Page 69 of For Your Own Good

“That’s not Vermont.”

“I know you want to stay here with your friends. And I know this whole thing with Courtney has been very difficult for you, but you have to understand that we’re afraid. God forbid anything should happen to you.” She pauses. “Or any of the students.”

“You’re acting like there’s some serial killer at Belmont,” he says. “No one’s wandering around with a machete butchering people.”

“No, they’re poisoning people.”

Before Zach can answer, Dad walks back into the room. “Sorry,” he says. “What did I miss?”

“I was just telling Zach how worried we are about him,” his mom says.

“Well, of course we are.”

“Understood,” Zach says. “Can I go now?”

Mom says nothing. Dad glances at his phone. “It’s getting late, and I’m sure you have work to finish,” he says. “Let’s plan on discussing this further on Sunday. Dinner?” He says it like they’re setting up a business meeting.

“And from now on, don’t eat or drink anything at school,” Mom says. “Bring your lunch.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Zach says, having no intention of doing that. He leaves the room before they say anything else.

BACK UPSTAIRS, ZACH’Scomputer is still open on his desk, but there are now hundreds of new messages with the #HomicideHigh tag. Weird, since he was only away for twenty minutes or so.

It doesn’t take him long to understand why.

43

IN A PERFECTworld, the judicial system would work as it’s supposed to. In the real world, Teddy knows it needs a little help. A nudge, so to speak. So that’s what he did. He nudged.

By the time he wakes up in the morning, the news is everywhere. As he’d expected.

TWO MURDERS, ONE POISON?

Sources say that Ingrid Ross, 45, and Sonia Benjamin, 38, were killed with the same substance. Neither the police nor the district attorney’s office have publicly disclosed the name of the substance that killed Ingrid Ross, but the new information is making some wonder about the arrest of Courtney Ross, who stands charged with her mother’s murder.

“It doesn’t make sense,” says Robby Herald, the proprietor of Nature’s Food, a gourmet grocery store downtown, and a lifetime resident of the area. “If they caught the murderer, how could someone else be killed the same way?”

He’s not the only one asking that question, yet the ones who can answer it—the police and the DA’s office—aren’t talking.

Teddy smiles. All it took was an email.

If he had never created all those fake social media profiles online, he wouldn’t have known anything about sending anonymous emails or how to route them through Eastern Europe so they couldn’t be traced.

And if he hadn’t gone to the trouble to learn all of that, he wouldn’t have known how to send an email looking like he’dtriedto hide it but failed. The way a normal, unknowledgeable person would do.

So that’s how he sent it. Just a tip from an anonymous source.

And when the police get around to tracing that email back to who sent it, the trail will lead right to someone who knows everything that happens at Belmont. Someone who hates the parents and teachers who look down on him. Like he’s barely a human being.

Someone like Joe, the custodian.

It’s truly remarkable how good Teddy is at this. And he didn’t even know it until now.

When he arrives at school, the crowd of reporters out front is much larger than yesterday. More food trucks as well. Teddy drives by without looking at them.

The security guard at the gate waves, then motions for him to roll down his window.

“Be careful out there,” the guard says. “Some of these reporters have been rushing up to people, trying to get a comment.”