The Lion's Den: The 'impossible to put down' must-read gripping thriller of 2020

by Katherine St. John

  I quietly get the young stewardess’s attention once we have all been seated. “I’m so sorry, but I get sick facing backward. Is there any way I could sit facing forward?”

  “I don’t have the authority to change your seat,” she apologizes, “but I’m sure it would be okay if one of your friends wanted to switch with you.”

  I look up at Rhonda and Brittani, who chortles, having heard the whole thing. “Sorry, girl, I ain’t giving up my seat!”

  “I gotta sit next to my baby.” Rhonda pats Brittani’s hand. “We have so much to talk about.”

  Should have known better than to ask them. I get up to approach Wendy and Claire, who sit directly behind me, facing forward. “I hate to ask you guys this, but I get supersick facing backward. Could one of you possibly switch with me?”

  They look at me with pity for a painfully long moment before Wendy scratches my arm with her French-manicured nails—an incurable habit that I assume evolved from her theory about light touch being ingratiating. “Don’t want you retching all over the jet,” she teases. “I get a little woozy facing backward, too, but take Claire’s seat. Claire, you don’t mind, do you?”

  Claire shrugs amiably. “Okay.”

  “You sure?” I ask.

  She smiles, gathering her things. “It’s not a problem.”

  “Oh my God, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I’m so sorry for making you move. I owe you one.”

  “I totally understand. Anyway, I’m on a private jet. I really don’t care where I sit.”

  I’m just settling into my seat next to Wendy when the older flight attendant approaches, a look of alarm on her face. “My apologies. I’m going to need you to take your assigned seats for wheels up.”

  “It’s okay,” Wendy explains. “Claire switched with her.”

  The stewardess smiles tightly. “I know. But unfortunately, I’m going to need you to take your assigned seats.”

  I blink at her. “But the other flight attendant said—”

  “Mr. Lyons has requested that everyone take their assigned seats for wheels up.” She gestures toward my seat. “Please.”

  Wow. Okay. I unbuckle my seat belt and collect my things like a toddler punished for throwing her green beans on the floor at a fancy restaurant.

  As I move past the stewardess, she mouths, Sorry. I can’t quite bring myself to smile back.

  I sink into my rear-facing seat, again doubting my choice to come on this trip. In a daze, I buckle my seat belt and reach for the airsickness bag tucked into the arm of my chair. At least I’m by a window. Across from me, Rhonda and Brittani are engrossed in a celebrity magazine, tittering over the cellulite of some reality star.

  Amythest pats my hand, her violet eyes exuding genuine sympathy. “Sorry,” she whispers. “That totally sucks.”

  “I’m sorry if . . . ” I gesture to the airsickness bag.

  “It’s okay. I hold Brittani’s hair back, like, every Saturday night. And sometimes Fridays, too. And Thursdays. And . . . Well, you know. I’m pretty much an expert.”

  As she fiddles with one of her many silver earrings, I notice the script etched into the inside of her forearm. It reads TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.

  “Polonius,” I smile, recognizing the line. When her eyes flit to mine in confusion, I indicate the tattoo. “From Hamlet?”

  “Oh, no, that’s from a Reba song. ‘Fancy’?”

  Of course. “Oh yeah. I like that song. Ever been on a private jet before?”

  The tiny purple stone in her nostril glints in the sun as she shakes her head.

  And with that, the jet is hurtling forward. The ground rushes away faster and faster until we lift into the air. I look out the window, my palms sweating.

  The endless grid of Los Angeles lies beneath us in all her glory as we climb into the sky. The dark-blue sea appears to be held back only by the thin line of sand that separates it from the rows upon rows of homes sprawling across the basin and up the sides of green mountains that turn to umber as they rise past the line of irrigation.

  “Two kinds of neighborhoods in LA,” I say, “the ones with blue pools and the ones with blue tarps.”

  “I’ve always wanted a pool,” Amythest says. “But I don’t know how to swim.”

  (ten years ago)

  Georgia

  I lay on a plastic lounge chair in the scorching Georgia sun, staring up at the milky blue sky through scratched sunglasses. The day was still, the rhythmic rise and fall of the cicadas interrupted only periodically by the spray of water from the pool filter as it slapped the concrete, turning the stone darker for just a moment before evaporating.

  The oppressive midday heat ensured I had the pool to myself at this hour. If I blocked out the chain-link fence and NEWBURY PARK COMMUNITY POOL sign, I could almost imagine it was my own.

  Someday.

  Beads of sweat glistened between the round of my breasts in the new string bikini I had to hide from my father. I’d just turned sixteen, and while I’d been a head taller than most of the guys in my class since I was twelve, I was a late developer, so this was the first summer I’d gotten to enjoy having the curves of a woman.

  I sat up, took a long swig of my quickly melting blue-raspberry slushie, and contemplated the five feet between my chair and the pool. Slip on my flip-flops or hazard frying the bottoms of my feet on the blazing stone? I decided shoes were too much trouble and sprinted the short distance on tiptoe before cannonballing into the pool.

  As I dove through shards of light in the aqua blue and flipped upside down for a handstand, I heard a muffled voice calling my name. I surfaced, squinting in the sunlight, to see hot-pink toenails in bedazzled flip-flops.

  “You need a pedicure,” Summer said.

  “I know.” I looked down at my fingernails, which still had traces of dirt under them from working with my mom in the garden that morning. “Manicure, too. I was gonna do them last night, but my dad made me play chess with him.”

  “You guys are such nerds. I love it.” Summer perched on a lounge chair and took out a cigarette, frowning across the street at the low line of my house. “Your mom’s not there, is she?”

  “She’s at work.”

  She lit the cigarette and inhaled. “She’s always at work.”

  “Yeah.”

  My poor mom had been pulling double nursing shifts at the hospital in an effort to save money. Turned out college was likely gonna cost far more than my parents had thought, and their salaries weren’t nearly as great as they’d hoped––just good enough not to qualify for financial aid. But they valued learning, and a higher education free of debt was the one extravagant gift they wanted to give their children, come hell or high water. So while I studied hard in hope of obtaining a scholarship, they worked every available hour to make sure I’d be able to attend the best of the out-of-state universities that boasted the theater programs I was interested in, regardless.

  Summer exhaled, and the smoke hung in the air. “God, it’s hot out here.”

  “You should get in. The water’s almost cool.”

  She shook her head. “Just did my hair. Anyway, I gotta go with Rhonda to meet Three for lunch at the club. Wanna come? We could play tennis after.”

  Rhonda was on her third marriage, to our next-door neighbor, a lawyer I’d heard my dad call an ambulance chaser more than once. Summer never used his real name unless he was in the room.

  “Can’t. I gotta hang with my sister when she gets home.”

  Summer flicked her cigarette. “She can just go home with my sister.”

  “I promised I’d take her to the movies this afternoon.”

  Our sisters were both eleven, and my mom still made me babysit Lauren, while Rhonda not only let Brittani stay home alone, but also let her watch R-rated movies. My mom, of course, had figured this out and would allow Lauren to go over to Brittani’s only if I was there as well. But Summer didn’t need to know this.

  “Anyway, I was thinking about dyeing
my hair pink later,” I said.

  Summer wrinkled her perfectly upturned nose. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always wanted pink hair.” I pushed out of the water and flopped down on the lounger next to her.

  “Nice suit,” she said. “God, I wish my boobs were as big as yours. I’m getting new ones as soon as I’m eighteen.”

  “Well, they’re not the same size,” I confided. “Righty hasn’t quite caught up with lefty.”

  She stared at my chest. “I can’t tell.”

  “That’s because I added padding from of one of my push-up bras.” I removed the pad from under my right boob and showed it to her.

  Her liquid green eyes crinkled with laughter as she took a long drag of her cigarette, then offered it to me. I didn’t smoke, but sometimes I’d have a drag of hers, just for solidarity. “Can’t,” I said. “Lauren’ll rat if she smells it on me.”

  She shrugged and stubbed it out, then washed away the mark on the pavement with pool water, flicked the butt into the bushes, and covered it up with dirt. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She extracted a novel from her purse and set it on the lounge chair. “I finished this last night. It’s really good.”

  “Thanks! That the one about the kids who murder their friend?”

  “I don’t want to give it away.”

  Summer was the only girl I knew who was as avid a reader as I was. Most of the girls in our class could barely make it through the assigned reading, but Summer and I could easily rip through a novel in a matter of days if it was a good one.

  She gave a little wave as she latched the gate behind her. “See you at class tomorrow. And don’t dye your hair pink. Guys hate fashion colors.”

  The next morning I bounded down the stairs to find my mom sitting at the kitchen island reading the paper in her robe, coffee cup in hand, her wavy blond hair pulled up in a scrunchie. She should’ve been Summer’s mom, not mine. Even at forty-four, sans makeup, she was still what they call a knockout. Of course, I got my dad’s genes.

  She looked up and smiled. “Morning, honey.”

  “Morning. I’m late for French. I gotta go.”

  I noticed her eyes slide to my hastily selected mismatched clothes and unbrushed hair, but she stopped herself from saying anything. “At least grab a banana out of the bowl. I’m late shift tonight so I won’t see you, but there are leftovers in the fridge. Kiss?”

  She proffered her cheek, and I planted a kiss on it.

  Windows down, bumping Snoop Dogg in my mom’s old station wagon, I parked near the battered NEWBURY HIGH SCHOOL sign and hurried through the glass doors, down the wide hallway to the one open classroom, marveling at how much quieter the school was during the summer. The new teacher stood with his back to the class, writing French conjugations on the blackboard in front of twenty or so kids.

  I slid into the empty desk in front of Summer. “You’re blocking my view,” she whispered, cutting her eyes toward the front of the class as the teacher turned around. Damn. He looked like a young Johnny Depp, but athletic and without the weird hair and clothes. A ripple of energy passed through the girls around me as he began to speak, welcoming us to class—in French. Well, at least I’d be paying attention this summer.

  “Good morning, class. Welcome to French Three, where we will be speaking only in French.”

  A groan went up from the class.

  “I’m Mr. Stokes, and I’ll do my best not to make your summer-school experience torture.”

  When the bell rang an hour later, I gathered up my books, thrilled that our only homework was to watch Amélie. “If all our teachers were that hot, it’d be easy to get straight A’s,” I whispered to Summer.

  “As if you don’t already,” she teased. “Can I get a ride home? It’s past noon, so Rhonda’s probably drunk.”

  “Sure.”

  She threaded her way through the desks to the front of the class, where Mr. Stokes was erasing the blackboard.

  “Hey, you look familiar.” Summer addressed him easily, as though speaking to someone our age. “Do you play tennis at River Run Country Club?”

  He turned, smiled. “Yeah. Can’t say I’m much good anymore, though.”

  “Thought I saw you up there the other day. You didn’t look too bad. I’m Summer.”

  “Summer Sanderson, I remember.” He shifted his gaze to me. “And you’re—wait, don’t tell me—Isabella Carter?”

  I smiled. “Isabelle. Nice to meet you. Your class was great.”

  Your class was great? I was an idiot.

  Summer fixed him with those verdant green eyes. “Anymore?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “You said you weren’t good at tennis anymore?” she clarified.

  “Oh. I used to play in high school.”

  “And when was that?” she asked.

  “Five, six years ago.”

  She smiled. “Well, I’ll have to challenge you to a game if I run into you at the club, see if you’ve still got what it takes.”

  He laughed, but behind his smile I thought I could see him considering the propriety of playing tennis with a leggy blond sixteen-year-old student. Summer gave him a little wave as she sashayed out the door, and I scrambled to catch up.

  Once we were safely in the privacy of the station wagon, I burst out laughing.

  “What?” Summer asked, feigning innocence.

  “You flirted with that teacher like he was our age!”

  “Think he liked it?”

  “Oh, come on. Of course he did. You should’ve seen the look on his face as you walked away. Pure gold.”

  “Turn there.” She indicated a strip mall up ahead. “We’re getting our nails done. We can’t be walking around looking a mess.”

  The rest of the week flew by in a haze of French conjugations and afternoons by the pool, my dripping manicured fingers riffling the pages of the book Summer loaned me.

  On the Friday before the Fourth of July holiday, I joined Summer for a sunset game of tennis at River Run. The afternoon was bone-melting hot and an hour in I’d soaked through my gym shorts and T-shirt, yet somehow Summer still looked fresh in her tennis whites.

  I batted the ball over the net. “How are you not soaked?”

  “It’s this fabric. It dries it out or something.” She whacked the ball to the other side of the court, and I didn’t quite make it.

  “I’m beat,” I said, “and I’ve gotta go over to Grannie’s for dinner.”

  “I got this outfit in the club store,” she remarked as we zipped up our rackets. “Just charged it to Three’s card.”

  “That’s nice of him.”

  “Oh, please. He doesn’t know. He never so much as checks the balance. It just comes out of his account every month. We could get you an outfit,” she suggested.

  “No, that’s okay.”

  “Seriously, he’ll never know the difference.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right,” I demurred.

  “Suit yourself.” She slung her racket over her shoulder and squinted past me a few courts away. “Is that Ryan?”

  “Who’s Ryan?” I turned to look. “That looks like Mr. Stokes.”

  Mr. Stokes and another good-looking guy his age were just breaking for water a few courts away. Summer was already walking in their direction, her tennis racket slung over her shoulder.

  I hustled to catch up. “So you’re on a first-name basis with our teacher now?”

  “Act like you don’t see him,” she whispered.

  As we approached, she turned her head toward me, actively not looking in his direction. I laughed nervously.

  “Isabelle, Summer,” he called out.

  Summer feigned surprise, while I tried unsuccessfully not to act awkward. “Oh, hi!” she exclaimed blithely. “I knew I’d seen you playing here before.”

  The cute friend extended his hand to me. He had floppy light-brown hair and broad shoulders. “Hi. I’m Tyler.”

  “Isabelle.” He looked me in the eye and sm
iled as I shook his hand. Was that an interested smile? An electric shock ran through me as I realized he thought we were college girls.

  “I’m Summer,” Summer said.

  “You gals know Ryan from class?” Tyler asked.

  “Something like that,” Summer eluded. She nodded at the court. “He claims not to be any good. How about you?

  “Maybe we should play a round of doubles and you can find out for yourself,” Tyler suggested.

  “Sounds fun,” Summer agreed. “Monday?”

  “Around five?” Tyler asked.

  “We’ll see you then.”

  Summer gave a little wave as she sauntered away, her skirt flouncing. I followed her up the steps to the clubhouse. “Are you actually going to play with them?” I whispered after the door closed behind us.

  “Of course.” She shrugged, browsing through the bikinis on the swimsuit rack. “And you are, too.”

  “He’s our teacher. I’m pretty sure we’d get in trouble if the school found out.”

  “It’s just a game of tennis. And they’re not that much older than us. Come on.” She batted her eyes at me cartoonishly. “Pretty please? Be my partner in crime. It’ll be fun.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Tyler was cute, and she was right. They were only a couple of years older than us. It could be fun. “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  She grabbed my elbow and nodded toward the cash register, where a curvy blonde was paying for an armful of merchandise with a black Amex. A rock the size of Texas glistened on her ring finger as she put her wallet back in her designer tote, then gathered her shopping bags and breezed out the door, sliding a pair of dark sunglasses over her eyes.

  “Haley Youngblood,” Summer breathed. “That was the latest Dior bag, and did you see those sunglasses? They’re the new Chanel ones with real diamonds on the hinges.”

  We watched through the window as the girl fired up a white Range Rover with dealer tags.

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Her dad owns, like, half the city.”

  “Her husband,” Summer corrected me.

  “Ew! No! Seriously?”