KITTY WAS EXHAUSTED AS SHE WALKED INTO FIRST-PERIOD leadership Thursday morning. The last of her hopefulness had come crashing down around her at the sight of the manila envelope in her car. The fact that her uncle might be accused of arson combined with the message in the envelope had left Kitty panicked and absolutely unable to sleep.
The killer wasn’t just going after them anymore. He was going after everyone they loved.
She dropped into her desk chair, her mind so agitated that she almost didn’t feel her phone vibrating in her pocket.
The leadership classroom was about half-full as Kitty yanked out her phone and noticed she had an email. It was from a Bishop DuMaine email address sent through the school system with the subject “MUST READ.”
Some new rules and regulations? That was the usual correspondence from the administration. Kitty clicked open the email and scanned the contents.
The body of the email contained a single line of text: a web address for the video-hosting website old F.U. often used to upload content for school-wide consumption, usually Catholic education crap or addresses from the Pope. Without a second thought, she opened the link.
A video started almost immediately, but instead of Father Uberti’s smarmy face seated behind his desk, the scene was a birthday party.
Huh?
About two dozen tweens were sprawled across someone’s living room—some on sofas and chairs, some lounging on the carpet, all looking hopelessly bored. The room was massive and expensively furnished—the fireplace alone was large enough for a family of four to dine in, and it was crowned with an enormous oil painting of a pastoral hunting scene, mounted in an ornately carved gold frame. Two gigantic vases stood guard on either side of the grate, and from the top of the frame, Kitty could just make out a crystal chandelier peeking into view.
A woman dressed in a questionably appropriate minidress and four-inch heels strutted out in front of the fireplace. Her hair looked as if it had been professionally blown out and Kitty could see the diamonds glittering in her ears.
“Are you all ready for the main event?” the woman cried.
“Yeah,” a couple of the tweens said without an ounce of enthusiasm.
“Excellent,” she said, clearly oblivious to their reaction. “Where’s my perfect little birthday boy?”
From the back of the room, one of the kids slowly pushed himself to his feet. Even though Kitty couldn’t see his face, she could sense his lack of interest as he shuffled toward his mom.
“Hurry up, baby!” she cooed. Then laughed. A light, tinkling that reminded Kitty of a silver dinner bell.
The kid finally made it to the front of the room and his mother grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and spun him around to face the camera.
Kitty gasped. She knew that face. It was midpuberty, but the disdainful scowl was already fixed about the eyes and mouth. All she had to do was imagine him older, angrier, and significantly douchier, and Kitty was staring at Rex Cavanaugh.
“And now,” Mrs. Cavanaugh said, “for the main event. Flown in from Montreal especially for my little man’s thirteenth birthday, the star of Cirque du Soleil’s new hit show Le Pitre Triste, Marcel Fontanable!”
A look of terror passed over Rex’s face as a seven-foot-tall Victorian-era clown jumped into view. He wore a bald cap with tufts of reddish brown hair spiking out from each ear, and his face was a mask of white, with dramatic hot-pink triangles above the brows and cheeks, and black hollows of makeup encircling each eye. His lips were painted blue, as if he’d spent the night in a freezer, and overdrawn to such an extent that they looked like collagen injections gone wrong.
His costume consisted of a tight polka-dot jacket topped with a floppy, high-necked collar and frilly tiered bloomers. Lace-up boots completed the outfit, and as he began to move, Kitty realized that his excessive height was the result of short stilts, camouflaged by the boots.
Marcel pirouetted in front of Rex, kicked his leg above his head, and ended in a split before the fireplace, arms open wide, as flames erupted from his palms.
The audience cheered with more enthusiasm than they’d displayed so far. Everyone but Rex. Kitty could see his knees shaking, his chin quivering, his face turning beet red.
His mother didn’t seem to notice or care. She squealed with delight as Marcel reversed his splits as easily as if he’d been raised up by a crane, tottered around the living room like a drunkard, then produced a cupcake with a sparkler on top and presented it to Rex.
It was as if time stopped. The clown, Mrs. Cavanaugh, and the tweens all stared at Rex, waiting for him to take the cupcake. And with all eyes on him, a dark stain began to appear in the crotch of Rex’s chinos. It grew, spreading down the leg of his pants, while Rex just stood there, paralyzed.
The poor clown stood up, out of character, and looked confusedly from Rex to his mother as the tweens began snickering and pointing.
It was like a switch had been thrown. Rex stamped his foot, pounded his fists against his thighs, and screamed, “I hate you!” then sprinted from the room.
The video went dark, but only for a split second. An image faded onto the screen of Kitty’s phone that made her hands go ice cold.
Black type on a white background.
DGM.
“What the hell is this?” someone asked.
“No idea,” was the reply.
Kitty glanced up, aware that the classroom was rapidly filling with students. Rex, Kyle, and Tyler had taken their seats in the front of the room, and each held their phone in their hands, open to the anonymous email.
“I got it, too,” Tyler said, glancing at his buddies.
“Do you think it’s DGM?” Kyle asked.
“Nah,” Rex said, with a toss of his hair. “That bitch is in jail, remember?”
Then in almost choreographed unison, Rex, Kyle, and Tyler all opened the video link.
Kitty tried to pry her eyes from Rex’s face, but couldn’t. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion: you know the carnage will be unbearable, but you can’t even blink, let alone look away. Around her, the voices of Mrs. Cavanaugh and the birthday guests blared from a half-dozen phones, in the round.
“Are you all ready for the main event?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all ready for the main event?”
“Yeah.”
Everyone in the leadership class had gotten an email. Could it have gone to the entire school?
“WHAT THE FUCK?” Rex roared. He bolted to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor behind him. His face was bright red, the color growing deeper by the second, and his free hand was balled up into a fist as if he was ready to punch out the person responsible for his humiliation. Just like thirteen-year-old Rex in the video. He spun around, eyes wild with a mix of fear and rage, looking for someone to blame. “Who the fuck did this? Huh? I’ll fucking kill him!”
“This can’t be real,” Tyler said, trying to soothe his furious leader.
“Yeah,” Kyle agreed. “It’s a fake, right?”
Without answering the question, Rex bent down and flipped his desk with both hands, the force so intense it went flying across the room. Then he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
“I guess that’s his answer.”
Kitty turned to find Mika smiling at her desk. She looked as if she was thoroughly enjoying Rex’s humiliation, as was, Kitty guessed, about 99 percent of the school.
Kitty shook her head. “That’s not possible.” Her voice sounded strange, distant and croaky, like it hadn’t even come from her mouth.
“Are you okay?” Mika placed her hand on Kitty’s arm. Her smiled had vanished. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”
“I think I—”
“What in the name of God is going on?” Father Uberti swept into the room, robes flying, cincture flapping. He wrenched a phone out of Tyler’s hand. “What is everyone watching?”
It was all about to start again: the ’Maine Men witch hunt, the police presence, the interrogations. What were she and Olivia going to do?
Olivia. She had to talk to Olivia right away.
The final bell rang just as Kitty pushed herself to her feet and staggered toward the door. Her legs felt shaky and unsure, but she forced herself to move forward.
“Miss Wei,” Father Uberti cried. “Where do you think you’re going?”
But Kitty didn’t hang around to explain. She broke into a run and sprinted upstairs to the computer lab.
