12

Mustard

Mustard almost grabbed Plum’s arm as he walked out the door. He almost said, “I’m coming with you.” There was no reason he should stay. Everyone else on campus might do what Scarlett Mistry wanted, but that didn’t mean he had to.

Girl had the soul of a general, but Mustard was not under her command.

But then Plum had said, “Call me after,” and all of Mustard’s plans went right out of his head. He was still thinking about how he didn’t have Plum’s number, and why would Plum think he had his number, and had there been a time when Plum had, in fact, given him his number and maybe he didn’t remember because of an unexpected head injury—when Scarlett led him into the study and shut them both inside.

It was then that he began to wonder if flies, too, were distracted upon occasions in which they ended up in spiders’ webs.

“Um . . .” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

The study looked very different from the last time he’d been there. Then, it was all bookcases and firelight and a murderer tied to a chair. Now, there were half a dozen lamps glowing on end tables and the desk, the fireplace was cleaned out, and giant planks of wood, an open toolbox, and other construction materials lined the back wall.

“You know,” said Scarlett, leaning up against the desk and smiling at him, “we’ve never really gotten the chance to chat.”

“We talked plenty during the storm,” he replied. He pointed at the tools. “What’s all this?”

She shrugged. “Dr. Brown is determined to do something permanent to shut down the secret passages. But I guess it’ll take a minute, what with all the other construction on campus. Anyway, Mustard . . .”

Call me after, Plum had said. As if he knew what Scarlett had in store for the during. And why wouldn’t he? Last term, the couple had described themselves to him as a “platonic power couple,” though their icy exchange in the hall made Mustard suspect that the “couple” part might not be entirely accurate any longer.

But if he walked out right now, he wouldn’t have anything to call Plum about. Aside from the obvious.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I always make a point of meeting with new kids on campus. Especially students of color. There’s so little diversity here—”

“You think we have something in common because we’re both brown?” he asked skeptically. “Because we don’t.” He was nothing like this pampered New York City princess with her little boarding-school fiefdom.

“I am aware that we are very different people,” Scarlett said. “For instance, I’m a vegetarian, and according to your intake form, you bagged your first hunting trophy at five years old.”

Mustard actually felt his heart speed up. “How did you read my intake form?” he asked quietly.

“Finn got it for me when you transferred in,” she said, almost wistfully, given that she was talking about stealing administration documents. “Happier times.”

Wait—Plum had read his intake form?

Call me after.

“But despite our best attempts, we never did get our hands on your complete file. You know, the one that Dr. Brown referenced yesterday? The one that explained why you are no longer welcome at Farthing?”

Mustard remembered how to breathe out. She had nothing on him. He was safe. “Are we done here?”

“No, Mustard. We’re not.” She stood up straight. Even then, she barely reached his shoulders. “How did you get that nickname, anyway?”

“Wasn’t that part in my intake form?” First hunting trophy! He’d bet his father had put that in. Anything to make him sound like a man.

“And how quickly we all got used to calling you that!” she said. “Given how bizarre it is.”

Back at Farthing, it hadn’t been bizarre at all. At least, it hadn’t been unusual. They all had dumb nicknames.

It was the one thing he hadn’t wanted to lose.

“Besides, I don’t want to talk about all the ways we’re different right now. I want to talk about the ways in which we are the same.”

“Okay, I’ll play,” he said, and in the curve of her smile, he immediately realized it was a mistake. But he couldn’t retreat now. “How are we the same?”

“Oh, lots of ways. For instance, we each have a keen interest in whatever it was Finn hid in the secret passage during the storm.”

That brought him up short, but he did his best to keep his surprise from showing on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about, either,” Scarlett admitted. “Finn has been remarkably . . . private . . . about his little project. But I’ve figured out enough to realize that you know a lot more than you’re letting on.”

“If Finn didn’t trust you enough to tell you what he was doing,” Mustard scoffed, “what makes you think I’m going to?”

Scarlett stared long and hard at Mustard.

That move might work on some people. But he didn’t blink.

“Because,” she said at long last, “of all the things we have in common.”

He snorted. “Like what?”

“Like our initials. Samuel Maestor.” She picked up her phone and showed him the screen.

Mustard felt his heart sink. The picture showed a stack of money with brownish smears of blood on it. And a note—a note he’d hoped was long, long gone.

“What did you bribe Rusty for?”

He swallowed, but his throat had gone dry. “I didn’t.”

“Liar.”

“I didn’t! ” he repeated.

“Liar,” she also repeated, and she smiled. “And I want to know what you did with my pen, too.”

He raised his hands and stepped back. But it was not remotely in surrender. Scarlett had nothing but wild accusations about bribery. Those, he could handle. “You’ve concocted an entire fantasy here, and I can’t imagine why.”

“This photograph was taken of what was on the body of Rusty Nayler.”

“By you?”

“By Finn.”

Mustard closed his eyes. That dum-dum. “I don’t know what any of it is. You said that note was written with your pen. And it has your initials on it. What do I have to do with any of this?”

But Scarlett wasn’t taking the bait. “Well, maybe that’ll fly when Finn tries to pin it on me, too. But I happen to know that I didn’t write Rusty any note, so it behooves me to find out what the truth is before my former best friend tries to implode my life.”

“ ‘Behooves’?” Mustard said wryly. “You might do better on those standardized tests than you think.”

“Tell me what this is, or I’ll be forced to go to Dr. Brown with what I know.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you bribed Rusty . . . to do something . . . on the night he died!”

That was a really . . . inaccurate . . . way to put it. But he was sure that Scarlett was phenomenally talented at putting things in exactly the way she wanted them to be.

This could go very poorly for Mustard.

He was already in trouble with Dr. Brown. And the pushy guidance counselor had seemed mainly concerned over-whether or not Mustard’s father planned to mount a lawsuit against the school. Winkle had made several comments about his record at Farthing that convinced Mustard that the dude was not as interested in “guidance” as he was in leverage.

That was the last thing he needed right now.

“Look,” she said, “everyone knew Rusty could be bought. There were stories from way back in freshman year that he’d get you liquor from Rocky Point if you asked the right way. Was that what it was? Some hooch for a party?”

“ ‘Hooch’?” Mustard said. “You’ve been in Maine too long.” He should say yes. But lies had a way of compounding. At least if he stuck with the truth, he wouldn’t get tripped up.

“All I want is to close this chapter and get back to studying,” Scarlett insisted. “I don’t want to be difficult with you. I don’t have anything against you. We weathered the storm together. That means something to me.”

Funny. That was precisely what Rusty had said. “Murder Crew forever, huh?”

“Something like that,” she said. “I mean, as long as you aren’t actually a murderer.” She eyed him. “But . . . I don’t think you are.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” he replied. “By the way you’re so willing to be alone in a room with me and threaten me.” He crossed his arms. He knew from experience that it had the effect of making them look especially big and, therefore, intimidating.

Scarlett, however, was not much for being intimidated. “Well,” she said slyly, “I have a witness that you came in here with me. If I wind up dead, it won’t be much of a mystery.”

“I’m sure that will come as a great comfort to your corpse.”

Another minute of staring at each other produced no results that either side was pleased with. From what Mustard had learned during his time at Blackbrook, Scarlett Mistry had her fingers in every pot on campus. Nothing happened here without her knowledge, and only slightly less without her explicit say-so. At least, that’s how things had been before Headmaster Boddy had been knifed in the hall outside. Now, things were a little different. Scarlett was used to having the upper hand.

But so was Mustard. And so far, Scarlett hadn’t given him any indication that she had info on him that might prove . . . problematic. Still, he should endeavor to stay on her good side.

He could make a deal.

“You say your problem is Plum, right? That photo, and Plum’s suspicions, and nothing else?”

Her expression turned curious. “Yes . . .”

“I’ll get him off your back.”

“How?”

“I just will.”

Scarlett pursed her lips. “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

“Plum will find me very convincing, I swear.”

Now her eyebrows rose, but she nodded. “Okay. Game recognizes game. You have a deal.”

That was sorted. And now he really had an excuse to call Plum.

“You know,” she went on, shuffling the papers on her desk, “it’s a shame you weren’t around before. I think we could have made an excellent team.”

“I thought we were a team,” he replied. “Murder Crew and all.”

“Right, well . . .” She shrugged. “We weren’t exactly the world’s savviest detectives last term. We were searching the house for intruders while the real murderer was right here with us.”

Mustard rubbed the back of his head. He’d been injured by Peacock, but it was Mrs. White who’d nearly killed him when the painkillers she gave him had actually been sleeping pills. By that point in the storm, the old Tudor House proctor had been scared that the students were putting together the facts of Boddy’s death.

“I think my sleuthing days are over,” he said to Scarlett.

“Really? With bodies falling out of the sky?” She looked skeptical. “Maybe you did kill Rusty. That’s the only reason I can figure as to why you’re not at least curious about how he died.”

Mustard wouldn’t characterize himself as incurious. Not exactly.

More like terrified.

But he kept his voice as neutral as possible as he responded. “Dr. Brown said Rusty’s death was a freak accident. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about—”

“Dr. Brown was lying. She can’t afford to have another murderer on campus.”

He was very close to saying that there was no way for Dr. Brown to know if her campus was completely free of murderers, but that probably wasn’t a good thing to point out right then. “What Dr. Brown really can’t afford is any situation that would put the students in danger. If she thinks that there’s nothing to worry about, then maybe we should believe her.”

“That’s what she says,” Scarlett replied. “But does she know? She’s not an expert on Blackbrook or on the students here.”

Mustard wasn’t going to get started on that conversation. “You felt safe before, right? And now there are even fewer kids here. If anyone knows them, it’s you.”

“I don’t know all of them,” Scarlett replied. “Like that new girl, Rosa. She lives downstairs from me, and I can’t find out anything about her. Not through my usual channels and certainly not from her.”

Mustard had also found himself rather curious about Rosa. For all that he’d mocked Scarlett for her obsession with identifying “diversity” at Blackbrook, he and Rosa were probably the only two Latinos in a fifty-mile radius, and she hadn’t so much as given him a nod of solidarity when they passed each other on campus. Also, she’d dodged his question about military school, which definitely meant she’d gone to military school. He’d known even before, though. He could tell by the way she stood. Girl had training.

So what was she doing here?

“Well, good luck with your little investigation,” he said to Scarlett. He turned to go, but she zipped around and stood in front of him. Scarlett was small but fast.

“She has maps of the campus up in her room,” she said as Mustard maneuvered around her toward the door. “I saw them once, from her doorway.”

He didn’t have time for this. “Maybe she gets lost easily.”

“Maybe she’s looking for something.”

Mustard’s hand was on the knob, but that stopped him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying . . . Finn seems to think the little experiment of his is extraordinarily valuable, right?”

He did. At least, he’d been going to extraordinary lengths to keep from having to share the proceeds with the school.

“And someone here—someone other than Boddy—was tipped off to its existence,” she went on.

“Yeah, like you and me and probably a half dozen other people. Plum might be some scientific genius, but he’s not as sneaky as he thinks he is.”

“Okay,” admitted Scarlett. “And what if someone who knows what Finn was doing is looking for his work—I mean, if it’s worth as much as he says it is? Blackbrook knows the potential of their students—that’s why they make them sign that stupid honor code. Half the board is made up of chemical company people, including Dr. Brown. It stands to reason that this place would have industrial spies. Maybe Rosa is working for them.”

Mustard thought about that. He thought about his roommate Tanner, whose fortune was thanks to some chemical company in Connecticut, and who never seemed to do any homework at all.

Scarlett gasped. “Or maybe the source of the information was actually Rusty! And the industrial spies bumped him off once he delivered the goods.”

“I like your first idea better,” Mustard said quickly. “But what do we do about it?”

“Well, maybe while Rosa is out of the house, we can”—Scarlett tilted her head—“break into her room and just, you know, look around.”

“ ‘Look around’?” Mustard asked. “ ‘Break into her room’? You’re really banking a lot on the idea that Dr. Brown can’t afford to expel any of us.”

“Oh, please, Tex,” she shot back, “you think this is my first rodeo?”

“I don’t think you know what a rodeo is.”

“True,” she admitted. “But I do know how to break into rooms in this place without getting caught. We’ll just pick the lock. No problem.”

If he was going to go to Plum, it was probably best he had all the information. Especially if Scarlett was right, and Rosa really was here to spy on the students and their work. She’d come from somewhere, and transferring to Blackbrook after the murder was pretty freaking unlikely.

“Okay.”

Together, they left the study and went out again into the abandoned hall. If Peacock had emerged from her shower, she must have realized that the boys had been ejected. Mustard was again struck by the bright lights illuminating every corner of the space. His memory of Tudor House was shadows and candlelight, dark hallways that hid blood spatter, the wail of wind from the broken window. Now it seemed very safe.

But was it?

Silently, they moved down the hall, past the stairs on the left and the library on the right. Scarlett listened at the door. “Dr. Brown isn’t in. Thank goodness.”

“What about the rest of the girls who live here?”

She gave him a look. “Yeah. We don’t even see half of them. Nobody wants to stay in the Murder House.”

Amber, Tanner’s girlfriend, had said something similar to that.

“Let’s hurry, anyway.”

They moved on to the door to Rosa’s room. Mustard remembered the room well from the storm—the billiards room, in which he’d lain awake on a pile of blankets on the floor, staring at the blackness under the pool table and Finn Plum’s slim, pale form beyond. He must have fallen asleep eventually, though. He certainly had never heard the sound of Mrs. White dragging the body of the headmaster down the hall to the conservatory.

Scarlett had her ear pressed up against the door. “I don’t hear her.”

Mustard glanced back at the front door of Tudor House. “Hurry.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We have to hurry.”

They both stood there, staring at each other.

“Well?” she asked him. “Go on.”

“Go on what?”

“Pick the lock!”

He shook his head, confused. “You said you were going to pick the lock.”

“I did not!”

“Yes, you did. You said this wasn’t your first rodeo, and you’d broken into the rooms here before.”

“Not by lock picking! When I brought it up, you said okay! I thought you had, like, special abilities from military school.”

“I didn’t take the lock picking elective.”

Scarlett gave him a look, like she wasn’t certain if he was joking. “Well, can you shoot it off?”

“What makes you think I have a gun on me?”

“The hunting trophy you got at five.”

He didn’t dignify that with an answer, and instead knelt in front of the door, trying to get a closer look at the latch. Maybe he could stick his ID card in and jiggle the lock. That worked on TV.

Scarlett knelt next to him and peered at the lock, as if she might be able to see through the metal to the mechanism inside. Mustard did not pin his hopes on her suddenly developing X-ray vision. He pulled his ID card out of his wallet and carefully inserted it in the crack between door and doorjamb.

“So you do have special talents!” Scarlett crowed under her breath.

“Hush.” He jiggled. The card went farther in. He wiggled. Was that a click he heard?

Suddenly, the card broke off in his hand. A second later the door flew open.

Rosa Navarro stood above them. He fell back on his heels and looked up at her.

“If you wanted inside,” she said wryly, “you should have just knocked.”