But Finn’s ex-girlfriend’s tennis career wasn’t his problem at the moment. His experiment was.
“So you know?”
“Everything,” she spat. Her big dark eyes radiated deep hurt.
He sighed. There were few options left. He had to throw himself at her mercy. “I’m so sorry, Scar. But now that you know, I know you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why I had to keep it a secret!”
“No, I don’t, actually.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the desk. “Enlighten me.”
“Well . . .” he fumbled. “You know. Because of the school rules about who owns any inventions or discoveries made here. I had to keep my project on the down-low. If they found out, it would ruin everything. And if you decided you hated me and wanted to use it as ammunition . . .”
“You think I’d do something like that?” she scoffed.
“I’ve seen you do it, Scar. Lots.” He’d been part of every one of their ruthless plans to obliterate their academic competition. But this was bigger than school. This was his whole future.
She shook her head, glaring at him as if he were something you’d scrape off your boots at the door. “Peacock didn’t tell me anything.”
Wait . . . what?
He gaped at her as she turned and started straightening up her books. “I—what did you just say?” he sputtered.
“I can’t believe you fell for that. You aren’t as smart as you think you are.” She gathered her test prep into her arms and turned. “And, I’d like to point out, I am offended to my core that you told Peacock. Peacock, and not me?” She snorted in indignation. “Are you still into her?”
No. Yes. Maybe. “So wait. Beth didn’t—”
“Of course not!” Scarlett looked disgusted. Worse, she looked disappointed.
Finn had to admit he was a little disappointed in himself, too, for falling for it. The move was a Scarlett classic: make her victim agree with her on the reason you were about to believe in her lie. They both knew Beth could be a touch . . . gullible. So of course he’d buy Scarlett’s story that she’d tricked Beth into spilling everything.
Scarlett was on a roll. “You’re going to tell me everything, and you’re going to do it right now, and then—maybe—I’ll decide whether or not to help you.”
He shook his head. Figured. She was always after an angle. “And you wonder why I never told you before.”
“Well, right now, I’ve already got enough to go on to rat you out to Dr. Brown and—”
He held up his hands in capitulation. “Wait a second before—”
“—which is good, because I needed an in with her anyway.”
“Scarlett!” he hissed.
She gave him her most innocent expression. It was not very innocent, if you knew her.
“There’s nothing to rat out anyway, if you don’t help me,” he said. “I was hiding my stuff in the secret passage during the storm, and in all the chaos when the cops came, I never got a chance to retrieve it. And now they’ve locked up the conservatory, and I can’t get in.”
“So what do you want me to do about that?”
“Help me,” he said, flabbergasted. “You live here. Surely you can think of something.”
“Like helping you break into the conservatory?”
No. That lock was hard-core. And all the windows to the conservatory had been boarded up—Finn had checked—the better to prevent people trying to catch a glimpse of the bloodstained floor within.
“Or into the other entrance to that passage—”
“The entrances have been sealed,” said Scarlett with a shrug. “It was one of the almost comically paltry ways the school tried to reassure parents that it was safe for us to return.”
“Yeah, by, like, Rusty or some other janitor,” Finn pointed out. That’s what they decided was an important repair needed at this school, ignoring the fact that half the dorms and the entire chem lab were wrecked by the storm. “I can handle that part.”
“Then what do you need me for?”
“To provide cover. Look, the last thing I need is anyone catching me. And this house is so crowded now. I need an inside man—er—woman.”
He needed Scarlett. That’s where this had all started to go wrong—when he hadn’t trusted his best friend. He needed her quick, clever mind to catch all his absentminded mistakes. Stuff like hiding his experiment underground. In a flood. It was supposed to be for a few hours, not weeks! Who knew what was happening to it down there?
Scarlett pursed her lips. “And you think I want to get caught in your scheme? All I want to do is . . .” She looked down at the practice tests in her arms and took a deep breath. “Okay, fine.”
“Really?” He practically hopped up and down.
“But this better not take very long.”
“Would I lie to you?” he asked, then caught the look on her face. “Don’t answer that.”
Together, they crossed the hall toward the lounge. But the second Scarlett opened the door, he realized his mistake.
Several pairs of eyes looked up from the TV screen.
“Oops, sorry,” said Scarlett, and they shut the door. She turned to him. “It’s a pretty full house here these days. We can try again tomorrow . . .”
Finn clenched his jaw and looked down at the floor. Somewhere under there was his entire future. He was so close. He just wanted to take a jackhammer to the tile.
Scarlett was looking at him with the first glint of sympathy he’d seen on her face. “So, this passage—you say it goes from the conservatory to the lounge?”
“Yeah.”
Her brow furrowed. “Well, the one in the kitchen apparently connects to the study. Curious, don’t you think?”
He shook his head. “Why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Because they have to cross one another, don’t they?” She made an X with her forearms. “Underground.”
Finn’s eyes widened.
“Maybe they connect somehow!” A door opened at the top of the stairs, and Scarlett tugged on his arm and led him back into the study. She stood next to the fireplace. “Okay. Do your thing.”
“My thing?”
“Your whole ‘let me handle unsealing the passage’ thing.” She gestured to the wall with the fireplace on it. “Handle it. Quick, before Dr. Brown comes to kick you out.”
Right. That. He went over to the fireplace, looking for the seams that might open, like the hidden switch he’d found in the conservatory, like what Mustard had told him he’d found on the lounge’s mantel. But he didn’t see anything.
Scarlett watched him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for the switch . . .”
She shook her head. “They removed the switches. That’s what I told you.” She pointed at the bookshelf behind her. “Orchid told me it used to be in a fake book up there.”
Sure enough, just above Scarlett’s head, he saw a shelf with a conspicuous gap between the volumes, and what looked like a hastily nailed down piece of a two-by-four instead of the study’s usual bronze busts and other Blackbrook-appropriate bookends.