“I swear,” Polly said, her eyes welling up with tears, “I would never really do anything. I was just so angry. The more I thought about it after I got back here that night, the more upset I got. And truthfully, I’d had a couple of Jell-O shots. I almost never drank back home and they hit me hard, so my decision-making wasn’t the best.”
“What did he say to you when you got back from what I assume was the restroom,” Hannah asked, keeping the pressure on, “when you found him with that blonde?”
Polly sighed.
“You have to understand, I was flattered when he first hit on me. I gather you saw us dancing so you know I was into him. I was actually going to go back up to his room. But when I came back and he was with that girl, he was so dismissive. He said that the first team was here now so he was sending me back to the bench. He said I was still welcome to come up to the room with them, as long as I knew I’d be his sloppy seconds.”
Hannah sighed. She had figured it was something like that, but hadn’t been fully prepared for the depth of Jennings’s cruelty and crassness.
“I’d imagine that stung,” she said quietly.
“You could say that,” Polly answered sharply. “So I came back here, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kept stewing on it. So at three in the morning I typed up the note. I took it overthere and waited until the party died down. I thought I was being so stealthy because I was wearing a hoodie.”
“But no gloves to hide your fingerprints, I’m guessing?”
“No, because I wasn’t serious about it. It never occurred to me that someone might check the note for prints. I just dropped it off and left, hoping that it would scare him a little or that maybe he would read it and feels some modicum of shame for the way he acts.”
Hannah took her hand off the taser. “He doesn’t,” she said. “Hell, he doesn’t even remember you, which might hurt but is actually a good thing.”
“Why?”
“Because if he knew your identity, he’d likely try to get you kicked out of school. I doubt he’d press charges because that would become public and his behavior would be on display. But your expulsion would be a confidential matter, so he’d be able to keep his gross behavior quiet.”
“Butyouknow what I did,” Polly said, “so is it over for me here before it even starts?”
Hannah had been weighing her options this whole time, but it was only now, when Polly asked the question, that she came to a decision.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “Have a seat.”
Polly returned to the bed without a word. Hannah waited until she was settled before continuing.
“Jennings Casterly is an unrepentant jerk,” she said. “I suspected it even before I met the guy and everything about our interaction reinforced how I felt. To be honest, I only agreed to look into this because another fraternity member—an actual decent guy—asked me to. But even a jerk like Jennings doesn’t deserve to be lanced to death, however that would work. So I needed to see if the person who wrote that letter would really follow through.”
“I wouldn’t,” Polly insisted. “I would never actually hurt someone, not even him.”
“That’s what I’d like to believe,” Hannah admitted. “But I need to be sure. I can’t ignore a potential murder threat just because I don’t like the intended victim. I need to feel confident that he’s in no danger, that this was all just a terrible, impulsive choice in a moment of drunken weakness.”
“It was!”
Hannah stood up. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Polly. When I leave here, I’m going to go back to my place and write all this up, every detail. Then I’m going to e-mail it all to someone I trust implicitly and tell them not to open the message unless something happens to me. I have to protect myself in case you really are a vengeful murderer.”
“That seems excessive,” Polly said.
“Trust me—if you’d seen the things I’ve seen, you wouldn’t think so. After that, I’m going to go to Omega Sigma and tell Jennings that I couldn’t determine who left the note. I’ll say that I didn’t see anything suspicious in the party video and I’m guessing someone just wanted to mess with him because he’s, you know, a terrible person. I can’t promise that he won’t look at the video himself and figure it out. I also can’t promise that he won’t, despite his hazy alcohol-addled brain, suddenly rediscover the memory of how he treated you and put the pieces together. But after dealing with him, I’m pretty skeptical. More likely, if there are no other threats and nothing else happens to him, he’ll forget all about it and return to his lecherous ways. In that case, you can resume your academic life, relieved that you dodged a bullet. Does that sound fair, Polly?”
“It sounds more than fair,” she said, her voice cracking as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I promise, I won’t do anything to make you change your mind.”
“I hope not,” Hannah said starting for the door.
As she turned away, she sensed movement behind her and spun back around, her hand reaching for the taser. But before she could pull it out, Polly’s arms were wrapped around her, not to attack but to hug her.
“Thank you,” she whispered through her sobs.
Hannah stood there, unsure how to react. But eventually, she returned the hug.
She knew she’d feel bad when she went to see Finn later to tell him that she’d come up empty. Even though he always seemed to choose loyalty to his fraternity brothers and to his parents’ money over her, not telling him the truth would still feel like a betrayal.
But in order to protect Polly, this had to be their secret alone. Between this one and the truth about how Ash Pierce really died that she and Jessie were keeping to themselves, her jar of secrets seemed to be getting bigger by the day.
