The Bride Wore Size 12 (18 page)

“What if you have this baby and
she
turns out to be a genius who finds the cure for cancer?” I hold my arms out wide. “Lisa, the fact is, you and Cory
aren’t
teenagers on MTV. You’re happily married college-educated adults with great, stable jobs and a kick-ass apartment in Greenwich Village for which you don’t even pay rent, in a building assistant-directed by
me
. You’re going to make
incredible
parents.”

Lisa’s flush of pleasure increases. “I hate you so much right now for making this all sound so reasonable. How are Cory and I going to backpack around Peru with a baby?”

“Leave the baby here in the file cabinet. I told you, I’ll watch her. Only from nine to five, though, then Gavin will have to take her.”

Lisa bursts into laughter.

There’s a knock on the door. “You guys?” Sarah asks hesitantly. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course, Sarah,” Lisa says, hastily dabbing the tissue to her eyes to wipe away evidence of her tears.

Sarah opens the door, popping her head inside.

“First,” she says in a low, intense voice, “Jasmine’s parents are here. Dr. Flynn already met them at the front desk and has escorted them to the second-floor library. Second, I could hear almost every word the two of you were saying in here.” She points at the grate above the doorway. “And I just want you to know, Lisa, all that stuff they say online about the abortion pill isn’t true. My friend Natasha said when she took it, she hardly had any cramping.”

Lisa drops her wedding photo.

Fortunately, my reflexes are lightning quick, and I save the frame from being smashed against the floor.

“Dammit, Sarah,” I say, setting the photo back on Lisa’s desk. “What did I tell you about eavesdropping?”

“Whatever,” Sarah says, looking bored. “But also, Lisa, if you decide to forgo the pills, I’m an excellent babysitter. Newborns seriously love me. It’s why I’m considering going into child psychology.”

Lisa’s face has gone ashen. She looks like she’s about to start throwing up again. “Sarah,” she says. “If you tell
anyone
about this—”

Sarah puffs out her chest, offended. “I’m insulted you’d even suggest such a thing. I totally understand your ambivalent feelings toward parenthood, Lisa. You don’t want to lose your autonomy, but you also want to be the best mother you can be. Your concerns are completely natural. Also, hormones are raging through your body, so you need to consider that as well.”

“That’s not the—oh my God. Forget it.” Lisa sweeps her pregnancy test wands back into her desk drawer, closes it, then rises to her feet.

“Heather and I are going upstairs to meet with the Albrights,” she says, throwing back her shoulders. “Sarah, at five o’clock today all the new RAs are going to receive letters from the president’s office informing them that their employment with the Housing Office has been terminated and that they have until Sunday afternoon to find alternative lodgings.”

Sarah’s face falls.
“What?”
she cries. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m serious as a heart attack,” Lisa says. “I suggest you not be here at five o’clock, and also that if any of the terminated RAs contact you, you do not engage. Your own employment is none too secure thanks to the continued leaks about Prince Rashid to the
New York College Express
.”

Now Sarah looks stricken. “You can’t think
I’m
the one leaking information about him to the—”

“Heather and I don’t,” Lisa says stiffly. “But a lot of people do, thanks to your past history and your very vocal opinions about Qalif. So if you value your job, I suggest you start keeping your mouth shut, and lay low.”

Sarah nods wordlessly, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

“I’m glad you understand,” Lisa says in a slightly more sympathetic tone. To me, she says, “Come on, Heather.”

But we’ve hardly gone two steps when an all-too-familiar voice sounds from the doorway to the main office.

“Ms. Wells! There you are. Where have you been all day? I must have left you a dozen messages. Why haven’t you returned any of my calls?”

Mrs. Harris, Kaileigh’s mother, comes bustling in, then plops her backside into the visitors’ chair in front of my desk, balancing her large designer handbag on her knees and peering out from behind the enormous bouquet Rashid sent me.

“Of course I understand how busy you all must be after the tragedy.” She lowers her voice dramatically as she says the word “tragedy.” “But I really must speak to you about Kaileigh’s roommate situation. It’s gotten a thousand times worse since I spoke to you yesterday. I hope you got the message I left that Mr. Harris is consulting our lawyer back home in Ohio. That’s how bad things have gotten. He didn’t even want me to come here, but I said I’m sure we didn’t have to stoop to litigation, as you seem like a reasonable person.”

“Okay, Mrs. Harris,” I call to her from Lisa’s office. “Thanks. I’ll be with you in just a second.”

I duck back into Lisa’s office to whisper, “Lisa, you go on upstairs to meet with the Albrights. Sarah, you go home. I’ll handle Mrs. Harris.”

Lisa glances at the clock hanging on the office wall. The little hand is already on five, and the big hand is inching perilously close to twelve. At any moment the letters from the president’s office will be delivered to the RAs, and all hell will be breaking loose.

“Are you sure?” Lisa asks, chewing her lower lip uncertainly.

I nod. “I’ve been shot at before by homicidal maniacs. I think I can handle an angry mother.”

21

I
’d just finished talking to Mrs. Harris—who doesn’t have much of anything new to say, except that she really, really wants her daughter, Kaileigh, to be moved from room 1412 because now Ameera, instead of “slutting it up,” is spending all her time weeping—and was typing a letter, when I got a call from the front desk.

It’s Gavin.

“Hey,” he says. “Some dude just dropped off a bunch of official-looking letters for the RAs. They’re from the president’s office.”

“So?”

“Well,” Gavin says. He sounds nervous. “I put them in their regular mailboxes instead of bringing them back to the office to go in their staff mailboxes.”

“That’s okay,” I say.

Dear Ameera,
I’m typing.
This letter is to inform you that a mandatory meeting has been scheduled for you in the Fischer Hall director’s office tomorrow at 9:00
a.m.

“Well,” Gavin says. “You know that Megan chick with the long nose?”

“Gavin, you know better than to call women chicks.”

“Sorry. That Megan woman? She opened her letter. And now she’s crying and calling her parents on her cell phone in the middle of the lobby, saying she’s been fired from her RA position.”

This is a nightmare. It has to be. Maybe I’ll wake up soon and be in Italy, on my honeymoon with Cooper, and I’ll tell him about it and we’ll laugh over mimosas.

Probably not though.

“And?”

“Well, I thought you should know about it,” Gavin says.

“Thanks, Gavin,” I say. I’ve started another letter. It says the exact same thing as Ameera’s letter, but begins
Dear Rashid
.

That’s because the other thing Mrs. Harris complained about is that the prince is spending too much time around her daughter’s room.

“Every time I’m in there,” she said, “it seems like he’s knocking on the door, asking what the girls are doing, if the girls want to go out, if the girls want to come up to his room to watch a movie or play with his Xbox or if Ameera got his flowers. Did you know he sent her flowers, exactly like the ones you have here?” She swatted at the flowers the prince sent me, because the bouquet really is quite large, and was getting in her way as she tried to speak to me. “I asked Kaileigh if the prince sent
her
flowers, because you know she was quite badly shocked by the death of her RA too. But
no,
he didn’t bother. Only Ameera. But Ameera won’t even see him. Every time the prince comes over, Ameera pulls the covers over her head and refuses to even look at him. Well, you and I are adult women, Ms. Wells,
we
know what’s going on there.”

I’d stared at her in confusion. “We do?”

“Of course we do,” Mrs. Harris said. “I’m sure the prince heard what kind of girl Ameera is, and she’s playing hard to get. That’s why he’s sending
her
flowers, and not my Kaileigh. My Kaileigh would never think of doing those kinds of things, not even with a prince, even if he
did
take her and her suite mates to that fancy sushi restaurant for lunch. Because that’s all it was, lunch. Kaileigh assured me of that.”

I’m not sure Mrs. Harris is right about any of her theories, but I
am
sure that if I can get Ameera and Rashid in the same room—my office—at the same time, I might get some kind of explanation out of them as to what’s going on, and that could (hopefully) lead to a clue as to what Jasmine saw the night she was killed, and maybe even a clue as to why she was killed and who killed her.

It’s a long shot, but so far it’s looking like the only shot I have.

Failure to attend this meeting will result in disciplinary action,
I type.
If you have any questions, please contact Heather Wells, Fischer Hall assistant director.

“Oh, crap.” Gavin’s voice distracts me on the phone. “That Christopher Mintz guy just got his letter. So did Joshua Dungarden. Oh, shit.” He’s snickering into the receiver. “He’s crying! He’s crying! Like a little kid!”

“Gavin,” I say severely. “Hang up the phone. But wait, before you do—” I think of my own two letters sitting on the printer. Somehow I have to get them up to the desk so they can be delivered to Ameera and Rashid’s mailboxes. Also, somehow I have to get out of the building and home, and I have to do all this without going through the lobby and running into all these crying kids. And also keep those kids from coming back here and trashing this office after I leave, something disgruntled ex-employees have been known to do.

“Can you come back here and pick up two letters I need delivered? And also have Pete turn off the alarm on the side doors so I can leave through them? And then call Carl and have him change the locks to the residence hall director’s office, and make sure to give the new keys only to Lisa, Sarah, and me?”

There’s a long pause before Gavin says, “For you, my lady, I would clip the wings of a dragon.”

I hesitate. “Does that mean you’ll call Carl, and the rest of the stuff I asked you to do?”

He heaves a gusty sigh. “Yes. That means I’ll call Carl, and the rest of the stuff you asked me to do.”

“Great! Thanks.”

I hang up, wondering how Sarah could ever have discounted Gavin as one of the decent guys. He’s definitely a little weird, but extremely decent.

After he comes back to get the letters for Ameera and Rashid, assures me Pete’s turned off the alarm on the emergency side exit that the president occasionally uses as an entrance for party guests when he entertains in the penthouse upstairs, and that Carl’s on his way to change the lock to the outside door to the office (the RAs don’t have keys to Lisa’s office, so that’s all right), I shut off the lights and slip away, just as indignant sobs can be heard floating down the hallway toward me.

I know it’s cowardly, but after such a long day, I can’t handle any more drama. I duck out the side exit, slamming the door securely closed behind me, then see, through the heavy security glass, Carl heading down the hallway toward the office with his toolbox, several of the fired RAs trailing behind him, furious expressions on their tearstained faces.

I’ve escaped in the nick of time.

Handing someone a letter of termination at the stroke of five and then fleeing the office is a pretty cowardly act, but it happens fairly often. The most common day to fire people is Friday, due to the (mistaken) belief that they’ll spend the weekend calming down, when this is not, in fact, the case. They can’t even use those two days to look for a new job, because who’s hiring on weekends?

This is why it’s better to fire people in the middle of the day, and give them lots of support, than to do it the way President Allington chose to.

But then, not everyone makes the best choices, and the choices the Fischer Hall RAs made that led to their being fired hadn’t been very good either. So maybe they and President Allington deserve each other.

Of course, I’m no better, slinking off the way I do. My shoulders sagging in relief, I turn to begin strolling down the sidewalk, enjoying the feel of the late-afternoon sun on my face and the sound of birds tweeting in the trees that line the quiet side street, happy I still have
my
job.

Unfortunately my calm is short-lived, since I’ve only gone a few steps before I realize I’ve come face-to-face with my nemesis from earlier in the afternoon: Hamad.

He’s holding open the door of the prince’s pure-white Escalade as Rashid prepares to step into it. Both the prince and his bodyguard are staring at me, one with utter hatred and the other in surprise.

“Miss Wells.” The prince lowers his foot from the frame of the Escalade and quickly crosses the sidewalk toward me. “Good afternoon. I’m so glad to see you. How are you? Are you well?”

Confused by his solicitousness—and wary of his bodyguard’s stony-eyed glare—I take a quick, stumbling step backward.

“I’m fine, thanks. Just heading home. Don’t want to be late for my subway, so if you’ll excuse me—”

I’m lying, of course. I live only a block away. And how can someone be late for the subway? New York City subways run constantly.

But how’s the royal prince of Qalif going to know this? Besides, I don’t want any of the newly fired RAs to see me out here on the street, and I definitely don’t want to spend any more time than I have to in the company of the extremely unpleasant, woman-hating Hamad.

Or maybe Hamad doesn’t hate all women. Maybe he only hates me.

“Please,” Rashid says. Today he’s wearing a white blazer, instead of a camo-colored one, and poppy-red skinny jeans. He must think this is what American girls find stylish, but he resembles a barber’s pole. He gestures toward his tricked-out chariot. “Let us drive you home. You must be tired after having been through so much unpleasantness. Did you receive the flowers I sent you?”

I can’t help taking yet another step away from him. My plan isn’t working.

“Yes, I got the flowers,” I say. “Thank you, they’re beautiful. But no thanks for the ride. You’re obviously on your way somewhere. I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble.” I also don’t want him to know where I live, or that I lied about having to take the train.

“Please, it’s no trouble,” Rashid says. “A lady like you is too beautiful to ride the subway, Miss Wells. The trains in this country are filled with dirty miscreants. We insist that you allow us to escort you safely home.”

“No, really,” I say, though I enjoy hearing that I’m too beautiful to ride the subway. I have to be sure to tell this to Cooper. “I’ll be fine—”

My wrist is suddenly seized in a grip of iron, right below the Bakelite bangle I’m wearing. I look up to see Hamad’s fiery gaze burning down at me.

“Did you not hear the prince?” he asks. “We insist that you allow us to escort you.”

The next thing I know, the prince’s bodyguard is pulling me forcibly toward the car.

“Hamad,” the prince says, followed by a stream of words in Arabic. His tone sounds alarmed—for my welfare, I hope.

But he could be alarmed that Hamad is being so obvious about kidnapping me, especially in broad daylight, with so many people around, most of whom are staring at us curiously, no doubt wondering why the dark-haired guy in the suit and shoulder holster is trying to drag the nice blond lady into his car.

I don’t want to have to break out my self-defense moves. It will make things awkward with the president’s office, I’ll bet, if I jam an elbow into Hamad’s solar plexus or rake my nails down his face. Sadly I have on flats, so grinding a high heel into the small bones of his foot isn’t really an option, but I can still deliver a solid kick to one of his shins. According to Cooper (who’s been schooling me), this is supposed to be one of the most painful blows you can deliver to an opponent, aside from the obvious knee-to-groin, which most trained fighters learn to guard against.

Before I have a chance to do any of these things, however, an extremely familiar—and mightily welcome—sound fills my ears: the siren from an NYPD patrol car.

It only has to give a single whoop before I find myself liberated, Hamad releasing me so quickly I nearly lose my footing. The prince puts a gentle hand to my elbow to help balance me.

“Are you all right?” he asks, concerned.

No, of course I’m not all right, and what kind of weirdos are you employing?
is what I want to say, but I don’t get a chance (and probably wouldn’t have said, anyway), since a beige Crown Victoria with a single flashing light on the dashboard pulls up in front of the Escalade, and an older man with a thick head of steel-gray hair—and an equally thick gray mustache—leans out the driver’s-side window, an unlit cigar dangling from his hand.

“You out winning friends and influencing people, as usual, Wells?”

It’s my old friend from the Sixth Precinct, Detective Canavan.

“Something like that,” I mutter, yanking my elbow from Rashid’s grip. I head instinctively toward the Vic, massaging my wrist.