Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Fenn snorts out loud.
There’s a long pause where I realize I might have stepped over the line a smidge.
“Duke really beat you up?” she demands. “Over me?”
“You might have come up in conversation, yes. Things are still a little foggy, though. Concussion will do that.”
“Was it even close?”
I should probably make it sound good, talk myself up, but I don’t have energy. And a little pity might help my case. I’m not above it.
“Not even a little,” I admit.
“So he didn’t scare you off?” she asks.
“What, that? It’ll take a lot more than a beating to keep me away from you, cupcake.”
In the resulting silence, I can hear her reluctant smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she finally says. “You can show me your battle scars.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Fenn shakes his head, resigned. “Poor dumb bastard.”
Nah. I don’t know if I’d call myself dumb. Because the way I see it, I still got the girl.
Chapter 27
RJ
The next morning I’m summoned to the headmaster’s office, where he has me sit in a leather chair while he heats water in an electric kettle for a cup of tea. It’s cop tactics. Leave the suspect to stew for a while before the interrogation begins. Let the tension build while you wonder how much they know. In my case, it could be anything. An elaborate cheating scheme the like of which this place hasn’t seen in its long and storied history. Using school property to engage in illicit online activities. Getting cozy with his daughter and underage drinking. Take your pick.
“Do you drink tea, Mr. Shaw?”
I stay cool, watching him conduct an elaborate ritual to prepare a bitter cup of dead-leaf water. “You were going to call me RJ.”
“That’s right. I remember now. Our first conversation.” He takes a seat across from me in the cavernous wood-paneled office. “You promised to keep your nose clean, as it were.”
“Is that what I said?”
“To paraphrase.”
Tresscott’s got an odd demeanor about him. Friendly, and yet vaguely threatening. I can’t help feeling like he’s set a trap and is watching me sniff the ground, inching closer.
Another cop tactic is leaving enough empty space for the perp to incriminate himself. I’ve seen enough three a.m. reruns of Law & Order to know better than to get caught by some network television-level sleuthing.
“If I’m being accused of something,” I tell him, “I’d like to be given the chance to defend myself.”
“I’d say you could have used a bit of defense last night,” he says, nodding at me. “Judging by those bruises.”
Oh, right. The fight. Not sure what it says about me that I’d already forgotten. It’s a relief, but I don’t let it show. I thought for sure they’d managed to hide a keystroke logger I couldn’t find on the computer lab machines.
“Mr. Swinney informs me that you and Duke really had it out.”
Goddamn Roger. Fenn said the guy was a mouse. I didn’t expect him to go tattling to the headmaster about a simple dorm fight, and now it seems like I’m going to have to do something about that guy. If he’s running to Daddy about every little indiscretion, I can’t trust what’ll happen if he were to stick his nose somewhere else it doesn’t belong.
“A little disagreement,” I assure Tresscott. “We hugged it out.”
One corner of his mouth twitches with the slightest smile as he takes a sip from his mug. “I’m sure.” Then he sets the mug aside. “Your teachers tell me you’re excelling in class. You received an A on your first essay.”
“I try.” I mean, not that hard, but we live in a results-based society. People say they care about the how, but no one wants glass walls in a slaughterhouse.
“That you’re maintaining your academics is why I’ve decided to let this incident slide. In the future, I won’t be as lenient.”
Yeah right. That’s not what I’ve heard. There’s a reason the tuition for this place is sky-high. Parents pay Tresscott and his faculty to act as babysitters, not administrators. Which means nobody gets kicked out of Sandover, not if the headmaster wants to keep his cozy salary.
“But I won’t tolerate any future fighting. If you can’t solve your differences with more constructive means…”
I lift a brow. “Not to nitpick, but Duke started it. Might want to drag him in here next.”
“That’s hardly the point. And I’ll decide what intervention is necessary with Mr. Jessup, if that’s all right.”
“You’re the boss.”
I smile and nod, because in the end that’s all he wants—my acquiescence to the façade of responsibility. The headmaster gets to feel like he’s in control of the situation, me suitably contrite and put in my place, because it reinforces the power structure. But only I know that I had his daughter dragging her nails down the back of my neck this weekend.
Like I said. Information is power.