by Meg Cabot
The third Mark had gone home for the weekend, according to his roommate, but would be back on Monday. But according to his RA, he was only five foot seven, hardly what you’d call tall.
I guess you could call the investigation—such as it was—stymied.
And with Cooper in absentia all weekend, it wasn’t like I could ask for his professional advice on the matter. I’m not sure if he was hiding from me, or busy working, or busy—well, doing something else. Since I moved in, Cooper hadn’t had a single overnight guest—which for him, at least if Jordan is to be believed, might be a record dry spell. But given how frequently he was gone from the townhouse for days at a time, I could only assume he was crashing at the home of his current flame—whoever she might be.
Which was typical of him. You know, not to rub it in my face that he’s getting some, while I’m most definitely not.
Still, I had a hard time appreciating his courteousness as the weekend wore on, and I was still no closer to figuring out who was killing the Virgins of Fischer Hall. If, um, anyone was.
Which might be why, when Monday morning finally rolls around, I’m the first one in the office, latte and bagel already ingested, deeply engrossed in Roberta Pace’s student file.
The file’s contents are remarkably similar to Elizabeth’s, although the two girls came from different sides of the country—Roberta was from Seattle. But they’d both had interfering mothers. Roberta’s mother had called Rachel to complain that Roberta needed a new roommate.
Which startles me. How could anyone not like Lakeisha?
But according to the “incident report”—one of which is filled out whenever a staff member has an interaction with a resident—when Rachel spoke to Roberta, it turned out to be Mrs. Pace, not her daughter, who had the problem with Lakeisha. “It’s not that I don’t like black people,” Mrs. Pace had told Rachel, according to the report. “I just don’t want my daughter to have to live with one.”
This is the kind of stuff, I’ve discovered, that people in higher ed have to deal with every day. The good thing is, usually it’s not the kids with the problem, but their parents. As soon as the parents go back home, everything ends up being okay.
The bad thing is—well, that people like Mrs. Pace exist at all.
I force myself to read on. According to the report, Rachel called Roberta down to the office and asked her if she wanted a room change, the way her mother said she did. Roberta said no, that she liked Lakeisha. Rachel reports that then she let Roberta go and called the mother back, gave her our standard speech in such cases—“Much of a college education takes part outside the classroom, where our students experience new cultures and ways of life. Here at New York College, we do everything we can to encourage cultural diversity awareness. Don’t you want your son/daughter to be able to get along with every sort of individual when he/she enters the workforce?”
Then Rachel told Mrs. Pace that her kid wasn’t getting a room change and hung up.
And that was it. That was the only thing in Roberta’s file. The only sign at all that she’d had any sort of trouble adjusting to college life.
Except, of course, that now Roberta is dead.
I hear the ding of an elevator, and then Rachel’s heels clacking on the marble floor outside our office. A second later, she appears in the doorway, a steaming mug of coffee that she’s brought down from her apartment in one hand, and the morning’s Times in the other. She looks startled to see me at my desk so early. Even though I live four minutes away from it, I’m almost always five minutes late to work.
“Oh my goodness,” Rachel says, looking pleased to see me. “Aren’t you here early! Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Yeah,” I say, closing Roberta’s file, and kind of sliding it under some other stuff on my desk.
Not that I don’t have every right to be reading it. It’s just that I feel kind of reluctant to tell Rachel what I suspect—about the girls being pushed, and all. I mean, technically, I probably should have said something about the key, or the condom, at least, or that both girls had recently met a guy…
But I can’t help wondering—what if Cooper is right? What if Elizabeth and Roberta really did fall, but I make this big stink about how I think they’d been murdered? Would Rachel mark down in my employment file that I suffer from paranoid delusions? Could something like that keep me from passing my six months’ probation? Could they fire me for it, the way they had Justine—even though I’d fully kept my hands off the ceramic heaters?
I’m not about to risk it. I decide to keep my suspicions to myself.
“Mostly,” I say, in reply to Rachel’s question about my weekend. Because, aside from calling about the Marks and Todds, I’d done nothing but walk Lucy, watch TV, and fiddle around with my guitar. Hardly anything worth reporting. “You?”
“Terrible,” Rachel says, shaking her head. Although for someone who’s had such a bad weekend, she looks really great. She has on a new suit, really well-cut. The black brings out the ivory in her skin, and makes her hair seem an even deeper chestnut. “Roberta’s parents came in,” Rachel goes on, “to pick up their daughter’s things. It was just a nightmare. They plan on suing, of course. Though on what grounds, I can’t imagine. Those poor people. I felt so sorry for them.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That had to suck.”
The phone on Rachel’s desk starts ringing. “Oh, hello, Stan,” she says, when she answers it. “Oh, thank you so much, but I’m fine, really. Yes, it’s been just awful—”
Wow. Stan. So Rachel’s on a first-name basis with Dr. Jessup now. Well, I guess if a couple of kids in your dorm—oops, I mean, residence hall—die, you get to know the head of your department pretty well.
I start going through the briefing forms the weekend desk attendants have left me. I can generally get payroll, the budget, any memos that need to be typed, and the desk coverage schedules done by eleven in the morning. Then I have the rest of the day free for cruising the Net, gossiping with Magda or Patty, or trying to figure out who might be killing girls in my place of work, which is how I’ve already decided I’m going to spend this particular Monday.
I just haven’t quite figured out how.
I’m just finishing up the payroll when this pair of Nike-encased feet appear in my line of vision. I lift my head, expecting to see a basketball player—hopefully with a semilegible note I can add to my collection.
Instead, I see Cooper.
“Hey,” he says.
Is it my fault my heart flips over in my chest? I mean, I haven’t seen him in a while. Like almost seventy-two hours. Plus, you know, I’m totally man-starved. That has to be why I can’t take my eyes off the front of the jeans he’s wearing, white in all the places where the denim’s been stressed, like at his knees and other, more interesting places.
He also has on a blue shirt beneath his rumpled leather jacket—the exact same blue as his crinkly eyes.
“Wh—” is the only sound I can get to come out of my mouth, on account of the jeans…and the my-being-a-total-loser-who-is-completely-in-love-with-him part.
I watch as he takes a newspaper out from beneath his arm, unfolds it, and places it in front of me.
“Wh—” I say again. At least, that’s how it sounds to my ears.
“I wanted to make sure you knew about this,” Cooper says. “You know, before Us Weekly starts calling, and catches you by surprise.”
I look down at the paper. It’s the New York Post. On the front page is a large, blown-up photo of my ex-fiancé and Tania Trace dining at some outdoor café in SoHo. Underneath their images are the words, in eighteen-point type at least:
THEY’RE ENGAGED!
13
* * *
She shut you out.
What’d you do to deserve this?
She shut you out.
Put you out of service
Did she think you’d take this lying down?
Does she think you like playin’ the clown?
&n
bsp; I’d never shut you out.
You gotta believe me.
I’d never shut you out.
You’re all I need.
Baby, can’t you see?
Don’t shut me out.
“Shut You Out”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Valdez/Caputo
From the album Staking Out Your Heart
Cartwright Records
* * *
Wow. That didn’t take long. I mean, considering we’ve only been broken up for, what? Four months? Five, maybe?
“Wh—” seems to be the only sound I am capable of making.
“Yeah,” Cooper says. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
I just sit there, looking down at the photo of Tania’s ring. It looks just like MY ring. The one I’d ripped off my finger and thrown at them when I’d caught them going at it in our bedroom.
But it can’t be the same ring. Jordan is cheap, but not THAT cheap.
I open the paper, and flip to the page with the article on it.
Look at that. They aren’t just engaged. They’re going on tour together, too.
“You okay?” Cooper wants to know.
“Yeah,” I say, glad I’ve gotten back the ability to say something besides “wh.”
“If it’s any comfort to you,” he says, “her new single got retired from TRL.”
I know better than to ask Cooper what he’s been doing watching Total Request Live. Instead, I say, “They retire videos when they’ve spent too long on the list. That means the song’s still totally popular.”
“Oh.”
Cooper looks around, clearly seeking a way to change the subject. My office is sort of the reception area for Rachel’s office, which is separated by an attractive metal grate that I’ve been trying to get the maintenance department to replace since I arrived. I’d decorated my area with Monet prints upon my arrival, and even though Rachel had wanted to replace the Giverny water lilies with anti–date rape and community development posters, I had held my ground.
I read in a magazine once that Monet is soothing. That’s why you see prints of his work in so many doctors’ offices.
“Nice place,” Cooper says. Then his gaze falls on the jar of condoms on my desk.
I feel myself turning crimson.
Rachel chooses that moment to hang up the phone and lean out of her office to ask, “May I help you?”
When she sees that the visitor to our office is of the male persuasion, over six feet and under forty—not to mention totally hot—she says, in a completely different voice, “Oh. Hello.”
“Good morning,” Cooper says politely. Cooper is unfailingly polite to everyone but members of his immediate family. “You must be Rachel. I’m Cooper Cartwright.”
“Nice to meet you,” Rachel says. She shakes the hand he offers and smiles beatifically. “Cooper…Cooper…Oh yes, Cooper! Heather’s friend. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Cooper glances in my direction, his blue eyes crinkling more than ever. “You have?”
I wish the floor would open up and swallow me whole. I try to remember what I’ve ever said to Rachel about Coop. Besides the fact that he’s my landlord, I mean. Because what if I said something really indiscreet, like that Cooper’s my idea of a perfect mate and that sometimes I fantasize about ripping his clothes off with my teeth? I’ve been known to say things like that sometimes, when I’ve had too many Krispy Kremes combined with too much caffeine.
But all Rachel says is “I suppose you’ve heard about our troubles here.”
Cooper nods.
“I have.”
Rachel smiles again, a little less beatifically this time. I can tell she’s mentally calculating how much Cooper’s watch must cost—he wears one of those gadget-heavy black plastic ones—and deciding he can’t possibly be worth a hundred grand a year.
If only she knew.
Then the phone on her desk rings again, and she goes to answer it. “Hello, Fischer Hall. This is Rachel. How may I help you?”
Cooper raises his eyebrows at me, and I remember, in a rush, what Magda had said, about Rachel being Cooper’s type.
No! It isn’t fair! Rachel is EVERYONE’S type! I mean, she’s attractive and athletic and well put together and successful and went to Yale and is making a difference in the world. What about ME? What about girls like me, who are just…well, nice? What about the nice girls? How are we supposed to compete with all of these competent, athletic, shower-taking girls, with their diplomas and their Palm Pilots and their teeny tiny butts?
Before I have a chance to say anything in defense of my kind, however, one of the maintenance workers comes rushing in.
“Haythar,” Julio cries, wringing his hands. He’s a little guy, in a brown uniform, who without being asked to, daily cleans the bronze statue of Pan in the lobby with a toothbrush.
“Haythar, that boy is doing it again.”
I blink at him. “You mean Gavin?”
“Sí.”
I glance over at Rachel. She’s gushing into the phone, “Oh, President Allington, please don’t worry about me. It’s the students I feel for—”
I sigh resignedly, push back my chair, and stand up. I’m just going to have to face that fact that where Cooper is concerned, I’m always going to look like the world’s biggest spaz.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
“I’ll take care of it,” I say.
Julio glances at Cooper, and, still wringing his hands, asks nervously, “You want I should come with you, Haythar?”
“What is this?” Cooper looks suspicious. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say to him. “Thanks for dropping by. I have to go now.”
“Go where?” Cooper wants to know.
“I just have to deal with this one thing. I’ll see you later.”
Then I hurry out of the office and head for the service elevator, which is reserved for use of the maintenance staff only, and has one of those metal gates inside the doors to keep students out…
Only I know which lever to push to throw the gate back. Which I push, then turn to say, “Ready when you are” to Julio—
Only it isn’t Julio who’s followed me. It’s Cooper.
“Heather,” he says, looking annoyed. “What’s this all about?”
“Where’s Julio?” I squeak.
“I don’t know,” Cooper says. “Back there, I guess. Where are you going?”
From inside the elevator shaft, I can hear whooping. Why me? Why, God, why?
There’s nothing I can do about it, though. I mean, it’s my job. And it will mean a free medical degree, eventually, if I can stick it out.
“Can you work a service elevator?” I ask Cooper.
He looks even more annoyed. “I think I can figure it out.”
More whooping from inside the shaft.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go then.”
Cooper, looking curious as well as annoyed now, follows me inside, ducking so as not to hit his head on the low jamb, and I pull the grate shut and yank back the power lever. As the elevator lurches upward with a groan, I put a foot on the siderails and, with a heave, grab the sides of the wide opening in the elevator’s roof where a ceiling panel has been removed. Through it, I can see the cables and bare brick walls of the elevator shaft, and high overhead, patches of bright light where the sun peeks in through the fire safety skylights.
Cooper’s curiosity quickly fades, so that all that’s left is annoyance.
“What,” he asks, “do you think you’re doing?”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m okay. I’ve done this before.” My head and shoulders are already through the hole in the elevator’s ceiling, and with another heave, I wiggle my hips through it, too.
Then I have to rest. Because that’s a lot of upper body lifting for a girl like me.
“This is what you do all day?” Cooper, down below me, demands. “Where does it say in your job de
scription that you are responsible for chasing after elevator surfers?”
“It doesn’t say it anywhere,” I reply, looking down at him in some surprise through the opening between my knees. The dark walls of the elevator shaft slip past me like water as we rise. “But somebody’s got to do it.” And if I don’t, how am I ever going to pass my six months’ probation? “What floor are we on?”
Cooper glances through the grate, at the painted numbers going by on the back of each set of elevator doors.
“Nine,” he says. “You know, one slip, and you could end up like those dead girls, Heather.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s why I have to stop them. Somebody might get hurt. Somebody else, I mean.”
Cooper says something under his breath that sounds like a curse word…which is surprising, because he so rarely swears.
One floor later, two walls of the shaft open up, so that I can see into the shafts of the building’s other elevators. One of the elevators is waiting at ten, and by craning my neck, I can see the other about five floors overhead.
The whooping is getting louder.
Right then, Elevator 2 starts to descend, and I see, perched on the cab’s roof, amid the cables and empty bottles of Colt .45, Gavin McGoren, junior, film major, diehard Matrix fan, and inveterate elevator surfer.
“Gavin!” I yell, as Elevator 2 slides past me. Unlike me, he’s standing upright, preparing to leap onto the roof of Elevator 1 as it goes by. “Get down from there right now!”
Gavin throws me a startled glance, then groans when he recognizes me between the cables. I see several flailing arms and legs as the friends he’s surfing with dive back down through the maintenance panel and into the elevator car, to save themselves from being ID’d by me.