Diamonds in the Rough

by Michelle Madow

  “Perfect.” Grandma smiled. “If we talk any longer we’ll be late for church, but I’m glad we got to catch up.”

  “And I’m glad to see you girls, even if it’s only on the computer,” their mom said, reaching for the screen. “I can’t wait to see you over Thanksgiving. I love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Courtney said, Savannah echoing her. Peyton said a simple bye, and Courtney closed out the conversation.

  “That wasn’t as hard as I thought,” Savannah said. “And Mom looked amazing, like she was ten years younger. I really think rehab is going to stick.”

  She sounded hopeful, so Courtney nodded, trying to look just as optimistic.

  “What’s wrong?” Savannah asked. “Don’t you think rehab will work?”

  “It’s not that,” Courtney said. “I agree that Mom looks better than ever.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “It was Mom’s reaction when I mentioned the kidnapping,” she said. “She was so worried, as if I knew something I shouldn’t. But when I told her what Adrian told us, she was relieved. Almost like there was something more to the story that they’re keeping from us.”

  “What could they be keeping from us?” Savannah asked. “Adrian told us what happened.”

  “He did, but he looked so sad,” Courtney said. “The ending to the story was happy—he got me back safe, and hired us bodyguards so it wouldn’t happen again. It seems like an extreme reaction to cut us out of his life until now.”

  “Maybe he just wasn’t interested in being around little kids,” Peyton said, finishing off the last of her coffee.

  Savannah crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at her.

  “What?” Peyton said. “Some people don’t like little kids. I have trouble imagining Adrian playing tea party with a two-year-old.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Courtney said, although she couldn’t picture Adrian playing tea party with two-year-olds, either. Their mom also lost patience easily. It was probably why they’d had a nanny. “I don’t know if I’m reading into things too much, but whenever I mention the kidnapping to anyone who lived through it, they get this scared look, as if I’ve heard something I shouldn’t. I get a sense that there’s something they’re not telling me—something big that I should know.”

  “I haven’t noticed,” Peyton said. “But if you’re convinced there’s more, you could try seeing your secret records.”

  Courtney whipped her head to look at Peyton. “My what?”

  “Your records,” Peyton repeated. “This summer, Jackson told me that there are records kept on all of us, for our personal security. Maybe there’s something in them about the kidnapping.”

  “Are we allowed to see these records?”

  “Don’t think so,” Peyton said. “I think Jackson slipped when he mentioned it to me. I asked him if I could see mine, and he said no way.”

  “Great.” Courtney crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. How was she supposed to hack into secret records that were most likely kept on Adrian’s computer, guarded with a password in his office surrounded by security men and cameras?

  That was a task for the people in that Ocean’s Eleven movie—not her.

  She didn’t have much time to worry about it, because someone knocked on the door. She answered it, and found Adrian and Rebecca waiting in the hall. He’d returned from his trip to China today, and had promised he would stop by. He was dressed casually, in a navy button-down and black dress pants; and Rebecca looked like she was on her way to the gym, in yoga pants and a draping black shirt, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  Adrian, as usual, got straight to the point. “Have you finished the Skype call with your mom?”

  “Yeah.” Courtney motioned for them to come in.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She looks really good,” Courtney said. “Much healthier, and she sounds happier, too.”

  “And Grandma invited us to visit over Thanksgiving,” Savannah said. “Is it okay if we go?”

  Adrian paused and looked at Rebecca, as if she knew the answer.

  “I don’t see why not,” Rebecca said.

  “Do you girls want to go?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Savannah said, nearly bouncing out of her chair. Courtney agreed, and Peyton shrugged, which was her way of saying sure.

  “Then you can visit your grandma and mom over Thanksgiving,” Adrian said. “On one condition.”

  “What’s the condition?” Courtney’s stomach knotted.

  “That you spend Christmas with me.”

  “Here, in Vegas?” Savannah asked.

  “We could do that,” Adrian said. “Or we could go to New York to see the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center and the Rockettes show at Radio City, St. Kitts to spend Christmas relaxing on the beach, Rome to see the Pope speak at the Vatican or whatever other ideas you have. We’ll figure something out. But I want to spend Christmas together, as a family.” He put his arm around Rebecca’s shoulders, and the two of them shared a smile.

  “We could extend the trip through New Years,” Rebecca added. “I’ve heard the fireworks over the Coliseum are spectacular.”

  “That sounds fair,” Courtney said, although it was hard to imagine Christmas not at home, with Mom and Grandma. Grandma always cooked dinner on Christmas Eve at her place, and they listened to her cheesy CD of Christmas carols while they ate. When they got home, they watched Christmas movies on TV until the clock struck eleven-thirty, and then their mom forced them to bed so they wouldn’t be awake when Santa came through the window. (They didn’t have a chimney, so Mom insisted Santa entered through the window.) In the morning, there would be a present-opening frenzy.

  When Courtney was younger, she’d thought the presents came from Santa, but as she’d gotten older, she’d wondered where Mom got the money to buy the gifts. Now she suspected that for that one day every year, their mom had accepted financial help from Adrian.

  “Perfect,” Adrian said. “I’ll have your travel arrangements for Thanksgiving arranged. I’m glad your mom is doing better.”

  “She is,” Courtney said. “But there was something about the conversation that struck me as strange.”

  Peyton and Savannah looked surprised—apparently they hadn’t expected her to bring it up to Adrian. But Courtney was too curious to let this go.

  “And what was that?” Adrian asked.

  “At one point, I mentioned the kidnapping,” Courtney started, playing with her hands. “Mom was shocked that I brought it up, like she didn’t want me to know. But then Grandma asked me to tell her what you told me, and after I did, she was relieved. It…made me feel like there’s something you aren’t telling me.” She felt bad accusing Adrian of lying, but she couldn’t let this slide.

  Adrian’s face hardened, and Rebecca toyed with her pearl necklace—something she did when she was nervous. Was Rebecca in on this, too?

  “I’ve told you everything you need to know,” Adrian said smoothly. “Your mom must have been worried that you were going to get angry at her for keeping the kidnapping from you, and relaxed once she realized that wasn’t the case. Anyway, I’m jet-lagged from the trip, so I’m going to get some rest and get caught up on some work. I’ll see you all for dinner tonight. Seven-thirty at the Five Diamond.”

  “And I’m going to the spa this afternoon, but I have some time before my appointment if you girls want to join me for brunch,” Rebecca said.

  Savannah and Peyton said they could go, but Courtney had a lot of homework and studying. Yesterday she’d been too tired after getting back from the Habitat build to focus.

  But when she brought her laptop back into her room to work, her mind kept wandering to what Adrian had said. Telling her “everything she needed to know” wasn’t the same as telling her e
verything. And her mom’s reaction was more than relief that Courtney wasn’t going to yell at her over Skype.

  What was everyone hiding? And how would Courtney get them to tell her the truth? It had been clear from Adrian’s response that her suspicions wouldn’t be enough to get him to budge.

  Whatever the secret was, she would have to uncover it herself.

  Chapter 11: Peyton

  “And in the gift bags for the kids, we can include the latest iPod,” Rebecca suggested, writing the idea down in her iPad.

  “Good idea,” Savannah said. “We can load it with my Sweet Sixteen playlist.”

  All through brunch, Peyton had been listening to Rebecca and Savannah plan Savannah’s Sweet Sixteen party for her birthday in December. It was becoming an all-out extravaganza. When Peyton had turned sixteen, her mom had taken her and her sisters to a Tex-Mex restaurant, where she’d been forced to wear a sombrero while the wait staff sang “Happy Birthday” in Spanish. When it was time to leave, her mom had been so sloshed on giant margaritas that Peyton had driven the family home. Then she’d snuck out—which was easy to do when Mom was passed out—to meet up with friends. They’d seen some guys from a band they knew play a local show and had hung out at a diner until sunrise, where they’d talked, laughed and gorged themselves on pancakes and milk shakes.

  Savannah’s party, on the other hand, would be at Abandon Nightclub, two weeks before the club officially opened in the Diamond Residences. It sounded like it would be bigger than a wedding. The theme of the party was music, and Savannah and Rebecca had been discussing the details of centerpieces, color schemes, food options and gift bags for the past hour.

  But Peyton had been unable to focus on the conversation, because she was seething about an incredibly awful Campusbuzz forum post that a girl from one of her classes had linked her to last night. Peyton didn’t spend much time online, but apparently someone had posted something “so terrible about her and her sisters” that she had to see it. So she’d clicked the link.

  The first two images on it were the ones of her and Hunter at the Lobby Bar—the pictures she remembered deleting from Madison Lockhart’s phone. Madison must have backed them up. There were more photos of her and Hunter around the pool—photos that Madison easily could have taken, since she also lived in the Diamond Residences.

  Madison had obviously written the post.

  Not unexpectedly, the things Madison had written about Peyton were downright cruel. Every sentence made her angrier than the last, until Peyton had gotten so pissed that she’d wanted to punch the computer screen. But despite all of that, she might have been able to let it go…if Madison hadn’t continued on to insult Courtney and Savannah. The section about Courtney was all lies, and the one about Savannah linked to an awful video of her singing drunken karaoke. Savannah was trying so hard to make her YouTube channel a success. When she saw what Madison had posted about her, it would crush her.

  Madison was a cruel, hateful, jealous bitch.

  So while Savannah and Rebecca were chatting about party ideas, Peyton was brainstorming ways to knock Madison off her pedestal. She had a few thoughts, and was leaning toward one of them. If she could pull it off, Madison would get what she deserved.

  Finally the brunch/party planning session ended, and Rebecca went to the spa while Peyton and Savannah headed to the pool. Peyton had been so distracted by the forum post and the Skype call with Mom and Grandma that she’d forgotten to reserve a cabana at the main pool that morning, and they were all booked, so she and Savannah went to the exclusive Diamond Residences rooftop pool instead. It was smaller than the main one, more for wading than swimming, but there were plenty of open chairs. They laid down their towels and situated themselves for a day of soaking up the sun.

  “How was your dinner with Damien last night?” Peyton asked Savannah as she sprayed on her tanning oil. “You went to bed so quickly after coming back that I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

  “Sorry,” Savannah said. “I had a rough night, so I went to bed early.”

  “What happened?” Peyton stopped midspray to look at Savannah. “Damien didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

  “No!” Savannah’s eyes widened. “Dinner went well. But right before we left, I saw this video someone posted of me singing….” Her voice shook, and she took a few sips from her water bottle. “It was so awful. I was at that volleyball party on Friday night, and I had too much to drink, and people were doing karaoke. So I stupidly decided to sing a really hard song without any practice. A bunch of people recorded it, then someone created a fake YouTube account and posted the video, and I have no idea who did it. I talked with Damien about it last night, and he had ideas to help my YouTube channel…but I wish I knew who posted that video.”

  “I know who posted it.” Peyton ground her teeth, her body tense.

  “What?” Savannah gasped. “How could you know?”

  “You found the video through that Campusbuzz post, right?”

  “No…” Savannah shook her head. “Someone linked it in a comment to my videos. What Campusbuzz post?”

  Crap. Savannah hadn’t seen it. And now that Peyton had mentioned it, she couldn’t keep it from her sister.

  “This one.” Peyton took out her iPhone, brought up the post on the website and handed it to Savannah. She hated knowing what her sister was about to read. “Prepare yourself—it’s harsh.”

  It took Savannah a few minutes to read, and she occasionally glanced up at Peyton, saying “Omigosh,” “I can’t believe someone wrote this” or something of the sort.

  “Wow,” she said once she was finished, her eyes still locked on the screen. “Whoever wrote this hates us.”

  “Yeah,” Peyton agreed. “You could say that.”

  They sat in silence as Savannah read it again.

  “I know the stuff about me isn’t true, and neither is the stuff about Courtney…but you didn’t hook up with Hunter Sterling, did you?”

  Peyton laughed. Out of everything in the post, that was the first thing Savannah asked? “No,” she said. “I’ve seen him around and talked with him, but that’s all.”

  “Okay.” Savannah handed the phone back to Peyton. “But how do you know who posted the video?”

  “Because I know who posted this.” Peyton pointed to her phone. “And the person who wrote it has to be the same person who uploaded the video.”

  “It seems like it,” Savannah said. “But you can’t know who wrote the forum post. It’s all anonymous.”

  “I do know, because I know who took those pictures of me and Hunter at the bar.” With that, Peyton summarized what had happened that day with Madison—how she’d caught her taking the pictures, approached her about it, been reinforced by Jackson and deleted the photos from her phone. “She must have backed them up before I deleted them,” she said. “Because I remember what the photos looked like, and they’re the same ones that are on that forum post. And since Madison lives at the Diamond, she could have been at the pool that day to get the other photos.” She paused to see if Savannah was going to disagree, and when she didn’t, she continued, “Did you see Madison at Jackie’s volleyball party on Friday?”

  “No.” Savannah shrugged. “But I drank a lot, so everything’s blurry. Damien and Oliver were both there, and Madison’s close friends were with them, so it’s possible she showed up by the time karaoke started.”

  “It’s more than possible,” Peyton said. “I would bet she was there. And we know she isn’t fond of us. She has to be the one behind the post.”

  “It makes sense,” Savannah agreed. “I knew she was mean, but wow, this takes it to a new level. I just wish there was a way we could…” She paused and glanced at the sky, as if searching for the right word.

  “Get back at her?” Peyton supplied.

  “Yeah,” Savannah said. �
��To make her stop being so awful to us.”

  “Well…” Peyton took a deep breath and chipped at her nail polish. “I have an idea of how we can do that.”

  “What is it?”

  “It stems from something that happened last summer.” Peyton sipped from her water bottle, contemplating how to word it so she didn’t sound like an awful sister. “I didn’t mention it because I wanted to forget it happened, but…I slept with Oliver.”

  “What?” Savannah said so loudly that some people turned to look at her. She lowered her voice and continued, “You had sex with Oliver? When? And why? Especially since you knew he had that stupid bet about trying to sleep with all of us.”

  “Yes, I had sex with Oliver.” Peyton fidgeted, wanting to get past this part of the story and on to the part about getting back at Madison. “I’m not proud of it, which is why I didn’t tell anyone, but it’s done. When it happened, I didn’t know about the bet.”

  “And we found out about the bet the night of the grand opening, so you had to have hooked up with him the first week we were in town.”

  “Yep.” Peyton nodded, waiting for her sister to piece it together.

  “But Oliver was interested in Courtney that week. He went to that charity event and to the grand opening with her. So it had to have been before he asked Courtney out, because you wouldn’t sleep with him if you thought Courtney was interested in him…right?”

  “Of course it was before he asked Courtney out.” Peyton couldn’t believe Savannah would consider otherwise.

  “Omigosh.” Savannah’s eyebrows shot up, and she ran her hands through her hair. “It wasn’t the first night you met him, was it? The night we got here—on the Fourth of July?”

  “It was,” Peyton admitted, unable to look at her sister. “It was the only one-night stand I’ve ever had, and it was stupid. I was so angry about everything—about Mom putting her drinking before us, about us getting shipped away and about her lying to us about Adrian, that I wasn’t thinking straight. Oliver and I started dancing, and he was hot, and one thing led to another. There were a few days when I thought I was interested in him…but it all went to hell that night he asked Courtney to his mom’s charity event instead of me.”