Rushing to die, p.16
Rushing to Die, page 16
Asha, Aubrey, Zoe, and I were clustered around the computer, our mouths slack from shock at the fingers that were now being pointed at us. Yes, it was a lie. But it was the worst kind of lie EVER, and one that we had no way of combating.
“I can’t accept this. It’s so blatantly untrue. I’m the social director! I know the truth!” Asha was getting dangerously worked up, and Aubrey put an arm around her shoulders.
“This is going to kill us with the rushees,” Zoe muttered.
“They won’t believe this. They can’t believe it. Right, Margot?” Aubrey lifted her worried eyes to me. Once again, the women were looking to me to show leadership.
I was about to reassure them, to tell them that it was all going to blow over, that anyone who had seen the Delta Beta chapter would know this post was a lie, but I was interrupted by a call on my cell phone. The number was unknown, but I picked it up anyway.
“Hello?”
“How could you?”
“Who is this?” I asked. Really. It could be anyone these days.
“I thought we had an understanding!”
“Sheila?”
“We had a truce!”
Oh. The truce. I made a face. She was serious about that?
“We had a truce,” she said it again, like it had been really important to her. “And then you and your Little Debbies go and post about us?”
She sounded really hurt.
“It wasn’t us.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t. “Why would we do such a thing?”
“You and I both know why. You wanted revenge for when I beat you at Immaculate Conception.”
Hearing it coming from her made me go shivery all over. “I don’t do revenge.”
“Well, I do. And if you think this posting about how none of the fraternities will mix with the Debs because of your unfortunate bouts of mouth herpes was bad, you just wait until you see the rest of what I can do, Margot Blythe. Nobody breaks a truce with me and gets away with it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you should make sure your sisters don’t break curfew.”
She hung up after that chilling statement, and another round of goose bumps rose on my upper arms. Her words ping-ponged around the inside of my head. Curfew … Revenge … Immaculate Conception … Oregon.
Holy caramel macchiato. The original GreekGossip posting listed Oregon along with Immaculate Conception in the list of schools where Sheila DeGrasse had wreaked havoc. The same school that Shannon Bender had just graduated from.
It was a huge coincidence. But Sheila DeGrasse had just proved herself to be a completely unreasonable, vengeful shrew who had just threatened my entire chapter and spread an anonymous rumor that the Debs were sorority non grata for the Sutton fraternities. If she could do something that horrible, what else would she do?
I leaned over and reread the responses to Nick Holden’s inflammatory thread. What if … what if … my mind raced with dark and unfounded suspicions. There was so much to unpack, but I had to start taking decisive actions if I wanted to end the threats that were hanging over the Delta Beta house.
I grabbed my jacket, purse, and car keys and headed out the door. If Sheila DeGrasse was going to threaten my chapter, her experience from Immaculate Conception should have told her what was coming next.
SIX YEARS OF serving as a sisterhood mentor and helping chapters during rush had taught me many things. I knew how to apply lip gloss so that it didn’t end up on my teeth after hours of smiling, singing, and talking. I knew how to look a rushee in the eye and see if she was lying about the extent of her marijuana experience. And I also knew that sometimes anonymous message boards and Twitter accounts weren’t going to be enough to fight vicious lies spread by jealous girls.
Sometimes, you had to get your own hands dirty and get down in the Alpha Kappa Jell-O wrestling ring yourself.
So here I was, standing outside Nick Holden’s room at the Fountain Place Inn. I knocked loudly and was shocked when the man himself opened the door. Shouldn’t he be out reporting on something?
He answered the door and checked his watch. “Margot? Did we have an appointment?”
On the way over, I had debated how to play this, but now, standing in front of a famous news personality, with a reputation people could trust, I decided to just come out with it. “You’re posting replies to yourself on Greek Gossip.”
Holden’s eyes grew round as a camera lens. I held a hand up to stop his sputtering.
“It had to be you. All those details about Sheila DeGrasse’s work history. Only someone who has done background research could know all that.”
“It’s common knowledge.”
“No, it’s not. Especially her working at Immaculate Conception University. I’m the only person in Sutton who knows what she did there. And I didn’t post those things.”
“The Internet is a big place, Margot. And they let anyone come in and write whatever they want.”
“It’s pretty unlikely that someone else who was at ICU four years ago happened to stumble upon your posting and decide to answer it. And, within two minutes of the original topic.” Holden’s usual suave, confident, anchorman demeanor had faded to something uncertain and shaky.
“Why don’t you come in, and we can discuss it.”
Instead, I took a step back. “I don’t trust you,” I told him. “And I don’t like what you’re doing here. You’re purposely causing trouble. And I have to wonder if the college administrators know what you’re doing.”
Genuine distress crossed his face now. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m hustling is all. You don’t understand cable news. It’s brutal out there. Gossip, innuendo, backstabbing, and that’s just your friends.”
I shook my head. I was a sorority woman in the middle of rush. I think I had him beat in that arena, but he still wanted to prove a point. “I wouldn’t have to do all this if your Panhellenic hadn’t told everyone not to talk to me.”
“They don’t have that much power.”
Holden sneered. “Oh yeah? Last week I had thirty women show up for a round table on sorority rush. I asked them all to come back to film an interview, and you know how many showed up? Zero.”
“It’s rush week,” I explained to a clueless male for the four-hundredth time that week. “People are busy!”
“I have a deadline. And if you and your witches won’t bring me the story, I’ll get it one way or another.”
“You’re poking the bear, Holden. And if you don’t stop, it’s going to poke back.”
“Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?”
“No.” I sighed, but I had to wonder why he had immediately jumped to that conclusion. Did I look like a girl who threatened people? Maybe it was my sassy new blond highlights that made him think that.
I was almost back to my car when my cell phone rang—Ty Hatfield.
“I’m only calling you because I know how you’ll be if I didn’t tell you.” He ground out the words.
“Tell me what?”
“I received a second anonymous call.”
Please no.
“About another Delta Beta breaking curfew and leaving the house last night.”
Sheila FREAKING DeGrasse!
I tilted my head back to see the third floor of the Fountain Place Inn.
“Thank you very much for letting me know, Lieutenant.” I popped the trunk to my car.
“Blythe? What is that sound?”
“Have a good day, Lieutenant.”
The last thing I heard before I hung up was Ty saying something about how my being polite was suspicious. Unwarranted—I was always extremely polite to all public officials.
And to motel maids.
Ever since we came up with Plan B, I’d kept a blond wig and glasses in the trunk of my car. Let’s just say there were some possibilities for cloak-and-dagger operations, and I was thrilled that I was finally going to use them. I considered being a natural brunette my curse, ever since my mother told me at twelve years old that blondes really did have more fun—and she could tell because my father’s girlfriend was a blonde.
I expertly donned my disguise, and fifteen minutes later, I had charmed a member of the housekeeping staff into letting me into Sheila DeGrasse’s suite. The smell of her Angel perfume hit me like a baseball bat; I was going to reek of it the rest of the day.
This was a very impromptu, very poorly-thought-out plan, but I just had to see Sheila’s room and double-check that there wasn’t some huge piece of evidence against Callie. I would run in and out, making a quick sweep before I could get caught.
“I’ll just be a second,” I told the maid. “I think I left my bronzer here last night. And you know how us girls can’t live without our golden glow in January.” I wasn’t sure she understood me, but I took advantage anyway and started poking around Sheila’s room. I pulled out drawers and opened the lid of her suitcase and was in the bathroom rifling through her makeup bag when I heard Sheila’s voice greeting the maid.
A quick glance around the bathroom confirmed that I had no place to hide unless I jumped behind the shower curtain, which wasn’t an option. If I was getting caught snooping by Sheila, I was going to get caught in style.
I flung open the bathroom door. “Found it!” I cried, lifting a compact into the air. “Thank you so much,” I said to the maid graciously. I pretended to notice Sheila. “Oh, you’re here.”
She crossed her arms against her chest and tapped her long red fingernail against her sleeve. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I accidentally left my bronzer here last night. But I found it, so I won’t bother you anymore.”
Sheila didn’t move aside to let me pass. “That’s my bronzer.”
“Oh?” I inspected the container more closely. “That’s strange. We use the same shade.” I held it out to her. “Here you go. I’ll just be on my way.”
“Leave us,” Sheila snapped at the maid, who apparently was being tipped very well because she skedaddled and shut the door behind her before I could make my move.
We faced each other down, and I was about to come up with something glib about being in her room again when I saw something terrible. I never thought I could be horrified about a pile of designer shoes. That shot of designer shoes that I’d reviewed multiple times on Ty’s computer. I had assumed they were Shannon’s, somewhere in her room. But they were here, the pile of dust bags with the logos that I could never afford on a chapter advisor’s salary. At least, not without some major birthday money from Great-aunt Dorothy.
Maybe I’d been too sleep deprived the night before to think straight; but today, a glance inside Sheila’s closet confirmed it was the exact same view that Shannon Bender’s Witness XV–99 glasses had captured before she died.
Now was the time for me to escape the clutches of evil Sheila DeGrasse, to jump in my car, and drive straight to the Sutton police station to present further solid evidence of who killed Shannon Bender.
“What’s got you so scared, Blythe? Is it that you finally got caught breaking a law?”
I rolled my eyes, mostly at the irony that a murderer was accusing me of being a criminal. “I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“It’s called breaking and entering!”
“It’s called just entering when housekeeping lets you in!” I yelled, then remembered, don’t yell at the murderer. It was a good rule. One I needed to remember.
I raised my hands innocently. “I thought I left something here. That’s all. Can I go, please?”
“This is just like you. You pulled the same stunts at Immaculate Conception. And somehow you think you can just skate by with your pretty hair—”
“Thank you.”
“And your stupid way of talking.”
“I’m from Florida!”
“And why do you keep looking in my closet?” Sheila demanded. I hadn’t realized that I was. “Did you put something in there? Firecrackers? A jar of ants? A bag of dog poop?” Sheila gasped. “If my Manolos smell like poop because of you—”
“You’ll what? Kill me?”
Sheila looked like she’d been slapped. I went on, though antagonizing a rush consultant was never a good idea. “That’s right, I’ve figured out what you did to Shannon Bender.”
Right then, Sheila’s face crumpled, and she burst into hysterical sobs. “You are evil, Margot Blythe! Just evil! I would have never taken this job at Sutton if I’d known you would be here. How could you accuse me of killing my own sister?”
Wait. What?
“Your sister?”
“She was my great-grand-little sister at the Oregon Tri Mu chapter. She came to Sutton because of me! And then your Debs ripped the life from her, and the police won’t do anything to you!”
I threw up my hands. “We have an alibi!”
“How do you do it?” Sheila demanded. “How do you always convince people that it’s not your fault?”
“Because it’s not!”
“It never is!” she spat.
We were going around in circles. “I’m telling the police about the shoes, Sheila. The footage on Shannon’s spy-glasses …” My voice trailed off as I put the pieces together.
“Shannon came from Oregon to Sutton to help you.”
Sheila nodded mournfully.
“And you were going to use her to spy for you!”
“You pulled the exact same stunt at Immaculate Conception.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then shut it. Technically, there might have been a Plan B during that rush, too. But at least it didn’t result in someone’s getting killed.
Sheila sank onto the side of the bed, her shoulders slumped, her mascara in black streaks down her face. “Go ahead and tell the police. It’s the kind of low, conniving move you’d make.”
“At least I’m not doing it anonymously!” I pointed my finger at her, and she had the grace to look shamefaced. “Callie may have made a poor decision, but it wasn’t criminal.”
After a beat, Sheila’s brows drew together. “Who’s Callie?”
“Callahan Campbell? Callie? Our standards and morals director?”
Sheila lifted her shoulders. “So?”
The nerve of this woman. “You turn in an anonymous tip to the police, and you don’t even know her name? You’re not very good at this.”
Sheila shook her head slowly. “I didn’t call about Callie.” Then she said a name.
It took me a minute to process what Sheila had just said.
Finally, I could repeat it. “Ginnifer Martinelli?”
Chapter Thirty
SHEILA NODDED WARILY.
“This doesn’t make sense. Why would Ginnifer leave the house in the middle of the night? How do you even know this?”
Her face shuttered. “That’s privileged information.”
Sure. “Ginnifer is our visiting sisterhood mentor. She would never break the rules,” I insisted, even as Callie’s accusations were ringing in my ears. She hates me. She hates the whole chapter.
“Like you never broke the rules?” Sheila’s sarcasm cut to the bone. She had me there. But while I might have broken teensy eensy little rules here and there, it was always to benefit the greater sisterhood. Ginnifer, on the other hand … I wasn’t entirely sure what she was up to.
I had urged Callie to take the high road, to consider Ginnifer’s side of the story before we jumped to any conclusions. But if the Tri Mus knew that Ginnifer was breaking curfew and rule number four, that was going to not only look bad on the Debs but also potentially bring the police straight back to our front door. One curfew breaker was suspicious. Two looked like a conspiracy to commit murder.
“I’m …” I paused. “I’m sorry about your friend,” I decided to say. Something about the flow of tears and the stricken look on Sheila’s face made me believe that whatever stunts she had pulled, whatever lies or half-truths she was still telling, she was genuinely devastated by Shannon Bender’s death. Fresh tears flowed after I said that, and I sat next to her on the bed and pulled her hand into my lap.
“But I still have to tell the police about your connection to Shannon,” I said quietly. “It’s not personal, but until they catch her killer, we’re never going to be able to finish rush.”
Sheila wiped her nose. “Shannon would not have wanted this. Tri Mu meant everything to her. She only wanted to make our sisterhood great.”
I bit back a response about dreaming impossible dreams and squeezed Sheila’s hand supportively. “I’m also sorry I came here,” I finally said. “I don’t really know why I did. Except when I thought you were threatening Callie, it got me a little crazy.”
Sheila nodded. “You’ll do anything to protect your sisters. It’s the only thing I respect about you.”
I bristled a little but realized that even if Sheila didn’t appreciate my many other exceptional qualities, she had pinpointed one of my best. Like a lady, I graciously accepted the backwards compliment.
“We have to find out who killed Shannon,” Sheila whispered.
“And Daria,” I added.
“She was just a freshman. It breaks my heart that she never got to pledge.”
“I know.”
“What if it happens to someone else?” she asked, with a raw edge to her voice. “Sutton Panhellenic will never recover. No one will ever pledge here again. And Shannon’s death will be for nothing.”
“They’ll find the killer,” I said with as much confidence as I could muster.
Sheila didn’t answer, and we sat in silence, both lost in our own worries, when she suddenly said, “There’s an ice-cream social going on for the rushees right now.”
“I heard that.” I didn’t want to give anything away.
“It might be a good place to try to get some information about Daria Cantrell.”
“True. I bet she had a lot of friends going through rush.”
“With the GreekGossip thread, there’s going to be a lot of chatter.”
I turned to face Sheila. “We didn’t post that information about you.”
Sheila bit her lip. “I didn’t start that rumor about you.”
