Page 49 of Twisted Elites

He drew back. “I’m coming with you.”

A female officer walked over. “Calm down, everyone. It’s just a routine inquiry, and we need only five minutes to eliminate you from our investigation.”

I exhaled a long breath. “Thanks.”

Leopold and I accompanied the male and female officer the building, while Prakash walked alongside the sergeant, who had beckoned over another officer. I didn’t bother to look over my shoulder at Geraldine. From her lack of ranting, she was probably giving us a triumphant smirk.

We found an empty classroom, and the policeman sat behind the teacher’s desk and took my statement, while the female officer sat at my side. There was absolutely nothing to implicate Prakash or me. I’d slept in his room until Leopold knocked, walked down the hallway with the two kings, and then out to the back of the building. They asked about my relationship with Geraldine, and I explained that I had made a few complaints about her, as that information was already in the police database.

The male officer rested his elbows on the table. “Do you know who else might have wanted her dead?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Oh, right?” He glanced at the policewoman who turned to look me full in the face.

The words stuck in my throat, and I clutched the edge of the table, urging myself to speak. I’d stayed silent after seeing him slap and grope Bianca in Mrs. Benazir’s office. Stayed silent when his erection had brushed against me last term and stayed silent when I knew for sure that he’d been responsible for her black eye.

It was time to say something.

I forced out the words, “Her father.”

The policeman’s brows rose. “Is he local?”

“According to the girl from earlier, Mr. Byrd is a solicitor from London,” said the policewoman.

“Go on, then,” he said in the weary tone of voice people use when they’re about to hear a rambling, tedious pack of lies. “Explain why you think this legal professional from London would travel three-hundred miles to kill the daughter he paid through the nose to educate.”

I bristled at the way he had framed the question but told my story.

When I got to the part where Mr. Byrd had grabbed me for the first time, the policeman raised his massive palm. “Did you lodge a complaint?”

“No, I—”

“Why not?” he placed both hand on the teacher’s desk and leaned forward.

“He didn’t hurt me.” I leaned back into my seat, trying to widen the distance between us.

“But you said he rubbed his erection against you.”

“I only felt it for a second, and—”

“You thought it should last longer?” His brows rose.

My mouth fell open. What kind of police interrogation was this? The man sounded more like a pervert than someone interested in stopping crimes. I turned to the policewoman and flashed my eyes, trying to invoke some sense of sisterhood.

The woman visibly cringed. “What my colleague meant to ask was whether you felt the duration of contact was enough to warrant a police complaint.” Through clenched teeth, she asked, “Isn’t that right?”

“That’s what I said.” He leaned back and drummed his fingers on the desk.

Her face stilled. If I wasn’t under suspicion for killing Bianca, I might have given her a sympathetic smile. But they could have been playing good-cop, bad-cop.

I turned to the policewoman and said, “He didn’t stick it into me or make any lingering contact. I think it brushed against me by accident. Not enough to go running about it to the police, but given the circumstances, isn’t it enough that he was aroused while manhandling a seventeen-year-old girl?”

The policeman sat back, seeming to let his colleague take over.

“Do you have the money or the contract?” she asked.

“I think my sister took it from my room. Her name is Ashley Evergreen. She was expelled from here then spent several weeks working here as a cleaner and causing mayhem.”