“Eric, man, come on.” Frankie shifted from foot to foot. “We’re all really sorry about what happened to Heather, but isn’t it time to put it behind us? This isn’t healthy.”
“My sister,” Eric whispered, “was stabbed seventeen times when she was sleeping in bed. Who the fuck cares abouthealthy? I care about justice.”
We stood in shocked silence. I pushed back the panic, the guilt—the feeling I was on the precipice of something dark and evil, about to topple over.
“You want to know why I call this her real memorial site?” Eric asked. “Because it’s the last place Heather was seen alive. I like to come here and picture her happy. Oblivious to what was coming.”
I shivered. I hadn’t known she’d come here. It made sense, though. The night she was killed was the night of the Sweetheart Ball, and Heather, as Jack’s girlfriend, was in the running for Phi Delt Sweetheart…
Caro’s voice was small. “I thought the last time she was seen alive, witnesses saw her screaming at Jack in Bishop?”
Eric nodded. “Molly Duvall and Chris Holywell. Both witnessed Heather and Jack in what they described as a knock-down, drag-out fight in the lobby of Bishop Hall.” He spoke as if he’d memorized the police report. “At approximately 6:32 p.m. on the night of February 14th. But no, that wasn’t the last time she was seen alive. Who am I kidding? Plenty of you know the truth, that Heather was spotted later that night in the Phi Delt house—right here, in this very room. Pregaming the Sweetheart Ball with a group of brothers and one Ms. Courtney Kennedy.”
I turned to Courtney in surprise.
“CourtneyMinter,” she corrected.
“Yeah, well, you were Kennedy back then. Witnesses report seeing Heather right here, but at some point before the party started, she left. No one saw her leave or knows why. The next morning, Jack found her body.”
The room was deathly quiet. I tried to catch my friends’ eyes, but no one would look at me.
“Why are you saying this to us?” Courtney’s chest was heaving. “We all know Jack killed her. Heather told me to my face, right here in this room, that things were over between them. They’d had a horrible fight. The weapon was found inhisroom, for Christ’s sake, underhisbed. He tried to look innocent, telling the cops he justfoundher like that. He’s a psycho. Look where he came from! All his life in a freaking religious cult, and he finally snapped. It’s the police’s fault they couldn’t nail him. If you’re going to put all your energy into something, why don’t you fix that?”
“There’s only one problem,” Eric said. “Jack didn’t actually kill her.”
My heart seized. Eric didn’t think Jack was guilty. There was someone else out there who believed. No, not just someone—Heather’s brother.
“What do you know?” Coop asked.
“A lot,” Eric said. “It’s amazing what you can find out when you’re a skinny loser who couldn’t hurt a fly, whose sister died tragically. People tell you all sorts of things—students, faculty, detectives. I know so much about each of you. Most of all, I know you’re not what you pretend to be. The famous East House Seven. God, Heather loved you. Her best friends. And all of you, liars.”
This couldn’t be happening.My instincts told me to run up the stairs, tear down the walls if I had to. Escape.
“For years, I’ve traced leads, putting the pieces together, uncovering what you’ve hidden. Do you want to know what I discovered?”
No, no, no.
“Jack didn’t kill Heather. But someone in this room did. One of you is a monster, hiding behind a mask.”
Chapter 10
February, senior year
It was unseasonably warm for February, which meant all of Duquette was outside, drinking on frat porches, boom boxes blasting music, or lying on picnic blankets on Eliot Lawn, soaking up the sun.
Of courseit was warm, because it was the one day I needed the clouds out, dark and cold, keeping campus a ghost town. The only silver lining was that I hadn’t frozen on the long walk across Duquette, wearing nothing but shorts and a T-shirt.
I avoided people’s eyes as I passed them, keeping my gaze trained on my feet, like I was eight years old again and embarrassed to exist. I told myself the laughter I heard had nothing to do with me, or the oversized gym clothes I wore, and I half believed it. Finally,finally, Bishop Hall loomed into view, a sleek, modern dorm for upperclassmen, as different as possible from our old vine-covered home at East House.
Eighteen floors in the elevator, an interminably long time, and then I burst out, down the hall, turning the corner. I wasso close. I’d hole up in my room and never come out—would never,everthink about the disaster of last night again. And then I saw them. A crowd of students, gathered outside the door to our suite.
A dark hole opened inside me. I scanned the crowd and found my friends rushing over. “What’s going on?”
Mint looked at me, ashen-faced. “You’re okay,” he croaked and jerked an arm around me, pulling me hard to his side, his warm turtleneck sweater soft against my cheek.
The hole yawned wider, sucking in light.
Coop gave me a dark look, and I flinched, smoothing my wet hair self-consciously, causing icy drips down the front of my shirt. I squinted at him. His arm was still in the cast he’d worn since November, but he looked freshly beat-up, an angry red scratch down the side of his face.Strange.
