Kings of Linwood Academy - The Complete Box Set: A Dark High School Romance Series Callie Rose (i read a book TXT) 📖

I’m shaking so hard my legs feel like they might give out from under me as a combination of excitement, disgust, and anger wells up inside me.

For the first time since my mom’s arrest, I feel like I’m closer to the truth than I’ve ever been. Closer to digging up the facts that will set her free.

But if I’m right? If this is the truth?

Then everything is so fucked.

I walk down the stairs like an eighty-year old, clinging to the railing for dear life. It’s almost twenty minutes after three o’clock by now, and I’m sure Lincoln’s already waiting for me by the front doors of the school. Probably wondering where I am.

That thought draws me up short, and I sink down onto the steps at the mid-floor landing, tugging my phone out of my bag.

I need to talk to someone. To tell someone what I’m thinking. But it can’t be Lincoln. Not yet.

ME: Hey. I need to talk to you. Can you tell Linc to go ahead without me? And can you stay?

RIVER: Are you okay?

Jesus. That has to be the most worthless word in the English language. What does it even mean?

Am I alive? Yes.

Am I in immediate danger? No.

Am I okay?

How the hell should I know? It’s all fucking relative.

ME: Yeah.

Maybe River can read between the lines of that single-word answer, because his next response comes quickly.

RIVER: Yeah okay. I’ll tell him. What about Dax and Chase?

ME: Just you. Please.

RIVER: Okay. Give me five minutes. Where are you?

ME: Stairwell. West wing.

RIVER: omw

I slip my phone back into my bag and wait. Savannah and I were in the bathroom long enough that the school has mostly emptied out. Unless people have to stick around for clubs or extracurriculars, they usually bolt for the doors at the end of the day. There’s always a logjam getting out of the parking lot.

I almost expect River to show up with the other three following him anyway, refusing to be left out. But the trust they showed Linc the night my mom was arrested runs both ways, and when the boy with the broad features and ash-brown hair opens the door at the bottom of the stairs, he’s alone.

His gaze lands on me immediately, and he climbs up to sit on the landing next to me, angling his body so he’s facing me more fully.

“Low? What’s up?”

I mirror his movement, turning toward him so that our knees almost brush. His brows are knitted together, the blue-gray of his eyes looking paler than usual in the light streaming through the windows in the stairwell.

Jesus. Where do I start?

There’s no good way to say it, no way to massage the words to make them less awful.

“Samuel Black,” I murmur, gazing helplessly into River’s eyes.

“Linc’s dad? What about him?”

“What if he did it?”

It takes him a couple seconds to fully process my words, and I watch the small changes in his expression as he goes from confusion to understanding to shock to something like disbelief.

“Are you serious?”

River’s always had a careful way of talking, as if he’s considered every word before it comes out of his mouth, and that’s more true than ever now. He’s staring at me like he can’t quite decide if I’m crazy or brilliant.

I nod, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Savannah said the father of Iris’s baby was an older man. Not someone from school, an older guy.”

“Sure, but that could be—”

“And I found a paternity test in Mr. Black’s desk drawer a couple months ago.”

River’s mouth snaps shut, and for the first time since I blurted out my suspicion, I see him processing it analytically, sorting through the puzzle pieces to see which ones fit.

And a lot of them do.

Too many of them do.

“He had access to my mom’s car. He could’ve planted evidence. And he knew she was out that night—the night Iris died. If she’d been home, she would’ve had an alibi, but he knew she wouldn’t. And he had access to her apartment. Hell, he could’ve planted evidence there too if he wanted to.”

I hope I’m not speaking too fast for River to pick up the movement of my lips, but I can’t slow down. My entire body is revving like an engine, poised for action even though I have no idea what to do.

“Fuck.” He leans back slightly, and I lose his storm cloud eyes for a second as he gazes down the steps ahead of us, chewing on his lip. “Jesus fuck.”

When he looks back up at me, I suck in a breath.

“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s nothing. But I had to tell someone.”

“No, yeah.” He shakes his head and then nods, and I can’t quite tell what he’s agreeing to or disagreeing with—or if he’s talking to himself.

Then something hardens in his gray eyes, and he moves to stand. “We need to tell Linc.”

“No!” I grab his hand, pulling him back down beside me. “We can’t. Not yet.” His expression darkens, and I shake my head. “I don’t like it either; I fucking hate it. We said there would be no more secrets between us. But we can’t tell him yet.”

River wraps my hand in both of his, running his fingers over the contours of my knuckles, and I let that touch soothe me a little, just like I think he means for it to.

“We’re still in essentially the same boat we’ve been in,” I say quietly, keeping my head tilted toward him. “We don’t have enough evidence to make a convincing case to Dunagan if we tell him about this. And if we move too soon, and Mr. Black figures out what we know, it only gives him time to destroy evidence and cover his tracks even more.”

“If it’s really him,” River murmurs.

“Right. If it’s him. We don’t know that yet. But even if we’re wrong, if we tell Lincoln about this now, you know he’s gonna flip out. He’s got enough weirdness with his dad