by Meg Cabot
A heterosexual man, worth more than a hundred thousand dollars a year, if you count the trust fund he’s supposed to have.
Christopher Allington. Christopher Allington is that man.
“Heather,” Cooper says. “Heather? Look. I’m sorry. But there’s no way. Rachel Walcott is not a killer.”
I suck in my breath.
“How do you know?” I ask. “I mean, why not? Why not her, as opposed to someone else? Because she’s a woman? Because she’s pretty?”
“Because it’s crazy,” Cooper says. “Come on, it’s been a long day. Maybe you should get some rest.”
“I am not tired,” I say. “Think about it, Cooper. I mean, really think about it. Elizabeth and Roberta met with Rachel before they died—I bet the stuff in their files, the stuff about their moms calling, isn’t even true. I bet their mothers never called. And now Amber…”
“There are seven hundred residents of Fischer Hall,” Cooper points out. “Are all the ones who had meetings with Rachel Walcott dead?”
“No, just the ones who also had relationships with Christopher Allington.”
Cooper shakes his head.
“Heather, try to look at this logically. How could Rachel Walcott have the physical strength to throw a full-grown, struggling young woman down an elevator shaft? Rachel can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds herself. It’s just not possible, Heather.”
“I don’t know how she’s doing it, Cooper. But I do know that it’s a bit of a coincidence that both Rachel and Chris were at Earlcrest last year, and now they’re both here at New York College. I would bet cash money that Rachel followed Christopher Allington—and his parents—here.”
When he continues to look hesitant, I stand up, push back my chair, and say, “There’s only one way we’ll ever know for sure.”
26
* * *
What’d I do
To get you so mad?
What’d I say
That’s got you feeling so bad?
I never meant it
I swear it’s not true
The only guy I care about
Has always been you.
Oh, don’t go away mad.
Come on over, let me
Make you feel glad
“Apology Song”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Caputo/Valdez
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
* * *
Not surprisingly, Cooper balks at the idea of driving all the way to the Hamptons at seven o’clock on a weeknight just to have a word with a man the police themselves won’t even haul in for questioning.
When I remind him that Chris is more likely to talk to either of us than the police, Cooper is still not convinced. He insists that after the injuries I’d sustained that morning, what I need is a good night’s sleep, not a six-hour drive to East Hampton and back.
When I remind him that it is our duty as good citizens to do whatever we can to see that this woman is put behind bars before she kills again, Cooper assures me that he’ll call Detective Canavan in the morning and tell him my theory.
“But by morning Amber might be dead!” I cry. I know she’s not dead yet, because I’ve just called her room and learned, from her roommate, that she is watching a movie in another resident’s room down the hall.
“If the residence hall director requests a meeting with her,” I’d said, semihysterically, to Amber’s roommate, “tell Amber she is NOT to go to it. Do you understand?”
“Um,” the roommate said. “Okay.”
“I mean it,” I’d cried, before Cooper could pry the phone from my hand. “Tell Amber that the assistant director of Fischer Hall says that if the residence hall director requests another meeting with her, she is not to go. Or even open her door to her. Do you understand me? Do you understand that you will be in very big trouble with the assistant director of Fischer Hall if you do not deliver this message?”
“Uh,” the roommate said. “Yeah. I’ll give her the message.”
Which is probably not the most subtle way to have gotten my point across. But at least I know Amber is safe.
For the time being.
“We’ve got to go, Cooper!” I urge him, as soon as I’ve put the phone down. “I’ve got to know, now!”
“Heather,” Cooper says, looking frustrated. “I swear to God, of all the people I’ve ever met, you have got to be the most—”
I suck in my breath. He’s going to say it! Whatever it was he’d been about to say in my office! He’s going to say it now!
Except that back then—in my office, I mean—it had sounded like what he’d been about to say was complimentary. Judging from the way his jaw is clenched now, though, I don’t think he’s about to say something nice about me. In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to hear his next words.
Because, truthfully, the thing with Rachel is more important.
Which is why I say, “This is stupid. You know, there are trains to the Hamptons. I’ll just go look up the schedule online and—”
I don’t know if he gave in because he realized it was the only way to shut me up, or if he was genuinely concerned that I might do myself harm on the LIRR. Maybe he was just trying to placate the crazy injured girl.
In any case, in the time it takes me to get dressed, Cooper has retrieved his car—a ’74 BMW 2002, a vehicle that invariably causes the drug dealers on my street to hoot tauntingly, because, in their opinion, the only good BMW is a new one—from its parking garage. He isn’t happy about it, or anything. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was cursing whatever impulse had prompted him to ask me to move in with him in the first place.
And I feel bad about it. I really do.
But not enough to tell him to forget the whole thing. Because, you know, a girl’s life is at stake.
It’s easy to find the Allingtons’ weekend place. I mean, they’re in the East Hampton phone book. If they didn’t want people to drop in, they’d have had an unlisted number, right?
And okay, there’s this big wrought-iron gate at the end of their driveway, with a built-in intercom and everything, that might lead the average person to believe visitors were unwelcome.
But I for one didn’t fall for it. I hop out of the car and go to press on the buzzer. And even when no one answers, I’m not discouraged. Well, very much.
“Heather,” Cooper says, from the driver’s window of his car, which he’s rolled down. “I don’t think anybody’s going to—”
But then the intercom crackles, and a voice that is unmistakably Chris’s says, “What?”
I can understand why he’s so testy. I’d sort of been leaning on the buzzer, knowing that eventually the person inside would be driven insane and have to answer. It’s a trick I’d picked up from the reporters who used to stake out the place Jordan and I had shared.
“Um, hi, Chris,” I say into the intercom. “It’s me.”
“Me who?” Chris demands, still sounding annoyed.
“You know,” I say, trying to sound girlishly flirtatious. “Let me in.”
Then I add the three little words I’d learned from Justine’s files that few students—and that’s what Chris is, after all—can resist: “I brought pizza.”
There’s a pause. Then the gate slowly starts to open.
I hurry back to the car, where Cooper is sitting, looking—even if I do say so myself—vaguely impressed.
“Pizza,” he echoes. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
“Works every time,” I say. I don’t mention how I knew. I’m kind of sick of Justine, to tell the truth.
We pull into the circular driveway, and Villa d’Allington, in all its white stucco glory, looms ahead of us.
I’ve been to the Hamptons before, of course. The Cartwrights have a house there, right on the water, surrounded on three sides by a federally protected bird sanctuary, so no else can build there, and ruin the view.
I’ve been to ot
her people’s homes there as well—houses that were considered architectural marvels and once even a chateau that had been transported, brick by brick, from the south of France. Seriously.
But I’ve never seen anything quite like the Allingtons’ house. Not in the Hamptons, anyway. Stark white and massive, filled with airy, Mediterranean archways and bright, flowering plants, the place is lit up as brightly as Rockefeller Center.
Only instead of a great big gold guy looming over a skating rink, there’s a great big white house looming over a swimming pool.
“How about,” Cooper says, as we get out of the car, “you let me do the talking for a change.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You aren’t going to hit him, are you?”
“Why would I do that?” Cooper asks, sounding surprised.
“Don’t you hit people? I mean, in your line of work?”
“Can’t remember the last time I did,” Cooper says, mildly.
A little bit disappointed, I say, “Well, I think Christopher Allington’s the type of guy you’d like to hit. If you hit people.”
“He is,” Cooper agrees, with a faint smile. “But I won’t. At least, not right away.”
We hear them first, and see them as soon as we part the morning glories that hang like a curtain over one of the archways. Ducking through the sweet-smelling vines, we end up in the backyard. To the left of the shimmering pool is a hot tub, steaming in the cool night air.
In the hot tub are two people, neither of whom, I’m thankful to see, is President Allington or his wife. I think that might have killed me, the sight of President Allington in a Speedo.
They don’t notice us right away, probably because of all the steam and the bright floodlights that light the deck around the pool, but cast the hot tub area in shadow. Scattered here and there along the wide wooden planks of the patio are lounge chairs with pale pink cushions. Off to one side of the pool is a bar, a real bar with stools in front of it and a back-lit area that’s filled with bottles.
I approach the hot tub and clear my throat noisily.
Chris lifts his face from the girl whose breasts he was nuzzling and blinks at us. He is clearly drunk.
The girl is, too. She says, “Hey, she hasn’t got any pizza.” She sounds disappointed about it, even though the two of them seemed to have been doing just fine for themselves in the extra cheese department.
“Hi, Chris,” I say, and I sit down on the end of one of the lounge chairs. The cushion beneath me is damp. It has rained recently in the Hamptons.
It seems to take a few seconds for Chris to recognize me. And when he does, he isn’t too happy.
“Blondie?” He reaches up to slick some of his wet hair back from his eyes. “Is that you? What are you doing here?”
“We just dropped by to ask you a few questions,” I say. Lucy has come with us—I couldn’t leave her cooped up in the brownstone all night—and now she butts her head against my knees and sits down, panting happily. “How are you, anyway?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” Chris replies. He looks up at Cooper. “Who’s he?”
“A friend,” Cooper says. Then adds, “Of hers,” I guess so there won’t be any confusion.
“Huh,” Chris says. Then, in an apparent attempt to make the best out of a bad situation, he goes, “Well. Care for a drink?”
“No, thank you,” Cooper says. “What we’d really like is to talk to you about Elizabeth Kellogg and Roberta Pace.”
Chris doesn’t look alarmed. In fact, he doesn’t even look surprised. Instead he says graciously, “Oh, sure. Sure. Oh, hey, where are my manners? Faith, honey, go inside and rustle up some grub for us, will you? And grab another bottle of wine while you’re in there, why don’t you?”
The girl in the hot tub pouts. “But, Chris—”
“Go on, honey.”
“But my name’s Hope, not Faith.”
“Whatever.” Chris slaps her on the backside as she climbs, dripping like a mermaid, from the hot tub. She has on a bathing suit, but it’s a bikini, and the top is so skimpy and her boobs so large that the tiny Lycra triangles seem like mere suggestions.
Cooper notices the bikini phenomenon right away. I can tell by his raised eyebrows. It so pays to be a trained investigator.
Her rear proves as impressive as her front. Not an ounce of cellulite. I wonder if she, like Rachel, had StairMastered it all away.
“So, Chris,” Cooper says, as soon as the girl is gone. “What’s the deal with you and Rachel Walcott?”
Chris chokes on the sip of Chardonnay he’d been taking.
“Wh-what?” he coughs, when he can speak again.
But Cooper’s just looking down at Chris the way he might have looked down at a really interesting but kind of gross bug that he’d found in his salad.
“Rachel Walcott,” he says. “She was the director of the dorm—I mean, residence hall—you lived in your senior year at Earlcrest. Now she’s running Fischer Hall, where your parents live, and where Heather here works.”
Fumbling for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter he had left by the side of the Jacuzzi, Chris pulls one out with trembling fingers and lights it. He inhales, and in the semidarkness, the tip of the cigarette glows redly.
“Shit” is all he says.
I’m not a trained detective and all, but even I think this answer is kind of…suspicious.
“So what gives between the two of you?” Cooper asks. “You and Rachel. I mean, you might not have noticed, but people are dying—”
“I’ve noticed,” Chris says sharply. “Okay? I’ve noticed. What the fuck do you think?”
Cooper apparently doesn’t think this last part is all that necessary. You know, the bad language.
Because he says to Chris, in a much harsher voice than he’s spoken in before, “You knew? How long?”
Chris blinks up at him through the steam from the bubbling jets. “What?” he asks, like someone who isn’t sure he was hearing things right.
“How long?” Cooper demands again, in a voice that makes me glad it’s Chris he’s talking to, and not me. It also makes me doubt his story. You know, about not hitting people in his line of work. “How long have you known that Rachel was the one killing those girls?”
I can see that Chris has gone as pale as the watery lights beneath the surface of the pool, and it isn’t from the cigarette smoke.
I don’t blame him. Cooper’s scaring me a little, too.
“I didn’t know,” Chris says, in a choked voice that is quite different from the cocky one he’d used previously. “I didn’t put it together until last night, when you”—he looks at me “when you and I danced, and you told me Beth and Bobby were…were the ones who—”
“Oh, c’mon, Chris,” Cooper says. “You expect us to believe that with all the publicity on campus after those supposed accidents—”
“I didn’t know!” Chris splashes one hand into the water to emphasize his words, and gets Lucy’s paws wet. She looks down at them quizzically, then goes to work with her tongue. “I swear to God, I didn’t know. I don’t exactly have a lot of free time, and what I do have I’m not going to waste reading the newspapers. I mean, of course I heard two girls in Fischer Hall had died, but I didn’t know they were my two girls.”
“And you didn’t notice that neither of the girls was returning your calls?”
Chris ducks his head. Shamefacedly, I think.
“Because you never called them again.” Cooper’s voice is cold as ice.
Chris looks defensive. “Do you?” he demands, of Cooper. “Do you always call the next day?”
“If I want there to be a next time,” Cooper replies, without missing a beat.
“Exactly.” Chris’s voice drips with meaning. At first I don’t get what he means.
Then I do.
Oh.
Cooper shakes his head, looking as disgusted as I feel. Well, almost, anyway. “You expect me to believe that you never knew those girls were dead until you heard it fr
om Heather the other night?”
“That’s right,” Chris says, and suddenly he flicks his cigarette into the rhododendrons and hauls himself out of the Jacuzzi. All he has on is a pair of baggy swim trunks. His frame is lean but muscular, his skin tanned to a light gold. There isn’t a single patch of body hair on him, unless you count what curls out from beneath his arms.
“And when I heard about it, the first thing I did was, I came here.” Chris stands up, wrapping himself in a wide, pale pink towel. “I needed to get away, I needed to think, I needed to—”
“You needed to avoid being hauled in for questioning by the cops,” Cooper finishes for him.
“That, too. Look, so I slept with ’em—”
I can stand it no longer. Really. I feel sick—and not just because of all the Indian food we’d eaten in the car on the way over, either.
No, this isn’t just indigestion. It’s disgust.
“Don’t act like it’s no big deal, Chris,” I say. “Your sleeping with those girls, then not calling them again. Not even telling them your real name in order to keep them from knowing who your father is. Because it is a big deal. Or it was, to them. You used them. You used them because you know you…you know you’ve got…well, performance inadequacies.”
“What?” Chris looks shocked. “I do not!”
“Of course you do,” I say, knowing I sound like Sarah, and not caring. “Why else were you looking for girls who don’t have any sexual experience—until Hope here—so they don’t have anything to measure your performance by?”
Chris looks as stunned as if I’d hit him.
And maybe, in a way, I have.
Cooper tugs on my sleeve and whispers, “Whoa, tiger. Simmer down. Let’s not get our roles here confused. I’m the bad cop. You’re the good one.”
Then, patting me gently on the back—the way I pat Indy when I want him to calm down—Cooper says to a red-faced Chris, “Listen, nobody’s accusing you of murdering anybody. What we want to know about is your relationship with Rachel Walcott.”
“Why?” Chris is over being scared, and back to being surly. My remark about performance inadequacies has upset him. Undoubtedly because it’s true.