you all right?”
He coughs into his fist. “Yes. Thank you.”
I wait.
“Is it that obvious?” His smile is genuine, but pained. “I suppose so.”
His hands rest on his waist as his gaze lifts to the portrait of his sister in the white dress behind me.
“I miss her deeply. There are some nights…” His hand lifts so that his thumb can press into his temple. “I’ve had a hard time sleeping lately.”
“Since Grayson’s been here.” I’ve overstepped by saying this, but he doesn’t call me on it.
“His presence hasn’t made it easier.” He sighs. “My sister was a good woman. Kind. I keep remembering these little things I haven’t thought about in years. She had this uncanny ability to predict the weather.” His laugh is thick with memories. “You’d mention plans for this weekend, and she’d say, Better wait until Sunday—it’s going to rain, or Bring a coat, just in case. I never believed her, but she was always right.”
I’m not sure why he’s telling me this. It feels too personal, and I’ve learned my lesson not to get too close to the fire. Dr. O has tricked me before.
But everything he’s done, he’s done for a reason.
It wears away at me to see him like this. He may be a con like the rest of us, but he’s not immune to pain.
“She loved children,” he says. “She always wanted kids. This school was her idea.”
“Really?”
He nods. Opens his mouth to say more, then frowns. “I’m sorry. You’re not here to listen to an old man’s sad story. How are you? How is the job going?”
“I’m fine. The job…” I catch myself right before I tell him what Mark said about Jimmy Balder and Susan the night of the fund-raiser. The words are right on the tip of my tongue, but something stops them from spilling out.
“Sterling’s staff has been busy,” I recover quickly. “They were getting ready for a fund-raiser for the parks, but things kind of fell apart when the senator changed his mind on some vote.”
Odin’s gaze lights with recognition. “I saw that. I imagine some people were … upset.”
The way he says this makes the hair on the back of my arms stand up. A minute ago he was broken up over his sister’s death. Now apathy has flattened his tone.
He doesn’t care if people are upset.
Maybe that’s what he wants.
“Did you have something to do with that?” I ask.
It shouldn’t matter if he did. My job is to gather information about Jimmy Balder and pass it along. But if he is bribing or threatening Sterling, that affects Grayson, and until I know how, my lips are sealed.
Dr. O lifts his brows, impressed. “What makes you say that?”
I hold his stare, though I’d be lying if I said my knees weren’t shaking. It takes an iron will to call Dr. O out on the floor.
So I sit, crossing my legs, like I planned it the whole time.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Sterling’s leading the charge to lower the price of medicine, then gets bought out by some big drug company and changes his mind. You still own Wednesday Pharmaceuticals, don’t you?”
You know, the company that just hired my mom.
A muscle in his jaw tics.
“It almost sounds like you think I’m the one who’s corrupted him,” he says.
“He was already corrupt.” The rest of the question hangs between us.
Were you?
Dr. O hums thoughtfully. “And you’re wondering what I stand to gain by blackmailing him.”
I uncross my legs. Then cross them again.
“I think I know what you’d gain.”
He nods. “Ah. Money.”
“It’s got to come from somewhere.”
“Indeed it does. But I’m doing just fine without tax cuts and government assistance.”
“Then why?” I ask.
He glances to the painting, then back to me. “If I did have something to do with this—and I’m not saying I did—it would be because that bill Sterling was going to propose would have cost a lot of people their jobs in the pharmaceutical business. Cheaper medication for all comes with a price. Matthew Sterling’s change of conscience has helped a great many workers in our city.”
By the righteousness in Dr. O’s tone, there’s no if about it. He did it, and he plans to do it again.
I sag, disappointed, even if I have no right to be. “That’s why you didn’t turn over Susan’s phone to the cops and send him to jail. You wanted to use him.”
“That bothers you.”
I pick at my thumbnail. “I thought this was about justice for your sister.”
“It’s about justice for all of us. A senator doing what’s best for Sikawa can help a lot of people, Brynn. Surely you can see that.”
Maybe. But the way Ben was talking at the club, it sounded like Sterling was already helping people.
Either way, it feels wrong. Like all that stuff about Dr. O’s sister wasn’t real.
I try to picture what he did to make the senator change his mind—if Dr. O left a message saying he knows the truth about Susan, or if he claimed to have her phone.
If he said he’s talked to Grayson.
Dr. O wouldn’t have done that, though. If he had, then Sterling would have bombed Vale Hall just to keep the secret hidden.
Or sent two detectives with a warrant to snoop around.
But they didn’t find Grayson, which means that Sterling doesn’t know Dr. O has him, or at least has him here. And that means that Dr. O is keeping his word to protect the boy who ended his sister’s life.
But for what purpose? And for how long?
Dread creeps over my skin like a spider, crawling up my arms and down my legs. I’m ready for this meeting to be done.
“Have you learned anything about Jimmy Balder yet?” asks the director.
My heart trips over the name. How does Jimmy fit into the puzzle? If Dr. O plans on blackmailing Sterling, he clearly has enough to get the job done.
“Not much,” I say. “The senator’s internship supervisor remembers him, but they weren’t close.”
Dr. O examines me through a narrowed gaze. Our places have switched—now he’s the one trying to gauge if I’m giving the full story.
“What does that mean? Were they at odds?”
“Not from what I can tell.”
Dr. O knows I’m stalling. I have to give him something.
“He said he heard Sterling talking to Jimmy before he disappeared. Told him to leave and never come back.”
“When?”
“After some fund-raiser. That’s all I know so far.”
I look away so he can’t see the truth on my face—that Susan was there that night, too.
“Keep at it,” he says. “If anyone can bring light to the truth, it’s you.”
“Is there a possibility that Sterling didn’t kill Jimmy Balder?” I blurt. “That he was just fired, and skipped town?”
Dr. O scoffs, then flips open the top of his laptop. After clicking a few buttons, he turns the screen to face me.
On it are a couple in their forties, dressed in coats and scarves. The woman is crying, her head tipped forward. The man is holding her tightly against his side, a grave expression painted on his face.
“Those are Jimmy’s parents,” says Dr. O.
I guess not all the devices were wiped clean when the detectives came through.
A closer look at the couple reveals that they’re walking down a set of stone steps in front of a columned building in Uptown I recognize. The police station.
“They insisted their child had been abducted, but the police—cops in Sterling’s pocket—never investigated the case. Jimmy was nineteen when he disappeared—legally an adult. He’d packed a bag of belongings. Withdrawn some money from an ATM. If he wanted to leave town, nothing was stopping him.”
Dr. O turns the laptop back around, staring at it with something between pity and anger in his eyes before closing the screen.
“He had straight As at the university. Friends in the dorms, who cared enough to organize a search when he didn’t come home. He’d never shown signs of depression or other mental health issues, and saw his parents for dinner every Sunday night. If he’d lost his job, why didn’t he go to them? Why does a boy like that abandon everything?”
The answer is clear: he doesn’t.
Still, this seems impossible. “No one saw anything suspicious? None of those friends? What about a girlfriend or boyfriend?”
Dr. O’s gaze lifts to mine.
“He wasn’t dating anyone. Not seriously, anyway.”
Which leaves me back with Mark, the senator, and Susan Griffin. How do they all connect? Where did Jimmy go? And why were the cops so quick to drop the case when his own friends seemed shocked he was gone?
I slouch in my chair. I’m not a detective, and it’s not my business. My job is clear: find out what people know about Jimmy and tell Dr. O. But something’s wrong about all of this. I can feel it.
A knock on the door makes me jump in my seat.
“Come in,” calls Dr. O.
The door opens to reveal Henry, standing in the threshold. His hair is neatly combed, but he’s wearing the same clothes he did on Family Day. A hockey shirt and jeans, too baggy for his usual style.
He straightens when he sees me and walks over, a nervous bounce in his step. “Hey.”
I eye him suspiciously. “You all right?”
He looks away.
“Henry,” says Dr. O, voice stern. I wonder if he blamed Henry for those two detectives showing up. I never asked Henry what came of that.
I am seriously failing at this whole friend thing.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Henry says. “I need—”
“Of course.” Dr. O’s tone softens. “Excuse me, Brynn. This will only be a moment.”
Henry stands beside me as Dr. O steps around his desk toward the fireplace. My breath catches in my throat as he carefully moves aside the chair and crouches on the ground in the exact same position I caught Grayson in on Family Day.
He’s going into the safe.
“What’s he getting?” I whisper. Is Susan’s phone in there, like Grayson said? Are our files?
“Henry, will you need identification?” asks Dr. O.
Henry’s gaze flicks to mine. “Um. Yes. I should take it just in case.”
It takes me a moment to realize Dr. O’s talking about our fake IDs—the various aliases we use on a job. I’d forgotten Mrs. Maddox hid them when the detectives came.
Henry’s going out on an assignment.
My blood begins to hum as I wonder where he’s going, but that worry is quickly chased away by curiosity. Henry plants things on people—I’ve witnessed this firsthand when he planted the pills in Grayson’s house last summer—but he doesn’t have the best poker face.
Before I can get Henry’s attention, there’s raised voices in the hallway, followed by a loud crash, heavy enough to vibrate the floors.
Sparing Henry a bewildered glance, I spring toward the exit, Dr. O on my heels. Outside the door I find Sam and Grayson, staring at a fallen statue—one of the black marble ravens from the twin pillars bracketing the outside of Dr. O’s office—on the floor between them.
“Someone should anchor that thing,” Grayson says, a line of sweat racing down his temple. “Could have knocked someone’s head off.”
I look to Sam, who is glaring at Grayson.
“How did it fall?” asks Dr. O, brows furrowed. He kneels beside the statue, cradling its stone head like a beloved child.
Neither boy answers immediately.
“I bumped the column,” says Sam. “My bad.”
“Are you all right?” I jump at Henry’s voice, finding him suddenly behind me. His gaze bounces off Grayson to the raven.
“Fine,” says Sam evenly.
Dr. O stands, bumping the pillar with a flat hand as if testing its stability.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he says. “I’ll have this looked at immediately. I’m glad no one was hurt.”
Grayson backs away, probably wanting to disappear before he gets in trouble.
Sam’s tight glare says there’s more to this story, but I’m smart enough not to ask in front of Dr. O.
“Sam, can you ask Mr. Moore or Mr. Belk to take care of this? Make sure they secure the statue. I’m a little busy at the moment.”
“No problem,” says Sam.
No, there’s definitely a problem. No one accidentally bumps these columns unless they were shoved into them, or crowding at the door to eavesdrop. The raised voices I heard before the statue fell make me think there was some kind of fight, and by the way Sam’s seething, my bets are that Grayson started it.
I’ll deal with that later.
Back inside the office, Dr. O strides toward the safe, and when Henry goes to follow, I snag his arm.
“What are you doing?”
His cheeks are already stained red.
“Cleaning up my mess,” he answers.
My worry multiplies by a hundred as Dr. O shuts the safe door. He passes Henry three stacks of green bills and a small, rectangular ID card, which Henry tucks into his large pockets, out of sight.
What is Henry going to do with that kind of cash?
“We’ll talk when you get back,” says Dr. O, replacing the stone in front of the fireplace.
“Yes, sir.”
Henry heads toward the door. I try not to make a huge show of following him, but that’s exactly what I intend to do.
“Is that all you need from me?” I ask Dr. O.
“No.” He runs a hand over his jaw and waits for the door to close behind my friend. “I actually have a concern I’d like to talk to you about.”
My stomach goes rigid. This is about what happened last night with Grayson. I knew it.
“What’s that?”
“I’m concerned about Caleb.”
Of course he is. Dr. O wanted me to put our relationship on hold, and I didn’t. Now I’m busted. My concern over Henry’s assignment, and whatever is going on between Sam and Grayson, is put on temporary hold while I scramble to figure out how to save my own ass.
“Have you noticed anything … off with him lately?”
Caleb’s words from that night on the roof echo through my head. This doesn’t work if you don’t trust me.
Something’s definitely off. A week ago he wouldn’t have said that. He would’ve known I did, and he would’ve been right.
“How so?”
“You remember that everything said in this room is confidential.”
I nod.
Dr. O frowns down at the papers on his desk. “He’s been distant lately. Troubled. He says he’s going somewhere, then heads another—you know how important our tracking system is for your safety.”
“Yeah.” I may have deliberately left my phone someplace once or twice in order to avoid being followed by security.
“It’s not like him to be dishonest. If he’s struggling with his assignment, I need to speak to him about it.”
I nearly choke.
I suspect Caleb’s assignment has something to do with me—that’s why he was at the restaurant that night when I was with Mark and the other interns. But Dr. O’s just thrown it out as if it’s common knowledge what he’s doing, which makes me wonder if I misjudged the entire situation, or if he has some greater, twisted plan that I can’t see.
“What is his assignment?” I ask.
Dr. O makes a sound in the back of his throat. “That’s between him and me.”
Damn.
“I haven’t heard anything,” I say.
“No problems with school?” Dr. O asks. “I know Ms. Shrewsbury keeps you all on your toes with your classwork. Any big projects he’s been having a hard time with?”
If Caleb were struggling in school, I would know. We study together. We talk about that kind of stuff.
At least we did, before Grayson came here.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I say.
Even if there was something going on, I’m not telling the director. Caleb and I might not be in a good place, but I’m not about to snitch on him.
“You’re sure?” Dr. O is nearly pleading now, and it makes it even harder to balance on those eggshells he’s put under my feet. “Caleb’s been here a long time. He knows things about this program—about you and the other students—that could be very … damaging.”
I bite hard on the inside of my cheek.
“I want to make sure he’s doing all right,” says Dr. O. “That he’s making good decisions.”
Fear seeps over my doubt, bringing on a new layer of suspicion. What is Dr. O talking about? What wrong decisions could Caleb possibly be making? Everything he does is with the purpose of maintaining his position here and protecting the rest of us.
If he’s struggling with his assignment, I need to speak to him about it.
Something’s been going on with Caleb since Grayson got here. He’s been following me. Hiding things. After the detectives came, he was angry that Grayson was still here, and after Caleb and I kissed in the garden, he couldn’t even tell me where he’d gotten the information about Susan Griffin.
The police report said she had head injuries not caused by the accident.
I researched Susan Griffin’s death extensively. If there had been a police report filed, I would have seen it. Dr. O may not have told me everything, but this wouldn’t have slipped by without his knowledge. He would have told me about it so I could see what Grayson knew.
Was Caleb lying to me?
There are about a hundred things I need to tell you.
Why can’t he say them?
“I’ll talk to him,” I say.
“Thank you.”
Finally excused, I head to the door and reach the foyer just in time to see a black SUV pulling around the fountain. I can’t see who’s inside the passenger seat on account of the tinted windows, but my money’s on Henry.