by Marni Bates
And since I didn’t want that story to include Neal’s death, Amy was our best bet.
We needed someone who could pass for a hotel employee interrupting the meeting to discreetly slip Rithisak Sovann a note before hightailing it out of there. Liz’s multicolored hair was a dead giveaway that she didn’t belong, and Ben’s muscular physique tended to catch a few too many female eyes. Maybe Houston could have pulled it off if he hadn’t started a fistfight with Aaron the night before.
Somehow I doubted Aaron or Wesley would forget about that anytime soon.
So it had to be Amy.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked her for what had to be the millionth time.
Amy glowered at me, which didn’t really produce the intended effect because even irritation looked cute on her. “Absolutely. Now zip it, Chelsea.”
“But—”
“I’m fully capable of making up my own mind, thank you very much! I don’t need babying any more than you do, Chelsea.”
That finally shut me up. Amy was right. I hated to admit it, but I was acting even worse than Houston. She didn’t need me giving my best impression of a worried mother hen clucking over her baby chick. And I was the last person to be denying anyone an opportunity to face down their fears.
To prove to herself that she was so much more than the handful of descriptors other people applied to her.
“It’ll take me fifteen minutes to slip into the meeting.” Amy grinned at Liz. “Maybe less. Time me, okay?”
And then with a last cheery wave, she trotted off to the elevator as if she didn’t have a care in the world . . . or a blackmail letter for a drug lord.
It was the most stressful fifteen minutes of my life. The knot of fear in my stomach clenched tighter with each passing second as I imagined what Amy was doing.
By now she should have found the conference door.
I ran through the basic ballet positions five times before I allowed myself to glance at my watch again.
Okay, she should be opening the door and heading straight for the man at the head of the table. A simple “Excuse me, Mr. Sovann. I was asked to deliver this to you,” should do the trick.
First position. Third position. Fifth position. Brisé.
Amy was heading swiftly for the exit. She wasn’t running, not even speed-walking. She just kept moving with a deliberate sense of purpose toward the door . . . then she pushed it open . . . closed it behind her . . . and maintained that speed until she spotted the nearest elevator.
Grand plié. Fifth position. Third position. Coupé.
That’s when she finally started running.
She sprinted into the elevator, pressed every single button, but only rode up one floor before taking the stairs the rest of the way up.
Any minute now she would be knocking on the door, her face flushed from exertion, adrenaline, and an overwhelming sense of achievement. She would grin up at us and say the most annoying sentence ever spoken, “I told you so!”
Any minute now . . .
“You’re making me even more nervous, Chelsea!” Liz twirled a strand of blue hair around one of her fingers. “Do you think you could . . . stop?”
Not really, but I was willing to give it a shot.
“Fine, do you have a better way to pass the time, Liz? Anything. I’m open to suggestions.”
“Not really, no.”
“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we play seven minutes in heaven?” Ben suggested.
None of us so much as batted an eye. “That’s not helping, Ben.”
“Are you sure? I think it’s a brilliant idea. What about spin the bottle? That one’s a classic.”
“Shut up, man,” Houston advised.
Ben threw his hands in the air. “Seriously? It’s like a freaking morgue in here. Amy’s delivering a message in the middle of a business meeting, not trying to infiltrate Al-Qaeda. Let’s keep things in perspective here, people.”
Liz and Houston both ignored him and focused on me instead.
“Do you think it’s going to work, Chelsea?” Liz asked in the same low, husky voice that I’d only heard once before when she’d mentioned Sara’s parents.
I resisted the urge to say something snarky like You think I know the answer to that? I don’t know anything. Just ask Houston, he can confirm that for you! There was absolutely nothing to be gained by confessing my fears. I would only succeed in freaking out the group, and since I was betting that even Ben was secretly worried, that didn’t seem fair to anyone.
Houston looked like he was nearing his breaking point. The last time I’d seen him this on edge he had kissed me like the world was ending. So I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. Especially since his bruised hand kept clenching into a fist, only to be forcibly relaxed when he caught himself.
“She should be here by now.” Houston growled as he made himself comfortable in one of the sofa chairs and claimed my laptop from a nearby table.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
He ignored me entirely and clicked on the most recent item in my email account. “Oh look. Jane says that there are definitely reporters headed our way. Apparently, they’ll be here by tomorrow evening at the latest. She doesn’t want us to do anything rash before they arrive. If Amy doesn’t get here within the next five minutes, I think we should probably go ahead and tell Jane that her warning came a little too late.”
“You’re reading my emails now?” My blood began to boil. “Seriously? That’s an invasion of privacy!”
“Yeah? Feel free to ask Weasel to sue me after your date.”
“Okay, I’m sick of this,” Ben said, cutting through the tension in the room. “Houston, you’re acting like a jackass. Chelsea . . . you’re not helping matters either. Now could you both please deal with your crap and move on?”
I opened my mouth to point out that I wasn’t the one poking around in anyone else’s business, but I was cut off by a hesitant series of knocks on our hotel door.
Everyone froze before we collectively breathed in relief.
Amy was back. It had taken her exactly twenty-three minutes to safely deliver the message—1,380 excruciatingly long seconds during which we’d been going out of our freaking minds.
But everything was going to be fine now that she was back.
Still, I had expected her to play it up. At the very least, I thought she would hiss, “It’s me!” or go for a dramatic, “I’m baaaack!”
Considering that this was her big moment of victory, she wasn’t making much of an entrance. So instead of unhooking the security chain, flinging the door open, and launching myself at Amy, I went up on tiptoe to spy through the peephole. Better safe than . . . well, dead.
Not Amy.
I didn’t even have time to register my disappointment because Liz knocked me out of the way. “What are you waiting for? Let her—who are you?”
Aaron smiled sheepishly and then winced in pain. The bruise Houston had given him the night before was a vivid shade of red. “Is this a bad time, Lake?”
Oh yeah, he could say that again.
“You don’t have to call security,” Aaron continued quickly. “I’m not here to make any trouble, Lake. I just came to apologize for last night. I have no idea how you could have been drugged, but I swear nobody at Brookes and Merriweather had anything to do with it.”
“Lake?” Ben murmured questioningly in my ear.
I barely jerked my head in assent, knowing that Ben would accept my new nickname without comment as long as Aaron was in the vicinity.
“I know you guys didn’t, Aaron. I had . . . well, let’s just call it an intense moment of claustrophobia, and my colleague jumped to the wrong conclusion. That happens more often than not with him.”
I could feel Houston’s glare burning into my back from where he stood behind me.
Luckily, Ben blocked him from Aaron’s view.
“So you weren’t drugged then?”
I shook my head and felt an absurd urge to sm
ile at the look of relief that suffused his face.
“Not that I know of, Aaron. I’m fine.”
His shoulders instantly relaxed. “Good. I was worried that you might not be safe with the guy who dragged you out of there.”
I restrained from commenting that it had certainly taken him long enough to actually check up on me, while Liz peered down the hall in search of Amy. “How did you even find me here?”
“You, uh . . . mentioned your suite number to Wes. So I just thought . . . I’m sorry, this is a bad time, isn’t it?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, we’re expecting someone,” Liz said sharply. “Visiting hours are over.”
“Of course. Sorry. I just thought I’d check in while I had the chance.”
I watched him turn and begin heading for the elevator, apprehension niggling at me with every step he took.
Something wasn’t right. All my instincts were screeching at me to figure it out, because this wasn’t a minor inconvenience like driving halfway to Steffani’s house only to realize I’d accidentally left my sunglasses at home. This mattered, and yet I was totally drawing a blank.
I wondered what Amy would have to say when I told her about...
My stomach dropped.
Oh crap.
“Aaron!” I yelled, halting him right before he stepped into the elevator. “I was just wondering . . . um, why aren’t you holed up with all the other lawyers at your merger? It sounded like a pretty big deal last night.”
He shrugged. “The guy we’re meeting here requested that we postpone while he handles some other matter. Although request is understating it, if you know what I mean.”
Liz froze next to me. “Did anything weird happen during the meeting?”
Aaron looked suspiciously at the two of us as he approached our door once more.
“Yeah, I guess. He left shortly after he received some message. Why? What’s it to you?”
Oh crap. Oh crap.
I grabbed on to his suit jacket and yanked him inside the suite before he had time to protest. Liz locked the door and Ben stepped forward protectively.
“Hey, buddy. Good to see you again. How’s the jaw today?” Houston’s words sounded civil enough, but there was no missing the ice-cold glint in his eyes.
Aaron instinctively drew back. “I’m still pressing charges against you!”
Houston leaned casually against one of the walls as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “No, you’re not. Because then you will have to explain what exactly you and your buddies were doing buying that second drink for a minor.”
Aaron’s mouth dropped open comically as he gave me another once-over. “No way.”
“Actually . . . this time he’s right. It does happen on occasion.”
Liz pushed her way forward until she was right in Aaron’s face. “We don’t have time for this garbage right now. Where is she?”
“Where is who?”
“The girl who interrupted your meeting! Brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium build. Where the hell is she?!”
Ben interceded before Liz could strangle Aaron with his own tie. “We’ll get her back, Liz. I promise,” he said gravely.
Aaron stepped back and raised his hands as if he could ward off the craziness. “I have no idea what you guys are talking about, and I hereby state, for the record, that I want nothing to do with any of it. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
The guy was already practicing his testimony for the stand. Un-freaking-believable.
“Okay, I need you to listen to me very carefully, Aaron. This—right here—is one of those defining moments in your life. Today you’re going to find out whether you’re the kind of man who will sit idly by while an innocent girl is killed.” I intentionally left out all mention of Neal because I thought my words might have more impact if he pictured the nervous girl who had poked her head into the boardroom only a handful of minutes earlier.
“Killed?” Aaron stared at us in disbelief before he burst out laughing. “Good one. Okay, did Joel put you up to this because of the whole email-attachment prank I pulled on him?”
Liz couldn’t hold back any longer. “Listen up, dumbass. This isn’t a joke. You just negotiated a merger with a drug dealer.”
Not the most tactful way to put it, but she definitely got the point across.
Aaron still looked as if he was expecting us to admit the hoax at any moment. “Right. Nice try.”
My palms were sweating, and a small voice in my head kept screaming the same sentence.
He has Amy.
He has Amy.
He has Amy . . . and it’s all your fault.
I numbly forced myself to move toward the closet where I’d not-so-inventively decided to stash the Buddha statue. My lips twisted into a tight smile as I held it out for Aaron’s inspection. “See that white powdery stuff at the bottom? That’s the heroin my friends’ lives depend on getting to a whacked-out drug lord. Now let’s see if you can use your fancy law degree to figure out how to help us.”
He paled noticeably. “This isn’t the kind of law I practice.”
“And this isn’t exactly our idea of a great study-abroad program, but that’s life,” Houston pointed out drily.
“Although we did get to Skype with Mackenzie Wellesley. That was pretty cool.”
Houston, Liz, and I stared at Ben in disbelief.
“What? Does she make up for the extreme crappiness we’ve been through? No. Was it cool getting to talk with her? Hell yes! That’s all I’m saying.”
Aaron looked at Ben with renewed interest. “You actually spoke to her?”
“Yeah, man. She’s Chel . . . Lake’s best friend.”
Okay, so that was the biggest lie I’d ever managed to hear with a straight face. But I didn’t see any point in correcting Ben when he might have stumbled on a way to motivate Aaron into doing the right thing.
Not that he should need any extra incentive.
Aaron straightened his tie. “Do you, uh, think you could introduce me to her? Mackenzie, I mean.”
Not happening in a million years.
“Sure.” I gritted out the word. “But first you’re going to do a few things for me.”
I didn’t have too much confidence in my plans anymore.
But I had to try something.
Amy’s life might depend on it.
Chapter 28
“It’s not entirely your fault.”
Those were the very last words I ever expected to hear coming from Houston. The guy had practically been going for the world record of times that one person could reasonably say, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” But instead of rightly blasting me for our current disaster, he was cutting me some slack.
Maybe someone had declared it Opposite Day when I wasn’t looking.
“Yes, it is,” I said bluntly. “It’s absolutely my fault. It was my idea, my plan, and if it had worked, I would be taking full credit for its success right about now. Just because it blew up in my face doesn’t make it any less mine.”
He looked momentarily taken aback, probably because he expected me to embrace anything that made me less culpable for what had gone wrong. But I was done putting on my game face to hide my insecurities. Sure, I could convince most people to fear me, admire me, desire me . . . or at least not want to directly oppose me. But when it came to actual friendships, I only had a handful of real ones. And I’d knowingly just put one of my friends directly in the way of danger.
There was no ignoring that, even if I wanted to try.
“You didn’t see this coming,” Houston said firmly.
“Well, no kidding. I’m not a psychic, but that doesn’t make this any less my fault. I told her to do it.”
“Amy agreed to go, even knowing the risks. I’m not saying it wasn’t stupid. But it’s not entirely your fault.”
“I made her do it.”
Houston’s green eyes narrowed. “Let me get this straight: that’s no to being a psychic, yes to mind contr
ol?”
“This isn’t a joke, Houston.”
“Oh, I know it’s not. It’s an unmitigated disaster. But Amy made a choice, and you shouldn’t beat yourself up over what happened. You’re acting like she’s incapable of making up her own mind.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Listen up, Chelsea; I’m only saying this once: Maybe I took the responsibilities your dad gave me a little too far.”
“Maybe?” I crossed my arms. “That’s your big concession?”
Houston ignored my interruption. “You’re not the girl he described or the one I remembered from that party. And I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt, so that part is on me. But I’m not taking the blame for your decisions. You made your choices—hell, we all made our choices, and now we’ve got to deal with the consequences. Together.”
But it had to be my fault.
That’s the way it worked. Ask anyone. If Chelsea Halloway was around, she was the source of the trouble. I regularly overheard whispers in the hallways about feuds that didn’t exist. If someone’s boyfriend inexplicably dumped them, within minutes someone was claiming that I’d had a hand in it. The whole thing was absolutely insane. And yet somehow that had become . . . normal. Just part of the price I had to pay for my position as Queen of the Notables. The rationale behind blaming me even started to make sense; when people think you hold all the power, they also think you hold the blame for everything.
And maybe somewhere along the way I had bought into my own myth just like everyone else at my school.
Except Houston didn’t think Amy’s abduction was entirely my fault. I had spent so many years fighting to preserve a fake image of perfection, I had always assumed it would be devastating for anyone to see through the cracks. Instead it came as a relief to know that he didn’t expect me to have everything under control. He didn’t blame me for being scared and confused.