45. Stolen Lives

45

T he campus was deserted.

It seemed everyone had left already, which would make my task much simpler.

I knew it was a risk to leave the relative safety of my room, but what other choice did I have? I could have called a taxi to come pick me up so I wasn't alone, but where would I go? And I had no way of knowing if Chance would see the email I'd sent, let alone actually come to get me.

The sound of the snow crunching beneath my feet echoed across the courtyard, bouncing off the dormant trees of the surrounding woods. The otherwise palpable silence was unnerving, and I felt foolish for not having grabbed my coat, even for the short trek to the main building.

The door lurched open after I scanned my badge to release the lock. I tried to close it as quietly as possible, in case there was someone skulking around. However the old hinges made a high-pitched creaking noise that reverberated down the entire entrance hall.

Only the after-hours lighting was on, illuminating the entrance in a dirty yellow sheen. I took out my cell phone, turning on the flashlight and shining it down the stairs, into the dark maw that awaited me below.

It occurred to me that it had only been a few hours since Chance had left. His path out of the main building for the last time would have crossed where I then stood. I still felt like maybe I was in a dream, or rather, a nightmare.

I shook my head. I couldn't let thoughts of Chance derail me. I needed to keep tabs on my surroundings, listening for signs of anyone approaching. I held my flashlight up, my hand trembling as I descended the stairs, making sure to use my free hand to trail along the stone walls to keep my balance.

The only other time I'd been in the admin offices this late at night had been with Chance. I didn't remember it feeling quite so foreboding with him goofing around next to me. But it didn't matter anymore. He was gone, and I was on this mission on my own.

Gulping as I made it to the bottom of the stairs, I tried not to think about the fact that nobody was around to help me. If something happened to me, down in that awful basement, nobody would hear me scream; nobody would even find my body until people started to return from break in a week.

"Geez, Violet," I scolded myself.

Sneaking down into the admin offices, I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for, but I knew I was missing a final piece. I was having a hard time reconciling that my docile, cat-loving, sweater-making friend, Jolene, could have done anything so heinous.

Whether it was to find something that would disprove my theory, or a motive so strong that it would finally allow me to accept what I knew was likely true, I had to keep looking. And the records room was as good of a place to start as any.

What Lenny had said wasn't sitting right with me. He had such conviction that she'd attended Montgomery. He had no reason to lie. But if I could verify his memory with something solid like a yearbook, then I could figure out how to move forward.

The door to the records room opened with an easy click, using Jolene's hidden set of keys. I propped the regular stone against the door to stop it from shutting, praying I wouldn't be locked inside. I decided to keep using my flashlight instead of turning on the overhead lights, too scared to make my presence that much more obvious than it already was.

The girls had gone missing in spring of 1992, so that was the first yearbook I pulled. I knew Jolene was in her forties, so the timeline roughly lined up. I found the headshots of the two girls, side by side in the section for the juniors. I'd seen the photos before, while Chance and I had investigated.

Leaning against a storage rack, I slowly made my way through the other student photos, until I found her.

I stared at the photo in shock. But there she was, on the second-to-last page of sophomores. Jolene Reynolds.

She was a natural brunette, so it took me a minute to reconcile what I was seeing without the bleach-blonde hair I had always associated with her, but despite the addition of a few wrinkles and a bit more makeup than her younger self, she hadn't changed much.

Her hair was still frizzy, just darker, her cheeks still round and ruddy, and she even wore what looked like a hand-knit sweater, although it didn't feature one of her elaborate designs.

Flipping between the pages, studying the photos of the three girls, I noticed something rather peculiar…the three of them bore an uncanny resemblance to one another. They had the same nose and mouth, and the same big eyes, albeit different colors, and the same hair color, but the twins' had pin-straight texture.

Suddenly the lights in the room flipped on, temporarily blinding me.

"You just couldn't leave well enough alone," Jolene said from the door.

I dropped the yearbook and my phone in fright.

"Jolene!" I gave a nervous laugh that I hoped hadn't given me away. "You scared the shit out of me."

Looking at her then, the hard set of her mouth, and her eyes narrowed in on me, I knew it was her. I knew she'd hurt Daniel and I knew she'd hurt those girls. But I still didn't know why. If I could play dumb long enough, perhaps I'd get the chance to find out before I could manage to get away, or before I became her next victim.

"I'm so embarrassed—I was trying to find that photo of Chance from high school," I lied, angling my body so she couldn't see the cover of the yearbook I'd been looking at. "I thought you were going to Florida for spring break, to visit your family."

"I've never been to Florida," she replied flatly.

"Isn't that where your mom—"

"I never knew my mom." She tried to get a look at the yearbook on the floor, but when she couldn't, she reached out to snatch it from me. Her nostrils flared as she read the year. "I thought we were best friends. And for what? Some lying, piece-of-shit rich dick? Are you really that desperate? I never thought you'd turn on me." Jolene glared.

"Turn on you?"

"Quit playing dumb. I'm not as stupid as you and everyone else around here think," she snarled. "I know you figured it out."

Seeing no point in keeping up the charade any longer, I decided to switch tactics. "I don't think you're dumb, Jolene," I said softly. "Whatever happened, I'm sure you had a good reason."

"I did have a good reason," she agreed. "They deserved to die after what they did."

"What did they do, Jolene?" I kept my voice even and calm, despite the panic racing through me.

"They stole my life!" she cried. "They're my half-sisters. Their father got my mother pregnant and just left her. But she didn't want me either, so she dropped me off at a hospital and ran."

"I'm so sorry."

"I don't know how he found out who I was, but one day, I got pulled out of my foster home and enrolled at Montgomery. I didn't know why until good old Chuck let it slip. Faith and Hope knew who I was, and they bullied me relentlessly at school. One day, I'd had enough. I was surprised how easy it was and by how quiet they were when it was done."

I held back a grimace at her almost gleeful recollection of killing her sisters. I'd never heard Jolene call the headmaster by his first name. My stomach roiled at the implication. "You were one of Winston's victims," I guessed.

"He's such a letch…well, he was a letch." She smiled, perhaps thinking of his demise.

"Did he really kill himself?"

"Yes, after I convinced him that I'd heard the police would be showing up with a warrant for his arrest and that they had solid evidence that would put him in jail for a long time."

"But you wrote the suicide note."

"I had to. You and your stupid boyfriend wouldn't stop digging. I figured you'd take the win and let it go."

"Did he know you hurt the girls?"

"He helped me cover it up from the very beginning. But I knew all of his secrets too, so I wasn't worried about him telling anyone, until you found my sisters." She smoothed out the sequins on her sweater.

"Why did you hurt Daniel? He was like you. Discarded by his family, just trying to survive. He was going to help you expose the headmaster, wasn't he?"

"He was helping Marilyn expose the headmaster. But if Chuck didn't have any secrets left to hide, then I'd lose my leverage for him to keep mine." She leaned against the doorframe. "And when he found Faith and Hope, I had no choice."

"And Claire?" I dared to ask.

Jolene cocked her head, "Violet, you know you're the one at fault there. It might as well have been you who pushed her. It didn't take me long to realize Chance was the person you were protecting, and I'd been watching Daniel for a while before I got rid of him, so I knew he was dating Claire. So if Chance was talking to her, it wouldn't bode well for me."

"Claire and Daniel were innocent." I shook my head. Who was she? How had this monster been right under my nose the whole time?

"Claire is one less rich brat on this planet, and Daniel was collateral damage. I hadn't expected a long-lost relative to show up and ruin everything, taking you away from me in the process. You should know, I took a lot of pleasure in exposing Chance Harper for the prick that he is to both you and the headmistress."

"He didn't take me away from you," I argued. "I'm right here—I'm still your friend. I'll keep your secrets. We can go back to how things used to be, now that he's gone." It was a long shot, but one of the few remaining cards I had to play.

Jolene uncharacteristically rolled her eyes. "Please," she scoffed. "It's obvious you're still holding a torch for that asshole. I hope he was worth it. I can see now you were never really my friend."

"That's not true!"

"It IS true!" she cried. "And you're going to wish you hadn't come back. But at least it will give me the chance to get rid of him for good. I don't think it will be too hard to frame him for your murder."

My eyes widened, and my stomach dropped.

The overhead light glinted off something metallic in her hand…a knife.

"Jolene, you don't have to do this." I put my hands up in front of me, only able to take two steps back before I hit a shelf, stopping me.

I had nowhere to go. She had me trapped.

"I don't think he'd fare too well in prison, do you?" She half-laughed as she paced toward me.

As if on cue, Chance's tall frame appeared in the doorway.

I gasped, surprised by his sudden appearance.

Jolene foolishly turned to see what had startled me, which gave Chance the perfect opportunity to shove Jolene hard, forcing her to stumble backward, deeper into the room, where she fell, tripping over her feet.

With one hand, Chance yanked me out of the room, and with the other, he pushed the door so forcefully it slammed closed, taking the heavy stone door stopper with it, locking the stone and Jolene in the records room.

"You okay?" he panted, hands braced on his knees, his gaze turned up to look at me.

"You came back…" I muttered.

Without another word, Chance pulled me into a crushing hug. "You better not have believed a single word I said down here," he growled. "I told Jones exactly what she wanted to hear. I was trying to save your job." He released me tentatively, looking me up and down. "Of course I fucking came back for you. I love you, Violet."

Tears spilled down my cheeks.

"Muse." He used his fingers to wipe them away. "I gave you the signal. I thought you saw. I thought you understood."

"They disconnected your phone…" I hiccupped through tears. "I wasn't sure."

"I'm sorry." He hugged me again. "I'm so sorry."

Jolene banged against the door, startling both of us. "Let me out!"

"Fuck!" Chance hissed. He let me go for a moment to turn on the lights in the main room. "Oh shit—I forgot." He pulled a different phone from his pocket. "Did you get all of that, Wayne?"

"Squad cars are en route." The voice of Wayne Davies came through the speaker. "Keep me on the line until they arrive, son."

"Yes, sir," Chance replied into the phone before turning to me to explain himself. "When I was packing, I realized that Jolene was the one who took the pictures—she knew everything; she knew about me and about the lounge. I figured she had taken the pictures and sent them to try to discredit me and run me out, or, best-case, both of us. I was scared to tell you, but I suspected she might be Daniel's source—"

"It was Marilyn," I interrupted.

A look of fascination crossed his face.

"I figured it out too. I found where she got the photos in the lounge."

"If I thought she would hurt you, I never would have left." He cupped my face in his palms. "You know that, right?"

I nodded, blinking back more tears.

"I drove straight to the police station, but they called the headmistress to try and verify some of what I was saying, and she told them I was a disgruntled employee and not to listen to anything I said.

"So I called Wayne, and he helped me figure out a plan while he tried to go through back channels to get someone to take me seriously. I parked my car outside the gates and walked through the woods. I saw you go into the building, and I followed, but hung back when Jolene found you first."

"You've been here the whole time?" I slumped against Jolene's desk. The distant sound of sirens helped to slow my hammering heart.

"I was trying to get evidence. Wayne heard everything. When Jolene made her move, so did I."

"I really thought I'd never see you again."

"I'm so sorry." Chance stepped forward, gathering me into his arms again and pressing my face against his chest. The warmth of his body soothed me as much as his embrace. "I fucking love you. I'd do anything for you."

"I love you too." I sniffled.

"I know."

I looked up at Chance, confused.

"You talk in your sleep. You said it weeks ago." He smirked.