Page 75 of Murder on the Upper East Side

As Hannah gathered her notebooks into her backpack, she felt a stab of sympathy for her teacher. Mr Harris might look barely older than a student himself, but he was in his late twenties, with an MFA in creative writing from somewhere fancy, she couldn’t remember now. A full-grown man being made to look foolish in front of the entire class, and what could he do about it? Madison got away with speaking to absolutely everyone in her orbit exactly as she pleased, and teachers and school officials were no exception. Hannah had seen her flat-out ignore Ms Caldwell inthe halls before, and once she’d straightened Mr Roman’s tie in full view of the student lounge. The math teacher’s face had gone crimson.

No one dared take disciplinary action against Madison. The DuPonts were in Prescott’s top five per cent of donors, and more than that, they held enormous sway over the school’s reputation. The second Prescott fell out of their favour, Alastair and Charlene would have zero qualms about directing the sons and daughters of New York’s elite to Dalton instead.

And so, Madison enjoyed carte blanche to do exactly as she pleased, a fact that had become increasingly clear as the year progressed. Negging Mr Harris, or however you wanted to characterise this morning’s display, was hardly the worst of her sins. But in witnessing him snatch his hand away, then dismiss the class, the enormity of Madison’s power struck Hannah full force. She was fearless – and that was a dangerous thing to be.

Most of her classmates were already out in the hall, eager to be rid of the awkwardness and to take advantage of their bonus fifteen minutes of freedom before the second period bell. Madison had been the first to stroll out the door, pulling the pencil from her hair and allowing her red waves to spill down her back. Mr Harris had moved over to the rarely used teacher’s desk beneath the windows and was staring intently at something on his laptop screen. When she found herself alone at the table, Hannah felt compelled to say something, to call out Madison’s behaviour forwhat it was, but would that only embarrass him further? She zipped up her backpack and slid the straps over her shoulders.

Mr Harris spoke first. His eyes were still on his screen, but he must have sensed Hannah lingering there. ‘I can’t stop thinking that I’ve failed her. She’ll graduate from Prescott knowing nothing about consequences.’ He closed his laptop finally and removed his glasses, resting them on top. ‘But life won’t always be so easy for her, Hannah. Columbia will be a wakeup call. And even if she sails through her undergraduate years the same way she’s sailed through high school, the realities of adulthood will hit. At some point, being a DuPont will not be enough. Someone will stand up to her. Someone will refuse to grant Madison her power, and she will learn.’

There was something slightly ominous about Mr Harris’s words, but mostly, they made Hannah sad.Learn what?she wanted to ask.What it feels like to lose?As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him.Wouldsomeone really stand up to Madison DuPont?Wouldsomeone take away her power? It seemed childish to believe that could be true. Look at the Fitzgeralds, the Beaumonts, the Harringtons, Madison’s own parents. Generational wealth had gotten them everything. Why should things turn out any differently for Madison, who was clever and cruel and knew exactly how to use the people around her to get everything her heart desired?

‘I’m sure she will,’ Hannah said softly, just to make Mr Harris feel better. ‘Someday.’

Then she slipped out of the room. Poor Mr Harris. It must bekillinghim inside, allowing Madison to walk all over him, living on the hope that someday, she’d get what she deserved.

28Saturday, 13 June 2026

5:24am

Once Alex and Ami had settled at a table in the dining room, Hannah slipped out from her hiding place beneath the buffet. The line was moving swiftly now; she’d been eavesdropping for longer than she’d realised. Good, because if she was going to be able to dissect everything Alex had just said to her sister, she needed to get some food in her belly. She grabbed a plate and helped herself to an almond croissant, then a bagel, a healthy smear of cream cheese, and two glistening slices of lox. She eyed the red onions, then piled them on.Fuck it.

She was halfway to Ami’s table, questions for Alex already percolating, when a lone figure caught her eye. At a two-seater in the corner, a man in a deep brown tux was hunched over a mug of coffee and a chocolate croissant. He’d draped his jacket over the back of the chair and loosened his tie. Like Hannah, he wore a pair of Lenox Club slippers.

Paul Harris. She’d caught his eye earlier tonight, when he’d been handing out Acqua Panna and checking on Alice St Clair in the immediate aftermath of Madison’s murder. Then she’d glimpsed him again in the library, chatting with a few of his fellow teachers. But this was the first time she’d paid him any real attention.

He’d be thirty-seven or thirty-eight by now, still young, but the ten years that had passed since Hannah’s graduation had been hard on him. He’d gained weight around his middle and in his face, and he’d allowed the carefully manicured scruff he’d once worn to grow into a full, boxed beard. It was neatly trimmed, but combined with the weight gain, it had the effect of ageing him well into his forties.

Hannah turned and headed in the direction of his table. Alex could wait; this might be her best shot at catching her former senior seminar leader alone. It was hard to imagine Mr Harris, or any Prescott teacher for that matter, poisoning a former student in cold blood, but she couldn’t rule him out. Madison had undermined and embarrassed him plenty back at Prescott, and he had as much reason to resent her as anyone else on the guest list tonight.

‘May I join you?’ Without waiting for a response, Hannah set her plate on the table.

Mr Harris – it was hard to think of him as Paul, even though they were both adults now – looked up from his coffee. Close up, Hannah could see the skin beneath his eyes was puffy, his cheeks red. Maybehe’d recently returned from a beach vacation; maybe it was sunburn. But Hannah guessed the cause was something more permanent. She glanced at the hand circling his coffee mug; no ring. So, Mr Harris was still unmarried, and signs pointed to a possible drinking habit.

Truthfully, as a student at Prescott, she hadn’t spent too much time contemplating her teachers’ lives outside school, or imagining their futures. Like most teenagers, she’d been too focused on her own. But Mr Harris had been young and handsome. In the classroom, he’d projected charisma and authority – the latter only occasionally shaken by Madison. And she knew he was a writer – one of the few details she could recount about any of her teachers’ personal lives. If seventeen-year-old Hannah had been asked to place Mr Harris ten years in the future, she would have said he’d be a bestselling novelist by now, probably married to a nonprofit director or gallery curator, probably teaching promising young writers at Sarah Lawrence or Bard, having left Prescott and its drama behind.

None of that seemed to be true. Had she misjudged Mr Harris, or had something gotten in the way of a better future?

He peered up at her. He’d traded his glasses for contacts, which only served to draw attention to the bags beneath his eyes, his ruddy cheeks.

‘Hannah,’ he said finally. He gestured to the empty chair. ‘Please.’

She sat, eyes coming to rest on his untouched croissant. ‘It’s been a night. Hope you don’t mind if I eat.’

‘Please do.’ He nodded at her plate. ‘I don’t seem to have much of an appetite, but don’t let me hold you back.’

She lifted half of her bagel and took a huge bite. While she chewed, she held Mr Harris’s gaze. She wasn’t entirely sure where to begin, but if she sat in silence long enough, he’d solve that problem for her. People didn’t like silence. They wanted to fill it.

‘Has it been since graduation?’ he asked.

There it was. She swallowed, then dabbed at her mouth with a cloth napkin.

Graduation.Madison had openly flirted with him in front of her parents, taking selfies while she leaned over to kiss his cheek, then chattering about making plans for the two of them to get together in the fall, since she’d be staying in the city at Columbia. Alastair and Charlene DuPont had shocked Hannah with their complete lack of concern for their daughter’s behaviour, as if it was entirely normal for an eighteen-year-old to kiss her young teacher on the cheek and suggest they grab dinner at ‘a cute little tavern I know’.

Out loud, Hannah said, ‘I think so. I don’t really come out for Prescott alumni events. Shouldn’t have broken with tradition tonight.’

Mr Harris chuckled, and for the first time, Hannah saw a flicker of the man she’d once known. Madison had ground him down more than once, but when hehadn’t been the target of her unchecked behaviour, he’d been passionate about teaching, full of youthful energy.

‘Hindsight is 20/20,’ he said. ‘That’s humourist Richard Armour, 1949.’