‘You left something out,’ Ty said when I was done. My mouth was dry, my cheek muscles were sore from talking so much. What could I have left out?
‘That black address book,’ he said. ‘The one that went missing from your apartment.’
I brightened. ‘Oh. I found that.’
Instead of being happy about that, Ty looked pissed. ‘Where?’
I crinkled my nose. ‘Aubrey’s closet?’ I said it that way because I knew that I’d get the whole Ty Hatfield, heavy sighing-eye rolling-head naggy thing for conducting ‘illegal searches’ or something. ‘I was borrowing clothes and I just happened to see it in her bureau,’ I said defensively.
Ty leaned back in his chair, his arms bent, hands behind his head. I had seen him do that motion before, when I was in police custody. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling those experiences behind bars were going to forever affect my relationship with this man.
‘What do you have in mind?’ he finally said.
I smiled. ‘First, I need a black body suit.’
*
In the end, I didn’t get to wear a black body suit with high tech gadgets on my belt and bad-ass lace-up boots. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t find some on my favourite shopping sites as soon as I got rid of the whole murder rap.
No, we had argued and cajoled and negotiated and come up with the stupidest scheme. I want to go on the record officially and announce that this stupid scheme was the idea of one Lieutenant Ty Hatfield. But just the first part was Ty’s idea. The second part was all mine. You’ll see which is which.
Mandatory invitations went out to all of Panhellenic, under the auspices of the Panhellenic Advisor. Once Ty called Amanda, she was only too happy to help out. After all, as she kept reminding us, she wasn’t going to be the Panhellenic Advisor anymore. All five sororities were there in the G.G. Hankler Auditorium on campus to hear a presentation on the evils of Botox.
See? Stupid, right?
Even stupider, Casey was selected to give the presentation, he of the unlined brow and unnatural orange colour. But he was the one with public relations experience and he could whip up a convincing fifteen minute slide show with very scary images yanked from the internet.
We all knew that this plan might not work, or that we might have to cast a larger net. But it was our first step to identifying who, if any, were the other unknown sex operators in Liza’s ring.
Ty sat in the front row of the auditorium and I sat off to the side, on the stage, so I could have a good view of the seats and the women occupying them.
When all the sororities filed in, Casey went to the mic and introduced himself as Dr Casey Kenny, Plastic Surgeon to the Stars. An alias and a glamorous fake job? Casey had all the fun.
Right away, the first slide was shocking. Apparently, Botox was some kind of paralyzing agent. Which was really scary, especially with what had happened to Liza and Stefanie.
Then Casey used some facts and figures, blah blah blah. Then he got into the good stuff. He flipped a slide and it showed a world-renowned actress in a recent action adventure movie. The picture was from a scene where she was screaming that her lover was shot. Her face was contorted in every painful way except for her forehead. It was really an unconvincing expression, if you asked me.
Then he showed a young starlet, barely twenty-two. ‘Your age,’ Casey pointed out with a delightfully dire tone in his voice. The photo showed her shiny and plastic-y. ‘And that’s with Photoshop.’
Something about seeing the unnatural face on a huge projection screen really made you think. Personally, I wondered how she got her pores so small.
After another slide or two that caused some of the sorority women to gasp and cringe, I nodded to Ty. There really hadn’t been a reason to let this go on so long, except that Ty felt strongly that Botox was dangerous, given the murders and everything.
In the front row, he acknowledged my signal and surreptitiously pressed a button on his cell phone. We weren’t sure how long this part was going to take, so we waited, as Casey pointed out another Botox horror story that made a few Betas in the back cry.
Then it started happening. When Ty had pressed the button, it had started a redial of the phone sex hotline. He had programmed it to redial every thirty seconds, knowing that when the hotline picked up, it would forward the call to another and another available operator. Sooner or later, if there were phone sex operators in our auditorium, we would know. No college woman could ignore their phone for that long.
A phone rang in the Beta section, hastily answered. Another Beta had her phone on vibrate, but she checked her screen. Two Epsilon Eta Chis got theirs out. A Tri Mu grabbed her phone and acted like she was leaving to take the call. And yes, I saw two Delta Betas receive calls.
Some of them could be coincidences. But not all of them. My heart sank, knowing that we had just added more sisters and friends to the ever growing suspect list.
Then the unthinkable happened. Another phone rang, loudly. I recognised the ring tone. Beyoncé was singing in my purse.
I jerked the phone out and saw an unknown caller ID. My head jerked up to see Ty’s inscrutable gaze. This was not happening.
As we had decided, Casey informed the audience that there had been a threat and that they’d need to exit, single file, out the back. What he didn’t tell them was that police officers would ask those who had been seen with their phones to step to the side.
I had to do the same. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Everything clicked into place. Accidents took on a whole other meaning. Little things that I had ignored were really big, important things.
I didn’t have to walk to Ty. He was next to me in a moment. For some reason, I handed him my cell phone. ‘I’ve been set up,’ I managed to say through my rising nausea. ‘You have to go to the hospital.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Ainsley St. John is about to be murdered.’
Ty hesitated briefly, unsure, then grabbed the radio from his belt and called a code in. ‘I need someone at Sutton Memorial, Ainsley St. John’s room.’
He gave me a hard look and I held up a hand to stop him from saying whatever he was about to say.
‘I promise I’ll tell you everything. But you have to make sure that Ainsley St. John stays alive.’
Casey stepped up. ‘I’ll make sure Margot doesn’t leave the country.’
That didn’t have the effect on Ty that Casey intended. He paused, gave us what was a very intimidating look, turned and jogged off the stage. I hoped he could stop an attempted murder. For Ainsley’s sake and for mine.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Casey and I stood alone on the stage of the auditorium together, silent for several minutes. Which had to be a new record for us.
‘Margot,’ he finally said slowly. ‘Were you …’
‘NO!’
‘But your–’
‘NO.’
Another long pause. ‘Good. Because you really suck at phone sex.’
I shot him my ‘you better not be taking the last brownie’ look.
‘I heard you, remember? When we accidentally called that professor?’
Yeah, I remembered. And he was right, I would be just horrible at phone sex. But I didn’t want that to be my argument in front of a jury.
Everything looked bad for me, right now. Every. Single. Thing. I could only pray that Sutton’s finest got to the hospital in time.
‘Do you want to talk?’ Casey asked. I loved that about him.
I shook my head.
‘What do you want to do? Besides head for the Canadian border?’
I thought for a moment; I had the perfect plan.
It was kind of like my last meal before execution, I thought, as I leaned my head on Casey’s shoulder on the little love seat in the Chapter Advisor’s apartment. We had Milano cookies, beverages topped off with Casey’s magically refilling flask and an episode of Project Runway. Nothing was more reassuring than Tim Gunn. Even when a garment was a disaster
waiting to happen, Tim Gunn could see a way out of it. It was a much better message for me now than my other favourite show. On Law & Order, someone was either dead or locked up at the end of each episode. Not what I wanted to think about.
When my phone rang, I nearly jumped out of my cozy honeybee slippers. I listened to the short message, hung up and looked at Casey who was waiting with inquisitive eyebrows.
‘I’ve been summoned,’ I said. ‘What does one wear to a police station?’
Casey took the challenge seriously. When I walked through the doors of the Sutton police station, I was styled by Casey Kenner. My trusty black skinny jeans were an obvious choice. The high heeled boots were mine. The black leather blazer he borrowed from Lilah on the second floor. The gold Delta Beta tee shirt with the black Greek letters topped off the ensemble. Make it work, Delta Beta style.
Ty Hatfield met me at the front door, his blue eyes sweeping over me with a hint of amusement.
‘How’s Ainsley?’ I asked first. I really did care about that, first and foremost.
‘Alive and well, thanks to you.’
I let out some air I’d been holding since I first put the pieces together there on the stage.
‘Hospital security found an unwanted visitor in her room, with a syringe full of Botox.’
‘Oh God,’ I breathed, my hand reaching out to steady myself. I couldn’t help but think of how, a few minutes later, Aubrey would have lost her only sister.
‘And?’ Ty knew what I was asking. He nodded his head for me to follow him and I did, down the same hall that led to his office, but we passed it, going farther and then right down another hall. That’s when I saw it. The two way mirror. The cops drinking coffee and watching the scene unfold inside the interrogation room. I actually felt my heart go pitter-patter. It was exactly like I had imagined it would be.
And then I saw inside the interrogation room and my same pitter-pattering heart stopped and sank like a stone.
‘You knew it was her, didn’t you?’ Ty’s voice was low and kind in my ear. Neither his voice nor the fact that he was right made this any better.
I nodded. I had known. It hadn’t meant that I hadn’t prayed that I was wrong.
Sitting in the interrogation room, her hands twisting in front of her, was Amanda Jennifer Cohen, my big sister.
Ty took my elbow and led me into a nearby office. The lights flipped on when we walked in. ‘It all made sense when my phone rang,’ I told him. ‘Until then, I thought I was just having bad luck. That all these things were just accidentally pointing to me, setting me up. But when the phone rang, I knew someone had deliberately been setting me up to make it look like I was the killer.’
I smiled at Ty sadly. ‘And Amanda was the only one who knew we were calling all the sororities together. I need to go talk to her. Will you let me?’
Ty wasn’t sure. ‘If I let you go in and talk to her, there’s no privilege or confidentiality. Everything in that room can be used in a court of law.’ I wondered if he was worried about Amanda confessing something, or if he thought that I would.
‘It’s okay,’ I assured him. ‘I won’t confess to anything you don’t already know about.’
When I walked into the interrogation room, Amanda smiled at me. It was a habit, I realised. Something she did, not something she felt.
‘Why did you do it?’ I asked, when I settled into the metal chair across from her.
Her fingers stopped squeezing each other for just a moment. ‘Remember when I was a senior and the chapter’s representative for the Miss Greek pageant?’ I nodded that I did. She continued. ‘And you and I hustled for votes and sent gift baskets full of alcohol to all the fraternities because we knew what we wanted and we weren’t going to let anyone get in our way.’
I remembered.
‘It was like that,’ she said.
The queasiness came back in my stomach. ‘It wasn’t like that, Amanda. People were hurt. People died.’
She did a little eye roll that said it was a ‘technicality.’
‘Whose idea was it? Yours or Liza’s?’
‘Liza’s,’ she said, like we were gossiping about old friends from college. ‘The whole sociology angle is truly fascinating. And we thought it would be academic. Until we made $5k in one night. We both promoted; we both recruited. The business grew in leaps and bounds until Liza’s client figured out who he was talking to.’
‘Dean Xavier.’
Amanda nodded. ‘That’s when it all started to go wrong.’
‘And you blackmailed Dean Xavier.’
Amanda looked at me like I’d spoken Portuguese. ‘No. Liza blackmailed him to stay in the doctoral programme.’
I remembered Amanda with the professor at El Loco Taco and how sad she looked when she said she wasn’t seeing him anymore. ‘But I thought …’
‘I mean, I blackmailed him later, after Liza died, but not to get the same things.’
‘He specifically said that Liza was cut from the programme.’
‘He said that because her death gave him the perfect opportunity to rewrite history. Liza being cut from the doctoral programme because she was a bad girl phone sex worker sounds much better than the truth: he was obsessed with calling teenagers and telling them to tie themselves up.’ Something about the way Amanda said that made me suspect that she had experienced Dean’s peculiarities first hand.
‘And you wanted a promotion out of the Panhellenic office.’ I filled in the blanks again.
Amanda looked unrepentant. ‘Do you know how many crying girls I deal with on a weekly basis?’
I could guess.
But I wanted to stay focused, not least because there were about five police officers outside the room who were hanging on my every word. ‘You set Stefanie up with Hunter–’
She interrupted me again. ‘Liza set that whole bathroom thing up. She just told me what time to be there. Why do you keep assuming I came up with all these things?’
Because Liza is dead and you’re alive.
‘You blackmailed Hunter the second time, to break into the office.’
She shrugged. ‘It was easier than sneaking in and out of the house again. Especially with you there. When Liza was alive, I’d come in the Chapter Advisor apartment door and wait there to talk.’ Amanda’s tone said she’d been extremely put out with the inconvenience. I knew exactly how Amanda had come in and out of the house so easily. Because the house had had the same security code for the past thirty years. I finally saw the benefit in changing those things.
Talking about Amanda going in and out of the Chapter Advisor apartment and seeing Liza brought to mind pictures of a Botox vial in a medicine cabinet. And the memory of a woman collapsing in front of a chapter of sorority sisters.
‘Why did you have to do it in front of the chapter, Amanda?’ The plea in my words was sincere. It wasn’t just the murder that was evil. It was the inexcusable timing. No young person needs to see that.
As different as this Amanda was now, I saw that my question touched a part of her that I knew and recognised. A little wrinkle appeared between her brows, which would have been a big wrinkle, if she hadn’t been injected with a killer chemical ‘I misjudged the dose,’ she finally said. ‘I never thought she’d walk out of the apartment and into that meeting.’ Neither of us said anything for a moment. Then Amanda said, ‘I did better the second time.’
Stefanie. The thought made my heart ache.
‘At least I made sure you found her,’ Amanda said softly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t want her to stay out there for long.’
Tears sprang to my eyes. So that was Amanda’s version of sisterhood. Following the proper etiquette for leaving a body behind.
‘Why Stefanie?’ I asked, surprised that I was now feeling the pain of a young life taken before her time. It was a weird delayed reaction.
Liza and Amanda had railroaded her, conspired against her and threatened to pull her pin. ‘Why did you have to kill her?’ I asked.
&n
bsp; Amanda turned her head slowly. ‘She knew about the blackmail. My blackmail, not Liza’s. She wanted to quit, so she said she’d call the college President and tell her everything about Dean and me.’
‘Why didn’t you let her quit?’
‘I did. But I couldn’t take the risk that she would tell anyone at the college.’
‘Just for a bigger salary, Amanda? Really?’
Her eyes got smaller. Then she laughed. ‘FIVE THOUSAND. ON A WEEKNIGHT. I don’t need my college salary, especially when’s there’s just one partner and only five girls. I wasn’t risking the promotion for a bigger salary.’
Maybe it was because I knew Amanda better than most that I didn’t need to ask a follow up question. I knew why she wanted the promotion and it made me sick. She wanted a position where she could recruit from a bigger pool of Sutton students.
I couldn’t look at her anymore. I couldn’t talk to the woman who had, after all, not only committed two murders and attempted a third, but had tried to set me up for all that, with the ‘complaints’ from Ainsley and the Epsilon Eta Chis to make me look like I was threatening everyone willy-nilly on campus. Me. Her little sis.
I found I had to ask. Because I’m that kind of girl, who pushes, even when it’s smarter to stop.
Amanda did look sad and regretful. ‘You’re my little sis. And you’re such a good Delta Beta. I thought you might take one for the team.’
And then I got up and left.
CHAPTER FORTY
I punched the code on the keypad at the front door of the sorority house. It was the date our sorority was founded. December 16th, 1879. 12-16-79. For ten years, every time I had entered that number, it was a reminder of the history of the best, strongest, most inspirational sorority ever established. It was a reminder of the one hundred and fifty years that sisters had stuck together, united in love and loyalty and friendship.
Until now.
Now it was a reminder that one of our own had tried to corrupt us from the inside.
Phone sex.
Blackmail.
Mean Sisters Page 21
