The Help (Kings of Linwood Academy 1)

The bell rings a moment after Savannah disappears, and the hallway clears out quickly. Our next period is lunch, but none of the four guys seem to care much about food as they step into a rough, tight circle that includes me.

Chase’s normally cheerful expression is grim as he glances at the others. “Well, that took a fucking turn. Do you think she knows anything, or is she just stirring up shit?”

“The second one, I’m pretty sure.” Lincoln shakes his head. “But it doesn’t matter what she knows. If she keeps opening up her big mouth and gets rumors circulating around school that Harlow killed Iris, it’ll put too much attention on Low.”

“Yeah, but would anyone actually believe her?” I ask, shock resonating in my voice.

“People are idiots,” River grunts. “We need to know what the cops know.” He shares a look with Lincoln. “My dad’s out of town until tomorrow. I got the keys. If we go tonight, no one should be there.”

“Good. Let’s meet at eight then.”

My brows pull together as I try to make sense of what he just said. “Your dad? Go where?”

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Dax looks excited about it, whatever it is. “You’ll see,” he promises me with a wide grin.

Ugh. These fucking boys.

The rest of the day drags by like molasses. I’m torn between anxiety and excitement as I wait to find out where the hell the guys plan on going.

At seven-thirty, I tell mom I’m heading out to a party and follow Lincoln to his car. He drives us into downtown Fox Hill. It’s not a massive city, so the downtown area isn’t huge, but there are several tall office buildings, and the architecture of all of them is stunning.

And it turns out an office is exactly where we’re headed. River’s dad, whom I met briefly at the cocktail party the Blacks threw, is a big-shot attorney in Fox Hill, representing several of the wealthiest families in town. And although Iris’s family doesn’t quite fit into that category, they’re still clients of Mr. Bettencourt’s.

Chase explains all of that to me in a low voice as River leads us inside the building using the spare keys he took from his dad’s study. Once we’re inside the office, he punches in the code to deactivate the alarm.

“I don’t get it. What difference does it make that River’s dad represents them? Why are we here?”

River turns to look at me as I finish speaking, his gaze landing on my face and lingering on my lips.

“Iris’s parents aren’t happy with the way the police have handled the investigation,” he says. “From what my dad has let slip, it seems like there were a few things at the scene that pointed toward it being deliberate rather than an accident, but the cops aren’t pursuing that angle as much as the Lepianes want.”

A fresh surge of guilt washes over me at the fact that we haven’t come forward with the evidence we have—although it’s not like we have much beyond our word and the shitty pictures on Lincoln’s phone.

Still. It would be something.

“So we’re here to try to find out what the police know,” I say, pushing my guilt away and focusing on River. Maybe there’s a way we can help bring Iris’s killer down without having to make ourselves sitting ducks by doing so. Maybe we can still make a difference.

“Exactly.”

He smiles at me, his gray-blue eyes softening, and I have a sudden vivid memory of what it felt like to kiss him. A lot of that awful night feels like a blur, a horrible dream—but that kiss is still imprinted on my lips, and I can remember every second of it perfectly.

“Okay.” I nod. “Let’s do it.”

He moves unerringly through his dad’s office toward a file room in the back, and I get the distinct feeling this isn’t the first time he’s snuck in here. What he’s doing is a huge risk—if Iris’s family find out that their lawyer’s son accessed information about their case, they could probably sue him for malpractice. But I didn’t ask River to take this risk, and since he brought us here of his own volition, I’m not going to waste this opportunity.

I need to know. I need to know what the police suspect, where their investigation is pointing them.

We find several massive folders containing notes and information about the case, and the five of us divide them up among ourselves, flicking through pages and pages of documents. There are pictures of Iris’s body in the morgue, which I flip past in a hurry. My heart speeds up and bile coats my throat as I try to wipe the images I saw from my mind.

I page through several statements from her parents, her academic records, school schedule, and phone records until—

There. There’s something.

“Hey, River,” I call softly. He’s on the other side of the room, digging into another file drawer, but he doesn’t look up when I say his name.

“River!” I repeat a little louder, anxious to show him what I found and ask if it means what I think it means—his dad is a lawyer, so I’m hoping he’ll understand the dense language better than me. But he still doesn’t respond.