Page 81 of Cross My Heart
“I’m not a teacher here,” I say, stepping into the room. “My name’s Tessa Peterson? I emailed you a few days ago, about the article you wrote for theOxford Student.”
Jamie’s smile disappears. “And I didn’t reply,” he says, turning back to the board.
“I know, but I really have to talk to you,” I insist. “It’s why I tracked you down and came here.”
The attack made me realize that I couldn’t just sit around and hope Jamie would reply. If the secret society is going to come after me, I need to be one step ahead of them.
I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with.
“It wasn’t hard,” I add, in case he’s freaked out by my private investigator routine. “It says right on your website that you’re teaching here.”
Jamie sets down the eraser with a sigh. “I don’t know what you expect me to say,” he says, still eyeing me cautiously. “The paper retracted the article. Everyone agreed, it was libelous speculation.”
“Except, we both know that’s not true.” I meet his eyes, making a last-ditch play. “Look, the Blackthorn Society exists. And I’m not stopping until I figure out the real story. So please, help me. You’re a journalist, aren’t you? It’s your job to expose the truth.”
Jamie snorts. “Look around,” he says, bitterly nodding. “Does this look like a newsroom to you? That article cost me everything. My scholarship, my newspaper internships, my whole future. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I worked my whole life to get into Oxford, so I could make something of myself. And that was all taken from me. Gone.”
“So, why not talk to me now?” I demand. “What have you got left to lose?”
Jamie pauses, and I cross my fingers. He’s my only lead right now, and I have to know what happened. Finally, he sighs. “I don’t have long,” he says, warning.
“That’s fine!” I swear, my hopes rising. “Anything you can tell me will help. No detail is too small.”
He gives me a wry look. “When it comes to Blackthorn… Nothing is small.”
Jamie leadsme to a quiet corner of the schoolyard, overlooking a dusty all-purpose play area where a Phys Ed class reluctantly runs laps.
“I thought the story was going to make my whole career,” he says ruefully, unwrapping a homemade PB&J sandwich and taking a bite. “A big exclusive like that. We were all fighting to get attention from the big London newspapers, you see. If you could get a story in the national press while you were still a student… Well, it opened all kinds of doors. I already had an internship lined up at a big news magazine, but I wanted more. And a story like that had everything: drama, secrets, famous names…”
“Like Cyrus Lancaster and Lionel Ambrose,” I note.
He nods. “I didn’t make it up,” he says, looking over at me plaintively. “I know they painted me as a liar, fabricating sources, but every word of that article was the truth. I researched it for months, did dozens of interviews. The Blackthorn Society exits.”
“I know,” I reassure him. “I’m trying to find out more, but there’s nothing but dead ends. Everything’s been scrubbed. I only found your article because there was a copy in the library basement,” I add, and he chuckles.
“Yeah, the lawyers were thorough. But I guess Cyrus Lancaster can afford the best.”
“That’s who shut you down?” I ask, remembering his stony stare.
“It’s just a guess, but yeah.” Jamie shrugs. “Any one of them have the power and influence to do it. Pulling strings with the university, getting my internship pulled. I couldn’t even find a job with theBrighten & Hove Gazette, once they were through with me. I was just a bug on the windscreen to them, and they crushed me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
He shrugs. “It was my own fault. They warned me off, but I wanted to cause a splash.”
“What do you mean, warnings?” I ask, feeling a chill.
“Once I started digging around, weird stuff started happening,” Jamie explains. “Anonymous notes in my mailbox, a break-in at the dorms. One night, the newspaper office got trashed, they ransacked the computers, but nothing was taken. After that, I took my laptop with me everywhere. I didn’t let it out of my sight.”
I swallow hard. It sounds like threats and intimidation are just business as usual to the Blackthorn Society.
“Who was your source?” I ask.
Jamie looks cagey. “Who says I had one?”
“Come on,” I sigh, impatient. “The details you published, about the initiation rituals and membership… Something like that could only have come from the inside. Someone who’d seen things up close. Who was it?”
Jamie shakes his head. “I can’t tell you.”