Scarlett, however, appeared unaffected. They hung their coats on the rack and toed off their boots. Dr. Brown, the interim headmaster and new resident coordinator, was super strict about mud, especially given the reduced staff.
Orchid had been stunned to learn that they were keeping Tudor House open for dorm space, but then again, most of the other buildings on campus had been damaged in the storm. Not that any of the girls they’d moved in were happy about staying in the Murder House . . . or with the Murder Crew.
“Did you do those practice tests?” Scarlett asked her, gesturing to her binder.
Orchid nodded. “I feel pretty good about everything. Ten wrong answers in verbal—”
“Ten!” Scarlett exclaimed. “We have to run them again, tonight!”
“Ten isn’t the end of the world—”
“I reject that premise.”
Again, Orchid shook her head. One would think, after what they’d been through in the storm, that Scarlett would have gained a little perspective. But that was, perhaps, underestimating the place her friend held in her own worldview.
“I think there’s the real possibility of diminishing returns with these practice tests,” Orchid said. She wouldn’t mention the two blanks she’d left in the math section. “I don’t want to wear myself out before the real one.”
“And I don’t want you to miss answers you know you should have gotten. Think about it. We’re up against child geniuses who have been running drills since they were in diapers and movie stars’ children who have hired ringers to take the test for them—”
“And you want me back in Hollywood?” Orchid cried.
“We’re up against Finn.”
Ah, there it was. Scarlett couldn’t bear to be beaten by her ex–best friend, Finn Plum. If there was any chink to be found in her blood-red armor, that would be it.
She looked at her friend—since that was what Scarlett was. When Orchid had been scared during the storm, Scarlett had listened. When she’d confronted Mrs. White in the secret passage, it had been Scarlett who broke down the door.
“Okay,” Orchid said. “One more practice test.”
Scarlett beamed and pulled out her stopwatch. It was crimson, of course. “Grab your number two pencils! I’ll meet you in the study.”
2
Green
Vaughn Green never had enough—money, food, sleep, time. For years, he’d been running on the fumes of the future. All he had to do was get through the winter, get through the term, get through Blackbrook, and then get out. Away from Rocky Point. Away from Oliver. Away from everything that had made up his not-enough childhood.
The storm had changed all that. Or, at least, he thought it had. For the first time ever, he’d gotten emails and texts over winter break. The Murder Crew had been through something together, and they felt almost like real friends. Peacock had apologized for anything she might have done to hurt him and added what seemed like a genuine invitation to hang out when she got back to school. Finn Plum kept in touch and commiserated with Vaughn over how the cleanup was proceeding and whether or not Tudor House would be sealed due to its being a crime scene. Mustard asked if they might be hiring on the janitorial staff. Karlee and Kayla had emailed to tell him about their folks pulling them out of school. Scarlett had pretended he didn’t exist, of course. But he didn’t care, because there was also . . .
Orchid.
He and Orchid had kept up a steady stream of texts all those long weeks. Every morning at dawn he’d see her responses from the previous evening, and he would send her things he knew she wouldn’t see until she woke up, many hours later, on the West Coast. It had become a ritual of sorts, a lifeline he clung to in the dark, gray days, working to shore up the ruin of the Blackbrook campus, of Rocky Point.
Of any semblance of a relationship with Oliver.
The gloves had come off in the storm. They’d fought all their lives—with words, with fists—but something had changed in the wake of Boddy’s murder. He’d like to say it was him, that Vaughn had finally realized what his brother was capable of. In a way, he’d known for years, even if he’d tried to deny it. After all, Oliver was the only family that Vaughn had left.
But that wasn’t it at all. It wasn’t that Vaughn knew.
It was that Oliver knew he knew.
It didn’t matter that, in the end, Oliver hadn’t murdered the headmaster. Once Vaughn had been willing to admit to himself that his twin brother was in fact capable of murder, there was no looking back. Not for either of them.
The porch creaked, the door squealed on its hinges, and Oliver looked up from the couch, where he was playing the latest video game they shouldn’t have been able to afford, gunning down insurgents via remote control.
Vaughn knew his lines. He was supposed to ask, Don’t you have a custodial shift? And then Oliver was supposed to sneer and say that if Vaughn’s precious work-study was so important, he could cover it himself.
By now, they could do it all in a look.
But then Oliver surprised him. “I did go in. Rusty’s office is all locked up. No one’s seen him all day.”
Vaughn frowned. Rusty had been working a lot of overtime lately, given all the damage the campus had sustained in the storm. “Think I ought to go over to his place, make sure he’s all right?”
Oliver turned back to his game. “No. I do not think that.”
Of course he wouldn’t.
Vaughn went to the kitchen for a snack. The cupboard held ramen. As usual. Oliver could drop sixty bucks on a new video game but balked at spending money on groceries. As Vaughn set the hot pot on, he turned over approaches in his mind. Finally, he decided on direct. “Why did you partner with Violet Vandergraf for the poster project in history?”
“Because she’s an idiot,” Oliver responded, eyes glued to the screen. “Closest thing to getting to do it my own way.” After a minute, he went on. “How did you know? Did she ask you to meet up?”
“No.” He had to be careful. “I saw Orchid McKee. You know, from Tudor? She thought maybe we should have partnered up.”
“Yes!” Oliver shouted as he blew a tank to smithereens. Fake blood fake spattered the TV screen. “Murder Crew back in business!”
Vaughn grimaced as he poured the hot water into the bowl. “Something like that.”
“Well, I don’t care. Tell her you’ll ditch the other chick as long as she stays out of your way. I don’t need her help or her glitter pens or whatever.”
Orchid did not seem the glitter pen type. “That hardly seems fair to Violet.”
Oliver paused his game. “I’m getting them confused right now. Which one is in the Murder Crew?”
“Orchid.”
“Orchid, Violet, Petunia, Pansy . . . I don’t care who my partner is. Let them do it together, and I’ll be the odd man out. That works better for me anyway.”
That would have been Oliver’s suggestion, if he’d been the one to run into Orchid. And maybe Vaughn should have let the chips fall that way.
But Orchid wanted to be his partner. To spend time with Vaughn.
“I’ll do it,” he blurted.
Oliver blinked at him in disbelief. “Our history homework?”