“That pledge was weak,” she said, her voice barely audible. “He must have had some kind of underlying medical condition we didn’t know about.”
“I doubt an underlying medical condition would hold up in court,” said Harrison dryly. “He’s dead, and the fact that he came to be dead at the hands of the Raptors ultimately would not have been a problem save for Anthony’s clever obsession with technology.”
Catherine’s fists clenched, and her palms left a sweaty residue on the table top. “Has Anthony gone to the police yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m in the tapes too,” said Harrison, resting his forehead in his hands. “He wanted to offer me an out. If you recall, I tried to stop you from going any further with that pledge.”
Catherine shook her head. She could hardly remember anything about that fateful night. One moment, ten healthy acolytes had entered the Raptors’ clubhouse ready to prove themselves, and the next, nine of them stood over a body. Everything in-between had been burned away by whatever Anthony-induced rage seethed through Catherine that evening.
“Why are you even telling me this?” Catherine asked Harrison, refusing to look at him.
Harrison stood, taking Catherine’s hands. He turned her to face him. “Anthony is my best friend, my brother even, but my loyalty lies with the Black Raptor Society. With you.”
He tipped her chin up and kissed her. It felt wrong at first, as though the universe was trying to convince Catherine that she was betraying Anthony. But he had betrayed her first, and the thought of Anthony and Natasha together spurred Catherine to respond passionately to Harrison’s alternate offer.
When they parted, Catherine intertwined her fingers behind Harrison’s neck and leaned her forehead against his.
“We have to get those tapes.”
Present Day
Once more, I plodded down the stairs to the basement of Floorboard Lit. The small underground room slowly but surely felt less cozy and more prisonlike with each of my visits. Lauren’s uncle had suggested that I start using the back door to the cafe, lest any of his regular customers begin to question my sporadic, frequent comings and goings. I prayed that none of Ben’s regulars were members of the Black Raptor Society. Then we would all be royally screwed.
“How’d it go?” asked Lauren, but then she caught a glimpse of my tear-stained face. “Ooh. Not well, I presume.”
I collapsed on the leather couch and covered my face with one of the throw pillows. It smelled like cedar balls. “It went about as terribly as I expected it to go,” I mumbled into the pillow. “I sincerely hope that’s the last time I ever have to tell anyone that someone they love is dead.”
Lauren joined me on the couch and draped an arm across my shoulders. “I know this is hard, Nicole, but we need to keep moving forward. We’re running out of time. Besides, I have good news.”
Hesitantly, I peeked out from behind the throw pillow. “What kind of good news?”
“I decoded some of the files off of O’Connor’s laptop.”
I tossed aside the pillow, sitting up straight. “What were they?”
Lauren stood, fetched O’Connor’s computer, and returned to the couch. “Video files,” she said, opening the one with the earliest date. “And you won’t believe what’s on them.”
“Did you watch them?”
“Just the first minute or so of this one,” admitted Lauren. A video player booted up on the machine, and O’Connor’s face appeared in the window. “I thought it would be better if you were here before I watched the rest of them.”
“Why me?”
“Because they’re addressed to you.”
Before I could respond to this revelation, Lauren pressed play, and I leaned in to watch. O’Connor looked into the camera, adjusting the angle of the lens. He looked less harried than I remembered him. His hair was neatly combed, and his glasses sat evenly on his nose rather than at the messy angle I had grown used to in the last few months of his life. He made one final tweak to the camera and began to speak.
“Today is August twenty-fifth, 2014,” he began. “It is the first day of the fall semester, and Nicole Costello just walked into my class.”
Lauren and I exchanged a glance, but she only gestured back to the screen, a silent order to continue watching.
O’Connor removed his glasses and massaged his temples. “I can’t believe this is happening. When I saw her name on my roster, I thought it was a fluke. I prayed it was a coincidence. And then she walked in. She’s still so young. Twenty-eight or twenty-nine maybe. Then I thought to myself, has it really been that long?”
“What is he talking about?” I asked Lauren, still confused. Before arriving at Waverly, I’d never known George O’Connor. “That long since when?”
Lauren shushed me and pointed back at the monitor.
O’Connor shook his head. “I have no idea why I’m talking about her in the third person.” He looked straight at the camera. “Nicole, these videos are for you. Let me just begin by saying that I never thought I’d see you again, and my God, you look just like Natasha. It was like seeing a ghost walk into my classroom.”
“Who’s Natasha?” asked Lauren.
“My mother.”
“She would be so proud of you, Nicole,” continued O’Connor, “for all of the things that you’ve accomplished, your acceptance to Waverly included, of course. I imagine she would’ve loved sharing secrets about her time here with you.”
I drew my lip in between my teeth, focusing on the pressure there rather than the burning feeling in my eyes. I had cried enough for one day, but O’Connor’s reminiscence reminded me of all the things I’d lost when my parents had died.
O’Connor drew closer to the camera, so close that the pores on his face became visible. “Here’s the thing,
