Hardwicke resumed classes the next day.
“My aunt thought they’d cancel for the rest of the week, at least,” Vivvie told me as the two of us filed into the Hardwicke chapel for an all-school assembly.
I’d thought the same, but apparently the powers that be at Hardwicke had other plans.
“How was the police station?” Vivvie asked, lowering her voice.
“The good news is that they don’t suspect me.” I’d never been the type to mince words. “The bad news is that they suspect Asher.”
“Asher wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Vivvie said fiercely. “I mean, he repeatedly face-punched John Thomas, obviously—but other than that, he would never hurt someone.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. I knew that Asher hadn’t gone home and gotten a gun. I knew that he hadn’t put a bullet in John Thomas’s chest.
“Settle, please. Everyone, settle down.” Headmaster Raleigh’s voice was strong, but his face was morose. For once, the room quieted almost instantaneously. “Here at Hardwicke, we’ve had a difficult couple of days,” the headmaster said. “Many of us are just now coming to understand the enormity of our loss.”
In the pew behind me, I heard a couple of girls take jagged breaths. On the opposite side of the room, one or two of John Thomas’s friends were bent over, hollow-eyed and ready to punch something.
“John Thomas Wilcox was a bright young man with his whole future in front of him,” the headmaster continued. “When he transferred here as a freshman, he immediately began leaving his mark on this school and on each of us. He was a model student, a natural leader, and a wonderful friend.”
Already, I could feel the collective memory shifting, as people remembered the good times and forgot everything else. This was the John Thomas most of our classmates would remember: a well-liked guy who knew how to take a joke and how to deliver one. An athlete. An honors student. A life full of potential, cut down too soon.
Across the room, Emilia sat between Maya and Di. As the headmaster spoke, she stared straight ahead, never blinking, her hands gripping each other tightly in her lap.
“In the coming days,” Headmaster Raleigh continued, “there will be some changes at Hardwicke. We will be doubling our on-campus security and reviewing all protocols to ensure student safety. Until further notice, students are asked to remain in the main building at all times. If you have information that might be of help to the police, I urge you to speak with your parents and come forward as soon as possible.”
I caught up with Emilia in the girls’ bathroom. Her hands were wrapped around the edge of the sink. Her head was bowed, her knuckles white.
“Sitting through that couldn’t have been easy,” I told her. I leaned back against the bathroom door, making sure no one else could come in and catch Emilia with her armor off.
“Sitting through what?” Emilia shot back. “The beatification of John Thomas Wilcox, or the stares from people I’ve gone to school with my whole life who think that my brother might have done this?”
I sensed that was a rhetorical question.
Emilia turned to look at me. “If I told you to go away, is there even the least chance you’d listen?”
I let my arms dangle next to my side. “Unlikely.”
Emilia forced herself to stand up straight. She turned to face me head-on. “I tried to figure out who took my phone,” she said, banishing all hint of vulnerability. “I left it in the courtyard Monday morning.” Clearly, Emilia didn’t want to talk about her feelings. “Someone turned it into the office that afternoon, but no one in the office could remember who.”
I couldn’t force Emilia to let me in, so I followed her lead and focused on the facts. “John Thomas told me he’d gotten ahold of Hardwicke student files,” I said. “The kind of files that contained confidential medical information.”
“And this is the boy people are mourning,” Emilia said, her voice going hollow. “A model student. A natural leader. A wonderful friend.”
The look in Emilia’s eyes when she repeated the headmaster’s words from that morning reminded me that John Thomas hadn’t just enjoyed power. He’d enjoyed making other people feel powerless.
“We need to figure out who at this school had reason to want John Thomas dead,” I said quietly.
“Besides me, you mean?”
“Emilia—”
“Don’t handle me with kid gloves, Tess.” Emilia’s fingers curled, driving her nails into her palms. “Say what you mean.” Emilia stared at me so hard I could feel the weight of her stare on the surface of my skin.
“You weren’t the only one he took pictures of.” That much I could say without betraying any confidences—or forcing anything out of her that she wasn’t ready to give.
Emilia was silent for four or five seconds before she spoke. “If I were going to guess where one might look for people who knew John Thomas Wilcox for who and what he was,” she said quietly, “that social media experiment of yours wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
I Stand With Emilia.
Emilia stared at me for a second longer, then turned back to the sink. “This case is going to get national attention. My parents hired a lawyer, but the kind of lawyer we can afford isn’t going to be enough.” She pressed her lips together. “He was the whip’s son, Tess, and Asher is nobody.”
I knew, in that moment, that Emilia wasn’t just talking about Asher.
“I’ll get Asher a lawyer,” I promised her. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” Emilia rinsed her hands methodically and then lifted her gaze to the mirror. At first I thought she was checking her makeup, but then I realized that she was studying her own expression—removing all hints of weakness.
“You don’t have to be okay right now,” I told her. “Whatever you’re feeling—it’s okay to feel that way.”
Emilia pushed past me. She reached for the door, then paused. “What is it you even think that I’m feeling?” she said, her voice quiet but cutting. “Am I supposed to be sad? Or maybe in shock? Maybe I’m supposed to be spiraling downward. But I’m not. I’m not sad, and I’m not in shock, and I’m not spiraling.” She glanced back at me. “You worry about my brother and finding out who wanted John Thomas dead,” she ordered. “Because I’m fine.”
In between second and third period, I called Ivy. No answer.
In between third and fourth period, I called Ivy. No answer.
At lunch, I called William Keyes. He answered. I asked him what it would take to get someone from Tyson Brewer’s firm to represent Asher. There was a pause on the other end of the line as my grandfather processed the fact that I was asking for a favor.
“Just say the word, Tess,” Keyes told me. “All you have to do is ask, and I can get your friend an entire team of defense lawyers, the best in the country, free of charge.”
Free of charge to Asher, maybe, I thought. Accepting this favor would undoubtedly cost me.
“Do it.”