“And on behalf of the students of Bishop DuMaine,” Kyle said, attempting to out-brown-nose his friend, “we’re lucky to have you as our rights advocate.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Deringer said with a twinkling smile. “Aren’t you?”
Amber, however, didn’t look as pleased. She reached out to John. “I want to go with him,” she whined.
But Mrs. Deringer intercepted her, draping an elegant arm around her shoulders and guiding her toward the Town Car. “I know, my dear. But now isn’t the right time. You know they say that relationships based on intense experiences never work.”
“Isn’t that from Speed?” Ed asked under his breath.
“You need to give this one a little space after tonight,” Mrs. Deringer continued. She squeezed Amber’s shoulders as they reached the car door. “Trust me. I bagged a senator.” Then she pushed Amber into the car and slammed the door.
When she straightened up, she was all business. “The rest of you, come with me.”
“Hold up,” Ed said, eyeing Logan. “Don’t you think ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ here should go ride in the clown car?”
“Huh?” Logan asked, looking confused.
“Ed!” Olivia cried. “That’s awful.”
Ed shook his head in mock contrition. “I know, I know, it’s really serious.”
John stared at him in disbelief. “You’re a total dick sometimes, you know that?”
Ed smiled. “Sometimes?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Logan said, “but I can hitch with Amber back to her house. No worries, dude.”
“I think that’s best,” Ed said.
Kitty and Olivia had other plans. After exchanging a hurried glance, Kitty stepped forward. “Actually,” she said, “I think you should come with us.”
“Why?” Ed asked. “What could he possibly bring to the table?”
“He’s got as much of a stake in all this as you do,” Olivia said.
That’s not true.
The Town Car drove off, sealing the deal, and Ed resigned himself to having Logan along for the ride. “Fine.” He grabbed Logan by the wrist and dragged him to the center of the group. “But he has to swear the same oath John and I did. It’s only fair.”
“Oath?” Logan asked.
Ed rolled up his sleeves like a proctologist about to perform an exam, then thrust his arm forward. “Just relax and let it happen, big guy. It only hurts for a second.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTY-SIX
BREE STOOD AT THE FRONT DOOR AND STRETCHED HER UPPER body outside as far as she could, careful to keep her anklet within the perimeter of the house. Her mom and Olaf should have been back by now. What if Sergeant Callahan had refused to release her friends? What if the killer had somehow gotten to them first?
She imagined John’s lifeless body, beaten and blood-splattered, like the crime scene photos of Ronny. I will destroy everything you love . . .
Bree squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to banish that thought from her mind. They were fine. She just needed to be patient.
The roar of a car engine broke Bree from her pity party. Her eyes flew open and she saw John sprinting up the walkway toward her.
“Bree!” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the lips.
Bree felt her face burn. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mom ease out of the SUV. John seemed to realize the situation at the same moment. He pulled back, blushing scarlet from chin to hairline, and faced Bree’s mom. “Mrs. Deringer, I’m sorry. Bree and I . . .”
“Have been humping like rabbits in my daughter’s bedroom? Yes, I know.”
Bree’s stomach dropped. “How?”
Her mom looked at her with pity. “Darling, it will be a cold day in hell before I fail to recognize Old Spice in any of its various forms. And unless you’d suddenly taken to dousing yourself in aftershave, the only explanation is that a boy had been in your room.”
“Oh.”
“Now,” her mom said, shushing them toward the open door. “If we could all go inside, there is, apparently, a great deal you have to discuss.”
Her hand held firmly in John’s, Bree led them through the foyer, down the hall, and through the formal dining room to the kitchen.
Ed the Head whistled as he examined the decor. “Sweet digs. Senator Deringer has excellent taste.”
“Thank you!” Bree’s mom cooed from behind them.
Bree and John took seats at the far end of the farmer’s table while everyone else filed in, Logan bringing up the rear. “Um . . .” Bree looked from Kitty to Olivia.
“It’s okay,” Kitty said. “Logan knows.”
“Can I get you kids something to drink?” Bree’s mom asked. She puttered around, aimlessly opening the refrigerator and the cabinets as if searching for something domestic to do. “Water? Soda? Cocktail?”
“Mom . . .”
“You know,” Ed said, his voice smarmy, “Bree never told us she had an older sister.”
“Seriously?” Bree said.
Her mom giggled. “You, twerp, are a charmer.”
Bree rolled her eyes. Damn, she really would flirt with anything with a pulse. “Okay, Mom. We’ve got business to discuss.”
“Fine.” Her mom sighed dramatically. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
Even after her mom’s incredible act of faith in busting her friends out of the pokey, Bree couldn’t stand the attention-seeking behavior.
“It was pretty awesome of her to come rescue us,” John said, as soon as Bree’s mom was out of earshot. “How did you pull that off?”
“I tried calling everyone after I got your text,” Bree said. “When no one picked up I figured it was serious and called in reinforcements.”
Kitty nodded. “All of our phones were off.”
“Except his,” Bree said with a nod to Ed. “But he didn’t pick up.”
Ed the Head folded his arms across his chest. “I turned off my ringer while I was trying to clean up your mess with Tammi Barnes.”
“Some good that did,” Olivia said.
Bree sucked in a breath. “What happened with Tammi?”
“I went to the mall to keep an eye on her like you asked, but she never showed up for work,” Ed said. “Then I drove over to her place, but she never came back. The supervisor at the halfway house must have called the police when she didn’t show up because a couple of squad cars rolled up just after sunset. I think technically she’d broken her parole.”
Bree gritted her teeth. “You were supposed to keep an eye on her.”
Ed threw his arms wide. “I tried my best! Maybe if you hadn’t blown it at therapy, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Logan turned to Kitty. “Who’s Tammi Barnes?”
“We’ve got two possible scenarios here,” Kitty said, barreling forward. “Either Tammi’s the killer, or our homicidal friend got to her just like the rest of them.”
“Who are the rest of them?” Logan asked Olivia.
Olivia slumped back in her chair. “Now what?”
“I don’t think you’ll like the answer to that one.” Bree walked to the kitchen and pulled four manila envelopes from a drawer. “I found these on the doorstep when I got home from group therapy.”
“Shit!” Kitty and Olivia said in unison.
Ed shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Bree passed out the envelopes labeled “Olivia,” “Kitty,” “John,” and “Ed.”
“What was in yours?” Kitty asked, fingering the flap on her own envelope.
Without a word, Bree pulled out a photo and held it up for them to see. It was a candid black-and-white shot, slightly grainy as if taken from a distance, of John shinnying up the rope ladder outside her bedroom.
She watched John’s face as he examined the photo. He didn’t fr
eak out, just calmly processed the details. “That was from yesterday.”
“Yeah.”
Without hesitating, John broke the seal on his envelope and removed a similarly black-and-white photo. Bree swallowed as she stared: it was of her, climbing out of the car at Dr. Walters’ clinic.
“There’s another note too,” Bree said, hoping her voice didn’t tremble as she read the killer’s threat out loud. “‘Each of you will lose something you love more than life itself. This started with you and it ends with you, so tune in for Sunday’s big finale. P.S. I’m not getting mad, I’m just getting even.’”
“Sunday?” Olivia said. “Why Sunday?”
“Oh God,” Kitty gasped.
“What?” John asked.
Kitty looked at Bree. “Sunday is the volleyball tournament at school. The one with all the college scouts.”
“A big finale,” John mused.
Olivia’s face was hard-set as she stared at her envelope. “I don’t want to open this.” Bree didn’t blame her. The idea that the killer was targeting John made her sick to her stomach.
“We’ll do it together,” Kitty said. “On three.”
“Fine,” Olivia said with a toss of her short curls. “You too, Ed.”
Ed snorted. “Unless he’s wiping out my bank account, there’s nothing in here that can scare me.”
Kitty counted down. “One. Two. Three.”
She and Olivia broke the seal on their envelopes at the same time while Ed shoved his, unopened, into his bag. Kitty’s hand began to tremble as she stared at her photo.
“What is it?” Bree asked. She reached under the table and laced her fingers with John’s.
“It’s . . .” Kitty paused, her voice catching. “It’s my sisters. Walking home from school.”
As with the other photos, this one looked as if it had been shot with a telephoto lens. It showed a set of identical twin girls, backpacks slung over their shoulders, walking arm in arm down the street. The photo had caught them in a moment of levity: both girls were laughing hysterically as if one of them had just cracked a joke. They looked so young—eleven, maybe twelve years old.
“I will destroy everything you love,” Ed said quietly.
“Well,” John said with a heavy exhale, “at least he knows what that is.”
Bree squeezed John’s hand fiercely. She couldn’t lose him. “We have to stop him before he hurts someone else.”
“I think . . .” Olivia began. The quiver in her voice made Bree look up immediately. She was trembling, and her face had gone deathly pale. “I think he already has.”
She stared at the piece of paper on the table that had come in her envelope. It was a printout of an email, sent to June Hayes. Olivia’s mom.
Dear Ms. Hayes,
I regret to inform you that due to unsatisfactory performance, you have been replaced in the production of The Lady’s Curse.
Sincerely,
Charles Beard
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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THIRTY-SEVEN
OLIVIA LEANED FORWARD IN THE FRONT PASSENGER SEAT OF the Deringers’ SUV as if willing the large Scandinavian driver to go faster.
Not that he could have. The tires shrieked in protest as they rounded each bend, yellow lights were a signal to accelerate, and she had to grip the “oh shit” handle at every turn. But it wasn’t enough.
She glanced down at her phone and hit Redial for the thirtieth time. Four rings, then the voice mail picked up.
“I’m terribly sorry, I can’t get to the phone,” her mom said in rounded, dulcet tones. “I’m in rehearsal for my new—”
Olivia ended the call and immediately hit redial.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Kitty said. “Just asleep or maybe at work?”
“She quit her job,” Olivia said. The voice mail kicked in and she ended yet another call. “Because of this play.”
If Kitty had anything else to add, she kept it to herself. Piled into the back with Logan, John, and Ed the Head, none of them said a word.
How could she have been so stupid? Testing out a one-woman show in San Jose for an Off-Broadway run was ridiculous, let alone her mom’s involvement. Twelfth Night at the Public, 1998. Am I right? Her mom’s ego was so wounded after her visit from Fitzgerald Conroy, she would have fallen hard for a line like that. She wanted so badly to believe that “June Hayes” would once again be up in lights, a name bandied about in Playbill and the New York Times theater review. Her mom had probably already rehearsed her Tony acceptance speech.
Olivia should have realized this was actually the work of a killer hell-bent on revenge.
Olaf hit the brakes and Olivia momentarily went airborne between her seat and the seat belt, before her head smacked back against the rest. “Here,” Olaf said simply.
She took the stairs to her apartment two at a time, keys gripped tightly in her hand, hardly even aware of the pounding of footsteps behind her.
“Mom!” she cried as she unlocked the door. “Mom?”
There were bottles of red wine everywhere. One on the kitchen table—open, but only half-consumed—one on the counter—also unfinished—then two on the coffee table, both overturned. Next to them, the framed photo of June Hayes as Olivia from the opening of Twelfth Night at the Public Theater in New York. The glass was smashed.
Her mom lay on her side on the sofa, facing the television. Olivia heaved a sigh of relief. It had been an angry, drunken night, but no worse than Olivia had seen before. It would be followed by days of tearful self-pity alternating with marathon sleep sessions, and hopefully sometime next week, her mom would snap out of her funk, ask for her old job back at the Shangri-La, and life would go back to normal.
“Is she okay?” Kitty asked at Olivia’s shoulder.
Olivia winced, suddenly aware that her friends were bearing witness to the bipolar chaos that was Olivia’s home life.
“She’ll be fine,” Olivia said, trying to sound cheerful. She marched into the living room, righting the wine bottles on the table and shifting some broken glass from the photo. “Lick her wounds and move forward. Right, Mom?”
She turned to her mom and all the warmth drained out of her body. Cuddled in her lap were almost a dozen pill bottles. Her mom’s jaw hung limply open and a trickle of vomit snaked out from the corner.
Kitty dashed to her side. “Call 911,” she said to Ed. “Now.”
“What’s wrong?” John asked. “Is she okay?”
Before anyone could answer, Olaf bounded across the room. He scooped up Olivia’s mom, cradling her in his arms, and was halfway to the door before Olivia could respond. “What are you doing?”
“Olaf faster to hospital,” he said, already heading down the stairs. “Bring pill bottles. Hurry.”
Kitty sat next to John in the hospital waiting room and stared at the clock on the wall. In the movies, emergency rooms were always romantic places, where gorgeous, well-dressed actors awaited news of their loved ones.
This ER looked more like a prison visitation room: uncomfortable wooden-armed chairs with stained gray upholstery, pale yellow walls with an informational poster about heart disease, a selection of magazines four months out of date, and a pathetic vending machine that looked as if it hadn’t been restocked since Kitty was still in diapers. Bar None? Did they even make those candy bars anymore?
Ed and Logan had disappeared soon after arriving at the hospital, but John sat stoically beside her, completely still. He rested his head against the wall, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed. How could he nap? Kitty was crawling out of her skin, wondering if Olivia’s mom would be okay. She’d used what little battery power was left on her phone to call home and check on Lydia and Sophia, who thought it was positively hilarious that their older sister was worrying about them. Still, she made them promise to stay put and keep the doors and windows locked.
Now, with the battery on her phone dead, she couldn’t distract herself with mindless games or Facebook stalking. She would have killed for a good book, or even a crappy one, but had to settle for the small television set in the corner, now showing local news, with no sound. A couple of talking heads gabbed silently on and on, and Kitty’s eyelids began to flutter, a slow blink transforming into prolonged seconds of darkness.
“Look!” John said, nudging Kitty awake. Her eyes flew open. John was pointing at the television set, where a photo of Tammi Barnes filled up the screen.
Kitty rushed across the room and hit the volume button on the set, desperate to hear what the reporters had to say.
“. . . last seen in the eight-hundred block of Willow Road. If you have any information as to the whereabouts of Tamara Barnes, we ask that you call the Menlo Park Police Department immediately at the number on your screen.” Then Tammi’s photo vanished and the talking heads reappeared. “And now for a sports update, we go to Chip Peterson. Chip? What’s going on with those Giants?”
“Anything?” John asked as Kitty slumped back to her seat.
“Just what we already knew. She was last seen leaving the doctor’s office.”
“Damn.”
Kitty gazed up at the water-stained ceiling tiles. “At least the police are looking for her.”
John snorted. “Right, because they’ve done such a great job finding the others.”
She had to admit he had a point.
Ed the Head breezed into the waiting room and took a seat opposite Kitty and John. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”
“Where have you been?” Kitty asked.
Ed laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “Getting the scoop on Olivia’s mom.”
John cocked his head. “I thought we were banned from updates since we’re not immediate family.”
“Please,” Ed snorted. “When has that ever stopped me?”
Kitty glanced at John. “Never,” they said in unison.
“Prognosis is good,” he said with a smile. “Looks like we got to her just in time. Another hour and she’d have slipped into a coma.”
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