Pretty, Nasty, Lovely

by Rosalind Noonan

  Ha ha, so funny? Not so much.

  I stole a look. I remembered the soft leather of the jacket slung over the back of the chair. The way his hair curled over the tops of his ears. The things that used to squeeze my heart weren’t so dramatic anymore. Sam seemed like one of many guys on campus.

  I let out a breath of relief. I’d been freed. Sort of. I wondered what time Rory would be back that night.

  * * *

  Mulling over ways to use the discovery in the gorge to further support the argument for improvements at the health center, Finn headed out of his office to teach a one o’clock class. It was definitely a point for discussion with Sydney Cho.

  “Hey, Dr. Finn.” Max, the student manning the reception desk, nodded. With a dark forest of facial hair, Max was looking particularly scruffy today, but then it was no-shave November. “You heading out?”

  “I’ve got a class to teach. Catch you on the rebound.”

  “I won’t be here,” Max said. “I’m just filling in so Mrs. Noble can take lunch. Hey, right. I almost forgot. Your wife came by earlier.”

  “My wife?” Finn hesitated. “You mean Eileen. Actually, we’re not married.”

  “Whatever. I told her you were in with a student, and she waited a while. But after your door opened, she got up and left in a fit. Really pissed. Should I have interrupted you?”

  “No. Unless she mentioned an emergency with our kid, you did the right thing. Thanks.” In his mind, Finn replayed the last half hour. So Eileen had seen Emma emerge from his office. Had it been the sight of a pretty young student that inflamed her? Frailty, thy name is woman. It would be just the sort of thing she would sink her teeth into and rip apart like a wolf devouring its prey.

  On his way to class, Finn reluctantly called Eileen. He hated any contact with her now, but he figured it was worth the annoyance if he could nip her tantrum in the bud.

  It was too late; Eileen had made some calls, to the dean of students and the police. “You think you’re so smart, so secretive, but I saw that girl leaving your office, and I heard her talking yesterday. She’s the one who took her baby down to the ravine. She’s the baby killer!”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. She’s a student on the task force, that’s all. And I shouldn’t need to explain anything to you. You can’t be prying into confidential university matters.”

  “Oh, I can and I will if it means protecting my family.”

  His jaw clenched in frustration. When would she see there was nothing to protect? “This is huge, Eileen. You might have even broken some laws, but right now you need to undo the damage. Call the police and tell them you were wrong. But, wait. You don’t even know the student’s name.”

  “Oh, I got her name. I followed her to the library and got everything I need to know. Emma Danelski, and she’s a Theta Pi. I know what you’ve been up to with her . . . what she did. I know the truth! That student—Emma—she had your baby and killed it. She dumped it in the ravine as if it meant nothing to her.”

  “No!” He smacked a palm to his forehead. “Eileen, you’re wrong about this. Listen, I have to teach a class, but you need to call the police back. Tell them you were wrong. Fix this now, or I’ll drag you to the precinct and make you confess in person.”

  The line went silent, and then in a small voice she said, “No. I’m going to fight to save my family.”

  “Eileen, no—” He launched into a new argument, but she had already hung up.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was still light when I signed out of the library and headed into town to meet with Detective Taylor. I would do my best to keep this short. My friends would be waiting for me at the Turquoise Tiger, a hookah lounge in town where Defiance had promised to read tea leaves for us. Isabel had found out that we’d done it over the holiday, and she wanted in. As I crossed the parking lot of the police precinct, the front door opened. Two men in uniform came out and headed to a car. Behind them was a stunning young blond woman.

  Tori.

  I flinched, partly from guilt. I planned to tell the detective everything I had learned about Tori and Lydia. At least the parts I hadn’t sworn to keep secret. “What are you doing here?” I asked her.

  “What do you think?” She kept her voice low, but she seemed ready to pounce on me. “I had to come in and talk to them because of your effing baby. And that Detective Taylor is no bargain.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They found something in the gorge with your name on it. They think it’s connected to the body.”

  “What?” My earlier resolve began to sink away. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. A towel or something.”

  The Theta Pi towel. The baby had been wrapped in two towels, and I had peeled one off and tossed it into a pile of debris.

  “You’d better go in there and take responsibility, Emma. I already told Detective Taylor that the baby they found in the ravine is yours. Step up and take responsibility or you’re going to get all of us in trouble.”

  “I’m not going along with a pack of lies,” I said. “That baby wasn’t mine, and I didn’t leave her in the gorge.”

  “But you promised to keep the secret. Remember? A Theta Pi promise lasts forever.”

  “I won’t break that promise, but I’m not getting in trouble for something I didn’t do.”

  Tori’s lips pressed together, forming an angry crimp in her lovely face. “Just own it. You screwed up. You pay the price.”

  “I made a mistake last year—I was crushed by it—and since then you guys have used it against me, torturing me with the memory. You locked me in that room, forcing me to—”

  “We thought you knew how babies were born. You have nursing training.”

  “I’m still taking intro classes. Not like Haley, who’s been through clinical training. You made me deliver the baby because you knew you could push me around. You just wanted to pour salt on the wound.”

  “Oh, boo hoo, poor you.” Tori’s lips formed a pout, and for the first time I could see signs that those lush lips were not natural. Just like her nose. I wondered where else she had received BOTOX injections. Where else had a surgeon carved to create this beautiful monster?

  “We took you under our wings,” Tori said. “We treated you like a sister.”

  “More like a slave. Once you had me under your wing, you used me mercilessly. You rewrote the truth when the baby was born, to pretend she was mine. Do you know how that tortured me?”

  Her jaw tensed as she glanced back at the precinct. “I am not having this conversation here. Just go in there and follow the story we agreed on. If you didn’t do anything wrong, then there’s no problem, right?”

  “Not because of any help from you.”

  She shrugged. “Good luck with that. I’m going to meet my new friend for a study date. Yes, it’s official. Graham and I are together.”

  “Congratulations. Do you guys ever chat about Lydia? About what really happened that night on the bridge?”

  “You’re cray.”

  “Does Graham know you were on the bridge with Lydia that night?” I watched her carefully, and the signs were there. The sudden breath. The averted gaze. “It was you in that hoodie, wasn’t it?” I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “Did you kill her?”

  There was a flash in her cool blue eyes—fear or guilt, I couldn’t tell—as she backed away. “Get away from me!” She turned and strode off, her heels clicking on the pavement.

  * * *

  On the library steps, Defiance paused to answer Isabel’s text, saying that she would meet her at Theta House and walk to the hookah lounge together. Defiance would have met her there, but Isabel, thin and delicate as a seedling, shouldn’t be traveling alone on campus with the shadows that seemed to be present all the time now. Like the other girls in the suite, Defiance worried about little Izzy and her eating disorder. Lately she seemed to have evened out a bit, partly thanks to her new friend Patti. De
fiance suspected that her roommate had a special relationship with Patti. It was never talked about in the sorority, but all behaviors existed everywhere. Patti was good for Isabel, but still, a fragile flower needed protection in a storm.

  Be back soon, Defiance wrote. As she was tucking her phone into the pocket of her jacket, she looked up and saw Tori Winchester coming into the library arm in arm with a tall, handsome guy who could have modeled to be a Ken doll. The senator’s son was hot, but stuck on himself.

  She made eye contact with Tori, who gave her a wilting look. Defiance didn’t back down. “Hey, Tori.” Her voice was coated with sugar.

  Tori only frowned at her, but Graham said hello. An apprentice politician.

  Seeing them together was jarring. Even after Defiance looked away, the image flashed in her mind. They were like the wedding cake figurines she had been seeing in her dreams. A beautiful couple, like the plastic bride and groom on top of a wedding cake. A perfect bride with her tall, dark, and handsome guy. Only Tori was blond.

  She stared after them as the door closed, then made the sign of the cross. There goes evil.

  * * *

  Tori moved her knee ever so slightly under the table, brushing his leg just enough to get his attention but not enough to be obnoxious.

  “Hey, bae.” He put a hand on her thigh and smiled.

  Graham had a perfect smile: square white teeth, not too much gum, and when he was happy his entire face lit up. They were still in the hot pants phase, that time when the slightest movement could be such a turn-on. Tori had never had a relationship that survived once the initial thrill was gone, but she saw long-term potential in Graham. Oh, pretty please.

  They were in a private study room of the library, separated from the great room by a tinted glass wall. Usually, Tori liked the semi-privacy. It was the perfect place to make out without going too far. And sometimes the prospect of spectators outside made the kissing that much more exciting.

  He slid his fingers toward her inner thigh, but she didn’t encourage him. Emma’s comment was stuck in her mind. This was too close for comfort. Although Tori was attracted to the thrill of danger, she’d never been teetering this close to the edge before.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “She thinks I killed Lydia.” That bitch had gotten the last shot in, and the barb still caused an ache in Tori’s chest. “I don’t mean to obsess, but it really got me.”

  “I get it. You’re still upset about Lydia. And Emma’s being mean to you.”

  “She is.” Tori had plenty of experience shutting down bitches, but with Emma, it was harder. She was persistent, and she paid attention to things. It was difficult to fool a person who paid attention, and right now, Tori needed to get something past that nosy girl. Tori had something to hide, and Emma knew that. She could smell it like a dog sniffing out a bloody steak.

  “What if she finds out that I was on the bridge that night?”

  “So you walked your friend out to the bridge. You weren’t there when she jumped. And you were a good friend to Lydia.” Graham slid an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “Come on. You’re worrying about nothing.”

  “Oh my God. What if she tells the police?”

  “So what if she does? You didn’t kill Lydia. Besides, the police don’t care what Emma Danelski thinks.”

  “I don’t want her dragging me into this with the police.” Tori’s parents didn’t care about much, but trouble with the cops was one of her father’s pet peeves. As a corporate attorney, William J. Winchester wanted a clean criminal record for himself and his next of kin. He would flip if his daughter were involved in a murder investigation.

  “Look. Am I nervous? No. Trust me on this. Emma’s got nothing on you. She’s just freaking out because the police have been all over her since day one, and now, with the dead baby? Wow. She’s the one who’s in the hot seat, not you.”

  Tori hoped he was right.

  CHAPTER 35

  The meeting with Detective Taylor wasn’t going well. Since she didn’t immediately ask me about the discovery in the ravine, I started with my report. I had thought she’d be excited to be handed a chunk of information about one of her cases, but there was a glaze in her amber eyes as I told her about the possible love triangle between Lydia, Tori, and Graham.

  “Did you investigate him? Graham Hayden,” I asked.

  “I can’t give you specifics, but I assure you we have looked at every individual pertinent to the investigation.” She reminded me of a taunt my sister used to say: Big words mean little nothings.

  “Are you afraid of him?” I asked. “Because of his father.”

  “Let’s just say there are certain people we need to handle with discretion.”

  That burned me, but I didn’t back off. “You need to look at Graham again. It turns out that Lydia was really in love with him. She planned to marry him. It was a big dream of hers.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  “She used to talk about it with one of the sisters. Courtney told me. Courtney Christensen.”

  She wrote that down. “Hearsay, but I can talk with Courtney.” Although the detective had been poised to write since I started talking, she hadn’t taken many notes. Wasn’t all of this important?

  “And there was bad blood between Tori and Lydia. Lydia was blackmailing Tori, getting money from her to keep these old photos of her from surfacing.”

  Her brows rose. “Nude photos?”

  “Photos of Tori from freshman year, before she had her nose fixed.”

  “Oh, mercy. Are you serious? The way Tori talked to me about Lydia, you’d think they were best friends.”

  “They were playing each other. And besides that, Lydia was secretly making money. Some kind of business she was running.” I told her about the box of money—thousands of dollars. She seemed concerned that I took it from Lydia’s room, but I explained that it was offered to me by Lydia’s mother after the police had searched the room. “Along with the cash was a notebook with the names of male students. At least fifty of them. I think she’d scammed them, probably since freshman year.” I explained about two of the guys in the book being asked for money by Lydia to take care of an unwanted pregnancy.

  “Really? I’ve seen a lot of rotten collegiate behavior, but that one hits a new low.”

  “Aren’t you going to write it down?”

  “I don’t need to. We have security cameras recording us. They’re standard in these interview rooms.” Detective Taylor scratched her nose, refocusing. “These are interesting developments, but actually, I was glad you were coming in because I need to ask you some questions about the new case: the body of the child found in the ravine.”

  I maintained eye contact and kept very still. No reaction for the cameras. “Why does that concern me?”

  “When we found a Theta Pi bath towel with your name on it down in the ravine, at first I thought it was coincidence. It’s hard to say how half of the debris down there ends up sticking to the riverside. Of course, it’s in our lab for analysis, and the medical examiner has not yet submitted a report on the body of the infant. But this afternoon we got a phone call, an anonymous tip, saying that the dead child found in the gorge was your baby. This caller saw you carrying an infant down into the ravine near the Stone Bridge. She said you had this child with a Merriwether professor, Dr. Scott Finnegan, and you disposed of it in the ravine.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “It’s not. And Dr. Finn is my friend. We’re not involved with each other.”

  “I see.” Taylor folded her hands on the table, an odd kindness in her warm amber eyes. “That part’s not so important. The father. We women carry the burden in these relationships, don’t we?”

  “It wasn’t my baby.”

  “Your sorority sisters claim that it was. I just spoke with Tori Winchester, and she says that Courtney and another sister, Violet Sweetwater, will back up her statement. You had a child born Halloween night. No one knew what to
do with it, so you killed the baby and disposed of the body down by the river.”

  “No. No! I would never kill a . . .” The words died in my dry throat.

  “This doesn’t look good for you, Emma.” Detective Taylor clicked her pen, her lips forming a frown. “We’re still waiting on forensic results, but do you see the preponderance of evidence here? Your towel. The baby’s body. Your sorority sisters. The witness who saw you carry that baby down to the river.”

  “No. This is not fair. It’s not true.”

  “Then tell me the truth, Emma. A few people are saying that you took the baby down to the ravine early in the morning. It was the night after Halloween, and your sorority had a party. Tell me what happened. What did you do with the body?”

  I shook my head. “I’m telling you, the body you found was not my baby,” I said slowly. “I don’t know . . . I don’t even know what I’m doing here.” I stood up from the table. I had come to the precinct with good intentions, wanting to help solve Lydia’s murder, and I’d walked right into this sticky web. “I’m done here.”

  “I don’t think so.” Detective Taylor was on her feet, squaring off opposite me. “You need to stick around. We’re not finished here.”

  “We’re done. You can’t hold me against my will.” I had seen enough crime shows to know that. “Not unless you arrest me.”

  “All right then.” She clicked her pen closed and tossed it onto the table. “Emma Danelski, you are under arrest for the murder of Baby Jane Doe.”

  * * *

  “Where is she? She’s so late.” Isabel tapped another text to Emma and pressed send. “Maybe she forgot that we planned to do this?”

  “Emma is too organized to forget.” Defiance put the hookah aside and pushed a stream of smoke out through rounded lips. “Something’s wrong. Angela hasn’t heard from her, and she’s not answering our texts.” She wasn’t one to panic, but she couldn’t ignore the jab of pain that came when she visualized Emma at this moment. “She’s not meeting us here. But I don’t know why.”