CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hannah hated this place.
She’d agreed to help Finn’s friend, but that didn’t mean she had to like being here. The Omega Sigma fraternity house, a massive, antiseptic-looking three-story complex that took up nearly half a block, reeked of stale beer even before she walked in the door.
She glanced over at Finn to see how he was doing. He was sweating and breathing hard. That wasn’t a surprise, considering that the frat house was a half mile walk from the campus apartments, over sometimes hilly paths. He really looked to be struggling, leaning heavily on his cane.
“Give me a minute,” she said, not wanting to embarrass him. “I think I have a pebble in my shoe.”
She took her time removing her sneaker, pretending to find a small rock, and then replacing the shoe and re-lacing it. By the time she stood up again, he seemed to have found his second wind.
Some small part of her wondered why she was even offering him such grace. Even if he didn’t want to, he was kowtowing to his parents’ demands. And only when one of his frat buddies needed help was he willing to cross the line. She swallowed hard, hoping to gulp down her resentment.
“Okay, I’m ready now,” she told him.
Finn nodded, wiping the sweat from his brow as he opened the door.
Hannah noted that her initial impression upon seeing the house last fall still held a year later.
It looked like it might have once been quite a nice place to live.
But it was in rough shape now, with paint peeling off walls that had dents in them and a stairwell that was missing so many balusters that she was worried it might topple over at any moment.
When they stepped inside, it took Hannah a second to regroup. The stench of beer was so pronounced that her eyes started to water a bit. The huge main room looked like it had been hit by a tornado.
One of the four couches was turned on its side. A kiddie pool sitting in the corner was likely responsible, at least in part, for the smell. It was half filled with what appeared to be beer. There were more cans and Solo cups strewn on the floor than she could possibly count.
A half dozen fraternity members sat on the remaining upright couches, watching a football game. She glanced at the screen and saw that the score was close. But the guys looked too hung over to get excited about it.
“We had a party last night,” Finn said.
"I would hope so," Hannah said, "because if this is what it's like on a normal Sunday evening, I weep for all of you. Did you have fun?"
“I didn’t come,” he admitted. “It felt a little ambitious for me at this point. I didn’t want to slip on a slick floor and break a leg before classes even start.”
“Smart move,” she said, taking another step inside. It required a bit of extra effort, as the sticky floor clung to the bottom of her shoe and made an unpleasant squelching sound as it peeled away. “Maybe you would have been fine. The surface is pretty grippy.”
“I doubt it was like that last night,” Finn said. “Shall we go up? I texted Jennings so he’s expecting us.”
“He’s not coming down to greet his guest?” Hannah asked, feigning offense. “What kind of host is he?”
“Hannah, I know you’re not a fan of fraternity life but I’m hoping you can rein in the vitriol just a little when we talk to him. For me?”
“I’ll do the best I can,” she said, following him toward the stairs. The last time she was here, it was to help the basketball player, Reggie. But something told her that Jennings Casterly wasn’t going to end up being the pleasant surprise that his brother was.
They moved slowly up the stairwell, as Finn took periodic pauses to rest. By the time they reached Casterly's door, halfway down the second-floor hallway, it had been a full five minutes. Finn allowed himself another thirty seconds to catch his breath before knocking.
“Who is it?” someone shouted from inside before the door opened and they were face to face with Jennings Casterly. “Just kidding. I knew who it was, although you took your sweet time.”
Hannah gave the guy a once-over. She acknowledged that he was good-looking in a cookie-cutter way.
His brown hair was cut short but was somehow still messy.
His grin was wide, but with a nastiness to it that she couldn't quite define.
He clearly liked to work out, with a barrel chest and muscled, veiny arms. He was dressed in athletic shorts and a gray Omega Sigma t-shirt.
“Jennings, this is Hannah Dorsey,” Finn said. “Hannah, meet Jennings Casterly.”
“Nice to meet you,” Casterly said, extending his hand. “I have to say, you’re hotter than I expected for the collegiate Nancy Drew.”
Hannah dropped the hand she’d started to lift in greeting. She was tempted to just turn around and walk back down the stairs without a word. But that would reflect poorly on Finn and he was having a rough enough go of it already. So she fixed her gaze on Casterly.
“So, let’s get a few things straight,” she said evenly. “My understanding is that you specifically asked for my help because you wanted to keep this low profile and not involve the authorities. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” Casterly said, his hand still hanging in the air.
“Then you need to dial back the asshole factor. Finn put himself on the line coming to me. And I don’t know you or care about you.
I’m happy to go back to my apartment and throw on a movie.
In fact, I prefer it. So if you want me to stick around, cut out the Big Man on Campus B.S.
and the sexist, backhanded compliments. Can you do that? ”
“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hands as if in surrender, just as Hannah had done with Finn this morning at his apartment. “I didn’t know you were going to be so sensitive.”
“I’m not sensitive, you silver-spooned jerk. I just have self-esteem. And I’m not going to take any crap from anyone, much less some ‘roided-out wannabe master of the universe. Do we understand each other?”
Casterly looked slightly taken aback before recovering. “I like her,” he said to Finn before stepping aside. “Please come in.”
As he closed the door behind them, Hannah took stock of the room.
It was a double, though his roommate wasn’t around.
The walls had the standard frat guy posters, a mix of athletes and models in bikinis.
She supposed that it could have been worse.
There was a mini-bar set up in the corner of the room.
Hannah noted that it was stocked with top shelf stuff, including a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue scotch and Beluga Gold Line Vodka.
“Did you want something?” Casterly asked, seeing her eye the bottles.
She ignored the question, taking a seat on the bed that was actually made.
“Show me the note you got,” she instructed.
Casterly moved over to his desk and opened the top drawer.
He pulled out a sheet of paper with a short paragraph typed on it: Your days of treating people like serfs in your kingdom are numbered.
You are a boil on the flesh of humanity.
You deserve to be lanced. And you will be.
Hope you have eyes in the back of your head.
“Pretty well written,” she noted wryly. “Quite vivid.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for you to grade it,” Casterly said, showing irritation for the first time. “I want to know who sent this thing.”
“Careful,” Hannah said, pointing a finger at him. “Remember what I said about the asshole factor? It’s making another appearance and I don’t like it.”
“Sorry,” he said, almost sincerely. “It’s just—this is pretty messed up. I don’t have any idea who wrote this or why. I don’t know what I did to piss them off. It’s freaking me out a little.”
“I can see why,” Hannah acknowledged. “But if you want my help, then you have to answer my questions honestly, even if they make you look bad, okay?”
Casterly nodded, though he seemed hesitant about it.
“First of all,” she said. “How did you get this?”
“Someone slid it under the front door of the house,” he said. “It was in an envelope that said ‘Casterly: Urgent.’ I was told that one of the brothers found it and brought it up to me this morning.”
“When exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” Casterly said. “All I know is that it was this morning. When I woke up at 11, it was resting against the door.”
Finn raised his hand as if he needed permission to speak. Hannah nodded at him.
“I checked around after Jennings mentioned the note,” he said. “Kevin Stone found it. He thought it was around 9 A.M., although he wasn’t positive.”
“That’s helpful,” Hannah noted. “So we can assume it was left here sometime between the end of the party and 9-ish this morning. When did this rager last night finally peter out?”
“I don’t know,” Jennings said. “I came up to crash around three, I think. Things were starting to wind down but it could have been another hour or more before everyone got kicked out.”
“Okay,” Hannah said, “before we get into who might have left the note, maybe we can resolve this right off the bat. Do you guys have any security cameras in the front of the house?”
“We did,” Jennings said, “but some guys got drunk earlier this week and threw baseballs at it. It got knocked down. We’re waiting for a new one.”
“Some guys?” Finn said, his eyebrows raised.
“I might have been one of those guys,” Casterly said, looking mildly sheepish.
“Too bad,” Hannah said, trying not to sound scolding. “This thing might have been solved by now if not for that. Let’s move on. Did you piss anyone off at the party?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because the note showed up right afterward,” she said, “which suggests there might be a connection.”
“But we just got back to school,” Casterly said. “Maybe it was someone who was holding a grudge all summer over something from last school year.”
“Maybe,” Hannah conceded, “but let’s eliminate the most obvious option first, then work our way backward. So who did you alienate last night?”
Jennings sat down on the other, messier bed, his shoulders slumped.
“I honestly don’t know. I did some pre-partying in here and by the time people showed up around nine, I was already pretty wasted.”
“But you admit that it’s possible that you said or did something to upset someone?” Hannah confirmed.
“It’s possible,” he said.
“Probable,” Finn corrected.
Hannah re-adjusted herself on the bed, closing her eyes as she tried to think of another way to get answers.
Under normal circumstances, if someone was so distraught over something he said or did in public, it should have been noticeable to other people there at the time.
But at a party in a fraternity house, with the crowds and the noise, some offense might be completely missed, assuming anyone cared to notice.
What she needed was someone—or something—with a clear-eyed view of the party. She opened her eyes.
“You said the exterior camera was destroyed. Are there any interior ones?”
Casterly brightened.
“Actually yeah,” he said. “We have a couple. One behind the bar in the corner of the living room and one above the front door, facing inside. Technically they’re for legal protection.”
“What does that mean?” Hannah asked.
Finn took that one.
“A couple of years ago, a brother leapt down from the landing to the first floor and broke his leg. His parents sued the fraternity, saying it was unsafe and that he slipped. They settled but after that, the cameras were added so that if anyone sued again, we’d have proof if they did something stupid. ”
Now they were getting somewhere. She was about to pursue it further when Casterly snickered.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
She wasn’t having it. “I’m assuming it has something with your use of the word ‘technically’ earlier?”
“You are pretty sharp,” he said. “We tell new members that’s what the cameras are for, and officially that’s true. But there are added benefits.”
“Go on,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.
“Well, at a lot of these parties, girls will get pretty wild, dancing on tables and stuff. Maybe they get water sprayed on their tops. Maybe some of them take off those tops. Maybe guys like to go back and watch that footage for fun.”
Hannah fought the urge to vomit. Instead she glanced over at Finn, who was red-faced with embarrassment. She held off on what she really wanted to say, trying to stay focused.
“How can I access that footage?” she asked.
“Why?” Casterly asked snarkily, “so you can catch an eyeful?”
“I swear to god,” she said, standing up, her restraint quickly dissipating. “I’m on the verge of taking you out myself. Now if you want my help, stop being so gross and tell me where this footage is.”
Casterly’s grin faded. “The house manager has it. But maybe I can just watch it myself and look for something suspicious.”
“No offense,” she said, “but you don’t strike me as the type to pick up on subtle body language.
If the person who wrote that note was here last night, my guess is that they kept how they felt under wraps in public, worried that calling you out might just make things worse.
This is where you have to trust that I know what I’m doing.
I’m good at noticing this stuff. Give me the tools to do it. ”
Casterly squirmed on the bed before responding.
“Okay,” he finally said. “But the house manager has to get approval from the chapter president to give it to a non-brother. The rules are really strict on that, which means I have to convince him. Doing that while keeping things on the down low will be a little tricky. I can get it for you, but it will probably take until tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Hannah said, happy to have an excuse to get out of here and starting for the door. “Let Finn know when you have it for me.”
Finn got up and shuffled after her as she opened the door. Then she had a thought and turned back around.
“And Casterly?”
“Yeah,” he said with a hopeful smile, apparently under the misimpression that she was going to soften.
“I don’t know how serious this is, but until I see that footage, I recommend you stay inside the house, maybe even inside your room.”
“Why?”
She did her best not to roll her eyes when she answered.
“Because if someone really does want to hurt you, it’ll be a lot easier out there than in here.”
She managed to keep a straight face as she saw the color drain from his face. She and Finn were heading back down the hallway when Finn muttered under his breath.
“Were you for real about him being in danger outside the house or were you just screwing with him?”
Hannah paused and turned to him without smiling.
“Finn, my dear boy, two things can be true at once.”