Rye prodded at her contemplative silence. “What?”
“I don’t like this. I can’t see any of those people doing something to hurt Oakley. Out of jealousy or anything else.”
“We have to start somewhere.” He nodded. “We’ll add to thislist as we go… but we can’t rule anyone out. Not with you under suspicion.”
He had a point. Perhaps Embry was just exhausted enough that logic was failing her. Still, if they were adding these names, there were others that were a natural fit.
“If we’re building a list, we need to add the names of everyone on the homecoming court—not just the clique leaders. We were all moving around the stadium at that point. And it’s possible anyone was jealous enough to kill for that title.”
Rye began furiously writing. Embry watched him do it. “Wait—why did you add Balthazar? He won—”
“He was there. And jealousy isn’t the only motive.”
Fine. Embry mentally scrubbed away his name as well as the names of her other close friends: Ames, Fairfax, and Alistair were not people she believed would do such a thing.
Rye finished his tea and began pouring more hot water into his mug. “We can come back to our list. Let’s try something else. Going back to Friday night—what were you talking about before the clip started rolling?”
Embry suddenly found her tea bag’s buoyancy extremely fascinating. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It might. What do you remember?”
Embry bravely looked up from the safety of her mug. Rye watched her intently, with pointed interest, and maybe a little hope that what she had to say would crack everything open. She was going to have to tell him.
“We were talking about… you.”
“Me?”
Embry nodded and Rye’s eyes narrowed. It was somewhat of a relief that he hadn’t heard the conversation in real time, but that didn’t save her from telling him now. Honesty was the best policy, even if it made her want to burst into flames.
“In what way?”
Embry steeled herself. Here went nothing.
“Oakley said that she liked you.” Rye’s mouth thinned. “And insinuated that she was going to ask you to the homecoming dance.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rye sputtered, splotches of color rising from the apples of his cheeks to the wells under his dark lashes. He cleared his throat and added, “I’m not a student.”
“That’s what I said!” Embry nearly squealed, pleased that he was of the same mind. Lowering her voice, so it wouldn’t carry upstairs to Daddy or the doctor, she said, “And then she told me that the social committee had amended the rule on that… and that’s when I told her she couldn’t ask you…”
Her voice trailed off and she readjusted on the stool, hoping he wouldn’t ask her why she’d said the vampire couldn’t pursue him, if the rule had been changed. Embry wasn’t sure why she’d said it, only that she believed it fervently deep in her gut. This spiky shard protruding from her soul was probably the protective action of a little sister. Yes, that had to be it.
In the ensuing silence, Rye pieced together the rest from the part of the conversation that had been made public. “That’s what she was reacting to when she said,Youdoor you wouldn’t tell me thatIcan’t do something.”
Embry nodded into the rim of her mug. Rye wet his lips, set down his own tea with a muted clink, and went on. “So, you told her she couldn’t ask me to the dance, she reacted by saying you thought you owned everything at the school and on the island…”
“And a damning video was born.”
“Shit,” Rye cursed softly.
She nodded. “Shit.”
Embry expected the heavy silence to settle on their shouldersfor a while, but instead, Rye stood up and shoved aside the teakettle and accoutrements.
“Woodcross, get dressed. We’re going to the school.”
Embry glanced at the clock on the stove. Time flew when sniffing out a killer. “Rye, it’s three thirty in the morning.”
This did not deter him. “Yes, it is. Which means it’s the perfect time to break in and begin our investigation.”
