"Okay."
He made his excuses and quickly left. Faith glanced at her watch, wondering where he was going. He didn't have to be at the Campanos for another hour.
Faith looked around the room, all the eyes that were on her. She decided to get it over with. "I'm wondering if there was something specific that happened with Kayla Alexander. There doesn't seem to be a lot of sympathy for her considering what happened."
There were some shrugs. Most of them looked at their hands or the floor. Even Daniella Park didn't have a response.
The principal took over. "As I said, Detective Mitchell, Kayla was a challenge."
Bernard let out a heavy sigh, as if he resented having to be the one to clarify. "Kayla liked to cause trouble."
"In what way?"
"The way girls do," he said, though that was hardly an explanation.
"She picked fights?" Faith guessed.
"She spread rumors," Bernard provided. "She got the other girls into a tizzy. I'm sure you remember what it was like to be that age."
Faith had tried her damndest to forget. Being the only pregnant fourteen-year-old in your school was not exactly a walk in the park.
Bernard's tone turned dismissive. "It wasn't that bad."
Matthew Levy agreed. "These spats are always cyclical. They tear into each other one week, then the next week they're best friends and they hate someone else. You see it all the time."
All the women in the room seemed to think otherwise. Park spoke for them. "It was bad," she said. "I'd say that within a month of enrolling, Kayla Alexander had crossed just about everybody here. She split the school in two."
"Was she popular with the boys?"
"And how," Park said. "She used them like toilet paper."
"Was there anyone in particular?"
There was a series of shrugs and head shaking.
"The list is probably endless," Bernard supplied. "But, the boys didn't rile up. They knew what they were getting."
Faith addressed Daniella Park. "Earlier, you made it sound like Emma was her only friend."
Park answered, "Kayla was Emma's friend. Emma was all Kayla had left."
The distinction was an important one. "Why did Emma stick by her?"
"Only Emma knows the answer to that, but I would guess that she understood what it meant to be an outsider. The more things turned against Kayla, the closer they seemed to get."
"You said the school was divided in two. What exactly happened?"
Silence filled the room. No one seemed to want to volunteer the information. Faith was about to ask the question again when Paolo Wolf, an economics teacher who had been quiet until this point, said, "Mary Clark would know more about that."
The silence became more pronounced until Evan Bernard mumbled something under his breath.
Faith asked, "I'm sorry, Mr. Bernard, I didn't catch what you said."
His eyes darted around the room, as if to dare anyone to challenge him. "Mary Clark barely knows the time of day."
"Is Mary a student here?"
McFaden, the principal, explained, "Mrs. Clark is one of our English teachers. She had Kayla in her class last year."
Faith didn't bother to ask why the woman wasn't here. She would find out for herself in person. "Can I speak with her?"
McFaden opened her mouth to respond, but the bell rang. The principal waited until the ringing had stopped. "That's the assembly bell," she told Faith. "We should head over to the auditorium."
"I really need to talk to Mary Clark."
There was just a second of equivocation before McFaden gave a bright smile that would rival the world record for fakeness. "I'd be happy to point her out to you."
FAITH WALKED ACROSS the courtyard behind the main school building, following Olivia McFaden and the other teachers to the auditorium. Oddly, they were all in a single line, as were all the students following their respective teachers to the assembly. The building was the most modern looking of all the structures on the Westfield campus, probably built on the backs of hapless parents shilling candy bars, magazine subscriptions and wrapping paper to unsuspecting neighbors and grandparents.
One line of students in particular was getting a bit too rowdy. McFaden's head swiveled around as if it was on a turret, her gaze pinpointing the loudest culprits. The noise quickly drained like water down a sink.
Faith should not have been surprised by the auditorium, which was really more like what you would find housing a small community theatre in a wealthy suburb. Rows of plush velvet red seats led to a large stage with state-of-the-art lighting hanging overhead. The barrel-vaulted ceiling was painted in a very convincing homage to the Sistine Chapel. Intricate bas-relief around the stage depicted the gods in various states of excitement. The carpet underfoot was thick enough to make Faith glance down every few steps for fear of falling.
McFaden gave the tour as she walked, students hushing in her wake. "We built the auditorium in 1995 with an eye toward hosting overflow events during the Olympics."
So, the parents had hustled their candy, then the school had charged the state to rent the auditorium.
"Daphne, no gum," McFaden told one of the girls as she passed. She directed her words back to Faith. "Our art director, Mrs. Meyers, suggested the ceiling motif."
Faith glanced up, mumbling, "Nice."
There was more about the building, but Faith tuned out
McFaden's voice as she walked down the steps toward the stage. There was a certain frisson that overtook the auditorium as it began filling with students. Some were crying, some were simply staring at the stage, a look of expectancy in their eyes. A handful were with their parents, which somehow made the situation even more tense. Faith saw more than one child with a mother's arm around his or her shoulders. She could not help but think about Abigail Campano when she saw them, remember the way the mother had so fiercely fought the man she assumed had killed her daughter. The hair on the back of her neck rose, an ancient genetic response to the sense of collective fear that permeated the room.
Doing a quick count with some multiplication, Faith figured that, including the empty balcony, there were around a thousand seats in the auditorium. The bottom level was almost completely full. Most of the Westfield students were young girls. The majority of them were very thin, very well-heeled and very pretty. They ate organic produce and wore organic cotton and drove their BMWs and Minis to Pilates after school. Their parents weren't stopping at McDonald's on the way home to pick up dinner before they went to do their second job on the night shift. These girls probably lived a life very similar to Emma Campano's: shiny iPhones, new cars, beach vacations and big-screen televisions.
Faith caught herself, knowing that the small part of her who had lost so many things when Jeremy came along was acting up. It wasn't these girls' fault that they had been born into wealthy families. They certainly didn't force their parents to buy them things. They were very lucky, and from the looks of them, very frightened. One of their schoolmates had been brutally murdered-more brutally than perhaps any of them would ever know. Another classmate was missing, probably being sadistically used by a monster. Between CSI and Thomas Harris, these kids could probably guess what was happening to Emma Campano.
The closer Faith got to the stage, the more she could hear crying. There was nothing more emotional than a teenage girl. Whereas ten minutes ago, she had felt something akin to disdain for them, now Faith could only feel pity.
McFaden took Faith by the arm. "That's Mrs. Clark," she said, pointing to a woman leaning against the far wall. Most of the teachers were standing in the aisle, diligently reprimanding students, keeping the peace in the large crowd, but Mary Clark seemed to be in her own little world. She was young, probably not long out of college, and bordering on beautiful. Her strawberry blond hair hung to her shoulders and freckles dotted her nose. Incongruously, she was dressed in a conservative black jacket, pressed white shirt and matching skirt that hit just below the knee-an outfit much more suitable for a matronly older woman.