Dark Harmony: A Vivienne Taylor Horse Lover's Mystery (Fairmont Riding Academy Book 2)

by Michele Scott

  I wonder if there are more notes like this that Martina never told me about. One thing I do know: I’ve been one of the only people who believed that she is in real trouble, and this note proves it.

  CHAPTER twenty-eight

  The next morning, in between second period and my third-period study hall, I decide to go up to the main office to talk to Kayla and Holden.

  Hopefully, my thinking is sound, although I’m not sure. I didn’t sleep much again, for obvious reasons. Between wondering about Martina’s disappearance, worrying about Tristan, and hearing Christian’s lecture on achieving my goals echo through my brain, I am pretty much wiped out. But it seems only right to tell Kayla and Holden that Martina was receiving these notes and that someone left one for her in the tack room. Not to mention that at least one note was inside her locker, meaning that someone found out her combination. I had forgotten to tell the detectives about the initial note left in Martina’s locker. I’d been pretty overwhelmed when they’d questioned me. I really don’t want to talk to the cops again. I think it is best to let the Fairmonts know and they can take it from there.

  I open the office door and my jaw about drops to the floor. Guess who is working the front desk?

  Um . . . Nate Deacon. Yep, that Nate Deacon. The one who runs the “scholarship girl bet” every year, which revolves around betting big money on which guy will be the first to sleep with the new scholarship girl on campus. He’d hoped I’d be his victim fall semester, but I’d managed to turn that on its head.

  “Hey, Nate.”

  He turns toward me from the filing cabinet. “Oh hey, Scholarship. What’s up?”

  I stare at his beefy face in disgust as my brain works overtime. What is he doing here? And why would anyone trust him to work in the office?

  “Not much. I just came by to talk with Holden or Kayla about Martina.”

  He nods. “Huh. They’re not here right now.”

  I smile. “So, how long have you been working in the office?”

  “This is my study hall.” He frowns.

  “Let me guess, you got busted for something?”

  “I might have been a little loud or something.”

  “Oh, you know, I think I do remember. It was more than you just being loud, wasn’t it? Didn’t you actually put some poor freshman in the trash can?”

  He smirks. “You’re a pain in the ass, Scholarship.”

  “And, you are an ass.”

  “Thanks. I take that as a compliment,” he replies.

  “You would probably never do a thing like find out what other students’ locker combinations are, would you, Nate?”

  He gives me a stone-cold glare. And, I know that I have him.

  “What in the hell are you talking about, Scholarship?”

  I pull the note from my backpack and hold it up.

  “You’re a weird chick. What’s that?”

  “It would so suck for you if I were to go and spill the beans all about your little poker games and your sick bet, wouldn’t it?”

  “What do you want?”

  He looks genuinely scared, and I am so loving this moment that I don’t want it to end.

  “What do you think I want, Creeper?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I want to know why you left these notes for Martina.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me.

  “I’m waiting, Nate. I will tattle just like a little girl if you don’t start talking.”

  He sighs. “Fine. I didn’t have anything to do with Martina running away or whatever happened to her. I swear. So, let’s just get that straight right off the bat.”

  I shrug. “Whatever. But you did leave the notes.”

  “Yeah, I did, but I was being paid to do it.”

  “Priceless. Keep talking.”

  “Okay. Like back in January, right after I got busted in study hall and I had to come work in here, some lady showed up saying that she was interested in sending her kid here. Kayla and Holden were out of the office, and I told her that. She asked me all sorts of questions about the school and stuff.” He picks up a bottle of water off the desk and takes a long sip.

  “Okay, so far you’ve given me nothing.” I look at my watch.

  “God, I am getting to it, Scholarship. I answered her questions and then she asked me if I knew Martina. I said that everyone knew everyone around here. She asked me if I liked money and I told her, ‘Who doesn’t like money?’ She asked me if I was good at keeping secrets for money. I told her that I was the best at it.”

  “Oh, so you can tell the truth sometimes.”

  “You are so exhausting, Scholarship.”

  “Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.” Sometimes these things just seem to come out of my mouth. What can I say? “Continue.”

  “This lady paid me a lot of cash to leave the notes.”

  “How much?” I ask.

  “A thousand bucks.”

  I can’t even say anything for a solid thirty seconds. My mind is processing all of this and seriously having trouble believing it. “Were there more than two notes?”

  “Nope.”

  “I know when you left the first one. You must have just left this second one the other day. What gives? Did the lady come back here?”

  “Nope. She called me.”

  “She called you?”

  “Yes.”

  “She called you?” I know I am repeating myself, but this is insane. “Do you have her number? And, did she tell you what to write in the notes?”

  “Her number comes up as UNKNOWN on my phone and yeah, she told me what to write, genius.”

  I shake my head. “What does this lady look like?”

  “She was hot. Like maybe thirty—you know, a hot cougar type.”

  “You are so gross. Just tell me what she looked like.”

  “A chick. I don’t know. A hot chick. She had long dark hair and a good body.”

  “What color eyes? How tall was she?”

  “Dude, I don’t know. I just noticed the hot bod.”

  “Don’t ever call me dude. Ever. And, if I were you, Nate, I’d start remembering exactly what she looked like, because if I had to put money on it, that ‘hot cougar type’ is going to be in serious hot water. She has to be the person Martina is with right now—or maybe it’s someone associated with her. Either way, she’s involved. And, I am pretty sure that you don’t want me to go to the police and let them know that you’re an accomplice to Martina’s abduction.”

  “Please, your little friend was so not abducted. Everyone knows she got into the car with some guy she’s probably banging because she’s all stressed out over her parents now that their embarrassing family crap is all over the place. Don’t be stupid.”

  I walk around the desk and I get right into his face. I am not about to let anyone talk like that about Martina, much less the guy who tried to destroy my reputation during my first semester at Fairmont.

  “You’d better figure out how to save yourself real quick, because whether or not you grasp it, you could be in some real trouble here.”

  His eyes narrow as he glares at me.

  “I am so not bluffing, Nate.”

  He sighs. “There is a security camera in here.” He points to the corner of the ceiling.

  “Ah, well. I think you have a project,” I reply.

  “What?”

  I smile. I have beaten him. “You are going to find the section of video that shows the woman who paid you. And then you are going to give it to me.”

  He shakes his head. “Seriously? I could get into so much trouble for that.”

  I almost start laughing. Almost. “Right. Not as much trouble as what you could be in when I fill in Kayla and Holden and Martina’s parents on your story. Oh, and let’s n
ot forget, I still have other ammunition to use against you. Do you want to try me?”

  “You are such a bitch.”

  “Thanks. I take that as a compliment,” I say, echoing his line about being an ass. “I’ll see you in the library at seven tonight. You should have what I want by then.” I walk out of the office feeling like I’m a little bit closer to finding Martina. And I have to admit that it feels pretty good knowing that I just got the best of Nate Deacon.

  CHAPTER twenty-nine

  Sitting in the library alone, I check the clock on my phone for the third time. It’s ten after seven and no Nate as of yet. I crack open my physics book. I’m glad Tristan bought my story that I needed to study by myself. It’s kind of true, actually, but waiting for Nate is making me too anxious to concentrate on homework. What if Nate is blowing me off?

  He knows the consequences. And, I will follow through on my threats. I was not messing with him when I made them.

  “Scholarship.”

  I look up to see Nate standing over me. He tosses an envelope onto the table.

  “I think this is what you were looking for.”

  I give him my biggest, most sarcastic smile, and say, “I sure hope so. For your sake.”

  He places his wide freckled hands on the table, and I realize just how tall and strong Nate Deacon is in this moment. “Don’t continue to threaten me, Scholarship. I will make your life hell around here. I can do it, you know.”

  I pull myself up to my full five foot three inches. “Bring it on. I am not afraid of you,” I say, but I am shaking on the inside. My heart is pounding like crazy.

  And then, a savior shows up. Riley slaps Nate on the shoulder. “Are you bothering Vivienne?”

  Nate takes a step back and looks from me to Riley and back at me again. “Nah, man. We were just having a conversation.” He holds his arms out wide. “Weren’t we, Vivienne?”

  “Oh yeah, definitely. Just a nice little chat.”

  “Chat over,” Riley says. “Vivienne and I have some studying to do.”

  Nate raises his eyebrows. “Your boy Tristan know you’re studying with his chick?”

  “Go play mean somewhere else, Deacon,” Riley says.

  “We good, Scholarship?” Nate says.

  “I think we probably are,” I reply and sit back down as Nate leaves the library. I sit on my hands for a minute trying to keep Riley from seeing them shake. “I hate that guy,” I say.

  “What was that all about?” Riley asks.

  I stand back up and take his hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

  “Vivvie?”

  “Trust me. I think I am going to need your help.”

  “We can get in some trouble for whatever we’re about to do, am I right?” he says.

  I don’t answer.

  “Any time Nate Deacon is involved, there’s trouble,” Riley says. “What kind of serious shit are we getting into here, Vivvie?”

  “What’s in this envelope here might actually help bring Martina back. It’s worth the risk.”

  He stares at me in silence for a full minute.

  “Okay, I’m in,” he finally says. “What about Tristan?”

  “Maybe we should include him, too.”

  “Trouble does love company.” He laughs.

  I point a finger at him and wink and say, “True story.”

  But when I call Tristan, it goes to voice mail after a few rings.

  “Looks like we are the only ones partaking in trouble,” I say. “He’s not answering.”

  We get to my room and open the envelope. Inside is a disc. I pop it into my computer and a minute later we are watching a woman talking to Nate inside the office. He was right—she is quite attractive.

  “Hey, Vivvie, what are we watching?”

  There’s no audio and we can’t hear what the two are saying, so I fill Riley in as we watch.

  “Seriously? Nate took money from this lady to write those notes to Martina?”

  “Yeah.” Something is bothering me as we watch. As the woman finally leaves the office, I know what it is. “She didn’t hand him any cash there, did she?”

  Riley shakes his head. “Nope. I didn’t see her hand him anything.”

  I think about this for a minute. “Which means that Nate had to have met her either off campus or somewhere on campus where they weren’t noticed. Come on,” I say, standing up.

  “Where we going?”

  “Where do you think?” I ask.

  “To have another chat with Nate?”

  “Bingo.”

  CHAPTER thirty

  Hey, Creeper,” I say as Nate opens the door to his room.

  “Oh God. What now? I gave you what you wanted. Can’t you just shoo like the little fly you are?”

  “Funny . . . and no, I can’t.”

  Nate looks at Riley. “Why do you hang out with this chick, man?”

  “We didn’t come here to trade insults,” Riley says. “Vivienne has brought me up-to-date and there’s one thing we want to know—when the woman gave you the money.”

  “What are you guys, like all CSI now?”

  “Just answer the question,” Riley says.

  “Fine,” Nate says with a shrug of his huge shoulders. “She said to meet her at a coffee shop the next day. But when I got there, some other lady was there to give me the money. Not a hot one, either. She was kind of short and fat. She sat down across from me at the table I was at and handed me an envelope with the cash in it. Then she left.”

  “Did she say anything?” I ask.

  “Just, ‘Here is something for you.’ ”

  “That’s it?” Riley asks.

  “Yes.”

  I look at Riley and then back at Nate. I think he is actually being honest. “What coffee shop?” I ask.

  “Vick’s down in Malibu.”

  Riley puts out a hand to Nate. “Thanks, man,” he says. “Thanks for telling us.”

  Nate shakes Riley’s hand but shoots me a look. “Scholarship, just remember, we’re done.”

  I narrow my eyes at him in disgust.

  “What are you thinking?” Riley asks, as we walk away.

  “That clearly there are two women involved in making Martina disappear, but why, I don’t know. I do think it ties into the tabloid articles, but how and why, I don’t know.” I repeat myself because sometimes that seems to get my brain working.

  “I have an idea,” Riley says.

  “What’s that?”

  “Did you see if all of those articles in The Hollywood Scene were written by the same reporter?”

  I shake my head.

  He smiles. “I say we check it out.”

  I think I know what Riley is thinking, but we need to do a little research first. Back at my room, we look up the articles on the computer. Sure enough, it’s the same reporter on all of the stories—a woman named Tracy Sanford.

  “Do an image search,” Riley says.

  I do, and when an image of Tracy Sanford pops up, we both look at each other and simultaneously say, “No way!”

  “Field trip?” I ask.

  “Yep,” he replies.

  “We need a car,” I say.

  “Tristan?”

  I nod.

  “You gonna tell him why?” he asks.

  “I probably should. He’s going to ask.”

  “Yeah. But he’s going to think we’re nuts.”

  “Probably,” I reply. “Definitely. I mean, if we had been able to bring him in on it from the get-go when I tried calling earlier, but now . . .”

  “Tell you what, I’ll handle it. We’ll go after class tomorrow.”

  “What are you going to say?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about it, Vivvie.” He winks at me and lea
ves my room.

  Honestly, sometimes guys drive me insane.

  CHAPTER thirty-one

  The next day at lunch, I notice that Joel is really quiet in his seat at the end of the table. As usual, Emily is trying to get his attention. Tristan is also kind of distant, but he’s holding my hand under the table. Lunch passes by in such a subdued atmosphere that it’s clear that each of us is in our own world contemplating our own problems. I, for one, am focused on finding Martina.

  When the bell signals that lunch is over, Tristan kisses me on the cheek before heading off to class. “You and Riley doing some shopping this afternoon?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I restrain my eye roll. Couldn’t Riley have come up with something better than that lame excuse? “I have something special that I want to get you.” That is sort of lame on my part, but I can’t have Tristan being suspicious about what we are really up to.

  “You don’t need to do that,” he says.

  “I know. I want to.” I kiss him back and wave, then chase down Riley.

  “Shopping?” I say.

  “At least I came up with something, and I got us a car, so chill, you little pill.”

  I frown at him. “Fine.”

  “Be at the Jeep after school.” Riley peels off to head to study hall as I walk toward English class.

  When I arrive at Tristan’s Jeep at the requested time after school, Riley is already behind the wheel. He says, “Look up the address for The Hollywood Scene.”

  “Look at you. I do believe we have gone all Sherlock and Watson.”

  “Which one are you?” He laughs.

  “Either.”

  “Okay, then, Watson.”

  “Actually, it does kind of matter,” I reply. “I’m Sherlock.”

  “Fine. Take all the glory, but if you remember anything, remember that Watson did all of the work. And, Sherlock had that problem with drugs. Was it cocaine or heroin?”

  I roll my eyes at him. “You are kind of rotten, you know.”

  He grins at me. “That’s why we are such good friends. Takes one rotten egg to know another one.”