He was dismissing me? I probably looked like I was going to argue with him because he cut me off before I could start. ‘After I get your friend Mr Kenner his item from the evidence locker.’ He stood and said, ‘You can stay with Ms Cohen until then.’
When we were alone, I hugged Amanda again. ‘I’m so sorry, Amanda. Tell me what I can do.’
‘Nothing, I just want to make sure the poor girl gets the help that she needs. She’s obviously unbalanced.’
I couldn’t believe this was happening. If the Miss America pageant came in and said they’d crowned me the new queen, I couldn’t be more stunned. Amanda said something and it didn’t register right away.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Did I see Mabel Donahue in the front?’
Oh. ‘Random, right?’
‘What is she doing here?’
I waved a hand, dismissing it. Anything regarding Liza McCarthy’s death seemed so trivial when there was an actual, living hurting friend in front of me. ‘They’re just collecting some of Liza’s effects. Her phone was the property of Delta Beta.’
‘That’s so weird,’ Amanda said, taking another sip of water.
Everything about this day was weird. And it wasn’t over yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The line between Casey’s fabulous ideas and his horrible ideas could be a really thin, practically invisible line.
‘I don’t think we should do it,’ I said for the forty-seventh time.
‘I’m doing it,’ he said for the forty-eighth time.
‘Casey!’
‘When did you become such a wuss?’
I flashed him a look that said no one called me a wuss and got away with it.
But still, I didn’t like this.
‘Can we double check, one more time?’
Casey rolled his eyes and muttered ‘wuss’ so I punched him as I pulled up the document on his laptop again.
Once we’d gotten back to the sorority house, Mabel took one look at the phone and decided it wasn’t, after all, the one that Delta Beta had issued to Liza. Funny how that works. She left for Atlanta, but not before telling Casey and me what a good job we were doing here. That meant a lot, coming from her. After we had charged Liza’s deader-than-a-doornail phone, we pulled up her call history. Sure enough there were lots of incoming calls from the phone sex numbers. From Casey’s research, the way these things usually worked was the 1-900 line forwarded calls to the operators. We were assuming that all the operators had disposable phones and we had no way of knowing who those numbers belonged to. Google definitely didn’t help.
Liza’s call history also had numbers that we had matched up to the computer spreadsheet. If we were right in our guess that the spreadsheet was a record of payments and the ten-digit numbers were phone numbers, we now had a direct tie between Liza’s phone and the phone numbers of her phone sex employees.
Now Casey wanted to call them. From Liza’s phone. That’s what I was being a baby about. For a professional sorority girl, I can be bad at confrontation. I know. You’d think that would be a job requirement, right?
‘You need to do it.’ Casey shoved the phone at me.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re a girl. If they hear a man’s voice coming from Liza’s number, it will freak them out.’
He had a point. It was weak, but a point.
‘Margot, you know we have to do this. We have got to find out how far this goes. There isn’t any other way to figure out the extent of Delta Beta’s involvement in this. I can’t have this coming back to bite us in the butt.’
I puffed out some air, blowing my bangs out of my face. ‘What about the money?’
Casey’s face was blank. ‘What do you mean, what about the money?’
‘How were people getting paid?’ I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this angle before. ‘If we got access to Liza’s checking account, we could see who she was writing cheques to.’
‘Oh Margot, please,’ Casey interrupted. ‘It’s not like that. This stuff is off the books, or in another name, or a corporation or something. It’s not like Liza was writing cheques from her Delta Beta chequebook.’
I knew he was right. I was grasping at straws and besides, the police had probably already pulled evidence like her bank accounts.
‘Fine,’ I muttered. Casey dropped Liza’s phone in my outstretched hand. ‘Let’s do this.’
We picked the number we’d seen most often in Liza’s call record, although, interestingly, it wasn’t the most frequent number in the spreadsheet. ‘Maybe she was high maintenance or something. Or Liza had to train her in heavy breathing.’ The thought was weird and gross.
I sat in the recliner and took a deep breath before dialing. The phone rang two, three, four times and right before it should have gone to voicemail, someone picked up.
But no one said anything on the other line. ‘Hello?’ I asked.
There was a faint click, then a rustle, then the sound of a door being closed. I remembered what Casey had said about the operators needing privacy for verbally turning some random guy on.
‘Hello?’ The voice over the line was hesitant and quiet. Before I could come up with something reasonable to say (once again, I really should have thought this through a little more and not let Casey irritate me into things), the voice said, ‘Who is this?’
I gasped. I knew that voice. ‘Aubrey?’ I whispered, shocked.
‘No.’ Although it was still a whisper, the voice was sharper, a different tone altogether. ‘Aubrey isn’t here.’
I believed the voice. It wasn’t Aubrey St. John on the phone. It was her sister.
‘Ainsley?’
There was another muffled sound, of a door opening or a cabinet closing. Then a click and she was gone.
I pushed a palm against my forehead, sweeping my bangs away from my face and sought Casey’s face. He was as shocked as I was.
‘Well, that explains a lot,’ I said.
‘This is the Chapter President’s twin sister? The Tri Mu?’ Casey hadn’t met Ainsley, he’d only heard me talk about her. I nodded in confirmation and he rolled his eyes. ‘Freaking Moos.’
I got what he was saying, believe me, I did. But … ‘If Ainsley’s been working for Liza, why is she trying to expose the ring and ruin Delta Beta’s rep.?’
‘It’s the perfect cover. She’s bringing us down from the inside, the diabolical cow.’
It really was the perfect cover. It was shocking, even for a Tri Mu.
‘Poor Aubrey,’ I murmured. ‘To have a sister betray you like that.’
‘Do you think she knows? Casey asked.
I thought about it and then shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think she knows anything. You should have seen her at Stefanie Grossman’s S&M hearing. She was Stefanie’s biggest defender. She really thought Stefanie was innocent. She couldn’t have known that Stefanie or Ainsley were phone sex operators.’
While I was still worrying about Ainsley’s machinations and Aubrey’s potential heartbreak, Casey had moved on. ‘Let’s do another one,’ he said, running his finger over the list. ‘How about this 610 area code. That one comes up a lot.’
Then Liza’s phone rang. I don’t think I’ve ever jumped so high. Casey let loose a swear word.
‘What do I do?’ I whispered, as if the caller could hear me. Casey picked up the phone, pressed a button and shoved it at me. ‘Answer it,’ he mouthed.
I took a deep, noisy breath. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi Heather,’ the man said.
My eyebrows shot up to the sky and my mouth dropped open. I was like a fish out of water. It was a freaky pervert dude! WTF!
Casey must have guessed something was up, because he very helpfully reached over, gently took the phone from me, put it on speaker and sat it down on the recliner arm. Then he sat back to listen with an avid expression on his stupidly handsome face.
‘H-h-hi,’ I said, irritated that my stuttering came across a lot like heavy breat
hing.
‘I’ve missed talking to you,’ the man said.
Oh my. ‘I’ve missed talking to you, too.’ Casey made a ‘keep going’ motion with his finger, like I had when he made his call to the phone sex line. Payback sucked. ‘So, so much.’ Casey threw up his hands like I was hopeless. I wasn’t hopeless; I just wasn’t horny. There was a difference.
‘Sooooo,’ I drew the word out as I reached for a way to get this guy to talk. ‘What are you wearing?’
‘My suit and tie. Remember what you like to do with silk ties?’
I closed my eyes tightly, trying not to go there. ‘Mmhmmm …’ I said instead. ‘Lots of nasty stuff. Oh. Yeah.’ Casey clapped a hand over his mouth, either in shock or to keep himself from laughing, the jerk.
‘What are you wearing?’ The caller’s voice got deep and thick. I looked down at the Delta Beta tee and jeans I’d changed into after we got home from the police station.
‘Just a … robe,’ I finished lamely. ‘And, um, panties.’
‘Take the panties off,’ the dude ordered me.
‘Okay,’ I said. Of course, I didn’t do anything. I paused. ‘They’re off.’
‘Now take the sash of your robe off, slide it out real slow.’
I looked toward the ceiling and counted to ten.
‘Oh yeah, like that,’ the guy said. I gave the phone a weird face. I hadn’t made any sounds. The imagination was a powerful thing.
‘You look so beautiful,’ he went on.
I won’t lie. At this point, I realised there was something to this phone sex business. I could sit here, in a ratty T-shirt, old blue jeans, not doing anything, get told I was beautiful and get paid for it. I might have to rethink my opinion on the immorality of it all.
‘Tell me where you are,’ I said. ‘I want to picture you.’
I heard the tell-tale grind of a zipper. The man laughed, low and dangerous. ‘I’m just outside my office. Get this, there are cops everywhere. They’re next door and they don’t even have a clue what I’m about to do to you right now.’ That’s when it started to get gross. As a general rule, the sounds of a random pervert and his overactive imagination aren’t as sexy as he thinks they are.
I think I said, ‘oh, yes’ and ‘oh, baby’ and then Casey might have moaned a few times, because he couldn’t help himself, but the guy was very self-reliant. Really, he took care of most of it by himself, which, after paying $2.99 for each additional minute wasn’t very economical of him.
He was on his third round of describing how big he was and how young I was when I heard the sound of a knock against wood. ‘Professor, we’re almost finished.’
‘Shit,’ the man said and then the phone disconnected. It was Hatfield’s voice in the background that I recognised and then it all fell into place. I wondered how much money Professor Xavier had just paid to jerk off to the half-hearted sounds made by a girl in a T-shirt and her gay best friend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Wednesday morning I woke up to a text from Amanda asking me out to lunch. I immediately replied in the affirmative and asked her how she was doing. I felt guilty that while Casey and I had spent half the night laughing about the ridiculousness of phone sex clients, I hadn’t called her to see how she was recovering from her attack.
Of course, I wanted to see her, but there was going to be a giant elephant in the room. And I knew exactly what that giant elephant liked to do with silky ties and robe sashes.
Maybe they weren’t that serious, Dean Xavier and Amanda. Maybe it was just a casual thing. But I didn’t think so. I knew my big sis and I knew she didn’t waste her time on anyone that she couldn’t see with the minivan and the two-point-five kids and golden retriever. She had high standards. I just wasn’t sure I could tell her that her instincts might be off with this one.
We met at the tea room again, early for lunch, at 11 a.m. Because she’s amazing with makeup, I could barely see where her face had been bruised and battered. I gave her a big hug.
‘You look beautiful,’ I told her, mostly because it was true, but also because I didn’t want her to feel self-conscious about her face.
‘You’re so sweet.’ Amanda set her purse down on the floor but took her phone out and kept it on the table.
‘How did everything go yesterday?’ When I’d left the police station yesterday, Ty had closed the door to the interview room practically in my face. ‘Was it okay? Ty wasn’t too mean to you, was he?’
Amanda quirked her brow at me. ‘It’s ‘Ty’, is it?’
‘It’s a name,’ I said, dismissing her innuendo that there was something between the police officer and myself. ‘Seriously, tell me about it,’ I said, after the waitress came and took our orders. I ordered tea and chicken salad. Amanda ordered chardonnay and chicken salad, which was interesting. It wasn’t even noon yet.
Amanda pursed her lips and seemed to collect herself. ‘Of course, it went fine. There were a lot of questions about that Stefanie girl. I didn’t even know what to say, I barely knew her. All I knew was she was a Delta Beta who’d gotten herself into some trouble.’
‘I wonder if she had a history of violent behaviour,’ I mused. ‘It seems crazy that our alumnae would recommend someone like that.’ Like many sororities, Delta Beta generally required a letter of recommendation from an alumna before a bid was extended during rush.
Amanda looked annoyed. ‘Something really needs to be done about that. Maybe I’ll talk to Mabel. Is she still in town?’
‘No,’ I said, momentarily interrupted by the waitress depositing my tea and Amanda’s chilled wine. ‘She left right after we returned from the police station.’
‘So she took Liza’s personal effects with her?’
The thought of the phone made me smile, remembering the jokes that Casey and I had made last night. But then I remembered that as far as Amanda knew, the phone sex operation was just a rumour perpetrated by the Tri Mus. After all the trauma Amanda had been through, I didn’t see that I needed to add to it by telling her that our beloved sorority was under a real threat. So I just shrugged and said, ‘No. Turned out the phone wasn’t the sorority’s,’ and left it at that.
Amanda reached for her glass and took a rather long sip. ‘Let’s talk about happier things,’ she said brightly. ‘I have an announcement.’ She lifted her glass. ‘I got a promotion!’
I gasped in delight. ‘What! When?’
‘This morning. I’m moving to administration. Vice-President of Student Affairs.’
My mouth dropped open. That was huge. ‘Congratulations, Big!’ I clinked my iced tea glass to her wine glass and toasted the fabulous career of the best big sister ever.
‘Will you be sad to leave Panhellenic?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said definitively. ‘I see this move as broadening the work I can do for students. Now I can benefit the whole student body, not just the Greeks.’
That was a true Deb response, right there. Always focused on the greater good.
Over our salads we went on to chat about our shared friends, our shared interests, the new Louis Vuitton handbag styles and the latest spa treatment that reduced cellulite. Amanda ordered a second glass of wine, which she totally deserved, and the lunch stretched into an hour. It was just like it used to be, me and my big, laughing and gossiping and drinking.
Her phone rang and she checked the number. ‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. They’re already asking me to do stuff for them.’
As before, she took the call outside which I thought was very nice manners. While I was waiting at the table, I saw a familiar blond head watching us. This time, she was dressed in all-black, which looked very chic and slimming, even on a Moo.
Amanda’s call took a while, so I checked my email before she returned, very apologetic for taking so long. ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘No one understands better than me that some jobs are 24/7.’
She nodded and drained her chardonnay. That would be her third. But I wasn’t counting.
&n
bsp; I hated to bring up a disagreeable topic, but I had to know. ‘What are the police going to do about Stefanie?’
‘What?’ Amanda blinked a few times like she hadn’t been paying attention. It had been a fast conversation change.
‘Stefanie,’ I repeated. ‘Are they concerned she’s coming back to attack you again? You can’t stay alone. Could you stay with Dean?’ I put the last part out gingerly, feeling her out since I was still considering whether I should tell her about his preference for eighteen-year-olds named Heather.
She frowned and settled her hands in her lap. ‘Dean and I are over.’
‘Oh,’ I said, with not a small amount of relief. ‘That’s … sad.’ It might have been sad, but I really couldn’t tell from the carefully composed look she’d put on.
‘Yes. Well, you know what they say. People are in your life for a reason.’
The saying was, ‘People are in your life for a season, a reason or a lifetime.’ I should know. I had that framed and gave it to Amanda for her graduation gift. It was nice that it still meant something to her.
‘Mr Perfect is still out there,’ I said supportively.
Amanda made a dismissive sound. ‘Maybe. Or maybe they’re all self-involved, entitled jerks.’ Maybe Dean had hurt her more than she was letting on, because that didn’t sound like Amanda.
I focused back on the problem at hand. ‘You need to move into the house,’ I said suddenly. It made perfect sense. ‘You wouldn’t be alone anymore. You’d be safe. And now that you’re not Panhellenic Advisor anymore, it doesn’t matter if people know you’re a Delta Beta.’
Amanda stared at me unblinkingly. ‘If Stefanie Grossman is out there, the last place I want to be is in the Delta Beta house. She could find me in an instant.’ I felt a chill down my spine at the cold, stark logic of Amanda’s words. She waved at the waitress for the check. ‘Don’t worry, Margot,’ she said a bit condescendingly, just like a big sister. ‘I can take care of myself.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mean Sisters Page 14
