Chapter 33 Saturday, 13 June 2026 #3
Hannah nodded. ‘I can’t believe we were so wrong about Oliver. Then and now.’
Gemma shook her head. ‘Me either. That he’d turn out to be a killer?’
For a moment, both women sat in silence. Then Hannah cleared her throat. ‘It’s Mr Harris’s murder I can’t stop thinking about. When we had breakfast together at the gala, he was anxious. He kept glancing around, like he knew someone was watching. Like something bad might happen.’
‘Interesting. What did you and Paul talk about?’
‘I asked him about his relationship with Madison, then and now. I was talking to everyone who’d been in her circle, trying to figure out who’d killed her.
The word “relationship” made him visibly uncomfortable.
I thought, for a beat, that there had been something between them. An affair, when we were seniors.’
Gemma stiffened, and Hannah held up a hand.
‘It wasn’t that; I was off the mark. But I do think there was something going on between Madison and Mr Harris – something far from romantic.’
‘Such as?’ Gemma’s drink arrived, a tall, peachy cocktail, and she took a long swallow.
For a moment, Hannah nearly changed the subject.
Perhaps it was unfair to ambush Gemma with the past like this.
But as they’d been talking, a new theory had taken shape, and she had to follow it to the end.
This was Gemma’s last night in New York; she’d brought her suitcase with her.
This would be Hannah’s only chance before Gemma flew back to LA.
A moment ago, Gemma had called Mr Harris Paul. And when she’d brought up her suspicions about an affair between Mr Harris and Madison, Gemma had physically stiffened. Hannah was almost certain she was right.
She drew in a steadying breath. ‘For the past week, I’ve been going over everything I learned that night. I think it was Mr Harris in the photos with you, senior year. And I think Madison found out.’
Gemma stood, chair squealing against the bar floor. Fear flashed across her face.
In an instant, Hannah was on her feet. ‘Please stay.’ She had been too blunt, as always.
‘I think Madison used this information against him, after she bullied you out of school. I imagine she threatened to get him fired unless he wrote her a glowing recommendation that would get her into the writing programme at Columbia, where he had connections.’
For a moment, the two women stared at one another. Then, Gemma sighed and sank back into her chair. Hannah followed suit.
‘You’re not recording this, are you?’
‘Of course not.’ Hannah took out her phone, let Gemma inspect it.
‘Fine – but this stays between us.’
Hannah nodded.
Gemma took a breath. ‘Junior year, we’d gotten close.
I hated lunch on the courtyard, all those bitches and their endless rules, so I came by his classroom a lot.
He had a free period. Sometimes I’d just eat my lunch and read a book, but usually we’d talk.
By the end of the year, we were friends.
Real friends. I felt closer to Paul than I did to most anyone at Prescott. ’
Hannah smiled, encouraging her to go on.
‘Over the summer, things shifted. My parents were gone, as always, and Paul texted me, asking if I wanted to get a meal with him. We’d never seen each other outside school before.
We met at a quiet little bistro on the Upper West. It was sophisticated, and he was so cute.
He looked almost our age in casual clothes, not the suits he wore at Prescott.
’ Gemma paused to take a sip of her cocktail.
‘But he was a real adult, not some dumb high school boy. I was thoroughly charmed. Anyway, we began sleeping together. It never should have happened – I was seventeen, he was twenty-seven, and my teacher. He should have stopped it, but he didn’t. ’
Hannah reached across the table and touched Gemma lightly on her forearm. ‘You don’t need me to tell you this, but he was one hundred per cent in the wrong.’
Gemma nodded and dabbed at a bead of sweat on the outside of her glass.
Hannah cleared her throat. ‘If my theory is right, Madison got a hold of the photos somehow. She sent them to The Upper Edge.’
Gemma nodded, confirming Hannah’s suspicions.
‘I’d made prints. Real, physical prints to ensure they didn’t get spread around the internet.
The irony, right? It was the first day of senior year, the first day we’d need to keep things on the down-low at school.
He was nervous, but I wasn’t, not at all.
I was so na?ve. Anyway, I’d made the prints as a little reminder that sneaking around was worth it. That I was worth it.’
She grimaced and knocked back half her drink in one gulp.
‘They were in an envelope in my bag. I was going to give them to Paul on his break between classes. But they slipped out of my bag somehow, and Madison must have picked them up. Or she saw the envelope peeking out of the flap and helped herself. Knowing Madison, it was probably the latter. Either way, she snapped pictures of the prints and DM’d them straight to The Upper Edge. To Oliver, as it turned out.’
‘And everyone assumed it was Theo in the pics.’ Because Madison made sure of it.
‘Paul and I had been messing around, one night when my parents were away. I had a Prescott boy’s uniform at home; my friend Raffael transferred sophomore year, and he’d left it behind.
Anyway, I told Paul he could get away with passing for a Prescott boy, he looked so young.
Raffael’s pants were too short, but he put on the blazer and cufflinks, and we had a good laugh about it.
Then we started making out, and he got out his phone.
It was bad luck that you could see his outfit reflected in the mirror in some of the pics – and that he looked just enough like Theo for that rumour to take hold. ’
Her mouth dipped in an ugly scowl. ‘And then there was that other photo, do you remember? The Upper Edge spun it like I’d been going to meet Theo at the Concord Room, but really, I’d been headed to a little art house theatre around the corner, to meet Paul.
No one connected those dots either. If he’d been identified, I’m sure he would have been fired on the spot. ’
Hannah nodded slowly. Beneath the table, her foot tapped nervously against the hardwood floor. As Gemma talked, her theory was crystalising. She needed to keep the conversation going.
‘But instead, Madison used the rumours as leverage to drive a wedge between Theo and Elle. And you and Mr Harris…?’
‘He dropped me instantly, the day the photos leaked. He freaked the fuck out. Losing his mind that he’d lose his job.
It was all about him, what might happen, it was like I didn’t exist. I was such an idiot, though.
I still thought maybe, after it all blew over, we’d find our way back to one another.
So I kept his secret, didn’t tell anyone the truth. ’
Beneath the table, Hannah’s foot tapped faster. ‘I’m really sorry this happened to you… all of it.’
Gemma took a sip of her cocktail. ‘Thanks.’
Hannah’s thoughts whirred. Yes, Oliver had hated Madison DuPont.
So had Gemma, for that matter. But when she’d let herself get swept up in Elle’s certainty about Oliver, she’d squelched her own instincts about Paul Harris.
He had been hiding a student–teacher relationship, just not with Madison.
Had he also been hiding a motive for murder?
Her stomach curdled. There had been something unmistakably off at breakfast. He’d seemed both defeated and on edge. The once magnetic young teacher had been anything but. Why?
She needed to keep Gemma talking.
‘After Madison found the photos, she blackmailed Mr Harris,’ Hannah said gently. ‘He told you about it. That’s how you knew it was Madison who had leaked them to The Upper Edge.’
Gemma nodded. ‘You’ve got it.’
‘I think Madison kept blackmailing him,’ she said slowly. ‘After the Columbia recommendation. In fact, I don’t think the blackmail ever stopped.’
Madison was the reason he’d aged beyond his years, the reason he’d been so ruffled by Hannah’s probing questions at breakfast. She was probably also the reason for the heavy drinking. For ten years, Madison had played him like a fiddle. Until he snapped.
Hannah locked eyes with Gemma. ‘It was never Oliver. Mr Harris killed Madison.’ She studied Gemma’s face. It was impassive. ‘Which you knew.’
Gemma’s gaze skated to her suitcase, then back to Hannah. Deciding.
Finally, she leaned in. ‘Yeah, I knew.’
‘And if Oliver didn’t kill Madison, then he certainly didn’t kill Mr Harris. He didn’t have a motive. But you did.’
Hannah tensed, waiting for Gemma to lash out or run for the door.
To her surprise, she did neither.
Gemma gave her a small smile. ‘You wanted to know why I came to the gala. I went to confront Paul.’
‘You came a long way. How were you certain he’d be there?’
‘The ticketing website posted a list of everyone who’d RSVP’d. “See who’s coming to the gala!” When his name showed up on the RSVP list, I bought my ticket and booked a flight.’
Hannah nodded. Her boss had bought her ticket. She’d never visited the site.
‘Anyway,’ Gemma was saying, ‘I never heard from Paul again after I left school. No apology, no quick note to see how I was doing, nothing. Now that we’re the age he was then, it’s impossible to ignore how very fucked up the whole thing was.
I wanted something from him – an apology, an acknowledgement that he’d messed up. I needed to hear him say it.’
‘So you asked him to meet you on the roof?’ Hannah said carefully.