Good Girls Lie(49)

“Actually, no, we won’t. There are ways to keep the system intact and still go coed. We’ve been—”

“‘We’? Who the hell is ‘we’?”

“Now, Ford, there’s no reason to get upset. The South needs a win. We must overtake the East Coast schools. This is our chance. The alumni—”

“You aren’t a part of the school anymore, Mother. And trust me, the board will not allow it. I’m shocked you’re even entertaining the thought.”

Jude sighs again. “The alumni association disagrees. Unlike the board, they haven’t cast me aside.”

The recrimination is clear.

“I just didn’t want you to be caught off guard, darling.”

“Thanks for the heads-up. I should go, I’ll need to prepare some numbers.”

“Do that. You’ll see how this can work. One more thing. I saw one of your girls in town today. She was talking to that boy. I trust you were informed?”

Oh, Mama, if you only knew. And fuck you, Rumi. You really could have given me a heads-up.

He’d met up with Ash? Neither of them had bothered to mention this.

“She’s already been disciplined. It won’t happen again.”

“If you don’t keep control of them, Ford, they will continue to walk all over you. I’ve told you time and again you’re much too loose with these girls.”

“No one is walking all over me. I handled it.”

“I see you still have that boy on staff. You would do well to get rid of him, Ford. No good will come of your charity.”

“Mother, this entire school was founded on charity for those who are in trouble. Rumi certainly counts. He wasn’t responsible for his father’s actions. He was only ten, for heaven’s sake. Why you’ve chosen him to blame when it was your negligence that got the girl killed astounds me. If you’d told the sheriff that Reynolds was harassing—”

Her mother’s voice is colder than ice. “How dare you? You listen to me, little girl. I most certainly did tell the sheriff. He chose not to do anything, which is why that idiot lost his job. Just like you took mine.”

Ford’s heard this all before. “It’s late. Do we have to do this now?”

“You started it, Ford. I suppose I’ll just go back to New York. You don’t want or need me. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“Wait, Mom,” but the call has ended, the phone is back to the home screen.

Since when does her mother speak for the alumni? There’s something bigger going on here.

Ford starts to dial Jude back, then changes her mind. She sends a text instead.

You could have warned me.
The reply comes almost immediately.

I gave you the strength to deal with her.
Strangely, she recognizes the truth in his statement. She’d gone into the call relaxed instead of tense and furious, her usual approach to her mother—and Jude to her. The bad blood between them is never going to be resolved. At least this argument has ended in passive-aggressive nonsense. No harm, no foul. What ridiculousness, to think of taking the money and going coed. It goes against everything Goode is.

Still, next time...a little heads-up would be nice. Also heard you met one of my girls today?
Three dots greet her. She waits. And waits. Then the screen clears, and there’s nothing. She shoots the rest of the whiskey.

“Thanks for nothing, Rumi.”

It takes ages to fall asleep, but she finally drifts off, only to be jerked awake by a scream, loud and piercing, over before her heart beats again.

The concussion carries, sounding for all the world like a cantaloupe dropped from a height. Whump. It is a sickening noise, and Ford, not knowing exactly what she’s heard but fearing the worst, is out the door and sprinting toward Main Hall before the glass she is holding crashes to the flagstone tiles.



38

THE STORIES

She fell.

She jumped.

She was thrown.

Boo. Hoo.

She was a bitch.



39

THE BODY

The body is small, broken. The nearest lamppost shows this, but nothing more, not the face, not the identity, not the cause of the fall.

Blood. So much blood.

Ford is shouting, she can hear herself, shocked at how together she sounds even when the voices inside her are wailing, gnashing, this isn’t happening, this isn’t happening, but aloud, she’s giving instructions.

“Call 911, immediately!”

She realizes she’s screaming to the ether, to the air. No one is here but the dead girl and her headmistress. Ford looks up at the bell tower, assessing the drop. A hundred feet, more.

Wait.

A shadow, is that a shadow, lurking at the edge of the precipice?

It is gone as quickly as she thinks she’s seen it, and she turns her attention to the girl at her feet. Feels for a pulse. There is nothing.

Her phone. She has her phone. She dials, hands shaking. There is blood on the screen.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“This is Dean Westhaven at The Goode School. One of the girls has fallen, we need an ambulance.”

“Can you tell me the nature of the fall?”

Ford looks up again at the darkness above.

“From the bell tower. She fell from the bell tower.”