Get Dirty (4 page)

Her mom arched an expertly crafted brow. “Oh, like you’re so excited to spend the next few weeks holed up in the house with Olaf and me?”

Bree blinked. “Olaf?”

“Of course!” her mom cried, as if surprised by her daughter’s lack of vision. “I can’t be without my Olaf. Who’ll drive the car?
Keep the press at bay? Administer my daily rub—”

Before her mom could finish the word, the Escalade swung violently to the left. The back of the car whipped around, slamming Bree into the window. Olaf revved the engine; the tires screeched in protest, filling the backseat with the acrid smell of burning rubber, and the SUV spun in the other direction.

Bree screamed, gripping the door handle for dear life as her body, unrestrained by the defective belt, was torn from her seat by the force of the maneuver. As the SUV fishtailed, she saw the cab of a bright yellow moving truck blow by, so close she could see the driver—baseball cap, dark aviators, and all.

The truck careened on; horns blared from a half-dozen directions, and the SUV bounced fiercely as Olaf drove directly over the island in the middle of the roadway. Bree’s head smacked the ceiling, her mom let out a muffled yelp, then suddenly the engine noise returned to normal and the instant of chaos was over.

Beside her, Bree’s mom gasped. “Oh my God.”

Bree massaged the sore spot on the top of her head. “It’s okay,” she panted, trying to catch her breath. “I’m not hurt.”

“Look at that!” Her mom held her martini glass out for Bree to see. “I didn’t spill a drop.” Then she lifted the glass to her lips and drained what remained of the cocktail.

I’m so glad you have your priorities straight.
“What the hell happened?”

“Truck run red light,” Olaf said, his vowels open and round, hinting at Scandinavian roots.

“Shouldn’t we go back?” Bree asked. “Call the police? File a report?
That guy could be dangerous.”

That guy could be a killer.

Bree knew she was being paranoid, but after what Christopher Beeman had put her and the rest of the girls through over the last month, she felt justified in her suspicions. She glanced down at the faulty buckle. Was it just a coincidence that her seat belt didn’t work and a truck almost ran them off the road? It would be the perfect way to kill someone and make it look like an accident.

She crouched down in her seat and examined the buckle. Even in the moving car, she could clearly see scratches around the base of the red release button, as if someone had tried to pry it off with a screwdriver.

Bree’s blood ran cold. The seat belt had been tampered with.

“No one hurt.” He sounded completely unfazed by the near-death experience. “Olaf employ evasive maneuvers.”

“Olaf was in the French Foreign Legion,” her mother said proudly as she lifted the cocktail shaker from the center console.

Bree eyed the behemoth in the driver’s seat and dropped her voice. “Aren’t they, like, mercenaries?”

Her mom wiggled her shoulders and slowly raised the martini glass to her lips. “I’d pay him to fight in my army any day.”

For the second time in as many hours, Bree fought the urge to puke in her lap.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

CHRISTOPHER BEEMAN IS DEAD
.

Olivia couldn’t quite wrap her head around the concept, and as she navigated the hallways, she felt a familiar sense of uneasiness growing in the back of her mind.

She shook her head, forcing away the paranoia. The killer had stepped back into the shadows, which meant this was the perfect time to discover his—or her—identity.

And she could start by figuring out how Amber and Rex were connected to Ronny DeStefano.

With a reluctant exhale, she turned her feet toward the leadership room.

Rex was alone, as Kyle and Tyler had suggested, leaning against a desk as he texted furiously on his phone.

“Knock, knock,” Olivia purred, trying to sound seductive.

Rex’s head snapped up, his features sharp and aggressive, but at the sight of Olivia, they quickly melted into something more akin to the leer of a dirty old man. “Well, well, well. Looks like my prayers have been answered.”

Olivia forced a smile. “Kyle and Tyler said you might need some help.”

Rex ambled toward her, backing her up against the wall. “I can always use a helping hand from you, Liv. If you know what I mean.”

Great. Zero to rapey in two point five seconds. That had to be a new record, even for Rex. She wedged her hands between them and pushed Rex to arm’s length. “What about Amber?”

“We broke up.”

Not that she didn’t know already, but it was the opening she needed. “You’re kidding!” Olivia said, gasping in fake shock. “But you guys were so perfect together.”

Rex shrugged, then pressed himself against her outstretched arms. “I’ve always been holding out for something better.”

Olivia’s elbows buckled and Rex’s body came crashing against hers. She turned her face away just in time to avoid a lip-lock, and instead, Rex planted a slobbering kiss on her neck.

“You taste so good,” he said.

Olivia fought the urge to spit in his face. “I’m really surprised,” she said, trying to stay on track while she wrestled against Rex’s wandering hands. “Amber bragged that you’d never break up with her. Some kind of secret she knew about you.”

“What?” Rex pushed himself off of her. “What did she say?” His voice was sharp.

“I don’t know,” Olivia said truthfully. “Something about Ronny DeStef—”

Without warning, Rex gripped her by the shoulders and
slammed Olivia against the wall, knocking the breath out of her. “What the fuck did that bitch tell you?”

Olivia had never seen such violence from Rex. Nostrils flared, fingers digging into her flesh, his face growing redder by the moment. Pure rage, ignited in an instant, the kind of temper capable of murder.

She tried to wrench free of Rex’s grasp, desperate to get away from him. “I . . .”

“Mr. Cavanaugh,” Father Uberti said, his voice drifting in from the hall. “I wanted to talk to you about—” He stopped dead just inside the classroom. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Olivia had never been so happy to see old F.U. in her entire life. “No, not at all, Father Uberti,” she squeaked. Rex lessened his grip and Olivia shimmied down the wall toward the door.

“She, like, fainted or something,” Rex lied, avoiding Father Uberti’s eyes.

“I see.” Father Uberti nodded, completely satisfied.

“I should be getting to French class.” She whisked her bag off the floor and ran out of the room.

Olivia’s hands were shaking as she raced away from the leadership classroom. She’d always known that Rex was a top-notch asshole, but suddenly he seemed positively dangerous. There’d been a murderous gleam in his eye as he slammed her against the wall, and it wasn’t a stretch to imagine him picking up a baseball bat and bashing Ronny’s head in.

She was going to have to be more careful in the future. She wouldn’t be able to bring up Ronny again so directly. Rex would
be on guard. But as she opened her locker door, a plan formed in her mind.

There was more than one way to skin a Rex.

Ed inched open the door to the men’s room and watched as first Olivia, then Kitty vacated the computer lab. As soon as Kitty was out of sight, Ed slipped into the hall and doubled back.

Christopher Beeman. Ed doubted that either DGM’s fearless leader, Kitty, or the computer-challenged Olivia would have the wherewithal to ferret out the killer’s connection to Christopher and his family. And he wasn’t sure he trusted either of them with such an important task. He reminded himself that they were at least partially responsible for Margot’s state.

So if there was anything left on the internet, Ed wanted to find it first.

He began with a cursory Google search by name, then gradually added pertinent information about his target. The internet purge of Christopher’s presence had been a thorough job, except for the AWOL article, the only reference that had been allowed to remain intact.

Ed slouched back in his chair, staring at the article. Why? The answer was obvious: to make Christopher look like a killer on the loose. But Christopher wasn’t on the loose. He was dead and buried and . . .

The late bell blared, but Ed ignored it. School was his last priority right now.
Buried
. Christopher had gone to St. Alban’s with Bree Deringer, which may have meant his family was Catholic. And if so, there must have been some kind of funeral mass
last year, a family gathering, a Rosary, a vigil. Even if “Christopher Beeman” had been purged from the World Wide Web, there might still be a reference to his memorial, or his family.

Why didn’t you think of this before?

Ed quickly searched for Christopher’s local parish. After all, prayers for the dead were a Catholic specialty. He pored through the church bulletins, starting the day Christopher’s body had been found in the boiler room at Archway. He didn’t have far to look. The special intention for the eleven o’clock mass that Sunday was “For Brant and Wanda, and the memory of their beloved Christopher.”

Ed’s pulse quickened. The killer had missed this online reference to Christopher’s parents: his first mistake.

New search criteria: “Brant and Wanda.”

The hits were instantaneous. Brant and Wanda were social butterflies in the greater Menlo Park area. Wanda was a bigwig in the Junior League, and she and her husband were mentioned on the guest lists at a dozen charity events, a handful of high-profile cocktail parties, and . . .

Ed froze as he read through a twenty-year-old notice in a local paper about a graduation. Not just any graduation: the police academy. His eyes raced over the short blurb, reading it once, twice, then a third time in rapid succession.

The Beemans knew someone in the police department. A relative? A family friend? Someone with a personal connection to Christopher Beeman, and perhaps the desire to find justice in his death? It would explain so much about the investigation into the murders.

His right hand strayed to the pocket of his jacket, fingering the piece of paper that he always kept with him. All his hope and excitement from a moment before had vanished.

Had anyone seen this yet?

Slowly, he returned his fingers to the keyboard. With a few deft keystrokes, he hacked first into the newspaper’s database, then into the post itself, and methodically deleted Brant and Wanda’s names from the article.

Bree stood on the doorstep, staring up at the columned facade of the Deringer mansion. The uneasiness she’d felt after the moving truck almost pummeled her mom’s car into scrap metal was instantly replaced by dread.

Her mom stepped up beside her. “Prison,” she said. “For both of us.”

At least I’m here for doing something selfless
, Bree thought to herself. It was a concept her mother wouldn’t understand.

“Ah, well,” her mom said, with a cheerful sigh. “Better make the most of it. Olaf? I’ll take a massage in my room and then I’ll nap until dinner.”

Bree looked at her sidelong. “It’s like eight thirty in the morning.”

“Which means it’s happy hour in France.” And without any attempt to explain her nonsensical time-zone math, Bree’s mom flounced inside.

Olaf lumbered behind his mistress, carrying a plastic bin labeled “Deringer, Bree.” Her belongings. Everything she had
with her when she was arrested would be in that bin. Including her cell phone.

She followed Olaf into the house, eyeing the former Legionnaire from afar. She wasn’t sure whether her phone would be off-limits or not, but it was better not to remind anyone. She slipped off her shoes in the entryway and watched as he deposited the box in her father’s study, then climbed the stairs to her mother’s room.

Shaking off the disgusting image of her mom and Thor going to town above her head, she tiptoed into her dad’s study, careful not to touch the door in case the housecleaning crew had neglected to oil the hinges. She wasn’t taking any chances. She needed that phone.

It was in the front pocket of her army surplus bag, just where she’d left it. And thankfully, she’d had the presence of mind to turn it off after she sent that last text to Olivia and Kitty. With any luck, there’d be a little bit of juice left, just enough to get a couple of texts off to John. He’d be in first period by now, but would hopefully check his messages at lunch and then be able to come over after school. Or better, maybe he’d ditch gym class! Her stomach fluttered as she pressed and held the power button.

Success was immediate. The screen came alive and the telltale electronic ding of a smartphone startup melody broke the silence of the house. She hugged the phone to her chest, hoping no one heard, and waited impatiently while the phone detected a signal and connected to the network.

The phone beeped, warning that her battery was dangerously low. With trembling fingers, she hurriedly texted John.

“No phones!”

Bree spun around, dropping her cell onto the plush carpet as her heart leaped to her throat. Olaf stood in the doorway, feet shoulder-width apart, hands planted on his hips. He looked like a drill instructor, except for the fact that he was almost completely nude. His hairless chest glistened with a layer of either perspiration or baby oil, she couldn’t quite tell which, and his thighs bulged from a tiny pair of gold booty shorts.

No amount of mind bleach would ever wipe this image from her brain.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Bree blurted out. She couldn’t help herself. He looked like Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s man toy in
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“Olaf’s massage uniform.” He picked her phone up off the floor and powered it down. “Senator Deringer say no phone. No computer. No nothing.”

“You can’t just take my phone!” Bree cried. “I’m sixteen. You might as well cut off my hands.”