Private 10 - Suspicion (17 page)

"Is there more of this bread?" I asked, lifting the crusty bit I had left. Noelle got up to cut me some more and brought back a cluster of grapes and a few slices of cheese with it. Someone had decided that bland was the way to go, but I would have pretty much killed for a chili cheeseburger. Or a pepperoni pizza. Or a huge pile of jelly donuts.

"So all this time it was Mrs. Ryan?" Noelle said as she placed the food in front of me on the glass-topped table and sat down again. "Why? Was she doing it for Paige?"

Sawyer and I looked at one another. If Noelle thought Mrs. Ryan's guilt was unbelievable, she was never going to be able to swallow her motive. I opened my mouth to respond, but a loud shout stopped me short.

"What the hell is going on here? Where's my father? You can't just drag her away like this!

No! Get the hell off of me!"

It was Daniel Ryan. In one of his rages, it seemed. I heard scuffling footsteps. A crash. The clack of high heels. Suddenly Daniel and Paige came barreling into the kitchen, followed by Dash and Kiran. Daniel's otherwise handsome face was red with rage, his tuxedo tie still knotted tightly around his neck. Paige's auburn hair had come loose from its updo. The tail of her light green gown swished behind her as they stormed into the room.

"What kind of lies are you telling now?" Daniel shouted, getting right up in my face. I instinctively skittered backward on my chair and ended up half in Noelle's lap, half suspended over the floor. He looked a lot like his mother did when she was getting all psychotic.

"First Poppy and now my mother? Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Your mother tried to kill Reed!" Sawyer shouted, getting up and shoving Daniel away from me with both hands.

Everyone fell silent. It was the first time I had ever heard Sawyer raise his voice. The first time he'd gotten directly involved in a conversation of his own volition, let alone a fight. We were all stunned. But it was Paige who recovered first.

"You're lying," she said, her voice quaking. "Why would my mother want to kill anyone, let alone her?" She gave me a look like I wasn't even worthy of her attention, let alone anyone's ire.

Just then a female police officer stepped into the room, a blue windbreaker over the standard uniform of polo shirt and shorts. Her short black hair was pulled back in a tiny, tight ponytail and she was looking at a small pad as she entered. After a moment she flipped the pad shut and glanced around at us.

"Paige and Daniel Ryan?" she asked.

"Yes," Daniel said, stepping forward with his sister.

"You're going to want to come down to the station to meet up with your father," the woman said. "Your mother has just confessed to attempted murder."

"What?" Daniel shrieked.

Paige clutched her purse in front of her with both hands. "I don't understand. She has no motive. She wouldn't hurt a fly. She-"

The woman sighed and flipped open her pad again to read. "Apparently she had some sort of sexual relationship with this girl's boyfriend .. . one Upton Giles?"

"Omigod." Paige turned around, and without so much as a breath, puked into the stainless steel sink. My stomach heaved. It was barely ready for food, let alone seeing someone else's come backup. I turned away and stared out the window toward the ocean.

"What?" Daniel blurted again. "No. That's not possible."

"That's what your mother says." The woman was behind me, but I saw her shrug, thanks to her reflection in the window. She looked at Paige and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "She didn't even need to be asked twice. It was almost like she was proud of it."

Kiran snorted a laugh and earned an admonishing look from the rest of us. "Sorry, it's just... I've done a few things in my life, but I've never shared a guy with my mom," she said, glancing at Paige's still heaving back.

Paige stood up straight, hand over her mouth, and ran out of the room in tears.

"She confessed?" Daniel said, staring at the officer. "To all of it?"

"Hiring the kidnappers, spooking the horse, rigging the Jet Ski," the woman said. "She does, however, maintain that this Marquis person is guilty of the incident at sea, but it seems like an open-and-shut case to me."

No one said a word. We all stared at the floor. Was Marquis really guilty, or had Mrs. Ryan hung him out to dry for some reason? I had no idea, and not enough energy to think about it for very long.

"This can't be happening," Daniel said.

As much as I disliked Daniel, I actually felt bad for him at that moment. It couldn't be easy to find out your mother was an attempted murderer. Not to mention a pedophile who'd had sex with one of your friends and was now obsessed with him.

"Are you coming along?" the woman asked him.

"I'll go get my sister," he said. Without another word, he ducked his head and walked out.

"Is there anything we can do foryou, miss?" the woman asked me. My brain was still fuzzy. I wanted to tell her she could put Marshall and Gravois in front of a firing squad, but somehow that didn't seem like the right thing to say.

"Where's Upton?" I asked.

"Sorry. I don't know," the officer replied.

"We'll take care of her," Noelle said. She moved as if to touch my back, but then thought better of it and placed her hand on the back of my chair instead. "She'll be fine." The officer left and for a long moment there was no sound inside the kitchen aside from that of my own chewing.

"Upton's probably still downtown," Noelle said. "I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"So someone really was trying to kill you all this time," Kiran said finally. She tucked the skirt of her slim red gown beneath her as she lowered herself onto a chair in one elegant motion.

"Yep," I said.

"Reed, I'm so sorry we didn't believe you," Noelle said.

"Whatever," I replied. "Is there any more cheese?" Dash rushed to get me some.

"Thanks," I said, shoving an entire slice into my mouth. I could feel them all looking at one another with concern, eyeing me warily.

"Do you think she has post-traumatic stress disorder or something?" Kiran asked.

"You guys, I'm fine. I'm just starving. And I really want to take a bath and then slather myself in aloe," I said. "And then I want to sleep. For about two days."

"I think we can make that happen," Sawyer said.

"Dash, getyour car," Noelle demanded, standing up with her hand on my back. "Let's get Reed home."

ROOMIES

I rinsed the two-hundred-dollar-an-ounce moisturizing masque from my face and blotted my sensitive skin with a towel. When I looked into the mirror, Kiran was staring at me from over my shoulder, a red silk robe cinched around her waist. It was her product, after all, so she had a vested interest in making sure it had done the trick. Unfortunately, her disappointment was written all over her face.

"Well, at least we got your hair looking normal," she said in a resigned way.

"Shut up!" I said, whipping the towel at her.

"I'm just kidding!" she replied, her arms crossed in front of her face to protect herself. "You look a thousand percent better."

"Really?" I glanced at my reflection. After two days my face was almost entirely healed, except for my nose, which was red and peeling. My lips were still cracked and they stung 24/7, but the blisters were gone, which made eating a lot easier. And kissing. Which Upton and I had tested out earlier that evening while Caroline was on a break.

"Really," Noelle said, appearing in the bathroom doorway. "By the time we get back to Easton you'll be almost recognizable." Easton. A little shiver went through me at the thought of seeing Josh again. Had he heard about what had happened? I had a feeling that none of the girls had called him, and guys, as a rule, were less reliable gossips. I had to believe that if Dash, Gage, or "West had reached him with the news he would have called me. Or at least e-mailed. But there was nothing. Over two weeks since I'd seen him and not one word.

Not that it mattered. I had Upton. And Upton was there for me every day.

"Come on. Taylor's mixed a special color for you and she won't shut up about it," Noelle said. She gathered her hair up atop her head and shoved a hair pick into it to hold it there. Which it miraculously did.

I followed her and Kiran back into my room, where Taylor, Tiffany, and Amberly were hanging out, flipping through magazines as Noelle's iPod blasted music from the dock on my dresser. Noelle had pulled in a few of the chairs from the dining room, and Taylor had set up a foot spa in front of one of them. Laid out on the floor was her professional manicure/pedicure kit with dozens of tools perfectly lined up and ready to go.