19. AN INVESTIGATION BEGINS #2
Embry had to agree. She hadn’t even questioned Skye’s motives, but now that they were talking about it, the motive was obvious. At least in making sure Embry was out of the picture. But what good did that do if the recruit to the Bitches’ clique was dead?
“Did the leaders of the other cliques at Raven’s Head feel the same way as Skye?” Rye asked. “Was Oakley some sort of hot ticket from the moment she arrived?”
“Oh, yes. Well, okay, not the moment she arrived,” Embry admitted.
“You didn’t see her that first day, but she was more of an oddity for the first few hours than anything.
Someone who’d been homeschooled her entire life until stepping on campus for her senior year.
But the moment she announced she was a vampire?
Blood in the water—no pun intended. People followed her into the bathroom to ask if she was born or made—”
“Seriously?” Rye was aghast. “That’s grotesque.”
“Grotesque but accurate. Everyone wanted a piece of her.” Embry began counting off the cliques on her fingers.
“Stitches wanted her because she was an unusual member of the undead, and the last vampire on campus identified most with them”—here, Rye nodded, seemingly recalling Embry’s earlier explanation—“Bitches wanted her for the aforementioned shifting capabilities and fangs, and the Glitches were salivating because she could literally fit into any category.”
Rye took a long drag from his teacup, set it down, and speared Embry with a questioning look. “And the Witches? Why did you want her?”
That unsure girl with the fried locks and reluctant smile, weighed down by her backpack and her first-day nerves, loomed in Embry’s mind’s eye like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon.
“Oakley was just so vulnerable. She’d never been to school, didn’t know the first thing about navigating any institution let alone one with so many built-in politics and pitfalls.
I thought we’d be able to protect her best. We were—are—well-situated, exclusive, and powerful.
Someone like that? With social cachet to spare that they didn’t even realize they’d had?
She was clueless, or at least she seemed that way at first. I don’t know; I just had this need to help her. ”
Even though, apparently, her generosity was unappreciated in the end. Another surge of tears pressed at Embry’s eyes, and she closed them. “Go ahead. Accuse me and my ego of some sort of salvation complex meant only to bolster my own on-campus reputation.”
He didn’t take the bait. “Why do you think she picked the Witches over her other suitors?”
Embry drew in a deep breath that rattled like bones in a specimen jar. “We’d been open and inviting to her before anyone knew what she was, magically speaking, and I think that played a part in why she stayed with us.”
Rye silently chewed on this answer. When she was sure enough that she wouldn’t cry again, Embry opened her eyes and waited for his assessment. To her surprise, he was furiously writing. She leaned forward, reading upside down. “Cass Calloway and Ariel Northam? Why are you…?”
“If we are assuming that perhaps Skye had motive to frame you, I think we need to add the other current clique leaders to our suspects list, don’t you?
” Rye spun the legal pad to face her. She’d seen it many times, but it struck her even now that his handwriting was elegant in an old-fashioned type of way.
It reminded her of the journals her grandparents had kept that Daddy preserved in the conservatory.
“I’m not a student anymore, but I’m also not completely out of touch.
These are the current clique leaders, correct? ”
Embry nodded but scrunched her nose, unsure, and suddenly uneasy about naming names.
Or at least these names. Skye was a Bitch, yes, but even with the video stuff, Embry couldn’t imagine her killing anyone, let alone Oakley.
Cass Calloway, Frankenstein’s monster and the most celebrated Stitch with their zombie girlfriend/court member, Taviana Tavares, was an absolute delight.
And the leader of the Glitches, Ariel Northam, literal siren and literal namesake wannabe, complete with dyed auburn mermaid hair and violently aqua contacts, was more of a fashion plate than a 3D murderer.
Rye prodded at her contemplative silence. “What?”
“I don’t like this. I can’t see any of those people doing something to hurt Oakley. Out of jealousy or anything else.”
“We have to start somewhere.” He nodded. “We’ll add to this list as we go… but we can’t rule anyone out. Not with you under suspicion.”
He had a point. Perhaps Embry was just exhausted enough that logic was failing her. Still, if they were adding these names, there were others that were a natural fit.
“If we’re building a list, we need to add the names of everyone on the homecoming court—not just the clique leaders. We were all moving around the stadium at that point. And it’s possible anyone was jealous enough to kill for that title.”
Rye began furiously writing. Embry watched him do it. “Wait—why did you add Balthazar? He won—”
“He was there. And jealousy isn’t the only motive.”
Fine. Embry mentally scrubbed away his name as well as the names of her other close friends: Ames, Fairfax, and Alistair were not people she believed would do such a thing.
Rye finished his tea and began pouring more hot water into his mug. “We can come back to our list. Let’s try something else. Going back to Friday night—what were you talking about before the clip started rolling?”
Embry suddenly found her tea bag’s buoyancy extremely fascinating. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It might. What do you remember?”
Embry bravely looked up from the safety of her mug. Rye watched her intently, with pointed interest, and maybe a little hope that what she had to say would crack everything open. She was going to have to tell him.
“We were talking about… you.”
“Me?”