Chapter Thirty
THIRTY
Monday proceeds as normally as it can. There isn’t any official announcement that Theo is no longer in the running for Optima. That’s good, because he doesn’t want to deal with that. But it’s also odd that it happens in silence.
Maddox joins us for breakfast, at least briefly. Then we’re off to our first class. We’ve agreed that at break I’ll slip into the library to work on the case. Theo delivers my mocha.
I’m zeroing in on Annette’s death. I have a theory here. Someone didn’t want Annette as an Optima, but she was clearly the front-runner up until the accident. At some point after that, it seems my mother became front-runner.
I’ve realized that my mother’s Dux journal must end before Annette’s death. Without clear dates, I lacked the clues to place it temporally. But if Annette died and my mom was still Dux for another month, why is none of that here?
Did someone remove entries? If they did, then I suspect they’ve been destroyed.
By the next Lilith Dux? Or by whoever was responsible for Annette’s death?
Without those entries I can only speculate on what happened after Annette died. On why the Optimas seem convinced that my mother had been running for Optima.
Theo was forced out of the running.
Could my mother have been forced into it?
Could that have been why she left? She was forced to run for Optima, couldn’t face the possibility of being trapped in that life, and fled with my dad?
How would someone have forced Mom to run?
If they had something to hold over her. Annette died in Mom’s car.
Cecilia said she was sure Mom hadn’t gone out that night.
Could Dad have been driving, taking Annette to see this guy she met online, watching out for her?
The price for protecting him was that Mom would enter the competition and truly take over as my grandparents’ heir, living a corporate life she never wanted?
Or maybe Cecilia was driving. Then Mom would be protecting her best friend.
Cecilia…
I think of the hospital, when Theo thought he’d spotted her.
But that doesn’t make sense. Even if Cecilia was driving Mom’s car that night—which I can’t imagine—there’d be no reason for her to follow me to the hospital to see Isolde.
What I pore over, both during morning break and then at lunch, are the police reports. I shudder to think what might happen if anyone realizes Cecilia sent them, and I’m so grateful that she trusted me with them.
I found an inconsistency while rereading the reports during morning break, and it’s at lunch that I track that inconsistency to its conclusion.
I’m eating with Maddox for once, sitting outside, and I really wish I could enjoy this opportunity to spend time with him during a school day, but he knows I need to pursue this and lets me as I work on my laptop, while he quietly eats.
Finally, I take a deep breath. He arches one brow. He won’t push for details until I’m ready, which is why he’s the one with me right now. Theo would push.
“I have something,” I say.
“Okay.”
“According to the report, an officer named Stan Lewiston was first on the scene at Annette’s accident, but there’s no report from him.
He’s literally only mentioned once. Even if he didn’t need to file his own report, he made all the initial observations, and yet they’re attributed to someone else. ”
Maddox frowns. “That doesn’t seem right.”
“Six months later, Mr. Lewiston left the force.”
“Huh.”
“He wasn’t fired. It’s made very clear that he left of his own accord because he started a local security firm. Now, maybe he just realized police work wasn’t for him and went into the private sector, but…”
“You said he’s local?”
I nod. “He lives about ten miles away. The problem is getting to him. I’ve got my car, but I can’t drive it without a pass.”
“You do realize we’re not in an armed camp, right, Chamberlain? Sure, it can feel like it, but”—he waves at the fields and forest beyond—“it’s a five-minute walk and a call to Uber.”
I glance over. “Will you come with me?”
“I am going with you. I just wasn’t saying that, because apparently that’s wrong or something. You and I are taking a field trip during study hours.”
—
Okay, so after two months at Westdale, I discover that getting off campus is ridiculously easy. Like Maddox said, you basically just walk to another road and call a ride-share. Of course, we have to be careful, ducking guards and avoiding cameras.
Stan Lewiston runs his own business, which means he probably isn’t home until after six, but we need to go during study hours—before dinner.
My research indicates that Mr. Lewiston’s business is successful, and it suggests he’s no longer actually doing security work himself.
So I take a chance that we’ll find him in his office.
We discuss it with Theo before we go. Since we’re leaving the property, I really should be with both of them, for safety. But if our theory is right, then I’m not at risk. I’m the patsy—the Chamberlain they want in the Optimas.
We arrive just before five, as Mr. Lewiston’s receptionist is preparing to leave. She won’t tell us whether he’s in or out and she’s reluctant to even take a message without our names and ID. It is a security firm, after all.
Then a door opens, as if someone heard our discussion. Out walks a guy in his forties, with dark brown skin, close-cropped curls, and shoulders nearly as wide as the doorframe.
He sees me, and he stops short, blinking. His gaze goes to Maddox. Back to me.
“These young people want to see you, Mr. Lewiston,” the receptionist says, “but they aren’t telling me why. Or giving me names.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Come in, guys.”
“But, sir—”
“It’s fine, Em. Go on home. I’ve got this.”
He waves us to his office. As he closes the door behind Maddox, his gaze returns to me. Then he shakes his head. “Sorry for staring, miss. But this is feeling a lot like déjà vu.”
“I remind you of someone?” I guess.
He gives a low chuckle. “Someone who also showed up on my doorstep. My home doorstep, though. Along with a different young fellow.”
“Was this about eighteen years ago?” I ask.
He lowers himself into a seat behind his wood desk. “It was. Don’t ask me her name, though. She didn’t give it. Just like you. I’m guessing she was a relative.”
“My mother.”
He pauses, assessing me. “Huh. All right, then. Now you’ve come to ask me about something?”
“The same thing she did, I bet.”
He goes very still and then nods slowly. “Go on.”
“You were the first officer on the scene of a fatal accident. A student at Westdale. Annette Donleavy.”
Mr. Lewiston exhales slowly. “Go on.”
“It was allegedly a single-vehicle accident, with Annette driving, no one else in the car. Was that your initial observation?”
“You sound like a lawyer.” His lips twitch in amusement.
“All right, then. Let’s do this. Yes, ma’am, it was a single-vehicle accident with the deceased in the driver’s seat.
She missed a stop sign at the end of a road, wrapped the car around a tree on the other side.
There was positively no one else in the car at the time of the accident—with the condition of the vehicle, no one could have left before I arrived.
Miss Donleavy was definitely driving. I apologize for any graphic details, but her seat belt failed and she went partway through the windshield before striking the tree.
No one could have placed her there, again given the condition of the vehicle. ”
“The seat belt failed? What about airbags?”
“It was a classic car. Didn’t have them.”
“And she missed the stop sign?”
“Seems so. No indication she even hit the brakes. While it was dark, it should have been clear that the road ended but…” He shrugs. “What do I know?”
I glance at Maddox, who’s just taking it all in, his gaze distant as he thinks.
“You were the first officer on the scene,” I say, “but another officer took charge.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Can you tell me more about that?”
He taps his fingers on the desktop. “Maybe you ought to ask your mother about this.”
“Because she came to you with the same questions?”
“She did.”
I pause. Then I say, “My mother died in November.”
He winces. “I’m sorry to hear that, miss.
She was full of questions and not afraid to ask them.
Now at the time, I was young and angry about the whole situation, said things I shouldn’t have said, especially not to a couple of kids.
Now I’m older, and I don’t give a damn what I say if I think it’s the right thing to do.
So you both caught me at the perfect time. ”
He glances at the door, as if making sure it’s shut. “I wasn’t supposed to be there. I happened on the scene while the engine was still warm. Pure coincidence. I figured no one had called it in, so I did, and I was told…”
He rubs his mouth. “That doesn’t matter. Point was that I was there first, and by the time I was told another officer would take over, I’d already seen the girl. I checked her and looked in the car for survivors.”
“When my mother talked to you, was she just confirming what you found? Single-car accident. Annette was driving. No passengers.”
“She said she’d heard someone else was driving and it was covered up.”
“And you told her she was wrong.”
Mr. Lewiston goes quiet. Then he sighs. “No, I admitted I’d heard a similar story, but it wasn’t true.”
“You heard someone else was driving?”
“And that’s exactly where your mom jumped on me, too.
I tried to clam up, but she kept pushing, and I finally admitted that I’d overheard something about another kid being spotted at the accident scene, before I got there.
Speculation was that this kid had been the actual driver.
I checked the official report, because if it said that, I was going to set them straight, say this witness was wrong.
I was there so soon after the crash that I’d have seen anyone moving her and fleeing, even if that was possible, which it wasn’t, with the condition of the car and the placement of her body. ”
“So you corrected the report?”
“Didn’t need to. There was nothing in it about a witness. It was strange. Miss Donleavy was obviously driving, and the report confirmed that, so what was this nonsense about a kid fleeing the scene? I asked, and I was told I’d misheard.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I did not.”
I glance at Maddox. This time, he’s fully alert and he leans forward. “Did you hear any details about this alleged other driver? What she looked like?”
“She?” Mr. Lewiston frowns. “No, it was a fellow. That was what I heard. That the girl who died was a student at Westdale, and the imaginary driver matched the description of a young man who worked there. A gardener.”
I rock back in my seat.
“Miss?” Mr. Lewiston says.
“You said my mom came with a guy. Another student?”
He nods. “I presume so. He was about her age. Quiet, like your friend here. White guy. Long hair. Mostly I just remember he was quiet. Oh, and his eyes. Really green…” He trails off, looking at me.
Then he gives a little laugh. “Oh. Well, I guess he wasn’t just a fellow student giving her a lift, was he? ”
“He was not.”
“Did he stick around? After you…? Well, they’d have been young…”
“He stuck around,” I say. “Always.”
Mr. Lewiston smiles. “I’m glad to hear it. They seemed like good kids.”
“They really were.”
—
“You figured it out,” Maddox says as we wait for our ride-share.
I nod. “Someone threatened my dad. They knew that was the way to get my mom to do what they wanted.”
Maddox grunts and moves closer, arm going around me. I lean into his heat, suddenly chilled.
“The accident was almost certainly murder,” I say.
“Mr. Lewiston said it would have been hard to miss that the road ended, even at night. The brakes and seat belt failed. Someone knew Annette would be out or…” I look over at him.
“She was meeting a guy she met online, presumably for the first time.”
“It was a setup,” he murmurs. “They lured her out.”
“And sabotaged my mom’s antique car.”
Maddox’s hand rubs my shoulder, and he stays quiet, letting me continue.
“Annette was driving,” I say. “No one else was there. This so-called witness was a setup. Tell my mom that my dad had been behind the wheel, but that his life shouldn’t be ruined for an accident, and if she does what they say, it’ll all go away.
Which it does, easily, because it’s all a lie.
Like making Isolde think Theo attacked her. ”
“Framing your dad. Framing Theo.”
I nod. “Not to actually have them charged—that requires evidence. Just to provide leverage. A way to convince my mom to run for Optima. A way to kick Theo out of the running. Framing students to manipulate the Optima competition.”
I look at Maddox. “That’s what the comments in the yearbook meant. The rumor leaked, and some students thought my dad had something to do with Annette’s death.”
“The Optimas told you that your mom was in the running for Optima because she was, briefly. Meanwhile, she was trying to figure out what happened, how your dad got blamed, and it led her to Stan Lewiston.”
“Where she figured out that Dad was never in any danger and it was all a setup. That’s when they decided to run.”