Page 184 of Depraved Boys

A breath caught in the back of my throat. Had something else happened? I placed a hand on Leopold’s shoulder, and we stopped to observe from a distance.

Mrs. Benazir stood at the doorway, looking pale. “Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector. I will ensure that all my staff cooperates with your inquiries.”

Leopold and I exchanged looks. The assault case against Geraldine and Bianca had hit a dead end. If this was about Miss Claymore, why hadn’t any of us been called?

The next person to leave the office was Cormac, who held a handkerchief to his eyes. Mrs. Benazir wrapped her arms around him and murmured words I couldn’t hear.

My stomach dropped. Had Geraldine absconded with his ten-thousand-pound contribution toward their honeymoon? The pair broke apart, and Mrs. Benazir retreated to her room, leaving Cormac in the hallway.

I turned to Leopold. “Stay back. He won’t talk to me if you’re around.”

Leopold gave me a sharp nod. “I’ll wait for you at the double doors.”

Cormac bowed his head and continued down the hallway, and Leopold turned in the opposite direction, presumably to double back, run up the stairs and take the long route to the main entrance. My best friend walked into the infirmary’s waiting room and sat on one of the seats.

I followed after him, lowered myself into the seat next to him, and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “What’s happened?”

“The police came today.” He wiped his sleeve across his damp eyes. “They’re reopening Corrine’s case.”

All the air left my lungs in a single breath. “What?”

“Too many things have happened around here.” He twisted the handkerchief in his hands, Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped. “It started with you.”

“What did I do?” I asked.

“The initiation.” He dipped his head. “The autopsy found pork ribs inside Corrine, too.”

I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth. When the senior consultant had told me mine wasn’t the first case of raw meat stuffed inside a girl, my mind had gone to Corrine. But I didn’t know she had been dead at the time.

“W-what else?” I asked.

“Your blood-alcohol levels.” Cormack ran trembling fingers through his hair. “I’m saying this all wrong.”

Silence stretched out between us, filled by the pounding beat of my heart. Calculations whizzed through my mind, and I put together the puzzle pieces of Corrine’s death with the strange and murderous attempts on my life. Corrine had confided in Miss Claymore.

I gulped. One of the accusations she had made was that the kings had gang-raped her. What if the former deputy had headmistress struck out at Corrine to protect Sebastian?

Blinking away those thoughts, I squeezed Cormac’s shoulder. Now wasn’t the time to race ahead with speculations. “What are you saying?”

Cormac blew out a long breath. “The police didn’t mention you directly. But they said there was possibly a copycat out there targeting another girl. I immediately knew they were talking about you.”

My fingers around his shoulders loosened, and my hand slid down Cormac’s arm. I leaned back and stared at the roll of paper towels hanging on the wall. “So, they didn’t think I was paranoid.”

Cormac shook his head.

I placed both hands over my face and scrubbed them over my eyes. Right now, I didn’t know whether to feel petrified or relieved. All this time, I had thought the police reports had sat on a database only to be opened whenever I made another complaint. That the sheer number of times I had reported someone to the police had counted against me.

“Bloody hell,” I muttered.

Cormac gave me an absent nod. “The police said another girl had been abducted and dumped in the same location where Corrine’s body had been found.”

My brows drew together. “The cave by the blasted oak? I told Miss Claymore that’s where I’d awoken, and she gave me the oddest reaction.”

“That explains a lot,” said Cormac.

“You don’t think she—”

“I admired that woman completely until I found out why she’d been sacked.” Bitterness laced his voice. “Now, I don’t know anything.”