Page 26 of Wicked Little Secret
I recognize the building at once. It’s the same apartment building Theo manages for the university.
Nyssa lives here.
“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, ducking behind the steering wheel. I’ve pulled over too, keeping distance for plausible deniability should I be spotted.
Nyssa grabs the front of his letterman jacket and lays agoodbye kiss on his lips. This time he takes the risk—his catcher’s mitt of a hand gropes her ass. He squeezes a handful, then gives her a spank, as if he’s pulled off the most romantic play since Casanova.
My face tightens in a scowl. It’s no surprise he’d go for the cheap, easy cop-a-feel route. Doesn’t Nyssa realize how degrading it is?
Her reaction is too obscure to tell. She dashes up the front path that leads toward her apartment building, disappearing inside.
Wicker hardly waits before he’s revving his engine and barreling off somewhere else. A keg party, perhaps? Some juvenile fraternity hazing? A night of vegging out to sports like the meathead jock he is?
None of them seem particularly farfetched.
But I’m past the point of caring once he’s gone. I’m more preoccupied by the sudden realization that I’m sitting outside Nyssa Oliver’s apartment. I know where she lives.
Even which window is hers.
On the fourth floor, the far left window lights up and she briefly appears in full view before she draws the curtains closed, shutting me out.
I sit for a while, torn on what to do next. While the private lives of my students are none of my business, Nyssa clearly doesn’t grasp who Samson Wicker truly is. She doesn’t understand the trouble he’ll bring her or how risky it is for her to date him.
You don’t see it yet, Miss Oliver. But you will. I’ll make sure of it.
7
NYSSA
TEACHER’S PET - MELANIE MARTINEZ
Widowed Holly Driscoll Found Dead Hours After Husband’s Funeral Service
I’m staringat the news alert as it comes up on my phone screen when Katelyn Wicker and Macey Eurwen call out to me. We agreed to meet outside the student union to grab coffees before crim law. I look up to find both girls hurrying toward me with a scandalized look of disbelief on their faces.
Katelyn, the shorter, thicker one of the two, resembles her twin brother, Samson, to the point sometimes I feel like she’s him with a brunette wig plopped onto her head. Breathless and flushed, she says, “Nyssie, did you hear the news? It’s everywhere.”
“About Heather’s stepmom? Yeah, I did.”
“They’re speculating it could be Valentine again. He poisoned her just like he did Mr. Driscoll,” Macey says,tutting her tongue. She’s taller and willowier than both of us, an occasional model that shows up in print ads. “Ugh, how humiliating! The supposed Queen of Castlebury lying in a pool of her own vomit.”
I stand by as the other two trade gossip between themselves. They wouldn’t be the only ones. As we wait outside the student union, I catch snippets of the same conversation happening between other students.
A group of girls who look young enough to be undergrad freshmen walk out of the student union talking feverishly about the article in theTribuneand whether or not Holly Driscoll died of alcohol poisoning or if the Valentine Killer really did do her in. Two more guys pass by talking about the time they got as black-out drunk as Holly was that afternoon, and ended up streaking around campus.
Macey was right. Holly Driscoll’s death will be the scandal of Castlebury for some time to come. Just like her husband’s death has been.
Katie’s in the middle of telling us about how it was rumored that Holly and Heather were in the beginning stages of a nasty battle over Kane Driscoll’s fortune. Neither woman could stand each other and saw the other as competition for the late Driscoll’s riches.
She and Macey are so engrossed in the speculation, they hardly notice Heather approaching.
“Weird timing, she happens to die too. But everyone at the funeral has said she was belligerently drunk,” Katie says with rounded eyes. “I guess this means Heather will get the entire fortune—Heather! Um, hi. I didn’t see you…”
Heather takes a look at the three of us and the guilt we undoubtedly have on our faces. Hers is paler than usual, her spray tan nonexistent. “Let me guess why you’re suddenlysilent. You were talking about me, like the rest of the world is.”
“Oh, no… we weren’t Heather!”
“Definitely not!”