The Homecoming Masquerade

by Baum, Spencer

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said the woman.

  Julien ran in front of her and put his hands on Nicky’s shoulders. “Nicky, I can’t let you leave.”

  Nicky sighed. Her finger was throbbing with pain. Her neck was jacked up from the accident. She was in a formal dress and high heels. She really didn’t want to fight her way past Julien right now.

  Fortunately, she didn’t have to.

  “Get your hands off her,” shouted the man from the white sedan.

  “Stay out of this, it isn’t your business,” said Julien.

  “You’re making it his business,” said Nicky. “I need to go to my party, now let me go.”

  “I said, get back in the car,” Julien commanded.

  “And I said, let her go,” said the man, accompanying his words with a shove to Julien’s shoulder. As Julien stumbled sideways, Nicky grabbed the woman by the arm and said, “Let’s get out of here.” Together, they rushed to the woman’s minivan, while Julien and the man he ran into broke into a fistfight behind them.

  33

  Dear Friends:

  I’m going to Nicky Bloom’s after party at the Hamilton. I want you to come with me. Here’s why.

  So began the text message that Jill had ghostwritten for Annika.

  Kim Renwick has controlled all of us in one way or another for as long as we’ve known her. Now, if we all support her and she wins Coronation, she gets to continue controlling us for the rest of our lives.

  “This only works if you’re all the way in,” Jill had said to Annika. “If you try to half-ass this thing, nobody will come and we all lose. You have to decide right now whose side you’re on. I’m only helping you and Shannon if you’re with us, and to be with us, you have to be all the way with us. We draw the line in the sand here, tonight, knowing that doing so will make Kim our enemy.”

  “Oh, what the fuck,” Annika said, and then she sent the text on to everyone in her group.

  Kim is only as powerful as we let her be. We have all been so scared of her that we’ve let her run all over us, and we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s the right thing to do because it was our only option. But now there is another choice. Nicky Bloom can win this thing. I’m sure of it. If everyone getting this text message comes to Nicky’s party rather than Kim’s, people will see that they don’t have to support Kim and the whole house of cards that is Kim’s Coronation campaign will fall apart. Be brave, my friends. See you at the Hamilton.

  Watching Annika hit the send button on that text message was one of the most exciting moments of Jill’s life. So much had gone wrong at the dance, so many unexpected obstacles, but here she was, her mission accomplished. Annika was coming to Nicky’s party and demanding that her friends come with her.

  Now, as Annika and Jill waited in the empty night club on the top floor of the Hamilton Hotel, Jill wasn’t so sure.

  “Has anyone written back to you at all?” Jill asked.

  Annika shook her head. “I’m getting a drink,” she said.

  The Hamilton Hotel on K Street was a posh gathering place for lobbyists, politicians, lawyers, and everyone else who made DC work. The lobby and bar on the ground floor was a notorious watering hole for the most powerful people in the world, who liked to gather in the evenings to flex their political muscles. The ten floors of luxury hotel suites were always filled with emperors, presidents, ambassadors, and diplomats, and the top floor was home to the most exclusive nightclub in town.

  Perhaps a little too exclusive, Jill thought. Was anyone coming to this party at all? Even Nicky wasn’t here. Where was she?

  For a six-minute span, Jill thought all was lost, that she had blown it and the entire mission was over. They were six horrible minutes, when it was just Jill and Annika hanging out in a nightclub that was meant to hold hundreds of people, just Jill and Annika about to get a private concert from the biggest pop star in America. Jill and Annika against the world, having risked everything to support Nicky rather than Kim, and, for six minutes at least, seeming to have chosen incorrectly.

  But then the elevator chimed and the doors opened. The first one out was Art Tremblay. The second was Marshall Beaumont. As Jill was greeting them both, the elevator on the other wall chimed and opened up to reveal Annika’s entire crew waiting inside.

  Mattie, Jake, Vince, Norah, and Jenny came out first, giggling about something as they stepped from the elevator. Eric and Shauna came up next. Then Isabel and Gabe. The elevator dinged again and Lonnie and Karina came inside. Add in Jill and Annika and the total guest count at Nicky’s after-party was fourteen, almost certainly a much smaller number than Kim would have, but enough to make this into a two-person contest. Fourteen guests including one of the big money players in the class, and a party that was about to get rocking.

  If only the guest of honor would show up.

  As she was greeting Lonnie with a hug, Jill’s phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  Got in a car wreck but now on my way. No one hurt. Get the party started.

  A car wreck? Go figure. All the planning in the world had led them to this moment and Nicky had gotten in an accident. Jill shook her head at the absurdity of it, then headed to the stage on the far wall of the club, where Jada Razor’s band had set up and awaited their cue. As she climbed the stairs, Jill nodded at the drummer, mouthing, ‘It’s time,’ then went center stage and took the microphone.

  “Hey everyone, I just got a text from Nicky. She ran into some traffic trouble on the way, but wants us to get started. So, without further ado, I present to you…Jada Razor!”

  The drummer hit four downbeats, the guitar player started a heavy riff, and the show was on. Jill jumped to the floor in time to see Jada Razor and her dance team come out and perform their current number one hit, Babydoll.

  They danced, all fourteen of them. They sang along. They enjoyed each other’s company and the intimate show they were getting from the larger than life superstar. There was a unity to the group that was palpable. These people had come because Annika asked them to, but in doing so, they had tied their futures to each other and their mutual success. For these fourteen people, Nicky Bloom had to win. If she didn’t, they were screwed.

  Jada Razor jumped off the stage to dance with them. The roadies and techs from Jada’s concert crew joined the dance party. Everyone had a blast.

  Jada had completed four songs by the time Jill’s phone buzzed again with another text from Nicky.

  I’m in the lobby. I want to talk to you before I come up.

  Jill shook her head. Nicky Bloom was an enigma. She had the skill to walk into the pressure cooker of the Thorndike Homecoming and win over the room, but she couldn’t make it to her own after-party on time.

  Jill stepped away from the dance floor and exited the night club, taking the elevator all the way down. She found Nicky in the lounge, sitting in a booth by herself. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes had a distant look to them, like she was somewhere else entirely.

  “Nicky?”

  Nicky smiled when she saw Jill. It was a smile that seemed to wash over her whole face in a look of absolute relief.

  “What happened to you?” Jill asked. “Did your finger – how bad was this accident?”

  “Sit down,” Nicky said.

  The story was only minutes in the telling, but as Jill listened, she felt like hours were passing them by, so momentous was this news. It wasn’t just that Melissa Mayhew was involved now, and would have to be killed if the mission were to continue (though that certainly did change the nature of things), it was that, in this story was a little nugget of info about the mysterious Nicky Bloom. She had been on the Farm, and she had escaped. Melissa Mayhew had tried to brainwash her and failed. Tried not once, but twice now, and Nicky had fooled her both times into believing the brainwashing had worked.

  “It’s so strange that her charms do nothing to you,” said Jill. “She, more than any other immortal, would be the one that’s hard to resist.”

  N
icky shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m this way,” she said.

  She looked like she was going to say more on the topic, but then changed her mind. “Anyway, I suppose I should get up to that party.”

  “It’s going really well,” said Jill.

  “Who came?” Nicky asked.

  Jill ran down the entire guest list for Nicky, starting with Annika and finishing with Art. She felt tremendous satisfaction at every name she spoke.

  “This was a heck of a night, wasn’t it?” Nicky said.

  “I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” said Jill.

  “You realize this is only the beginning,” said Nicky.

  “Oh yeah. At this time tomorrow, my parents are gonna flip. Kim Renwick is probably going to be at my house soon. That’s gonna be fun.”

  “You’ll do great,” said Nicky. “Jill, you were pretty phenomenal tonight. Whatever else happens, I hope you know that. I know it was hard for you to get Annika out here, but you did what you had to do and you should be proud of yourself.”

  “Actually, about Annika, I didn’t exactly blackmail her,” said Jill. “I found another means of persuasion that was even more effective.”

  “Really? What did you do?”

  It was a big question, one that Jill was only now beginning to comprehend. What did she do? She broke into Annika’s clique early in the summer, won Annika’s trust, got invited to Cozumel and Annika’s girls-only party, hacked into Annika’s computer, learned the truth about Shannon Evans, and used that knowledge to save Nicky’s after-party. She had gone undercover as a Network operative and completed her mission.

  Or at least, completed part of it. There was plenty more to do, starting tomorrow.

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” Jill said. “Right now, we need to get you cleaned up. We’ve got a block of rooms on the eighth floor just for the party. Get a key from the front desk.”

  Nicky smiled. “How bad do I look?”

  “You still look amazing,” Jill said. “Just not as put together as you were at Homecoming. And your finger – what are we going to do about that?”

  “The whole point of the car accident was to give me an alibi,” Nicky said. “So we’ll use it. I got in a wreck on the way here and I came out unharmed, except for my little finger.”

  “Are you really unharmed?”

  “I think I’ll be alright,” said Nicky. “But I can tell by your reaction that I need a bit of work before I’m presentable again. I’ll go get myself in order. See you up there?”

  “Yeah, yeah of course,” said Jill. “See you up there.”

  34

  You, me, and your friend, together again in the ballroom, six years after your improbable escape.

  Melissa’s words rang in Nicky’s mind and left her wondering what might have been.

  She wondered what might have happened had she not gotten up and left the Farm, but instead went further inside to find her family.

  She wondered what might have happened had she and Gia spent more time at the lookout post, not just looking for intelligence about Melissa’s side businesses, but actually looking for Frankie and her father.

  She wondered how close she and Frankie had come tonight. Had Nicky poked her head into Renata’s kitchen, or out the back door, would she have seen him?

  Nicky waited for Jill to get in the elevator, then she got up from the booth in the lobby of the Hamilton and went outside. She walked along the perimeter of the hotel until she was in an alleyway in the back. She checked all around and when she was confident no one was present, she stepped into the shadows behind a dumpster and called Gia.

  “Nicky, what’s going on? Aren’t you supposed to be at your party?”

  “Frankie’s alive,” Nicky said, savoring the words as she spoke them aloud. She had left Frankie out of the story she told Jill, knowing that Jill wouldn’t understand the significance. But to say the words to Gia, to the only person who had shared in Nicky’s search, it was a moment of pure bliss, even if the next words were as ugly and harsh as the world they lived in. “He’s a slave in Renata’s mansion.”

  Silence on the other end.

  “And we’ve got a problem with Melissa Mayhew,” Nicky added.

  “Nicky, are you telling me you saw Frankie inside?”

  She told Gia the story, the complete, unabridged story, recounting her conversation with Melissa word for word.

  “Dear God,” Gia said. “You sure know how to make it interesting.”

  “I think we’ll need to plan an assassination attempt on Melissa,” said Nicky.

  “I should say so. But don’t you worry about that right now. You’ve got a party to get to.”

  “And I’d like to be involved when we discuss how we’re going to get Frankie out.”

  “I know you do. One thing at a time, though, okay? You’re already late.”

  “And I don’t know what to make of Sergio. I swear – I never was able to do the Abbot’s meditation before, but after Sergio danced with me….something changed.”

  “Nicky, this is all very interesting and we’ll do a full debriefing later, but right now you are still on assignment. There are people waiting for you on the top floor. You need to get up there. It’s time to hang up the phone.”

  “I know,” Nicky said. “I’m just…I can’t believe Frankie is alive.”

  “I can’t believe it either,” said Gia. “I’m happy for you, and I’m going to help you get him out. Now get your ass up there and get back to work.”

  Nicky smiled. Back to work. Her “job” was to go to a private party with the biggest pop star in the world, a party where she was the guest of honor. Things could be worse.

  She said goodbye to Gia and went back to the lobby, where she found the front desk very willing to help her. They escorted her to the luxury suite on the eighth floor and had a stylist come direct to her room to help her get her hair and makeup back in order. It was just before two in the morning when she got back on the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. She could hear the music thumping on the other side of the door as the elevator came to a stop. Taking a deep breath, she waited for the doors to open, then she stepped out of the elevator and into the party.

  Acknowledgements

  My cover designer, Chris Stenger, outdid himself with this one. Thank you, Chris.

  As he has done for all my books, Rob Eigenbrod provided valuable feedback on the story as it was developing, and the manuscript when it was ready to read. Thanks dude.

  Thank you Becca Taylor and Christina Grant for seeking out those little things in the manuscript that are so easy for an author to miss.

  The community at Kindleboards has kept me up to date on the latest trends in publishing and also provided inspiration whenever I needed it. Good luck, everyone.

  I feel like every author who is making a go of it in the digital age owes some thanks to Joe Konrath, who has been our advocate and champion from the early days. Same goes for Amanda Hocking, who showed us all that nice girls can in fact finish first.

  Kira, Rowan, and Connor – I love you guys.

  And of course the biggest thanks goes to my wife, Julie, whose name should appear on the front cover for all the help she provided with this one.

  Look for Girls Wearing Black Book Two in winter 2012!