For a moment, I watched as if from a great distance, his fingers working their way between mine, his skin brown and smooth, mine paler than usual beneath John Thomas’s blood.
“I’m okay.” If I said the words, I could believe them. I came back to myself, felt Henry’s touch on my skin, felt his body next to mine. He seemed to realize, the same second I did, that this was the closest the two of us had ever been.
We both froze. Henry stepped back. I stared down at the pools of red washing into the drain.
“Miss,” I heard someone say behind me. “If you’ll just come with me, we need to ask you some questions.”
Vivvie handed me a stack of paper towels. As I dried my hands—mostly, though not entirely, clean now—Henry eyed the police officer.
“Perhaps you could give her a moment?” he said. That wasn’t really a suggestion. Staring down the police officer, Henry slipped off his Hardwicke blazer and began unbuttoning the white collared shirt underneath. It wasn’t until he stripped the shirt off that I realized his intent.
“You don’t have to,” I started to say.
“Kendrick,” Henry replied firmly. “Do shut up.” He was down to his undershirt now, but he spoke with the polish of someone wearing black tie. Moving efficiently, he handed me his shirt. All too aware that every set of eyes in the class was on the two of us, I turned to the police officers.
“Can I change?” Like Henry, I aimed for a tone that invalidated the question mark at the end of that sentence. The officer gave a curt nod.
“We’ll need to bag your shirt.”
Bag it. For evidence. That sent another wave of whispered conjectures through the room. With one last glance at Henry and Vivvie, I made my exit. In the bathroom, I took off my own shirt and looked at the unblemished skin underneath. Clean. My body was clean. My hands were mostly clean, but I could still feel the blood.
I could still smell it.
I slipped on Henry’s shirt. It was too big for me. As my fingers struggled with the first button, I breathed in. This time, instead of blood, I smelled the barest hint of Henry.
My fingers made quick work of the rest of the buttons. I didn’t even stop at the sink on my way out of the bathroom. I handed my shirt to the police officer.
And then came the questions.
CHAPTER 27
“I was coming back from the playing fields. I entered through the south entrance. I was walking past the library when I heard something. I turned around and saw blood coming out from under the library door. Then the—”
The body. It’s just a body now.
“Then John Thomas fell out into the hallway.”
I’d been through this a half-dozen times. The detectives kept saying that any information, even the tiniest detail, might help, so we kept walking through it again and again. The officers and I were sequestered in the headmaster’s office. Headmaster Raleigh stood in the doorway, presiding over the interview.
“Mr. Wilcox was still alive at this point?” the detective prompted.
I nodded. “He was bleeding. I didn’t know at first that he’d been shot, but there was so much blood.” I swallowed. I’d been in shock. I wasn’t going back down that road. “I knelt next to him and tried to stop the bleeding. He—John Thomas—he said he’d been shot.”
“He actually said the words I’ve been shot?”
“No,” I said through gritted teeth. “He just said shot.”
And then he’d said tell and then didn’t and then tell again. We’d been over this. And over it. And over it.
“I yelled for help, but no one came.”
“As I’ve mentioned,” the headmaster interjected, “news of the assassination attempt on the president had commanded the staff’s attention, not to mention that of the other students. There was quite a bit of chaos. Under normal circumstances, I assure you our campus security would have been alerted within seconds.”
The police had already sent someone to talk to campus security. There were closed-circuit cameras everywhere at this school. The hope was that the cameras might be able to tell the police what I couldn’t—who had shot John Thomas Wilcox.
How did someone even get a gun into the school? That was one of a half-dozen questions echoing through my mind each time I walked through what had happened.
“What were you doing out at the playing fields?” This was the first time one of the detectives had steered the questioning toward what I’d been doing before I’d discovered the body.
“Thinking.” One word was all I needed to answer the question, so one word was all I used.
The two detectives exchanged a look.
“You said you headed back at about ten to,” the one on the left said, looking through his notes. “You discovered John Thomas’s body. The 911 call came in at three after the hour.”
Thirteen minutes from the time I’d started walking toward the building until I’d dialed 911. Ten minutes of walking, three of yelling for help—and yelling and yelling, and no response.