When Dallas Baird, lovingly doted a "troubled teen" by the society she so dearly despises, is left to rot at a therapuetic boarding school somewhere in the middle of dark and rainy Oregon, the last thing she expects is to get caught up in a murder i...
The room went silent as Sam finished reading, folding the newspaper in her lap. Fifteen teenagers sat in the circular rotunda, lounging on the sofas and beanbags in various states of deterioration, but all gravitated away from an empty leather chaise that sat just below the central window.
"Jeez, what is this?" One of the girls said, breaking the silence with a scoff as she adjusted the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Have they even met Lana?"
A boy with brown cornrows in his hair hummed sarcastically from his spot on one of the arm chairs, slumped sideways in his seat with his legs hanging over the armrest. "I liked the part about her many suitors. At least they got some of it right."
"Why'd you even stay with her, Reed? She was obviously cheating on you." One of the girls, deathly thin and far paler than a person of her ethnicity ought to be,cast a pointed look at a blond boy as shesaid this, even though he wasn't the one she referred to.
"Leave me out of this. My romantic endeavors are not on trial here." His voice carried a hint of a deep, back-of-the-throat German accent.
The boy in question, Duncan Reed, shifted his defined jaw and dismissed the attention with a shake of his head. The other students waited for him to elaborate, but he offered no explanation.
"Alright then," the youngest girl said, stretching out each syllable for much longer than it should be as she bounced in her seat. "At least we know I'm not the worst liar there is. Whoever wrote that is much worse than me."
"And there you go lying again, Chris," the stick of a girl said.
Chris opened her mouth to argue, but was cut off by a knock on the door. Rowena Graves, one of the school's owners stepped inside. Her face was drawn down in a frown that fit her last name perfectly. Two police officers, the same two that had been in the school only two weeks prior when Lana's body had been discovered, stood behind her. "Sorry to interrupt, I just need to borrow Duncan for a moment. You've got visitors."
All eyes went back to the mysterious dark haired boy. Duncan stood up stoically and walked to the officers, nodding to them both in turn. "Officer Hernandez. Dawson."
The former, a middle aged latina with smile lines aside her eyes, returned the nod. "We just have a few questions for you, Mr. Reed. It'll only take a moment."
And with that, all three of the newcomers, plus Duncan, vanished into the hall.
After a few moments of silence, the youngest of the whole group looked up from his lego project and solemnly stated aloud what everyone had been thinking. "I don't think she killed herself."
