Authors: Lis Wiehl,April Henry
Some part of her brain must still be working, because Nic found herself cataloging what she found as if it were a piece of evidence, like a fingerprint or a blood spatter. Not perfectly round. Hard. Painless. She imagined laying one of the photo evidence rulers next to it. About a third of an inch across. The size of a large pea.
It was a lump. There was no other word for it. A lump. In her breast.
Could something so small kill her?
Nic couldn’t move, couldn’t draw a breath. The shower beat down on her.
Maybe it was a cyst.
But maybe it wasn’t.
It could be cancer. Breast cancer. Loretta, their old receptionist, had fought breast cancer for three years.
Fought and lost. When Loretta finally died, she had been reduced to bones and slack skin. With her naked, drooping head and her unfocused eyes, she had looked like a broken baby bird.
No. It was just a cyst. Nothing else. Certainly not cancer.
Nic couldn’t die. Not now.
She couldn’t leave Makayla alone.
Portland Fitness Center
C
assidy was changing into her workout clothes for spinning class. She had perfected a method of getting dressed and undressed that involved showing as little skin as possible. She wasn’t like some of the women at the gym who paraded to the shower wearing nothing but a pair of flip-flops and a towel thrown casually over a shoulder.
A woman with short dark hair sat down at the end of the bench. With a moan, she reached forward to turn the dial for her locker. “I can barely move my fingers, I’m so worn out.”
Cassidy managed to pull on her sports bra at the same time as she took off her regular bra. “What class were you in?”
“Boot camp. They’ve only had it about six or seven months. And the instructor is brutal.” The woman mopped her red face with one of the gym’s thin white towels.
Cassidy remembered a quote, if not who said it: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
“With boot camp, it’s kind of a toss-up which is going to happen first. But look.” The other woman hiked up her top to expose her midriff. “I’m starting to get a six-pack. I’ve never had one of those before.”
Even though the woman was clearly sucking in her stomach— and Cassidy didn’t begrudge her that; Cassidy always sucked in her stomach in the changing room—she did have the beginnings of a sculpted abdomen.
Cassidy poked her own stomach. “I’ve pretty much got a one-pack.”
Thanks to the arch in her back, she had always had a shape like a jelly bean—perky butt, but a little bit of a belly—perched on slender legs. She had always wanted a six-pack. And fiercely muscled arms, the way all the celebrities had now. You wouldn’t want to meet Madonna in a dark alley. Cassidy wanted to look fantastic in a sleeveless shell.
But she also knew she wasn’t capable of doing it on her own. She needed someone standing over her, yelling.
The other woman ran her hand through her sweat-soaked hair, making it stand up in short spikes. “If you want to get in the best shape of your life, then you’ve got to take this class. But you won’t thank me for it. Not at first. A lot of people can’t hack it and drop out. But if you keep with it, Elizabeth will whip you into shape.”
Cassidy thought of Jenna. Jenna Banks was her chief rival at Channel Four, as ridiculous as the thought would have been a few months earlier. And Jenna had an amazing body.
“When is the class?”
“Six a.m. on weekdays. But by seven fifteen you are done for the day.”
W
hen the alarm went off Monday morning, Cassidy hit the snooze button three times before she managed to pull herself out of bed. She yanked her hair back into a ponytail and pulled on some sweats, all the while cursing Jenna under her breath. Jenna, with her tiny skirts and her waterfall of blonde hair, so shiny it looked like it had been polished. Jenna, who sat on a blue exercise ball during story meetings to “exercise her core.” Like her core needed it. Jenna, who was supposed to be Channel Four’s intern, but who had somehow managed to talk her way into a couple of actual assignments. Jenna, who pretty much sucked up all the male attention whenever she walked into the room.
Jenna, who was only twenty-two years old.
Eleven years ago, Cassidy had been a Jenna. Fresh out of college, eager to learn, eager to do whatever it took to get ahead. She had reported from state fairs and gruesome accident sites. Done her share of standing on icy overpasses while hyperventilating about a “winter storm watch.”
She had paid her dues, and Jenna hadn’t. Yet Jenna was occasionally picked for stories that Cassidy wanted. Cassidy was determined to fight fire with fire. She knew how to turn a head or two. But she needed to kick it up a notch.
It was 6:02 when she opened the door to the exercise studio. The room was completely full, intimidatingly full with women on their hands and knees kicking their bent right legs into the air like donkeys. The slender red-haired woman standing at the front of the class turned and looked at her. Really looked. It made Cassidy feel like she had never been looked at before.
“There’s a spot right up in front,” the redhead said, pointing at a mat in front of her.
Cassidy picked her way to it.
“I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Avery,” the instructor said. Then she called out to the room, “Left leg now,” and the women switched obediently, like some kind of synchronized dance team dreamed up by a sadist.
“I’m Cassidy.” She got down on her hands and knees, already counting the minutes until the class was over. Why had she ever thought this was a good idea?
“Okay, Cassidy, do you have any back or shoulder problems I need to know about?”
Cassidy briefly considered claiming a host of them. It would probably get her out of the worst of it. Then she thought of Jenna and her long, lean legs. Jenna was as single-minded as a shark. And what she was focused on was going right over Cassidy on her climb to the top. This was no time for shirking. “No.”
“Okay, on your backs, everyone, fingertips on either side of your head. Abs in.” Elizabeth lifted her hands, fingers spread, to demonstrate, revealing a slice of her flat belly. Then she shot her arms out, punching the air with fingers straight, miming legs. “The legs go in and out. Don’t forget to breathe. And we’re on our way to 100. One, two, three . . .”
Cassidy complied, although curled up from the floor as she was, her chin kept getting stuck in her cleavage. Which was all hers, no matter what the viewers who left stupid comments on Channel Four’s website said.
By the time the hour was finished, Cassidy wanted to die. Or possibly she already had, although she had thought that when you were dead you were beyond the reach of pain. She lay on her back, spent, and felt the sweat run into her ears. Around her, women picked up their mats and gathered their things.
She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even twitch.
Then a hand entered her line of vision. Cassidy managed to look up without moving any other muscle in her body. With a groan she raised her own hand and Elizabeth, smiling, pulled her to her feet.
Even though Elizabeth had done most of the exercises right along with the class, not a drop of sweat darkened her color-coordinated outfit. “Did you survive?” she asked as she wiped off Cassidy’s mat and hung it on the wall.
Cassidy managed a smile, although she guessed it looked as fake as it felt. “Barely.”
“So, Cassidy, what do you do when you’re not donkey kicking?”
Cassidy was taken aback. Her face was on billboards along I-5 and I-84. Granted, it was just one of four faces, but still. She hoped that it was just that dressed down, she was somewhat incognito. “I’m a TV crime reporter.”
Elizabeth tilted her head. “For which channel?”
“Channel Four.”
Elizabeth seemed to be doing a rapid calculation. “Oh, that’s where I’ve seen you. And you’re even prettier in person. I guess it’s true what they say about the camera adding ten pounds.”
Cassidy forced a smile.
“Want to grab a cup of coffee or something to eat?” Elizabeth asked. “My treat.”
Cassidy looked at her watch. The morning story meeting wasn’t for another hour and a half. She guessed that was the bright side of getting up before the sun. “Sure, I’d love that. Just let me take a quick shower, and I’ll meet you in the café.”
Ten minutes later Cassidy let her teeth sink into a buttered bagel. After all that exercise, she could afford it.
Elizabeth was only drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea. Pulling her tea bag from the water, she said, “Too bad they don’t have loose tea here.”
“Why?”
“When I was a kid, I learned how to read tea leaves.”
“Cool!” Cassidy had been to a psychic, had her palms and her aura read, and checked her horoscope every day. She thought of it as getting a leg up on the future. “About the only thing I learned when I was a kid was how to hide the school cafeteria spinach in my milk carton. Did you grow up here?”
Elizabeth waved one hand. “Oh, here, there, and everywhere. My mom was kind of a free spirit.”
“And your dad?”
“Have you heard of—” And Elizabeth named a famous rocker who had made a name for himself in the early seventies. When Cassidy nodded—who
hadn’t
heard of him, even if he looked more like a lizard every year—Elizabeth said, “I don’t tell many people, but that’s my dad.”
“Your dad?” The guy, as far as Cassidy knew, had never been married.
Elizabeth shrugged. “One-night stand with my mom after a concert. But he was always good about paying child support.”
“Do you ever spend any time with him?”
“Now and then.” Elizabeth smiled, a little mysteriously, which whetted Cassidy’s appetite even further. Elizabeth could probably tell a million stories about the rich and famous people her father hung out with.
Normally, Cassidy would have been jealous of someone like Elizabeth, with her perfect body, flawless complexion, and fascinating past. But it didn’t feel like they were competing.
Instead, it felt like Cassidy had met some missing piece of herself.
Portland Fitness Center
E
lizabeth sipped her tea, noting the slight shine on Cassidy’s upper lip where she had bitten into her buttered bagel too enthusiastically. She had been terrible in boot camp, not pushing herself at all, but Elizabeth was willing to overlook that.
For now.
“How long have you been teaching here?” Cassidy asked.
“About nine months.” Elizabeth had started out as just a patron. A patron who wanted to look good. Having a great-looking body made everything so much easier. As a bonus, the gym attracted a lot of rich, divorced men from Portland’s West Hills.
Then one day the guy who taught the sculpting class was sick. Elizabeth volunteered to fill in—and did such an outstanding job that she was asked to replace the teacher. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she dropped a few hints to the manager about the original teacher’s occasionally slurred words and erratic behavior.
And Elizabeth had even taught at health clubs before. At least that’s what it said on her resume.
The resume was a work of art. It listed jobs she had never held at health clubs that never existed, promotions that had never happened, professional memberships in nonexistent organizations, awards she had never received, and a fake degree. Accompanying it were letters of recommendation she had written herself.
Personal trainer was just Elizabeth’s latest incarnation. For a few years she had been a graduate student who managed to qualify for generous scholarships by lying on her application, cheating on tests, and finding others who were willing, even anxious, to write her papers. After an unfortunate occurrence with a provost, she had been forced to leave school.
For a few years she had been a rich man’s mistress. Donald Dunbar, who was heir to a family fortune, liked to surround himself with fine things. He leased a condo and a new Lexus for her, and furnished the condo in the quietly moneyed style he expected to be surrounded by. He even bought Elizabeth a fur coat, which was anathema in the relatively warm and more than relatively progressive Portland. Don taught her how to dress, how to appreciate quality in everything from liquor to tailoring, and how to shoot his extensive arsenal of guns. He’d died while they were on safari in Africa, leaving his wife a multimillion dollar estate and Elizabeth nothing but the things he had kept at the condo and the gifts he had bought her. But after a frank talk in which Elizabeth was forced to spell out just how much damage she could do to the dead man’s reputation, Don’s widow had offered to reimburse her for her time and energy.
During the boom years, when houses were on the market for less than a day, Elizabeth had reinvented herself as a real estate agent. She steered clients to bigger and bigger houses—which meant bigger and bigger commissions—and to mortgage lenders who didn’t ask too many questions and who were willing to kick back a little something to her for her business.
But when the bottom fell out of the market, Elizabeth had to remake herself yet again. It wasn’t too hard. All it took was a little imagination. She couldn’t fathom why people would wait their turn or work hard for things they wanted, not when it was easy enough to find a shortcut.
The owners of the Portland Fitness Center—part of a small local chain—were thrilled to have her on staff. As were most of the students. Most, but not all. Certain people tended to drop out over time—the chubby, the clumsy, the ones who couldn’t take a joke. The ones she had no use for.
Telling people what to do was a good fit for Elizabeth. And rotating among the chain’s three clubs gave her the chance to meet a wide variety of people and gain power over the ones she chose to single out.
In her head, Elizabeth called what she did “The Game.”
The rules were simple: to pretend to be whatever someone else needed until they gave you whatever
you
needed. After that, there were no rules. The Game was fair, at least to Elizabeth’s way of thinking. Anyone could play it. In fact, she was sure most people
were
playing it; they just didn’t like to admit it. Sure, there were a few losers and idiots, suckers who, for whatever reason, didn’t mind getting played. And some people were so weak that they played poorly, basically inviting anyone to take advantage of them.