Chapter 40
Violet
I stared at Julian, my mind refusing to process what he'd just told me.
“One of them,” I repeated numbly. “You're saying one of Cal’s friends killed her.”
We were in my room; Julian, Roman, and me. Julian had burst through my door five minutes ago, breathless and urgent, demanding Roman be brought up immediately, and a moment later, my world suddenly tilted on its axis again.
Now Julian stood by the window, his expression grim. Roman had taken the armchair opposite me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, looking as shell-shocked as I felt.
“The blood on your wall wasn't blood at all,” Julian said, his voice carefully controlled. “It was theatrical stage blood mixed with ferrous sulfate to make it smell realistic. Someone with access to theater supplies made it. Someone who really wanted to scare you.”
My hands were shaking. I clasped them together in my lap. “That doesn't mean—”
“Violet.” Julian crossed to me, crouching down so we were eye level. “Think about it. It’s got to be one of them.”
“Anyone from the theater could’ve taken that blood,” I said, but my voice sounded weak even to my own ears.
“No.” He shook his head. “It had to be someone you told about the investigation. Someone who knew every move you were making. Someone close enough to know when you were vulnerable.”
I stared into space, mind still refusing to process it. “It just… it doesn’t make sense,” I finally said. “It can’t be one of them.”
“I’m sorry, Violet,” Julian said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I know it’s hard to hear. But it has to be.”
Roman slowly shook his head. “I’m with Violet,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense. Calista’s friends absolutely loved her. I never would’ve suspected them in a million years.”
“It has to be someone else,” I added stubbornly, straightening my shoulders.
Julian sighed. “No one else from the theater knew about your investigation into Cal’s death. But you told Jeremiah, Dylan, Cherry, and Ginny about it,” he said. “And the person who’s been stalking you had to know all about it, didn’t they?”
My shoulders slumped. “Right,” I muttered.
“Whoever it is also knew about the time you sneaked into our initiation ritual,” Julian added.
“They sent you that message saying they saw you to scare you into stopping your investigation. That’s what they’ve been doing this whole time.
Pretending to help but secretly trying to make you stop.
Because if you dug deep enough, you’d eventually realize it wasn’t the Club, but actually them. ”
I let out a weary sigh, my chest tight. “I just can’t believe it. It’s like Roman just said; they all loved Cal. So why would one of them kill her?”
“I don’t know. All I know is one of them has been lying this whole time,” Julian replied, his jaw clenched. “Lying and pretending they didn’t secretly hate your sister.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I wiped them with my sleeve. “How are we supposed to figure out which one of them it is?” I asked, voice coming out in a choked whisper.
“I don’t know. But if I had to guess, Ginny would be my number one suspect,” Julian said, rubbing his jaw.
“Why?”
“Well, we know she’s the type of person who’d betray a friend,” he replied.
I lifted a palm. “That was different. She needed that money for her sister,” I said, vehemently shaking my head. “It doesn’t mean she would ever…”
I trailed off as a memory floated back in.
Roman’s brows lifted. “What is it?” he asked.
“I just remembered something,” I said in a small, tremulous voice. “When I told my friends about the stalker throwing blood on my bed, Ginny took me aside afterwards, and she asked if the police knew whether it was real or fake blood.”
Roman frowned. “She could’ve just been asking out of curiosity. It’s a valid question.”
“Or she could’ve been asking to see how close she was to being a suspect,” Julian said in a low voice. He slipped a hand in his pocket and pulled out a phone. When he handed it to me, I realized it was my phone. “Call her and ask.”
“Just like that?”
He nodded. “Yeah. But don’t make it sound like you know anything or suspect her of anything. Just act like it’s part of your investigation,” he said. “Whatever she has to say… it might help us figure out if she’s involved or not.”
I sucked in a long, deep breath to mentally fortify myself. Then I dialed Ginny’s number.
She answered on the fourth ring. “Violet? Is that you?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“Yeah, I got my phone back,” I said, affecting a sunny tone despite the dread pooling in my stomach. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, I’m just whispering because I’m in my sister’s hospital room, and she’s trying to sleep,” she replied. “Give me a second. I’ll go out into the hall.”
“Okay,” I replied, dropping my voice a little. “How’s your sister doing now?”
I heard footsteps, and then the sound of a door closing. “She’s doing really well,” Ginny replied. “The treatment is working. It leaves her pretty tired by the end of the day, but that’s normal.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah, it is. It’s such a relief.” I heard another brief shuffling sound, and then another door creaking. “Anyway, is everything okay with you? Did you leave the Dionysus estate?”
“No. They decided to let me have my phone back because they trust me now,” I said. “Anyway, I’m still looking into everything that happened to Cal, and I wanted to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember when that crazy stalker broke into my dorm and poured blood everywhere?”
“Ugh, yeah, that was horrible,” Ginny said, her voice full of sympathy. “Did the cops ever get back to you about it?”
“No. Apparently the evidence went missing, so the case stalled.”
“Wow, another coverup at BHU,” she said dryly. “What a shock.”
“I was just wondering… do you remember taking me aside and asking something about it? Whether or not the blood was fake?”
“Yeah, I remember.” She paused, letting out a short sigh. “I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the others, because I figured it might start some unnecessary drama. But I noticed something weird a few days before you told us what happened to you, and I thought it might be relevant.”
My heart skipped a beat. Julian and Roman were both watching me intently. “What was it?”
“Dylan came up with a zombie-themed prank for his channel, and I was helping him with the setup. He asked me to go and steal some stage blood from the theater supplies, because there’s usually a spare bucket or two lying around, and I knew for a fact that there definitely was, because we had some left over after a Sweeney Todd production we did last semester,” she said.
“But the weird thing is… when I got there, there was no blood. Both buckets were gone.”
“Shit,” I muttered, my stomach dropping.
“Anyway, when you said you weren’t sure if the blood in your dorm was real or not, I decided to drop it,” Ginny went on.
“Like I said a minute ago, I didn’t want to start any drama with the others when it might’ve been real blood after all, and the missing stage blood could’ve been caused by something else entirely.
I mean, people take stuff from the supply room all the time.
The university doesn’t care, as long as it’s not like…
industrial-sized amounts of stuff going missing. ”
“Right.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to keep my voice steady. “Anyway, that just randomly popped into my head, so I figured I’d ask about it. But I should let you get back to your sister now.”
“Okay. But before you go, are you sure you’re all right there?” Ginny asked, concern evident in her tone. “I know we’ve all asked that a hundred times, but… we worry. You know that.”
“I’m fine. Honestly.”
“Okay. Talk again soon?”
“Definitely.”
I ended the call and looked at Julian and Roman in turn. “What do you think?”
“I’m inclined to believe she’s telling the truth,” Roman replied, rubbing his jaw.
Julian nodded. “If she was the one who stole the stage blood from the theater and used it to scare you, I don’t think she’d bring it up like that. She’d probably never mention it at all.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “So I guess we can knock her off the list of suspects. At least for now.”
Roman sighed heavily and sank deeper into the armchair. “I really don’t know how we can even start to look for a motive,” he muttered, head shaking. “It’s like we’ve already said over and over. Cal’s friends all loved her.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back, mind whirling through the last couple of months. Everything I’d seen and heard. Everything I’d learned. Then I sat up straight again, brows rising. “Roman,” I said slowly. “I just thought of something.”
“Yeah?”
“You told me that you and Cal decided to hide your relationship from her friends… but why was that, exactly?” I asked. “I assumed it was because Valcourt men don’t have a good reputation. But was there another reason? And was there one friend in particular you guys were worried about telling?”
“It was mostly the Valcourt thing, because I know what people think about us. But it wasn’t the only thing,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “We were also kinda worried about Cherry’s reaction.”
My brows shot up. “Cherry? Why?”
“And why the hell didn’t you bring this up sooner?” Julian added, forehead creasing.
Roman lifted a palm. “It was no big deal. We just didn’t want to embarrass her,” he said. “See, the thing is, Cherry and I actually went on a date around four years ago. Way before I ever met Calista.”
“Yeah, she told me about that,” I murmured, frowning as her story floated back into my mind.
“I realized about halfway through the date that I wasn’t into her, so I blew her off afterward,” Roman said. “I didn’t ghost her or anything. Just sent a text saying something like: thanks for hanging out with me, but I didn’t feel a connection, best of luck. That kind of thing.”
My frown deepened. That wasn’t what Cherry had told me at all.