Get Dirty (21 page)

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Bree said quickly, sounding somewhat placated.

“And don’t forget Amber,” Olivia added. “She’s a DGM target too.”

“Tammi Barnes and Amber Stevens,” Ed mused. “Victims or killers? News at eleven.”

“Hm.” John was staring at the ceiling.

“What?” Kitty asked.

He stretched a long arm behind his head and grabbed the back of his chair. “I was just thinking. There’s got to be some way we can use this to our advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, bouncing his head against the crook of his arm. “You’ve never known exactly where and when the killer was going to strike next, right? This might be our chance to set a trap.”

“You mean use one of them as bait.” Ed slid to the edge of his seat. “I like this plan already.”

Kitty saw both the positives and the negatives of this approach. On the one hand, they might be able to lure him out into the open. On the other, they’d be putting someone’s life in danger. “I like the idea of going on the offensive.”

“Yeah,” Bree chortled. “Cuz that worked out so well the last time.”

“Wasn’t it
your
idea last time?”

“Semantics.”

“I don’t think I can convince Amber to help us,” Olivia said. “Unless John asks her.”

“Oh, hell no,” Bree said.

“You got a better idea?” Ed asked.

Bree paused. “Tammi. I think I can get Tammi to do it.”

“I wish Margot was here,” Olivia whined. “She’d know what to do.”

“What would Margot do,” John mused. “I like it. We need wristbands or something.”

What
would
Margot do? It was a more helpful question than perhaps John realized. Margot always took the direct, logical route. Nothing crazy, nothing with a low probability of success. She weighed the pros and cons, evaluated the weak points, calculated the various pieces of each and every plan. Why couldn’t they do the same?

“Okay.” Kitty sat down, her body tense. “Bree, see what you can do with Tammi, but if it doesn’t work, we move to plan B.”

“Plan B?” Bree asked. “What the hell is that?”

“That,” she said slowly, “is where we put on a show.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

BREE
’
S PULSE RATE SPIKED AS OLAF CAREENED THE SUV INTO
the parking lot at Dr. Walters’ office. In the next sixty minutes she had to avoid mentioning her involvement with DGM, satisfy Dr. Walters’ requirements for “adequate group participation and sharing,” and find out if Tammi Barnes would help her find a killer.

No problem.

Tammi was already seated around the circle when Bree entered the therapy room. She smiled and dipped her head toward the chair next to her, inviting Bree to sit.
Here goes nothing
.

“Hey,” Tammi said, a furtive smile threatening her face. “How’s it going?”

Bree shrugged. “Same old, same old.” She thrust out her leg so Tammi could see the anklet. “Not much to do when you’re trapped inside all day,” she lied.

“So you can’t leave at all?”

“Just to come here.”

“For how long?”

Until my dad takes the leash off?
“Until my hearing.”

Tammi’s eyes grew wide. “Wow. What did you do?”

“Um . . .” Shit. Great job, dumbass. You haven’t even been here thirty seconds and you’ve already walked into the one conversation you don’t want to have. “It was stupid, really.”

Tammi smirked. “Stupid like stealing a car stupid? Or stupid like clocking your stepdad over the head with a softball bat?”

“I’d call that last one more ballsy than stupid.” Ballsy in a way that Bree admired, though as she pictured Tammi standing over the unconscious body of her stepfather, he suddenly morphed into Ronny DeStefano.

“Okay, everyone!” Dr. Walters chimed as she breezed into the room. “I’m glad to see we’re all here on time today. Let’s get started, shall we?” She flounced into an open chair, her voluminous peasant skirt billowing around her, and opened her notebook. “I believe we were going to start with Bree today?”

Bree nodded and took a slow, deep breath.
You can do this.
“Can we talk about my parents?” she asked, taking control of the conversation.

Dr. Walters’ face lit up, her eyes glistening. Bree guessed that volunteering to discuss her mommy and daddy issues would be like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull, and she wasn’t wrong. “Of course! Where would you like to start?”

Bree launched into a monologue that she’d been carefully going over in her head all morning. She started with her father, how his political career had always been the driving force in his life, dominating all of his decisions, from whom he married (an heiress with a recognizable name) to where he lived (a district
where said wife’s family had a stellar and well-known reputation) to where he sent his kids to school (established Catholic institutions with long histories of Ivy League placements.) Then she brought up her mother, the spoiled, infantile socialite who hated her life as a wife and mother so much that she’d run away to the south of France as soon as her darling son had left for college.

It made a great story, Bree had to admit. And the best part was that it was all true, every last detail. She couldn’t have written a movie script this believable. Her tragic, neglected little life made for excellent therapy fodder, and Dr. Walters hung on every word, scribbling endless notes as she asked Bree repeatedly how it all made her feel, how her home life influenced her decision making, and where she hoped she’d be at the end of her time in therapy.

And so Bree jumped into her feelings of abandonment and anger. At first she really thought she was playing them up, exaggerating her resentment for the sake of her audience, just like she’d practiced. But as she was relating the story of her brother’s high school graduation, long-buried memories came racing back into her mind, tumbling out of her mouth before she could edit them. The obvious pride displayed by both of her parents that day, the way they fawned over Henry Jr., parading his valedictorian honors in front of her father’s political associates and her mother’s society contacts during a lavish reception at the country club. She remembered how small she felt, how secondary. It was as if her family unit consisted of her parents and her brother, and she was merely some changeling who had appeared on the Deringer doorstop.

Bree loved her brother. Despite the four-year age difference, they’d been pretty close growing up. He was funny and kind and affectionate, all attributes her parents lacked. But as Dr. Walters drew feelings out of her, Bree’s face grew hot, and her eyes stung with the effort to suppress the tears that threatened to blind her vision and swamp her mind.

Which is when she walked into a trap.

“Now, Bree, do you think this desperate need for attention and approval from your parents is what prompted your association with DGM?”

Bree caught her breath. Her head jerked up, aware suddenly of her carelessness. Beside her, she could sense Tammi’s body go rigid, hear her breaths as they came faster and faster.

“I . . .”

Dr. Walters’ alarm dinged with perhaps the worst timing in the history of the world.

“And we can pick up with that on Monday. Thank you, ladies.”

Tammi bolted from her chair and raced out the door before Bree could say anything.

Dammit.

Bree raced down the hall and into the lobby, just in time to see Tammi disappear through the door.

“Tammi!” she cried.

“Where you go?” Olaf said, as Bree dashed through the lobby.

But she didn’t wait to explain. Tammi was already hurrying down the street. “Wait!” Bree cried.

Tammi didn’t slow down or even glance back as Bree
thundered after her, just continued doggedly forward as fast as she could go without breaking into a run.

“You have to listen to me,” Bree said, as she began to overtake her prey.

“Why?” Tammi asked over her shoulder. “So I can make an idiot of myself again?”

Gah. This was not how this was supposed to go down. And after being outed as DGM, she couldn’t exactly lead with “Hey, would you like to play possum for a killer?” So she tried a different approach. “Tammi, you might be in danger.”

“I live in a halfway house,” Tammi said with a laugh. “How much more dangerous can it get?”

“Wendy Marshall,” Bree said, panting. “Xavier Hathaway. Maxwell and Maven,” she paused for air, “Gertler.”

Tammi stopped, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and half-turned back to Bree. “What about them?”

“They’re all missing,” Bree said.

Tammi stared at the pavement, her mouth working up and down as if she were literally chewing on Bree’s words. “Why are you telling me this?”

Why
was
she telling Tammi this? If she was the killer, she was tipping her hand. And though in her heart Bree didn’t really believe that Tammi was responsible for three murders, an attempted murder, and four kidnappings, she did try to kill her stepfather. And DGM had kinda ruined her life. How big of a step was it to actually finish the deed and get back at her enemies at the same time?

No, she couldn’t believe it. This Tammi Barnes was a
different person than the one Bree had known in high school. And Bree was willing to bet her life that Tammi wasn’t a killer.

“Look,” she said at last. “Everyone in the area who’s been a victim of DGM is either dead or missing.”

Tammi’s face clouded. “And you felt the need to warn me, right? Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Tammi,” Bree said, the sting of her words hitting hard. “I just want you to be careful. Whoever is doing this is . . .” Insane? Relentless? “Dangerous.”

Instead of a look of fear or concern passing over her face, a slow grin crept up her cheeks. “I know what dangerous is,” she said in a raspy voice that made the hairs on the back of Bree’s neck stand up at attention. “And you don’t have a clue.” Then she turned and disappeared around the corner.

Okay. So maybe Bree had been wrong.

A horn blared as Olaf screeched the black SUV to a halt beside them. “Get in car!” he bellowed. “Does Olaf need to carry you?”

“No.” Bree opened the door and climbed into the backseat.

“That better.”

“Olaf,” she said. “I need you to follow that girl I was just talking to. She went down Maple. Can you—”

Olaf pulled away from the curb and blew past Maple Street so fast Bree couldn’t even catch a glimpse of any pedestrians.

“What the hell?” she said, grappling with her seat belt. “I need to find out where she went.”

“Home,” Olaf said.

“It’s a matter of life and death.”

But instead of his usually quick response, Olaf paused this time and snuck a glance at her over his shoulder. For a split second, she thought the big beast would show some humanity for once and throw her a bone.

“Olaf have orders,” he said instead.

“Yeah,” Bree muttered, slumping in his seat. “I bet you do.”

But as he sped off toward home, his eyes fixed on traffic, Bree slipped John’s cell phone from her bra and sent a quick, silent text.

Time for Plan B.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

OLIVIA FIDGETED UNCONTROLLABLY AS SHE SAT IN THE
bleachers. This was the third all-school assembly in a month. The last two had been showstoppers: first DGM’s prank against Coach Creed, then Bree turning herself in with the whole school and half the Menlo Park Police Department in attendance. And today? Today would be no different.

Well, slightly different. Olivia scanned the bleachers as the last of the students and teachers filed into the gym. Instead of bursting at the seams as it usually did with the entire student body crammed inside, today the Bishop DuMaine gym was barely half-full. Three deaths had been enough for most parents, and almost the entire freshman and sophomore classes, plus a smattering of upperclassmen, hadn’t shown up for school.

No matter. There were enough eyes watching for what Olivia had planned.

She swallowed, and recrossed her legs for the billionth time. Was this going to work? Or were they about to make another colossal blunder?

“What’s wrong with you?” Jezebel asked. “You’re so jumpy.”

“Have you seen Amber?” Olivia asked by way of an answer.

“Nope.”

Where is she?
Olivia reached into her tote bag, searching for her phone, when she remembered it wasn’t there. Part of the new security measures on campus. Since both Rex’s video and Amber’s photo montage made the rounds online, where every student with access to the internet in the palm of their hand could stream them in a matter of seconds, Father Uberti had banned all portable cellular and wireless devices from campus. Olivia had been forced to leave hers in Peanut’s car, and she just hoped that Kitty and Ed had managed to stash theirs before the cops bagged them.

Olivia shifted her body again, eliciting an irritated grumble from Jezebel, then her attention was drawn to the far side of the gym as Kyle and Tyler marched through the door. They wore matching black armbands over their blue ’Maine Men polo shirts, a tribute to their fallen comrade. They’d been handing out the armbands around campus all morning, and much to Olivia’s horror, the gesture had spread like wildfire. Their fellow ’Maine Men wore them, of course, but others had joined in. Rex Cavanaugh was more feared than revered at Bishop DuMaine, but in the end, he was one of them. And he had been viciously murdered.

Father Uberti arrived next, followed by a half-dozen priests. Representatives from the archdiocese. Two of them wore the same black hooded cassocks as old F.U., with matching cinctures around their waists. Must be members of his order. The rest wore
the usual black pants and jackets with stiff white collars around their necks.

Father Uberti walked more slowly than usual, and his air lacked its usual cocky self-importance. His shoulders sagged, and he stroked his beard with an almost manic energy. For the first time in Olivia’s high school career, Father Uberti looked insecure.