Payback, p.9
Payback, page 9
I don’t see him.
Instead, I see a gray haze of smoke in the distance, and two motorcycles racing down the road back to the Greasy Spoon.
With Belk following us, we can’t go back for Caleb. We’ll have to leave him here, and hope he navigates the Wolves prowling the streets and finds a way back to his apartment at the bowling alley on his own.
My breath comes faster, and soon Henry’s hand is gripping my shoulder from the back seat.
He shows me a message on his phone from a blocked number.
Go.
“He’ll be fine,” Henry mutters, but I’m not sure if he’s saying it for me, or himself.
“I’m more worried about us,” says Charlotte quietly, turning the key in the ignition. “Don’t tell me Dr. O sent Belk because he just realized we were gone.”
“What do you mean?” asks Henry.
“She means someone ratted on us,” I say.
Someone at the house knew this wasn’t just a shopping trip and tipped Belk off. Someone who’s been watching us closely—who’s playing for Dr. O’s team.
Someone like Grayson Sterling.
People are starting to notice.
Henry’s hand slips from my shoulder. “Of course they did.”
Even now, after Grayson’s joined Team Geri to mess with him, Henry looks dejected, and it makes me even more furious with the senator’s son.
“Be safe,” I whisper, knowing Caleb can’t hear me, but hoping he knows I mean it all the same.
CHAPTER 9
I call Mom first thing in the morning, and when I’m sure everything is fine, I hang up to find Sam waiting on the stairs, wearing the worst reindeer sweater I’ve ever seen with a pair of gray pants. He looks like he’s been picking at the pine garland on the bannister for quite a while; there’s a small pile of green needles on the step beside him.
When he sees me, he pounces.
“Hey,” he says as I come up beside him. “Did he get home all right? Henry told me what happened.”
He, of course, is Caleb. Even though Sam deliberately left out his name, I cringe at his volume. Someone here sold us out last night. I have a pretty good idea who, but I’m not willing to chance anyone else overhearing our discussion.
“Everything’s good,” I say.
Sam waits for me to explain as we start down the stairs, and when I don’t, he glances around to make sure no one’s following.
“And?”
“And nothing.” I rub my eyes, exhaustion thinning my patience.
Caleb called me after he convinced a woman to buy him a bus ticket so he could get to his sick sister. We stayed on the phone through the bus transfer, to the SCTA station, all the way until he got home.
That was two hours ago.
A creak in the stairs has us both bracing, and when I glance over my shoulder, I see Henry marching down, looking uncharacteristically disheveled in snowflake pajama pants and a wrinkled white undershirt under his lucky jacket.
“Hi. How’s it going? Good? Great.”
I stare after him as he brushes past. “What was…”
Sam is scowling. “I thought you’d know. He’s been up since dawn on some kind of secret mission.”
“What mission?” We agreed last night on the car ride home to keep a low profile for a couple days. “I know nothing about a mission.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Henry bumps into June, still in all black but with a flare of bright pink lipstick. She bares her teeth at him as he hurries away.
“On it,” says Sam, taking off after Henry. June glares at him on the way by, too.
She folds her arms over her chest as I come down. “I don’t know how you manage the people around here. Everyone’s so dramatic.”
Henry and Sam have already disappeared into the kitchen.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not if you love drama.”
When I step to the floor, she’s a full three inches taller than me. Still, she’s younger, and when her eyes dart to the side, I feel her insecurity. June’s still new here, and I haven’t seen her hanging out with anyone. I’ve assumed that’s out of choice, but maybe I had that wrong.
“I don’t.” My head is pounding. We lost Charlie last night, and Penny two days before. People are dying, and it will only get worse as Dr. O moves into his new position.
Maybe Margot was right—this needed to be done quickly and quietly. She wanted me because she believed that I, over anyone else, could get to him on the inside. But every time I considered it, I saw what Dr. O did to Caleb and to her, and it seemed an impossible task to accomplish alone.
I’ve been telling myself we’re stronger together, but what if I’m wrong? What if more people really do just mean a bigger mess?
June’s brows hike up beneath her straight, black bangs.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Me either.” June hesitates, gripping the strap of her bag. “Kind of hard getting used to the beds at this place.”
“I know,” I say. “They’re really soft.”
“And the food is really good.”
“Way too good.”
She cracks a smile. “And it’s so annoying that people are always cleaning up after you and doing your dishes and stuff.”
“The worst, right?”
Her smile widens. I almost smile back, but then I remember that June is here because Caleb’s not. That Caleb recruited her as his last job for Dr. O before I accidentally got him expelled. I’m treating her the way Geri treated me when I first moved into Margot’s old room.
None of this is her fault, but it makes it hard to relax, all the same.
“You get used to it,” I say, because even though we’re joking, we’re not. Even the good things are overwhelming when you come from so little.
“Maybe.” She straightens as Geri and Alice come down the stairs behind her. Maybe she thinks she’s hiding her reaction, but it’s clear to me as she quickly steps out of their way that they’ve gotten under her skin.
“You should eat lunch with us today,” I tell her. “We can talk about the UN project.”
And I can feel out your loyalties to Dr. O and this program.
“Okay.” She looks to the floor. “Whatever.”
Now I do smile. If I were Henry, I’d close this deal with a hug, but I don’t because I’m not ridiculous.
Which reminds me of what Sam said—that Henry is on some special mission this morning. I’m just about to head into the kitchen to search for him when the door to Dr. O’s office creaks open, and two men step out beneath the two black marble ravens on their high white pedestals.
Dr. O is wearing a cream-colored sweater and slacks. The other man, thicker through the arms and shoulders, is in a navy suit with shiny shoes. At the sight of him, I jolt sideways, into June.
Geri’s father.
The man Dr. O ordered to kill Jimmy Balder.
“Time to lay off the mouthwash,” June mutters as I quickly right myself.
What is he doing here? An alarm screams in my head. I have to warn someone. Geri’s father is a hit man. His meeting with Dr. O in private cannot possibly mean anything good.
“Good morning, Brynn. June.” Dr. O’s warm smile seems genuine, but I know better. His gaze lifts behind me. “Grayson.”
I turn sharply to find Grayson around the turn at the bottom of the stairs, scowling. His eyes move from Geri’s dad, to Dr. O, then to me, before he paints on a tight smile. “Good morning.”
He recognizes Geri’s father, but whether that’s from Family Day, when he came to Vale Hall, or another time, I don’t know.
“Hey, Dr. O,” June mumbles, as Grayson stalks away.
I can’t find my voice to give a response. Just the sight of the director with this man has a cold fear churning in my gut.
These two men are responsible for people’s deaths.
I need to call Caleb. He needs to warn Margot and the others.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Geri’s father says. “I can’t wait to see the colleges fighting over my little girl.”
“And they will,” assures Dr. O. “Geri is an incredible talent.”
I swear he looks at me as he says this.
Geri is talented. She was working with, and reporting on, my mom for weeks at Gridiron Sports Bar and I had no idea.
“I’ll say goodbye to her before I head out,” Geri’s father says.
He shakes Dr. O’s hand, then passes by June and me on his way to the kitchen.
My pulse is beating a mile a minute. The whole house feels like a sauna.
What were they just talking about? Was it really Geri, or someone else?
“Brynn, do you have a minute?” Dr. O asks, eyes twinkling.
No. Not for you. Not after what you’ve done.
I trusted you.
The pressure increases beneath my ribs.
I trusted you.
That’s the worst part of it all. He chose me. He told me I was special, and that he needed my help.
And I believed every word.
But he is the bad guy he told me we were fighting. And facing him now, I feel bad too, for every part in his master scheme that he made me play.
“Brynn?”
I have to act normal. I have to pretend everything’s fine.
My body moves in slow motion as I leave June’s side and walk beneath the marble ravens into Dr. O’s office. I’ve been here many times, but now, crossing by the stone tablet bearing the words Vincit Omnia Veritas, I’m terrified.
“How are you?” he asks, and when I face him, my jaw clenches. Behind him is the large portrait of the thin woman in the white dress. Susan Griffin.
The sister he told Grayson to run off the road.
“Fine,” I manage.
“Good. I’m sorry I’ve been absent lately. I’ve had quite a bit going on behind the scenes.”
“I guess so.”
His smile falters the tiniest bit. “You of all people know how complicated these last few months have been.”
If blackmailing mayors and making people disappear isn’t complicated, I don’t know what is.
“Congrats.” I try to smile. “I didn’t know you wanted to be senator.”
“When opportunity presents itself, you have to strike.”
Was Charlie in the way of opportunity? I want to ask. What about Caleb, and Margot, and Jimmy Balder? What about me?
He moves to his couch in front of the fireplace, and motions for me to sit.
Reluctantly, I move in that direction. I take a seat on the couch opposite him, hands spread on the maroon velvet beside my thighs. His office has been decorated like the rest of the house, with white candles and red holly wreathes. Sprigs of spruce are neatly tied in ribbons over the fireplace. The whole room smells like pine.
A few months ago, I would have been enchanted by it. The mansion has been transformed into something out of a story. But now it feels like pretty wrapping on a ticking bomb.
“We can make changes this way, Brynn. Real changes. Not like before.”
“We?”
He slides to the edge of the couch, leaning toward me. There’s a light in his eyes I haven’t seen there before. It’s a lot like the look Grayson gets before he punches someone.
“It’s important that you keep what we do here confidential. Now more than ever.”
“Right.”
“I need to hear you say you understand that.”
“I understand.”
“You know what’s at stake if word of our work gets out.”
“I do.” It starts with Caleb and my mom, and ends with a roof over my head and my still-beating heart.
He claps his hands against his knees. “Wonderful. You have questions, I’m sure, about the future. Let’s hear them.”
Is he serious? He’s actually going to pretend he cares after all he’s done?
“Is this real?” I ask before I can stop myself.
He inhales slowly. “How so?”
“Are you really going to be a senator? Or is this just a front so you can do something else?” There’s anger in my tone, and I hate it, because it means he’ll know he’s gotten to me. It means he’ll know I care, and if I care, I can be hurt.
“Brynn, we are all pretending to be something else. Some of us own that. Some of us don’t. It’s a choice you have to make for yourself.”
I get it. He’s pretending to be a school director, when really he’s a sociopath.
Dr. O sighs, and rests his elbows on his knees. “You’re concerned for your future. About the promises I made you and your fellow students.”
My jaw clenches.
“This school is my family,” he says. “I would not let my family come to harm. I’d protect it against anyone who tried to hurt us.”
I silently scoff. He’s like the loving parent who hits their kid for “their own good.”
But Dr. O is immune to my doubt. He continues to smile reassuringly, and it’s in that moment I realize that he doesn’t know that I know that he ordered his own sister’s death.
Grayson told Henry and me that he ran Susan off the road because Dr. O told him to, but he never mentioned that he told us to the director—Dr. O would have acknowledged it otherwise. He wouldn’t sit in front of me and play the family card if he suspected I knew he’d ordered his own sister’s murder.
Which could mean it didn’t happen, and Grayson lied by trying to deflect the blame for what he did. Or that Grayson is hiding things from Dr. O.
People are starting to notice.
Grayson’s warning works a chill straight to my bones. The stupid game he and Geri started yesterday about Henry liking him has distracted the entire school. People are now wondering what exactly happened between them, and are dazzled by Grayson’s charm as he makes his declarations from Switzerland to Australia.
But no one’s wondering why Grayson is here anymore, not even after his father’s arrest for covering up the death of a woman he ran off the road.
Is Grayson being his arrogant, entitled self? Or is he playing at something?
“That’s a promise my own father couldn’t make,” Dr. O says, glancing over his shoulder to where Susan stares across the room, forever trapped in time and paint.
“Your father the congressman,” I remember, a chill creeping up my spine. Another person from his gene pool in charge of laws and lives.
“Yes,” says Dr. O. “A man of many secrets.”
I guess Dr. O had to learn somewhere.
“You and I are similar in that way, Brynn. I, too, was raised by my mother. I grew up just south of the city, in an apartment no bigger than this office.”
“I thought this was your family’s home,” I say.
His smile is thin. “It was his family’s home. Susan grew up here. Her mother was his wife.”
My brow arches. “And your mom?”
“Was forgotten.” His chin drops. He weaves his fingers over his lap. “My father came around to see us from time to time. He’d bring money. Food, sometimes, if we were fortunate. But he was never there when we needed him. In fact,” he chuckles dryly, “once, when she was sick, I came to this house to get help. He had me escorted off the property. Left down the street. It was mostly farmland then.”
“That’s cold.” What more does he expect me to say? Sorry, I understand why you hire hit men now.
“Cold was raising my mother’s hopes that he loved her, only to return to his wife and daughter in this house.” There’s a bite to his voice now. “Cold was handing her a gun the night she said she’d rather die than be without him.”
My eyes widen. I don’t want to imagine a younger Dr. O finding his mother dead, but I do, and the pity is as sure as it is unwelcome.
“You can see why I was reluctant for my sister to end up in a relationship with another married politician,” he growls, and I look again to the portrait, and imagine her standing beside Matthew Sterling, Grayson’s dad.
“How old were you?” I find myself asking.
“Fifteen,” he says. “Old enough to inform him that my mere existence was enough to destroy his career.” He inhales. “My father resigned shortly after that. He and Susan’s mother were found not long after in an abandoned car in Michigan. Apparently, he’d made some bad deals with the Irish mob over the years.”
Wariness climbs up my spine. I don’t know if this story is real. Even if it is, I don’t want to know this about him. It doesn’t make what he’s done okay.
“I’m sorry to burden you with this. I wasn’t thinking. I just … I suppose I trust you, that’s all. And I want you to know that your trust in me is not ill-placed.”
I tuck my hands beneath my thighs so he doesn’t see them shaking.
His eyes meet mine. “You don’t need to worry about your future, Brynn. You’ll be taken care of, as promised. Soon enough, the time may come when I’ll call on my old students for special jobs. Wouldn’t that be exciting?”
I imagine myself pulling cons for a senator. Sneaking in and out of political offices. Dealing with other people just as powerful as he is. Once, I would have jumped at that opportunity—the higher the risk, the greater the payout. But now, I dread what he might ask.
“Yes.” I brighten my smile.
“I’ll have to shift my responsibilities as I transition into the Senate role, of course,” he continues. “I will miss Vale Hall very much.”
“You won’t be director anymore?” If Dr. O’s gone, we could be safe. We could find a way to make the others safe. To bring them back.
“It’s a conflict of interest, I’m afraid,” Dr. O says. “But don’t worry. I plan on keeping a very close eye on the school. I do have a personal connection to this place, after all. I wouldn’t want to see my students lose their focus in my absence.”
“Who’s going to take your place?” My thoughts shift to the Vale Hall board of directors we were counting on to take over in his absence.
“I’ve given my recommendation to the board. We should know soon what they decide.” He stands, making it clear I’ll be getting no more insight into the situation. “I’m glad to see you. I hear you’re thinking about colleges. That’s wonderful.”
