Brutal Wicked Bargain

Prologue

Ifound things out.

That was the simplest explanation for what I did, although the boys preferred creepy hacker shit and my mother preferred not knowing enough to become legally obligated to ask questions. Edgewood preferred cash. Usually a lot of it.

By the end of junior year I’d built a decent side business out of the fact that rich teenagers were nosy, impatient, vindictive, horny, and almost universally convinced privacy was something that happened to other people.

I found cheating boyfriends, deleted pictures, passwords, hidden accounts, family secrets.

Once, for three hundred dollars and courtside Celtics tickets, I proved somebody’s father had been lying about owning a yacht for four years. That one was still my favorite.

Preston Avery approached us during lunch on one of the last Fridays before summer break.

All five of us were at the table we always took near the windows — Kaiden at the head, because Kaiden would somehow sit at the head of a round table; Xander tipped back in his chair beside him; Danny eating something that looked like it had been assembled entirely out of protein and sadness; Iz stealing fries off everybody else’s trays; and me with my laptop open.

Preston stopped beside my chair. “Harrington.”

“Avery,” I said, not looking up.

“I need something.”

Iz reached across the table and stole one of my fries. “That’s how all his best relationships start.”

“Fuck off,” I told him.

“See? Chemistry already.”

Preston ignored him. “Can we talk?”

Kaiden glanced up from his phone. “You are.”

“Privately.”

Xander laughed. “No.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Preston said.

“You’re standing at our table,” Xander said. “Unfortunately, you’re talking to all of us.”

Danny finally looked up from his lunch. “Sit down or leave. You’re blocking the window.”

Preston’s jaw tightened, and I almost felt bad for him. Almost. He dragged the empty chair from the neighboring table over and sat at the end.

Iz leaned toward Kaiden. “He’s joining us. Should we vote?”

“No,” Kaiden said.

“Why?”

“Because he’d lose.”

Preston looked at me. “I want you to look into someone.”

That got my attention. I closed the spreadsheet I’d been working in and leaned back. “Who?”

“Ally O’Toole.”

The table went quieter. Not silent — just enough.

Everybody knew Ally. Edgewood wasn’t some enormous public school where you could go four years without learning the names of half your class.

Most of us had known each other since we were kids: same school, same town, same country clubs and political fundraisers and charity events our parents dragged us to.

The O’Tooles had owned the lake property beside my family’s for longer than I’d been alive.

That didn’t mean I knew Ally well. I knew of her. Quiet. Smart. Pretty. Red hair. Stayed out of everybody’s shit, which already made her one of the smarter people at Edgewood.

Iz popped another fry into his mouth. “Why?”

“Why what?” Preston said, annoyed.

“Why Ally?”

“I want to ask her out.”

Xander’s eyebrows rose. Danny stopped chewing. Kaiden slowly lowered his phone. I smiled, and it wasn’t a friendly one. “You need a background check before you ask a girl out?”

“I want to know if she’s seeing somebody.”

“Ask her,” Danny said.

“That’s helpful.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Kaiden leaned back. “What exactly are you asking Ryan to find?”

“If she has a boyfriend.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

Preston hesitated — and there it was. Xander noticed too. “Oh, this is gonna get worse.”

“I just want to know what her deal is,” Preston said.

Iz frowned. “Her deal?”

“Who she’s dated. Who she’s hooked up with. Shit like that.”

Kaiden’s expression went blank, which was usually when people should have stopped talking. Preston didn’t. “She’s always alone. Nobody seems to know anything about her.”

“Maybe she likes it that way,” Danny said.

Preston shrugged. “Or maybe she’s weird.”

Xander’s chair hit all four legs. “Careful.”

“What the fuck is this?” Preston looked around the table. “Since when do any of you care about Ally O’Toole?”

“We don’t have to care about her to know you’re being a cunt,” Xander said.

Iz nodded thoughtfully. “Beautifully put.”

“Poetic,” Danny agreed.

I watched Preston instead of joining in. “Five hundred.”

His attention snapped back to me. “For finding out if she has a boyfriend?”

“Seven now.”

“You just said five.”

“Then you kept talking.”

Iz grinned. Preston stared at me for a long moment, then gave in. “Fine. Seven.”

“Cash,” I said.

“Obviously.”

“And that’s all you’re buying.”

His eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

“I’ll tell you if she’s seeing somebody. That’s it.”

“What about the rest?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so.”

He laughed, which was the wrong move. “You’re seriously getting moral on me now?”

I leaned forward. “No. I’m getting expensive.”

Kaiden smirked. Preston shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. I mostly want to know if she’s available.”

“Then we’re done.”

He stood, and Iz called after him, “Have you considered becoming more attractive?”

Preston turned. “Go fuck yourself, Walsh.”

“I have your mom for that.”

Xander laughed. Preston walked away, and Danny waited until he was out of earshot before he looked at me. “You’re actually doing it?”

“I took the job.”

Kaiden looked toward the doors Preston had disappeared through. “Don’t give him anything he can use against her.”

“And if you find nudes, delete them,” Xander added, picking up his drink.

Iz looked offended. “Why are we assuming our sweet little Ryan would invade a lady’s privacy?” All four of us looked at him, and he smiled. “Right. Stupid question.”

I opened my laptop again. Kaiden nudged my shoe beneath the table. “Seriously.”

I looked at him. “I heard you.” That was enough.

The boyfriend question took forty-three minutes, and there wasn’t one — at least not one Ally had left any trace of.

No recurring number that didn’t belong to family.

No private account I could connect to her.

No suspicious location patterns, no tagged photographs with the same guy showing up over and over in the background.

She had Instagram, barely — a few pictures with Bella, one with Penny from sophomore year, Tobias more than anybody.

Books, sunsets, a picture of her shoes beside a lake, a birthday cake. Nothing useful.

I could’ve stopped there. Instead I kept looking — partly because Preston had paid me seven hundred dollars and I believed in providing quality service, and mostly because Ally’s lack of information bothered me.

Everybody had something. Especially people at Edgewood.

Money left trails, parents left trails, friends left trails for you.

Roman O’Toole left enough trails for six people.

I knew Roman. Not well. My father knew him better and had never liked him — Walter Harrington could spend three hours in a room with somebody he hated and stay perfectly civil, but Roman had always gotten the tight jaw and the clipped answers.

When I was thirteen I’d asked Dad why, and he’d said, Some men make you check whether your wallet is still there after they shake your hand.

That was about as close to gossip as my father got.

Roman’s name brought up exactly what I expected. Politics, businesses, donations, property. Photos from dinners and fundraisers. Articles full of words that said almost nothing.

Then I saw Ally.

She was standing beside Roman in a photograph from a charity gala the previous winter, and I would’ve scrolled right past it if I hadn’t noticed the man on her other side.

Victor Tremblay. I knew him too — everyone did.

Old money, political connections, mid-fifties, the kind of guy who belonged to every private club in Massachusetts and somehow turned up in photographs with governors from both parties.

His hand was on Ally’s waist. Not her shoulder. Not hovering politely at her back for a photo. His palm sat low against her waist, fingers curved around her side.

I zoomed in. Ally wore a dark green dress, and she wasn’t looking at the camera. She was looking at Tremblay’s hand.

I opened the next photograph. Same night: Roman and Tremblay talking, Ally standing between them, Tremblay looking at her instead of the photographer.

I went backward. Another event, Ally younger — sixteen, maybe — Tremblay standing behind her chair with one hand resting on the back of it, Roman’s wife seated on the far side of the table while Tremblay sat beside Ally instead of her parents.

Another. Christmas, his hand at her back again.

Another. Ally seated beside him at dinner.

I sat back. It wasn’t proof of anything.

It wasn’t even necessarily strange — our parents’ world was full of people touching shoulders and backs for photographs like they were all one giant happy family.

But once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing it.

Tremblay was always too close to Ally. And Ally never looked comfortable.

Not frightened, not angry — just gone. The same blank expression in every single photograph where he touched her.

I searched Tremblay. Then Roman and Tremblay together. Business connections, political connections, shared boards, a company registered in Delaware that led to another company that led nowhere useful. I spent another two hours on it before I closed everything, and I still didn’t know anything.

Only that I didn’t like what I’d seen.

Preston cornered me at my locker the next morning. “Well?”

I pulled out my calculus book. “No boyfriend.”

His grin came fast. “Seriously?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

“She’s never dated anyone?”

“I said no boyfriend.”

“Okay, but—“

I closed my locker. “Stay away from her.”

He laughed, then realized I wasn’t laughing with him. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“I paid you seven hundred dollars.”

“And I answered your question.”

“So give me the rest.”

“There is no rest.”

“Bullshit.”