“How did you even know where we were?” Michael asked. “What the hell is going on here? Who are you?”
“I think maybe you should ask him,” Layla said as she pointed to Rob.
I felt all the blood rush out of my face as I watched Rob step up to shake Layla’s hand.
“It was worth a shot,” he said as he smiled at her. “I appreciate you trying to keep them all out of it.”
“My pleasure,” Layla answered. “That’s what friends are for.”
Michael and Adam flanked me tightly as we all waited on Rob’s explanation. And it needed to be a damn good one to keep my hands at my sides instead of wrapping around his fucking throat.
“What did you do?” I asked as anger brewed in the pit of my gut.
“Sorry,” he said. “It was for everyone’s own good and you were all safer if you didn’t know what was going on. Layla didn’t kill David, she’s a cop. She was my undercover partner. Well, I guess she kind of still is my partner now that the department is back on the up-and-up.”
“I’m so confused,” I said as I tried to wrap my head around what was going on.
Rob motioned for the other guys to sit down so that he could explain, and we all sat at the conference table together. Apparently, Layla’s secretary also wasn’t in on the news because Layla had to go out and calm her down and send back the campus security that the woman had called. I could tell that Michael and Adam were falling back into the same “fight or flight” mode that we had back when my father was still alive because they were protectively pressed up against either side of me so tightly that I was starting to sweat. It was amazing that the three of us could trust anyone anymore after all of the double-crossing and betrayals we had been through.
I really hoped that’s not what this was turning out to be now with Rob.
“Layla was sent here to investigate the campus at the same time that I was,” Rob said as he launched into an explanation. “Her job was to stick close to David and keep tabs on him while I investigated the drug operation. When we left the campus to go to Asheville, she was the contact that I still kept in touch with. It was Layla that wiped the car plates for us and told me about the charges being brought against David. When David ran and showed up at the cottage in Asheville, the school was left without leadership. He didn’t exactly have a committee of administrators to fall back on, either. David was running the school like a king. So, Layla stepped up in his absence to keep the campus from falling apart.”
“How did no one question that?” Michael interrupted. “Didn’t anyone want to know who you were to be able to just take over the school?”
“Not really,” Layla answered. “I had some records created and kind of just slid into the position unnoticed and unchallenged.”
Rob jumped back in. “The precinct was weeded out as soon as the investigation followed up on all of the organizations the drug circle had in its pocket, and the good cops that remained continued their search for David so that he would be brought to justice for what he had done.”
Rob paused and looked thoughtful for a moment before his eyes fell to me. “I was going to tell them that David was with us and turn him over to the police. But when I saw what you were able to do with him, and how he was able to turn his life around, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. So, I reached out to Layla again, and had her convince the precinct to drop the search on the grounds that David had simply just disappeared.”
I was getting really uneasy in my chair. I started to think this whole thing was a bad idea and that we should have just stayed in Asheville after all instead of coming back here.
“What does any of this have to do with David being killed?” I asked impatiently.
“I heard some whispers around campus,” Layla said.
My eyes snapped over to her. “What kind of whispers?”
She sighed. “I heard things in hallways and classrooms, things about how you would be headmistress once David was finally gone and out of the way. I tried to figure out who was saying those things, but every time I thought I caught someone talking about it, I would turn the corner and there would be no one there. I tried to call Rob to warn him about the things that I was hearing but the reception in the mountains kept dropping his call for some reason. I finally just got in my car and drove up there to tell him. I arrived in Asheville early in the morning just after sunrise and since I was trying to keep a low profile, I went into your backyard to try calling Rob on my cell phone again, and that’s when I saw David lying in the garden. Then you came out and I ran so that I wouldn’t blow my cover. I called Rob from just down the road and told him what had happened. But I swear to you, I didn’t kill your friend.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about any of this?” I asked Rob angrily.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” he said with a shrug. And I was definitely getting tired of the fucking nonchalant shrugs. “We still didn’t know who killed David and all it would have done was blow Layla’s cover. You were hell-bent on coming out here anyway, so I figured I’d just let you find out on your own.”
“That’s messed up, man,” Adam said to him. “We trusted you.”
“And I haven’t done anything to betray your trust,” Rob said.
“How can you say that?” I shouted as I stood to my feet. “You hid information from us and lied to us. Of course, you betrayed our trust!”
I was so mad. We weren’t any closer to finding David’s killer and now I couldn’t bring myself to trust Rob. Why were people constantly letting me down?
“Lisette, please,” Rob said as he reached forward to touch my hand.
Michael immediately stood up and put his body between us.
And that’s when Layla interjected again, making my want to rip her damn vocal box out of her fucking throat. “Well, I can see that this situation is about to get a lot more dramatic than I want to be involved in. Lisette, I can’t stay here now that my cover is blown. I’ve pissed a lot of people off that we put behind bars for having connections to your brother’s drug trafficking operation. You need to take over as Headmistress now.”
“Me?” I asked in shock.
“Yep,” Layla said. “You’re the rightful person who is next in line to take charge of the school. Plus, there are obviously people that are so insistent on you being Headmistress that they were willing to commit murder in order to make sure it happened.”
“Doesn’t that make this a really dangerous situation for Lisette to stay in here then?” Adam asked.
“Yes, it does. But it seems that dangerous situations seem to follow you guys anyway. Besides, you’ll still have Rob here to help keep you safe.”
I made a huffing sound at that notion. I no longer trusted him at all. For all I cared, he could crawl back into the hole he seeped out of.
Layla headed toward the door and Rob got up to walk her out as she left.
“We aren’t staying here,” Michael said as soon as the three of us were alone in the room. “It’s not safe for you here.”
I groaned. “Apparently, Layla is right about one thing, though: it’s not safe for me anywhere.”
Michael huffed. “Yeah, but please tell me that you’re not considering taking over as Headmistress. Not only would that mean we wouldn’t be going back to Asheville and to our beautiful sanctuary home where you were so happy, but it also means that you would be glaringly out in the public eye. If anyone wanted to target you, they wouldn’t even have to look hard to do it,” Michael said as he pleaded with me to get up and leave with them back to Asheville now.
Adam cleared his throat. “Okay, I already know this idea is not going to go over well with you. Hell, I don’t think it’s even going to go over well with me,” he said as he turned to Michael.
