Tom walks over to the MP3 player in its dock and switches off the music. A blessed silence descends over the room, except for the distant sound of shouting from the rooftop outside, and then Tom’s voice as he pulls out his phone and says, “Yes, I need the police and an ambulance at Wasser Hall at New York College right away. That’s 14 College Place between Broadway and—”

Bridget, appearing worried, asks, “He’s not calling the police about Mr. Bigelow, is he? Because he didn’t do anything wrong. He was only helping me. I know it was wrong, but—”

I send Tom a warning look. He nods, getting the message, and leaves the room, the cell phone still pressed to his ear.

“Well,” I say to Bridget, “Mr. Bigelow”—did she really just call him this?—“broke a window. That’s destruction of college property, and that’s very serious. He also didn’t answer the door when we knocked, and that’s a violation of New York College residence hall rules and regulations.”

Bridget, still appearing fearful—but for Mr. Bigelow, not herself—nods. “Oh,” she says. “Okay. I-I guess. I know what we were doing was wrong, but we didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Of course you didn’t,” I say, reaching up to push some of Bridget’s dark hair from her eyes so I can check her pupils. I think she must be in shock. There don’t appear to be any cuts or bruises on her face, arms, or legs, or anywhere else that I can see. She appears pale, but otherwise in good health. She’s begun to tremble, though.

“If all Mr. Bigelow was doing was helping you, like you said,” I ask, “why didn’t you open the door when we knocked? And why did he run away?”

“Well,” Bridget says, wrapping her arms around herself and curling into the same ball in which I’d seen her sitting earlier in the library, “I guess we were violating the rules—”

My heart is thumping harder than ever. “What rules?” I ask.

“He was coaching me,” Bridget says. Now her large dark eyes fill with tears. She doesn’t appear to be in pain, however. They seem to be tears of shame. “Okay? Please don’t tell. Do you promise? I’ll die if Cassidy and Mallory find out. They’ll tell Stephanie, and then I’ll get disqualified.”

“Disqualified?” The voices from the rooftop are getting closer. Through the broken window, I see Steven and Pete returning . . . unfortunately, Bill Bigelow is not with them. Pete is limping, Steven’s arm around his waist. “Disqualified from what?”

“Mr. Bigelow knows a lot about communicating emotion through musical performance—he’s an expert in it,” Bridget goes on, as if she hasn’t heard my question. She’s speaking very quickly, like she’s had a lot of caffeine. “He used to teach it professionally. And he said he could teach me some tricks that would help me beat Cassidy and all those other girls in the Rock Off.”

Tom’s come back, waving something through the splintered remains of the door that he wants me to see. “No,” he’s saying to the 911 operator, “I won’t hold. I don’t think you really understand—”

What he’s waving is a cupcake pan that he’s apparently found in the kitchen.

It doesn’t prove anything, but I feel the blood in my veins freeze all the same.

“So,” I say, trying to stay focused on Bridget, “Mr. Bigelow was your teacher?”

She nods, seeming relieved that I’ve finally caught on. “Yes,” she says. “Yes. He’s really, really good.”

“Then why,” I say, feeling a little sick to my stomach, “did you tell your roommates that he was your boyfriend?”

Color swiftly suffuses her cheeks, turning them the shade of her scarf, and she glances down and away, at the bare knees she’s hugging to her chest.

“Because I didn’t want them to know what we were really doing together,” she says, still speaking so quickly that her words run over themselves, like water from an overflowing hydrant. “They’d think it was cheating. But it wasn’t, really. Mr. Bigelow says it’s important to do whatever you have to in order to get a competitive edge. I mean, Cassidy, she has an agent. I don’t. We don’t have agents in my town. So Mr. Bigelow said he was going to be my agent, and my private coach and manager—”

I don’t know what compels me to reach up and gently unwind the hot-pink scarf from her neck as she’s speaking. But when I do, both Tom and I see them at the same time. I know because I hear the gasp that comes from Tom’s direction—the gasp that he, like me, tries quickly to stifle.

Forming a perfect circle all around Bridget’s throat—as if she were wearing a necklace of amethyst stones—are bruises. They’re in the exact shape and size of a man’s fingers.

We must not do a very good job of hiding our horror, since Bridget seems to realize right away what we’ve seen. She reaches for the scarf lying limply in my hands and says matter-of-factly as she wraps the silk material back around her neck, her voice a distant, horrifying echo of Tania’s that night in the Cartwrights’ media room, “Oh, never mind about those. They’re my fault. Sometimes Mr. Bigelow gets stressed when I don’t hit the notes right. Please don’t blame him. I need to work harder, he says.”

Chapter 25

Spice of Life
Girl, you are so sweet
I love you desperately
But that doesn’t mean
I wanna date exclusively
I’m a man who needs variety
It’s the spice of life, ya see?
Girl, you know we’ll always be
Together for eternity
Babe, you know I’d never say good-bye
You’ll always be my favorite ride
But I need freedom in my life
From that fact, we just can’t hide
I’m a man who needs variety
It’s the spice of life, ya see?
Girl, you know we’ll always be
Together for eternity
Girl, you must believe
I’ll be here for you any day of the week
But that doesn’t mean
I want to date exclusively
I’m a man who needs variety
It’s the spice of life, ya see?
Girl, you know we’ll always be
Together for eternity

“Spice of Life”
Performed by Easy Street
Written by Larson/Sohn
Girl, U So Fine album