“Yeah.”
“You don’t take history.”
“Right.”
“And you’ve got our testing next week.”
Vaughn was done with this little interrogation. “Do you want me to do your homework for you or not?”
Oliver’s expression went cold. “Our homework, brother. And fine. Not like you were so thrilled with my B-plus last term. Let’s see if you can do any better.” Oliver returned to his game. More droplets of blood spattered on the screen.
Vaughn turned away to eat. That game was so ridiculous. Dead bodies made a lot more blood than that.
And then there was the other thing. The one Vaughn didn’t even want to think about.
It took a ferry, four buses, and a long, long wait on a folding chair in a grimy hallway masquerading as a reception area, but finally, Vaughn was admitted. They hadn’t blinked twice at the ID he presented them. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised anymore. No one at Blackbrook had sniffed them out in three years. But somehow, when it was a law enforcement officer, Vaughn thought they should be . . . more observant.
Everyone was polite to him, at least. He’d visited half a dozen times since the storm, helping her meet with a lawyer, making sure she had everything she needed. They probably recognized him by now.
Both of him.
He was already sitting in the visiting room when they brought her in. It wasn’t like the movies, with old-fashioned phone receivers and bulletproof glass. Just a little window with a metal grate.
Vaughn kept his features neutral when she sat down. It was his best shot at convincing the only person who might notice the difference.
“Hello,” said Mrs. White.
“Hi.” Was he capable of more than single syllables? They’d see.
“What do you want?”
What did he want? “More information.” That was true.
“Did you find the things?”
Vaughn swallowed. What things? How far did this conspiracy go? Beneath the desk, his hands tightened into fists.
“You should have found the place,” she went on in hushed tones. “It’s overgrown, true, but not that hard to find.”
“I—I didn’t.” His heart pounded. Oliver had been out nights, coming home muddy and frustrated. Usually, he spent his free time with his hoard in the old boathouse, but obviously, he’d found a different place to skulk lately. Vaughn hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask what he’d been doing.
She frowned. “I wish they hadn’t sealed . . .” She stared at him through the smeared glass pane, and her eyes widened in horror. “Vaughn,” she whispered. “Oh God, Vaughny—”
His jaw clenched. He knew it. “What are you telling him? What are you getting him to do for you?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t lie to me again!”
Mrs. White narrowed her eyes. “You’re one to talk, Vaughn Green. You’ve never tried to be Oliver before.”
He’d never needed to. Never wanted to. In all their years of pretending, it had always been Oliver trying to be Vaughn, and only doing marginally better than Vaughn was doing now.
Tears came into her eyes. She looked so old now. So lost. “I’m just trying to help—”
“Don’t you think you’ve helped enough?” He’d spent weeks pretending she hadn’t kidnapped his classmates. Hadn’t stuck a knife into the chest of his headmaster. This was Linda White. His grandmother’s best friend. His godmother.
She’d confessed to all of it, which he supposed saved some money when it came to the lawyers. Now they were just awaiting sentencing. The lawyers had pushed for minimum security. They’d talked about her spotless record, the stress she’d been under from the storm, and the fact that she had lived in the house since she’d been a child . . . but Vaughn didn’t hold out much hope. Karlee and Kayla had delivered victim impact statements. Blackbrook wanted her head on a pike. They were lucky Maine didn’t believe in the death penalty.
She’d still spend the rest of her life in prison.
“I thought you didn’t want to be involved,” Mrs. White sniffed.
“I don’t think I get a choice in the matter. Oliver’s seen to that.”
Mrs. White said nothing.
“You can’t play both sides. I helped you with your lawyers, I brought you books, and you acted like a remorseful, broken, little old lady. But this whole time, you and Oliver are secretly plotting . . . what?”
She cast her eyes about, as if searching for cameras. “Nothing.”
“No more games. My grandmother did this to me, too. I’m not going to be saved by you all keeping me in the dark.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Ah, yes. You’re the good twin, and he’s the bad twin. What a helpful fiction.”
He’d spent years thinking it was just a fiction, too. Some joke Gemma used to make when they’d been little that had somehow become stuck in their psyches. Hating himself because he was the golden child. The Blackbrook kid—the one who was going to get out while Oliver stayed mired in his resentment and delusions of glory.
It was a big reason why he agreed to Oliver’s lunatic plan.
If Oliver went to Blackbrook, too, they’d be the same.
But then, in the storm, he wondered if there was a nugget of truth to the idea. Maybe Oliver was bad. Really, really bad. Because he couldn’t shake the idea that his brother could have killed Headmaster Boddy.
His own brother, a murderer.
Orchid acted like Vaughn should be traumatized to learn that Mrs. White was a killer, the way she herself was traumatized. But Vaughn was actually relieved.
At least it wasn’t Oliver.
He couldn’t tell Orchid that, though. Or explain that going to a therapist—especially that stupid school counselor with his stupid, gentle voicemails—would open up a huge can of worms.
Hello, sir. Well, I’d say my major source of stress is the fact that I have to secretly share half my life with my twin brother. Who hates me. Also, it’s possible he conspired to murder the headmaster. So maybe there is something irretrievably . . . broken inside of him? How do you know if your only family member is a sociopath? And how much time have we got?
“I don’t know what you and Oliver are up to,” he said, “but you need to give it a rest. You’re already in so much trouble—”
“Then I have nothing to lose.”
“But Oliver does!” Vaughn leaned forward. “He’s got to let this all go. Finish school. Get out.” Get out, too.
“Oh, so he’s going to be Vaughn Green in college, too?”
“We’ll get two scholarships. Different schools. No one will know.”
“You don’t think you’ll get caught?”
“No one’s caught us yet. I don’t think this is the kind of thing anyone is looking to catch.” Unlike, say, murder. But he didn’t twist the knife any further. “And when he’s in school, he can just . . . start going by Oliver. People change their names in college all the time.”
Now Mrs. White leaned forward. “You think you’re so smart, Vaughny. You and your Blackbrook scholarship.”
Vaughn blinked but kept his jaw tight. This was right out of the Oliver playbook.