Текст книги "Size 12 Is Not Fat"

Автор книги: Meg Cabot

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

29

There’s a place called home

Or so I’m told

I’ve never been there

So I wouldn’t know.

There’s a place called home

Where they’re always glad to see you

Where they want you just to be you

This place called home

But I wouldn’t know

’Cause I’ve never had one

I wouldn’t know

Heather Wells, “Place Called Home”

It’s my fault.

Rachel’s death, I mean.

I should have known. I should have known this would happen. I mean, clearly she wasn’t mentally stable. Of course at the slightest provocation, she was going to snap. I don’t know how she figured it out—that we suspected her—but she had.

And she’d taken the only way out she felt she could.

Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. Nothing except be there for the people Rachel’s death is likely to affect the most—the building staff.

I call Cooper on his cell. He doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message, telling him what Sarah has told me. I ask him to let Detective Canavan know. And then I tell him to come to Fischer Hall as soon as he gets my message.

I can’t find an umbrella, of course. I can never find an umbrella when I really need one. Ducking my head against the steady drizzle, I hurry over to Washington Square West, marveling at how quickly the drug dealers disappear in inclement weather, and wondering where they all go. The Washington Square Diner? I’d have to check it out one day. Supposedly they have a killer chicken-fried steak.

I reach Fischer Hall and hurry inside, flicking rainwater from my hair, and smiling a little queasily at Pete. Does he know yet? Does he have any idea?

“Heather,” he cries. “What’re you doin’ here? After what you went through yesterday, I thought they’d give you a month off. You’re not working, are you?”

“No,” I say. He doesn’t know. Oh my God, he doesn’t know.

And I can’t tell him. Because the desk attendant is sitting right there, watching us.

“Oh,” Pete says. “And hey, Julio’s doing good, by the way. They’re letting him out in a few days.”

“Great,” I say, with as much enthusiasm as I can. “Well, see you later.”

“See you.”

I hurry down the hallway to the director’s office door. To my surprise, it’s partly open, even though I’d specifically told Sarah to close it. Anyone can walk in and see Rachel hanging there… unless maybe she’s done it on her side of the grate. Yes, that would make more sense, actually. Her desk is pushed up against the wall beneath the grate, so it would have been easy for her to climb up there, then jump…

“Sarah?” I say. I push the door open all the way. No sign of Rachel. The exterior office is empty. Sarah—and the body—have to be in Rachel’s office. “Sarah? Are you there?”

“In here,” I hear Sarah’s voice warble.

I glance at the grate. There’s nothing tied around it. Sarah must have cut her down. Horrific as it had to have been to find her like that, she still shouldn’t have messed with the body. That’s tampering with evidence. Or something.

“Sarah,” I say, hurrying through to Rachel’s office, “I told you not to… ”

My voice trails off. That’s because I’m not greeted by the sight of a weeping Sarah cradling Rachel’s lifeless form. Instead, I’m greeted by the sight of a perfectly healthy Rachel—wearing a new, very attractive cashmere sweater set and charcoal trousers—leaning against her desk, one booted foot balanced on her office chair…

… onto which she’s tied Sarah with the phone cord and some computer cables.

“Oh, hi, Heather,” Rachel says brightly. “You got here fast.”

“Heather.” Sarah is sobbing so hard now that her glasses have steamed up. “I’m so sorry. She made me call you—”

“Shut up.” Rachel, annoyed, slaps Sarah, hard, across the face. The sound of the smack makes me jump.

It also wakes me up.

Trap. I’ve just walked into a trap. Automatically I turn towards the door—

“Stop or I’ll kill her.” Rachel’s voice rings coldly through the room. Even Monet’s water lilies couldn’t soften it.

I freeze where I am. Rachel brushes past me and goes to the outer office door, pulling it all the way closed.

“There,” she says, when the lock clicks into place. “That’s more like it. Now we can have some privacy.”

I stare at her, my grip tightening on the strap of my backpack, despite my stitches. Maybe, I think, I can hit her with it. My backpack, I mean. Although there isn’t anything heavy in it. Just a hairbrush, my wallet, and some lipstick. Oh, and a Kit Kat bar, in case I get hungry later.

How had she known? How had she known we were on to her?

“Rachel,” I say. My voice sounds funny. I realize it’s because my throat has gone dry. I’m not feeling very good, all of a sudden. My fingers have gone ice cold, and the cuts on them ache.

Then I remember.

There’s a canister of pepper spray in my backpack. It’s several years old and the nozzle is all gunked up with sand from a trip to the beach. Will it still work?

Play it cool, I tell myself. What would Cooper do if he was faced with a killer? He’d play it cool.

“Wow,” I say, hoping I sound cool, like Cooper. “What’s this all about, Rachel? Is this some kind of trust game, or something? Because, if you don’t mind me saying so, Sarah doesn’t look like she’s having a very good time.”

“Cut the crap, Heather.” Rachel speaks in a hard voice I’ve never heard her use before, not even with the basketball players. The sound of it makes me feel colder than ever. I’ve never heard her swear before, either. “That dumb blond act might work with everyone else you know, but it’s never worked with me. I know exactly what you are, and believe me, the four-letter word I’d use to describe you is not dumb.” Her eyes flick over me disparagingly. “At least until recently it wasn’t.”

Is she ever right. I can’t believe I’d fallen for that phone call. Still, Sarah’s tearshad been real… just not for the reason she’d said they were.

“You might as well know,” Rachel says calmly. “I know all about last night.”

I try pretending like I don’t know what she’s talking about, even though I do.

“Last night? Rachel, I—”

“Last night,” she says pleasantly. “Your little jaunt to the Hamptons. Don’t try to deny it. I was there. I saw you.”

“You… you were there?”

I’m at a total loss as to how to proceed. Every nerve in my body is screaming,Turn around and run!

But somehow I’m rooted to the spot, my fingers clenched around my backpack strap. I keep thinking about Sarah. What if I run? What will Rachel do to poor Sarah?

“Of course I was,” Rachel says, her voice dripping with scorn. “You think I don’t keep an eye on my property? Why do you think I held on to my Jetta? Nobody needs a car in this city… unless they’re going to be following people to the Hamptons.”

God. I’d forgotten all about her stupid car, which she parks in a garage on the West Side Highway.

I say, keeping my voice low-pitched so Rachel can’t hear how badly it’s shaking, “Okay. So I was there. So I know about you and Chris. So what? Rachel, I’m on your side. I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’ve been dicked over by guys before, too. Why don’t we talk about this—”

Rachel is shaking her head. Her expression is incredulous, as if I, not she, am the one cracking up.

“There’ll be no talking about this,” she says, with a bark of laughter. “The time for talking is over. And let’s get one thing straight here, Heather.” Rachel uncrosses her arms, her right hand going to a lump I hadn’t noticed before beneath her cardigan.

“I am the director,” she goes on. “I am the one in charge. I decide whether or not we’re going to talk about it, because I am the one who schedules the meeting. Like I scheduled the meetings for Elizabeth and Roberta. Like I’ll schedule yet another meeting for Amber, later. Like I’ve scheduled this meeting, now, between you and me. I am the one in charge. Do you want to know what qualifies me to be in charge, Heather?”

I nod mutely, my eyes on the lump under her sweater. A gun, I think. A gun definitely qualifies Rachel to be in charge.

But it isn’t a gun at all. When Rachel draws it out, all I see is a black plastic thing that fits snugly in her hand. There are two evil-looking metal pieces sticking out of the top, giving it an appearance not unlike the head of a cockroach. I have no idea what it is until Rachel flicks a switch with her thumb, and suddenly a thin blue electric line buzzes between the twin metal prongs.

Then I know, even before she says it.

“Heather, meet the Thunder Gun.” Rachel speaks proudly, like some of the parents had on the first day of check-in, when they’d been introducing their kid to me. “A second of contact with the one hundred and twenty thousand volts the head of the Thunder Gun delivers can cause confusion, weakness, disorientation, and loss of balance and muscle control for several minutes. And the wonderful thing is, if blasted through clothing, the Thunder Gun leaves only a very small burn mark upon the skin. It’s a fabulously effective repellent weapon, and you can order it from any number of catalogs here in the U.S. Why, mine only cost forty-nine ninety-five, nine-volt battery not included. Of course, it’s not legal to own one here in New York City, but then, who cares?”

I stare at the crackling blue fire strip.

So this is how she’d done it. No chloroform, no bashing over the head with a baseball bat. She’d simply shown up at Beth’s door, and then later, at Bobby’s, stunned them, then shoved their limp bodies down the elevator shaft. What could be simpler?

And Detective Canavan had said killers were dumb. Rachel isn’t dumb. What kind of doofus would have the savvy to pull off this kind of crime? Because so many young people kill themselves doing stupid stunts like elevator surfing, no one would ever think that the girls had actually been murdered, not when there was no hint of suspiciousness to their deaths.

No one except a freak like me.

No, Rachel isn’t dumb.

And she isn’t crazy, either. She’d thought up the perfect way to get rid of her romantic rivals. No one would have suspected a thing if it hadn’t been for me and my big mouth.

If it hadn’t been for me and my big mouth, Sarah and I wouldn’t be about to become Rachel’s third and fourth victims.

“But this isn’t the only thing that qualifies me to be in charge around here, you know,” Rachel assures me, casually gesturing with the stun gun to emphasize her point. “I have a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Did you know that, Heather?”

I shake my head. Maybe one of the RAs will key in to the office to pick up his mail. Yeah. Or maybe Cooper will have gotten that message I’d left on his cell phone….

“It’s amazing what one can do with a bachelor’s in chemical engineering. One can, for instance, learn to build small incendiary devices—so simple, yet so effective. Do you know what an incendiary device is, Heather? No, I would imagine that you don’t. After all, you were far too busy twitching your ass at the local mall to finish high school, weren’t you? Let me see if you know this one. What do you get when you stand a bunch of blonds next to each other, shoulder to shoulder?”

I look at Sarah. She’s still sobbing, but she’s trying to do it quietly, so Rachel won’t slap her again.

I shake my head.

Rachel laughs humorlessly and says, “A wind tunnel, Heather! A wind tunnel!”

“Oh, wow, Rachel,” I say, amending my previous thought. She’s definitely crazy. Nuts, even. “That’s really funny. But you know what? I have to go now. Cooper’s waiting by the guard’s desk. If I’m gone too long, he’s bound to come back here, looking for me.”

“He can look all he wants,” Rachel says with a shrug. “He doesn’t have a key. And we aren’t going to let him in. We’re working, Heather. We have a lot of important work to do.”

“Well, you know what, Rachel?” I say. “If we don’t open the door, Cooper’ll just have Pete call one of the RAs to let him in—”

“But the RAs don’t have keys to the office anymore. I had the lock changed.” Rachel’s cheeks have twin spots of color in them now, and her eyes sparkle every bit as brightly as the thin volt of electricity that leaps from the prongs of the weapon clenched in her hand.

“That’s right,” she says happily. “I had the lock changed yesterday, while you were in the hospital, and I’m the only one with a key.” Then she turns those too-bright eyes on me and says, “You understand, don’t you, Heather? I mean, this isn’t a career for you. This is just a job. Assistant director to Fischer Hall. It’s just a rest stop between gigs, isn’t it? A steady paycheck until you get the guts to go on the road again after your little dispute with your record company. That’s all this position is to you. Not like me. Higher education is my life. My life, Heather. Or at least it was. Until—”

She stops speaking suddenly, her gaze, which had become a little unfocused, fastening on me like a vise. “Until him,” she says, simply.

I want to sit down. My knees shake every time I glance at the weapon in Rachel’s hand.

But I don’t dare. Seated, I’m an even easier target. No, somehow I have to distract her from whatever it is she intends to do to Sarah and me—and I have a pretty good idea what that is.

“Him, Rachel?” I ask, trying to sound friendly, like we’re just chatting over cups of coffee in the cafeteria, something we’d actually done, once or twice, before the killing had begun. “You mean Christopher, don’t you?”

She laughs bitterly, and that laugh makes me more afraid than anything so far, even the stun gun.

“Christopher,” she says, rolling the word on her tongue like it’s a piece of chocolate—something Rachel never allowed herself to enjoy. Too fattening. “Yes. Chris. You wouldn’t understand about Christopher, Heather. You see, I love him. You’ve never loved anyone before, Heather, except yourself, so you can’t know what it’s like. No, you can’t know what it’s like to feel that all your happiness in life is dependent on one single individual, and then—and then to have that individual turn around and reject you—”

The look she gives me could have frozen a hot buttered bagel. I think about mentioning that I know exactly what she’s talking about… that this is how I’d felt about Jordan, who is at this very moment probably playing Mad Libs with Tania Trace in his hospital bed.

But somehow I don’t think she’d listen.

“No, you wouldn’t understand that,” Rachel says. “You’ve always had everything you’ve ever wanted, haven’t you, Heather? Handed to you on a silver platter. Some of us have had to work for what we want, you know. Take me, for example. You think I always looked this good?” Rachel runs a hand up and down her lean, hard, thousand-crunches-a-day abs. “Hell, no. I used to be fat. A real lard ass. Kind of like you are now, actually. A size twelve.” She laughs. “I drowned my sorrows in candy bars, never worked out, like you. Do you know I never got asked out—never, not once, until I turned thirty? While you were strutting around like a little slut for Cartwright Records, I had my nose buried in my books, studying as hard as I could, because I knew no one was going to swoop down and offer me a recording contract. I knew if I wanted out of my hellhole of a life, I was going to have to use my head.”

I glance at Sarah. She’s looking out the window, desperately hoping, I can tell, that someone will walk by and notice what’s going on inside.

But it’s raining so hard, no one is on the street. And the few people who are out hurry past with their heads tucked beneath umbrellas.

“It was the same with him,” Rachel says. “I wanted him, so I did what I had to in order to get him. I knew I wasn’t his type. I figured that out after he… left me. Which is when I knew. I knew I had to make myself over to be his type. You wouldn’t understand that, of course. You and Sarah, you think men should want you because of your personality, don’t you? But men couldn’t care less about your personality. Believe me. If you hadn’t let yourself go the way you did, Heather, you’d still have Jordan Cartwright, you know. All that fuss about wanting to sing your own songs. My God, you think he cared about that? Men don’t care about smarts. After all, what’s the difference between a blond and a mosquito?”

I shake my head. “Honest to God, Rachel, I don’t—”

“A blond keeps on sucking, even after you slap her.” Rachel throws back her head and laughs some more.

Oh yeah. I’m a dead woman. No doubt about it.

30

When’s it gonna be my turn

To fly without my

Wings getting burned?

When’s it gonna be my turn

For people to stop shakin’ their heads

saying “She’ll never learn?”

When’s it gonna be my turn

To be called smart and strong

And not stupid and wrong?

When’s it gonna be my turn

To look at you and hear

You say

It’s your turn

It’s your turn

It’s your turn

Heather Wells, “My Turn”

She’s crazy. I mean, only a lunatic would stand there, telling me dumb blond jokes, while threatening me with a stun gun.

I’ve dealt with lunatics before. I worked in the music industry all those years. Nine out of every ten people I’d met back then had probably been clinically insane, including my own mother.

Can I talk Rachel out of trying to kill me?

Well, I can try.

“Seems to me,” I say carefully, “that the person you ought to be angry with is Christopher Allington. He’s the one who did you wrong, Rachel. He’s the one who betrayed you. How come you’ve never tried to toast him?”

“Because he’s my future husband, Heather.” Rachel glares at me. “God, don’t you get it? I know you think men are disposable. I mean, things didn’t work out with Jordan, so you’ve just moved on to his brother. But I, unlike you, believe in true love. Which is what Christopher and I have. I just need to get rid of a few distractions, and then he’ll come around.”

“Rachel,” I say, appealing to whatever is left that might still be normal inside her. “Those distractions. They’re human beings.”

“Well, it’s not my fault the poor things were so heartbroken when Christopher dumped them that they did something as reckless as attempt to elevator surf. I tried my best to counsel them. You, too, Heather. Although no one will be very surprised to see you’ve chosen to take your own life. You don’t have that much to live for anymore, after all.”

Her thought process is so skewed that I can’t quite follow it. But now that she’s made it clear that I’m her next victim, I’m doing some pretty fast talking, let me tell you.

“But, Rachel, it will never work. I already went to the cops—”

“And did they believe you?” Rachel asks calmly. “When they find your broken, bleeding body, they’ll know you just did the whole thing to get attention—planted that bomb, then killed yourself when you realized you’d been discovered. And it won’t even be so hard to understand, since your life’s been in such a downward spiral lately. Jordan getting engaged to that other girl. His brother—well, his brother just doesn’t seem interested, does he, Heather? And you and I both know how much you’re in love with him. It’s written all over your face every time he walks into the room.”

Is that true? Does everyone know I love Cooper? Does Cooper know I love Cooper? God, how embarrassing.

Wait a minute. What am I listening to this lunatic for, anyway?

“Fine, Rachel,” I say, playing along because it seems like the only way out. “Fine. Kill me. But what about Sarah? I mean, what’s poor Sarah ever done to you? Why don’t you let Sarah go.”

“Sarah?” Rachel glances at her graduate assistant as if she’s only just remembered she’s in the room. “Oh, right. Sarah. You know, I think Sarah’s going to just… disappear.”

Sarah lets out a frightened hiccup, but a stony look from Rachel silences her.

“Yes,” Rachel say. “I think Sarah is going to go home for a few weeks to recover from the horror of your death, Heather. Only she’s not going to make it. She’s going to disappear somewhere along the way. Hey. It happens.”

“Oh no, Rachel, please,” Sarah chokes. “Please don’t make me disappear. Please—”

“Shut up,” Rachel screams. She raises a hand to hit Sarah again, but freezes when the phone on my desk rings, jangling so loudly that Rachel jumps, and the blue streak of lightning between the blades of the gun sways dangerously close to me. I leap back, falling against the door, and spin around to grasp the knob.

In a split second, Rachel is on me, a spindly arm going around my neck, choking me. She’s surprisingly strong for such a slight woman. But even so, I could have shaken her off…

… could have if it hadn’t been for the sputtering stun gun, which she shoves beneath my nose, hissing, “Don’t try it. Don’t even think about it. I’ll blast you, Heather, I swear it. And then I’ll kill you both.”

I freeze, breathing hard. Rachel is plastered to my back like a cape. The phone keeps on ringing, three times, four. I can tell by the ring that it’s an on-campus call. I whisper, my voice rough with fear, “Rachel, that’s probably the reception desk calling. You know I told Cooper to wait outside for me. He’s at the guard’s station.”

“In that case,” Rachel says, releasing her stranglehold on my neck but keeping the stun gun within inches of my throat, “we’ll be on our way. I’ll deal with you”—she flings a warning look in Sarah’s direction—“later.”

Then she opens the office door and, glancing furtively left and right, shoves me out into the empty hallway…

… but not far enough that she isn’t within blasting range. She directs me to the elevators across from our office door—the elevators that were, unfortunately for me, unscathed by yesterday’s explosion in the service shaft—and pounds on the up button. I pray that the doors will open and the entire basketball team will emerge and tackle Rachel for me.

But no such luck. The cab has been sitting empty on the first floor, and when the doors slide apart, there’s no one inside.

“Get in,” Rachel orders, and I do as she says. Rachel follows, then inserts her pass key and presses twenty.

We’re going to the penthouse. And there won’t be any other stops along the way.

“Girls like you, Heather,” Rachel says, not looking at me. “I’ve been dealing with girls like you my whole life. The pretty ones are all alike. You go through life thinking everybody owes you something. You get the record contracts and the promotions and the cute guys, while people like me? We’re the ones who do all the work. Do you know that Pansy is the first award I’ve received in my field?”

I glare at her. This woman is going to kill me. I don’t see any reason to be polite to her anymore.

“Yeah,” I say. “And you got it for cleaning up after your own murders. That stuff in those girls’ files—about Elizabeth’s mom wanting her sign-in privileges revoked, and Mrs. Pace not liking Lakeisha—that stuff never even happened, did it? Those women never called you. You made all that stuff up, as a way to justify your meetings with those girls. What did you talk about when you were meeting with them, anyway? What kind of twisted, sick stuff were you terrorizing them with?”

“Heather.” Rachel looks at me critically. “You’ll never understand, will you? I’ve worked hard all my life for what I have. I never got anything easily, like you. Not anything, men, jobs, friends. What I do get, I keep. Like Christopher, for instance. And this job. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get myself a position at this school, in the same building as him? So you understand why you have to die. You’re jeopardizing too much for me. If you hadn’t started snooping around, I’d have let you live. We made a nice team, you and I, I always thought. I mean, when I stand next to you, I look extra thin. That’s a real bonus in an assistant.”

The elevator pings, and the doors slide open. We’re on the twentieth floor, in the hallway outside the president’s penthouse. I know the minute we step onto the gray carpeting that the motion detector will be set off downstairs at the guard’s desk. Would Pete glance at the monitor and see Rachel and her stun gun?

Please look, Pete.I try to use Vulcan mind control on Pete, even though he’s twenty floors down.Look, Pete, look. Look, Pete, look…

Rachel pushes me out into the hallway.

“Come on,” she says, pulling out the building’s master key. “I bet you always wanted to see where the president lives. Well, now’s your chance. Too bad you won’t live long enough to enjoy it.”

Rachel unlocks the front door to the Allingtons’ apartment and steers me into the foyer. Tiled in black and white, this is where Mrs. Allington had stood and accused me of chasing after her son like a harlot. The foyer opens into a spacious living room, walled on two sides by French doors leading out onto the penthouse terrace. Like the Villa d’Allington, the predominant decorating theme appears to be black leather, and lots of it. Martha Stewart, Mrs. Allington apparently is not. Well, I kind of already guessed that.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Rachel says conversationally. “Except for those hideous birds.”

Just off the foyer, in that six-foot-high wicker cage, the cockatoos whistle and dance, eyeing us suspiciously. Rachel aims the stun gun at them and laughs as they shriek at the sight of the leaping blue flame.

“Idiot birds,” she says. Then she grabs hold of my arm and starts pulling me toward a set of French doors. “Come on,” she says. “It’s time for your big finale. I figure a star like you would make a really dramatic exit. So you’re not going the elevator surfing route. You’re going to plunge off the roof of Fischer Hall… kind of like that turtle, in that movie your psychotic friend in the cafeteria is always talking about. Only you, unfortunately, won’t be saved by a rope shot from inside your shell.”

Before I have a chance to react, a door on the far side of the living room is thrown open, and Mrs. Allington, in a pink jogging suit, stares at us.

“What the hell,” she demands, “are you two doing here?”

Rachel smiles pleasantly. “Don’t mind us, Eleanor,” she sings. “We’ll be out of your way in no time.”

“How did you get in here?” Mrs. Allington begins striding toward us, looking furious. “Get out, this instant, before I call the police.”

“I wish we could, Eleanor,” Rachel says, to the woman who, in a different world, might have been her mother-in-law. “But we’re here on official residence hall business.”

“I don’t give a damn why you’re here.” Mrs. Allington has reached a wall phone. Now she’s lifting up the receiver. “Don’t you know who my husband is?”

“Look out, Mrs. Allington,” I yell.

But it’s too late. Like a striking cobra, Rachel lashes out with the stun gun.

Mrs. Allington stiffens, her eyes going wide, like someone who’d just gotten some very bad news… maybe about her son’s LSAT scores, or something.

Then she seems to fling herself over the back of one of the leather couches, twitching until she lies in a heap on the parquet floor, her eyes still wide open, her jaw slack and shiny with saliva.

“Oh my God,” I cry. Because it is, without a doubt, the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen… worse even than what I’d seen Tania Trace doing to my then boyfriend. “Rachel, you killed her!”

“She’s not dead,” Rachel says, the disgust in her voice obvious. “When she comes to, she’ll have no idea what hit her. She won’t remember her last name, let alone me. But that won’t be unusual, for her. Come on,” she says, and grabs my arm again.

Now that I’ve seen firsthand what that gun could do, I’m in no hurry to experience it. I realize I’d been stupid not to try to get away from Rachel downstairs. Sure, she might have zapped me, then hauled me into the elevator. But I’d have been dead weight, and it would have been difficult for her. This way, it’s too easy for her, and more difficult for me. The only place I have to go is down.

This thought is enough to cause me to make a break for it. I yank my arm from Rachel’s grasp and run. I don’t know why, but I head for the door through which Mrs. Allington had come. I can’t run fast, being so stiff from what had happened in the elevator that day before, and all. But I know I’ve surprised her when Rachel lets out a furious scream. Surprising her feels good, because it means she doesn’t have the upper hand anymore.

I have only fleeting glimpses of the rooms I tear through. A dining room that looks as if it hadn’t seen any diners in a long time, the long mahogany table highly polished, seating for twelve, a sideboard with fake fruit on it. Fake! Then a kitchen, spotlessly clean, blue and white tiles. A kind of den, again with French doors on two sides, and a wide-screen TV in front of another leather couch, this one in avocado green. On the TV is a Debbie Reynolds movie.Tammy and the Bachelor, I think. On the couch is a basket of yarn and a bottle of Absolut. Mrs. Allington doesn’t mess around with her leisure time.

I bang through the only door in the den that doesn’t lead to the terrace and find myself in a bedroom, a dark bedroom, all the curtains pulled shut over the French doors. The bed is king-sized and unmade, the gray silk sheets in a tangle at one end. Another wide-screen TV, this one tuned to a talk show, the sound off. There’re a pair of black briefs on the floor. Chris’s room? But Chris lives in the law school dorm. Which can only mean the Allingtons sleep in separate rooms. Scandal!

There are no more doors, except one to President Allington’s bathroom. I’m trapped.

I can hear Rachel coming, slamming doors and screaming like a banshee. I look frantically around the room for a weapon, and come up empty-handed. Because of the track lighting in the mirrored ceiling—I’ll think about that one later—there isn’t even a lamp I can unplug and swing at her head. I think of sliding under the bed, hiding behind a set of those damask curtains, but I know she’ll find me. Can I talk my way out of this? I’ve talked my way out of worse jams than this. I can’t quite think of any right now, but I’m almost sure I have.

Rachel comes careening into the room, stumbling over the threshold and blinking as her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. I stand on the opposite side of the room, behind the massive bed, trying not to be distracted by my reflection on the ceiling.

“Look, Rachel,” I pant, talking low and fast. “You don’t have to kill me. Or Sarah, either. I swear we won’t tell anyone about this. It’ll just be our secret, between us girls. I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’ve had guys jerk me around, too. I mean, Chris definitely isn’t worth going to jail for—”