For once, the arrests weren’t made on Easton Academy grounds. The police found the crane operator at his favorite bar. Apparently, Paige had done her research to figure out who would be the most likely crew member to take a payoff, because the guy had immediately and tearfully confessed, saying he needed the money or he was going to lose his house, his family, and pretty much everything else he had in the world. Paige, meanwhile, had been holed up in her parents’ vacation home near Mystic, having her feet exfoliated by her personal pedicurist, when the cops came calling. According to my good buddy at the Easton Police Department, Detective Hauer, when she was hauled off for booking, her hair was wet, she had no makeup on, and her toenails were unpolished.
For some reason, this visual made me giddy, no matter how many times I conjured it up.
“What are you smiling about?” Josh asked me, squeezing my hand atop my knee at the Driscoll that night. We were seated at our table in the crowded banquet hall, surrounded by other couples—Astrid and Trey, Kiki and Marc, Noelle and Dash, Ivy and Gage. Well, they weren’t exactly a couple. Just two people who randomly hooked up whenever it was convenient. But whatever anyone was doing on the side, it was nice to be here among friends. Here and relaxed and out of the danger zone. The bad guy had been arrested, after all. Which meant that whatever MT had been warning me about tonight was not going to happen.
And I was beyond glad about that, because if I’d listened to MT’s warning, I wouldn’t have been here to accept the junior girls’ scholar-athlete award, which I still couldn’t believe I’d won.
“Nothing,” I said, running my fingers along the gold plate on my plaque, where my name was spelled out in pretty cursive letters. “Just happy to be here.”
Josh leaned over and kissed my temple, careful to avoid my stitches. “Me too.”
As Headmaster Hathaway presented the junior award for excellence in French, I let my mind wander slightly, looking around the room at all the proud senior-class parents, the texting classmates, the hustling waiters. Kiran and Taylor were both there, sitting near the windows with some random, hot alumni fawning all over them. After the banquet we were all going back to Noelle’s room for an old-school-style Billings celebration. This night that I had been dreading all day was going to end up being beyond cool.
I did, of course, still have my questions for Paige Ryan. Like, why? Why was she trying to kill me? Was she just trying to finish the job her mother had begun down in St. Barths over Christmas break? Did she want to be the one who got to rebuild Billings so badly that she’d actually commit murder? Did she still hate me for hooking up with Upton Giles that week? Or did she hate me because, in some twisted way, she blamed me for the fact that her mother was in jail? Then there was the off chance that she actually subscribed to all that Billings curse mumbo jumbo Mrs. Kane had been spouting before she was arrested back in March. Maybe she thought I needed to die in order for Billings to live on free of bad luck.
Any way you sliced it, the girl was mad crazy.
“And now for the awards for overall academic achievement in the junior class,” Headmaster Hathaway announced. I sat up a bit straighter, my heart prickling with nerves. Now that I had won scholar-athlete, I knew I had a shot at snagging this one as well, and I was beyond proud of myself for managing to get good grades this year even with all the insanity that had gone on. “As with the freshman and sophomore classes, this award is given out to one female student and one male student—the two students who have achieved the highest GPAs for the first three quarters of the year. And those students are . . . Reed Brennan and Sawyer Hathaway!”
Josh’s face lit up as my heart all but burst. He gave me a quick kiss and a hug. “I’m not worthy,” he joked as the room filled with applause.
“What?” Marc blurted under his breath. “Sawyer wasn’t even here the first half of the year.”
“They used his grades from his last school,” Noelle explained.
Marc slumped, blowing out an annoyed breath. “Please. This is nepotism at its finest.”
Everyone laughed and Josh squeezed my hand one more time before I got up to accept the award. I smiled and smoothed out the full skirt of my blue silk Chloé dress, scanning the room for Sawyer. His father looked out at the crowd as well, applauding along with the audience, but Sawyer didn’t appear. As the moments passed, a crease of confusion deepened just above the headmaster’s nose. Everyone was looking at me, so I made my way up to the podium to collect my second plaque and gift certificate. It took a couple of minutes for me to weave around all the tables and chairs, but still, no Sawyer.
“Well,” the headmaster said, leaning toward the microphone. “I guess I’ll have to give my son a little talking-to later.”
The crowd responded with polite laughter and Headmaster Hathaway turned his attention to me.
“Congratulations, Miss Brennan.”
“Thanks,” I replied.
He handed over the prizes and shook my hand. We posed for the requisite photo, and then I was done. On my way back to my chair, Noelle shot me a bemused look and I shrugged. We both knew it wasn’t like Sawyer to miss something like this. He loved school almost as much as Noelle loved Calvin Klein.
“What happened to your partner in brilliance?” Josh joked as I sat down next to him, tucking the plaque under my chair.
“I don’t know. Now that I think about it, I don’t think he was in class all day. Maybe he’s sick.”
“But then wouldn’t his own father know about it?” Astrid asked, taking a sip from her water goblet.
A slight tickle of foreboding skittered down my neck. I reached for my bag and pulled out my phone.
“What’re you doing?” Josh asked.
“Texting him,” I replied.
I knew Josh wasn’t Sawyer’s biggest fan at the moment, but I’d hoped we’d cleared up the facts that (a) I wasn’t interested in Sawyer in a boyfriendly way, but (b) he was my friend. I typed a quick message and hit send, then left my phone on the table between my silver knife and Josh’s salad plate to wait for his response.
Forty-five minutes and ten awards later, he still hadn’t written back. Finally, the seniors were done being honored, and the awards part of the evening was over.
“Let’s have one last round of applause for all our honorees!” Mr. Hathaway announced as he finished his closing speech. The resounding cheers were so loud a few people actually laughed in surprise. “And now, go ahead and enjoy your meals! Thank you all for coming!”
Almost instantly, waiters scurried to deliver the main course. A few people got up from their seats to stretch their legs and visit other tables.