“Not much, I guess?” I say, swallowing a lump in my throat. “A girl died? Another one tried to kill herself?”
Sophia nods, her eyes extra wide. “It was tragic. Emily wassucha sweet girl.”
“What about the other girl?” I frown, trying to look like I can’t remember my own sister’s name. “Isabella?”
“Isla,” she corrects. Sophia shrugs. “She was all right. I didn’t know her very well. If she wasn’t with Emily, she was following Julian around like a puppy. Bit of a try-hard, if I had to make a sweeping statement.”
My frown deepens, and I tell myself not to get pissed about Sophia’s feelings toward my sister. I need to focus on prying more information from her, starting with the guy my stepmom warned me about. Conveniently, Connor Wells just walked into the lecture hall. He takes a seat in the front row, all the way to the left. I pretend not to know his name. “Who’s that?”
“Connor Wells.” Sophia sighs as she stares off into the distance. “After his father’s arrest, the family sort of fell apart and they lost all their money, save the trust fund for the children. Then his sister died, so now it’s just Connor. Why he remains on campus, though, I’m not sure. No one really talks to him much anymore.”
“His dad was arrested?”
I didn’t even consider Emily’s brother a suspect, but if his dad is in jail and his sister’s dead … Does that mean their entire trust fund is now controlled by him? I once saw a guy stab someone for a pair of Nikes. Would killing your sister for millions be that wild a thought?
“Yeah. Embezzlement. It’s all so tragic.” Sophia’s gaze meets mine as she leans toward me, her words softer now. “He’s rather dreamy, Connor. A broken boy you can’t help but want to fix.”
“No, thank you.” My voice is firm. My family is broken enough. I don’t need to carry anyone else’s burdens.
Sophia’s face brightens as she quickly changes the subject. “What’s the rest of your day like?”
I show her my course schedule, and she flags that I have to go to the counseling office during our next class block. Mrs. Brown will share my elective options, apparently, though Sophia’s expression goes a bit grim when she explains this. When I ask her about it, she says, “Honestly, it’s ridiculous for Wickham to have extracurricularsat allwhen we’re meant to be studying for A-levels. Anything to be special, I suppose. And all the good options are gone by now, too. Coding, Modern Dance, Mock Court. Hard to say what you’ll end up with, but it probably won’t be good.”
I’m saved from having to make up an excuse for why I have zero fucks to give about my elective assignment by the start of class. I let the teacher’s monotone explanation of the Pythagorean theorem wash over me like a warm wave of sound.
I’m halfway to a daydream when a prickle of awareness climbs up my neck. When I turn toward the sensation, my eyes clash against the gray, penetrating gaze of Connor Wells.
He doesn’t look away when I catch him watching me, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to flinch first. A rush of heat moves from my cheeks to my neck, then spreads across my collar bones. I feel his stare like a physical touch, and it feels …
Dangerous.
…
Imake my way to the administration building to check in with Mrs. Brown, who, in addition to playing guard dog for Whitney, is in charge of our schedules. I enter the building from the back this time and come to a stop when I notice all of the framed photos lining the walls. When I realize they’re portraits of the graduating classes at Wickham over the last twenty-five years or so, I beeline for the class of 1998. Even though the pictures are here on the wall for anyone to see, my heart still pounds like I’ve unearthed some long-buried treasure. But maybe a picture of my mom before … well, before she became the woman she is today,isa precious artifact.
I search the faces for Mom, though my gaze snags on Peter first. He’s standing in between who I assume are his friends,all of them grinning widely. They smile with the confidence of boys who know they’re going to rule the world someday. I scowl back on principle.
When I finally find my mother, I only spend half a second looking at her beautiful, carefree, sober face before my attention snags on the boy next to her. Snags and holds.
It’s kind of hard to tell, considering the first and only time I saw him, he was cast in bronze, but I’m fairly certain the boy standing beside my mother—with his arm around her shoulders in a move that could be affection or possession or equal parts of both—is the boy from the statue. Who is he? Mom’s old boyfriend before she got with Peter?
If that’s the case, she’s never mentioned him to me at all.
I pull out my phone and snap a couple of photos of the class of 1998. Which reminds me that I need to take photos of some other things as well …
Dashing into a nearby bathroom, I hide away in a stall and hang my backpack from the hook on the door, unzipping it and pulling out Isla’s yearbook. I flip the pages until I’m on the Autographs page in the back of the book, where Isla made her list. I take photos of it as well. What if I lose the book, or someone takes it? Whoever found it in the back of the pillow could have walked away with it, and I wouldn’t have known right away. I need this list—need to figure out what Isla was working on and whether it was earth-shattering enough to get her and Emily in serious trouble. I just need more time to figure it out.
Time I don’t have.
I flip through the articles in the dossier for good measure, to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It looks like most ofwhat’s here falls into one of two categories: articles I managed to read in the car on the way to Wickham before I got motion sickness, and Wickham history Whitney filled me in on during our first meeting. But tucked in the back of the right-side pocket is a newspaper clipping I must have missed. At the top is a black-and-white photo of people dressed in cocktail attire. I recognize a younger version of Whitney, but Peter is nowhere in sight. A glance at the date on the article below the picture explains why. Peter was still married to Mom when this was published. In fact, she was pregnant with me at the time.
THE DAILY CUPPA: Society news and gossip from The London Ledger
14 December 2008
Last night’s buzzy society soiree wasn’t for a restaurant opening or charity fundraiser—it was to celebrate the Lumateg Group, the new private equity fund helmed by William Pembroke, formerly of Oakmont Capital Management. Champagne flowed as guests toasted Pembroke’s leap from big-firm life to boutique power player. One partygoer who requested anonymity gushed that they admired ‘the way Pembroke is turning his wife’s inherited wealth into a legacy that will lift up the Group’s core investors.’
In a short speech, Pembroke kept his remarks equal parts earnest and aspirational, thanking investors, family, and friends, and promising Lumateg ‘will champion a diversified portfolio that values tried andtrue investment strategy alongside forward-thinking, calculated risk.’ Party chatter noted the fund’s name is a cheeky nod to posterity—‘Lumateg’ is an anagram oflegatum, which is Latin for ‘legacy.’ Many of the fund’s angel investors are Wickham Academy alumni, a designation Pembroke wears with pride. We expect big deals and bigger dinner invites from the Lumateg Group crowd, who knows a thing or two about building financialandsocial capital.
