And with that he disappeared around the nearest corner.
“You’d better ask Henry what?” Someone beside me put an arm around my shoulders. It was Arthur. Oh, great. I really hadn’t missed him these last few days! Although—did he know that we’d seen Anabel, and she was far from being Senator Tod’s unfortunate victim, but rather the other way around?
I freed myself from his grasp. “Nothing that’s any of your business,” I said quickly.
He smiled and strolled on to his locker. “I’m sorry about what’s happened, by the way, Liv. I could have sworn you and Henry were head over heels in love. When I heard last night that you’d split up, I couldn’t believe it at first.”
“You sit up at night to read Secrecy’s blog, do you?” I asked, horrified. Okay, I could believe almost anything of Arthur—but I’d really never have thought of that.
Arthur laughed. “Of course not,” he said. “No, I heard about it from Henry and Grayson.”
Oh, of course, because the three of them had been close friends since sharing their buckets and shovels in the nursery school sandpit, and told one another everything.
Arthur ignored my skeptical expression. “I saw them in the corridor last night. They were sitting outside your little sister’s door, so I joined them for a while.”
I didn’t believe a word of it. “And then, over a dream beer, Henry told you he and I had split up? While Grayson poured out his heart to you about Emily?”
“Well, not directly,” said Arthur. “Grayson and Henry were talking about it and I came along.…” At least he was being honest. “In the past they’d certainly have asked my advice. You may not believe it, but I was always the expert on girls in our little circle.”
“Before you lost your heart to that nutcase who thinks she has to let a demon loose on the world,” I couldn’t help saying.
Arthur’s right eyelid twitched. “You know, I miss the old days when I hung out with the others and we talked.” He stroked his chin, thus reminding me how I’d broken his jaw. Had he done that on purpose? “About girls, and how complicated life is, and basketball, of course. Boy stuff, that’s all. I miss them.”
The school corridors were emptying. Soon the bell would go. “You expect me to feel sorry for you?” I asked, annoyed. Annoyed mainly because I did feel sorry for him. It must be hard to lose such good friends. Still, that had nothing to do with it. “You ought to have thought about that before you lied to them and got drawn into such a bad business,” I said.
Arthur looked as if he really would think about it. “Yes, I guess I ought,” he said. “I kind of naturally assumed we’d all stay friends until we were old and gray. But maybe last night was at least a beginning.…”
A beginning of what? Did he really think that Grayson and Henry would make things up with this character who’d been happy to have me killed in his family vault? Never! On the other hand, they’d known one another all their lives and had been through thick and thin together. While I was still new here—and a girl.
The bell woke me from these gloomy thoughts, and for once I was even glad of it. “Well,” I said, relieved, “never mind that, I’m off. Maybe I can read about the boy stuff you go on about in the Tittle-Tattle—”
I stopped short. An idea that seemed both totally absurd and absolutely logical had occurred to me.
“Wait a second,” I said slowly as a great many little cogwheels began interlocking with each other in my mind. “So in the corridor last night Grayson and Henry told you that they’d ended their relationships?”
Arthur nodded. “I just told you so.” Suddenly he looked like the old, self-satisfied Arthur I’d known before.
“What an amazing coincidence that Secrecy writes about that very thing in her blog today!”
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “I’d say I agree with Nietzsche: no winner believes in coincidence.”
He wasn’t a winner. He was a nasty little fraud. He was …
“Arthur, are you Secrecy?” It burst out of me.
Arthur began to laugh. “My God, no! What funny ideas you get, Liv. I’m not Secrecy. To be honest, I haven’t the faintest idea who Secrecy is. I had a suspicion a couple of times, but it always turned out to be wrong. That really is a weird notion.”
“But…”
“But of course we all have Secrecy’s e-mail address.” He smiled at me, and I had a feeling that he was enjoying the horrified look I’d given him.
“Meaning that you supply Secrecy with information?”