Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) by Kara Taylor

he considers this. Even if he wasn’t close to his sister, he’s thinking what I’m thinking: It doesn’t sound like Isabella.
    “She could have been trying to avoid someone in that class,” I say. “If I can find out who, then—”
    “You’re serious, aren’t you? The police can’t get anyone to talk, but you think you can?”
    “They’re more likely to talk to me. I’m not a threat to them like the police are.”
    “I don’t get it.” There’s an edge to Anthony’s voice that makes my heart sink. “What’s in it for you if the school loses its reputation over this? Why aren’t you like everyone else who doesn’t give a shit who killed my sister?”
    There’s a lump in my throat, but I refuse to let him see how much that stung. “So just because my parents can afford to send me here I must not care about your sister, or anyone but myself for that matter? How do you know I’m not here on scholarship, too?”
    He gets up and points to a picture of me swimming with a dolphin. “I’m guessing that wasn’t taken in Florida.”
    “No. Turks and Caicos. What does that have to do with anything?” I demand.
    Anthony takes half a step toward me, his mouth twisted in a smirk as if I’ve just confirmed all of his assumptions about me. He’s close enough that I can see the ghost of a scar over his full upper lip.
    “I’d tell you not to get involved and let the police handle my sister’s murder,” he says. “But I can tell you’re not gonna listen anyway.”
    “No, probably not.”
    “Look, I want to know who killed her, too. But if you’re not careful about snooping around here, you might as well attach a target to your back.”
    “I’m not afraid of these people because their parents are senators or diplomats or whatever,” I say.
    “Yeah, well. Maybe you should be.”

 
    CHAPTER
    ELEVEN
     
    I was in an episode of Law and Order when I was seven. Mom and I were in line at the post office when a casting director approached us. They were shooting at the courthouse across the street, he said, and I was perfect for an extra role they were trying to fill. All I had to do was let some lady hold me while screaming about how no one could ever take her babies away from her. Even though she’d kidnapped me.
    Anyway. In the episode, the lady was in some cult, so the detective went undercover pretending he wanted to join, and that’s how he got the rest of the members to implicate her in a string of murders.
    What I’m getting at is that’s all I really know about how the police do their thing when no one will talk to them. So that’s why I’ve decided that if I’m going to get any sort of useful information about what got Isabella killed, I need to do it from the inside.
    I can’t just float around on my own and hang out with the alpha crowd when I feel like it anymore. I need to become one of them.
    But when I get to the dining hall Monday morning, Kelsey is the only one at the table. She’s picking the blueberries out of a muffin and arranging them in rows on her napkin.
    “What’s wrong?” I take the seat next to her and sprinkle pepper on my egg whites.
    “Nothing’s wrong.” Kelsey’s hands fly to her face. “Why, are my eyes puffy?”
    “No.” I point to her napkin. “But that’s the kind of behavior they institutionalize people for, you know.”
    Kelsey sighs. I follow her gaze across the room, where a guy is waiting on the waffle line. The top button of his shirt is undone and his hair is swept to the side. Gross.
    “Is that Justin?” I ask.
    “Sh! What if he hears us?” Kelsey hisses.
    “He’d need to have our table bugged to hear us from over there. Besides, he hasn’t looked over here once.” I adjust my voice a bit, knowing I probably need to be gentler with Kelsey. “You’re gorgeous. You can do better than a creep who preys on freshmen.”
    “He broke up with me so he could focus on college stuff,” Kelsey sniffs. “But he texts me all the time saying