Rushing to Die (15 page)

 

Chapter Twenty-­eight

I
HAD NEVER,
ever allowed Lieutenant Ty Hatfield to conduct illegal searches, seizures, or interviews of my Debs without my presence, and he darn well knew it. I took my responsibilities as their mentor/advisor/honorary big sister extremely seriously. If their parents were not around, I was going to be there, in a quasi-­legal capacity.

Two questions into Ty's interview of Callie, I knew exactly where this was going. “Really? You called her in because of an anonymous tip? On
Law & Order
, they always ignore those—­they're from psychics and other crazy ­people.”

“This one was very specific.”

I crossed my arms and waited because there was no way in heck my sweet Callahan Campbell, a direct descendant of Mary Gerald Callahan, for goodness' sake, would have broken rule number four and left the Deb house after curfew.

Ty continued, “This one said that at or about four in the morning, you left your room on the third floor of the Delta Beta house, exited out the northwest back door, and proceeded to run around the block, switching up the chapters' Greek letters outside their houses.”

That was really specific. I said, “That is ridiculous.”

“Did you—­”

“Objection!” I said. Callie opened her mouth, then closed it when I glared at both of them.

“Ms. Blythe . . .” Oooh. “Ms.” only scared me when it was from someone younger than me. I was not intimidated by Lieutenant Ty Hatfield.

“Do you know who this is?” I wrapped my arm around Callie.

“Callahan Campbell, I hope.”

“Exactly! She's Callahan Campbell, the chapter's standards and morals director. She's an excellent role model who's never broken a sorority rule in her life.” Callie bit her lip.

Ty raised his eyebrows. “Wasn't she the one having an illicit affair with the house brother last semester—­”

“Okay, really—­”

“And was recorded having sex in your office?”

Callie winced. “You've gone too far,” I said.

“You brought up her character.”

Darn him and his accuracy. “Even if she did leave the house and go for an early-­morning run, which is an excellent health habit, by the way, and one which we should be commending her for when obesity strikes far too many beautiful, successful college women—­what does that have to do with anything?”

Ty speared me with a sharp stare. “Daria Cantrell was murdered at approximately four in the morning. Which makes Ms. Campbell either a potential witness to the crime or a possible suspect.”

I stood up, yanking Callie's arm with me. “We're done. Come on Callie, let's go.”

“I'm not done,” Ty said, his voice rising a little as he also stood behind his desk.

“Are you accusing her of something? Is she being arrested? Based on an anonymous tip?”

“No, but—­”

I held up a finger. “After all the help I've given you today, this is how you repay me?”

“Margot, I have to look at everyone, not just the suspects you give me.”

I pushed Callie toward the door. Ty called out behind me, “I don't arrest ­people just because you tell me to!”

“And I don't sit down and shut up just because you tell me to!” I yelled back over my shoulder.

It might not have been the most ladylike thing I've ever said, but it was probably the truest.

B
ACK
IN THE
safety of the Delta Beta house, I marched Callie into my apartment living area. “Spill,” I ordered her.

She twisted her hands, and when she turned her big brown eyes at me, I knew.

“Callie!” I exclaimed.

“It was hilarious!”

“You broke rule number four!”

“I didn't see anyone, and no one saw me!”

“Someone did and knew what time you left and what door you went through. Unless . . .” A crazy thought entered my head. “That was all just made up?” Maybe it was a psychic's lucky guess that someone named Callie Campbell left the Delta Beta house at 4
A.M.

“No, that was all correct.”

“The northwest back door?”

She nodded glumly. The Delta Beta house sat at the end of the street and backed up to a greenbelt and the Sutton College golf course. It was probably one reason so many ­people dropped dead bodies in our backyard—­it was very private. The northwest back door faced the woods. Unless someone was sitting in the woods watching us in the middle of the night (and that would be supercreepy), that meant . . .

I covered my mouth with my hand. This couldn't be happening again. Callie saw my distress and asked what was wrong. I briefly debated telling her my suspicions, but since her name had been reported to the police, I thought she deserved to know.

“It had to be someone on the inside who saw you leave.”

Callie's eyes narrowed. “Ginnifer.”

“Don't leap to conclusions,” I warned her, but I had to admit, I had the same thought. Little Miss Follow the Rules would have had a fit if she'd seen Callie leave the house during curfew. And that was why it also didn't make sense.

“Why didn't she report you to Panhellenic, then? Why did she make an anonymous tip to the police?”

“Because she hates me. She hates the whole chapter.”

I can see why Callie thought that. The Gineral had definitely earned her nickname.

“Has anyone seen her?” I asked, trying to think all this through.

Callie shook her head no. I moved to the computer and paused as a terrible notion hit me.

“You really ran around the block and switched everyone's letters?”

Callie's adorable dimples flashed at me. “It's funny.”

Under normal circumstances, she would have been right. But her midnight prank had, in all likelihood, been captured by our security cameras' footage. Footage that we had just handed over to the Sutton PD.

Sometimes being the Crime-­Fighting Chapter of the Year had its definite disadvantages.

Before I did anything crazy, like accusing Ginnifer of narcing to the cops about our beloved S&M director, I went to the corner of the backyard to double-­check the vantage points. Walking in an arc confirmed that unless someone was lurking about under the tree cover, there was no accidental way to see Callie sneaking out of the house last night. I would ask Zoe to check our cameras, but they wouldn't be able to see into the woods. Maybe next year, we should talk about upgrading to an infrared system.

I was walking back inside when my phone blew up—­and judging from the sounds I simultaneously heard from the house, everyone had been alerted to some kind of drama. I said a silent prayer to the patron saint of long-­suffering chapter advisors and prepared myself for the worst. As soon as I heard “GreekGossip,” I knew I'd found it.

GreekGossip.net was the nastiest, filthiest, lie-­infested Web site on the Internet. The message boards were crawling with trolls and fraternity guys who probably looked like trolls, spewing sexist, elitist, racist, every kind of bad-­ist vitriol about sororities. Each college had its own forum for Internet meanies to post polls like “Which chapter is the sluttiest?” and “Who has the ugliest pledge class?” The site was a stewpot of negativity; and everyone who pledged anywhere read it regularly.

I didn't read GreekGossip.net because I liked it. I read it to stay on top of the rumors and the public perceptions about the chapter. For instance, when our previous chapter advisor was murdered three months ago in the midst of rumors of a phone-­sex ring, my best friend Casey Kenner, the PR genius, and I had stayed up all night long posting on the boards, shooting down the gossip about Delta Beta—­and adding red herrings about other chapters, just for fun.

So when I walked inside the house, and the entire chapter was buzzing about a new thread on GreekGossip.net, I knew that it was probably a bunch of lies. But that messiness could still be a huge pain in the seat of my lululemon yoga pants.

I walked straight to the kitchen and poured what was left in the coffeepot into a cute Delta Beta mug emblazoned with our mascot, Busy Bee. There was no time for a much-­needed latte. Our day off from formal recruitment was more dramatic than a day full of preplanned conversation and supercute coordinated outfits.

Aubrey, Asha, and Zoe were clustered around a laptop in the dining room. I pulled out a chair across from them. “How bad is it?”

“For whom?” Asha asked.

I perked up a little at that. It was actually a good sign that no one was in hysterics. Maybe it meant that the GreekGossip.net trolls had decided to pick on another chapter for once. When Asha read the posting aloud, there was almost nothing I found offensive. Another first from GreekGossip.

“The Sutton College Tri Mu chapter is really the lowest of the low,” Asha read. I sipped my coffee. So far, so good.

“Their rush tactics show that they are a desperate, skanky bunch of ho-­bags who couldn't rush their way out of a Walmart bag,” Asha continued.

“Wow,” Aubrey said. “That's harsh.”

None of us corrected her. Aubrey's twin sister was president of the Tri Mus, so we tried to be tactful in her presence.

“The whole row has today off,” I observed. “Some Beta Gam or Epsilon chick got bored and decided to start something.” I didn't really see what the fuss was about. It was more of the same for GreekGossip.

Asha shook her head. “It wasn't started by a sorority member.”

“A frat guy?” I asked. It wasn't unheard of, the fraternities got a kick out of starting stuff with sororities, as they did with the annual prank wars in the fall.

“If Nick Holden is in a fraternity.”

Crap. I swiveled the laptop toward me and saw that a user named Nick Holden had started a topic on GreekGossip: Tell the Truth about Sororities.

“WHY?” I asked no one in particular, but Aubrey answered anyway.

“I heard he's had trouble getting ­people to cooperate with his interviews.”

That made sense, given that it was rush and the Mafia had essentially threatened anyone who participated in his journalistic strategies. “But this is the way he gets his scoop?” I asked no one, again. It seemed desperate and shoddy.

Then Asha kept reading. “ ‘The Tri Mu hired rush consultant is a beyotch who travels around the country starting shit with other chapters. This shows you what kind of ­people the Moos are. They purposely brought this beyotch in to divide Sutton Panhellenic like she did at the last schools she went to. At the University of Oregon, Colorado State, Tufts, Immaculate Conception, and more, she has done horrible things to ­people.' ” The post ended with “Don't pledge MU MU MU or you will be joining the biggest bitches ever!”

I flinched a few times during the rant. It got pretty specific about some other aspects of Sheila, speculating about her weight (unfair) and her nose job (totally up for debate). I knew if it were our chapter singled out, we would be worried about rushees reading it and the negative PR impact. But in the end, anyone who knew anything about sororities also knew that the stuff on GreekGossip was 90 percent bull. Surely, Sheila DeGrasse had heard worse over the course of her storied and evil career.

 

Chapter Twenty-­nine

“T
HEY SAID
WHAT?” I screamed at the laptop screen.

It didn't take long for the Tri Mus to rally on GreekGossip.net. They really had way too much time on their hands if all they were doing was sitting around reading this stupid Web site.

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.

S
IX 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.”