34. Arlo
I sit in the headmaster’s office for the second time this year. The only difference is that this time, they’re making me wait in the room by myself, and Hota wasn’t called with me.
While I wait, I think about my best friend, my guy, the person I don’t deserve to have in my life. In particular, I think about how Nate begged him to pound his ass. It was a week after that everyone came back from Christmas break. The wrestling season was long behind us, Nate’s final wrestling season at Willoughby Ridge. I remember how good Hota's bare chest and hanging pants looked as he plowed into Nate’s mouth as punishment for begging for what he couldn’t have.
Hota’s words, not mine.
I’m surprised with Nate and Miss Booth coming to our room on rotation once every couple of weeks, never together, that Hota hasn’t really and truly fucked either of them.
He’s still a virgin.
The dirtiest, most experienced virgin who’s ever existed, I’m sure.
I have dreams about taking his virginity. Both diving into his skin and allowing him to dive into mine. Those are the nights I wake up screaming.
The dreams always start perfectly, then devolve into horror. I’m chained and being dragged away from him. Or he’s chained and my uncle…I can’t even think it in the daylight.
The door opens behind me and in walk the detectives I remember from last time, Wentzel and Baymain. Behind the two drab men strolls a woman in a navy pantsuit. Her hair is pulled into a low bun, and her shoes are sharply pointed pumps that add several inches to her height. They put her taller than the men and right around my height.
She takes the headmaster’s seat, eyeing me all the way. Wentzel sits next to me while Baymain props himself against the wall.
I stay relaxed back into my seat with my elbows resting on the arms of the chair and my fingers entwined over my middle.
“Mr. Judge?” The woman has a posh London accent that I recognize from the posh London kids whose parents dumped them at this school. There’s something shrewd about her. It could be the rod that makes up her spine or the gleam in her eyes.
“Yes.” I nod.
“Sorry it’s taken us so long to get back to you about your uncle.” Wentzel turns toward me. His level gaze is soft, meant to make me feel comfortable for sharing.
“I’m sure you have been doing all you can to find him.” I incline my head toward him, as though I accept his safe space.
None of them are on my side.
“What’s with your voice?” She crinkles her nose at my raspy and broken voice.
“They say grief can do it.” I shrug.
“You don’t seem distraught over his disappearance,” the woman states matter-of-factly.
“Should I be?” I shrug. “He’s an adult. He can do what he wants. I don’t blame him for taking off. He didn’t know about me, and I didn’t know about him until after my parents and brother died. He made it clear he wasn’t cut out to be a guardian.”
“How so?” she demands.
“Who are you?” I ignore her question just to piss her off. I’ve seen Hota do it masterfully to professors and students alike.
A harsh breath leaves her throat. She straightens, pulls a file from her bougie bag, and smacks it onto the table. “Detective Inspector Rose Dean. CID out of Oxford.”
The town of Banbury might have its own dedicated criminal investigation department, but the fact that sharp shoes was here from Oxford told me they didn’t have one robust enough to deal with this case.
“Thank you.” I nod. “Detective Inspector Dean, my uncle ignored me for the majority of the time I was ‘invading his space’ as he put it.”
“And the other times?” she prompts.
“The rest was spent cursing my father for having ever been born. It was not a pleasant time, and we did not talk beyond the necessities. There was no bonding over tea. And if I ever got tea in his house, it was cold and grainy.”
“That’s child abuse.” Baymain snorts from his spot against the wall.
Wentzel chuckles. I don’t and neither does Dean.
“Did you ever wish ill upon your uncle?” she asks, cutting off the laughter.
“Sure.” I shrug. “You wish ill upon the guy who cuts you off in traffic. Why wouldn’t I upon the guy who talks shit about my dead dad?”
Her head tilts. She places her elbows on the desk and leans closer. “Did you ever act upon it?”
“No,” I say easily, nonchalantly, as though it’s the truth. I don’t add anything to it or take anything away.
“Did your uncle ever hit you?”
“No,” I lie. It tastes like ash in my mouth, but I don’t make a face. “He shoved me around once or twice, though.”
“Once or twice?” she demands.
“Twice,” I huff.
“How did that make you feel?” Her arms fold over one another on the desk.
“Like I wanted to resurrect my family and live with them as zombies.” I straighten in my seat as though I’m finally taking her questions seriously.
Her gaze narrows. “Did he ever touch you inappropriately?”
“He tried.” I lift my chin.
“And?” she leads.
“I told him if he put his hands on me at all, I’d knock his teeth out of his head.” It’s a total fabrication. The first time he put his hands on me, I was on the ground unable to breathe, much less talk shit that I didn’t have the mass or spine to back up. He sucker-punched me straight in the gut without so much as a cross word of warning.
Guess I can thank him for that. I have both now. Mass and backbone. And a big fucking heap of skepticism.
“How did he take that?” Dean holds perfectly still.
“He yelled. Said I was overreacting. That he hadn’t been trying to do anything when he grabbed my ass.” I show my teeth. “Honestly, I don’t know why you guys are wasting your time looking for the piece of shit.”
“He has charges to face,” Wentzel practically growls.
“Hush,” Dean commands.
I split a look between them. “What charges?”
“That’s not your concern.” Detective Inspector Dean sits back and flips open the file.
My head shakes, and my mouth forms a grimace. “I’d say it is since I have to live with the man whenever you find him.”
“You’ll never have to live with him again,” Wentzel reassures.
“Wentzel, close your mouth,” Dean hisses.
He clears his throat, nods, and shifts in his seat. As though a new position will make him quit blurting.
Maybe the guy really is a softy. It explains why my questioning the first go-round was nothing really. Though, I answered similar questions with the same answers as today. These are somehow more invasive. It’s Dean. She’s whip-smart and hard-nosed.
“If your uncle doesn’t show up in the next two months and pay his taxes, the property will be forfeit.” She flips through the pages in front of her.
This segment of the interview is new territory. The things they didn’t discuss with me last time.
“Okay.” I fiddle with the end of my sleeve while maintaining eye contact, knowing that if I remain too still, too focused, she’ll pick up on it.
She lifts a piece of paper and hands it over. It’s a bank statement with my uncle’s cursed name at the top. As I flip through the pages, I can see the meager balance two years ago, the influx of funds after my parents died, and the rapid fall of that amount. It ends at a balance lower than he started. “Two hundred seventy-eight pounds.”
I have stashed four times that amount in my dorm. It takes effort to hide my smile, which shouldn’t be. I hand the document back.
The man squandered my family’s money. My inheritance. I should be raging. But the money wasn’t mine. It was my parents’, meant for a life they no longer have.
“Your uncle doesn’t have enough money to pay his taxes, and he already owes the parish on the order of eleven thousand pounds in back taxes,” Dean explains.
Baymain whistles from his spot behind me.
The woman stares at me, awaiting a response.
“Okay.”
Her head tilts like an inquisitive puppy’s would. “You’re not upset?”
“About what?” I grimace. “It’s not as though I like the house anyway. It’s a mess. Someone else would take better care of it. Restore it.”
“Your inheritance?” Both her brows shoot up.
“What do you mean?” I wasn’t invited into the meetings with the lawyers when my family’s inheritance and my guardianship were turned over to the devil himself. I’m a minor. I don’t have any right to know the fate of my future.
I got to learn it the hard way. Through vile words and putrid acts.
Sure, I know my uncle burned through millions in months with nothing to show for it. He loved to taunt me with that information.
Every time, I told him I didn’t care about the money. All I wanted was my freedom. Freedom I wasn’t granted until I took it. I’m not about to let a detective from Oxford steal it away.
“You don’t know about your inheritance?” She runs her tongue over her teeth.
“I know my parents left me money for school, and that was the only reason I was going to such a proper spot for ‘stuffy windbags.’” I use air quotes to define my uncle’s least caustic words. I let my face fall as realization sets in. “He squandered my family’s money?”
“I’ll say,” Wentzel chimes in. Baymain’s heavy sigh is agreement enough.
I let my jaw unhinge, and my brows wrinkle. “Can I stay in school? I don’t want to leave. I can’t leave. I need an education, but I don’t have any money.” I scrub a hand over my face, then grab the back of my neck. My gaze jumps from one detective to the other. “Do I have to leave?”
“That’s all you care about?” Dean lifts the bank statements. “What about your inheritance?”
“Do I have to leave school?” I shoot back.
“No, your parents set up a separate fund and parameters around it that didn’t allow your uncle to touch that money.” She drops the document onto her pile.
“Oh, thank you.” I slump back against the chair, sighing heavily.
Maybe I should be more concerned about this questioning. What does it say about me that I can act and lie so easily without so much as an elevated heart rate? It probably says that after facing my uncle, adults who don’t beat my ass and rape me aren’t a problem no matter how serious the situation.
“You really don’t care about your inheritance?” She leans as far forward as she has the entire time, her gaze narrowed on me.
“Do I have enough for college?” I ask, forcing hesitancy into my tone.
“University?” she corrects.
“Yes, does the account have enough for that too?”
“It does.” She plows ahead. “What about your inheritance? The millions?”
I meet her gaze squarely. “I’ll make my own.”
“You’re just going to make your own?” Her brow furrows as if she doesn’t understand.
“Look, I’m not going to wait around for a guy who doesn’t give a shit about his own life enough to make his own way in the world to turn up and think he’s going to help my situation in any meaningful way. I don’t have a family or anyone to rely on. So I’ll rely on myself.”
Myself and Hota. Hopefully, Hota can rely on me and my millions one day. Though, knowing him, he’ll make his own.