CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A burning curiosity, the same morbid curiosity people get when they can’t help but to check out an accident as they drive past, propelled me to the door.
The agent’s frame filled the lion’s share of the doorway, acting as a nice blockade between me and the vitriolic rage being spewed from the main area of the office.
“I demand you let me talk to—”
“Yes, we heard you. I think the biology lab on the second floor heard you,” Mr. Richards cut in, sounding tired. “And again, like I told you already, Agent Veritas is in the middle—”
“Enough with the attitude! Does it look like I care?”
Veritas shifted, providing an unhindered view of the second man who had nearly killed me.
Technically, he had killed me. Hospital staff informed my parents I’d flatlined more than once—a lot more—hence why I’d undergone so many brain surgeries.
And the injury would have been worse if—
If what? If some glowing figure hadn’t softened the chief’s last blow? And here I’d been, reassuring Veritas that I wasn’t crazy.
I had repressed the instance with prejudice—a defense mechanism from being dropped in the loony bin, restrained, and drugged.
According to an actual FBI agent, though, my escape would have been not only improbable, but impossible to pull off without a partner in crime, and who was I to question the professionals?
Oh, I knew the answer: someone who wanted to stay well away from a return trip to the loony bin.
There was no such thing as ghosts.
There wasn’t.
Otherwise, where was Ben now? Would he really be at peace, knowing his dad had it out for me, or that someone had murdered him? Those seemed like pretty big sticking points—stick around and stay sticking points.
Focus, Willa.
Speak of the devil...
Ben’s warm, reassuring voice brought me back to the moment, taking in the chief of police in all his raging glory.
He stood tall, looming over Mrs. Handy, and literally looking down his nose at her.
Ben had inherited his height from this man, along with the square jaw and dark features, from his hair to his eyes.
It was like looking through a window to the future.
If it weren’t for their temperaments being such polar opposites, I might have grown nauseous at the similarities.
As it was, the red-faced anger, the crazed look in his gaze, and the way he spat his words painted a different picture from the son who’d embodied a cliched gentle giant.
Ben was my teddy bear, which was why he’d brought me the miniature one when he came to visit the last time at Vedault. He’d gifted me a slice of comfort in a hostile environment, as well as a reminder that I wasn’t alone.
Frankie the teddy bear was what I hugged at night to soak up my tears. He always stayed nearby, nestled among a sea of floral decorative pillows.
If Frankie had been here now, I’d have hugged him to my chest, because just then, Chief Pierce registered the fact that there were newcomers in the office—us.
His black gaze locked on Agent Veritas first before sliding to me, his eyes swimming with twin pools of obsidian hatred.
I froze at the sight of such burning violence. His attack in the interrogation room might have been rage-induced, a byproduct of grief from discovering his only son had died, but he’d been levelheaded enough when he told me he’d wished he’d been the one to stumble across me in the woods.
Those same thoughts projected out at me now.
He’d kill me if he could.
As surely as the sun rose in the morning, he would end my life if given half a chance.
He was supposed to keep his distance so he didn’t leave any messy links leading back to the cover-up.
That’d been the deal Officer Jones brokered on his behalf during one of the few moments my parents had gone home to shower.
The nurses had just wheeled me in after another brain surgery to drain some infection from the cerebral fluid beneath my cranium, and there had been Officer Jones to greet me, adopting a pleasant smile for the orderlies, then he turned stone cold the second we were left alone.
His threats had been less negotiation and more along the lines of a pretty effective scare tactic.
Finally, not necessarily free from the menace arcing in my direction, but unable to face it any longer, I shifted my attention.
Both the principal and secretary looked stubborn, subtly but bodily positioned to prevent the chief from storming past them to reach us.
Two guidance counselors and the assistant principal had joined them as well, presenting a united front, even if they kept glancing around as if wondering when the party had started because they felt about fifteen steps behind what was happening.
What had Chief Pierce been thinking?
Showing up here in the office, in front of an unbiased FBI agent? Overreacting before the entirety of the school admin? Involving a student onlooker—wait!
My eyes snagged on Manuel.
What would witnessing all of this do to him? Would he get dragged into this mess as well?
I still couldn’t be sure that the mayor hadn’t pulled strings at the police department, that they weren’t acting as separate entities. For now, it all spiraled and crisscrossed in one tangled mess.
Ben’s body, mangled like it was in my nightmares due to his accident, cut through my psyche, briefly superimposing atop my view of Manuel’s concerned expression.
His face and clothes absorbed the same injuries Ben sustained.
Manuel’s caramel complexion adopted the gray hue of death until a zombie stared back at me, looking worried for my safety.
Aversion and denial swept through me at the visual. I blinked, shattering the horrifying image.
I’d never forgive myself if another person was killed for being too close to me.
Urena had it right. I was toxic.
But what could I do?
What could Pierce do?
I paused at the thought.
Honestly, what more could he do?
I was supposed to keep quiet about what’d happened at the police station and follow along with their deception, but Pierce should be too.
Officer Jones laid it out like a mandatory “scratch our backs, and we’ll scratch yours.
” Though I hadn’t killed Ben, the discussion proved they weren’t above hiding the truth, and if they’d willingly do that, then they wouldn’t be beyond planting evidence, so they didn’t arrest me, and I didn’t tattle on their boss.
What a symbiotic mess.
Except, Chief Pierce was the one singing like a canary.
The information was free, at the mercy of a jilted teenage girl, and us teenage girls were prone to big emotions.
At this point, it wasn’t a case of if but when.
Urena would leak every juicy, gossipy detail the second it suited her to do so.
Pierce couldn’t relock that Pandora’s box no matter how much he tried.
I frowned, studying the enraged man.
Maybe…
Maybe Pierce knew that, and that was why he’d let the cat out of the bag and stood here, making a scene and implying all sorts of connections his officers hadn’t wanted connected.
Did he not care if this ruined him?
“You,” Chief Pierce hissed with a backlash so strong that I stumbled a step away.
Agent Veritas shifted to hide me. “Her?” he questioned. “You said you’d never met Willa Walker before.”
Realization pinged.
Veritas! That was why Pierce came here. If it’d been a breakthrough in the case, if Pierce thought for one second that he had any shred of evidence linking me to Ben’s murder, then I’d have already been in handcuffs.
No, he must be risking everything because the FBI wanted to question me.
He’d come to run interference.
Pierce swore, his face mottling purple. “I only know her because that whore seduced my son!”
Mrs. Handy dropped into her seat, picking up the phone and dialing a shortened number. Nine-one-one, perhaps? Manuel rose from his chair, and all the administration began blabbering at once, trying to deescalate the situation.
Agent Veritas crossed his arms. “No, I don’t think so. This seems more personal than that.”
“More personal than her killing my son?” Pierce bellowed. He looked ready to storm past everyone to get to me.
A chilling thought sent goosebumps along my skin, an answer to the question: What worse could he do?
He could kill me to keep me muzzled. That changed things. This felt scarier than him wanting to kill for revenge. Now, he had a logical motivation to end my life. He possessed the logos to pair nicely with his pathos.
If the idea hadn’t crossed his mind yet that killing me would solve a lot of problems, it would. His officers would back him up. They’d already proven as much. Even Officer Reeves, who’d been a sympathetic ear to tip off Agent Veritas about the situation, had still been complicit in the cover-up.
Furthermore, if I turned up dead, even if it seemed like an accident, Manuel wouldn’t accept that quietly, not after witnessing the extent of Pierce’s hatred toward me. For that matter, the guys wouldn’t let things go either. Would they be threatened as well? Or more?
So, again, what incentive did I have to keep my mouth shut? There wouldn’t be evidence linking me to Ben’s death, other than the same killer was after me. Any hopes that my peers wouldn’t hear about being locked up like a nutter at Vedault flew out the window with Urena.
The reality was that it was in my best interest to throw Pierce under the bus. Veritas suspected something odd was up, and he existed outside the local corruption. I could nudge him in the right direction. As a federal agent, he would deal with twisted conspiracies all the time.
Even if the mayor was linked to the chief, Veritas and his team stood a fighting chance. They were the turning tide I’d desperately needed.
With thoughts of my friends being dragged into this dance at the forefront of my mind, I squared my shoulders and met the chief’s gaze head-on. “Agent Veritas, you said you have things that aren’t adding up.”