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  Charlotte groans, tearing off her knit cap and stuffing it into her bag. Her red curls are an explosion today, but her makeup is on point. She wants to make sure she gets an accurate representation of what she’ll look like next weekend when she sees herself in the dressing room mirror.

  “Why did she come again?” I ask, glaring at Geri’s back.

  “Because if I didn’t invite her, she’d probably be back at Vale Hall sticking her tongue down Caleb’s throat.”

  I stop.

  Charlotte winces. “I didn’t mean that.”

  I know she didn’t, just like I know Geri and Caleb don’t really like each other. But thinking of them kissing makes me want to tear every little dress from the racks in this store and light them on fire all the same.

  Not that I have any right to be jealous after what happened with Grayson and me in the pit.

  “I’m in a pissy mood,” Charlotte continues. “I’m sorry. Can we try on dresses now?”

  I follow her to the nearest rack, covertly checking my phone in my pocket. After this I’m heading straight to my job, just a few blocks south of here, where Mark and I are going to have a little talk about Jimmy Balder and appropriate behavior with female interns.

  “So, black for mourning?” She holds a small satin dress in front of her. “Or black for my soul?” She switches to a skirt with a slit straight up the hip.

  “Either are good.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You’re supposed to say, Black’s not your color, Charlotte. You need something vibrant. Green, or blue. Gold even.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan.”

  She lowers the hangers in her hands, mouth pulled into a thin line. “You aren’t very good at this.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Look.” She points to Paz and Michone, who are oohing and ahhing as Lila holds up a purple formal gown and smiles like a porcelain doll. “That’s how it’s done.”

  “Ooh,” I say. “Ahh.”

  “Have you ever been shopping?”

  “It hasn’t exactly been a priority.” I shoot her my best side-eye. “Not everyone gets to be a hotel heiress.”

  “Don’t I know it.” She sighs heavily, and sets the hangers back on the shelf. “Normally I’d just call James Wan to design me an original piece, but I know he’s swamped working on Damien Fontego’s suit for the Met Gala.” Her haughty tone makes me smirk, and my cheeks warm at the mention of the Vale Hall alum that kissed my hand at my recruitment rally in the train yards. “So here I am,” Charlotte continues, “slumming it in Uptown with a girl who thinks clothes aren’t a priority.”

  I snort. “You poor thing.”

  She curtsies, pleased with her own performance. “But really, what are you wearing?”

  I hadn’t much thought about it. “There’s a dress in my closet.” It was there when I arrived, just like all my clothes.

  I wonder if Mom’s going to have her closet stocked in her new apartment, too.

  My teeth tap together.

  “Wrong,” says Charlotte. “This is my eighteenth birthday. It’s got to be exactly right.”

  “Why?” I don’t mean to challenge the issue, but she’s putting a lot of pressure on it. She asked Dr. O to have a tent put up in the field behind the pool, and there’s going to be dancing and everything.

  “Because it just does, okay? Everything changes after this.”

  Her head falls forward, and I know she’s thinking about Sam again, and college. Everything that will be different next year.

  I grab a blue dress off the nearest shelf and hold it in front of me.

  “Well?” I make a kissy face and kick out one heel. “Not bad, huh?”

  She snorts and puts it back on the rack. “Blue’s my color. You, my friend, are wearing red.”

  I gulp, heading after her to a corner of the store where the necklines get lower and the hemlines get shorter. She grabs a gown the color of cherries, ankle-length but open across the shoulders, and grins mischievously at me.

  “Uh-huh,” she says, tossing it over her shoulder.

  Fifteen minutes later, I’m standing in an oversized dressing room while Charlotte lounges on a purple velvet armchair. The dresses she’s picked for herself are hanging on a hook, but she doesn’t make a move for them.

  “I’m not doing this unless you are.” I swipe my palms down my jeans, staring at the explosion of red fabric before me.

  She’s pulling at the end of one of the skirts she’s picked out—a blue satin scrap that’ll show off her three miles of legs. In this lighting, it’s easier to see the bruises beneath her eyes and remember the sound of her crying through the air vents in the wall.

  “So how are things with Sam?” I ask.

  “Huh?” She looks up. Scowls. “Oh just peachy. Like mealy peaches. That are rotten. With worms coming out of them.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “I’ll be okay. It was just a fight.”

  I give her a look, then take a deep breath and peel off my shirt.

  “You’re not eating.” I’ve watched her at breakfast and dinner, pushing the food around on her plate like a five-year-old. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week. Just talk to him.”

  She won’t look at me, just like Caleb won’t look at me, and Grayson won’t look at me. It’s like I’ve turned into a damn solar eclipse or something. Stare into my eyes and I will burn your retinas to blindness.

  “It’s not that easy,” she says.

  “It’s Sam. You can tell him anything. Just figure out what you want, and go get it.” But the words grow heavy on my tongue.

  My fingers go to my lips, pressing them, the way Grayson’s did. I wish I’d gone to the roof and met Caleb that night, but part of me wonders if what happened with Grayson was inevitable—if we have always been two trains from opposite directions on the same track, bound to crash.

  Whatever the case, I know what I’m risking. That kiss with Grayson is going to stay locked in the vault until the day I die.

  Charlotte stands, and then we’re hugging, and I forget about my problems with Grayson and Caleb. It’s awkward for a second that I’m in my bra, but she doesn’t notice or care.

  “Thanks,” she says, her tears damp on my shoulder.

  Pulling back, she wipes her eyes and turns to the mirror to hurriedly fix her makeup. Then we’re trying on dresses, and our giggles turn to laughter when we see how ridiculous or sexy some of them look—how Moore will send us back to our rooms for a cover-up if we wear something too low-cut, or how we’re supposed to dance in something too short without our underwear showing. We practice different moves in front of the mirror to see how we look, and then crack up all over again because it’s not the dresses that are ridiculous, it’s us.

  But then I try on the last one, the red, strapless dress she picked out first, and Charlotte claps her hands over her mouth.

  “Holy hell,” she says.

  It can’t be any worse than the others, but I strut to the mirror anyway, and stop short.

  The silky red fabric makes my shoulders glow a deep copper, and the wells behind my collarbone stand out like shadowed pools. My waves of hair seem darker and more vibrant in this color, and the way the dress clings to my waist gives me an hourglass shape I didn’t know I had. At my ankles, the soft skirt fans out and ripples with every movement of my legs.

  This dress is beautiful.

  I am beautiful.

  “Hold on.” Charlotte digs into her bag and pulls out a gold tube of lipstick. Twisting it open, she makes me pucker my lips and paints them an apple red to match the dress.

  I look in the mirror.

  I’m not just beautiful, I’m hot.

  “Whoa,” I say.

  “Girls!” Behind me, Charlotte’s opened the door and is motioning for the other girls to come see.

  “Damn.” Paz is closest, and nods appreciatively. Lila is next, barefoot and wearing a lacy pink dress, and she leans into our room to give me a high five.

/>   Charlotte should shut the door—this is embarrassing. But I don’t move from the threshold, and when Alice and Michone howl their approval, I blush and laugh.

  “Look at Cinderella, all cleaned up for the ball.”

  The way clears to reveal Geri, pure sin in a black halter dress that hugs her thighs and reveals her slender pale legs. Her hair swishes over one shoulder as she swivels her head to examine me.

  I send her a patronizing grin. “Are you one of the little mice that turns into a horse and pulls my carriage?”

  “Nice try.” She saunters toward me, taking measured steps so her backside doesn’t fall out of her short skirt. “I’m your fairy godmother, and if you don’t do your job, I take everything away when the clock strikes twelve.”

  I straighten. The other girls meander closer, listening in.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your new friend needs to go.”

  “That’s not exactly her call,” says Charlotte, hands on her hips.

  “Sure it is,” says Geri. “If you’re so good, seal the deal already. Get him out of here. Playing hotel heiress and captain coder was fun for a while, but it’s exhausting enough pretending I like you. I’m over pretending I like Caleb.”

  Her lips twitch, and even her condescending smile can’t hide her true feelings. She worked with Grayson—failed with Grayson—and having him around is a constant reminder of that fact.

  “So quit pretending,” I tell her.

  “Take it up with your ex.” She steps closer and whispers so only I can hear. “He’s the one driving that train. He was pretty torn up about your breakup. I know he’s rebounding, but I didn’t have the heart to let him down. Need an A in PE to keep on honor roll, you know how it is.”

  I want to shove her away. Call her a liar. Caleb wouldn’t go to Geri if he was upset about me. He’d go to Henry, or Sam, or even Charlotte.

  But however much I hate to admit it, Geri’s flirting hasn’t been one-sided. I’ve seen him smile at her, touch her, and it’s been different since we broke up.

  No. He isn’t really into her. This is another one of Geri’s twisted games, and I’m not falling for it.

  “I’m working on Grayson,” I tell her. “Thanks for the concern.”

  “Clock is ticking, Cinderella.”

  She strides back to the dressing room, the other girls glancing between us as if expecting a bigger fight. Disappointed I didn’t give them one.

  “Show’s over,” says Charlotte. “Go back to being gorgeous.”

  I stomp back into the dressing room, fighting with the zipper on the back of the dress. Charlotte closes the door and helps me before I rip it.

  “She’s just being Geri.” Charlotte carefully drapes the dress over the back of the chair. “Don’t let her get to you.”

  “I know.” In a hurry, I jerk on my jeans and check the time. I need to leave for the club.

  “Caleb’s just humoring her,” she says.

  “I know.” But I don’t. Geri’s putting the pressure on me through Caleb, so I’ll hurry and get Grayson out of Vale Hall, but does he actually like her?

  I turn on Charlotte. “Why would he do this?”

  She shrugs. “Because you’re taken. He’s trying to get your attention, I don’t know.”

  He didn’t need Geri to get my attention; he already had it. He’s the one who broke up with me, and now he’s upset about it?

  “Put the dress on your card, yeah?”

  Charlotte nods, and I head out to my job, forcing Caleb aside so I can focus on Grayson, and Jimmy Balder, and slimy Mark Stitz.

  CHAPTER 19

  When I get to The Loft, I head straight through the kitchen to the lockers so I can change into my hostess dress. Myra is on break, sitting on the bench beside the bathroom door, sipping another giant to-go cup of coffee. She’s wearing a loose braid today, and tendrils of black hair surround her face.

  I say a quick hello, grab my uniform, and head into the bathroom—I want to be ready when Sterling’s staff shows up today. But as I lock myself in a stall, I hear the main door open and swing shut.

  “Got a minute?” Myra asks. It sounds serious, and even though I didn’t hear anyone else in here, I check under the stall door to my right just in case.

  Just us.

  “What’s up?” I pull my shirt over my head and hang it on the back of the door.

  “I’ve been thinking about what happened.”

  I pause, then get to work on my jeans. “Yeah, me too.”

  I hear a quiet drumming, as if she’s tapping her fingers on the paper cup. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about what happened with Mark. I should’ve been more supportive.”

  The problem isn’t that she wasn’t supportive, it’s that she was, but I can’t take her support because there’s too much wrapped up in this that she doesn’t understand.

  I need Mark to tell me about Jimmy Balder, and his inappropriate behavior, obnoxious as it was, may be just the leverage I need to get some answers.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her.

  “You can trust me.”

  My chest pangs as Caleb flashes through my mind. I wish it were as easy as that.

  “We’re friends. Or we’re going to be, anyway,” she says. “Sometimes you just know about people.”

  Her need to make this right is so sincere, so eager, that I regret keeping my true identity from her.

  “Thanks.” I slide the black dress over my head and pull it down my hips. Before, it gave me confidence, but now, at the prospect of facing Mark again, I wish I wasn’t wearing something so tight. I hate that he’s made me question a stupid uniform.

  One issue at a time.

  “I checked into that friend of mine who’s missing,” I say. “The one who used to work for the campaign.”

  My exterior may be the picture of calm, but inside, my nerves are humming. I’m on a time limit right now—I need to get to Mark quickly—but Myra knows something. I felt it when I first started here, and again that night at the restaurant. I can’t dismiss that.

  “Jimmy something, right?” Again, I hear her fingers drumming on the cup.

  “Jimmy Balder. No one’s seen him in a year.” Ben never sent that picture of him, Emmett, and Jimmy after the whole “mugging” debacle. I make a mental note to remind him.

  “Really?” she asks.

  “I think something may have happened to him. With the senator.” I pull on my tights, then crack the door so I can see her face when I add, “I called the campaign’s human resources department on my way in. They’ve never heard of him. No file. No record of employment. Nothing.”

  Her brows knit. “Isn’t that confidential information?”

  I shrug. “I can be persuasive.” It wasn’t difficult—I just told the woman on the phone that my supervisor needed his mailing address to forward a letter of recommendation since the email Jimmy gave was no longer active.

  “Maybe they get rid of a person’s information once they leave. Or maybe he split on bad terms—got fired or something.” She takes another sip of coffee as I fix my hair in the mirror. “That’s why you were so concerned with the interns coming and going your first day, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  HR wouldn’t get rid of an intern’s profile. They’d need it, especially if he got fired. That kind of stuff is always documented, even at Mom’s job at Gridiron Sports Bar.

  No, Jimmy’s not in human resource’s files because Sterling found a way to get rid of him—to make him disappear. I couldn’t find anything online about him, either—no address, no missing person stories.

  “You knew Sterling’s campaign met here before you got the job, didn’t you?” She sighs. “Jessica mentioned the other day that you got the job because your aunt and Mrs. Sterling are friends.”

  Time to tread carefully.

  “I did,” I say. “I do need the job, but I want to know what happened to Jimmy, too.”

  She sets the cup
on the counter, but her hand is shaking, and she knocks it over. Quickly, she rights the cup before too much spills.

  “Sorry,” she mumbles as she grabs a handful of paper towers to wipe it up. “This is my third refill. Too much caffeine.”

  Or she’s nervous about something.

  “You haven’t heard anything about him, have you?” I ask.

  “No,” she says without looking up. “Why would I?”

  My frown is reflected in the mirror as I fix my eyeliner with the pencil in my bag. Maybe she’s hiding something, or maybe she really was nervous about talking to me about what happened at Risa’s and drank too much coffee.

  “I think Mark knows something,” I say. “He was starting to tell me at the restaurant when things got a little … weird.”

  “And you hit him.”

  I nod.

  She blows out a breath. “You think he had something to do with it?”

  I hadn’t considered this.

  “How do you mean?”

  She scowls. “Maybe Mark killed him. Maybe he dragged him into some dark parking lot like he did you.”

  I shiver.

  “He’s not a killer.”

  I don’t think. A scenario plays through in which the senator has Mark do his dirty work. It’s not impossible that Mark played a personal role in Jimmy’s disappearance.

  “He kills my joy every time he shows up,” she says.

  “He’s not at the top of my favorite people list, either.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Find out what he knows,” I say. “However I have to.”

  She’s stirring the drink slowly, staring at the cabinet in front of her. “That doesn’t sound very safe.”

  “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  She takes a slow sip of her coffee. “I’ve said that before, too.”

  There’s a heaviness in her tone, that festers under my skin, a wound you can’t scratch.

  “And?” I say.

  “And I was wrong.” She turns toward me. “There’s always someone worse.”

  I’m about to ask what she means when the door shoves open, and Jessica is framed in the threshold. Her perfectly painted lips form a thin line as her gaze narrows on us.