Whoever had shot John Thomas had wanted Asher on campus. They’d wanted Asher to take the fall. And they’d known that Asher would literally jump off a cliff for his twin.
“We will find out who did this,” I told Emilia. That was a promise—to Henry, to Emilia, to myself.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. When Emilia spoke again, all trace of emotion had been banished from her voice. “You’ll try.”
CHAPTER 34
Hardwicke resumed classes the next day.
“My aunt thought they’d cancel for the rest of the week, at least,” Vivvie told me as the two of us filed into the Hardwicke chapel for an all-school assembly.
I’d thought the same, but apparently the powers that be at Hardwicke had other plans.
“How was the police station?” Vivvie asked, lowering her voice.
“The good news is that they don’t suspect me.” I’d never been the type to mince words. “The bad news is that they suspect Asher.”
“Asher wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Vivvie said fiercely. “I mean, he repeatedly face-punched John Thomas, obviously—but other than that, he would never hurt someone.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. I knew that Asher hadn’t gone home and gotten a gun. I knew that he hadn’t put a bullet in John Thomas’s chest.
“Settle, please. Everyone, settle down.” Headmaster Raleigh’s voice was strong, but his face was morose. For once, the room quieted almost instantaneously. “Here at Hardwicke, we’ve had a difficult couple of days,” the headmaster said. “Many of us are just now coming to understand the enormity of our loss.”
In the pew behind me, I heard a couple of girls take jagged breaths. On the opposite side of the room, one or two of John Thomas’s friends were bent over, hollow-eyed and ready to punch something.
“John Thomas Wilcox was a bright young man with his whole future in front of him,” the headmaster continued. “When he transferred here as a freshman, he immediately began leaving his mark on this school and on each of us. He was a model student, a natural leader, and a wonderful friend.”
Already, I could feel the collective memory shifting, as people remembered the good times and forgot everything else. This was the John Thomas most of our classmates would remember: a well-liked guy who knew how to take a joke and how to deliver one. An athlete. An honors student. A life full of potential, cut down too soon.
Across the room, Emilia sat between Maya and Di. As the headmaster spoke, she stared straight ahead, never blinking, her hands gripping each other tightly in her lap.
“In the coming days,” Headmaster Raleigh continued, “there will be some changes at Hardwicke. We will be doubling our on-campus security and reviewing all protocols to ensure student safety. Until further notice, students are asked to remain in the main building at all times. If you have information that might be of help to the police, I urge you to speak with your parents and come forward as soon as possible.”
? ? ?
I caught up with Emilia in the girls’ bathroom. Her hands were wrapped around the edge of the sink. Her head was bowed, her knuckles white.
“Sitting through that couldn’t have been easy,” I told her. I leaned back against the bathroom door, making sure no one else could come in and catch Emilia with her armor off.
“Sitting through what?” Emilia shot back. “The beatification of John Thomas Wilcox, or the stares from people I’ve gone to school with my whole life who think that my brother might have done this?”
I sensed that was a rhetorical question.
Emilia turned to look at me. “If I told you to go away, is there even the least chance you’d listen?”
I let my arms dangle next to my side. “Unlikely.”
Emilia forced herself to stand up straight. She turned to face me head-on. “I tried to figure out who took my phone,” she said, banishing all hint of vulnerability. “I left it in the courtyard Monday morning.” Clearly, Emilia didn’t want to talk about her feelings. “Someone turned it into the office that afternoon, but no one in the office could remember who.”
I couldn’t force Emilia to let me in, so I followed her lead and focused on the facts. “John Thomas told me he’d gotten ahold of Hardwicke student files,” I said. “The kind of files that contained confidential medical information.”
“And this is the boy people are mourning,” Emilia said, her voice going hollow. “A model student. A natural leader. A wonderful friend.”
The look in Emilia’s eyes when she repeated the headmaster’s words from that morning reminded me that John Thomas hadn’t just enjoyed power. He’d enjoyed making other people feel powerless.
“We need to figure out who at this school had reason to want John Thomas dead,” I said quietly.
“Besides me, you mean?”
“Emilia—”