if he knew he was pushing one of her buttons. “Random, right?”
Devon brushed her bangs out of her eyes again. She wouldn’t cry in front of Matt. No way. “Yeah, random,” she replied.
The alarm on her cell phone chimed. Thank God.
“Our time is up,” she said.
Matt nodded. He hesitated for a second. “Well. Guess it’s a good thing I was already on my way out.”
She kept her eyes glued to her notebook.
The door slammed behind him. She forced another trembling scrawl.
Hutch = It doesn’t make sense.
AS QUIETLY AS SHE could, Devon shut herself in her dorm room. The Bay House doors were heavy and tended to slam. Everyone always jumped at the chance to pin the loud bang on something deliberate and PMS-y. Devon didn’t need to draw any attention to herself right now. What she needed was a little quiet time.
Bay House, one of the oldest dorms on campus, was far less prison-like than Spring House. Here she had cream-colored plaster walls with dark wood trim. A sliding door still opened to the outside view of the Monte Vista hills below. Her windows faced west, giving her the best views of the sunsets over the Pacific.
After two years in the jail cells of Spring House, she’d earned those views—right?
Outside, junior and senior girls were spilled across the lawn, soaking in the September sun in bikinis. Soon enough everyone would be stuck inside studying, but this was the last remnant of summer. Classes had been cancelled today; still, everyone was already bombarded with homework. The girls’ beach towels were covered with suntan lotion bottles, biology books, dog-eared Hamlet editions and portable translators for the international students.
Someone dies and they break out the bikinis. Amazing.
On the other hand, what the hell else did she expect? Black shrouds?
Devon slumped in her favorite chair, warmed by the sunlight through her doors. The wooden armrests were chipped, but worn smooth. The cushions were just cozy enough she could pull her legs up and let her head drop onto the oversized headrest. She absentmindedly wove her brown hair into a braid. In training she’d learned some techniques to keep the emotions in therapy from going home with her. But this wasn’t training anymore. And she couldn’t get the image of Matt crying out of her head.
She tried to make sense of all the puzzle pieces. Hutch was found at the Palace by a faculty dog. Probably the English teacher, Mrs. Freeman: she loved walking her Golden Retrievers, Franny and Zooey, at ridiculously early hours. Even though the Palace wasn’t technically Keaton property, it was on the no-man’s land hillside leading down to town—a hillside that belonged to Keaton in all but name. It wasn’t hard to imagine Hutch at the Palace: an old rundown military bunker carved into the mountainside. Built to spot incoming enemies during World War II, it offered a perfect defensive view of the mountains and Pacific Ocean below school.
Of course, Keaton students had converted the cement shelter into a hub for illicit activities. Brokedown Palace was painted on a wall, in honor of an ancient Grateful Dead song, and signed by Class of ’74. Even though the paint was chipped and weather-beaten, a certain breed of Keaton students considered it their sacred duty to repaint the name and song lyrics every year … year after year after year. Every class added their signature, as well as piles of cigarette butts, bottles of booze, and creatively engineered bongs—the most renowned being a ceramic “four-puller” in the shape of Mount Rushmore.
Sucking smoke from Lincoln’s head had never really appealed to Devon. She had only been to the Palace once as a freshman, and only because her friend, Presley, had forced her to check it out. (“Some of the stoner guys are hot,” Presley had promised.) But when they arrived, it was deserted. The noises in the dark woods below freaked them out and they ended up running back to their dorm rooms. Devon hadn’t had a reason to go back since.
Hutch had probably snuck a drink down there as an underclassman or brought Isla down there last year for some privacy. But what was he doing out there on the second day of the school year? And wasn’t it true that people who committed suicide wanted to be found? The Palace was so remote. And why go out there to take pills? Was he trying to send some kind of message about Keaton? The thought of his body lying among the dirt and