“I didn’t know you were President Allington’s son,” Amber says, with something like reproachfulness in her little Minnie Mouse voice.
“Well, it’s not something I like to advertise,” Christopher mutters.
“And I thought you said your name was Dave.”
“Did I?” Christopher finishes his cigarette, drops the butt on the sidewalk, and stamps it out. “You must not have heard me right. It was kind of loud in there. I’m sure I said my name’s Chris.”
Across the street, the cops haul the pantless drunk into a squad car. Now they’re all standing around, filling out forms attached to clipboards and drinking coffee somebody’s bought from the deli around the corner. The drunk bangs on the car window, wanting some coffee, too.
Everyone ignores him.
Okay, this sucks. I’m turning out to be world’s worst detective. I’m definitely going to have to take some courses in criminal justice. You know, when I pass my six months’ probation and can start taking classes free.
“It’s so sad, isn’t it?” I ask, in a voice even I think sounds way too chipper—sort of like Less Than Zero’s voice from the jean store the other day. “All the losers there are in this city, I mean. Like that pants-dropping drunk getting hauled away right across the street. Oh, and those stupid girls here in the buildings. The ones that died—what was it, again? Oh, yeah. Elevator surfing. Can you believe anyone would do anything that dumb?”
I glance at Chris to see how he’s taking this direct reference to his victims. But he doesn’t look disturbed at all…
…unless you can call pulling out another cigarette and lighting it disturbed.
Which, uh, I guess it is. In a way. But not in the way I meant.
“Oh,” gasps Amber, in a valiant attempt to hold up her end of the conversation. “I know! That was so sad. I knew that last girl, sort of. One time I got stuck in the elevator with her. It was only for about a minute, but she was freaking out, because she hated heights. When I heard how she’d died, I was like, ‘What?’ ’Cause why would somebody that scared of heights do something so dangerous?”
“Roberta Pace, you mean?” I slide my gaze toward Chris, to see how he reacts to the name.
But he’s busy checking his watch—a Rolex. A real one, too, not one of those ones you can buy on the street for forty bucks, either.
“Yeah, that was her name. God, wasn’t that sad? She was so nice.”
“I know,” I nod gravely. “And what’s even weirder than her being afraid of heights, but elevator surfing anyway, is that I heard just the day before she died, she’d met some guy—”
I don’t get to finish my sentence, though. Because just then iron fingers close around my upper arm, and I suddenly find myself yanked from behind, hard.
16
Get up at ten
Hit the beach, and then
The mall, a matinee
That’s it for the day
Then we go out
Hit the strip and shout
As stars fill the sky
Someone tell me why
Every day can’t be summer
Every day can’t be summer
Every day can’t be summer
And I can’t spend it with you?
“Summer”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
Stumbling, I put out a hand to steady myself, and feel the unmistakable ripple of rock-hard—and gym-formed—abdominal muscles beneath my fingers.
Is there any part of Jordan Cartwright that isn’t hard?
Including, apparently, his head?
He drags me a few feet away from Chris and Amber.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jordan demands, ripping the cigarette from my fingers and stomping on it. “You’re smoking now? A few months of living with that degenerate Cooper, and you’re smoking? Do you have any idea what that stuff will do to your vocal cords?”
“Jordan.” I can’t believe this is happening. And in front of my prime suspect!
I try to keep my voice down, so Chris won’t overhear me.
“I wasn’t inhaling,” I whisper. “And I don’t live with Cooper, all right? I mean, I do, but on a separate floor.” Then I stop whispering, because suddenly I’m furious. I mean, who does he think he is, anyway? “And what business is it of yours? Do I need to remind you that you’re engaged? And not to me?”
“I may be engaged to someone else, Heather,” Jordan says, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t still care—deeply—about you. You know, Dad said you’d hit rock bottom, but I had no idea. A guy like that, Heather? Really? I mean, he has about as much fashion sense as”—he throws a glance at Chris’s khakis, and shudders—“Cooper!”
“It’s not like that, Jordan.” I look over my shoulder. Chris and Amber are still there, far enough away that—fortunately—they can’t hear our raised voices. Chris looks relatively unaffected by my conversation with him, but I do notice that every now and then, his gray-eyed gaze strays toward us. Is he afraid? Afraid that the jig is up at last?
Or is he just wondering where Jordan bought his puffy shirt?
“Don’t look,” I say softly to Jordan. “But that guy I was talking to? I think he might be a murderer.”
Jordan looks over at Chris. “Who? That guy?”
“I said don’t look!”
Jordan tears his gaze from Chris and stares down at me instead. Then he reaches out and crushes me to his chest.
“Oh, you poor, sweet girl,” he says. “What’s Cooper done to you?”
I struggle to break free of his smothering embrace—or at least to speak without getting chest hair in my mouth.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Cooper,” I say, conscious that the student worker at the desk is trying to hide a smirk as she watches us through the window. “Girls are dying in this building, and I think—”
“So this is where you two disappeared to!”
We both spin around and stare wide-eyed at Rachel, who’d slipped outside unnoticed by either of us.
“You missed the awards ceremony,” Rachel chastises us, jokingly. “Marnie was so thrilled to win that she cried.”
“Wow,” I say, without the slightest enthusiasm. “Neat.”