Stunning

by Sara Shepard

Page 20

 

  “I know somewhere she’s going to be. ” Hanna ran her tongue over her teeth. “My dad’s campaign party tomorrow. Maybe we could figure out a way to snag her phone and go through her texts then. You guys are all going to be there anyway, right?”

  Emily groaned. “I never want to see Gayle again. ”

  “We’ll keep you safe,” Hanna assured her. “But if Gayle does want to confront you, we could steal her phone while she’s preoccupied. Then we’ll prove she’s A. ”

  “But she might not be A,” Emily moaned.

  “Look at it this way,” Aria said gently. “Even if she isn’t A, maybe there’s something in her phone about her search for the baby. Maybe A tipped her off or something. You want to know what she’s up to, right?”

  Emily agreed, and the girls promised to be on the lookout for anyone following them and get in touch as soon as they got another message from A. After she hung up, Hanna parted two of the leaves of the potted plant and gazed into Victoria’s Secret. Mike and Colleen weren’t there anymore. Shit.

  Then she spied them walking hand-in-hand toward the exit. Shooting out of the plants—and getting strange looks from the passersby—she trailed them to the parking garage. They paused by Colleen’s car and talked. Hanna ducked behind a VW Beetle to listen.

  “Are you sure I can’t come with you?” Mike was saying.

  “It’s probably better I go alone,” Colleen answered, her hand on the driver’s door.

  “Come on. ” Mike brushed Colleen’s bangs out of her eyes. “I bet it’s going to be really hot. ”

  Colleen kissed the tip of Mike’s nose. “I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done, okay?”

  She slipped into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. Mike waved until she’d rounded the bend. Hanna darted for her car, which was parked only a few aisles away. She needed to get a move on if she was going to follow Colleen to her secret rendezvous.

  She caught up to Colleen on the little driveway out of the mall to Route 30, then trailed the car down a series of back roads. Strip malls gave way to old Victorian houses and the brick-and-stone school buildings of Hollis. One street was blocked off; there had been a fender-bender between a Jeep and an old Cadillac. Hanna averted her eyes, the old memories of her own car accident from the previous summer swarming back to her. Not that she’d stayed around to see the ambulance lights.

  Colleen turned onto a side street and expertly parallel-parked at the curb. Hanna turned her car around in an alley, parked crookedly, and dove into a bush just in time to see Colleen walking up the front steps of an old, grand house on the corner. Colleen rang the bell and stood back, fixing her hair.

  The door opened, and a graying man with crow’s feet opened the door. “Great to see you,” he said, giving Colleen an air kiss.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me at such short notice,” Colleen said.

  “Anything for you, dear. ” The guy cupped Colleen’s face in his hands. “You have such good bone structure. You’re a natural. ”

  Colleen tittered bashfully. “I’m so glad you think so. ”

  A natural for what? Hanna pushed a branch out of the way. Was Colleen two-timing Mike with this geezer?

  When the door slammed, Hanna scampered up to the porch and stared at a plaque next to the doorbell. JEFFREY LABRECQUE, it said. PHOTOGRAPHER.

  Hanna snickered. So Colleen was getting professional photos taken. She knew just how that would go—if this Jeffrey character was anything like Patrick, her seedy photographer, he’d butter up Colleen and then convince her to take off her top. Mike’s jealousy of Patrick—and Hanna’s reaction to it—was what had broken them up. It could be just the thing to ruin Mike and Colleen, too.

  Hanna peered into the window, watching the photographer set up a bunch of lights around a black screen. He gestured for Colleen to sit on a stool, then perched behind his camera. The flash went off again and again, Colleen twisting her knees this way and that and making faces ranging from ecstatic to intense to brooding to sullen. After a few minutes, Jeffrey Labrecque walked toward Colleen and said something Hanna couldn’t hear. He stepped away, and Colleen slipped off her cardigan sweater. Hanna leaned forward. This was probably the moment she was going to pose in her lacy black bra.

  But when Jeffrey stepped away, Colleen was still in a T-shirt. She smiled for the camera, looking wholesome and sweet. Within minutes, the photo session was over, and Colleen rose from the stool, handed the photographer a check, and shook his hand.

  “Unbelievable,” Hanna muttered. Everything was so damn pure the whole vignette could have a halo over it.

  Colleen headed for the front door, and Hanna skittered off the porch before Colleen saw her. As she rounded the corner, she almost ran smack into a black sedan chugging at the curb. The windows were tinted, but she could see a pair of eyes peering through the slightly open backseat window. Before she could see who it was, the car sped away. Hanna swung around and stared at the receding car, but it was too far away for her to see the license plate.

  Beep.

  Hanna’s phone glowed at the bottom of her bag. The words of a new text assaulted her as soon as she looked at the screen.

  You’re close, Hanna. Keep digging. —A

  20

  A POT OF GOLD

  That same afternoon, Spencer left the seedy Motel 6 on the outskirts of the Princeton University campus, where she’d been staying since the party disaster last night, and started toward the train station. The rain had abated and the sun had come out, making the sidewalks glimmer and the air smell like fresh flowers. People folded up their umbrellas and lowered their raincoat hoods. A couple of Ultimate Frisbee players straggled out of the dorms and resumed their games. On any other day, Spencer would have taken the opportunity to sit on one of the benches and just gaze at the splendor that was Princeton University. But today, she just felt exhausted.

  Starting almost immediately after the police had hauled Harper away from the party, Spencer had texted Harper with several profuse apologies, but Harper hadn’t responded. Neither had Quinn or Jessie or anyone else whose numbers she’d gotten before the big drug bust. Spencer knew staying at the Ivy House—or anywhere else on campus—wasn’t an option, so she’d Googled local motels in the area and stumbled into the Motel 6 room at almost midnight. All she wanted to do was get some sleep and forget about everything that had happened, but she’d been kept awake almost all night by the techno music coming from the adult bookstore next to the motel. Her hair was greasy from the motel shampoo, her skin itched from the cheap cotton sheets, and her head was spinning from just how badly she’d ruined her chances at getting into Ivy.

  She was ready to go home.

  A group of adults in business attire swept past, looking honored and important. Hanna said Gayle had been on the Princeton campus. It was obvious Gayle had spied on her the other night and had called the cops on Harper. Spencer understood this woman was angry about Emily not giving her the baby, but what lunatic went to such extremes to mess with kids half her age?

  A blonde sitting on a bench swam into view, and Spencer stopped short. There, reading a D. H. Lawrence novel and nursing a large Starbucks coffee, was Harper.

  “Oh,” Spencer blurted. “H-hey!”

  Harper looked up, and her features settled into a scowl. She returned to her book without a word.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” Spencer rushed to the bench, dropping her duffel at her feet. “Are you okay?”

  Harper flipped a page. “If you wanted to get me in trouble, you’re out of luck. The cops couldn’t find any pot on me. They let me go with a warning. ”

  “I didn’t want to get you in trouble!” Spencer cried. “Why would I do something like that?”

  “You were the only person at the party who I don’t know really, really well, and you seemed pretty uncomfortable with me smoking. ” Harper still didn’t look up.

  A flock of pigeons landed
close to them, fighting over a pizza crust. Spencer wished she could tell Harper about A, but A would wreak havoc if she did. “I have some skeletons in my closet, so I’m skittish about getting caught again,” she admitted in a low voice. “But I would never rat you out. ”

  Harper finally met Spencer’s gaze. “What happened?”

  Spencer raised one shoulder. “A friend and I were into study drugs last summer. We were caught with it on us. ”

  Harper’s eyes bugged. “Did you get in trouble?”

  “I was let off with a warning. ” Spencer stared at her duffel. There was no use getting into the Kelsey stuff now. “It freaked me out. But I promise I didn’t narc on you. Please give me another chance. ”

  Harper saved her page with a tasseled bookmark and shut the text tight. She stared at Spencer for a long time as though trying to opine her thoughts. “You know, I really do want to like you, Spencer,” she said. “If you want to make it up to me, there’s an Ivy luncheon tomorrow you can come to. But there’s a catch: You have to bring a dish. ”

  Spencer blinked. “I have to cook something? Where am I supposed to find a kitchen?”

  “That’s for you to figure out. ” Harper slipped the book into her bag and stood. “Everyone has to bring a dish. It’s a potluck. ”

  “Okay,” Spencer said. “I’ll figure something out. ”

  The corners of Harper’s mouth slowly curled into a grin. “See you at the Ivy House tomorrow at twelve sharp. Bye!”

  She strode down the sidewalk, her hips swinging and her bag bouncing against her butt. Spencer shifted from foot to foot, puzzled. A potluck? Seriously? That sounded like something Nana Hastings would’ve done for the Women’s League she once chaired. Even the term potluck sounded weirdly 1950s, conjuring up images of garish, Technicolor macaroni salads and Jell-O molds.

  The words clanged in her head again. Potluck. Harper had winked at her like they had a double meaning. Spencer laughed out loud, something clicking. It was a potluck—literally. Harper wanted her to bake pot inside a dish. It was Spencer’s chance to prove she wasn’t a narc.

  The clock bells chimed the hour, and the pigeons lifted off the sidewalk all at once. Spencer sank into the bench, thinking hard. Even though she hated the idea of buying drugs again, she was desperate to get back in Harper’s good graces—and into Ivy. Only, how was she going to get her hands on pot? She didn’t know anyone here besides the people she’d met at the party, and they probably wouldn’t help her.

  She sat up straighter, hit with a bolt of brilliance. Reefer. He lived near Princeton, didn’t he? She rifled through her purse, looking for the slip of paper he’d given her at the Princeton dinner. Blessedly, it was tucked into a pocket. What a long, strange trip it’s been, the note said.

  You’re telling me, Spencer thought. Then she held her breath as if plunging into a room with a nasty smell and dialed his number, hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

  “I knew you were going to call,” Reefer said as he opened the door to a large Colonial house in a neighborhood a few miles from the Princeton campus. He was dressed in an oversize Bob Marley T-shirt, baggy jeans with a pot-leaf patch on the knee, and the same hemp sneakers he’d had on at the dinner at Striped Bass. His longish hair had been tucked into one of those hideous, brightly colored Jamaican hats that every druggie Spencer had ever known loved to wear, but he’d at least shaved the goat beard. He looked a million times better without it—not that she thought he was cute or anything.