Runaway (Airhead #3)

by Meg Cabot

No wonder he was so messed up now.

  Except…

  Except that everything he’d been insisting was true about Stark Enterprises?

  It had actually been true all along. He wasn’t the crazy one.

  The rest of us were, for not believing him.

  “And not just because you don’t have the recording anymore,” Robert Stark said, turning back to me. He was speaking absolutely without rancor. That was the scary part. He wasn’t even mad at me. He didn’t care. He was completely cool and collected.

  Except for the part about destroying my phone.

  “Those kids you saw in there?” he went on. “The ones my friends just purchased? They’re going to meet with accidents during their travels soon. The same kind of accident your sister is going to have this evening on her way back from her trip to cheerleading camp if a word about any of this gets out. Do you understand? Because believe it or not, I have people who would happily bid on her, as well.”

  I stared at him, my heart suddenly feeling frozen. How had he known about Frida and her cheerleading camp?

  But of course.

  Frida had a Stark Quark. Robert Stark himself had given her one.

  I nodded slowly. I understood. I understood perfectly well.

  “One word,” he said. “One word tonight when the Stark Angel show goes live— even though you might want to get cute and try something?— and your sister never makes it back tonight to that little apartment she and your parents share down at NYU. Understand?”

  “I understand,” I unglued my tongue from the roof of my mouth to say. “You don’t want me to tell anyone that Robert Stark is providing his shareholders with healthy donor bodies so that they can have their brains transplanted into them and be young again. If I do that, my sister dies.”

  Robert Stark just looked down at me. His expression wasn’t as cool and collected as it had been before. Now one of his dark, slightly graying eyebrows was raised a little.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” he asked. “We gave you an incredible gift— the gift of beauty— something most women would kill for. Do you know how many women would die to be in your shoes right now? You have the world on a string. And all you can seem to think about is bringing me down.”

  “What about Matthew?” I asked him. “And Kim Su? Do you think they’re going to appreciate your killing them so that those rich old folks in there can live their lives for them?”

  “Oh, they’re not going to be living their lives for them,” Robert Stark assured me. “They’ll be living their own lives, just with new bodies. Sure, they’re going to have to explain to their friends about how they had more than a ‘little work done.’ But that will only bring more clients in to me. And it will be worth it, not to have to wake up every morning with creaking joints, to have to take nine different kinds of heart medications— believe me, it will be worth every penny to them.”

  “But what about Matthew’s family?” I asked. “What if they see him one day, walking around with some other guy’s brain in his head, and he doesn’t recognize them?”

  “These people live in far different social strata,” Robert Stark said with a sneer, “than the donors’ families. They’ll never see one another. You can be quite sure of that.”

  I shook my head at his snobbery.

  “You’re going to get caught,” I said. “It’s murder. You can’t keep it a secret forever.”

  “Why not?” he asked. And now both eyebrows were lifted. “I’ve managed to so far. How long do you think we’ve been doing this, anyway?” That’s when he laughed. “Nikki— and to me, darlin’, you’ll always be Nikki— we’ve been doing this for years. Years. With this latest technology, we’ve been able to offer our clients a more diversified and unique selection of products over a broader range, while still increasing our profit margin.”

  Then he looked at the security officer and said, “Clean that up”— he meant the mess emptying my bag had made on the carpet— “and escort her back downstairs and to the car that’s waiting to take her and her friends to the studio. She’s late enough for the Stark Angels show as it is.”

  To me, he said, “The least you could do is say thank you, you know.”

  Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “For what?”

  “I’ve given you the greatest gift anyone could ever give another human being,” he said. “A second chance at life. Only this time,” he added, “you get to do it beautiful.”

  I just stared at him. Honestly, what could you even say to that?

  I thought about spitting in his face.

  But it didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

  Especially since he’d just said he knew my little sister’s travel plans.

  Did I really want to see Frida up there on that screen, being bid on like some kind of Ming vase at Sotheby’s…

  …only to have her skull sawed open and her brain lifted out to have it replaced by that blue-veined lady’s?

  I took back the purse that the security guard handed to me— minus my iPhone. Meanwhile, Robert Stark was already walking away, back into his macabre auction room. He never once looked over his shoulder at me.

  Not that I’d expected him to, I guess.

  It was just as well that he didn’t. He’d have seen the murderous look in my eye.

  And he wouldn’t have liked it. He wouldn’t have liked it one bit.

  The security guard took me by the arm and began guiding me down the stairs. Not the back stairs Brandon had shown me, but the wide main staircase I hadn’t been able to get up before, because I’d lacked a phoenix bracelet.

  The other security guard was still standing at the bottom of it. He looked confused to see me being escorted down by one of his colleagues, but lifted the velvet rope and let me pass.

  “Here you go,” the security guard who had my arm said, when we reached the coat check, where Gabriel and Nikki were standing waiting for me, with Lulu, who had my coat. They were all three flanked by other security guards.

  “Oh, my God,” Lulu whispered, holding my faux fur coat out for me. “Are you all right? You look pale as a ghost. Are you going to throw up?”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” I whispered back. “Where’s Brandon?”

  “I don’t know,” Lulu said. “He disappeared a while ago with your agent.”

  “Great,” I said sarcastically. The security guards were hustling us down the red-carpeted steps and out to the limo that was idling outside. Paparazzi snapped dozens of photos as we ducked inside the car, all calling out, “Nikki! Where’s your boyfriend?” and “Nikki! Did you have a nice time at the party?”

  Once we were inside the car and the doors had been closed, Nikki said, “It’s so weird how they do that.”

  “Do what?” Gabriel asked.

  “Yell my name. But they’re talking to her.” She pointed at me.

  “It must be weird,” Gabriel said, but his voice was softer than when he’d ever spoken to Nikki before, as if he were sympathizing with her for once. “You must miss it.”

  “That?” Nikki’s eyes widened. “Being screamed at by the paps? You probably like it. But I’m sort of starting to appreciate this anonymity thing for a change.” She looked over at me and demanded, “So? Did you find out anything?”

  “Oh,” I said, leaning back against the leather seat and taking a long, cleansing breath. “I learned a lot.”

  “Oh?” Gabriel asked. “Care to enlighten us?”

  I reached into my bra and pulled out my Stark brand cell phone. “You have no idea,” I said. “Can I borrow your phone? This one is bugged. I need to call Christopher.”

  Gabriel fumbled around in his pockets, while Nikki just rolled her eyes.

  “No one will let me have a phone,” she said. “I’m not to be trusted, evidently.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Lulu said, opening her gold Prada clutch and tossing me her phone. “But you better tell us what you heard up there….”

  I was alread
y dialing.

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re going to find out, all right. Hello, Christopher?” He’d picked up on the first ring.

  “Em?” he said, confused, because his caller ID had said Lulu’s name.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s me. Listen, you were right. About all of it. Project Phoenix is exactly what you said it was. And I’ve got proof. On film. The problem is, I got caught. By Robert Stark himself.”

  “Jesus Christ, Em.” Christopher sounded like someone had punched him in the stomach. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “So far. They think they destroyed the only proof. That’s why I can’t e-mail it to you or anything…because if I do, it will totally send up a red flag. Because it’s on a Stark brand phone they’ve got bugged, so that means it’s also on their mainframe, I’m pretty sure. Which means Felix could probably pull it up…but then they might notice. So just in case, I’m going to hand deliver it to him right now with Lulu and Nikki.” I looked at the two of them questioningly. They both glanced at each other, then nodded eagerly. “So can you be there in, like, twenty minutes, Christopher, and be ready for it?”

  “I’m already at Felix’s,” Christopher said. “He’s ready for whatever you’ve got. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

  “The Stark Angel lingerie show,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm from my voice. “Live.”

  “We’re already tuned in to Channel Seven,” I heard Felix yell in the background. “All ten monitors! High def!”

  I heard a crunching sound, then a cry of pain. I assumed Christopher had hit his cousin.

  “Never mind him,” Christopher said. “If you don’t want us to be watching, Em, we won’t watch. Besides, it sounds like we’re going to be pretty busy.”

  “No,” I said. I had to be mature about this, I realized. It was just a body. My body.

  And with any luck, Christopher was going to be seeing it naked someday, anyway.

  “You can watch if you want. Just do this other thing first. Only…whatever you’re going to do with it,” I said, trying to control the shaking in my voice, “can you wait until Frida’s plane lands, and she gets home safe? Because Robert Stark said—” Suddenly, I was holding back a sob.

  “What, Em?” Christopher asked. He sounded as worried as I felt. “What did Robert Stark say?”

  The tender concern in his voice only made it harder to speak. I couldn’t believe this was the same Christopher with whom only an hour or so ago I’d been arguing.

  “He said if anything about Project Phoenix gets out,” I answered, trying to keep from crying, “he’ll…he’ll…”

  “Don’t say another word,” Christopher said. “I know what to do.”

  “But.” How could he know? I hadn’t told him what Robert Stark had said he’d do. Something so awful, I couldn’t even think about it.

  “Em,” Christopher said. His voice was warm. Warm with love for me. For me. “I know. Don’t worry. Consider it done. Frida will be fine. We’ve got it handled here, okay? We’re professionals.”

  “But,” I said again. Now I couldn’t help smiling a little. The idea of Christopher and his cousin as professionals was ludicrous. “One of you is wearing an ankle bracelet.”

  And one of you is an archvillain, with fingerless gloves and a dark streak a mile wide.

  “She’s going to be all right,” Christopher reassured me. “You did your part. Tell Nikki and Lulu to get here with that cell phone. And I’ll do what I have to do. And, Em?”

  “Yes?” I asked in a shaking voice.

  “I’m really proud of you,” he said. “Mad as hell at you for putting yourself in danger. But really, really proud.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Now the tears were coming.

  But they were tears of happiness.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Twenty

  IT WAS CHAOS AT THE STARK ANGEL lingerie show. For one thing, Ryan Seacrest was there to emcee it. He hadn’t been there for the two dress rehearsals earlier in the month because…well, he was Ryan Seacrest. He was a busy man.

  For another thing, Gabriel and I were more than two hours late for our call time. That hadn’t caused too much anxiety on the part of Alessandro, the stage director. He basically wanted to kill us.

  “Dressing rooms for makeup and costumes,” he yelled when he saw me and Gabriel slinking in through the stage door. “Now.”

  I figured if Alessandro had his way, we’d never be asked to participate in another Stark production ever again.

  Then again, after tonight, if things went the way I hoped they would, there wouldn’t be any more Stark productions. Not ever again.

  Jerri, the makeup artist, came darting in as I was wiggling out of my party dress, and the costume ladies were fretting about what to do about the indentations the seams of my panty hose had left on my belly. Seriously. These are the things we underwear models have to worry about.

  “No worries,” Jerri said. “I’ll airbrush it. No one will see a thing.”

  Jerri had a little machine that sprayed out liquid foundation the way self-tanning machines airbrushed bronzer on people. It was basically the same principle, only Jerri planned on spraying the foundation over my entire body instead of just my face…

  …which was what she did for most of her clients, a lot of whom were male sportscasters.

  “They have to look good, too,” she explained. “Now that everyone has high-def TVs. You can’t have any blemishes, or anything. I do their hands, too, for when they’re holding the microphones, interviewing people. If you don’t spray, you don’t play.”

  It was amazing. Here I’d been thinking Jessica Biel and all those movie stars had perfect bodies, when it wasn’t true. Everything on TV was fake.

  Make that everything on TV, in magazines, and in the movies, too. No wonder those Stark shareholders felt like they needed to murder young people and steal their bodies.

  “Oh, sure,” Jerri said as I stood there in my bra and panties, feeling the cold spray go all over my body. “All the actresses do it, for their nude scenes? They’re all sprayed. It covers your cellulite, too. Not that you have cellulite. Oh, wait. Yes, sorry. Even Nikki Howard! Ha, wait till I tell my sister. She thinks you’re perfect. Not that you aren’t—” Jerri popped her head around to look up at me. “You know, you almost are.”

  I smiled down at her queasily. “It’s okay. Can I borrow your cell phone?” I asked. “I need to make a call. It’s local.”

  “Oh, go ahead, darling,” Jerri said. “Make as many as you want. I’m getting holiday pay for this, it being New Year’s Eve and all.”

  She gave me her phone, and I quickly dialed my parents’ number. My mom picked up after the second ring.

  “Hello?” she asked curiously, not recognizing the number on the caller ID.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. “It’s me.” I didn’t say it’s me, Em, because Jerri was there. “I was wondering…do you know if Frida made it to her plane all right?”

  “Well, of course she did,” Mom said. “She called me from the runway three hours ago. She should be landing at LaGuardia any minute. The girls are all sharing cabs back into the city. Why do you ask?”

  “I just haven’t heard from her in a while,” I said, trying to sound casual. “That’s all. Do you think you could have her call me the minute she walks in the door?”

  “Of course,” Mom said. “But aren’t you a bit busy? I thought you were doing that, er, lingerie show tonight, on Channel Seven.”

  Damn. I was kind of hoping that Mom had forgotten about that.

  “I am,” I said stiffly. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about my little sister.”

  “Well,” Mom said, “I’ll be sure to have her call you.”

  Belatedly, I remembered I didn’t have a cell phone. One was smashed to bits on the carpet in Robert Stark’s upstairs hallway. And the other was on its way to Felix’s basement in a cab with Lulu and Nikki. Hopefully it was there by now.r />
  “Actually,” I said, thinking fast, “could you have her call Lulu? My cell is messed up.” I gave her the number. “It’ll be better, anyway, in case I’m onstage.”

  “All right,” Mom said. In typical Mom style, however, she didn’t sound like she thought it was all right. “Listen, honey, while I have you on the phone…about yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was conscious that Jerri was working her way up toward my head with the spray gun. “I’m really sorry—”

  “No,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. I realize now that when you asked me if you were pretty— well, that’s such a loaded question, honey. I mean, for me. I don’t want you girls to judge one another by your looks—”

  “Mom,” I said. I couldn’t believe we were even having this conversation. My boss had just threatened to kill my little sister if I exposed the fact that he was basically a murdering sociopath.

  And if things went the way I hoped they would, I was just about to do exactly that.

  And my mom wanted to have bonding time over the phone.

  “I really don’t have time for this. I just wanted to check on Frida.”

  “But this is important,” Mom went on. “I realize that maybe, at your school, that’s what all girls do. Judge one another by their looks.”

  “Not just at school, Mom,” I said. “Try all of contemporary Western society.”

  Hello, Mom? This is America. Welcome. This is called a McDonald’s. Can you say that word? Mc-Don-ald’s. They serve cheeseburgers here. And fries. Can you say the word fries?

  “I know,” Mom went on. She sounded like she was practically crying. “And it’s just so wrong. I don’t want you girls to judge yourselves that way. There’s so much more to you than that. You’re both just so amazing, you and Frida, so smart and strong and creative. I wanted to emphasize that part of you. But every time you turn on the television, what do you see? Well, skinny girls with big boobs, in tight pants with shirts cut down to their belly buttons. And every time I’d take the two of you to the store, you’d both want exactly what those girls— Nikki Howard— was wearing. You eventually grew out of it, but Frida— it’s like a mother can’t win. And my mother said I was exactly the same way, and that’s why she stopped telling me I was pretty— that I let it go straight to my head when I was growing up….”