Be Strong & Curvaceous (19 page)
“I’m alone. Isn’t that private enough? Besides, I just gave myself a manicure. All my nails are wet and I don’t fancy getting Tropical Punch in my hair just so I can talk to you.”
He made a rude noise that might have been his way of laughing. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that we’re finally close to meeting. Have you taken my advice and called your father?”
“Yes.”
“And he put you in the picture?”
“Yes.”
“So you see why we had to meet.”
“No, I don’t, actually. I could happily have gone my whole life not knowing you were alive.”
“Harsh, little sister. You see, the thing is, I have plans for us.”
“The only person who can make plans for me is me.”
Shani and I exchanged a glance. The girl had guts.
“Ah, but you’re wrong there. Haven’t I proven that? I’ve worked hard to stay in touch and let you know what I was doing every step of the way. Even if you didn’t return the favor. Skipping off to America without telling anyone. Tsk, tsk.”
“How did you find me?” Mac asked coolly. Guts or not, she gripped the edge of the bed so hard, I half-expected her fingernails to punch through the duvet.
“Let’s put it this way. I’m very good with computers, and I have a friend who throws bags at Gatwick. It didn’t take much to have him alert me any time your name came up on the manifest. I’ve been tracking your trips back and forth between London and Edinburgh for some time now.”
“You’re very thorough.”
With our eyes, Gillian and Shani and I agreed: Creepy and sadistic and weird, more like.
“So now I think it’s time for us to meet.”
“Why? What’s the point?”
A second of silence. “Brothers and sisters should know each other. Don’t you want to get to know me? What my plans are?”
He actually sounded hurt. I put my hand on the photographs and shook my head.
Don’t let him know you know
.
“Not especially.”
He sighed. “Lindsay, you’ve grown up to be a hard woman, just like the countess. She took your dad away from my mum, you know.”
“I’m sure he had something to do with the decision. Besides, your mum was married at the time.”
“Yeah, to a brute who beat her.”
“Look, I’m sorry your mother made bad decisions. I’m sorry you had a rough childhood. But you have to let go of that. It has nothing to do with me.”
“I’m making up for lost time. If circumstances had been different, you and I would have grown up together, and I’d be the heir to Strathcairn instead of that nitwit. Your cousin.”
“Roger isn’t a nitwit. He’s very nice. He has a degree in economics from the University of Edinburgh. I’m sure he’ll do wonders for the old place.”
“Not even a tiny bit jealous?”
“That’s none of your business, David.”
“Aha, you are. So that gives us one more thing in common. Which brings me to the reason I’m here.”
“I don’t care what your reasons are. Your life has nothing to do with mine, now, then, or in the future. I’m going to hang up and you’re never going to contact me again.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll bring the police down on you for harassment.”
He laughed for real this time, and a shivery feeling ran down my back. “Sending e-mail is harassment? I think not, especially when a certain lady puts herself out there on MySpace for anyone to see.”
“My school address wasn’t on MySpace. I’ll report you to the headmistress.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. All you have is some friendly e-mail from a family member. The coppers will just laugh at you, pat you on the head, and send you on your way.”
Since this was, in essence, what had already happened, Mac nibbled on her lip and glanced at the envelope of photos. I gripped her wrist and shook my head.
Don’t say it
.
“What on earth do you want, then?” she finally asked.
“I want to meet you. Talk face to face. Get to know each other.”
“And if I don’t want that?”
“Then I’ll have to persuade you.”
She snorted. “Nothing would induce me to do something that crazy.”
“Oh, no? What if something were to happen to your little flatmate? Or your friends? Or, in fact, your toffy school?”
“What do you mean? Is that a threat?”
“I’m just laying out the consequences if you don’t listen to your big brother.”
“What consequences, exactly?”
“I’m not prepared to tell you that just yet. I’m keeping it in reserve. So, are you free for dinner?”
“Dinner was ages ago.”
“How about a nice little cuppa in an hour, then?”
“No. I don’t want to meet you at all.” The rising pitch of her voice told us the tension was beginning to get under the lid of Mac’s control.
“Lindsay, Lindsay. Don’t make me do something drastic. The results will be all your fault.”
“They’ll be
your
fault, you mean. Your actions have nothing to do with me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Meet me in an hour at the Cow Hollow Café, or I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
“Rubbish.”
“All right, then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And, oh, by the way, if you tell anyone about our conversation, I’ll know. And those consequences I mentioned? They’ll happen whether you meet me or not. So let’s keep it between us two.”
“You’re crazy,” she spat.
“Not at all. Sober as a judge. If you change your mind, drop me an e-mail.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.
Mac’s hand shook so badly she could hardly keep her finger on the disconnect button long enough to silence the dial tone. Then she pressed her fingers to her lips and looked at us all. “He can’t be serious. He won’t really do anything, will he?”
“There are all those red X’s and blue circles,” Gillian said slowly. “What if those are where he’s going to place the bombs?”
“What if he’s done it already?” Shani whispered.
“He can’t have.” I fished the picture of the map out of the envelope. “Look. One of them is in Ms. Curzon’s office, and we know it’s locked and empty.”
“What about those two by the dorm? What are they?”
Lissa leaned in to look at the map. “That’s right outside Vanessa and Dani’s room. They’re on the ground floor.” She stood up. “Be right back.”
Less then a minute later, my cell phone rang. Mac jumped about a foot and looked as though she were going to burst into tears. Caller ID said it was Lissa. “Hey. That didn’t take long.”
“Carly,” she said in a whisper, though the likelihood of anyone being in Vanessa’s room to hear her on a Saturday night was nil. “You know that picture of the pipes all stacked up?”
I tried to push a word out, but it didn’t come. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Yes?”
“I just took a picture with my phone. I’ll send it right now.”
“A picture of what?”
“A bunch of them are here under Vanessa’s window, sitting on the ground.”
“ALL RIGHT, HERE’S the plan.”
Gillian and Shani were the only ones hanging onto their cool. The rest of us were in hysterics. Mac couldn’t stop crying; Lissa had come back as pale as bleached muslin and couldn’t even hold a pencil, she was shaking so badly; and I’d already been to the bathroom to . . . well, anyway, I felt better now.
“Lissa and I will go and get someone from Security—anyone, we don’t care who—and show them the bombs,” Gillian told us. “Shani, you get Curzon’s assistant and force her to call Curzon back here. Don’t take no for an answer. Mac, you and Carly stay in this room and don’t move. The cops will want to talk to you about the e-mail messages and the photographs, and they’ll want that recording, too.”
“But he said not to tell anyone,” Mac protested, her voice wobbly and breaking. “He’s watching the school—he’ll see the police arriving.”
“We’ll tell them to go to the field house and take the rain tunnel.”
I stared at Shani. “The what?”
“The rain tunnel. You know, to get to the pool and volleyball courts without getting soaked. You mean you’ve been going around on the street all this time?”
How many days this past winter had I dashed through the downpour, wondering why on earth the Phys. Ed. facilities were so far away from the main buildings? Rain tunnel. Who knew?
“Stay on topic,” Gillian said impatiently. “Even if he is watching, he can’t see everywhere at once. Security can check all the red X’s inside the building. I don’t know what the blue circles are, but they can check those, too. He’ll never know.”
“Right.” Shani, still dressed to kill in a black Dsquared chiffon minidress and red stiletto heels, grabbed her Raven Kauffman evening bag and headed out. Gillian and Lissa followed.
The room seemed huge and empty and a little bit scary once my friends had scattered on their missions.
Mac slid her hand out of mine and walked into the bathroom. I heard splashing and when she came out, she went straight to her wardrobe.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You don’t need to change for the cops.”
“I need to wear something practical. These jeans and trainers, yeah? In case I have to bolt?”
I stared at her, my mouth falling open. “What are you talking about?”
Mac’s freshly washed face set into white determination. “You heard him. He’ll do whatever it is he’s going to do if I don’t go to that café. He’ll do it even if I go. But I have to try talking him out of it.”
“You’re not seriously thinking about going?!” My heart nearly stopped, then began to pound. “Mac, you can’t. He’s a lunatic. He’ll hurt you.”
“If I don’t go, he’ll hurt a whole lot of other people. You saw those pipe bomb things. They mean serious damage.”
“But Security will clean them out.”
“I can’t risk it. What if the cops take their time getting here? What if Security does nothing but give the girls another demerit? He said an hour, and we’ve taken up half of that. At least if I go, if I meet him and act like his long-lost sister, maybe I can talk him into calling it off.”
“You don’t really think he will.”
“What I think doesn’t matter. I have to try, anyway.”
“But what if he does something to you?”
She dragged a pair of sneakers out of the back of the wardrobe. “We’ll be in a public place. Besides, I know how to handle myself.”
Without another word, I hurried into a pair of Citizens of Humanity cargo pants, snapped up on sale because the bigger sizes always go last.
“What are you doing?” Mac demanded.
“I’m going with you.”
“Carly, you can’t. He said I was to tell no one. It’s all very well for Security to go sneaking about, but if he sees you walk in with me, he’ll know I’ve told.”
“He doesn’t have to see me.” I pulled on a black T-shirt and hunted through my own wardrobe for my jean jacket. “The Cow Hollow Café is a block from where I work. I’ll take the bus and double back.”
“And do what?”
“Watch out for you. When you get there, call me and then hide your phone in a pocket or something. I’ll be able to hear what’s going on.”
I slipped my wallet and all the money I had on me into my jacket, and dropped my cell phone into a leg pocket, along with my tiny emergency kit containing thread, needles, nail scissors, Band-Aids, Advil, a PowerBar, and a spare lip gloss. It usually lives in my handbag, but I didn’t want to have to worry about keeping track of that tonight.
“What if he sees you? What if he recognizes you?”
“He won’t.” I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and stuffed it through the back of a ratty ’Niners cap I’d lifted from Antony’s bureau to get him back for some prank he’d pulled on me. Then I scrubbed off all my makeup. Without that, and without heels and my normal dress-to-impress clothes, I looked about twelve years old. I looked . . . anonymous. Like a thousand other girls that no one would give a second glance as they passed on the street.
“Point taken,” Mac said, and grabbed her handbag. “I’ll call a cab when we’re off the grounds. Let’s go.”
U
NLIKE ME, MAC knew where the entrance to the rain tunnel was: a nondescript door in the corridor behind the dining room. I didn’t want to know who had shown it to her. Brett, probably, or Vanessa. I had no doubt the people on the A-list knew every secret passage and unmarked door Spencer Academy could boast. In a place where privacy was at a premium, you’d need to find somewhere for your romantic moments, wouldn’t you?
We jogged along the concrete tunnel for what seemed like twenty minutes, emerging next to the boys’ changing room by the pool. This meant I’d have to backtrack the long way around the edge of the soccer field to the street where the bus stopped, but at least Mac would be out from under her half brother’s surveillance—if he were even watching.
She called a cab from the vestibule of the field house and I leaned on the glass door, my breath fogging it as I whispered to God. “I hope this is the right thing to do, Father,” I said softly. “Please go with us. We need Your protection tonight.”
The silence in the vestibule made me turn. “Who are you talking to?” Mac asked as she slipped her phone into an inside pocket in her tweed bomber jacket.
“God,” I said simply.
“Again?”
“Just reminding Him we need help.”
“Well, I don’t suppose it can hurt.”
Which, considering her attitude toward anything to do with Christianity, was quite a concession. “Please be careful, Mac,” I said. “If something goes wrong, I’ll make like I just happened by, and come and join you. Then we’ll leave together.”
She nodded. “If it’s in a public place he can’t do anything. I’ll be okay. And I’ll phone you as soon as I get there.”
The cab, which couldn’t have been more than a few blocks away, pulled up to the door. Or, more likely, Spencer had the whole company at the students’ beck and call.
“Maybe I’ll even ask the driver to wait,” she said as she got in. “Then we can get out of there together.”
“Good plan.”
I watched the taillights disappear over the hill, then began to jog down the street to the bus stop. I made it to the corner just in time to see the Muni bus pull away and roar down the hill, blasting diesel exhaust into the atmosphere.
“Wait!” I screamed, running full tilt after it. “Wait for me!”