Page 83 of Good Girls Lie

Secret societies. What a ridiculous thing to allow in a high school. Granted, Goode is not your normal high school, nor your normal boarding school. The girls are treated as if they are much older, almost as if they are in college instead of high school. Self-reliance, independence, agency. All vital aspects for any young woman in the world. But how young is too young for such responsibility? Why can’t kids be kids anymore?

Break it down, Kate.

Okay. A bunch of rich girls, smart, capable, rich girls, with access to drugs and alcohol, hold a secret society meeting and haze one of their own until she feels compelled to throw herself off a bell tower.

Boom goes the dynamite. Occam’s razor. It’s the first rule of investigation—the most obvious answer is your first path.

That the girl was bullied and killed herself is not an intuitive leap by any means. Rich, smart, determined, or otherwise, they’re dealing with teenage girls. Kate remembers her own time in high school. Granted, she went to good old Orange County (go Hornets!), down in the trenches with the farmers’ kids, but there was still money—horse farms and wineries—and those kids were always the ringleaders when there was hell to be delivered.

A whole school of them, all girls, to boot?

Camille Shannon might have been bullied into suicide, or felt left out and depressed. Add in the abortion, possibly an indifferent or ex-boyfriend, and there was a recipe for disaster.

Tony mentioned the mother is threatening a wrongful death lawsuit, and she probably has a case. Bad publicity is never good but isn’t insurmountable. Goode is self-endowed and run by an old Virginia family with very deep pockets, but still, bad press on top of the murder a decade ago could at least affect them. Affect enrollment. Future endowments.

She takes the exit off Highway 29 into Manassas, her mind touching again on Becca Curtis. She’s also curious about the senator’s daughter. She’s in this up to her delicate, pearl-studded ears. Put that girl in a crown and she fits the bill perfectly—a regal leader. The chosen one.

Add in this Ash Carlisle... Kate can’t shake the feeling the two of them know something. But what?

Not your case, Kate, she reminds herself for the twentieth time.You’re doing Tony a favor, relaying the autopsy report to make sure he’s getting all the facts right away, that’s all.

But when she pulls into the parking lot of the Manassas District OCME office, she impulsively sends a quick email to a friend she knows who can take a glance into the overseas aspect of this. It’s a short email.

What’s the deal with Sir Damien Carr’s death?

She’s surprised when her phone rings immediately, the number on the screen the +44 UK prefix.

“Hello?”

“Kate Wood, what in the dickens are you doing emailing me at midnight?”

“What are you doing looking at your email at midnight, Oliver?”

“Notifications from VIPs.”

“Ah, I’m a VIP, am I?”

“Always. What’s the sudden interest in British politics?”

“He’s a politician?”

“Carr? No. A wealth manager for the upper crust. Knighted for his contributions to the security of the banking system a while back. But he’s very dead. Took his own life back in the summer. The inquest’s just been closed. They found nothing suspicious. He’d been having an affair, his wife found out, he was humiliated. It’s that stiff upper lip thing, gets us every time.”

“The wife is dead, too, yes?”

“Yes. Found him, then shot herself. Word on the street? She wasn’t stable to start with. After the affair, things were tenuous. But that’s hearsay.”

“And their daughter...”

“Teenager, if I recall. No idea what happened to her, she hasn’t been in the press. The family kept her out of things. Carr was a private man. The scandal clearly cost him.”

“The daughter is here in Virginia, going to a very expensive, private all-girls school.”

“Ah. Makes sense. Get her away from the chaos, find normality, all that.”

“Her roommate just died. We think it was suicide.”

“Really? At an all-girls boarding school? How deliciously gothic.”