Page 63 of A Scandal in Homeroom
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spat. He didn’t. Yet. But now I knew it was just a matter of time. If he’d followed me on Friday, he had to know about Thornfield Home.
“Not yet, no. But I will,” he said. “And to answer your questions, Beth and Fitz, you have to use some logic. If we assume that the person behind the List was attempting to threaten Wick into silence while also attempting to frame Fitz, you have to ask yourself why. Why threaten Wick? Why set up Fitz? Looking at the easier of the two puzzles, you know Fitz’s car was taken Friday night at some time around eight o’clock based on the time of Wick’s accident. Which means the person had to have access to Fitz’s car. And you know this person also had to have access to video footage from a street camera. Video footage they would know how to alter.”
Heath pulled out a cigarillo from his back pocket and lit it with a match. “This is all bullshit. Fitz, who are you going to trust? Me, your best friend? Or this fucking guy who showed up yesterday?”
“Heath wouldn’t…he wouldn’t hit someone with a car,” Beth said. “You wouldn’t, right? I mean, Wick was seriously hurt.”
“Of course not!” Heath shouted. “That would make me some kind of sociopath. I showed you her bank statement with the money. What else matters?”
I had to say something, anything to get Beth to believe me. Only then she got this weird look on her face.
“I know that smell.”
“You took my keys,” Fitz said, turning to Heath. “You said you wanted to get a condom out of the glove compartment. I didn’t question it, but you had the keys first.”
“Yes, but I left them in the car,” he said. “Anyone there that night could have taken it.”
“But the car, it smelled. Hours later. Whatever that thing is you’re smoking,” Beth said.
“Well, I had to go into the car to get the condom. Didn’t I?”
“There you have it,” Locke said with a small smile. “Condom packs typically come in threes. Is that true in the States as well? Easy enough to see if one was removed. Or not.”
I looked at Locke. He knew. He already knew Heath was behind the List. Maybe because he knew I wasn’t.
“You wouldn’t do something like that,” Fitz said softly. “Set me up like that? I had to…I had to go to the police station. They might have arrested me. Someone who would do something like that…that person would have to hate me.”
Heath took another hit on his cigarillo. “Right. Someone who would do all this, he would have to hate you a fuck ton. He’d have to resent you, your fucking plush life, your privileged birthright. And maybe something else. Maybe he’d want revenge for something that was stolen from him.”
Heath looked at Beth, and, in that moment, I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking. I could only see…he hated her. Beth? When had that happened?
“Heath,” Fitz said. “No. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m fucking wrong!”
Except Fitz didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he started for his car, jogging first, then running in an all-out sprint.
Not that it mattered.
Heath had already dropped his cigarillo and was walking backward away from all of us.
“You can’t prove anything, Locke,” Heath told him. “Everything you said is nothing but speculation.”
“Maybe I can’t or maybe I can,” Locke said. “Tell me, how did you alter the camera footage? It was well done by the way. Nearly foolproof, except for someone like me.”
Heath smiled, turned and started running toward the woods.
I decided not to stick around, either. Beth had enough on her plate dealing with Fitz and Heath’s betrayal of him. I also didn’t want to have to answer for the bank statement. I started jogging for the woods, then stopped when I heard Locke coming up behind me.
“Irene, wait.”
“Go away, Locke. And stay out of my shit.”
“What’s happening at Thornfield?”
“None of your business! We’ve said everything we need to say to each other,” I said, looking at him over my shoulder. I had this crazy urge to stop walking, turn around and just run into his arms. Like somehow, he had the power to make everything better.
I resisted it.
He stopped then. “Why don’t I think that’s true?”
