Page 92 of Murder on the Upper East Side

‘You’re not recording this, are you?’

‘Of course not.’ Hannah took out her phone, let Gemma inspect it.

‘Fine – but this stays between us.’

Hannah nodded.

Gemma took a breath. ‘Junior year, we’d gotten close. I hated lunch on the courtyard, all those bitches and their endless rules, so I came by his classroom a lot. He had a free period. Sometimes I’d just eat my lunch and read a book, but usually we’d talk. By the end of the year, we were friends.Realfriends. I felt closer to Paul than I did to most anyone at Prescott.’

Hannah smiled, encouraging her to go on.

‘Over the summer, things shifted. My parents were gone, as always, and Paul texted me, asking if I wanted to get a meal with him. We’d never seen each other outside school before. We met at a quiet little bistro on the Upper West. It was sophisticated, and he was so cute. He looked almost our age in casual clothes, not the suits he wore at Prescott.’ Gemma paused to take a sip of her cocktail. ‘But he was a real adult, not some dumb high school boy. I was thoroughly charmed. Anyway, we began sleeping together. It never should have happened – I was seventeen, he was twenty-seven, and my teacher.Heshould have stopped it, but he didn’t.’

Hannah reached across the table and touched Gemma lightly on her forearm. ‘You don’t need meto tell you this, but he was one hundred per cent in the wrong.’

Gemma nodded and dabbed at a bead of sweat on the outside of her glass.

Hannah cleared her throat. ‘If my theory is right, Madison got a hold of the photos somehow. She sent them toThe Upper Edge.’

Gemma nodded, confirming Hannah’s suspicions. ‘I’d made prints. Real, physical prints to ensure they didn’t get spread around the internet. The irony, right? It was the first day of senior year, the first day we’d need to keep things on the down-low at school. He was nervous, but I wasn’t, not at all. I was so naïve. Anyway, I’d made the prints as a little reminder that sneaking around was worth it. ThatIwas worth it.’

She grimaced and knocked back half her drink in one gulp.

‘They were in an envelope in my bag. I was going to give them to Paul on his break between classes. But they slipped out of my bag somehow, and Madison must have picked them up. Or she saw the envelope peeking out of the flap and helped herself. Knowing Madison, it was probably the latter. Either way, she snapped pictures of the prints and DM’d them straight toThe Upper Edge. To Oliver, as it turned out.’

‘And everyone assumed it was Theo in the pics.’Because Madison made sure of it.

‘Paul and I had been messing around, one nightwhen my parents were away. I had a Prescott boy’s uniform at home; my friend Raffael transferred sophomore year, and he’d left it behind. Anyway, I told Paul he could get away with passing for a Prescott boy, he looked so young. Raffael’s pants were too short, but he put on the blazer and cufflinks, and we had a good laugh about it. Then we started making out, and he got out his phone. It was bad luck that you could see his outfit reflected in the mirror in some of the pics – and that he looked just enough like Theo for that rumour to take hold.’

Her mouth dipped in an ugly scowl. ‘And then there was that other photo, do you remember?The Upper Edgespun it like I’d been going to meet Theo at the Concord Room, but really, I’d been headed to a little art house theatre around the corner, to meet Paul. No one connected those dots either. If he’d been identified, I’m sure he would have been fired on the spot.’

Hannah nodded slowly. Beneath the table, her foot tapped nervously against the hardwood floor. As Gemma talked, her theory was crystalising. She needed to keep the conversation going.

‘But instead, Madison used the rumours as leverage to drive a wedge between Theo and Elle. And you and Mr Harris…?’

‘He dropped me instantly, the day the photos leaked. He freaked the fuck out. Losing his mind that he’d lose his job. It was all about him, what might happen,it was like I didn’t exist. I was such an idiot, though. I still thought maybe, after it all blew over, we’d find our way back to one another. So I kept his secret, didn’t tell anyone the truth.’

Beneath the table, Hannah’s foot tapped faster. ‘I’m really sorry this happened to you… all of it.’

Gemma took a sip of her cocktail. ‘Thanks.’

Hannah’s thoughts whirred. Yes, Oliver had hated Madison DuPont. So had Gemma, for that matter. But when she’d let herself get swept up in Elle’s certainty about Oliver, she’d squelched her own instincts about Paul Harris. Hehadbeen hiding a student–teacher relationship, just not with Madison. Had he also been hiding a motive for murder?

Her stomach curdled. There had been something unmistakably off at breakfast. He’d seemed both defeated and on edge. The once magnetic young teacher had been anything but. Why?

She needed to keep Gemma talking.

‘After Madison found the photos, she blackmailed Mr Harris,’ Hannah said gently. ‘He told you about it. That’s how you knew it was Madison who had leaked them toThe Upper Edge.’

Gemma nodded. ‘You’ve got it.’

‘I think Madison kept blackmailing him,’ she said slowly. ‘After the Columbia recommendation. In fact, I don’t think the blackmail ever stopped.’

Madisonwas the reason he’d aged beyond his years, the reason he’d been so ruffled by Hannah’s probing questions at breakfast. She was probably also thereason for the heavy drinking. For ten years, Madison had played him like a fiddle. Until he snapped.

Hannah locked eyes with Gemma. ‘It was never Oliver.Mr Harriskilled Madison.’ She studied Gemma’s face. It was impassive. ‘Which you knew.’

Gemma’s gaze skated to her suitcase, then back to Hannah. Deciding.