This is WAR (6 page)

Rose fully expected Madge to start sobbing on the spot. To give up. To give in. Rose felt tears welling in her own eyes, and she barely knew Willa. She looked up to prevent them from falling, but saw Sloane wipe furiously at her cheeks. Even Lina struggled to remain composed. But Madge just stood there, stone-faced.

“Girls like Violet are exactly the reason why we have to do something. I’m done letting them control me. And I refuse to sit back and let them get away with murder. What’s to stop them from doing this again? There were no punishments. No repercussions.” Madge fixed her eyes on Sloane. “Nothing to guarantee that this exact same thing isn’t happening to your little sister two summers from now. This ends now. With us. Who’s in?”

“I am,” Sloane answered immediately, her eyes still shiny with tears.

“Me, too,” Rose whispered, but Madge wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at Lina.

“Fine. I’m in.” She shook her head as if she were already regretting her decision. “But if we’re going to do this, we better do it right. Nothing can ever be traced back to us. And the War is over as soon as the Gregorys are.”

Madge nodded and turned to Rose. Without thinking, Rose nodded in response. Flooded with a sense of purpose, the mere act of being in this attic with these girls meant she was going to do something. Something to avenge what had happened to
their
best friend, a girl who was still a mystery to Rose. Did they know Rose was here to atone for different
sins? Could they sense her secrets? Rose didn’t know and she wasn’t sure she cared. She was here. She was taking action. And like Mari, she was going to find her own way to rail against the Gregorys. To right their wrongs.

And then to Rose’s complete surprise Madge grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the couch.

“First things first, we’re going to need some information.”

It was the first time Madge had ever touched Rose. Her grip felt like an anchor. They might want to destroy the Gregorys for completely different reasons, but their goal was the same. And in that moment, it bound them together like a blood oath.

Chapter 7

Rose’s palms were sweaty enough to leave twin damp spots on her khaki shorts. Her knees trembled as she stood in front of the receptionist at the police station. But she kept lying.

The entire time she rambled about her dad’s misplaced glasses, she thought of Trip Gregory’s toothy smile. And when she slipped through the door to her dad’s office, she pictured James kissing Willa. And when she typed two names into the criminal record’s database, the computer dully clicking as it worked, she saw Willa’s blue-tinged lips. But it was the Captain who was on her mind when she selected print and shoved the thick stack of papers into the satchel slung over her shoulder, the Captain holding forth on his yacht while Willa’s body was plucked from the water.

That morning, Madge had counted out five one hundred dollar bills, explaining that Rose would probably only need a hundred, but better to be safe than sorry. It annoyed Rose to think that her “type of people” could be paid off with so little. It annoyed her even more that the
three girls considered one hundred dollars to be so little. And it drove her absolutely mad that she was even considering paying off somebody in the first place. But she was in. This was War.

“Where are you off
to in such a hurry?” her mom called when Rose returned home from the station.

Meat was browning on the stove top. The news blared from the television in the family room, and Rose knew without looking that her dad was camped out in his recliner either dozing or nursing a beer.

She placed a protective hand over her bag, not that anyone would ever question what was inside. She was never without whatever novel she was currently reading, and she usually toted around a few backups just in case. Her mom was always nagging her to ditch the books and actually socialize for once. If she only knew …

“I just want to unload some books I checked out from the library. They ordered in a few for me,” Rose mumbled, half up the stairs.

“Dinner’s in thirty, and I need your help with the salad!” her mom called after her, but Rose was already twisting the lock on her bedroom door, yanking the papers out from her bag. The salad could wait.

The files told a
story.
The
story. They filled gaps in Rose’s mind, jogged her memory of events leading up to the Fourth of July—events she couldn’t completely understand until all the details were lined up in a neat row. As she skimmed the papers, the black and white picture she’d created of the Gregorys began to develop into vivid Technicolor.

Criminal background check, Charles Cornelius Gregory
III. Requesting party: Hamilton Girls and Boys Club, after-school mentor program
.

Rose closed her eyes for a second and smelled rain. Her book bag had been extra heavy that day, jammed with textbooks to prepare for midterms. She’d been running, thunder pushing her forward before the skies opened up. And when they did, she didn’t stop or look both ways or slow down. After the horn ripped through the driving rain, she recognized them immediately—James Gregory in the driver’s seat, hands up, eyes narrowed, and Trip on the passenger side, a hand cupped over his mouth. Their ridiculous car seemed entirely out of place on the city streets, and Rose hated knowing them, or even knowing
of
them. It was all so typical. She looked like a drowned rat, while the Gregorys sat in their gleaming BMW: privileged, fortunate, dry. She had figured they either were lost or on some sort of hunt for drugs or hookers. Probably both.

But maybe she’d been wrong. At least about Trip. “Rose! Salad!” Her mom’s voice yanked her from the grey downtown streets and back to her cramped bedroom.

“In a minute,” she mumbled, not nearly loud enough to be heard, turning a page.

Noise complaint cited 12/31 at Gregory estate, warning issued
.

Rose looked down at the pattern of flowers on her bedspread. She’d heard about the Gregorys’ infamous New Year’s Eve parties. The Captain rang in the New Year on some exotic island every year, but the boys stayed local. Based on the whispers that swirled around them for weeks afterward, it was the best party of the year. That is, if you could afford to go. Apparently there was a cover charge, and not to pay for some lame band or the nasty keg or even a variety of drugs
lined up in some swanky bathroom like candy as Rose had always imagined. But to
play
.

Rose tapped her finger on the paper. There were at least five identical New Year’s Eve citations listed in Trip’s report, all resulting in a warning, a slap on the wrist, none even mentioning anything about gambling. Not that Madge, Lina, or Sloane could complain about that. Rose imagined they were there just like everyone else, blindly throwing money at whatever obstacles they might come across. The Gregorys were officially above the law. Maybe all rich people were. Maybe the rules only applied to people who didn’t have thousands of dollars to spare for elaborate revenge schemes or to pay a fancy lawyer to make everything disappear.

Rose still wasn’t even sure how the War girls were planning on using that much money or why it was even necessary. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was more habit than anything else. Driver’s license suspended? Pay off the cop. Sister killed by a drunk rich guy? Pool $75,000 and use it to destroy his family. She skimmed the remainder of Trip’s file, glossing over traffic citations, fingerprint checks, one open container violation on the beach. Nothing even remotely useful …

She felt a little more hopeful when she opened James’s file, considering his report was practically double the size of Trip’s. She thought of Violet Garretson stuck in the car with him, how Madge said he wouldn’t let her out. There was probably the official police report, Violet’s statement. It was no secret that James was a notoriously bad drunk. He’d sobered up for a while, but he’d fallen off the wagon on July Fourth—and he was clearly off the wagon now.

Rose had to read it all. She had to know if James was the guy who had talked so passionately about moving to Montana and changing his life during their clandestine meetings—while
the rest of the Club partied—or was he the spoiled rich kid who refused to take responsibility after the fact? The real James could kill the version of James she’d created in her head. Not to mention the fact that she needed $25,000 worth of information to present at the next War meeting.

The first few pages were odd. She couldn’t imagine why the police would need this type of information—legal details of the Gregory family’s trust fund, amended after the car accident that killed James’s and Trip’s parents. James Samuel Gregory was the only designated beneficiary. Rose quickly went back to Trip’s file to see if she had overlooked similar paperwork about his trust fund, but it was missing. Just random language about some Cartier watches that had been in the family for years. As she continued to read, the terms of the trust were outlined, making it clear that Grandpa Gregory had included very stringent conditions as a form of incentive for James. Two stood out to Rose.

The trustee shall pay to beneficiary the terms of the trust after he earns a law degree from an accredited college or university
.

The trustee shall pay to beneficiary the terms of the trust if and so long as trustee is satisfied that beneficiary conducts himself with the highest degree of honor and morality and shall not be convicted of a felony and/or a moving traffic violation
.

Rose wasn’t surprised that James was expected to go to college before inheriting millions. What did surprise her was the mandate that James earn a very specific degree. Apparently the Captain liked to be in the driver’s seat. But what Rose found even more interesting was the second clause. Honor and morality? What a joke. As she skimmed through the few remaining pages, she came up empty. Nothing about
Violet, no DUIs, no underage drinking violations, no possession charges. Nothing. A surge of hope coursed through her body. Maybe everyone was wrong. Maybe James really wasn’t the monster everyone presumed him to be. Rose let herself remember the night they met, and her surge of hope flared.

It was early June
and the night was cooler than predicted. Rose wished she had grabbed her sweatshirt. Goosebumps prickled the skin along her arms and legs. Her mom had forced her into a ridiculous white dress that had barely covered her chest, and despite the fact that she was finally alone, she still pulled at the hem in an attempt to hide her cleavage.

She had been determined not to cry. She refused to think about the way her mom had ignored her or the fact that even in a room full of girls in white dresses, she was an outsider. Rose wasn’t even sure why it bothered her anymore. But it did. And honestly if she was going to cry about anything, it should have been about the moment she tripped up the main stairwell, flashing her sensible underwear to the entire room below.

Surely that humiliation alone had earned her at least twenty minutes of self-indulgent hysterics.

“You know you’re only supposed to cry if it’s
your
party, right?” James Gregory had materialized out of nowhere.

His presence made Rose’s pulse jump. She wasn’t stupid. She’d heard all the rumors. Her mom’s warning rang in her ears. She never should have chosen the pool house as a hideout. The tents that created the makeshift ballroom for the Club’s annual Swing into Summer soiree were all the way on the other side of the grounds.

No one would hear her if she screamed.

She held her arm across her chest for coverage and avoided eye contact. James’s ice clinked against the glass while he swirled the dark liquid inside, sending a tingle down her spine.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re not going to get in trouble or anything.” James took two long strides toward the corner Rose had wedged herself into.

“Just … leave me alone, okay? I know who you are and I don’t want … I just need you to stay away from me or else I’ll … call my dad.” Rose’s threat sounded beyond ridiculous even to herself. She thought of the small can of pepper spray in her brown satchel. The brown satchel that her mom had refused to let her bring to the party because it looked “low class.” God, she hated her mom.

“Whoa!” James threw his hands in the air. “No need to get your dad involved. I was just looking for a place to hide for a few hours. I hate these stupid parties.” He shrugged, and a smile brightened his light eyes even in the dark. It occurred to her, as they stood out in the cool night, that she’d never seen James Gregory smile. “Unless I’m wasted, apparently. Then I’m just the life of the party. Thirsty?”

“Uh, no thanks? I don’t drink?”

“Is that a question or a fact? And for the record, this is just Coke.”

Rose didn’t know if she should believe him. He wasn’t really acting like a rapist or anything. Not that she had any idea how rapists acted, but she considered herself a pretty good judge of character and despite everything she’d heard about James, she started to let her guard down. She’d even removed her arm from across her chest, though she still pined for that sweatshirt.