Nine Liars (Truly Devious, #5)(15)

There were no paintings of the more recent tragedy.

Dr. Quinn had taken over the office formerly occupied by Dr. “Call Me Charles” Scott, the overly enthusiastic head of school who had left the position the year before. When this had been Charles’s office, it had signs on the door that said things like I REJECT YOUR REALITY AND SUBSTITUTE MY OWN, QUESTION EVERYTHING, and CHALLENGE ME—the last of which was generally considered the most odious. They had, in fact, challenged him. It was no longer his office. Instead of the posters and the corkboard, the door had been restored to its original smoked-glass panel with delicate Art Nouveau swirls etched into it. There was a simple and elegant brass plate on the door that read: DR. JENNY QUINN, HEAD OF SCHOOL.

They stood in the dark of the hall and Stevie gently rapped on the door.

“Come,” said a voice from inside.

Dr. Quinn was seated at her desk, her attention focused on her laptop. She wore Actual Fashion—expensive, confusing things with lots of folds and extra material, and heels with red undersoles. She was the kind of person you would expect to see at a global summit, probably because she attended global summits sometimes. Her job as the head of Ellingham Academy was a bit simplistic for her, but it was a prestigious school, with a massive endowment and excellent skiing right on the doorstep. She could jet off to New York City or Washington, DC, if she was needed, and she had the summers to go around the world, negotiating treaties or wrestling alligators or whatever it was you did for fun if you were Dr. Jenny Quinn.

“Sit,” she said, not looking up.

This room had originally been Iris Ellingham’s dressing room; it still had her dove-gray silk paper on the walls. There was a hole in one of those walls that had been patched over to the best of the ability of the maintenance crew, but there were still tears in the paper, clear signs of where the wall had been punctured last December. These four students had been in the room when it happened—had put the hole in the wall, in fact.

When Dr. Scott had been in charge, the room had been full of sofas and Funko Pop figurines. That nonsense was gone. The only things that had been kept were the large, framed map of Ellingham Academy that hung between the windows and the green marble clock on the mantel that was said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. Dr. Quinn had her own bookcases installed and a wooden desk that could house a family of four.

Janelle, Vi, Nate, and Stevie planted themselves in the chairs arranged in a horseshoe and waited until Dr. Quinn finished typing. She looked up, removed her glasses, and regarded the students in front of her with the disappointed look of a hanging judge who’d been denied a rope.

“So,” she said.

Nate cleared his throat nervously, which was a mistake. It was important not to show fear in front of Dr. Quinn. Or was that bears?

Same difference.

Dr. Quinn did what police detectives in interrogations do—she let the silence accumulate past the point of comfort. People can’t help but fill it. It’s human nature, and it’s what sinks a lot of murderers. This was something Stevie knew from her compulsive viewing of interrogations on YouTube.

“I’ve sent you the spreadsheet. . . .” Janelle began, breaking the silence. “About our proposed week of study abroad.”

“I’ve seen it,” Dr. Quinn replied. “I want to hear it from you in person. Tell me what it is you plan to do if you’re allowed to go. Explain it to me.”

The “explain it to me” didn’t sound good.

“The first few days would be dedicated to cultural landmarks,” Janelle continued. “The Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery. If you look at page three, you’ll see I’ve compiled a list of supplemental reading that I’m . . .”

Dr. Quinn waved her hand, indicating that Janelle should stop talking.

“You,” she said, “I’m not worried about. Let me hear from someone else.”

Vi stepped up.

“I want to concentrate on the impact of colonialism,” they said.

“That’s a broad remit,” Dr. Quinn said.

“I’m going to narrow it to the British Museum,” Vi said, “and the question of ownership of cultural artifacts.”

“What about you, Nate?”

“Book stuff,” he said. “Writers . . .”

“Can you be more specific?”

“British Library. Um, I’m going to . . . There are manuscripts there. I’m going to look at. Them. The originals. And there are literary tours.”

Dr. Quinn leaned back in her chair and rolled her fountain pen between her thumb and forefinger for a moment.

“And what about you, Stevie?” she asked. “This trip seems to be at the invitation of David Eastman, so I assume you have something significant planned and you’re not just making up an excuse to take time off school to visit your boyfriend. Or some other ill-advised reason.”

“Well,” Stevie said, “I was hoping to, just . . . the museums. The . . .”

She’d practiced. She had a whole list of places, justifications, full-bodied lies. But in the scorching rays of Dr. Quinn’s stare, her mind had become a dry and barren place.

“The . . . ?”

Use your words, Stevie.

“The . . . specific role that England plays in media portrayals of crime. Mysteries. Why we like English mysteries. How English mysteries got to be a thing, especially during the period between World War One and World War Two. Murder as a comfort activity. Reading about it, I mean.”