Page 41 of Deposed

The janitor backed away. “Why do you care what happens to the trollop? She’s responsible for ruining both our lives.”

“We’re here for truth and money, not sex with little girls.” I strained to recognize his voice. He was older, but I couldn’t tell his age, and he spoke with the same kind of accent as most of the people in the school, except he wasn’t as overly posh as Duncan or Coates. “Back away from Miss Hobson.”

Mr. Carbuncle gave my left breast a hard squeeze before drawing back. “Fine.”

I wriggled, and with my bound arms, wrestled my tank top over my bra and most of my stomach. “Thank you.”

“Miss Hobson… Emilia,” he said without turning around. “Do you deny passing information to the press about the staff and students of Mercia Academy?”

“I—”

“Before you answer, listen to my theory. The leaks only started after you returned from a tumultuous first term during which you were framed for a crime you did not commit.”

I kept my face blank. Mr. Carbuncle crouched at my side on his haunches, his oversized forearms resting on his knees. He leaned forward with an ape-like intensity and examined my expression.

“Your stepfather owns a media company and might have in-roads with the Saturday Correspondent.” He chuckled. “The Trommel Group is a mass of subsidiaries and shell companies. Mr. Trommel might well own the newspaper. Who knows?”

My heart flipped. Whoever this man was, he had researched Rudolph but wasn’t an insider. I stared at his back, ignoring the ever-approaching Mr. Carbuncle.

“My final piece of evidence is the… Valentines Day Massacre, a cute way to phrase a mass character assassination. You distributed tickets within Mercia Academy, possibly inviting everyone who had wronged you to become drunk and make fools of themselves in front of the cameras.”

Realization hit me like Carbuncle’s fist to the gut. This had to be Mr. Frost, the sycophantic, drug-dealing Latin Master. How else would he have known the tickets had come from me? I’d even suspected he could be Charlotte’s older lover. I lowered my head.

Mr. Frost had masterminded Henry’s kidnapping and arranged for all the blame to fall on me if anything went wrong. According to Rita, he was extremely intelligent. The man had probably talked his way out of being charged for his crimes and had somehow recruited Mr. Carbuncle to beat me into submission.

There was no way to win against an opponent like him. Especially with my arms and legs tied.

I cleared my throat. “What do you want?”

“The truth,” he replied.

“A-alright.” I swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Chapter 14

Mr. Carbuncle drew back several inches but remained firmly in my line of sight. Even when crouched, the man’s hulking form took up my entire vision. His shoulders quivered with impatience, and he ran a glistening, pink tongue along the underside of that bushy, walrus mustache. His excited breaths echoed in my ears, sending tremors of disgust across my gut. Tendrils of panic twined around my lungs and coiled up my windpipe, tightening with each passing second.

Dots appeared before my eyes, and the edges of the empty room spun. With my wrists still bound by tight ropes, I clutched at my neck and tried to suck in deep breaths, but they stuck in the back of my throat.

“Carbuncle,” said the man at the door. “Get the girl a glass of water.”

“But she’s faking—”

“Do it!”

He swooped forward, and muttered a tobacco-scented, “You’d better not be planning anything.”

A cold wave of fear and panic and revulsion seized my muscles, and a pained whimper reverberated in the back of my throat. Would he make one last, defiant snatch of my neck to make his point?

He drew back, taking away his stench, and stood. I kept my gaze on the herringbone pattern of the parquet floor until his footsteps receded through the room. It was only when I spied him shuffling through the doorway that the tightness around my lungs loosened, and I could finally exhale.

“He won’t be gone long,” said the man at the doorway. His brown hair and broad back offered no clues as to his identity, and neither did the navy blazer he wore with black slacks.

“Where am I?” I asked again for the benefit of the hidden cameras.

“An apartment whose owners will be overseas for the next three months. If you ever want to leave here alive, you’ll cooperate with us and answer our questions.”

I swallowed hard. Everything throbbed. Even speaking with one side of my lips was a painful effort. “When I tell you the truth, Mr. Carbuncle hits me.”