Figure Skating Mystery Series: 5 Books in 1

by Alina Adams

  Externally, however, Sabrina Pryce was perfectly fine. No, even better. Externally, she was perfect After all, she wasn't Eleanor Quinn's daughter for nothing. Even as she woke up every morning suffocating from a horrible, all-encompassing sense she couldn't quite name, on the surface, Sabrina was the poster child for adjustment. Her grades didn't dip after Eleanor died like her teachers had logically expected. In fact, they went up. She continued cheerleading as before, then joined Junior Achievement for good measure. She dressed beautifully as always, eschewing the latest trends (it was the 1980s; passing up neon leg warmers, shoulder pads, and earrings larger than her head wasn't too big of a sacrifice) for classic looks her mother had taught her would never go out of style. She wore her ebony hair long, though never feathered, moussed, or, God forbid, teased out. And she continued dating the same types of boys she always had. Nice, clean-cut, wholesome, all-American types, maybe leaning a tiny bit towards the science nerds, but never so much that they didn't also play soccer or tennis or run track on the side. It wasn't difficult for her to get dates. Boys had always liked Sabrina. She'd listened to Eleanor and made a point of seeming a little mysterious, a little unapproachable, and always, always expecting to be treated like a lady. Eleanor hadn't seen anything insincere or manipulative in such behavior. It was simply the way one behaved. Was it insincere or manipulative to have good table manners or to use proper grammar? There was a right way to behave and a wrong way. Eleanor Quinn Pryce expected her only child to behave in the right way. And to reap the benefits of such behavior accordingly.

  Which meant that boys — especially certain types — had always liked Sabrina. And she thought she liked them, too.

  Until Eleanor died, and Sabrina doggedly continued on as if nothing were wrong, only to discover that those certain types of boys, for some reason, suddenly didn't appeal to her at all.

  She blamed herself, at first. She figured she must still be in mourning, that's why their small talk about school and college plans and music and some television miniseries about giant lizards disguised as human beings was driving her up a wall. But as time passed, Sabrina began to blame them for being so friggin' boring. Didn't they ever think about anything larger than their stupid little lives lived in a stupid little town surrounded by stupid little people? They were getting as annoying as the idiots at Lucian's rink, who could only discuss jumps and spins and who might be at Regionals this year. Didn't they know there was a whole world out there? Didn't they realize that there could be more to life than... than... than... well, whatever the hell they were talking about at the moment? Didn't they know what it was like to trudge through your day, acting cheerful and upbeat while inside your head, something was pounding. Something dark and shapeless and nameless and desperate to get out, only you couldn't risk that, not until you understood what it was, for fear that, once out, it would simply swallow you whole?

  Sabrina thought that there was only one boy in the entire Senior class who might know what that shapeless thing was.

  His name was Craig Hiroshi. He was in Sabrina's math class. He sat in the back, minding his own business, never speaking up unless called on, always arriving just before the bell rang and then escaping the moment it rang again. He had dark hair and dark eyes and wore jeans with simple white T-shirts and a gold stud in one ear; he didn't belong to any clubs or participate in any extracurricular activities and was the exact opposite of everything Sabrina had been told she liked in a boy. And yet, she couldn't keep away from him.

  Because once, in the hall, they'd passed each other going in opposite directions. Somehow, by accident, maybe because it was crowded and there was nowhere else to look, their eyes had met. And in that instant, Sabrina thought she saw behind his lashes the same pounding, nameless thing that regularly tried to claw its way up her chest and into her mind. Only, unlike her, Craig seemed to have the monster under control.

  And, unlike her, he didn't seem to take any notice of his demon's mirror image passing him in the hall.

  Or maybe it was just Sabrina he took no notice of.

  She did everything she could think of to get his attention. She sat next to him in class. She asked him questions about their math homework, which he answered dutifully (and, she was a bit surprised to note, correctly). She wore her nicest outfits and took extra care with her makeup.

  But none of Eleanor's tactics were working with this boy.

  Finally, Sabrina said to hell with ladylike propriety and, as they were both heading out the door one Friday afternoon, cornered Craig before he pulled his usual disappearing act. She asked, "Why don't you want to talk to me?"

  She wondered if he would deny it. She wondered if he would pretend not to know who she was or what she was referring to. But instead, Craig simply looked Sabrina right in the eye and said, “Talk."

  Boy, did she ever.

  At lunch, which they had outside, alone and away from the din of the cafeteria (not to mention the curious glances Sabrina was sure to attract for straying so far off her usual social circle), Sabrina did nothing but talk. She told Craig everything. About Lucian and his treatment of her mother. About Eleanor choosing to die rather than upset him. About Chris and about every other skater who mattered more than she did and, finally, about this feeling that Sabrina couldn't shake. Or name.

  Craig listened. He proved to be an excellent listener, though Sabrina figured she should have expected that, what with him never talking. He listened without interrupting, and when Sabrina was finished, he said, "You're not crazy."

  Sabrina had never asked him if she was crazy. She'd never even wondered if she were going crazy. The possibility never entered, crossed, or settled in her mind.

  And yet, the moment Craig deemed that she wasn't, a feeling of relief so profound washed over her that Sabrina could barely speak.

  She wasn't crazy.

  Oh, thank God, thank God. She wasn't crazy.

  "What you are," Craig said, "is angry."

  That possibility hadn't made an appearance, either.

  Oh, sure, Sabrina knew she was mad at Lucian. But she'd been mad at Lucian for most of her life, on and off, with peaks for crucial Olympic seasons. Mad was a gnawing, hip-hopping, skipping little nibble of a feeling. It wasn't something that tore through you with the power of a buzz-saw. Mad was something easily controlled, easily dismissed, easily ignored. What she was feeling couldn't possibly be anger. Sabrina wasn't capable of getting that angry. Why, if she ever did, who knew what would happen?

  "Angry," Sabrina repeated.

  Craig shrugged and didn't say more.

  "What about you?" The question escaped before she could stop herself. Because if what Sabrina was feeling was, indeed, anger, then anger had to be what she'd glimpsed in him as well.

  "All the time."

  "You're angry... all the time?”

  "Yeah."

  "And that doesn't freak you out?”

  "You get used to it."

  "How?”

  "It's like breathing. How do you get used to that?”

  "What are you so angry about?”

  "Stuff."

  "And it never kind of gets, you know, away from you?”

  "Like what?”

  "Like, you start thinking these things. Things you know you really shouldn't be thinking."

  "Like what?” Craig proved just the right amount of genuinely curious and laid-back blasé for Sabrina to take a risk and tell him.

  "I think about killing my dad."

  "So?”

  "I mean, I think about it all the time. I see a car on the street, and I think, I could run Lucian over with a car. I see a building going up, and I think, I could bury him under a pile of bricks. I've even thought stuff like, my dad has these badly healed skull fractures from when he was a skater, so if he falls a particular way, it could kill him. I've thought, when we're alone together in the house, I could trip him. Make it look like an accident. And that would be that. Nobody would ever know. The perfect crime."

 
"Okay," Craig said.

  "You don't think it's wrong to walk around constantly coming up with ways to kill your father?”

  "Depends on the father, I guess."

  "Lucian doesn't beat me. He doesn't molest me or torture me. He just kind of ignores me. He's not that bad, objectively speaking."

  "So why do you want to kill him?”

  "I just do. I mean, I don't even know if I do. I only know that I think about it."

  "Are you going to finish your fries?” Craig asked.

  "No. Help yourself."

  So he did.

  And afterwards, Sabrina guessed they became a couple. Everyone who thought they knew her was shocked. Craig wasn't her type, they said. Well, maybe he wasn't. But he didn't judge her. And he didn't bore her. And at the time, that was plenty.

  However, that he also didn't seem to like Sabrina as much as she liked him was a problem she resolved to fix.

  It wasn't that Craig mistreated her exactly; it was simply that, while she thought about him constantly, even when he wasn't around (in a way, thoughts about Craig had replaced her fantasies about orchestrating Lucian's demise, which Sabrina saw as another positive outcome of their relationship), Sabrina got the feeling that out of sight was out of mind when it came to her place in Craig's world. He always acted happy to see her when she popped up or called, but he never initiated any of the calls himself. She planned their dates, and he went along. She chased, and he allowed himself to be caught. She pulled, and he didn't resist. It wasn't very romantic.

  Sabrina attempted to solve the inequality by becoming a better girlfriend. She tried to not talk only about herself, to show an interest in what was important to Craig.

  She asked him, "Why is your last name Hiroshi? You don't look Japanese."

  "I'm adopted," he said. "My dad's Japanese. My real name is Craig Hunt."

  "Oh, I didn't know you were adopted. Were you a baby when it happened?"

  "Seven."

  "Did you live with your real mom and dad before that?"

  "Jenny and Michael Hiroshi are my real mom and dad," he snapped. "It was foster homes before that."

  Okay. So obviously the way to this man's heart wasn't through a rousing game of This Is Your Life.

  Sabrina tried a few more avenues, eventually learning that Craig wasn't interested in talking about his past, his present (including school, pop culture, or sports), or his future (including college and/or professional postgraduate plans).

  So if Craig wasn't willing to talk about his life, what was left for Sabrina to cling to, to keep the conversation going, but hers? Noting that the only subject he'd ever really expressed an interest in was her initial confession about wanting to kill off Lucian, Sabrina found herself turning back to that more and more often, if only to have something to say.

  Finally, Craig demanded, "Are you just going to keep talking about this, or are you actually going to do something?"

  She didn't want to bore him. Because then Craig might take off. And what would Sabrina have in her life then?

  So she said, "Well, yeah, of course I'm going to do something."

  After that, her plans became less conceptual and more concrete. No more divine-intervention plane crashes or magic bricks collapsing of their own volition. If Lucian Pryce was going to die for what he did to Eleanor — and what he did to Sabrina, too; but mostly Eleanor; Sabrina needed to believe that she wasn't being petty here — then it would have to be at the hands of his daughter. After some serious consideration, Sabrina decided that an ill-timed fall was the best way to go. Skaters fell all the time. No one would suspect. The only questions that remained were how to set it up, where, and when.

  "I'm thinking that maybe the house isn't the best place to do it," Sabrina mused to Craig, jabbering faster and faster in an attempt to keep his attention focused on her. "It would seem too weird. He whips around the rink at lightning speed and then people are supposed to believe he came home and tripped over linoleum?"

  "Humph," Craig said.

  "So I think the rink would be better. When he's on skates, either on the ice or off. One little shove or trip... I even thought, what if all the lights suddenly go out, just for a minute or two. It happens all the time, at the rink. The place uses so much electricity, they're always tripping the circuit breaker. And anything could happen in the dark, don't you think?"

  "I guess..."

  "Will you come to the rink with me, Craig? Help me scope out the landscape, you know? See if you get any ideas?"

  "I guess..."

  It wasn't, in retrospect, the best idea Sabrina ever had. And not merely because, years later, she and her therapist would come to the conclusion that dreaming up new and vicious ways to kill your father was probably not the soundest basis for a relationship. Even, granted, in a setting as melodramatic as high school. They also agreed that Sabrina switching obsessions from getting Lucian's indifferent attention to trying to break through Craig's equivalent apathy did not testify to stalwart mental health, either.

  But taking Craig to the rink proved to be a rotten idea because the day Craig did accompany her for the first time was also the first time he laid eyes on Lucian's prize Pairs skater, Rachel Rose. And that, as they say, was that.

  Not that Craig broke up with Sabrina on the spot. On the spot, nothing much happened beyond a perfunctory conversation on where might be a good spot for Lucian to die. But afterwards, things definitely changed.

  Where before Craig had been willing to go along with Sabrina's suggestions about what they should do, when, and where, now he was visibly resistant. He started breaking dates. Politely, honorably, and never at the last minute, but breaking them all the same. And when he began showing up at the rink when Sabrina wasn't there, that's when she knew for sure.

  Sabrina didn't so much accuse him as state the obvious when she told him, "You're in love with Rachel, aren't you?"

  "Yes," Craig said.

  "Why? I mean, what does she... I don't understand. Tell me. What's so great about Rachel?"

  "When I'm around her," Craig began, and, in his romantic state, managed to utter the longest sentence Sabrina had ever pried out of him. "When I'm around her, I don't feel angry anymore."

  And that, again, was that.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SKATINGANDSTUFF.COM MESSAGE BOARD

  FROM: GoGoGregoryl Posted at 4:11 PM

  So now Jeremy Hunt is skating in the tribute also with him and Gabrielle Cassidy its like let's make a list of the no-names is Gina just going to get on the ice and wave now looks like there won't be time for anybody else like the real champions to do a number!!!

  FROM: IcelsNice Posted at 4:15 PM

  I'm sure all the big names will get their numbers. Chris Kelly is skating a solo and a dance with Gabrielle Cassidy.

  FROM: DanceDiva Posted at 4:16 PM

  OMG!!! Chris Kelly is ice dancing now!!! I always thought he should have been a dancer. He's got those long limbs and he moves so smoothly on the ice. This is like a dream come true for me!!! Do you think they'll compete as a team???

  FROM: SkatingYoda Posted at 4:21 PM

  «Do you think they'll compete as a team???»

  That's the plan. It's why Chris moved to Gabrielle's training center last year. They're getting their OD and FD ready now for next season.

  FROM: DanceDiva Posted at 4:22 PM

  Any word on what country they'll be representing?

  FROM: SkatingYoda Posted at 4:30 PM

  Great Britain. England hasn't had a world quality dance team in years. They're so excited about Chris and Gabrielle they've basically guaranteed them the win at Nationals and a trip to Worlds if they'll represent Great Britain. Gabrielle is in the process of getting her citizenship rushed through now, so they'll be Olympic eligible by the next one.

  * * *

  Bex had two questions, and she went with the most pressing one first. She asked Craig, "You used to wear an earring?”

  He shrugged, equally amused. "I did a lot
of... interesting... things at eighteen."

  "Speaking of interesting, you didn't think it was interesting enough to mention to me earlier that Sabrina Pryce is obsessed with killing her father?”

  "Was obsessed. Past tense."

  "Are you sure?”

  "Bex, I don't know about you, but I most certainly am not the person today that I was at eighteen — the earring stud being only Exhibit A. Why would you presume Sabrina hasn't changed since high school?"

  "Well, for one thing, because her father is dead."

  "She's hardly the only one with a motive."

  "Did she say anything about it during your date?"

  "It wasn't a date."

  "Your friendly dinner, then. And by the way, Craig, Sabrina thinks it was a date."

  "No."

  "Not even in a nostalgic sort of way? You know, like: Remember when we used to plan to kill my father? Wasn't that totally Badlands of us?"

  "I don't think she was serious about it, not even then. She was an angry, messed-up kid whose mother had just died and whose dad didn't give a damn about her. It was just a way to blow off some steam and impress the school's resident bad boy."

  "You were the resident bad boy, Craig?"

  "You don't believe me?"

  "It's a little tough to picture. I mean now, you're so... so..."

  "Old?"

  "No!"

  "Stodgy?”

  "Would you cut it out?”

  "Would you like me better if I dug up the earring again?”

  "I like you fine now."

  "Good."

  Bex knew he was deliberately teasing her, and she hated herself for going along so gullibly. But she really wished he wouldn't keep reminding her of how much older he was than she. Or how, when he was playing bad boy in high school, she was still playing with her paper dolls.

  "Good," he repeated. She expected him to go on. To maybe bring up his proposal or their relationship or anything personal, really. But all Craig did was stand up, stretch, and tell her, "I'm going to check on Jeremy. Good luck with your sleuthing."