This is WAR Read online

  That was it. Lina pounced.

  “So, what you’re saying is that you’re friends with the guy who killed our best friend. Is that right?” She raked her blue fingers through her hair and shook her head. “You just show up in here claiming to want to help take down a family you know nothing about! To get revenge for a girl who didn’t even know you existed.” Lina turned toward Madge and Sloane. “Am I the only one who wants to know what she’s really doing here?”

  “Lina!” Sloane shouted, slamming the yearbook shut. “We all know you miss her. We all do. But you don’t have to be such a bitch.”

  Lina had never heard Sloane curse, let alone at her. And the worst part was that Sloane was right. Lina couldn’t even think of anything clever to say. She’d failed in every way possible.

  “Enough.” Madge stood. Her eyes flickered orange in the candlelight, tiger-like. “None of this is going to work if we can’t get along. I’m not asking anyone to be friends. Willa held us together. But she’s gone, and this only works if we’re a team.”

  Madge was right. None of this would ever have happened if Willa were alive. Lina brushed her fingers over her first tattoo, a huge snake that wound its way up her left arm. Madge had been horrified when she’d seen it for the first time, had dubbed Lina “white trash.” Sloane had stared at her like she had no idea who she was. But Willa had walked right over to her and ran her fingers over the ink.

  “Does it hurt?” she’d asked. Looking back, Lina wondered if she’d been asking about the tattoo at all. Willa hadn’t waited for an answer; instead she squeezed Lina’s hand lightly and announced that if Lina was officially white trash they might as well celebrate with Cheetos and beef jerky. Everyone had laughed, and Madge apologized over a Slim Jim for being such a bitch, and everything had righted itself.

  But tonight there was no Willa to diffuse the tension. Tonight there would be no impromptu gas station run. Tonight there was only Lina and her regrets.

  “You’re right, Sloane,” Lina murmured. “I miss her.” She stopped short of apologizing to Rose. She wasn’t sorry for questioning the girl, and she still couldn’t imagine how her friends were able to trust a virtual stranger. Maybe trust was less complicated when you didn’t have anything to hide. “I’ll try harder,” she added. The words sounded gravelly as she pushed them past the burning in her throat.

  Madge clapped her hands together. “Excellent. Lina, you take the waitress and Trip. Rose, you do whatever it takes with James. Get pictures. The dirtier the better. We’ll project them the night of the gala. Don’t let me down.”

  Meeting adjourned.

  Chapter 11

  Lina lingered around the outskirts of the Club the next day, hoping to fly under the radar. She wore her favorite pair of oversized sunglasses in a pathetic attempt to disguise herself. If anything, the huge shades made her closely cropped, white-blonde hair stand out that much more. At least the rest of her outfit was ordinary, boring, and practical. She wore the only pair of shorts she owned and an army green ribbed tank top. But she drew the line at her lips and nails. In Lina’s experience, it was impossible not to be in control when wearing Big Apple Red nail polish and Venetian Red lipstick.

  Dew-drenched grass tickled Lina’s toes as she wove her way along the path through the woods—laser-focused on making it to the Club’s basketball courts before Trip Gregory’s weekly game began.

  When she found a large tree with a perfect hidden view, she surveyed the branches, tucked her phone into her bra band and began climbing. Her bright red nails looked shiny and out of place against the peeling bark of the tree, her muscles taut as she climbed. Only when Lina settled into the gentle curve of a thick branch did she let the tension ease slowly from between her clenched shoulders. The court was still empty, the green asphalt pristine.

  She was here. She was ready. She was in control.

  Lina fished out her phone and scrolled through the texts. Rose was driving her crazy with her plan for James Gregory. Apparently she’d figured out a way to get him out of his pants, but she needed Lina to play photographer. She still couldn’t get past the fact that Rose and James were a thing. There was no doubt in Lina’s mind that their relationship somehow played into Rose’s real agenda for joining the War. Her only hope was that seeing Rose and James interact tonight would finally give Lina the proof she needed to get rid of Rose McCaan for good. An image of Willa wrapping a scarf around Rose’s waist the night of the party surfaced in Lina’s mind, unbidden. Willa had been prone to picking up strays. Jessa Phillips the summer of third grade, Nora Williams in fifth, but it wasn’t until the summer of seventh that she’d found Carolina Winthrop.

  Metal clanked as the door to the courts swung open and then shut again.

  “Game on,” she whispered under her breath. She clicked on her camera phone.

  The first boy through the gate wasn’t Trip. It was actually someone Lina didn’t recognize as a club member. A busboy. Rory Something. He walked the length of the court, right beneath Lina. Her pulse quickened. She held her breath. She hoped if she remained frozen, he wouldn’t be prickled by that feeling of another presence, the feeling of being watched. All he’d have to do is look up and she’d be screwed. Rory threw a duffle bag down against the fence, swearing when something spilled out. Small white pills rolled every which way. He jumped to stop them, furtively scooping the stash back into the container just as more players arrived. Interesting. Clearly busboy liked his meds, and liked them secret.

  Trip entered the court wearing his trademark cocky smile. Other boys followed, doing the handshake-shoulder-bump that every phys ed teacher must teach males when they separate the sexes and roll condoms onto bananas. Her jaw tightened. It was as if nothing had changed. Of course, for them, nothing really had.

  As they started to play, she spotted James Gregory waltzing slowly toward the gate. His eyes were hidden behind aviator sunglasses, and he sat on the bench near the courts. She stared at him looking bored out of his skull while the game around him continued, sweaty and violent. Trip threw elbows, talked trash, and generally kicked ass. She couldn’t help but be impressed. No wonder he’d wanted the basketball court relocated closer to the main grounds. After maybe ten minutes, the boys took a water break. Rory spent the majority of his time chatting up a very unengaged looking James until Trip joined the party, slapping both of the boys on the back. She couldn’t catch the exact words; she was breathing too heavily and her phone shook in her hands, but a laugh exploded from Trip’s chest. The sound rolling over the court and spilling into the woods beyond.

  Without warning, he threw the ball across the court in one of those “look at me, I need attention every second of the day” kind of shots. It clanged the rim and bounced toward the fence. Trip jogged to retrieve the ball, but kicked it instead—which was odd. It rolled directly in front of Rory’s duffle. Lina held her breath again, watching Trip scoop up the ball while discreetly plucking the bottle of pills from the open zipper and tucking them into the pocket of his mesh shorts. Guess that rules out allergy medicine, Lina thought. She raised her phone to her eyes. If only she had super-zoom so she could actually see what drugs he’d just stolen.

  Water bottles were emptied; players swiped the backs of their hands across their mouths and used their shirts to wipe the sweat from their faces. In the meantime, Trip trotted back to James who dug money from his bag to hand to Rory. Unbelievable. The scene below came into crisp focus. Trip hadn’t stolen a thing. She’d just witnessed the most discreet drug deal in the history of mankind.

  The bark from the branch dug into Lina’s bony butt and she prayed the boys would finish soon. She was sweating. All at once, her fingers slipped and she lost her grip on the phone. It made a dull thump when it landed, partially concealed by a low shrub. A few boys turned to the sound, stretching their necks to survey the woods, but gave up and turned back to their game. Not Trip. His eyes were narrowed in the direction of Lina’s tree. He jogged to the edge of the fence, cocking hi
s head, not a dozen feet below her. Lina made her lanky body as small as possible along the tree branch. Waiting.

  Willa. Willa. Willa.

  Lina couldn’t understand why she mentally repeated Willa’s name, but it was as though every thought had been washed away. Her friend’s name was the only word that remained—a mantra. Was she praying? She didn’t know; she just needed Trip to walk away.

  And then he did.

  She would have thought in that moment that Willa would feel closer, more alive, eternal almost. After all, she’d answered Lina’s prayers. Or someone had. But instead, it was just a stark reminder that Willa was dead. Gone. Ashes scattered. All because of a boy who hung around a country club, bought drugs, and lived his life like nothing had changed. In that moment she wanted to jump down from the tree and destroy every stupid boy on that court. On some level they were all in this together. It was the way Hawthorne Lake worked, with its secrets and cover-ups and dismissive “boys will be boys” rules. And it would happen again. To another girl. Another friend. Another sister.

  For a moment Lina swayed on the branch thinking about how good it would feel to rake her red nails across James’s inscrutable face. But instead, she stilled herself, tilting her face to the sky, allowing the light filtering through the leaves above to paint her body with splashes of sun. Lina waited. She felt something inside her stir; something that felt dangerously close to hope, and for the first time since she’d handed Madge $25,000, she thought they might actually be able to do this. She finally had physical, undeniable proof of the Gregory boys breaking the law. Proof that might finally force the Captain to disinherit them both. Maybe power wasn’t an illusion after all. Maybe it was out there for the taking just as long as you knew where to find it. Or at least how to fight for it.

  Chapter 12

  After what felt like an eternity, the boys disbanded and headed back to the main Club grounds. Lina shimmied down the tree, reaching up to the sky and bending to touch her toes at the bottom. She felt as if she’d just emerged from the trunk of someone’s car. She bent to retrieve her phone: all in one piece and still operational. She sent a silent thank you up to Willa.

  But before weaving back through the woods, Lina slipped onto the basketball court and got down on her hands and knees, surveying the ground near where Rory’s duffle had been. Two cigarette butts, a candy wrapper, grass clippings … and yes. A lone white pill had slipped into one of the cracks near the edge of the court. Using her nail to pop it out, she examined the stamped name. Xyrem. She frowned, pulling up Google on her phone. Now she was even more confused. What the hell did Trip want with a drug used to treat narcolepsy? She clicked on the Wikipedia link, her eyes flashing down to three letters she recognized instantly.

  XYREM is a kind of GHB. XYREM can cause very low levels of awareness (or consciousness), with some cases of coma and death.

  Trip and James had just purchased a date rape drug. A drug that James could have given to Willa the night she died. A drug that would explain why one of the best swimmers at the Club drowned in the lake on a night when the water was as still as glass. The words on the screen in front of her blurred and swam together. She snapped a photo of the pill, tucked it in her pocket and ran the entire length of the trail back to the sunroom.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Winthrop?” The girl behind the bar looked bored, and Lina was overwhelmed by the smell of sickeningly sweet vanilla lotion. Lina wanted to tell her that if she caught her wearing that disgusting lotion ever again she would personally see to it that she got fired, but she settled for ordering a sparkling water instead. “Please don’t call me Ms. Winthrop,” she added. “That’s my mother.”

  She heard a shuffling sound behind her and then her name. “Lina.” That voice. Mari. “Listen, I know you don’t want to talk to me, you’re making that pretty clear, but I promise I’ll leave you alone if you just …”

  The bartender reappeared with Lina’s drink, and Mari closed her mouth. Lina appreciated the diversion. She took a long sip, resisting the urge to chug the entire glass. Trip’s crew burst in from the locker room, their hair dripping wet.

  “Hannah! My love!” Trip sang. The bartender’s cheeks flushed. “How about a cold one?”

  “One pop coming right up.” Hannah winked, filling a glass with ice.

  Lina felt sick to her stomach. As usual the rules didn’t apply to the Gregorys. His brother was a murderer, a girl had died—a girl everyone knew and loved—and he was walking around ordering drinks and winking at the staff. Life went on. And Trip joked and flirted his way through it, above it.

  Mari cast one last look at Lina, who wiped her eyes furiously. Tears meant weakness and Lina had to be strong. Her dad had taught her that. It was a waste of energy to cry over not making the team or getting dumped or falling down. He wouldn’t listen to it. “Stop crying. Grow up. Walk it off.” He’d spat the same words at her over the years, and she’d learned to control the feelings that accompanied them. He was right. Tears were worthless. And no matter how intense the pain of losing Willa was, it wouldn’t kill her. On the other hand, sitting around watching Trip Gregory order a fresh drink while James replenished his stash of roofies just might.

  As Mari tried to duck out of the bar, Trip planted himself in her path. His hand lightly grazed her thigh. Another wave of nausea rolled through Lina, but she reminded herself this was exactly what she needed. Mari’s gaze locked on Trip’s. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Trip was the kind of guy who lived for taking risks and almost getting caught—or getting caught and facing zero consequences. Then he turned to Lina.

  “Dress down day, Lina?” he asked playfully, his eyes wandering over the length of her body.

  She clenched her fingers into fists. “Something like that,” she replied.

  Trip scribbled his signature on the bill charging the Gregory account, slipped down from the stool and was gone. Mari opened her mouth to say something, but eventually sighed and followed him out of the sunroom. From watching the interaction, Lina knew they had made plans to meet. His little nod had said it all. She waited thirty seconds, got up, and casually headed in the same direction.

  Sure enough, as Mari passed the men’s locker room, Trip ducked out, grabbed her hand, and pulled her in. Lina reminded herself that she didn’t give a shit about Mari. But then she thought of how Willa made Lina call her whenever she got home at night after a party, just to let her know she was safe. No one had ever thought to do that before. Lina was pretty sure no one would ever do it again.

  She shoved herself into the locker room after them, her body pressed tightly against the navy blue walls. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and hit record, praying the microphone would be sensitive enough to pick up their conversation. She marveled at the décor: all cherry wood and rich granite. While the women’s locker room was outdated and shabby, the men’s was incredibly expensive and modern. The only thing missing was some kind of phallic monument to really drive the point home. Clearly, here was a place where Hawthorne men could go to feel like true men. Or ravage the staff.

  “Are you sure no one’s in here? I feel like I just heard something.” Mari sounded worried.

  “Will you just relax? It’s almost dinner. Everyone’s starting cocktails.” Trip’s voice was muffled, probably by his lips on Mari’s neck or God only knew where. Lina’s lower back began to sweat.

  “I just …”

  Lina could feel a shift in the air, an energy that wasn’t there before.

  “You just what?” Trip’s voice was clipped. “Here …” he’d managed to soften it. “This will help you relax.”

  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to imagine what he held out to Mari. No doubt it was tiny and white.

  “I don’t know. I’m okay. It’s fine.” Mari laughed uncomfortably.

  “Take it.” It wasn’t a suggestion. Lina pictured Mari’s full lips wrapping around the tiny pill, swallowing it dry, submitting to the effects of the drug, to Trip, to it all. And she
got pissed. She switched her phone to camera mode and snuck around the corner, taking continuous pictures while trying to block out the images in front of her. The word “victim” came to mind as Trip lay on top of Mari on a narrow wooden bench, Mari who was now listless. Lina felt something twist inside of her. It was like facing her dad’s wrath all over again, only this time she relished the pain. Without pain there would be no anger, and without anger there would be no courage. And she was going to need all the courage she could get.

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  “What the …?” Trip had the decency to appear shocked, at least for a moment. Then he smiled, slow and confident. “Oh, I get it. You want in on this, don’t you Lina Ballerina?”

  The perversity of Sloane’s nickname on his lips made something inside her snap. Without thinking, Lina charged. “Get off of her.” She pushed at his pale chest with all of her weight. “Get the hell off.”

  He laughed clumsily as he fell back on the wood floor. “Relax, Lina. I was kidding.” He grabbed his shorts and buttoned them quickly. “But stay out of my business.” He gestured loosely at Mari, still collapsed on the bench, “And I’ll stay out of yours.” He stared at her a few seconds too long, then turned to walk out of the locker room. “Gentlemen’s quarters are off limits, Lina Ballerina,” he called. “The Captain is going to be pissed. I’d keep a low profile if I were you.”

  He let the door slam behind him and Lina turned her attention to Mari. She forced herself to focus on her face and ignore the fact that she was laying down, half naked.

  “Are you okay?” It was kind of a ridiculous question, but it was the best Lina could do.

  Mari didn’t respond, just looked up at her with glassy eyes, her expression unreadable.

  “Come on, let’s get you dressed.” Lina tried to grab Mari’s limp arms to pull her into a seated position, but her hands were slapped away.