Page 59 of Murder on the Upper East Side

Shit.Elle was sliding in beside him then, placing her hand on his arm. She’d have zero shot at a conversation with Bash with Elle present.

‘Hannah.’ Ethan called her over from the other end of the bar. She glanced back into the dining room and found Bruno busying himself at the cheese and charcuterie spread.

‘I saw you talking to Bruno,’ Ethan said when she reached him. ‘I don’t know what he told you, but fifty bucks said he tried to make me look like a bloodthirsty lunatic.’

‘He didn’t actually—’

But Ethan was still talking. ‘You cannot believe a word out of that boy’s mouth. Did he tell you about Columbia?’

Hannah shifted in her slippers. ‘What about it?’

‘That’s where he met Will.Through Madison.She introduced them in her senior year, they hit it off, then she cut them both out of her life.’ He made a swift chopping motion, hand slamming into the bar. She flinched. ‘My take: she didn’t expect it to actually work out, and when it did, she was insanely jealous.’

‘Damn.’

‘Uh-huh. Bruno was crushed. His grades took a nosedive; he almost got kicked out of his major. It was a whole thing.’

Hannah’s thoughts whirred. Just minutes ago, Brunohad claimed that he and Madison had no contact whatsoever while they were both students at Columbia. But according to Ethan, she’d introduced him to his husband, and clearly he’d still cared what she thought back then – so much so it had nearly jeopardised his college career.

‘Bruno’s the one with a Madison DuPont complex,’ Ethan continued. ‘She cut him out, and he’s never gotten over it.’

Unsure what to do with the he-said-he-said of it all, Hannah took two steps back from the bar.

‘Excuse me,’ she mumbled, retreating into the lounge. This was a lot to process, but one thing was clear: neither Ethan nor Bruno had recovered from Madison’s reign of terror. And either one of them could have taken out those years of pent-up anger on her tonight.

She needed some air. Not that there was anywhere to go. Her eyes trailed to the club’s front door – still blocked by one of New York’s finest – then to the dim hallway leading to the cloakroom and staff stairwell, which by the looks of it, was where Bash and Elle were now headed. And standing near the reception desk was Beatrice Whitmore, watching their retreating backs.

15 March 2017

Instagram

Image: Outside Prescott Academy, the fountain has been switched on for spring, and in carefully tended planters at the base of the steps, colourful Lenten Roses and sweet little crocuses bloom.

TheUpperEdgeSomething is in the air on the Upper East Side, and I’m not talking about the pollen or the musk of Grandmummy’s ancient perfume. Shifting allegiances, wandering eyes, the first glimpse of graduation on the horizon. Something is brewing, but what? Sometimes the only way to see beneath Prescott’s polished veneer is to exist on the fringes.

Just like me. Watch this space, boys and girls.

@Oliver_hates_olivesBeware the Ides of March, amIright?

@Ethan_ASTOR@Oliver_hates_olives har har you suck

2115 March 2017

Hannah cast Mr Harris a sympathetic look as she left the classroom and stepped into the hall. Their seminar leader had been looking slightly frayed around the edges by the end of class, and she couldn’t blame him. Madison had been in peak form this morning, flirting openly one minute, making the poor man flush dark red beneath the shirt collar, then switching on her phone and texting in open defiance of Prescott’s classroom devices policy. It was gross, but flirting with teachers and brazenly flaunting the rules were par for Madison’s course – and everyone feared the DuPonts too much to do anything about it, especially the younger teachers.

In the hall, Hannah pulled her phone from her bag, fingertip straying habitually to Instagram.Tap, open.This morning’s post was fairly innocuous, asThe Upper Edgeposts went. The comments, however, were not. An initial barb from Ethan Astor had turned into a full-blown Oliver Morgan hate-fest with Ethan leading the charge. She looked up, searching for herfriend, but he’d been first to exit the classroom, and his back had already vanished down the hall.

Fuck these people.She switched off her phone, jammed it back into her bag. Hannah’s fall semester resolve to stay off Instagram had swiftly deteriorated, but she knew better than to comment on the posts of Prescott’s most notorious gossip account. Oliver, on the other hand, just couldn’t help himself, and it always, always went down like this. She wheeled around, looking for Ethan, before remembering he was only a junior, wouldn’t be in the tangle of seniors milling about the first floor after seminar. Right. She drew in a deep, steadying breath, reminding herself that Oliver was his own person. He’d been suffering their classmates for years, and part of him seemed tolikegetting into it with them online; he’d told her once that he felt most alive on the internet. Maybe he’d be a social media sensation someday, when Prescott and its haters were far behind him.

‘You cool?’ Hannah felt the brush of fingertips against her blazer sleeve.

She turned to find Beatrice Whitmore beside her, a small frown tugging at the corner of her berry-red mouth. Today, her tight black curls framed her face in a soft halo. It seemed that Hannah had been standing in the centre of the hallway, motionless, for at least a full minute.

‘Fine. Just… yeah, I’m fine.’ She gave Beatrice a smile. They’d been classmates for six months now, part of the same seminar group, at all the same parties,but it struck Hannah that this might be the first time they’d ever had a one-on-one conversation. Beatrice was quiet and supremely stylish, friendly with Elle and Madison and the rest of them, but she always managed to rise above the drama of the week. How, exactly, did she do it?

‘Cool,’ Beatrice said, turning to go.

‘Actually,’ Hannah spoke up. ‘Can we talk for a minute? About Bash?’