Of course that didn’t explain all the underlines, she realized, but Hutch may have come to see that the clue he’d spotted in the notes didn’t amount to anything in the end.
Phoebe turned to go inside and then stopped. Duncan had shut off most of the great room lights, but there was still a light burning in the kitchen. He must have left it on so she could find her way. She realized that now that Hutch’s killer had been arrested, there’d be no reason for her to have to hole up at Duncan’s. Well, she thought, it would be tough to function indefinitely in a space that was not her own.
When she entered the bedroom a minute later, Duncan was standing by the bed in his gray boxer briefs, setting the alarm clock. Despite her fatigue and achiness, she felt a surge of desire shoot through her. She slipped into the bathroom, quickly washed her face, and changed into her pajama pants and camisole. He was in bed when she returned, propped up against the headboard and staring at a corner of the room, as if deep in thought.
“I didn’t even ask about your day,” Phoebe said. She crawled in beside him, mindful of her elbow.
“Mine paled compared to yours,” he said, directing his gaze at her now. “It was all pretty routine.”
“What about your student?”
“Student?”
“The one with the unexpected issue.”
“Oh, yeah. Smart kid, but the statistics part is totally over his head. He’s tried tutoring, and it’s just not working. He’s probably going to have to switch majors. You ready for lights out?”
“Yup.”
He switched off the swing lamp by his side of the bed. Phoebe lay on her right side, facing him, and in the dark she felt him shift his body closer to her. Duncan found her face with his hand, cradled it, and kissed her softly.
“Good night,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll feel even better tomorrow.”
She felt a twinge of disappointment. Should she just boldly announce her intentions? she wondered. But Duncan was already on his back again, pulling the covers up. Of course he’s not going to assume I want sex tonight, she told herself.
She thought she would fall asleep instantly, but when she closed her eyes, an image she had fought off all night made its way into her mind—Blair battering Hutch with a piece of firewood. Tonight should have brought a sense of closure, or at the very least the beginning of closure, but she felt troubled and discontent. And the nap had been too long. As she drifted off nearly an hour later, she realized she’d never heard from Jen Imbibio. She would grab her after class tomorrow. Blair and Gwen might be arrested, but the school still needed to shut down the Sixes.
In the morning she and Duncan took turns showering and drank their coffee quickly at the kitchen counter.
“Look, I know I offered my place while the killer was still at large,” Duncan said, “but why don’t you stay a few more nights? You’re still in recovery mode.”
“What if I take a rain check till later in the week,” Phoebe said. “I need to organize things at home.”
She left a few minutes ahead of him. It was colder out today than yesterday, and as she struggled to put on her gloves, one dropped to the ground. Stooping to pick it up, she felt a thought wiggling into her brain. At the hospital, Michelson had asked what she’d been wearing on Sunday night, and when she’d shown him her coat, he’d said, “Is that all?” The question had perplexed her. For the first time she wondered if the police had found an item of women’s clothing at the murder scene, something they needed to eliminate as Phoebe’s before linking it to the killer. So maybe that was one of the clues that had led them to Blair and Gwen.
Before heading to campus, Phoebe stopped briefly at her place. She unpacked her duffel bag, threw a load of clothes in the wash, and dropped some of the files she’d taken to Duncan’s back on her desk. Before leaving, she scooped up a few pinecones from the edge of her backyard and arranged them in a bowl on the coffee table. She wanted to feel safe again in her little house, but she wondered if she was being naive. According to Alexis, there were at least forty members of the Sixes. If someone else was really pulling the strings, they might still be a powerful force, even with a piece cut off.
She drove to campus. The scene, when she arrived, was just as Duncan had predicted—as if a bomb had gone off. People were gathered everywhere in clusters—talking, gesticulating, shaking their heads in dismay. A strong wind added to the disarray and tore across the quad, grabbing papers and candy wrappers and tossing them aside in a snit.
It didn’t take long to see that Blair and Gwen’s arrest had had a big impact inside the classroom as well. Nearly every student in her first class appeared hyped up, as if they’d dropped a couple of Adderall at breakfast. Though Phoebe had applied makeup over her bruises and scratches, they were still partially visible, but the students seemed too wired to notice. She decided to confront the situation head on.
“You must all be feeling pretty churned up,” she said once all the students were settled in their seats.
No one spoke for a moment, just looked at her in that slack-jawed style they so often resorted to in class, but finally a girl named Jackie lifted her shoulders in bewilderment and called out, “It just feels like, you know, everything’s out of control. All the kids are going ape shit. There’s press everyplace. And our parents want us to transfer.”
“Yeah,” a boy named Andy said. “I mean, I’ve heard of Skull and Bones. But who’s ever heard of a secret society on campus that actually murders people they don’t like? That’s freaking crazy.”
“Okay, I’ve got an idea,” Phoebe said, coming out from around the table she generally sat at. “We’re journalists, right? Let’s cover this. I want everyone to form a big circle with their chairs. We’re going to pretend we’re a media company, and we’re going to decide how to handle this on a variety of platforms. Some of you will report on it—talking to the police, and the administration. Some of you will write essay-style blogs. A good topic might be how you feel about the intrusion of the press in your life, or about the strain of trying to keep your parents from freaking out. You game?”
The students nodded their heads enthusiastically, and for the next hour they talked about the various angles of the crisis on campus and how they might cover it. Then they divvied up the assignments. It was part newsroom, part therapy session. The kids seemed enthralled. How ironic, she thought, that not one of the students suspected how deeply she was entrenched in the story.
As soon as class was over, she flew up to her office, closed the door, and called Wesley. He would be at work right now, but hopefully he would answer his cell phone. She reached only voice mail and left a message. Less than five minutes later, he called her back.
“I’m glad you phoned,” he said. “I’ve been going to call you ever since Monday, but I was feeling so weird about everything.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“That guy Hutchinson who died. I feel really strange about it.”
“Why?” she urged.
“He was the head security guy who interviewed me after I woke up in the river. You know, the one who just seemed to dismiss my whole story.”
“I know, I know,” she said impatiently. “But why do you feel so weird?”
“Well, he called me last Sunday, after I saw you. He said he’d been reviewing some notes about the case. I was about to blow him off, but he admitted that he might have misjudged the situation last year.
“I went over the details from that night with him,” he continued. “But this time . . . well . . .”