I expected to feel a wave of elated relief, but instead I felt strangelyflat.
Even though the coordinated arrests were happening right at this moment, something still felt wrong to me, like there was a problem right under my nose that I’d completely missed. There were unanswered questions, too; things we’d let slip over the last few days while we were busy concentrating on busting the Network-Medusa sexring.
For instance, what happened to Lindsay’s necklace the night she died? How did it end up in a pawnshop?
If Dad or another Network member killed her, I couldn’t think of any reason why they’d snatch her jewelry off her body and pawn it. There had to be some sort of rational explanation, but I had no idea what it couldbe.
Another important question was: who left those notes in the abandoned RFA buildings and set Laney up to fall through the floor as awarning?
All we knew for sure was that it was agirl.
We initially thought it was one of the Medusa girls acting on the Network’s orders to make Laney drop the investigation into them, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t add up. There was just no feasible way they could know for an absolute fact that we were looking intothem.
Sure, they could’ve suspected that Laney told me about them and asked me to help her with an investigation after I rescued her from Harker Island that night—something they confirmed when Laney went to see them the next day to pretend she wanted back in—but they didn’t know for sure. However, the note saying ‘Tell Laney to drop the investigation or else’ made it sound like the attacker knew for an absolute fact that she was looking into something that they desperately wanted to keephidden.
Also, when Laney accused the Medusa girls of leaving the notes, they firmly denied it and only admitted to dropping a letter in her locker. Laney said they all seemed genuinely confused by the issue, too, and the FBI had the exact same experience when they asked Camila aboutit.
Maybe the Medusa girls were just good actresses. Maybenot.
In the end, I had to admit that it was more likely than not that they were responsible for the whole thing, but something about it still bothered me anyway, playing right on the hazy outer edges of my mind. I just couldn’t shake this feeling that something else was going on, right under my fuckingnose.
I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders. I was probably just being paranoid. After all the shit I’d gone through in the last year, I was so used to having problems in my life and things I needed to protect my loved ones from that I couldn’t get used to safety and normalcy when it showedup.
I couldn’t live like that anymore. I had to accept that things were finally good so we could start trying to move on from our shittypasts.
I smiled and looked down at Laney. “You’re right,” I said, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tight. “Everything’s finallyokay.”
14
Laney
Royal Falls had eruptedinchaos.
Over the last two weeks, the Network-Medusa scandal had blown up in the media and the public eye. It started with the news of the shocking mass arrests, which immediately led to everyone speculating about what hadhappened.
At first it was assumed that the fifty-four men dragged off by the FBI were involved in some sort of white-collar crime. Then the news came out that Headmaster Sanders and several other people with ties to RFA had been arrested too. After that, the rumor mill went into overdrive, and the very next day, an investigative journalist published a piece about the issue in the country’s biggest newspaper, exposing the festering rot at the heart of America’s wealthiestcommunity.
Things snowballed from there. Journalists swarmed the town for days, along with the investigating FBI agents and police officers. Entire families packed up and left, not wanting to be associated with the place anymore, and houses, hotel rooms and offices were emptied out by agents searching for moreevidence.
The Connery mansion was one of those swept for evidence. It took a whole week, so while that was going on, Hunter had to come and stay with me in my dorm while Adam stayed at Trina’s house. They were allowed back home now, but things would never be the same forthem.
Their father—along with all of the other Network men—was in prison awaiting trial. It probably wouldn’t start for at least a year, given the length of time it took for the government to build such a big case against them, but they were still off the streets and no longer able to drug, coerce, or force young girls and women into doing their bidding. That was all that mattered,really.
The Medusa girls had all left town after they’d done their part with the investigation and told the FBI everything they knew. No charges were laid against any of them, but once the scandal broke and everyone learned of their involvement, they couldn’t bear to show their faces at school anymore. They were humiliated, ashamed, and riddled with guilt over everything they’d been a partof.
I wasn’t angry at themanymore.
As far as I was concerned, they were victims—even the supposedly-brainwashed ones who genuinely seemed to believe in the cause. Like Camila Valmont. In the past, she seemed intensely passionate about the secret society… but when the FBI took her in, she cracked like an egg, cried for days, and gave them everything theywanted.
She was able to call me after all the arrests were made, and she gave me a heartfelt apology through teary sniffles. I could tell she meant every word, and I forgave her. We would never be friends, not after all the shit that went down, but I understood what she’d been through. She was drugged and coerced into participating in the society just like every other girl who’d ever been involved in the whole scheme. She just got sucked in a little deeper thanmost.
Kiri Tamagi had also contacted me recently. She told me via email that she and Hazel were so bitchy to me when I went to the Medusas to ask for a second chance because they were trying to drive me away for my own sake. Apparently they’d successfully driven away a few other girls in the past. It was their way of trying to sabotage the society from within and assuage the constant guilt and powerlessness they felt while they were trapped under the thumbs of the Networkmen.
I understood, and I forgave hertoo.
On top of the Medusa girls leaving RFA, at least sixty other students had been pulled out of the academy by their parents. Some of those parents were the wives of the men who were arrested, and they didn’t want their children to be bullied over that by other students. The others just no longer felt safe sending their kids to theschool.
I couldn’t blame them, considering what had happenedrecently.