Chapter Twenty-Three
TWENTY-THREE
Before we wrap up the call, Cecilia promises to get whatever she can on Annette’s death. Then I follow Maddox’s directions to find him at the pond, gazing out. I can see his profile, and I pause to watch him unguarded, his posture relaxed, hands in his pockets.
I ease over so I can keep watching him as I approach.
“You checking me out, Chamberlain?” he says without turning.
When he does turn, he gives me that quarter-smile. “I shouldn’t tease or you’ll stop doing it.”
“I don’t think I could.”
His breath hitches at that, and I’m glad I said it. He flushes, and then that smile quirks higher and he walks over, takes my hands in his, leans down, and kisses me.
It’s a gentle kiss, tentative at first and then a little more, but not much—not enough—before he eases back, still holding my hands.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
Another kiss, still gentle, still slow, still ending much too soon. He leans down. “Fair warning, I’m not very good at this.”
“You seem fine to me.”
A hint of a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not Theo.”
“Are you supposed to be?”
A soft chuckle. “I just mean Theo’s better at this. All of it. He was an early bloomer. And I…” He leans toward my ear again, as if to break eye contact. “By the time I was ready to date, I was fourteen, and then Jenna…” He pulls back, making a face. “Fuck, I’m fumbling this. Shocking, huh.”
He drops one of my hands to push his hair back, and I can feel him withdrawing, the walls slamming into place.
I meet his gaze. “I’ve been on a grand total of three dates. All with different guys because they were terrible. Last one was in my junior year. After that, I told myself I was just busy. Much too busy.”
He relaxes, that smile returning. “Yeah, same here. Much too busy.”
Taking my hands, he pulls me into another kiss. It lasts longer but stays slow, and I decide I like that. A kiss I can sink into instead of plummeting headfirst.
“This okay?” he says afterward.
“Uh-huh.”
“And is this okay?” He meets my gaze. “All of it?”
I look into his eyes. “Yes.”
Another kiss, and I think I could do this all day, slow kisses and quiet talk.
“If you change your mind…” he says. “At any time. About me. About…everything.”
“Same goes for you.”
That smile touches his eyes. “I’m good.” He leans in and whispers, “Really good,” before kissing me again.
—
We’re stretched out by the pond, hips touching as we gaze into the water.
I ask about Jenna. Theo painted me a light portrait, but I’d like more, and Maddox is happy to fill in the picture of a sister who seemed nothing like him and everything like him.
The wild party girl, but also the clever one, the responsible one, those parts overlooked—along with her kindness and caring—by those who only saw the wilder bits.
Like Maddox’s heart—and brains—are missed by those who see only a sullen loner.
As for Jenna’s death, he tells me what he’s found and promises to send the encrypted files.
“Somehow, I thought just coming to Westdale would be enough,” he says as he plucks at a wildflower. “That someone on staff would see me and know I was her brother and they’d start acting weird, proving they knew more than they’d let on.”
“Hasn’t happened?”
A snort. “Nope. Seems detective work takes actual detective work. I have done some. So has Theo. But you’re probably going to laugh when you see how little we got.”
“Never.” I glance over. “Any clues?”
“Not a single one. We got hold of the pass, and it looks like Jenna’s signature. Theo chatted up the guards, but the guy who was on duty that night is gone. Nothing suspicious. Like your dad, he was just here for college money, and he got it and went to school overseas.”
“Anything you checked out is something I don’t need to.”
I rest my chin on my folded hands as I watch a heron fishing. Maddox leans my way, head touching mine as he tells me about the wildlife he’s seen here, and we talk about that, conversation languid, flowing easy and slow as the brook that feeds into the pond.
After a bit of that, I tell him everything Cecilia said about Annette, and we talk it through.
Is it significant that Annette was driving Mom’s car?
Is Cecilia right to shut down our speculation over my dad and Annette? I think her reaction seemed genuine.
I also tell Maddox how Cecilia reacted to me thinking the administration had covered up murder, and he agrees with Cecilia. What I suspect Westdale of—forging a pass in Jenna’s case, firing a guard in Annette’s—can be explained as Westdale covering its ass…from security slipups, not murder.
With the murders being fifteen years apart, if one person is responsible for both, the staff would be the obvious suspects. The second possibility would be an outsider who kidnapped the girls, killed them off-site, and staged the deaths as accidents.
I’ll compile a list of staff who were here that long, but I’m also aware that even if one of these deaths was murder, it doesn’t mean they both were. Or that they’re even connected.
What if another student was driving that car with Annette?
What if another student talked Jenna into injecting heroin at the party?
That would make the person culpable, but it’s not cold-blooded murder.
Could Annette or Jenna have been murdered by a student? Not a car accident. Not a consensual drug injection?
“Annette was running for Optima,” I say. “But not Jenna, right?”
“Definitely not. She had zero interest. Like me.”
I’m quiet, both of us idly playing with a blade of grass, flicking it back and forth. “You were never interested?”
“Nope.”
“Theo says you’d have been stiff competition.”
“I have no idea what I want to do with my life, Lili. I mess around with writing, but I don’t see a future in it. I’m good at coding, but I’m really not interested in that, however hard my mom pushes. She wanted me to run for Optima. That was her big dream—that I’d join her there.”
“Did she push Jenna?”
He snorts, and it’s derisive, but there’s pain and anger in it. “Our mother wrote Jenna off years ago.”
He locks my forefinger with his, tugging at it, playful but also taking a moment before saying more.
“I don’t think I’m any smarter than Jenna.
I just applied myself more. Way back in middle school, when I brought home straight A’s while Jenna got B’s and a few C’s, Mom made her choice.
Even when Jenna later got the grades to attend Westdale, nothing changed. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Jenna didn’t care. The way her brain worked…
” He tilts his head. “It was actually more like Mom’s than mine is, which is ironic.
I can code. Logical reasoning comes easy to me.
But I prefer literature, history, writing.
Jenna only liked coding. She was brilliant at it.
She didn’t need Mom’s support. Or the Optimas.
She’d have gone into tech and made her own fortune. ”
We sit quietly, playing little hand games, physically connecting and reconnecting as our minds wander down dark paths.
“So no,” he says, finally. “No one murdered Jenna to clear the way to Optima. Have you looked into who eventually won it your mom’s year?”
“A financial whiz. I talked to him briefly in the video chat with the Optimas.”
“Likelihood of him being a killer?”
I laugh softly. “Having never met a killer, I have no idea. He was very soft-spoken. Really just popped off mute to say that he remembered my parents and was sad to hear of their passing. He talked about both of them. Not much, but it felt genuine. I’ll still ask Cecilia if there could be any link between him and Annette. ”
“Like a way for him to get Annette into the car.” He pauses. “Did your mom know Annette borrowed it that night?”
“According to Cecilia, no, but all their friends knew where the keys were kept and were welcome to it.”
More silence, Maddox entwining his fingers with mine.
“There’s something else,” I say. “Something unconnected but weird. About Westdale.”
“Shit. Did you find those skulls piled up in the basement? I thought I got rid of those.”
When I glance over, he says, “That’s a joke, Chamberlain. Obviously, I hope.”
“Well, actually, it is something I found in the basement the night Jayden locked me in. A secret room.”
His brows jump up. “And you didn’t say anything? What about me suggests I’m not the guy you’d tell about a secret room?”
I lower my voice to imitate him. “Uh, yeah, Chamberlain. It’s a big house. It has unused rooms.”
“Unused is different from secret, and I trust you to know the difference. So spill.”
I tell him about the room. When I finish, he says, “Shit. That’s…Is it wrong to say that’s cool?”
I laugh under my breath. “Exactly my reaction. I kinda love the vibe. I don’t think I could convince Allegra to hold our meetings down there, though.”
“Yeah, that ain’t happening. But I need to see it. Tonight?”
I smile. “Tonight.”
—
We’ve decided not to take Theo with us. I agonize over that, maybe more than I should.
I’m navigating territory that seems to come so easily to the guys.
Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up in a culture where girls are taught to be very careful not to make their boyfriends jealous.
I’ve had friends who’d lie about talking to another guy.
If I’m dating two boys, I feel as if I need to bend over backward to ensure they’re getting equal amounts of my attention and that neither ever feels left out.
But that’s not solely my responsibility.
I need to trust that if there’s a problem, they’ll let me know.
And I do trust that if Maddox wants us to explore the basement, he’s not shutting Theo out.
The truth is that Theo isn’t going to get excited about a secret room.
And, as Maddox knows from growing up together, Theo hates basements—they have spiders.