Payback, page 3
“We’re being careful,” Caleb says. “Renee’s right, if he calls our bluff—if we go to the press and there’s an investigation—none of us will get our identities back. All the people who went through the program will be under a microscope.”
“That’s best case,” says Margot. “Worst case, he uses his connections to retaliate and we all end up in a ditch somewhere like Jimmy.” Her voice cracks, and she tilts her head back, as if blinking at the ceiling will stop the tears. “He needs to pay for this. He’s literally getting away with murder.”
I glance at Caleb, his expression grim as he crosses to her and pulls her against one side. He’s just being a good friend, but I can’t help the spike in my pulse as I see the way she fits against his side. How she turns her face to his shoulder and leans into him like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And it was. Before Caleb was my boyfriend, he was hers.
“We’re going to stop him before he hurts anyone else,” Caleb says.
“We need more people,” Henry says. “Current students, like Brynn and me, and Sam and Charlotte. We’re enrolled in the program. He can’t say we’re trying to scam him; we have too much to lose.”
“Who else would risk getting kicked out?” Caleb’s hand covers Margot’s now on his chest, but he’s looking at me.
I focus on Henry. “Joel would do the right thing.”
“If we can convince Paz,” Henry adds.
He’s right. They’re a package deal these days, and Paz knows she’s got a good deal at Vale Hall. Still, Joel was friends with Caleb, and took it hard when he was expelled.
“Most of the others are too scared to go against Dr. O,” I say. They’re not wrong. I once thought of him as a vigilante, masked in a private school director’s suit. Now I wonder if he’s the villain, who will do anything to make the world match his vision, even if it means stepping on his own students to rise to the very top.
“Or they’re scared Belk or Ms. Maddox will turn them in,” Henry adds.
I nod, picturing the brick-set security guard and Vale Hall’s silent, elderly housekeeper, who has a penchant for eavesdropping. Both of them are as loyal to Dr. O as lapdogs.
The thought reminds me that we’d better wrap this up soon. The last thing Henry and I need is either of them spying on us.
“Imagine if either of them came out against Dr. O,” Margot says quietly. “Maddox alone has enough secrets to destroy him. She’s been there from the start.”
“Good luck with that,” I say. I’ve run enough cons to know when a mark is a dead end, and neither Maddox or Belk is budging.
“What about June?” Henry asks, bringing to mind our newest sophomore, decked out in goth clothes. “She’s all about sticking it to the man.”
“June Park,” Caleb says, turning to me. “She’s new. How well do you know her?”
Not well. She’s only been at Vale Hall since Caleb left. Dr. O had him vetting her before she was accepted into the program.
She seems all right, but every time I look at her, I think of Caleb, and steer the other way.
“I’ll check it out,” I tell him.
He nods, dark eyes filling with caution, like they do every time I offer to help. “In the meantime, I’ve got a lead.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Dylan Prescott.”
Dylan is the oldest of the expelled students in the files. He’s twenty-six now, and no one’s been able to find any information on him since we started.
“He goes by a different name now,” says Caleb. “Charlie McGinnis. He was picked up by local police in Mason two nights ago and released on bail.”
Caleb listens to the police scanners and checks the listing of arrests daily—that’s how he knew some of the others we were looking for are locked up. A con on their own with nothing to lose is bound to brush up against the system at some point.
Lucky Dylan got out before the cops could look deeper into his past, or lack thereof.
“What did he do?” asks Henry.
“He was caught racing on Highway Sixty-two,” says Caleb. “It’s an initiation run for the Wolves.”
A chill crawls down my spine as again, my eyes find Caleb. We have history with the Wolves of Hellsgate. Caleb’s assigned mark at Vale Hall was the mayor’s daughter, Camille, and after he reported her mom’s secret meetings with the motorcycle club to Dr. O, Camille retaliated by turning Caleb in to the Wolves.
The only reason we’re still standing here is because we managed to divert their attention to my mom’s train wreck of an ex, Pete.
Caleb points at the bright-eyed ginger on the wall beside us. He can’t be more than fifteen in the picture, and I can hardly imagine him in a leather cut on a motorcycle. “Dylan—or Charlie, I mean—is patching in to the Mason charter two days from now. The after party’s at a diner owned by one of the members. It’s a good entry point.”
“The Wolves are bad news,” I say.
“I thought this was a no-student-left-behind operation,” Raf scoffs.
I bristle at his words. “I’m just saying it’s dangerous.”
Henry puffs out his chest. “It’s a good thing danger is my middle—”
“No,” says Caleb, reaching for his shoulder. “You and Brynn have been gone a lot. I’ve got this one.”
He’s right—there’s only so many excuses we can make for disappearing from school—but that doesn’t mean I like what he’s proposing. “Someone might recognize you.”
“My only contact with the Wolves is in jail,” Caleb says, his grim look adding, thanks to us.
“I’ll go with him,” says Margot.
Every eye turns in her direction. She may want to bring Dr. O down, but she hasn’t exactly been a big supporter of pulling in other students to help with the operation.
“What?” she says, tilting her head at me. “Someone’s got to have his back.”
Heat shoots up my collar. Margot might be a better con than any of us, but I’m not ready to stake Caleb’s life on it. If he’s recognized, they won’t just beat him up like last time. He’ll be lucky to die quickly.
I’m trying to catch his eye when Henry elbows me in the side.
“If we don’t go soon, I’m going to turn into a princess.”
“I’m not sure that’s how Cinderella works, Henry,” I say, but he’s right. It’s late, and we’re cutting it close. The only reason we got permission to go to a late movie on a Sunday night was because we told Shrew it was a documentary on foreign relations—something that might help us in class as we begin our Model United Nations activity.
“We need to get back to school,” I say, guilt burrowing through me again as Renee sends me a narrowed glance.
“Enjoy my bed,” Margot says, reminding me that before her expulsion, my room was hers.
I’m sure I’ll sleep like a baby now.
Caleb starts to follow us to the door when she stops him with a hand on his biceps.
“Can I crash at your place again?”
Again?
Caleb’s eyes dart to mine. “Sure. Of course.”
It’s nothing. He’s just looking out for her. He’d do the same for anyone.
I’m 98 percent sure.
“Bye,” Henry tells Caleb with another hug, and in the dull glow of the lantern, I can see the bruises beneath his eyes from the nightmares he refuses to tell me about.
The nightmares only Caleb could fix.
“Be careful,” Caleb tells him. “I mean it, okay?”
I want to hug Caleb too, but I hesitate before stepping into his arms. We’ve barely touched since our breakup, and even though I know there’s still something between us, we haven’t said the words.
We have bigger things to worry about.
I tell myself that a lot.
“See you later,” he says. Maybe it’s just me, but it looks like he wants to say more.
Walking away feels like tearing off a Band-Aid, and as Henry and I hurry out of the maze of train cars to the swells of gravel and tracks, I look back over my shoulder.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on Margot,” Henry says, nervously finger-combing his hair as he glances back over his shoulder.
I know he’s not talking about her staying with Caleb, but it feels that way when a thread of jealousy weaves through my rib cage.
“Agreed,” I say, realizing that Caleb might be the only one who can.
CHAPTER 3
I wake to an elbow in my face and the indentation of M&M’s pressed into the back of my arm. Before I can form a coherent thought, Charlotte Murphy sits up, her wild, orange hair sticking out on one side.
“Wake up. Tell me everything.”
She was sleeping when I got in last night. My head’s still cloudy, but I vaguely recall scooping up the M&M’s she’d spilled on the sheets and curling up in the corner of the mattress. The girl spreads out like a starfish.
“Ten minutes.” I roll over.
She rolls onto me.
“I passed out reading The Awakening for English. They should call it The Asleepening. Anyway, you were supposed to get me up when you got in.” Her back is smashing me down into the mattress. When I open my mouth to gasp, I inhale a mouthful of her hair.
“Gross. Get off.” I swipe the hair away and try to dislodge her, but she’s stuck like glue.
“Did you find Rafael?”
She says the name in a whisper, but it still triggers an alarm in my brain. Now I’m wide awake.
“Yes. Yes, okay?”
She slides off my side, and pulls up the covers over our heads. We’re in a tent now, pinpricks of early morning light siphoning through the holes in the fabric.
I turn on my side to face her.
“He’s in. It was a little dicey for a second, but we pulled it off.”
“Good.”
I’m not sure if she’s talking about Raf or the M&M she spots and pops into her mouth. I make a face, and she gives me a look that says not to judge.
“Details,” she demands, grabbing the bag and spilling it, on purpose, between us.
As we eat a breakfast of champions, I tell her about the fight, and Henry’s smooth grab of the magnetic phone tracker. How Raf ran after he lost, and his wariness going to what Caleb now has me calling resistance headquarters.
“How is Caleb?” she asks, as if reading my mind. She rolls on her back, lifting her knees so the blanket stays tented overhead. She’s got a tiny baby bump these days, but it’s hard to tell unless you’re looking.
She’s banking on that with the staff at Vale Hall, who haven’t seemed to catch on to her growing obsession with baggy clothes. It’s a good thing it’s sweatshirt season.
“He seems all right,” I tell her, shaking away the thought of Margot spending the night.
They’re just friends.
Who used to date.
I remember, with a pinch to my side, that this used to be her room—this bed was where she used to sleep. Maybe she even shared it with Caleb.
Isn’t that a lovely thought.
“I wish he was here,” Charlotte says, fingertips walking across her belly. “I wish we were all together.”
“Me, too.”
My throat grows tight with the reminder of how little time we have left together. After the semester is over, when Charlotte and her boyfriend, Sam Harris, take off to see their families for the holidays, they won’t be coming back. They’ll disappear, change their names, and have their baby far away from where Dr. O can find them. We say we’re going to find a way to see each other again, but I’m not sure how.
An image forms in my mind of the four of us in caps and gowns, but quickly slides out of focus. No image of graduation is right without Caleb.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her, too hopefully.
Sometimes I think it would be better if she just left now. Grab as much as she can, and find a safe place to hide. But if she runs with the secrets she has, what’s to stop Dr. O from sending someone after her?
I won’t let him hurt her.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her again, more firmly.
My phone rings.
I jolt up, reaching over her to grab it off my nightstand. The time on the corner says it’s just after seven, and Henry’s goofy smile is lighting up the screen.
Fear clutches my chest. We see each other every morning before class. He wouldn’t call unless there was a problem.
“Henry? What is it?”
“Brynn. Hey! Good morning. How are you? Look, I think you should come downstairs and have breakfast. Like, now would be great. Sound good? Good.”
“Um…” I’m already scrambling out of bed, grabbing my jeans off the floor. “What happened?”
“Great waffles down here,” he says quickly. “Don’t want you to miss out. Okay, bye!”
He hangs up.
Charlotte’s out of bed, face pale. She’s spilled the M&M’s again in her rush.
“Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. He says we need to go downstairs. Now.”
Without another word, she launches herself toward the door and runs into her room. I switch shirts to a clean sweater, and meet her in the hall between our doors. She’s pulled on Sam’s NYU sweatshirt over her pajama pants. It’s big enough to cover what she’s hiding underneath.
We race past the other doors, most of them closed, toward the spiral staircase that leads to the kitchen. Cold whispers over the back of my neck, despite the heat in my blood. I see Caleb behind my closed lids, holding a box of his possessions as he’s kicked out of Vale Hall. Is someone else leaving? Has the staff figured out what we’re doing?
There are a dozen things that could go wrong on any given day.
But when we reach the bottom floor, there’s no trouble. Ms. Maddox, the housekeeper, is making waffles in the kitchen, and Min Belk, our PE teacher/security guard, is standing at the counter, giving Charlotte and me a cold, appraising look as he fastens a tie around his blunt ponytail.
My gaze darts away. Since I left my job hostessing at The Loft three months ago, I’ve avoided him as much as possible. I don’t know for a fact that he was behind Matthew Sterling’s intern supervisor, Mark Stitz, getting jumped, but it was a rare coincidence if not. Belk was scoping out Mark pretty hard after I told Dr. O that Mark may have had knowledge of Jimmy’s disappearance. That night, Mark ended up in the hospital.
Across the kitchen, in the living room, a crowd of students has gathered around the television, between the enormous Christmas tree Ms. Maddox put up last week, draped with gold ribbon and glass ornaments, and the menorah over the fireplace. Henry and Sam stand in the back, their arms crossed and backs curtain rod straight. It looks like they’re watching a speech, or a press conference.
“What’s going on?” I ask, sliding up beside Henry. The shadows are deeper beneath his eyes this morning, and I can’t help wondering if he had another rough night sleeping.
Sam is focused on the television, but slides an arm protectively over Charlotte’s shoulders.
“Breaking news,” he says with a tight grimace. “Look who’s back on the job.”
On the screen, a woman stands behind a podium in a crowded room. I don’t have to read the caption beneath to recognize her.
Mayor Erica Santos.
“… relieved my name has been cleared from the recent accusations,” she’s saying, “but I always knew justice would prevail—that Sikawa City’s hardworking police force would come to the truth.” She holds a fist in front of her chest, her expression determined, her dark eyes focused. She’s as clean cut as any ad I’ve seen of Matthew Sterling. Her hair is perfect. Her blue suit modest and professional.
“I have always maintained that I was innocent throughout this investigation. That I was threatened by the Wolves of Hellsgate Motorcycle Club to turn a blind eye as they brought violence and drugs into our great city. I did what I had to, what any mother would do, to protect her child. But I refused to compromise the safety of our great city.”
“Isn’t that sweet.” At the front of the group, Geri Allen twists a silver necklace around her finger. It’s not even eight, but her makeup is on point, and her black sweater dress clings to every curve.
The sight of her puts me on edge. Not just because she’s Geri, but because her father is the hit man Dr. O hired to kill Margot’s boyfriend.
Mayor Santos reaches to the side, and a pretty girl about my age in black pants and a white flowered top steps beside her. My throat tightens.
“Oh, wow,” says Henry.
“Camille Santos,” Sam mutters.
Charlotte grabs my hand.
Camille Santos is the mayor’s daughter.
And Caleb’s mark.
The only reason the accusations about her mother meeting with the Wolves were made public was because Caleb brought them to light. He befriended Camille. Went into her home. Caught her mother in the act.
Dr. O used that information to blackmail the mayor and start an investigation that should have led to her dismissal. It was an effort to clean up the city, to get rid of the corrupt officials that were tearing it apart.
But now the investigation is over, and somehow the mayor has been cleared of the charges.
It doesn’t make sense.
The mayor pulls her daughter close. “Now that the truth is finally out, and the people behind these threats and accusations have been properly punished, my family can return to their lives, and I can return to working hard for our citizens.”
“Oh, great,” says Henry.
“I see now, more than ever, we need to crack down on the crime tearing this city apart.”
I’m not the only one tensing at her words. Cracking down on crime means more police presence. Not in the posh north side neighborhoods like where Vale Hall is, but definitely in places like Devon Park, where I grew up, and White Bank, where Caleb’s family lives. It’s something that’s going to make the mayor’s loaded donors feel safe—like the dangers of the world only exist outside their gated communities—but that will leave people in less fortunate neighborhoods very uneasy.
We don’t need more cops with arrest quotas and itchy trigger fingers. We need better houses and community centers so kids like me aren’t out running scams because they can’t afford to put food on their tables.
