“But?”
“The phone. If I were him, I would have destroyed it. As he tried to do when he attacked you. Would have been as simple as dropping it into the rowing pool. But it got from the boathouse to your dorm room. And the sweater. There to make you, us, assume she’d gone back to the room.”
“So then someone else returned the phone. Not Tipton. One of the Ivies, maybe. Margot? She knew about the affair. Maybe she was protecting Emma.” With the earring still on my mind, I remember the boot print. “Margot definitely came through the window that night. She’s the only Ivy with a foot about the size of Emma’s. The boot print I mentioned.”
“You really think your friend would do that and still not have fessed up?”
“I don’t know.”
The detective taps her finger again, rapidly. A thinking tic. “You were running your own shadow investigation all along—you’re lucky I didn’t take you to task on obstruction, I’ll remind you. Is there anything you uncovered that you haven’t told me? Every bit of information is critical. Either to nail Tipton, or…” She trails off.
Or find the real killer. The case may be strong, but she’s not sold on Tipton.
“Right now, after his attack on you, we have him on assault for sure,” Cataldo says. “Emma’s murder…? He proclaims his innocence, and we don’t have the texts anymore. It’ll be your word against his. And there’s the blackmail attempt to muddy the waters, help him claim reasonable doubt. So I called you back in. I need all the cards on the table. Everything you found out with your poking around. Anything that might undermine your testimony.”
“What if he faked the bad blackmail to cover his ass? Look, I received threats, too.” I pull up the emails from Quit Meddling on my phone, show them to her. “Both anonymous Gmail addresses. They could be connected, right?”
Cataldo lets out a slow breath as she reads the three increasingly hostile messages. “Possibly. Our techs are trying to chase the origin of the other email address. The texts were sent by a burner. I’ll need you to forward these to me. We’ll add them to the file.”
I digest all this new information. Tipton might be innocent. Which means something else got Emma killed, not the affair with the teacher. I swallow hard. Check my phone for the time. It’s 1:30 p.m. Let’s hope I make it back in time for the party. I have a lot to tell the detective. About the Ivies. About the SATs.
“Coffee,” I say. “I’m going to need coffee.” And then I start from the top.
* * *
—
“Can I offer you some advice?” Cataldo slows her long strides, delaying our arrival back in the lobby after our marathon interview. It’s nearly 4:00 p.m. I tap my fingers nervously against my thigh, thinking of the 4:36 train from South Station I have to make if I want to get back in time to catch Megan. When I checked my phone a few minutes ago, I had three testy messages from Avery, reminding me that her essay tutor was staying late to help me, too. I might have to take a Lyft to the station, and that’ll cost a fortune—
“Olivia?”
I snap back to focus on the detective. “Yeah, sure, shoot.”
“You should find some new friends. The Ivies…They eat girls like us alive.”
“I’m almost free,” I say. “Plus…” I hesitate. Think about how kind Avery has been to me these last couple of weeks. Shown her vulnerable side. “When you get some of them away from the bullshit of school, they’re not so different from us. Just girls.”
Cataldo frowns. “Watch yourself until the case is fully resolved.” The lines around her mouth deepen. “If that’s possible.”
“What do you mean?”
We stop outside the elevator, and she drops her voice. “Your friends really screwed us, turning off those security feeds. Everything we have is circumstantial at this point. Be careful, and you call me if anything occurs to you, or happens.”
This time I remember to put her number in my phone.
“Your classmates know you were playing amateur detective,” she goes on, “so I need you to play dumb. As far as any of them are concerned, you are one hundred percent confident in Tipton’s guilt. Don’t make yourself a target.” She gives my shoulder a squeeze.
“Olivia?” a familiar voice says. I look over and my heart stutters.
“Ethan,” I say in a rush of breath.
“I apologize for the delay, Mr. Kendall,” Cataldo says, either ignoring or missing our awkward reunion. “My conversation with Miss Winters ran unexpectedly long.”
“Can we, uh, have a moment?” I’m already pulling Ethan by the arm over to the corner. The detective doesn’t protest. “I told her everything.” I keep my voice low. “So you don’t have to lie for me or cover.”
“Okay, good, um…” Ethan’s eyes flick to the floor. He ducks his head, fusses with his hair. Then finally meets my eyes. He winces. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you back. We went to Toronto for Christmas, and it was busy, and international texting plans are a real pain, and…” Then he sighs. “And I had to think everything over, honestly.”
“Yeah, I get it.” I play it cool, like his radio silence didn’t hurt my feelings. I poured my heart out to him.
“Do you really, uh, have a crush on me?” His cheeks go red, and I am sure mine are the same.
“I thought it was totally obvious.”
“Uh, you used to basically ignore me outside of newspaper. You ran a bit hot and cold. Before. But I’m glad. To know. I like you, too.”
It’s painfully kindergarten of us, but I don’t care. My grin nearly breaks my face. “Are you staying in Boston?”
“Yeah, until Sunday. Then I’m taking the train back to Connecticut.”
I tilt my head in confusion.
“Extended fam is in Canada. American residence is in the well-to-do suburbs of New York. Which Connecticut counts as.”
“Well, you should come to Avery’s New Year’s Eve party. Tonight. I mean, of course it’s tonight. Since it’s New Year’s Eve.” I’m rambling like an idiot, but Ethan doesn’t seem to mind. He smiles at me funnily, leans closer, cups my cheek with his hand.
“Is it all right if I kiss you?”
“Uh—uh…,” I stammer, but then I nod, and he closes the distance between us, lips soft and gentle. My internal organs shimmy up into my chest as Ethan deepens the kiss, but then Cataldo clears her throat noisily behind us, and it’s over too soon. I can’t say I envisioned my first kiss happening in the sweltering lobby of an FBI field office, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. We break apart.