Page 13 of Deadly Little Scandals
“I take it you’ve enlightened your cousin as to the score?” she asked now.
Horror seeped through my body, weighting it down limb by limb—then Campbell smiled and made it clear that her question had been targeted at Lily and that the “score” she’d been referring to wasn’t my secret.
“Parts of Regal Lake are Martha’s Vineyard,” Campbellenlightenedme. “And parts areDuck Dynasty, and ne’er the twain shall meet, except in fine establishments like this one.”
Half of the bar-goers in this room looked like they would have been right at home at The Holler. The other half looked like they’d come straight from the yacht club. The common denominator was that nearly everyone in the building was young—and as we stood there, more than a few of them turned to look in our direction.
It took me a moment to realize that they were looking at Campbell.
“Notoriety suits me,” Campbell said, but her usual bravado fell flat. “Don’t you think?”
“I think we’re supposed to be in the back room,” Lily said, nudging Campbell in that direction. “Come on.”
Before I could follow them, I noticed a disturbance a few feet away. “You two go ahead,” I told Campbell and Lily. “I’m going to rescue Sadie-Grace.”
Sadie-Grace Waters was what my old boss, Big Jim, would have referred to as alookerand what my grandmother referred to as asweet girl. She wasn’t particularly skilled at standing up for herself or recognizing sexual innuendos. I managed to push my way through her thick ring of current admirers just as one of them was saying something rather questionable about apples.
“Hi, Sawyer!” Sadie-Grace greeted me cheerfully. “People here are so friendly.”
I snorted and gently maneuvered her away from the crowd.
“Where are you going?” one of the men called, disappointed.
Sadie-Grace, bless her heart, bounced to the tips of her toes. “I can’t tell you,” she called back. “It’s a secret!”
The back room was bigger than I’d expected. Round-top tables lined the walls, a half-dozen candles burning on each table, the only light in the room. I’d spent a chunk of my childhood obsessively calculating the maximum occupancy of every building I entered, and my guess was that the room could hold forty and was pushing that number. Every person here was female. Most were dressed like us—sundresses layered over swimsuits, hair strategically windblown—but I counted eight who wore what appeared to be white shifts and elbow-length white gloves under floor-length scarlet robes. Their hoods were up, casting their faces in shadow.
“Don’t be shy,” one of them told Sadie-Grace and me. “Pick your poison.” She gestured to the table beside her, which was filled with martini glasses. Each glass bore liquid of a different color—an entire rainbow ofpoisonsto choose from.
Sadie-Grace went for a purple one. I circled the table to grab the only clear drink I saw.
“Do you like it when things are transparent?” the hooded girl asked me. From this angle, I could see her better. Her hair was dark and thick, her skin the same medium brown as her eyes.
I took a very small sip of my drink. “I don’t like anything too sweet.”
A second or two passed, then the dark-haired girl turned and disappeared into the crowd.
“I can’t believe she came tonight.”
“I can’t believe they invited her.”
“Wasn’t that nice of them?”
My default would have been to ignore the duo murmuring behind me, but the next thing one of them said was: “It would only be polite to go say hello.”
They made their way around me—and that was when I realized they were headed for Campbell. Poor, pitiable Campbell Ames, whose family was embroiled in scandal.
“Should we warn her?” Sadie-Grace asked me. She paused. “Or warnthem?”
My money was on Campbell being able to take care of herself.
“Lily’s with her,” I told Sadie-Grace. “She won’t let things get too ugly.”
Just before the girls reached Campbell, I heard a thump, followed by another and another. Someone was stomping—and soon, multiple people were, creating a steady, rhythmic drumbeat.
“The Candidates are many.” Those words were spoken to carry. “The Chosen are few.” The speaker stepped onto a chair, and I recognized her as the one who’d told us to pick our poison. “You received an invitation to tonight’s little soiree,” she said, “because at least one among us thought you had…potential.” She lingered on that word, just for a moment. “You might have noticed that there are eight of us and significantly more of you. For now, you don’t need to know our names. All you need to know is what we offer. Eight spots for eight of you. Tradition dictates that at the start of her senior year in college, each White Glove picks her own replacement from among the incoming freshmen at her institution.”
There was a pause—a calculated one.
