22
“How many days’ worth of clothes should I grab?” I asked Lev as we piled clothes into her bag.
“I don’t know. How long is he planning to keep her there for? It can’t be that long. Fuck, man, people will start noticing,” Lev said flatly as he walked into the bathroom and dislodged the loose panel where we hid the dead rat and checked it.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Sickle seems pissed that she called the cops on him, but what did he expect, though?” Lev said as he walked back into the bedroom, holding a bottle of shampoo, and opened the lid to smell it. “What’s conditioner for?”
“Hair softener or something,” I replied, unsure, but I noticed chicks used conditioner, whereas I didn’t know a single man who admittedly used that shit on their hair, so it must be a beauty thing.
“Should I grab that as well?” he asked, stepping back into the bathroom as my hand knocked on something interesting in her luggage bag.
I shrugged, “I guess, and soap and deodorant,” I said as my hand brushed against a strange surface inside the bag. Pulled back the black lining and pushed my fingers on the panel, and came loose. “Look at this.”
Lev peered inside the bag as I removed the panel and found it empty. “For the gun and knife?” Lev assumed, and I was about to replace it when he grabbed something and held it in his fist. “A note.”
He unraveled it and read it aloud.
“I want to surprise Leslie for her birthday. Can you find old school photos of her while you’re there, take pictures with your phone, and save them for when you come home? Also, look for other information you might find about her. Please keep this a secret. Thank you.”
“Shifty as fuck,” I spewed, suspiciously. “Why the fuck would he need to write a note and leave it in a secret compartment in her luggage? Why not call or message her?”
“Because he didn’t want Leslie to find out?” Lev supposed.
“Does she check his phone or something?” I stated. “You've got to admit, this is weird.”
“Yeah, it is.” Lev reread the letter, cherry picking a line, “Find old school photos of Leslie and…look for other information you might find about her. Please keep this a secret.”
“Like what?” I pressed. “Please keep it a secret? I don’t think Adina was that fond of Leslie. I doubt that she would want to look for anything about her evil stepmother. So it must be a codeword for something?”
“Or…he wanted her to find some dirt on Leslie?” Lev said as I zipped up the bag and pulled it off the bed. “I bumped into her in the library when she was searching through old class photos one time, and I think she was struggling to find anything.”
“That’s what it looks like to me. Bro, find some dirt on Leslie the stepmother, because I’m betting that Maxwell Boleyn had his suspicions about her,” I said.
I swung the door open, eager to get back to the basement to see Adina, when I stalled at someone standing in front of me.
“Ezrah Warwick, just the man I wanted to see,” he said, almost comically. “How about we have that meeting right now?”
“I can’t, I’m expected somewhere,” I told him as he looked past me to Lev standing in Adina’s room.
“Well, I’ll walk with you,” he offered as we stepped out into the hall and Lev shut the door, then checked that it was locked. “Where are you heading?”
“To the Lud,” I mumbled.
“Great, I'll go with you,” he said in an overly cheery tone that told me he wasn’t concerned about me being a Warwick and the Warwick name wasn’t going to stop him from pursuing his objective.
That was the armor that stopped our father from being arrested, and the fact that the police were afraid of him and he had plenty of dirt on the police commissioner and his lackeys to screw them over.
But somehow, they managed to silence him when my father hired a contract killer to eliminate Maxwell Boleyn, and Maxwell found out about it.
It was the wake-up call our family needed.
We weren’t as invincible and impenetrable as we once thought, but we still had some sway with lowly police officers.
As we walked down the hall toward the stairs, Lev closed Adina’s door, checked that it was locked, and Det. Magone pointed his thumb behind him and casually stated, “That’s Adina Boleyn’s room, isn’t it?”
I hesitated to concoct a lie. “No, it’s Lev’s room,” I glanced back at Lev and said, “you can take your bag,” when Magone glanced down at the luggage bag I was dragging behind me.
Lev took the bag and backed off as I walked down the stairs. Magone stuck to me like glue, chatting in a friendly way as if we were great buddies. He was an expert at putting his target at ease so they’d drop their guard, allowing him to go in for the kill and siphon information from them.
“Here’s me thinking that Lev Ashthorn’s room was next door to it,” he stated smugly, dropping a hint that he was on to us. Fuck.
We lost Lev, who was still upstairs, as we trotted downstairs just as the cello player, Mila, was coming upstairs. “Oh my god,” she gasped, looking at Magone, whom everyone had become very familiar with. “Is Adina here? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said dryly as Magone flicked me a sharp look before addressing me, “Where is she?” he asked.
I exhaled, unsure what to say. If I lie, I’m screwed.
If I tell the truth, I’m screwed. What the fuck do I say?
“She’s staying with us at the Lud for a while,” I assured her, realizing that there was no way out of this situation.
Magone probably knew that campus police turned up at our frat house searching for Adina. “She hurt her ankle and can’t walk.”
“Are you serious?” she exclaimed in disbelief. “I’ve been trying to get hold of her for the last two days. Her phone is turned off. What the hell is going on? Where is she?”
“Talk to Lev,” I advised her, pointing upstairs so she’d leave me alone. “He’s up there.”
She screwed her face up as if Lev was the last person in the world she wanted to talk to, but rushed past us to seek him out.
We came to the common room, which was empty because the entire hall had only three students living in it, and he paused and said, “How about we have a chat in here, shall we? It’s quiet, and there’s no one about; we may as well get our interview over and done with. ”
“Fine,” I shrugged as he guided me inside and then shut the door behind him. There were two couches facing each other with a coffee table between and a large TV mounted on the wall. I took one couch while I sat on the other and placed his phone on the coffee table to record us.
“Right,” he began, rubbing his hands together, but I interrupted with, “Will this be private?”
“If anyone listens in at the door, I’ll tell them to leave,” he strongly clarified, slightly impatient as if he thought I was deliberately wasting time.
He flicked on his phone to record the conversation, then said the time and date and who he was interviewing.
“Remind me which carriage you were seated in on the first train ride to Castlehill?”
I exhaled to cool my mood before I spoke. He knew exactly which carriage I was on because he had a copy of the seating arrangements, so this was him trying to get a feel of my tone. “C,” I replied coolly.
“Did you leave your carriage at any point in the journey?”
“Yes.”
“Can you elaborate on where you went?” he pressed.
“To the cafeteria and the bathroom,” I answered.
“Did you at any point in the journey go into carriage D?” he asked.
I shrugged, “Yeah, maybe. I mean, I didn’t take much notice of where I went.”
“Do you know Theo Abbott?” he asked, then plunged his hand into his jacket pocket and drew out a folded piece of paper, unfolded it, and then placed the printed photograph of a nerdy-looking dude with scruffy hair on the coffee table. He tapped his finger on the photograph to grab my attention.
I shook my head, “No.”
“There were witnesses who saw you talking to him on both carriages C and D,” he asserted, and my heart sank, wondering if it was Adina who squealed. I didn't think she was that stupid, but we kept a tight rein on her to ensure she kept her mouth shut.
“Okay,” I breathed as my head spun and my chest tightened in stress.
A few beats of silence as I could feel him scrutinizing my body language. “Look again at the photograph. Do you know Theo Abbott?”
“No,” I replied.
“Did you speak to Theo Abbott on the train?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “but I don’t know him. I mean, that was the first time I’d ever seen the guy.”
“What did you talk to him about?” he pressed, and at that point, I decided to be upfront and endure the consequences.
“We found him messing around on our carriage, trying to record a conversation between us and taking pics and shit, so I had a quiet chat with him,” I confessed.
“Record a conversation between who exactly?” he asked.
I swallowed over a lump in my throat, “Between us boys. Like there was me, Lev, Nicolae, Conrad, Robbie, Cole-.”
“Conrad? Is that Conrad Milton?” he asked for clarification.
“Yeah, why?” I asked him, but he was the one calling the shots, so he had no intention of dropping a hint.
“And what did you say to Theo Abbott when you approached him?” he asked.
“I just basically said stay away from us.” I played down my threats towards the guy.
I actually threatened to beat the living shit out of him because he was recording our personal conversations, and I thought he deserved to have the shit kicked out of him.
But I had no intention of telling Magone that.
As far as I was aware, Adina Boleyn was the only witness who saw me threaten him.
“Did you see Conrad Milton speak to Theo Abbott as well?” Huh, this was a question that came out of left field.
“No,” I replied, frowning.
“Conrad Milton is your roommate at the Lud frat house, is he not?” he asked, already knowing my answer as my nerves prickled along the back of my neck. Was it Conrad who snitched on me?
“Yes,” I replied as nerves twisted in my stomach.
“And he’s also a teammate of your brother’s?” he pressed, and I wondered where this line of questioning was going.
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen Conrad Milton speaking to a Melrose Governor?” he inquired.
“What the fuck? Ah, Governor? Wait. As in Nicolae’s coach?” My head was spinning like a hamster in a wheel. This definitely was not the direction I expected his questions to go.
“His daughter. The coach’s daughter?” he asked.
“Not that I noticed.”
“So, you’ve never seen Melrose come over to your frat house?” he persisted, and internally, I was freaking out about the gun we stole from Adina. Fuck, what a mess. This detective had a shitload of dirt on us, and all it took was a couple of good witnesses to lie or exaggerate, and we were screwed.
“I mean, she’s come over a couple of times, but lots of chicks have. We have parties now and again, and it’s like an open-door policy, you know. We don’t take much notice of who comes and goes,” I tried to explain, but the look on his face seemed dissatisfied with my reply.
“I understand,” he said, then reached for the photograph of Theo Abbott and began folding it back up again and slid it in his pocket. He then leaned forward, announced the interview had ended, and swiped off his phone.
“Wait. Are you done?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yes, we’re done,” he assured me and stood to leave as I stayed sitting on the couch, flabbergasted by the abrupt end and the strange direction the line of questioning went.
As he opened the door, he looked back and said, “We may need to speak to you in the future once we’ve made an arrest.”
“Arrest? So, you know who killed him?” I pressed, wondering if he was creating a false flag, so I relaxed, and then he’d arrest me. I bet these fuckers have been dying to imprison Nicolae and me since they arrived here. Chuck us in with our father to keep us out of the way, that’s what they want.
“Have a great day, Mr. Warwick,” was all he said, and then he was gone, and I was left hanging.