Because I told him I was, after my ex-boyfriend Marcus outed me.
I stand tall.
“It was the only way to win his trust.”
“Trust isn’t won, Brynn,” Dr. O says carefully. “It’s earned. Painstakingly. Through deliberate efforts to prove yourself.”
I swallow.
“You risked everything by giving him that information.”
In the blink of an eye, I see Caleb. Henry. My friends Charlotte and Sam, upstairs right now, with no idea how I’ve jeopardized their safety. If the police become aware of this program, we could all go to jail. Every student here who’s conned their way into someone’s life stands to lose the scholarships and dreams they were once promised.
I know the costs.
“You risk more by bringing him here,” I say quietly.
Dr. O is quiet. He runs a hand over his face. Sits on the edge of his desk.
“You can’t kick me out,” I say. “I’m the only one he trusts.”
“I know that.” His spine bows. “Brynn, I don’t want to kick you out.”
My shoulders fall an inch. This version of Dr. O is familiar; it’s what drew me to him in the first place. Beneath this mantle of privilege, he’s trying to do the right thing.
But even when he yields, he holds power.
“I can’t turn Grayson away,” he says. “He’s on his own because of me.”
This is true—if he hadn’t sent me to con Grayson’s secrets out of him, Grayson might still be at home with his father.
Living in fear.
But Grayson was already walking the line before Dr. O pushed him over it. Matthew Sterling had been violent with Grayson before—who knows what he would have done if his son had made the cover-up of Susan’s death public.
“How did he find me?” I ask.
“He didn’t.” Dr. O sighs, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the desk. “I’ve been looking for him since he left you on the road that day.”
“You have?” This shouldn’t surprise me; I told Dr. O what Grayson had done. Of course Dr. O would attempt to find the person behind his sister’s death.
Ice settles in the pit of my stomach. Dr. O tracked down Grayson but didn’t turn him over to the police. He brought him to Vale Hall—to our home—likely without informing his mother or anyone else that he’d been found.
As far as they know, he could still be missing.
“What are you going to do with him?” I ask.
The director’s gaze lifts, his blue eyes bloodshot and tired.
“I’m asking him to testify about what happened to my sister.”
My fear takes on a sharp, jagged edge. “His dad will kill him.”
Grayson isn’t a 4-H project. You don’t name and befriend the pig you send to slaughter.
“We’ll trade his confession for protection, so we can put the right man behind bars.”
The right man. Not Grayson, but his father, Matthew.
Dr. O’s still going after the senator, even though he has the guy who committed the actual crime in his house. It doesn’t line up. Either Dr. O has bigger plans for Grayson that he’s not telling me, or he has a serious vendetta against the senator.
An image of Grayson’s father fills my mind, his smooth jaw tilted with his trademark smile, his clothes neatly pressed. Senator Matthew Sterling may look like an angel, but he’s a snake. In the three months Grayson’s been missing, he hasn’t even made a public announcement of his son’s disappearance. There’s been no missing person report, no manhunt. A senator’s runaway son should have made national news, but not even our local celebrity gossip site, Pop Store, has picked up the story.
The Sterlings are keeping this quiet, but they must be looking for Grayson. He has too big of a secret to be cut loose.
“You’re going to use the phone,” I realize. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”
For three months, Dr. O has had the proof that someone was with his sister the night she died—a cell phone Grayson took from Susan’s car before the police arrived at the scene—but he’s sat on it, waiting for Grayson’s confession.
“It’s not enough. This isn’t the first time Sterling’s covered his own tracks. We must be careful. Diligent.” Dr. O shoves off his desk, pacing to the oil painting on the wall beside the fireplace. A woman in a white dress sits in a chair, looking over her shoulder.
Susan painted it herself, Dr. O told me once. From a picture he’d taken on her birthday.
“Grayson may have been behind the wheel that night, but his father is the one at fault. He lied. He bullied his son into hiding the truth, then threatened him when he tried to do the right thing and go to the police. All Matthew Sterling cares about is power, and it doesn’t matter who he steamrolls in order to keep it.” Dr. O’s voice goes low and gravelly as he pounds a fist against his thigh. “I will stop him. He will be held accountable…”
He drifts off, staring at the portrait. His grief is a well, big enough to drown this whole room. It pulls at me, makes me want to help him.
This is dangerous ground. There is a fine line between working for Dr. O, and getting used.
“What do you mean this isn’t the first time?” I ask, retracing his words.
Dr. O continues to stare up at his sister. “There was another before Susan. An intern named Jimmy Balder who was working on the senator’s staff. He went missing last year.”
“How come I didn’t hear about this?” It should have come up in the news. At the very least, I would have dug something up in all the research I did on the Sterlings.
“Susan mentioned him once, right before she died.” His shoulders heave in a tight sigh. “I didn’t know what she was talking about at the time. She just said he was causing problems in the campaign.” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing online. I’m afraid he’s already been wiped out of the system, like so many other of Matthew Sterling’s roadblocks.”
My jaw tightens. The senator isn’t the only one who can make people disappear. Dr. O has that power, too—when Caleb’s ex-girlfriend, Margot, broke the rules, any record of her association with Vale Hall became nonexistent.
Dr. O taps his knuckles against his thigh. “I need someone connected to the Sterling campaign to tell me what happened to Jimmy Balder. Someone who knows what this family is capable of and can conduct themselves with a certain … discretion.”
He moves closer, like a tidal wave of anger and grief. I have the sudden sensation that my legs are being swept out from beneath me, sucked into the undertow.
“The Sterlings own a private club in Uptown where the campaign staff conducts most of their business—The Loft. It’s in the same building as the senator’s office.” He stops, and his brows pinch together. “Mr. Moore’s already submitted your application for the hostess position. I hadn’t anticipated finding Grayson before discussing it with you.”
A tingling starts at the base of my neck, spreading through my shoulders. I knew another job would come—that’s the price for enrollment here at Vale Hall—but playing politics with my old mark’s dad isn’t exactly what I expected.