The Festival of the Moon (Girls Wearing Black: Book Two) (6 page)

“That’s always a good way to go,” Nicky said. “Be sure to flush a toilet somewhere in the house before you come back.”

“Good idea. I’ll do that.”

It was good to hear his voice, even if they didn’t have anything to say to each other. The last time Nicky spoke to Ryan was at Homecoming, when Ryan asked her to run away with him before it was too late. She had rejected him—she had to—but that last conversation with him was one of many things that had been floating in her head all day long.

She started jiggling the earwire again. She was getting close. She could feel it.

“So…is there any particular reason we’re speaking on the phone this evening?” Nicky asked.

“No. Just felt like it. I kind of wanted to tell you about Kim’s party, but maybe that conversation will have to wait.”

With a hard click, the earwire found its way to the back of the lock. Nicky turned the knob and let the door swing open.

There was nothing but a dusty water heater on the other side. It was a closet with a water heater, an unusually deep closet for such a small water heater. The unit was set so far back in the closet the light from the hallway barely touched it.

“Bummer,” Nicky said.

“Totally a bummer,” said Ryan.

“What? Oh…no, I was just…something else was a bummer…it doesn’t have to wait, Ryan.”

Ryan was laughing now. “What are you talking about Nicky Bloom?”

She started to laugh too. He did that to her. The sound of his laugh was so genuine. So clean. It forced her to smile.

“Sorry, I wasn’t being very clear,” she said. “What I was trying to say is, I’m dying to hear about what happened last night.”

She started closing the door to the water heater when something made her stop. Why was this water heater set so far back in the closet? It was strange. She took a step back to get a different view.

“Nicky, I can tell you everything you need to know about Kim’s party in two words.”

“So tell me then.”

“It sucked.”

Nicky laughed harder now. “Did it really suck, or are you just saying that to make me feel good?”

“It royally sucked. It was the suckiest piece of sucktitude I’ve ever had the sucky luck to attend. Seriously, Nicky. If things weren’t…the way they were…I would have bolted on that party ten minutes into it. Hell, I almost bolted anyway. I was playing that game you play when you’re sneaking out on the party early. You know, the one where you make sure everyone’s seen you and then you wait until they’re just drunk enough that they don’t really know what’s going on and then you’re out of there. But I was afraid Kim might have done something to keep track of who stayed and who didn’t, like hidden cameras at the exit or something.”

“She probably paid her door security to keep notes on anyone who left,” Nicky said.

“There you go. That sounds like her. So anyway, I was stuck there, like everyone else, and had to grin and bear it.”

Nicky was looking at the hallway as a whole now, thinking about where she stood in the house. The kitchen was behind her. The garage was off to her left. The dining room was next to that….

During her time as a thief for the Network she had learned how to figure out houses quickly from the inside. The layout of pipes and wires behind the walls gave clues to where the valuable things might be hidden.

Looking at this water heater, she tried to imagine the layout of pipes behind the wall, and it didn’t make any sense.

“I’m sure the party was fine for the other attendees,” she said. “You didn’t really want to be there, but a lot of people had been looking forward to it for a long time.”

“But that’s just it, they didn’t want to be there either. I could tell. It was the craziest thing. For the first hour of the party everyone was frantic trying to figure out who wasn’t there, because they knew anyone who wasn’t there had dissed Kim and was on your team now.”

The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that a water heater didn’t belong here, that putting it at the end of this hall kept the hot water so far away from the kitchen and the bathrooms that on cold days, the water would lose half its heat before it ever came out of the spigot.

“Now I get it,” she said, quietly.

“What’s that?” Ryan said.

This water heater was a trick. It was hiding here at the end of a hall, behind a boring old door, a door that was locked for no good reason. Someone had put this water heater here to fool thieves like Nicky. This water heater wasn’t connected to anything and wasn’t functional. It was just here to hide something. Something good.

Nicky stepped into the too-large closet and again thought about the layout of the house. Garage to her left. Outside wall to her right. Kitchen behind her.

She turned left and ran her fingers along the wall. She found the crevice in the corner, hidden in shadow. Cradling the phone to her shoulder, she put both hands on the wall in front of her and gave it a hard push.

With a slight pop, a hidden door in the wall swung open, revealing a stairwell descending into darkness behind it.

“Nicky? Hello? Are you there?”

“Hello, I’m here. Can you hear me?” she said.

“I can hear you now,” Ryan said. “We must have lost each other there for a bit. What were you saying?”

Nicky stepped down onto the stairs and felt along the wall with her hand. She found a light switch to her right and flipped it. A single fluorescent bulb came on, showing her the entire space. She was on a staircase that led down to a short corridor. At the end of the corridor was a solid steel door.

“Oh..I was just saying…now I get it. People were more curious about who wasn’t at the party than who was there. They were thinking about my party even when they were at Kim’s.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Ryan said. “Your party was the big topic of conversation at Kim’s, and let me tell you, that made her furious. She hated it that everyone was trying to figure out who had ditched her party. The first person we all noticed was absent was Jill.”

“Right. Who else?” Nicky said.

“Then everyone noticed Art wasn’t around, of course. That thing you did with Art at the dance, with the wine glass and the dinner jacket…that had everyone all atwitter. What was that about anyway?”

“I was improvising,” Nicky said. “Once you told me you had to go to Kim’s party, I had to get to work on someone else with money.”

“That’s what I figured,” Ryan said. “It was never Art’s idea to crash into Rosalyn, was it?”

Nicky went down the stairs and to the end of the corridor. She rubbed her hands on the steel door. Shiny and cold, she got the sense that it was really thick. There was a numeric keypad on the wall to her right. Nicky leaned in close to inspect it, thinking of how wild things had become. She and Jill wouldn’t be here if last night had gone according to plan, if Ryan had been their big money player rather than Art. Now Ryan was schmoozing with Kim and Nicky was burgling Art’s house.

“Remember Ryan, the story is that it was Art’s idea--”

“I know what the story is and don’t worry, you can trust me. I see how you played this. Art gets to pretend it was his idea to crash into Rosalyn and be a rebel bad boy, and you get Art’s money at the Date Auction. Am I right?”

“Yes, that’s pretty much it.”

Ryan laughed. “Oh Nicky—who knew? Who knew you had it in you to come in here and mix everything up like this? That thing with Art was really well played, but how are you gonna keep him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Art’s dad and Kim’s dad are old chums. There’s no way Art’s dad will let this continue. You got Art for the after-party, but come the Date Auction, I’d think he’ll be ready to beg Kim for forgiveness.”

Nicky went back up the stairs and towards the foyer, stopping at the edge of the dining room where she could see Art’s sleeping body.

“I think Art might surprise you,” Nicky said. “He’s ready to spread his wings a little.”

“You’re not…” Ryan’s voice was suddenly more serious. “Are you and Art..?”

“Ryan, I’m going to tell this to you and you alone,” Nicky said. “Whatever you hear about me and Art next week is a lie. Art may come into school tomorrow ready to brag about scoring big with me, but it’s not true. It’s all part of the ruse. I need for everyone to think that, come the Date Auction, Art’s money is going to me. Letting people think Art and I are sleeping together is a way I can do that. But I have never and will never be with Art. I know this contest is all about playing dirty, but there are a few lines I’m not willing to cross.”

There was a pause on the other end, then Ryan said, “I wish it wasn’t like this, Nicky. I’m still thinking about what I said to you last night. I’m still wondering if there’s a way out of this for both of us.”

“There’s no way we’re getting out, Ryan. We have our parts to play and we have to see it through to the end.”

Out in the foyer, Art stirred a little, his arms moving across his body, his eyebrows twitching. He looked like he might be about to wake up, but then he rolled over onto his side and fell back into a deep sleep.

“Can I ask you something, Ryan?” Nicky said.

“Of course you can.”

“This secret that Kim has on you…when all of this is over, will you still--”

“When all of this is over, Kim will have no reason to blackmail me anymore. What she’s doing is all about getting as much of my money as she can. Now that the Masquerade is over, her strategy is to crush you so thoroughly at the Date Auction that no one would dare think of you as a possible winner ever again, and she wants my money to do that. Right now, she’s talking with my parents about how much money they can set aside for me to bid on her.”

“And whatever they decide?”

“Whatever they decide is what I’ll do. Here’s where I’m at on all of this, Nicky. I could give a rat’s ass who wins this contest. I just know who I don’t want to lose. I’m hoping that maybe if I put Kim over at the Date Auction in a big way, she won’t mind so much if next semester I use some other funds to make sure you don’t end up in last place. And then, when it’s all over, and Kim is a new immortal and you’re still standing, I want for you and me to start over. I want to know the real Nicky Bloom, not the dressed-up version you play for the Coronation contest, but the real thing.”

Nicky didn’t say anything. Still looking at Art asleep in the other room, a part of her wished she could run out the door right now and tell Ryan to meet her on the highway.

But she’d been through all of that last night. No matter which way she looked at it, there was no future for her with Ryan. And that was before she’d learned the truth about what happened to her father and Frankie. Before Melissa told her that Frankie was still alive.

She pulled out a chair from the dining room table and took a seat. “Enough of this depressing talk,” she said. “Tell me more about Kim’s party. I like hearing how sucky it was.”

Ryan laughed, and it made Nicky forget all the many things she had on her mind.

“Yeah, so then word was spreading that you had Art, and people were realizing what a coup that was for you. Funny thing about Art – I don’t think most people gave him a second thought. Everybody’s always known he’s got money, but I don’t think they ever considered that his money could be used on anyone other than Kim.”

“Kim didn’t consider it either.”

“And then you got Annika. That was the most exciting news of the night when I heard that she was missing. Apparently she sent everyone a text.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Annika’s now infamous text, ghostwritten by Jill. Nicky still hadn’t read it, but people were talking about it at the after-party. Mattie declared it to be “the statement of the revolution.” Jenny said it made her cry.

“Well let me tell you, when everyone realized that Annika’s group was at your party rather than Kim’s…that was what really turned some heads,” Ryan said. “I can name at least twenty people who wished they had gone to your party instead.”

“Would you?” Nicky said. “I’ll get a pen and write them down.”

“How about we do it later? I should get back to this shindig with our friend Kim. You can only poop for so long before people start to wonder if something’s wrong with you.”

“Ha! Remember, flush a toilet somewhere in your house before you go back.”

“I remember. Hey, thanks for talking to me. It’s been fun.”

“Anytime, Ryan.”

She ended the call and sat in the chair for a minute, thinking about Ryan. Nicky Bloom the character was supposed to court Ryan Jenson during the first week of school, get him so interested in her that he’d consider throwing his wealth her way for the Coronation contest. To play that role, she had flirted with Ryan from the moment she arrived at Thorndike. She worked her way into a lunch date with him right away. That date went well so they had another. Then another. She pretended to fall for him.

Now, sitting in the dining room of Art’s mansion, the phone still warm in her hand, Nicky wondered if she was losing track of where her character ended and her real self began. She feared that the girl who pretended to fall for Ryan last week might have fallen for real.

Footsteps from the other side of the foyer broke her train of thought. Jill approached from down the hall, stopping for a minute to look at Art’s sleeping body, like an inspector looking at a corpse.