Rushing to Die (16 page)

“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

S
HEILA 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.”

I dropped her hand and shoved my butt off the bed. Yeah, right! “You already admitted it on the phone!”

“I thought we were lying to each other on purpose!”

“Why would we do that?”

“Because that's what Debs and Tri Mus do!”

Oh. She had a point. “But we really didn't start that thread about you.”

She lifted a skeptical brow, and I decided to let it go. In the grand scheme of things, the Tri Mus believing we wrote mostly true information on GreekGossip wasn't the worst thing in the world. Besides, time was running out.

“Are we doing this or not?”

Sheila stood decisively. “Just let me get my wig.”

T
HE
R
ECRUITMENT
I
C
E
Cream Social at the student union was Panhellenic's attempt to keep the rushees involved and interested even with pref night delayed because of a murderer's being on the loose. The e-­mail invitation from that morning explicitly stated that representatives from the chapters were not going to be there, so that the rushees knew this wasn't a formal rush event.

I checked my blond wig, glasses, and face in the rearview mirror. I was twenty-­ six, but on a good day, in just the right light, with makeup that had the high-­tech fine-­line-­blurring particles, I could probably pull off a mature, sun-­damaged twenty-­one. That would have to do. Maybe with sunglasses covering my laugh lines, I would be a convincing twenty-­year-­old.

Maybe.

If I was barely pulling off twenty-­one, Sheila looked closer to a PhD student. Her short red bob, fedora, and trench coat were exactly what I would wear if I was a double agent in East Berlin in 1987. But hey, at least everyone was wondering who the German graduate student was and not looking at me.

The ice-­cream social had been thrown together hastily, and it showed. Maya had bought about ten boxes of ice-­cream sandwiches and Creamsicles and laid them out on a table with Happy Birthday paper napkins and some half-­chilled bottles of water. As Panhellenic events went, this one did not reflect the high entertaining standards of the majority of chapters at Sutton College.

The turnout was also lower than I expected. Back in my day, women who hoped to pledge a sorority would have taken every opportunity to present themselves favorably to the chapters—­or to the fellow rushees. After all, psyching out the competition was a huge advantage. Showing up to a social event such as this, impeccably turned out, head high, and beauty-­queen smile plastered on would have earned a girl mega points in Greek society.

So I had to wonder if the low turnout was due to rushees not caring as much about making an impression, or negative attitudes about rush in general, given the ridiculous situation with the Nick Holden campaign. If women were dropping out of rush before pref night, Sheila's worries would be confirmed, and the future of the Sutton Greek system could be at stake.

As we had discussed on the ride over, Sheila and I split up automatically, the better to canvass the room and start as many conversations as possible. We would mix and mingle and artfully direct topics toward Daria, and information that could lead us to why she was outside the Tri Mu house the night before. Between Sheila and me, we had nearly twenty years of rush-­conversation expertise. No one could squeeze info out of a rushee like an experienced sorority woman.

Sheila moved to the left side of the room, and I surveyed the right side. Months of preparation for rush meant that I recognized many of the faces in this room. I had personally reviewed hundreds of letters of recommendation for these women, assigned points to their resumes, uploaded their photos in our database and, of course, been following their social-­media accounts as Casey Fenner. There was no reason why I shouldn't use this opportunity to try to woo some of our top choices to choose Delta Beta. Along with trying to solve a murder. I was nothing if not efficient with my time.

I slowly rotated throughout the room, keeping my face averted from Maya Rodman's semiwatchful gaze. Soon I found a likely group standing in a corner to join. I recognized several of their faces from the first two days of rush, including a double legacy—­someone whose mother and grandmother had both pledged Delta Beta—­named Tanya Pyles, an English major from Atlanta.

Not only could I find out what she might have heard about Daria Cantrell, I could get some information on how likely Tanya was to pledge Delta Beta. Although I was probably imagining the strange looks at my wig when I inserted myself into conversation, I rapidly steered the conversation around to Daria Cantrell.

“I never met her,” I said sadly, not having to pretend that emotion. “But from what I read on GreekGossip, it sounds like she was awesome.”

“You know,” Tanya piped up, “you can't believe everything you read on that Web site.”

I nodded in agreement. “Like anything to do with mouth herpes is probably a complete lie.”

A tall girl with black curls looked at me funny. “Which chapter has mouth herpes?”

“None,” I forced myself to say because saying “Tri Mu” would probably give me away. “So no one knows why Daria Cantrell was walking down sorority row that night?”

“I heard she was doing research for that new Nick Holden documentary,” the tall girl said.

“No,” another woman said. “I have a friend in the Epsilon Chi house. Daria had left her purse in their tent and gone back to find it.”

“At four o'clock in the morning?” I asked skeptically.

“There was a big fraternity party that night,” Tanya offered. The other women all nodded knowledgeably, and I made a note to confirm the party with Zoe. Even so, it seemed like Daria's presence on sorority row in the middle of the night had been completely accidental, which made her murder all the more tragic. She had been in the wrong place, wrong time.

“I'm sure everyone knows she needs to take a buddy with her wherever she goes, just to be safe,” I said. The women's expressions told me I might sound a wee bit too advisorish with that instruction. But safety was really important. “Like now.” I grabbed Tanya's hand. “I need a buddy to go to the bathroom with me.”

Tanya shrugged and followed me out the door of the meeting room and down the hall to the ladies' room. I was mentally high-­fiving myself over a sneaky yet practical way to get Tanya alone to nonchalantly mention how awesome being a triple legacy in Delta Beta would be, when I saw Ginnifer walking toward the bathroom as well.

I still needed to talk to her about turning in the Debs to Von Douton. But if she saw me now, she could blow my cover. I stopped suddenly in front of the water fountain and told Tanya to go ahead. “I'm dying for a drink.”

With a roll of her eyes, she headed into the bathroom, holding the door open for Ginnifer, who didn't seem to recognize me, or notice me for that matter. I counted to twenty before going in, but just as I reached nineteen, I caught a familiar whiff of Angel perfume. Turning to greet Sheila, I saw instead Alexandria Von Douton walking into the ladies' room. Did they give the perfume out in Tri Mu bid-­day baskets?

Now I wouldn't be able to dirty rush Tanya or confront Ginnifer, not with Von Douton in the bathroom. But since I still had to go, I went in and found an empty stall.

Before I could do anything, I heard Ginnifer's voice. “We're done.”

Von Douton's silky reply reverberated around the pink tiles of the ladies' room. “Rush isn't.”

There was a flush, and through the crack of the door, I saw Tanya go out, wash her hands, and leave. When the door closed behind her, Ginnifer hissed, “I'm not calling again.”

A sour taste rose in my mouth. Callie's accusations were, indeed, true. Ginnifer had sold us out to Von Douton. But WHY? And how?

“They have to go down,” Von Douton said. “This is how it works at Sutton.”

“There's nothing left! They're on probation, rush is delayed.” Ginnifer's voice rose shakily. “What do you want me to do?”

“Exactly what you've been doing. Until it's safe.”

I pressed my cheek against the cool stall, trying to stay quiet until Ginnifer and Von Douton's heels clicked away out the door. I still didn't understand why Ginnifer was working with Von Douton? A sisterhood mentor collaborating with the enemy? Just how was I going to explain this to headquarters? How I eavesdropped in a ladies' room wearing a wig? And the scariest thought—­if Ginnifer and Von Douton were collaborating—­had they collaborated on other, more sinister activities?

Like murder?

When I left the bathroom, Tanya was waiting for me, leaning up against the wall, checking her phone.

“You waited for me,” I said dumbly.

She shrugged. “You needed a buddy.”

Maybe she'd be a good Delta Beta.

Then she checked her phone again and giggled. “My mom is going to freak out.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to seem nonchalant.

“The Delta Betas. Another one got snagged by the police.”

“What?” My voice cracked.

“For murder.” She rolled her eyes. “You'd think they would learn how not to get caught.”

I had never found my phone at the bottom of my purse so quickly. I had about two hundred messages. I swore a word that nice legacies shouldn't use, spun on my heel, and left Tanya in my dust.

My car was squealing out of the parking lot when I realized I'd left Sheila behind at the student union. Once Sheila knew what had happened, I was pretty sure she'd understand why I'd broken our second truce.