RILEY

The room is crowded, forcing us to stand in the back. The who’s who of our high school are all here. The teachers, the school board superintendent, helicopter parents, and the Devlin family.

I knew he’d show.

Principal Bunker calls the meeting to order and they babble on about dates for this and votes for that. Dez leans against the wall as his eyes begin to droop.

“Wake up,” I say under my breath.

He yawns and cracks his neck.

“Okay, next agenda item is our humanities program.” Principal Bunker shuffles his papers around the table.

I stand at attention.

“As you know, we’d been considering getting rid of the program before the horrible tragedy struck. Before Ms. Dunn.”

“We can’t get rid of the program,” someone yells from the back, which sets off a rumbling in the room.

“I agree,” one of the teachers at the table says. “We need to advance the level of education at this school. We can’t make any more cuts to our curriculum.”

“Hang on,” Principal Bunker says. “One at a time.”

Devlin raises his hand to speak. He’s surrounded by his family. Tori keeps her head down and my stomach sinks, thinking about how Devlin must have punished her because he thought I was boozing at the party. Tori looks like a little girl now, sitting next to her dad and pulling the stuffing out of the ripped chair. Principal Bunker nods to Devlin so he can address the crowd.

“I’m all for advancing the level of education in this school,” Mr. Devlin begins. “Humanities is a perfect example of that. And we lost a great teacher this year.” He clears his throat. “One of the best. I’m sorry Ms. Dunn isn’t here tonight, because we wanted to make this proposal together.”

Together? What?

“We were working together last spring to come up with some viable and cost-efficient options to keep the level of education up while keeping costs down.”

But, what about the notes? The petitions? The papers?

I think back to exactly what we found. Nothing, really. Was I reading too much into it? I want to find her killer so badly. Am I seeing things that aren’t really there?

“We think … ” He looks down and appears genuinely saddened. “We thought we could delay the elimination of Ms. Dunn’s humanities class another year. We were planning on a phased-out approach that would slowly integrate her curriculum into English, science, and art classes. Personally, I was hoping it would buy us time to find a way to keep Ms. Dunn on board. But in any case, she’s developed the guidelines that show how her curriculum can fit into the other courses. All we have to do is give it to the teachers and have them implement it.”

Homer stands up and joins Mr. Devlin.

What is going on?

“I never thought I’d say this, but the mayor is right,” Homer says.

There are a few chuckles from the audience.

“This is the perfect solution to our budgeting problem, and one I know Rachel supported. Not only do I think it’s the right thing to do for the school and the students, but it’s a great way to honor the work Rachel did here.”

I look over at the Devlin family—together as usual. But this time Tori isn’t wearing her plastered-on smile. Neither is her mother.

We were working together last spring, Devlin said.

I think about what I’ve uncovered so far: Ms. Dunn’s letters and financial documents; all the papers with Devlin’s phone numbers and notes; the Degas; the class action lawsuit dropped.

No.

Were they together together?

Ms. Dunn and Devlin?

Ew!

As the praise for Ms. Dunn goes on, Tori’s mouth scrun-ches up, venomous.

Just like it did the next day in school, after Ms. Dunn was killed. At her father’s request, Tori organized a prayer service for the students. Dez and I both went. It felt good to be around people, to mourn together. I think it was the first time I understood why people go to church. The connection they feel. The best part about the service was that it was for students only. People got up and talked about how scared and angry they were. Others told their favorite story about Ms. Dunn. But not everyone took comfort. Marcus almost got into a brawl with some freshmen during Amanda Fisher’s heartfelt story because they were too noisy or something. Dez was just as distracting. He was all jittery—bouncing his leg and tapping his hand on his knee. I was happy when he finally decided to leave. It was uncomfortable.

And then there was Tori. She led us in prayer. She read some sort of Bible verse, but I didn’t get it. It was about redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Almost like what happened to Ms. Dunn was her own fault. I might not be intimate with the Good Book, but it seemed weird. Surely there was a better passage that Tori could’ve used. Something a little more apropos?

As I look over at Tori now—her sour face and icy eyes—my Spidey sense kicks in.

“Dez,” I whisper. “I think we had the wrong Devlin.”