Whitney turned and walked backward down the hall in front of Carmen. She lifted her phone to her eye again and began snapping Carmen’s picture repeatedly.
“Why are you doing that?” Carmen asked.
Whitney didn’t reply.
They got to Whitney’s bedroom. Whitney whisked in ahead of Carmen, heading straight through to the bathroom door across the room, and disappeared.
The second Carmen stepped over the threshold, she knew something was terribly wrong. Her nose told her. The whole room reeked of shit. There were piles of it in spots on the otherwise pristine white-and-gold carpet. At first Carmen thought dog and racked her brain trying to remember if Whitney had a pet. But no. The turds were human, no doubt about it, and here and there had these strange, bright orange things in them, like plastic pellets.
“Whitney?” Carmen called, her voice shaking. She felt cold and dizzy, practically welded to her spot near the door. But events were unfolding exactly like a nightmare, because Carmen simultaneously had a powerful compulsion to see what was in that bathroom. She knew it was bad. She knew she should turn and run screaming right out of that apartment and down fifteen flights of stairs. Yet instead her leaden feet advanced step by step across the floor until she stood right in front of the bathroom door, which Whitney had left slightly ajar.
A wheezing sound emanated from inside. Like ragged breathing. Of its own accord, Carmen’s hand reached out and pushed the bathroom door inward.
Brianna Meyers sat naked on the toilet, reclining backward, almost sliding off, her arms and legs slack. Her eyes, which had been staring into space unseeingly, seemed to flicker in response to Carmen’s appearance. Carmen remembered that Brianna hadn’t been in school today, wondered how long she’d been in Whitney’s bathroom.
“Jesus,” Carmen whispered in shock, stepping all the way into the bathroom. “What is it, Brianna? Are you sick?”
Brianna’s mouth opened and tried to form words, but no sound emerged. Her entire body dripped with sweat. It ran in rivulets down her belly. Her long, dark hair was wet, plastered to her forehead. Carmen looked down and saw streaks of shit on Brianna’s legs and feet. Meanwhile, Whitney sat on the edge of the bathtub idly examining the label on an Ex-Lax package.
“Whitney, Brianna needs a doctor. We should call 911,” Carmen said accusingly.
“It’s something she ate. Right, Bree?” Whitney giggled, but this time Carmen saw real fear in her eyes.
“Listen to the way she’s breathing. Something is really wrong,” Carmen insisted. She still thought there was a possibility of salvaging this situation, of making things normal again. Little did she know.
Whitney’s head jerked up. She was looking past Carmen, at the open doorway behind Carmen’s back.
“Okay,” Whitney said sulkily to whoever was standing behind Carmen. “Here she is. Happy now?”
The split second it took Carmen to whip her head around and see who was behind her was the most nightmarish of all. Because she instinctively knew who she’d see standing in the doorway, and the knowledge was terrible. With Whitney’s words a lot of small events from the previous days snapped into a pattern for Carmen, with the precision of a mathematical sequence. It all made sense. Now she understood perfectly why she’d been lured to Whitney’s apartment. She’d walked right into a trap. A trap she probably wouldn’t get out of alive.
15
AFTER THE DEA AGENT found the dope in Carmen Reyes’s locker, Patricia Andover excused herself politely, walked back to her office, and, nerves jangling, dialed James at home. It crossed her mind to worry about the trail of telephone records. Two calls this morning so far. But the next few days leading up to the gala were critical and dicey, and she had to make sure the ODs didn’t disturb their carefully laid plans. Neither of them could put a foot wrong if they wanted to pull this off. The calls were necessary and could be explained if it came down to it. They were simply evidence of the headmistress’s offering comfort to a bereaved family.
Charlotte must’ve been at least semiconscious-how unusual!-because when James answered, he pretended Patricia was someone from his campaign. He made her wait for what felt like ages while he went to his library, locked the door, and called back from his cell phone. Patricia sat there with palms sweating and heart pounding. Why put her through this? Screw Charlotte anyway, that drug-addled whore. Patricia could walk around that apartment buck naked, and Charlotte wouldn’t notice. Goddamn junkie, just like her daughter. Patricia hated them both with a passion. Correction-had hated them, before Whitney got what she so richly deserved.
The phone on her desk finally rang. She snatched it up.
“Hello?” she said breathlessly.
“How’d it go?”
“Fine. It was her, the one you told me about. Melanie Vargas. She was with some DEA agent.”
“Chinese guy, right?”
“Yes. I’m their best friend now.”
He chuckled. “Good. That’s the way to handle it, I’m telling you. Look at Martha Stewart. She didn’t go to jail for anything she did. Just for lying to them. They hate it when you don’t cooperate. Offends their little egos.”
“Well, I cooperated, all right. I even had Ted Siebert go through this song and dance about a search warrant so I could pretend to overrule him. You know, good cop, bad cop.”
“Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you about that, because that prosecutor called me for permission-”
“I know! I was sitting right there. Ted took me way too seriously. He wouldn’t let it drop, so she had to mollify him. I swear, it was almost like he wanted them to think we had something to hide.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“Do you think he did it on purpose?” James asked.
“What, over that old thing?” But Patricia considered the possibility.
“You know he hates me.”
“Honestly, with what I have on him, I don’t think he’d dare. He has a position to protect. Not just his family either, but you know he’s very big in the Bar Association now.”
“What a thought.” James laughed sharply, then stopped short, his tone turning ominous. “I’m glad it went well, but still…We need to talk. There’s a problem, you know, Patricia.”
“Yes, I know, dearest,” she said. “You’re angry about Whitney. I want you to understand, I tried to keep a lid on things. It wasn’t my fault-”
“Whitney’s the least of our problems. This is serious. It’s about the second set of books.”
“The…books?” Patricia’s heart began to beat erratically.
“You told somebody, didn’t you?”
“About our plan? Of…of course not, darling.”
“You’re lying.”
“James, what’s this about? Why are you talking this way?”
“Somebody’s been tampering. Accessing the computer files behind our backs. Or at least behind mine.”
Patricia felt suddenly ill. The fact was, she had told somebody. She’d been forced to. Did James really think she could handle the accounting all by herself? Or even the computer? She was not a math-science type. He knew that, and yet he’d refused to help her himself because he didn’t want to take the risk. Naturally she’d had to turn elsewhere. She’d been so careful about whom she’d trusted. What could possibly have gone wrong? But she couldn’t admit this to James now. He’d be furious at her.