The Scream Sisters: A Troubled Spirits Novel, page 28
Teagan stepped into the room, slid the door closed behind her.
Brody looked up again, pulled off his glasses, then set his pencil down and leaned back. “Okay then. If you’re looking for E, I’m fresh out. I might be able to track some down for a little striptease.”
“I know you picked her up,” Teagan said.
Brody’s smile faltered. He seemed unsure whether she was joking and, after a moment more, he realized she was not. “Oh, shit. You’re that chick who hangs with Blair. I wouldn’t let that psycho in my car if she was unconscious. Didn’t you hear what she did at Rho? Trashed the place. She’s completely nuts. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt because Nolan was one of my best friends, but shit… some girls are just crazy.”
Teagan stared at him. “What do you mean because Nolan was one of your best friends? What does he have to do with Blair?”
“He was her brother. Duh. Everyone knows that.”
“Her bother…” Teagan breathed, unsure what to make of the revelation.
“Yeah. Nolan Davenport, Blair Davenport. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”
“You said he was her brother?”
Brody let his head fall back, his mouth flopping open as if she were the dumbest girl on the planet. “He’s dead. Are you for real right now? Aren’t you friends with her? Maybe you’re not, huh? I don’t blame you. That’s the kind of girl you’ll wake up to standing above your bed with a butcher knife in her hand. Mark my words-total freak-and not the good kind.”
Teagan shook her head, had to think straight, get back to why she’d come.
“Harley,” Teagan said. “You picked up Harley.”
He screwed up his eyes. “The girl who took off? I can assure you I didn’t.”
“Blair saw you that night.” Teagan heard a door slam down the hallway, the sounds of two guys talking. “Harley ran into the street scared and got into your car.”
“I don’t have time for this.” He stood and moved toward her, tried to nudge her aside, but Teagan, hand already on the gun in her bag, drew it out and pointed it at him.
“Back up,” she hissed.
Brody froze, lifted his hands and shuffled backwards, his face a mixture of incredulity and contempt. “You realize you’re going to go to jail for this, right?”
“Not me. You. You’re going to jail because you picked up Harley and you… you…” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t speak the words, bitter in the back of her throat.
“I DID NOT PICK UP YOUR FRIEND!” he yelled at Teagan, gesturing with his hands as if doing exaggerated sign language. “Do you have cotton in your ears? Are you a slow learner? She was never in my car.”
“Blair saw her get into your car the night she disappeared. It had your Cerberus bumper sticker on the back fender.”
Brody sighed, eyes flicking to the gun. She saw something in his face, an expression that said he might rush her. She took a step back and adjusted the gun so it pointed squarely at his face.
“We share my car here at the frat,” he said. “The key hangs on the hook by the front door. A dozen guys who live here drive it. I’m not saying it happened, but if it did, I wasn’t the guy behind the wheel.”
Teagan didn’t drop the gun. It could be a lie. He might say anything to escape the room, but what could she do? Shoot him with a pellet? She didn’t think it was even loaded. She took another step back, stared at him, searched for that knowing deep in her body, the crack where the truth would spill out. She felt nothing. “It was a Wednesday the thirteenth, a week and half ago. Who would have been driving that night?”
He scowled at her, blew out an angry breath. “The thirteenth,” he muttered. “I’m here on Wednesday nights. A group of us who are in pre-law have a study group.” His eyes darted to the gun and a bead of sweat rolled from his hairline down the side of his face. “Corbin or Mark. They have evening classes on Wednesday.”
“The police will be able to check your story. They’ll know,” she said.
“Go to the police. I’d happily deal with them over you. Better yet, I’ll have my dad reach out to them. He’s a defense attorney, probably knows every single one of them.”
“Swear it,” she said. “Swear to me that you didn’t pick up Harley. That you didn’t hurt her.”
“I don’t even know who Harley is. If I hadn’t seen her face plastered on every telephone pole on campus, I wouldn’t know she existed.”
“You hit on her at a party here during welcome week.”
He sputtered, then laughed. “Jesus! You’re a real piece of work. It’d be easier to single out who I didn’t hit on during welcome week.”
Teagan didn’t know if she believed him, but the conversation had not gone as she’d imagined. He’d made no confession, no threats, no incriminating comments.
The seconds stretched and his eyes were now trained on her air gun and she suspected he’d begun to recognize the fake.
Outside a sudden and furious gust of wind rocked the house and through the window something exploded. There was a flash of light and the room went dark.
64
“It’s mascot night on Greek Row!” Ginger shouted, dancing through the two lines of girls who’d all put on their Rho Upsilon Nu bracelets, pink with a gold fox wearing a crown. “And I for one am ready to par-tay!”
The other Rhos cheered and clapped.
Blair glanced at Sloan, who she’d been trying to get alone for the last hour. As the groups of girls trickled through the front door headed for the Alpha Lambda house, Blair grabbed Sloan’s hand.
Sloan jerked her hand away and glared at Blair. “What?” she demanded.
“Can we talk alone, please? It’s important.”
Sloan released an irritated sigh, but followed Blair into the living room. Wind pushed against the window panes.
“Teagan found out about the Scream Sister thing. About my chasing Harley,” Blair blurted.
Sloan stared at her, face impassive. “And how did she find out exactly?”
Blair had begun to sweat. Her legs were little more than stilts. Her mother had told her to say nothing, to tell no one. She could not reveal how Teagan had gotten the tape without admitting the part she’d played.
“Blair, let me give it to you straight. Okay? Your sisters have grown wary of you. The Alpha Lambda’s think you’re certifiable and honestly, I’m sick to death of all your drama. Whatever Teagan thinks she knows will get buried beneath our denials. Understand?”
“But the tape-“
Sloan held up a hand. “Shut up,” she fumed through slitted teeth. “Don’t you ever mention it again.”
Outside a deafening boom exploded in the night and the lights in Rho Upsilon Nu went black.
Blair followed the mass of girls making their way toward Alpha Lambda. She’d lost Sloan in the crowd and didn’t bother trying to find her. Wind whipped the trees and blew debris across the yards. A beach towel hit Blair in the face and she clawed it away, watched it tangle in the branches of a tree.
A guy on the sidewalk yelled, “A transformer blew. Power on the whole block is out.”
Blair blinked into the darkness, stopped when she reached the lawn at Alpha Lambda where, despite the sudden commotion, the party continued.
Around her, people began turning on their camera flashlights and holding their phones high as if at a concert.
“Blair!” Corbin made his way to her through the crowd, eyes wide. “How crazy is this?” He had to yell to be heard over the wind.
“Very,” she yelled back, wishing she hadn’t left her dorm that night, had stayed hidden in her room beneath her heap of blankets.
Corbin peered at her. “Are you okay?”
Blair swallowed, nodded, but tears filled her eyes.
Corbin slipped his arm through hers. “I have candles in my room. Want to go upstairs?”
“Yeah,” she murmured.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Blair asked softly, watching Corbin move around his room lighting candles.
He glanced back at her. “Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”
Blair thought of Sloan’s words-‘the Alpha Lambda’s think you’re certifiable.’ But it wasn’t only Sloan. Teagan hated her now too. Her own mother hated her.
And she deserved it.
She thought of Harley’s last known night. Blair had stalked her, hidden like a coward beneath the hideous scarecrow mask. And for what? The approval of Rho Upsilon Nu? And now Harley was dead and Blair had chased her into the path of a murderer.
Corbin was the only person who didn’t look at her and see someone broken.
Blair touched her bandaged hand. He knew what had happened at the Rho Upsilon Nu house. All the Alpha Lambdas knew. She’d seen it in their faces at the bonfire. Only Corbin continued to look her in the eye, to smile at her, speak to her. The others watched her with a sort of curious repulsion, as if she were a loose cannon. She’d seen the expressions before on people in high school. They wondered how someone so pretty, so normal in appearance, could be so unhinged.
“Everyone screws up, acts out sometimes. We’ve all been there, even if our fellow Lambdas and Rhos like to pretend we’re all perfect. We’re not. I’m not, they’re not, you’re not.”
“I find it hard to believe you’ve ever screwed anything up.”
“I have, believe me.” He pulled a chair toward the bed and sat right in front of her, their faces inches apart. “You’re so beautiful,” Corbin murmured.
She stared at him, wanted to believe him, wanted to believe someone in the world existed who could see past everything that was wrong with her.
He played with the ends of her pale hair and then he leaned forward and kissed her. He tasted like beer, smelled like some kind of earthy cologne.
Blair said nothing as he slipped the straps of her dress down, kissed her shoulder.
He stood and gently pressed her back on the bed. He pulled off his shirt and climbed on top of her, pushing her dress up around her hips.
Blair studied Corbin’s naked body, the rise and fall of his chest. She traced her fingers along his collarbone.
“Tell me,” she murmured. “How have you screwed up?”
He turned and gazed at her, reached to wipe a bead of sweat from her temple.
“Where do I begin. In second grade I peed my pants on the jungle gym in front of my whole class. In fifth grade, I lost the school spelling bee on the word recruit.” He hooked his index and middle fingers together. “Twisted up the i and u. Who does that? My junior year I got so drunk after prom I threw up in the limo all over my date who was wearing a yellow dress.”
Blair smiled. “While all of those sound terrible, I thought there might be something a little more serious. If the worst you’ve ever done is puke in a limo, I’d almost call you a saint.”
He stared at her and some of the color seeped from his face. He blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Is there something else? Believe me I am the last person who will judge you.”
He gazed at her for several more seconds, his eyes troubled as if he couldn’t decide whether or not to spill his secrets.
“You can tell me,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes, took her hand and held it on his chest. His heart beat softly beneath her palm.
“Your mom helped me a lot my sophomore year. Me and Nolan both. We got into some trouble with a girl. You might have heard of her—Jessica Meyers.”
Blair grew still, watched Corbin’s eyes shift to the ceiling, felt the thrum of his heart grow faster.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. Everyone does it. It’s part of the pledging process and it’s not like she was a virgin. But Nolan gave her the drug and when she woke up, she knew something had happened, that she’d been… you know, that a bunch of guys slept with her.”
Blair’s eyesight grew fuzzy. The candlelight flickered and cast weird shadows on Corbin’s face, made it look longer, pointed. She blinked, forced the image away.
“Your mom made the problem go away. She set the whole thing up. Sloan did the scare and when Jessica ran, I picked her up and drove her to where your mom was waiting.”
“What did my mom do?” Her voice came out as little more than a whisper. She slowly pulled her hand from Corbin’s chest.
Corbin turned, eyes getting big. He sat up. “Blair? Why do you have that look on your face? She didn’t hurt her. She scared her off. Gave her some money and a plane ticket and sent her back out west. She was all too happy to take it. Jessica didn’t like Husher, didn’t fit in.”
“But she’s still missing. She never made it home.”
He shook his head. “That’s what she wants people to think, Blair. Your mom’s still in contact with her. Jessica sends her a postcard once a year from some other country. She started a new life.”
Across the room one of the candles flickered and puffed out. A gust of wind rocked the house and branches scratched the window.
Black spots popped at the corners of Blair’s vision and the sound of the storm outside grew muffled.
As fluid as a dream, Blair slipped away, found herself standing in front of the white door that led to the basement at Rho Upsilon Nu.
She twisted the knob, pulled open the door, stepped onto the narrow wooden stairs.
Blair-merely a witness-a voyeur tucked behind the girl’s eyes knew what lay ahead, wanted to reach through space and time and shout ‘look out!’ But it was too late. Two years too late.
The shove came from behind, sent her teetering and then plummeting toward the concrete floor. Pain exploded through her hands and wrists, which had struck with such impact her Minnie Mouse watch snapped and skittered across the floor.
Pain radiated up her arms-surely her right wrist was broken. Stunned, she twisted around and stared at the woman marching toward her.
Blair straddled two worlds. The girl’s, whose mind was unspooling-the trauma to her body-the shock of the attack-rendered her incapable of action. And Blair’s-who watched her mother whose eyes were as dull as an unpolished black stone and who carried something small and black and sparking.
The vision dissolved and a new one replaced it. The girl came to as the back door of the woman’s SUV lifted open. She lay in the fetal position, her broken wrists bound behind her. Blair’s mother gripped the girl and dragged her out, forced her to stand.
The girl blinked into the night and stared at a stretch of high grass and corn, a ragged field with no lights, no voices. Except the woman who’d attacked her-she was utterly alone.
“Please,” she murmured, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I swear I won’t tell anyone.”
“Shut up and walk,” the woman snarled, prodding her on the back.
The girl took a step, another and then she ran, bolting for the field.
“Blair? Blair?” Corbin’s voice seemed to reach from the dark sky overhead, but already Blair was slipping back, returning to herself.
She stared at him, her skin clammy, body shivering.
“That’s why Nolan killed himself,” she whispered, rewinding back two years to the first night she’d awoken to the dead girl at her bedside. A dead girl she now realized was Jesscia Meyers. Days before Blair’s first visit from the girl, Nolan had called their mother and asked her to come to Husher University. Blair never learned what had compelled him to reach out, but now she understood. He’d had a problem and their mother had taken care of it.
She felt sticky suddenly, not with sweat and semen, but with blood. It shimmered on Corbin’s skin and on her own, dripped from his brow line, down his neck.
Corbin sat up taller, ran his hands through his damp hair. “You don’t know that’s why he did it. He’d been taking those pills, way too many, and drinking. I’m sure he didn’t mean to—”
“I told you there was a note,” she said sharply, standing from the bed. Had Nolan known what their mother did? Had the guilt led him into his bedroom with a fistful of pills and a bottle of vodka?
Blair snatched her dress from the floor, slid it over her head.
Corbin frowned, as if unsure what had caused her sudden change in mood.
She yanked open the door and then stopped, turning back. “Did you pick up Harley?”
He blinked at her. Another candle flame flickered and went out. “I… Your mom said—”
“Was it you? Did you pick her up that night?”
“She’s fine, okay? Your mom helped her. She knows Harley’s dad and they set the whole thing up.”
For a moment, Blair imagined believing him, believing her mother like he did now. Her mother was a fixer. She’d fixed things, but not the way he thought.
“Harley is dead and Jessica Meyers is dead.”
Something twitched near his right eye. Another candle flickered out.
Blair ran from the room, hadn’t even bothered finding her shoes. She raced down the stairs and out the front door.
Blair was not even halfway back to campus when the stupidity of her choice to run barefoot from the Alpha Lambda house became painfully apparent. Her feet ached. Blisters had formed on the pads of both her feet and every pebble stabbed into the soft center of her foot like a razorblade.
Rain had begun to fall, a warm heavy downpour so hard and fast, Blair had to cup her hands above her eyes to see. She limped along, slowing when a car pulled to the curb beside her. The door flung open and Lex jumped out.
“Blair? You’re getting soaked, and where are your shoes?”
Blair gestured feebly back toward Greek Row.
“Come on, get in. I’ll give you a ride.”
Blair moaned when she slid into the passenger seat and rested her feet on the dry, carpeted floor.
“Where’s Teagan? I’ve been driving for like an hour hoping I’d spot her.”
