Page 109 of For Your Own Good

Fallon backs up her car and drives away.

COURTNEY IS WRAPPEDup in a plush robe, eating sushi and red Twizzlers, her two favorite foods. Zach brought them over after leaving the Grove. The high he had earlier is long gone, in part because of the food.

“I spent an hour in the bath,” she says. “It’s impossible to feel clean in jail.”

“Yeah, I was there. I smelled you.” He ducks to avoid the Twizzler she throws at him.

“I got a text from Siobhan,” she says. “She transferred to Pellier.”

“I heard. So did Connor.”

“Are you transferring?”

“Not this semester,” he says. “I kind of like the homeschooling.”

“I’m screwed. Didn’t finish last semester and missed half of this one.” Courtney shrugs, like it doesn’t bother her, but he knows it does. It would bother him.

“On the upside,” he says, watching her pick up a California roll and pop it into her mouth, “your college admissions essay is going to kick ass.”

“I guess there’s that,” she mumbles.

The TV is on. Whatever was on ends, and it’s followed by the news. It starts with Courtney’s release, and then suddenly Crutcher appears.

“Now here’s more of our exclusive interview with one of Monday’s victims at Belmont Academy.”

Courtney sighs. “I’m so sick of myself.”

“I’m sick of Crutcher,” Zach says.

“At least he’s not your teacher anymore.”

He reaches over and grabs a Twizzler. “You know, the teacher who replaced Mrs.B used to go to Belmont.”

“Yeah?”

“My tutor knows her. Says she hates Crutcher.”

“Why?”

“She was on his shit list,” he says. “It’s weird she was poisoned, too. Both her and Crutcher.”

“That is weird,” she says, finishing off the last of the sushi rolls and washing it down with Coke. “Hey, do you think that since they let me go, they have another suspect already?”

“Maybe. Or maybe the FBI just realized the police here are stupid.”

“I hope they know who did it,” she says, staring off toward the TV. “I hope there’s an arrest soon.”

“As long as it’s not you or me, I hope you’re right,” he says.

“Who do you think did it? I mean, if you had to guess?”

Zach has thought about this a lot. Too much, probably. When he thinks about the people who died—an overbearing mother, a beloved teacher, the headmaster—it doesn’t make any sense. No one person benefits from those three deaths. Not that he can see.

So it must be random. It’s someone who just wants to kill people, regardless of who. And that’s the scariest part.

“I have no idea,” he says. “But I know what they used.”

“No way. They never released it.”