“You’re not serious.”
“Regrettably, I am.”
Flynn leaned over her desk. “Miss Costello, you give me no other option but to inform you that you will not graduate from Waverly University if you continue this self-destructive streak of procrastination. I knew it before, but I gave you a second chance because of your situation with your former advisor. You have already received special treatment.”
I sat quietly, my hands folded together in my lap, as Flynn admonished me.
“At this rate, you will never be ready to present your thesis to the board,” she continued. “I suggest that you plan to spend another semester at Waverly in order to complete your education. Perhaps in the fall, you will find the motivation you failed to discover this semester. Is that clear, Miss Costello?”
I nodded.
“Get out of my office.”
It was a rough dismissal, but the chance to remove myself from Flynn’s presence was a relief. I stood, swung my bag over my shoulder, and headed for the door.
“Miss Costello.”
I braced myself. From previous experience, I knew that Flynn liked to drop her biggest bomb just as I was about to exit her office.
Her dark eyes bore into mine. “Maybe you would have had more time to complete your thesis paper had you not been perusing the campus so late at night. Have a good day.”
An icy chill that had nothing to do with the inclement weather outside permeated my lungs. Heart pounding, I left Flynn’s office and raced toward the stairs at the end of the hallway, hoping that the Black Raptor Society dealt out less severe punishments than murder for breaking and entering.
8
At the very least, my disastrous meeting with Flynn had relieved me of my obligation to her as my advisor. I could work on my thesis without her input now. With any luck, I could still complete it by the time I was meant to present it to the advisory board. Going over Flynn’s head would be an audacious move, but I couldn’t see any other way to get past her. Somehow, the Black Raptor Society had to go down, and I was the only person who had enough evidence of their illegal activity to bury them for good, as long as they didn’t bury me first.
Though tempting, I didn’t call Orson Lockwood’s secretary to set up a meeting with him. I wasn’t savvy enough to trick Lockwood into a conversation about BRS. Instead, I redoubled my efforts in researching the Lockwood family. From what I’d already discovered, the Lockwoods weren’t just famous at Waverly. BRS practically rolled out red carpets and erected thrones for its Lockwood members. They were the kings and queens of the Black Raptor Society, and so I zeroed in on their most recent royal. Lauren, Orson’s daughter, was in her third year at Waverly, and the junior Lockwood was a lot less intimidating than Orson himself.
It wasn’t difficult to find out a few particulars about Lauren, as the staff at the Waverly Daily adored her. In the Daily’s online database, I discovered multiple recent articles in which she was featured. The majority of them highlighted her accomplishments throughout her first three years of college. She was a member of the women’s rowing team, maintained a solid 4.0 GPA, and had pledged the sorority created by the St. Claire family during her freshman year. I downloaded and saved any pictures of her that had been included with the articles. When I zoomed in on the first photo, a trace of envy tickled my thoughts. Lauren stood between two of her sorority sisters, arms wrapped lovingly around each other. All three wore matching white dresses, and the trio appeared to have organized some kind of charity event. Another photo caught Lauren in action during a rowing competition, triceps bulging and her face still flawless despite a thick sheen of sweat. Lauren did not resemble her father much. She had long, coffee-colored hair that the camera captured flowing gracefully in the invisible breeze and high, plump cheekbones instead of her father’s thin, angled ones. The only thing that Lauren had inherited from Orson was her infectious smile, though hers did not come off nearly as devious. It was hard to believe that the young woman in these pictures was the same person who had coordinated Jo Mitchell’s academic failure. Digging into Lauren’s involvement with BRS seemed a surefire way to familiarize myself with the intricacies of the Lockwood family, so one morning, I decided to commit to a new surveillance project on her behalf.
Waverly’s rowing team was infamous for practicing before dawn. Once or twice, I’d seen the crew of muscled girls step off the bus that shuttled them to and from practice on my way to my seven a.m. class. Two days after my meeting with Flynn, I left Wes and Franklin to make breakfast for themselves, strolled to the center of campus, and located a towering oak tree near the bus stop to hide behind as I waited for the rowing team to show up. As scheduled, the shuttle made its way into the bus loop shortly before seven o’clock. As the girls disembarked, all of them clad in matching navy and silver—Waverly’s school colors—athletic gear, I kept my eyes peeled for Lauren.
She was one of the last girls to step off the shuttle, and unlike some of her bleary-eyed teammates, she was bright, smiling, and chatting animatedly with some of the other less exhausted crew members. I watched as she waved goodbye to her friends and kept an eye on her receding figure as she leisurely drifted toward the expensive dormitories—Waverly’s historic stone-hewn residence hall, which only the wealthiest students could afford—behind the quad. When there was enough space between us, and the rest of the team had dispersed, I emerged from behind the tree and followed casually
