The Headmaster's List Page 10

  He stared her right in the eyes. “I didn’t.”

  “So what happened?”

  “You really don’t remember?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “No. I had a concussion. And lots of broken bones to remind me about it. The doctors say I might not ever remember the crash, and that makes it all the more important that I ask you.”

  “I was driving, I ran the intersection. I tried to brake, or I think I did, but the car didn’t stop. So we crashed, what more is there?” he said with a shrug.

  “That’s it? There has to be more.”

  “Does it matter if there is?”

  “It does. Because I say so.”

  Ethan actually cracked a smile, and he thumped the back of his head on the headrest, grinning up at the sky, still unable to look at her. “Well, there isn’t, that’s the whole story.”

  Spencer huffed, then said, “I don’t care that you were cheating on me, just tell me the truth.”

  “For once in your life, will you just stop trying to find the right answer to everything? This isn’t some test you need to ace, some perfect score at the top of your paper.”

  “Don’t start with me, Ethan. I’m not here to fight with you. Why was Chris even in the car with us?”

  Ethan shrugged. “I offered him a ride. He was totally out of it, he needed to get home. Maybe it was better that he was out cold. Couldn’t feel a damn thing.” He took another swig.

  “Why though? He didn’t seem like the party animal type.”

  “I don’t know. Why does anyone do anything?”

  “Jackson said you guys were close. I forgot he was your frosh buddy last year.”

  Ethan shrugged again. “He’s a good kid.” He caught himself and swallowed. “Was a good kid. All I ever do is muck everything up.” He wiped beer from his lips with the back of his hand, just like he did after kissing Hailey. Wiping away the evidence.

  “How long were you together?” she asked, keeping her tone level and strong, for her sake. “You and Hailey, I mean?”

  Ethan wouldn’t look at her.

  “I just need to know … I need to know if we … if we were real,” she said.

  “We were real,” he whispered. “But I was never good enough for you. Admit it. Miss Perfect with Mr. Fuck Up.”

  She grimaced. “And you and Hailey?”

  He sighed. “We were fooling around for a year.”

  A whole year. Half their relationship, he was with another girl. “Were you sleeping together?” she asked.

  Another long sigh. Then: “Yeah.”

  The pain she felt in her heart was harsher than in her body. She wanted to ask more questions, but she realized she didn’t want to know the answers to them.

  But it was Ethan’s turn to ask a question. “Did you love me?”

  Spencer clamped her mouth shut and sat back, shocked. She wasn’t expecting him to ask her that. They had never said those words to each other. Did she love him? Was that why it hurt that much? She wasn’t sure she could answer him. She folded her arms across her chest and sat properly on the lounger, legs crossed, back pressed into the recline.

  She had been infatuated with him at first; like a lot of girls at Armstrong, she’d had a huge crush on him. But it had been more than that. She liked the way he smelled, the way he’d made her laugh, the way he always took care of her. And if she didn’t love him, what was she doing here?

  “I don’t know,” she said finally, because she didn’t. “I thought I did.”

  Finally, she got her wish and he looked at her and she almost regretted it. Pain stretched across his features, his expression so hopelessly open. He took in the injuries on her face and it stole his breath away.

  Slowly, he reached out and touched her cheek, tracing his thumb gently below her stitches. He’d done it so many times, a touch so effortless and true before.

  Cold, wet hands cupping her face. So much blood. SPENCER!

  She flinched at the memory.

  Ethan’s hand jolted back. His lip trembled, though he tried to hide it, and he turned away. He couldn’t look at what had happened to her, what’d he done. “God, your face.” He let out a small sob but sucked in his breath and held it. He was about to cry.

  Spencer turned her head away from him too, just so he wouldn’t have to see, and planted her gaze firmly on the waterfall burbling in the silence spanning between them.

  Eventually, he said, his voice thick, “I don’t even know what you see in me. All I do is hurt you.”

  Spencer couldn’t argue with that, and she couldn’t argue with someone who had five beers’ worth of self-hatred churning in his belly.

  “I just want all of this to make sense.”

  He snapped. “But there’s nothing else to it! I killed Chris! I did it! I was driving too fast, like I always do. It’s all my fault! There! Happy?”

  “Don’t say that! You didn’t mean to, right?”

  “You sound like my lawyer. Just because I didn’t mean it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

  His outburst shocked Spencer enough, she closed her mouth.

  “I’m not a good person, Spencer. I’m not like you. You’ve got a future, you’ve got dreams, you’re going to do things. It’s better if you just let me go. I’m only holding you back. This is how it’s supposed to happen.” His eyes looked like glass beads, dully reflecting the glow of the pool, but he wasn’t really looking at it. It was like he was staring a million miles away and seeing absolutely nothing. “Everyone else knows it, when will you?”

  Spencer didn’t know what to say about that. She could say he was wrong, but he’d confessed. Everyone else in this town had given up on him, and so, it seemed, had Ethan.

  Get Salty: A True Crime Podcast with Peyton Salt

  Lifestyles of the Rich and Reckless Segment Transcription

  [Get Salty Intro Music]

  Peyton Salt:

  Ethan Amoroso had everything going for him, and like they say, the mighty fall hard. It’s a long way down to the bottom.

  The son of a prominent executive at Cooper Incorporated, the multibillion-dollar candy company based here in Los Angeles, Ethan grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, constantly feeding him the sweeter things in life. Like so many of his ilk, the privilege of being rich and handsome meant doors opened for him, people gave him anything he could ever want—opportunities the likes of which you or me cannot even fathom were on the table.

  Star striker of the Armstrong soccer team, Ethan had already been noticed by several college teams, with a professional career on the horizon so long as he didn’t suffer serious injury preventing him from making it to the big leagues. Though, if we’re telling all, even if his knee gave out, he’d still be able to fall back on being the sole heir to his family’s immense fortune. Not exactly a bad backup plan.

  Ethan’s father, William, has his own fair share of controversies. A few years ago, he’d been caught sexting a subordinate, all while married to Ethan’s stepmother, but the scandal was later swept under the rug, an all-too-familiar occurrence. Rumor has it that Ethan was cheating on Spencer Sandoval and she caught him red-handed the night of the crash. Like father, like son!

  Ethan’s fast-paced, carefree lifestyle paved the way for a recipe for disaster. After the incident with Julianne Greene, who attended a house party at Ethan’s mansion and was left permanently paralyzed and in a coma, Ethan turned to drugs and alcohol.

  The only two options were to send him to military school or to a behavioral rehabilitation program, and the elder Amoroso chose the latter. Ethan seemed to be far beyond what his father thought he could handle. A police report was filed because someone had set the house on fire when he returned home. The name was redacted on the report, but could Ethan have been trying to get back at his father for sending him away? Did his father get his name redacted in order to protect him, fearing it would cause greater embarrassment for the family name? Who knows at this point? We can only speculate.

  As for us Salters, we can only look at the destruction caused by Ethan Amoroso and the hundreds of others just like him who see the world for the taking and will do nothing short of having it all for themselves. It doesn’t matter who gets in the way—people like Ethan Amoroso are nothing but trouble.

  THIRTEEN

  THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY AFTERNOON, SPENCER expertly filled the ice cream cone, piling it with vanilla and chocolate swirl before dipping it into the melted chocolate and rolling it in sprinkles, then handed it to the man and his son waiting on the other side of the plexiglass barrier.

  She’d worked at Brain Freeze since she was a freshman, and by now she was an ice cream aficionado.

  The kiosk, built in the ’50s, had been designed to look like a cup full of ice cream, the roof like a swirl on top, with large cartoon eyes. Last year, some vandals spray-painted the roof brown, making it look like a pile of poop. Since the kiosk was right on the edge of the Brentwood Sports Park, it was a popular place for a lot of kids her age to hang out, taking up some of the plastic seating and tables, shading themselves under the pinstripe umbrellas, and spending the rest of their day doing absolutely nothing.

  Before, Ethan and his friends would come over while she was working, but at least Olivia still worked there with her. Spencer wiped the back of her hand on her forehead, brushing the stray hairs from her Dutch braids off her damp skin. Ripley couldn’t physically fit inside the kiosk, it was that small, so she waited outside under the shade of a nearby tree where Spencer could keep an eye on her and refill a water bowl for her every thirty minutes.

  “So when did you want to go dress shopping?” Olivia asked.

  “Dress shop—” It took Spencer a moment to realize what she was talking about and then it clicked. “Oh! Homecoming. I totally forgot about it.”

  “Yeah! We’re still going, right? I mean, since it’s our last one and all, I figured we’d be stereotypical teenagers and do it this once to say we did it, and then maybe my parents will stop calling me antisocial, even though that’s not what antisocial means … Soccer game got out,” Olivia said, tipping her chin toward a minivan with a soccer bumper sticker on the back. A whole gaggle of kids poured out, their knees scraped up and dirty from the game. “Showtime.” Olivia leaned on the counter, ready to take the orders and ring up the money.

  Thinking about going to homecoming, especially without Ethan, felt like their breakup was real. He couldn’t go, of course, even if he wanted to take Hailey. He was still under house arrest. But the thought of the two of them together still hurt. She wanted to move on from him, she knew she deserved that, but would she really be in the mood to dance the night away surrounded by everyone who’d been staring at her the past week since her return?

  “I figured it’d be fun,” Olivia said, punching in the orders of a scrambling mass of twelve-year-old soccer players resisting being wrangled by a mom who already looked like she was starting to regret mentioning coming here. “You know, get a dress, like a revenge dress like Princess Di, so when you post it online Ethan will see it and he’ll feel like such a dumb-dumb for doing what he did, and then you and me, we can live it up and party like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Spencer had to admit, that did sound fun. Like Princess Diana, she could make her first big appearance after the breakup looking like a million dollars. She thought about it, filling up a dozen ice cream cups with various toppings and mixing, moving quickly despite her sling so nothing melted too fast, and before long the throng of hungry kids were enjoying their well-earned desserts under the umbrellas.

  “Can’t we just stay in? Maybe take it easy?” Spencer asked. Simply thinking about loud noises and crowds was exhausting enough. And she wasn’t sure she could stomach seeing happy couples dancing with each other. And it seemed wrong to go to a party when the Moores had just planned a funeral.

  “You still have time. We can decide later.”

  Pain shot through Spencer’s shoulder. It happened more frequently, especially if she was pushing herself too hard. She winced and said, “I might be over school dances.”

  Another customer stepped up to the kiosk and Olivia took their order. “Still,” she said, turning back to Spencer as she made the strawberry cone. “It might help you get your mind off things. I want things to go back to the way they used to be…”

  Spencer couldn’t agree more. They worked the rest of their shift, hardly able to talk again with the rush of eager kids wanting a treat after their games. Before long, the garbage can was overflowing.

  Spencer went out the back to take out the trash, heading through the parking lot, when she spotted two people standing near the dumpster by the community bathrooms. Tabby Hill and some person she didn’t recognize were speaking about something that looked important, their heads leaning toward each other. The stranger looked shady, to say the least. He wore a hoodie, despite the heat, and his hair was a greasy, stringy flop that shadowed his eyes. He handed something to Tabby, who handed something back. Without another word, the stranger left, and Tabby put whatever it was in the front pocket of their jeans.

  Spencer’s and Tabby’s eyes met for a fleeting moment, and Spencer pretended not to have been staring as she hauled the heavy garbage bag into the dumpster. Tabby hurried off, not giving Spencer another glance.

  FOURTEEN

  SPENCER HAD NEVER BEEN TO a police station, ever in her life. She’d had the privilege of not having to set foot through its doors to see the brown tiles or sit in the plastic-form chairs in the waiting area or smell the burnt coffee in the pot. When she walked in, naturally the eyes of people waiting in the waiting area and the uniformed officer sitting behind the desk fell on Ripley at her side, but no one said anything about it when they saw her face and the bruises still splattering up her skin like an ink spill. Her back was sweaty from the ride over, and she knew her hair looked like a rightful mess thanks to her helmet, but she didn’t care. She was beyond caring about anything at this point.

  “I’m here to speak to someone about an accident I was involved in,” Spencer said.

  “Was this recent?” The receptionist’s eyes landed on the stitches on her cheek.

  “No, my name is Spencer Sandoval. I’m here about the Ethan Amoroso case.”

  At the sound of Ethan’s name, the officer’s eyebrows rose. No need to elaborate. “Ah. I see. Then you’re going to want to talk to Detective Potentas.”

  Right. Potentas. That was the detective who had visited her in the hospital after the accident. Spencer’s memories of that day were still so hazy, but the moment she heard the name, she remembered.

  “Please, have a seat,” the officer said. “He’s out getting lunch, but he’ll be back any moment.”

  Spencer didn’t have to wait long enough for the skin below her shorts to stick to the uncomfortable plastic seating before a man in a white button-down shirt and tie loose around his neck entered. She stood up and rushed over before he even had time to look up from the phone in his hand, his other clutching a Styrofoam to-go box that smelled like something fried. He looked tired and weary, which was understandable given his line of work.

  “Detective Potentas, hello.” Spencer’s formality always came out when she was up against authority figures, especially ones who wore a gun on their hip. “My name is—”

  “Spencer Sandoval, of course, I remember,” he finished for her. “How can I help you? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, I just wanted to discuss the case I was involved in.”

  He glanced at the officer sitting behind the desk, who shrugged. “Okay, sure, let’s talk in my office.”

  His office was more of a desk in the back corner of the open floor plan. Ripley padded along at Spencer’s side while they walked down the aisle, listening to the furious typing of other detectives writing up reports behind their computers, or chatting with coworkers, or waiting for jobs in a copier to finish processing. It reminded Spencer more of a boring office setting than a hard-boiled headquarters for jaded police that she’d seen so much on television.

  Detective Potentas fell into his chair at his desk and clicked away at his computer, typing in his login information, while Spencer took a seat in the stained chair next to his desk, awkwardly positioned in the aisle. Eventually, he leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked underneath him as he rocked. “What can I do you for, Miss Sandoval?”

  “I was just wondering if I could look at the police report of the accident.”

  “Now why would you want to do that?”

  Spencer wrung her hands around Ripley’s leash as she lied. “School project.” It was the best she could come up with.

  At least Detective Potentas looked amused. “A school project…”

  Lying to the police was a thing Spencer never expected to do, but she didn’t know how else to ask for it. She tried to smile, but she knew it looked strained.

  The detective sighed loudly, his nostrils whistling. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. I can’t share police reports for an active case.” He must have read the disappointment on her face because he leaned forward, resting his elbow on the desk casually. “What’s this really about?”

  Spencer wasn’t sure what to tell him. Would he believe her that she was certain something was wrong about that night? “I still don’t remember what happened that night, and I want to know.”

  “I might be able to make a call to pull some strings, but this would have to happen after Mr. Amoroso’s case is processed by the court. And by then, I’m not sure what good it will do you. I can tell you’re looking for answers, but sometimes these kinds of things don’t have answers.”

  “I spoke with Ethan, and something just didn’t seem right. I think something else happened that night, I just need to know what.”

  “Miss Sandoval. I know you’ve been through quite a traumatic event, but it’s better if you let us take it from here.”