Page 276 of Depraved Boys

I pressed the record function on my phone and cleared my throat. “Where’s Geraldine?”

A smile curled his lips. “It’s hard to decide what I love about you the most. Your big heart or your intelligence. How much have you worked out?”

“Are you going to hurt me?” My voice shook.

He reached out and placed a hand on my arm. “Never.” He said with so much conviction, it brought tears to my eyes. “I’ve done a lot of things to further my goals, but I swear to you on Corrine’s life that I will never hurt you again.”

So, Miss Claymore really wasn’t the cause of all my problems. “It was you who knocked my mom’s car down the side of the mountains.”

“That was an accident.”

“Why?”

“When you took up with Garraway, it was the perfect opportunity to hurt Miss Claymore for pressuring Corrine in her final year of life.” He spared me a glance and then continued down the highway. “Corrine’s biggest source of anguish was getting expelled and returning alone to a foster home.”

“But you would have gone with her,” I replied.

“Yes.” He sighed. “But she didn’t want to ruin my chances of getting a good scholarship.”

“How did you use me to hurt Miss Claymore?” I asked.

“The anonymous, harassing notes were a start. As was messing up your room. Sorry about the watercolor of your family. We can have another made as soon as we’ve settled in America.”

I stole a glance at the smartphone on my lap then snapped my gaze back to Cormac. “What else did you do?”

“Blame Garraway for being so stubborn, not me.” He wagged his finger. “I thought he would report Miss Claymore for harassment and for the notes, but he said nothing. Then when you decided to leave the academy, I borrowed someone’s car and put on a black wig to make you think Miss Claymore was chasing after you.”

I shook my head. This was so convoluted. “And knocking my car down the side of a mountain was an accident?”

He spluttered. “How was I supposed to know you didn’t use your handbrake!”

“And you forced alcohol down my throat and made it look like I was drink-driving.”

“Sorry about that. I panicked when I saw you jump out of the car.”

Adrenaline rushed through my system, and my heartbeat so hard, so fast, that pain spread through my chest. I was in a convertible, speeding down the highway at eighty miles an hour with a boy who had lost his fucking faculties. There was no doubt in my mind that trying to escape would mean my death.

“Did you put me in that cave, too?” I asked.

“Garraway’s fault. If he had pointed the finger at Miss Claymore, I would never have attacked you.”

“Why not hurt her directly instead of doing it through me?” I blurted.

Cormac shook his head. “I must seem completely unreasonable to you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, in case this was a continuation of last night’s peculiar dream. That was the understatement of the millennium. “Why?”

“The police needed to reopen Corrine’s case.” Cormac reached across and patted me on the knee. “Everything you suffered needed to mirror Corrine’s death. The last time we tried to frame him, it didn’t work, and I couldn’t let her down this year.”

“Wha—” I choked on air and had to thump my chest to clear my windpipe. “Last time? What are you talking about?”

“Corrine’s death,” he said, as though the answer was obvious. “We staged it so the police would arrest Kashaayah.”

I shook my head. “She’s alive?”

“She wanted to die, and I helped her. All the symbolism was there. Pork ribs in the body cavities to indicate the pull-a-pig game, her body laid out on a beautiful Indian rug, and she even chose the brand of single-malt whiskey those reprobates enjoy as her poison of choice.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”