Kisses and Lies (2 page)

She sits down and fixes nervous eyes on me. As usual, Lizzie’s very made up, her eyes carefully lined and her blond highlights freshly done, smelling of lovely perfume. At first glance you would think she was in her mid-twenties. And then you look more closely, and you see that she’s my and Taylor’s age, just with more makeup on her face right now than I’ve owned in my entire life. (I’m not even counting Taylor in this—she’d break your arm before she let you come near her with a mascara wand.) It’s very much the style of Plum’s coterie—they’re all beautifully groomed. Though she goes to Wakefield Hall, Lizzie hangs out with the smart set of St. Tabby’s, due to the fact that her father has bags of money and Lizzie has bags of social ambition. But Lizzie, as with everything, tries so hard that she overdoes it. And as a result, they look down on her. Who can respect someone who tries too hard?

Lizzie spots something over my shoulder and gasps.

“It’s her!” she exclaims. “It’s Nadia!”

I duck down immediately and scamper across the room, hoping that turning my back to the door will mean Nadia doesn’t spot me. I slide into my seat opposite Taylor, who nods, confirming that Nadia’s arrived. Despite her cool, Taylor is goggling a bit. She’s seen Nadia only once, on a stakeout across Knightsbridge, never this close up.

“Wow, she looks like a model .  .  .  ,” she sighs almost wistfully.

I sneak a glance in the mirror along the wall. Wow indeed. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a girl our age looking like that—Wakefield Hall girls favor clothes that don’t get in the way of knees under desks and elbows on piles of books. In other words, scruffy jeans and sweaters. A world away from Nadia’s slim cropped trousers, suede ankle boots, and artful layers of semitransparent black sweaters hanging elegantly off her thin, pale brown limbs. Her hair is glossy and dark and swishes subtly as she walks. Nadia is as polished and shiny as a Ferrari, and keeping her that buffed and sleek probably costs almost as much. She looks around, sees Lizzie, and crosses the room toward her, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table.

I look at Taylor. She holds up her hand, telling me not to be impatient. We watch as Nadia puts her bag on the table, as she settles into her seat, crossing her legs, one arm over the back of her chair, looking haughtily round the room like she owns this entire chain of coffee shops and isn’t that impressed with how they’re being run. Lizzie’s demeanor is visibly awkward: she’s ducking her head and fiddling madly with her coffee spoon. If Nadia bothered to read the signals Lizzie’s all-too-clearly sending out, she’d see immediately that something was up.

But Nadia tends to be oblivious to anything that she doesn’t think directly affects her. Which means that it’s probably unnecessary for Taylor and me to take all the precautions we do. We slide out our chairs, leaving our half-drunk coffees behind, and split up to cross the room toward our target, each taking different trajectories, aiming to approach Nadia completely unobserved. Taylor reaches the table first, taking the chair next to Nadia, boxing her in. Nadia turns to look at her, clearly astounded that someone should take the liberty of sitting down next to her without being invited.

Her beautifully glossed lips part, obviously about to give Taylor a severe reprimand. Then she sees me sitting down across from her, and they sag open in a gawp of surprise.

“Scarlett? What are you doing here?” she says, completely shocked to see me.

And I think I see something else in her dark eyes too. I think I see guilt.

“We need to talk about your not-so-anonymous note,” I say, watching her closely. Her eyes waver and I know I’m right. It is guilt. Because she knows I didn’t have anything to do with Dan’s death, and she never told anyone what she saw that night—the EpiPen in Plum’s handbag.

Nadia starts to stand up, reaching for her bag. Taylor puts a hand on her shoulder and pushes her down. Nadia turns to her in outrage.

“Who are you? How dare you touch me?” she hisses in fury. But between clenched teeth: she doesn’t want to make a scene.

“You need to sit here and listen to what Scarlett’s got to say,” Taylor says, her voice flat and uninflected and all the scarier for that.

Nadia narrows her eyes. “You!” she hisses, glaring at Lizzie. “You told me you had a secret about Plum you wanted to tell me. You set me up!”

Lizzie’s face crumples.

“They made me, Nadia,” she wails. “They made me! I didn’t want to!”

I glance at Lizzie to check how she’s doing. Lizzie’s eyes, squinched up in their frames of eyeliner and mascara, are darting from me to Nadia. I can tell she doesn’t know whose side to take, and it’s confusing her so much that she has all the telltale signs of someone who’s about to cry: her mouth is puckering up, her cheeks are flushing, her eyes are beginning to water. Bad, bad, bad. The last thing we need is Lizzie throwing a scene and distracting us, possibly fatally, from getting the information we need from Nadia.

Coming to a quick decision, I say sympathetically, “Lizzie, why don’t you go? You look really upset.”

“I just feel so caught in the middle—” Lizzie sobs, grabbing her bag. She looks at Nadia, checking that she’s okay with Lizzie leaving. But Nadia just shrugs one slender shoulder at her, clearly not feeling the need for her support. Gratefully, Lizzie jumps up and runs off, looking overwhelmed. Wow, she really doesn’t like conflict.

Lizzie has no idea that I have any connection to Dan’s death. I certainly haven’t told her, but I wonder if Plum and Nadia might have. But, talking to her at school, I can tell she’s entirely innocent of any knowledge that I am the Kiss of Death Girl. I don’t think Plum and Nadia really talk to her at all: they just use her for her platinum credit cards and the fact that her father owns a ton of restaurants and trendy clubs. And in the whole time I’ve seen Lizzie, she’s never had anything but a tabloid or fashion magazine in her hands. From her babble, it’s obvious she uses the TV and Internet purely to watch her favorite American shows, all gossip and glitz. I don’t think she even knows what the news is. No wonder she’s never realized that my leaving St. Tabby’s and coming to Wakefield Hall, and Dan’s mysterious death, are intertwined in any way.

As Lizzie makes her escape, Nadia pushes back her chair and stands up again.

“I’m leaving, too, and you’d better not stop me,” she snaps. “I’ve got no interest in anything you have to say. Especially since you got me here under false pretenses.”

But this time Taylor doesn’t touch her. Instead, she says, “Oh yeah? Try to walk out of here and we’ll call the police and tell them you know Dan was murdered.”

I put my phone on the table. “I’ve got the number of the inspector who questioned me right here,” I lie.

Nadia would go white if her olive skin would allow her to. Failing that, the blood bleaches out of her cheeks, and under her carefully applied blusher I see her turn pale. She sits down very slowly, like my grandmother when she’s feeling her age.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, but it’s clearly an automatic denial—there’s no conviction in her voice.

“Oh yes, you do.” I lean across the table and fix her with a hard stare. I can’t believe I’m doing this: I’m intimidating Nadia Farouk, who, in the whole time I was at St. Tabby’s, could intimidate me simply by casting a dismissive glance in my general direction.

But I am. It’s working.

“I  .  .  . ,” Nadia starts, and then her voice trails off and she looks down at her hands, which she’s twisting together on the table. She fiddles with her bracelets—they’re gold, like all the Middle Eastern girls wear, the yellow metal gorgeous against their cappuccino skin.

Taylor starts to say something, but I hold up a hand and, miraculously, she hushes. This is my battle. I have to fight it myself, not always rely on Taylor to be my muscle. No matter how well she plays the part.

“You’ve got fifteen seconds to start talking,” I say, reaching for my phone. “Then I’m ringing the inspector.” I fix her with my stare again. “And don’t try to lie,” I add. “We know all about you seeing Dan’s EpiPen in Plum’s handbag the night of the party.”

Silence falls. Nadia seems utterly shocked for a moment, but then she sighs, a long, deep sigh as though she wants to get something heavy off her chest.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The way she says it, I believe her. Taylor and I lean forward expectantly.

“But in return,” she continues, with a slightly sarcastic edge, “since you’re such super–spy girl detectives, I want you to do something for me.  .  .  .”

“YOU’VE CHANGED, SCARLETT”

Six months ago I was getting dressed for a party. And now here I am, doing exactly the same thing, but with all the difference in the world. Six months ago, I was desperate to look as pretty as possible, to fit in with Plum and Nadia’s group, and to attract the boy I’d had a crush on since the dawn of time—Dan McAndrew.

Well, we all know how that one turned out.

Six months ago, it was all about pleasure. Now, it’s business. I look at myself in the mirror, and I see that my jaw is set with determination. Though it takes a second to recognize myself. The last time I wore this much makeup was—you guessed it—six months ago. And it was in this same hip Notting Hill boutique that I was taught how to dress and how to paint myself prettier without looking like a clown.

I was a more-than-willing student. Unlike Taylor, who, unsurprisingly, is absolutely refusing to wear any makeup whatsoever.

“Just a little bit of mascara?” the salesgirl is coaxing. “It’ll really make those green eyes pop!”

Taylor’s look is the visual equivalent of a snarl. I have to give the girl major points for persisting.

“And maybe just a tiny bit of blusher?” she continues. “I’ve got these great gel sticks. You’ll hardly notice it.”

“Then what’s the point?” Taylor snaps.

“Taylor,” I say soothingly, “you’ve got to blend in a bit. You can’t turn up at a trendy party in a club looking like—um—looking like  .  .  .”

I’m not as brave as the salesgirl, clearly, because Taylor turns her stare onto me, daring me to finish my sentence, and I feel her eyes are popping quite satisfactorily without the aid of any mascara.

“It’s all about individuality nowadays,” the girl says cheerfully. “No one’s trying to make you look like anything but yourself, okay? But just see what this does.  .  .  .”

And she actually dares to reach out with a stubby pink stick and draw a line on each of Taylor’s cheekbones. I’m amazed when she pulls her hand back with the wrist still intact. But, miracle of miracles, she does, because Taylor is, despite herself, looking at her image in the mirror, and both she and I can see that the blusher has made a small but significant improvement. It’s given just a touch of color to her Irish-white skin. Taylor has such strong features she’ll never be pretty, but, with her well-refined brows and cheekbones, plus those long green eyes, she could be really striking if she’d let herself make the best of her looks.

And push her hair back off her face a bit.

“That isn’t bad,” Taylor admits grudgingly, and to my amusement, she actually does push her hair back off her face, as if she heard my voice in her head. Or realized that she’s actually got a face worth looking at.

“Want to try a tiny bit of mascara?” the girl suggests.

“Well  .  .  . maybe  .  .  . ,” Taylor mumbles, blushing under the blusher.

I walk away, feeling that Taylor would rather not have me witness her this vulnerable. I honestly think she’d rather have me watch her being tortured than learning how to apply mascara.

In the full-length mirror set into the pale blue walls, I survey myself. I’m wearing a layered top, not unlike the one Nadia had on yesterday in the coffee shop. (I didn’t set out to copy her—the salesgirl picked it out for me, which goes to show how on-trend Nadia is.) It’s a sort of off-white, with silver threads running through it, and it’s so delicate that I’m nervous I might shred it with any sudden movements, but it’s fantastically pretty and it makes me feel glamorous and sexy but not like I’m showing too much skin, or cleavage, or anything that might make me feel embarrassed. It comes to my hips, and underneath it I’m wearing a gray suede miniskirt, silvery crocheted tights, and ankle boots with lots of straps and buckles that jingle when I walk and honestly make me feel a bit silly but that, I have been assured, are What Everyone Is Wearing at This Precise Fashion Moment in Time. My hair is pulled to one side in a ponytail, and the salesgirl told me to buy curling irons so I could twist it into one big loose ringlet falling over my right shoulder.

I haven’t even got any makeup on yet, and I think I look really nice already. I haven’t seen myself dressed up like this since the night of Nadia’s party. And while there’s a part of me that is a little ashamed to admit this, I like it.

All of a sudden, I find myself wishing Jase could see me now. Jase Barnes is the grandson of Ted Barnes, the head gardener at Wakefield Hall, where I live now. More importantly, Jase Barnes is the incredibly gorgeous boy who I can’t stop myself from thinking about when I’m not thinking about Dan. I don’t have tons of experience when it comes to this romantic stuff, but I think that Jase might have a bit of a thing for me. This is based solely on the fact that he didn’t exactly push me away when I kissed him recently.

I shake my head frantically, hoping that it’ll block all images of that kiss with Jase from my mind. Taylor and I have an important mission tonight, and I need to get ready for it. As soon as I focus only on that, I see a difference in myself from six months before. Then, I was wide-eyed, unable to believe that I actually looked pretty enough, trendy enough, capable enough of fitting into Plum and Nadia’s social circle enough that people wouldn’t laugh and point the moment I walked in the door. Now, I’ve kissed a boy, and held him as he died in my arms. I’ve been blamed for it, and I’m in the middle of a battle to prove his death was at the hands of someone else.

No wonder there’s a tougher look in my eyes.

“Hey,” Taylor says gruffly, appearing behind me in the mirror.

She isn’t half as dressed up as I am—she absolutely refused to try on a skirt. In fact, I don’t think Taylor even owns one. I only know she has legs rather than prosthetics because I’ve seen her work out in gym shorts. But she’s wearing low-cut jeans that show off her stomach, flat from thousands of sit-ups, and a bright red T-shirt with dull gold embroidery over one shoulder. The salesgirl was able to get Taylor to push her hair back behind her ears, and somehow Taylor looks a few years older and a lot more sophisticated. By the embarrassed tone in her voice, I can tell that Taylor sees it, too.

I know better than to shower her with compliments.

“You look cool,” I say.

“So do you,” Taylor responds.

We stare at each other in the mirror for a moment.

“Is this going to cost a ton of money?” Taylor asks eventually.

“Two tons,” I say.

She cracks a grin. “Gotta love that trust fund, right?”

Nadia’s deal with us was simple. Well, the deal was simple. The story behind it wasn’t.

“I throw up sometimes, okay?” she said, lowering her voice, so we had to strain to hear her over the clatter of cups and chatter in the crowded coffee shop. For someone who was glaring at us so boldly before, she was refusing to meet our eyes now: she was fidgeting with her gold bangles, her slick of shiny hair falling over her face. “I’m not bulimic or anything,” she went on, “because I don’t do it every day. Or anything like every day.”

She paused here, as if she was daring us to challenge this, but neither Taylor nor I did. Without wanting to sound too cold, we weren’t there to save one pampered rich girl from her own low self-image problem: we were there to solve a murder. Which sort of took priority.

“Sometimes I eat that bit too much and it just helps,” Nadia continued, still sounding defensive. “Everyone complimented me when I lost weight when I got the flu, but I started putting it on again, and then I realized if I just—you know—every so often—”

“What do you want us to do?” Taylor broke in impatiently. “Flush the john after you’ve finished barfing?”

Nadia’s head jerked up, and her big dark-penciled Persian eyes flashed jet-black daggers at Taylor.

“Well, thanks for the sympathy,” she hissed, turning her shoulder on Taylor. “You know what it’s like at St. Tabby’s, Scarlett. Everyone’s so horribly competitive.” She grimaced. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of stuff that goes on.”

She seemed to be waiting for something, so I prompted, in as sympathetic a voice as I could manage:

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like filming me doing it,” Nadia hissed again. “Can you imagine?”

“Someone filmed you throwing up?” I asked incredulously.

She nodded. Even under the bright coffee shop lights, which washed me and Taylor out and gave us dark shadows under our eyes, Nadia’s skin was golden and glowing. I couldn’t help admiring it, even as I wondered whether I could detect a hint of something sour and acid on her breath.

“Plum did,” she said quietly. “On her phone. We were feeling like we’d overdone it at brunch, and we thought we’d, you know, puke.” She whispered the last word. “We went into her bathroom to do it together and I went first. I had no idea what she was doing—I mean, why would you think anyone would film you? And then, the next day, she showed it to me. She said it was just a joke, but I begged her to delete it, and she wouldn’t, and ever since, when I don’t go along with her, she makes this gesture, like she’s sticking one finger down her throat, and I know she’s saying if I don’t do what she wants, she’ll show everyone.”

“So what do you want us to do about it?” Taylor asked, frowning in confusion.

“Get it back!” Nadia’s voice rose hysterically. “I want you to get it back!”

I could see that something about Taylor was making Nadia freak out, so I asked Taylor to go fetch us some more lattes.

“Fine,” Taylor said gruffly, obviously annoyed that I’d sent her on an errand in the middle of our power play.

Once Taylor was out of earshot, my suspicions were confirmed.

“Your friend’s really, really butch,” she said disapprovingly. “And completely classless.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “That’s pretty funny coming from a girl who pukes in the loo on a regular basis.”

Nadia seemed almost impressed by my comeback. She looked at me properly for the first time, one of the up-and-down, thorough surveys that St. Tabby’s girls only bestow on girls they think are their rivals in some way.

“You’ve changed, Scarlett. You’ve grown a backbone.”

“I had to,” I said simply.

Nadia nodded. “It must have been really hard,” she said. “Dan, I mean.”

For the first time, Nadia revealed a sympathetic expression. Even so, there was no way I was letting down my guard in front of her.

“It wasn’t a barrel of laughs,” I said brusquely.

Nadia raised her eyebrows. “Well, when I remember you at St. Tabby’s—”

“What exactly do you want us to do about Plum?” I cut in.

Nadia looked a bit taken aback that I’d dared to interrupt what was doubtless going to be a humiliating account of what a wimp I used to be at school. The only time I stood up to Plum was when I was clearing my stuff out of my locker, and that wasn’t exactly typical of my behavior there. Besides, she bullied me with a big group of girls around her, which really drove me to it.

“I want you to steal her phone,” she blurted out. “So I can delete that video.”

I stared at her, bewildered.

“Plum’s bound to have uploaded it to her computer,” I pointed out.

But Nadia was shaking her head so vigorously that her earrings were trembling glints of gold through her blue-black hair.

“Plum’s had her computer hacked into before,” she explained. “So now she doesn’t keep anything really private on it. She wants total control of that video, so she won’t send it anywhere someone else might get hold of it. Then she wouldn’t be able to, you know, sort of hold it over my head.”

“Some friend,” I said dryly.

Nadia’s eyes narrowed, and she started to say something, but she bit it back.

“How are we supposed to steal her phone?” I asked. “Plum knows me, and after the last time I saw her, I’m pretty sure she won’t let me anywhere near her.”

I had shoved Plum into a locker. I didn’t hurt her or anything, and she had her entire gang grouped round me, bullying me, but Plum wouldn’t exactly see that as justifying my actions.

Nadia was looking blank.

“And besides, the phone must be really precious to her, if she keeps incriminating stuff on it,” I added, thinking out loud. “Hmm, how can we make this work?”

I drummed my fingers on the table, which always helped me to think, though I knew it was annoying for everyone else. Nadia, however, had the good sense not to complain: after all, my brain was spinning fast in an attempt to help her out.

“I know!” I exclaimed eventually. “I’ll distract her, and Taylor can take the phone. Seeing me will be a great distraction—especially after last time. She’ll be spitting blood at the sight of me. We’ll just have to work out someplace we can do it so Taylor can get close to her bag without her noticing. And without getting caught,” I added. “Obviously—the last thing we want is Taylor getting arrested for stealing.”

“Well, we’re going clubbing tonight  .  .  . ,” Nadia suggested, a bit dubiously.

“Perfect,” I said firmly.

My brain told me that this would be a great opportunity—dark, crowded, Plum probably tipsy and thus less likely to notice her phone disappearing. And besides, it was striking while the iron was hot. I was on fire to push ahead with solving Dan’s murder.

My nerves, however, were screaming in protest. The idea of going clubbing—me! clubbing!—in any kind of venue that was a regular hangout for girls like Plum and Nadia filled me with complete and utter dread and fear. This was miles out of my league. I swallowed hard, telling my nerves to shut up.