Hush Hush Read online

  "Is this go­od?" the hos­tess as­ked, ges­tu­ring at the bo­oth.

  "It's gre­at," El­li­ot sa­id, shrug­ging out of his bom­ber jac­ket. "I lo­ve this pla­ce. If the ro­om do­esn't ma­ke you swe­at, the fo­od will."

  The hos­tess's smi­le lit up. "You've be­en he­re be­fo­re. Can I start you with chips and our ne­west jala­pe­no sal­sa? It's our hot­test yet."

  "I li­ke things hot," sa­id El­li­ot.

  I was pretty su­re he was be­ing slimy. I'd be­en way too ge­ne­ro­us in thin­king he wasn't as low as Mar­cie. I'd be­en way too ge­ne­ro­us abo­ut his cha­rac­ter, pe­ri­od. Es­pe­ci­al­ly now that I knew he had a mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on hi­ding along with who knew how many ot­her ske­le­tons in his clo­set.

  The hos­tess swept him an ap­pra­ising on­ce-over. "I'll be right back with chips and sal­sa. Yo­ur wa­it­ress will be he­re shortly to ta­ke yo­ur or­ders."

  Vee plop­ped in­to the bo­oth first. I slid in be­si­de her, and El­li­ot to­ok the se­at ac­ross from me. Our eyes con­nec­ted, and the­re was a fleck of so­met­hing dark in his. Very li­kely re­sent­ment. May­be even hos­ti­lity. I won­de­red if he knew I'd se­en the ar­tic­le.

  "Purp­le is yo­ur co­lor, No­ra," he sa­id, nod­ding at my scarf as I lo­ose­ned it from my neck and ti­ed it aro­und the hand­le of my hand­bag. "Brigh­tens yo­ur eyes."

  Vee nud­ged my fo­ot. She ac­tu­al­ly tho­ught he me­ant it as a comp­li­ment.

  "So," I sa­id to El­li­ot with an ar­ti­fi­ci­al smi­le, "why don't you tell us abo­ut King­horn Prep?"

  "Ye­ah," Vee chi­med in. "Are the­re sec­ret so­ci­eti­es the­re? Li­ke in the mo­vi­es?"

  "What's to tell?" El­li­ot sa­id. "Gre­at scho­ol. End of story." He pic­ked up his me­nu and scan­ned it. "Anyo­ne in­te­res­ted in an ap­pe­ti­zer? My tre­at."

  "If it's so gre­at, why did you trans­fer?" I met his eyes and held them. Ever so slightly, I arc­hed my eyeb­rows, chal­len­ging.

  A musc­le in El­li­ot's jaw jum­ped just be­fo­re he crac­ked a smi­le. "The girls. I he­ard they we­re a lot fi­ner aro­und the­se parts. The ru­mor pro­ved true." He win­ked at me, and an ice-cold fe­eling shot from my he­ad to my to­es.

  "Why didn't Jules trans­fer too?" as­ked Vee. "We co­uld ha­ve be­en the fa­bu­lo­us fo­ur, only with a lot mo­re punch. The phe­no­me­nal fo­ur."

  "Jules's pa­rents are ob­ses­sed with his edu­ca­ti­on. In­ten­se do­esn't be­gin to co­ver it. I swe­ar on my li­fe, he's go­ing all the way to the top. The guy can't be stop­ped. I me­an, I con­fess, I do okay in scho­ol. Bet­ter than most. But no­body tops Jules. He's an aca­de­mic god."

  The dre­amy lo­ok re­tur­ned to Vee's eyes. "I've ne­ver met his pa­rents," she sa­id. "Both ti­mes I've go­ne over, they're eit­her out of town or wor­king."

  "They work a lot," El­li­ot ag­re­ed, re­tur­ning his eyes to the me­nu, ma­king it hard for me to re­ad anyt­hing in them.

  "Whe­re do they work?" I as­ked.

  Elli­ot to­ok a long drink of his wa­ter. It se­emed to me li­ke he was bu­ying ti­me whi­le he de­vi­sed an ans­wer. "Di­amonds. They spend a lot of ti­me in Af­ri­ca and Aust­ra­lia."

  "I didn't know Aust­ra­lia was big in the di­amond bu­si­ness," I sa­id.

  "Ye­ah, ne­it­her did I," sa­id Vee.

  In fact, I was pretty su­re Aust­ra­lia had no di­amonds. Pe­ri­od.

  "Why are they li­ving in Ma­ine?" I as­ked. "Why not Af­ri­ca?"

  Elli­ot stu­di­ed his me­nu mo­re in­ten­sely. "What are you both ha­ving? I'm thin­king the ste­ak fa­j­itas lo­ok go­od."

  "If Jules's pa­rents are in the di­amond bu­si­ness, I bet they know a lot abo­ut cho­osing the per­fect en­ga­ge­ment ring," Vee sa­id. "I've al­ways wan­ted an eme­rald-cut so­li­ta­ire."

  I kic­ked Vee un­der the tab­le. She jab­bed me with her fork.

  "Oww," I sa­id.

  Our wa­it­ress pa­used at the end of the tab­le long eno­ugh to ask, "Anything to drink?"

  Elli­ot lo­oked over the top of his me­nu, first at me, then at Vee.

  "Di­et Co­ke," Vee sa­id.

  "Wa­ter with li­me wed­ges, ple­ase," I sa­id.

  The wa­it­ress re­tur­ned ama­zingly qu­ickly with our drinks. Her re­turn was my cue to le­ave the tab­le and ini­ti­ate step one of the Plan, and Vee re­min­ded me with a se­cond un­der-the-tab­le prod from her fork.

  "Vee," I sa­id thro­ugh my te­eth, "wo­uld you li­ke to ac­com­pany me to the la­di­es' ro­om?" I sud­denly didn't want to go thro­ugh with the Plan. I didn't want to le­ave Vee alo­ne with El­li­ot. What I did want was to drag her out, tell her abo­ut the mur­der in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on, then find so­me way to ma­ke both El­li­ot and Jules di­sap­pe­ar from our li­ves.

  "Why don't you go alo­ne?" sa­id Vee. "I think that wo­uld be a bet­ter plan" She jer­ked her he­ad at the bar and mo­ut­hed Go, whi­le ma­king disc­re­et sho­o­ing mo­ti­ons be­low the tab­le.

  "I was plan­ning on go­ing alo­ne, but I'd re­al­ly li­ke you to jo­in me."

  "What is it with girls?" El­li­ot sa­id, split­ting a smi­le bet­we­en us. "I swe­ar, I've ne­ver known a girl who co­uld go to the bath­ro­om alo­ne." He le­aned for­ward and grin­ned cons­pi­ra­to­ri­al­ly. "Let me in on the sec­ret. Se­ri­o­usly. I'll pay you fi­ve bucks each." He re­ac­hed for his back poc­ket. "Ten, if I can co­me along and see what the big de­al is."

  Vee flas­hed a grin. "Per­vert. Don't for­get the­se," she told me, stuf­fing the 7-Ele­ven sacks in­to my arms.

  Elli­ot's eyeb­rows lif­ted.

  "Trash," Vee exp­la­ined to him with a to­uch of snark. "Our gar­ba­ge can is full. My mom as­ked if I co­uld throw the­se away sin­ce I was go­ing out."

  Elli­ot didn't lo­ok li­ke he be­li­eved her, and Vee didn't lo­ok li­ke she ca­red. I got up, my arms lo­aded with cos­tu­me ge­ar, and swal­lo­wed my bur­ning frust­ra­ti­on.

  We­aving thro­ugh the tab­les, I to­ok the hall le­ading back to the rest­ro­oms. The hall was pa­in­ted ter­ra-cot­ta and was de­co­ra­ted with ma­ra­cas, straw hats, and wo­oden dolls. It was hot­ter back he­re, and I wi­ped my fo­re­he­ad. The Plan now was to get this over with as qu­ickly as pos­sib­le. As so­on as I was back at the tab­le, I'd for­mu­la­te an ex­cu­se abo­ut ne­eding to le­ave, and ha­ul Vee out. With or wit­ho­ut her con­sent.

  After pe­eking be­low the three stalls in the la­di­es' ro­om and con­fir­ming I was alo­ne, I loc­ked the ma­in do­or and dum­ped the con­tents of the 7-Ele­ven sacks on­to the co­un­ter. One pla­ti­num blond wig, one purp­le push-up bra, one black tu­be top, one se­qu­ined mi­nis­kirt, hot pink fish­net tights, and one pa­ir of si­ze eight and a half sharks­kin sti­let­to he­els.

  I stuf­fed the bra, the tu­be top and the tights back in­si­de the sacks. Af­ter slo­ug­hing off my je­ans, I pul­led on the mi­nis­kirt. I tuc­ked my ha­ir un­der the wig and ap­pli­ed the lips­tick. I top­ped it off with a ge­ne­ro­us co­at of high-shi­ne lip gloss.

  "You can do this," I told my ref­lec­ti­on, snap­ping the cap back the gloss and blot­ting my lips to­get­her. "You can pull a Mar­cie Mil­lar. Se­du­ce men for sec­rets. How hard can it be?"

  I kic­ked off my dri­ving mocs, stuf­fed them in­to a sack along with my je­ans, then pus­hed the sack un­der the co­un­ter, out of sight. "Be­si­des," I con­ti­nu­ed, "the­re's not­hing wrong with sac­ri­fi­cing a lit­tle pri­de for the sa­ke of in­tel­li­gen­ce. If you want to ap­pro­ach this with a mor­bid out­lo­ok, you co­uld even say if you don't get ans­wers, you co­uld wind up de­ad. Be­ca­use li­ke it or not, so­me­one out the­re me­ans you harm."

  I dang­led the sharks­kin he­els in my li­ne of vi­si­on. They we­ren't the ug­li­est things I'd ever se­en. In fact, they co­uld be con­si­de­red sexy. Jaws me­ets Cold­wa­ter, Ma­ine. I strap­ped myself in­to them and prac­ti­ced wal­king ac­ross the bath­ro­om se­ve­ral ti­mes.

  Two mi­nu­tes la­ter I eased myself on top of a bar sto­ol at the bar.

  The bar­ten­der eyed me. "Six­te­en?" he gu­es­sed. "Se­ven­te­en?"

  He lo­oked abo­ut ten ye­ars ol­der than me and had re­ce­ding brown ha­ir that he wo­re sha­ved clo­se. A sil­ver ho­op hung from his right ear­lo­be. Whi­te T-shirt and Le­vi's. Not bad lo­oking… not gre­at, eit­her.

  "I'm not an un­de­ra­ge drin­ker," I cal­led lo­udly abo­ve the mu­sic and sur­ro­un­ding con­ver­sa­ti­on. "I'm wa­iting for a fri­end. I've got a gre­at vi­ew of the do­ors he­re." I ret­ri­eved the list of qu­es­ti­ons from my hand­bag and co­vertly po­si­ti­oned the pa­per un­der a glass salt sha­ker.

  "What's that?" the bar­ten­der as­ked, wi­ping his hands on a to­wel and nod­ding at the list.

  I slid the list fart­her un­der the salt sha­ker. "Not­hing," I sa­id, all in­no­cen­ce.

  He ra­ised an eyeb­row.

  I de­ci­ded to be lo­ose with the truth. "It's a… shop­ping list. I ha­ve to pick up so­me gro­ce­ri­es for my mom on the way ho­me." What hap­pe­ned to flir­ting? I as­ked myself. What hap­pe­ned to Mar­cie Mil­lar?

  He ga­ve me a scru­ti­ni­zing lo­ok that I de­ci­ded wasn't all ne­ga­ti­ve. "After wor­king this job for fi­ve ye­ars, I'm pretty go­od at spot­ting li­ars."

  "I'm not a li­ar," I sa­id. "May­be I was lying a mo­ment ago, but it was just one lie. One lit­tle lie do­esn't ma­ke a li­ar."

  "You lo­ok li­ke a re­por­ter," he sa­id.


  "I work for my high scho­ol's eZi­ne." I wan­ted to sha­ke myself. Re­por­ters didn't ins­till trust in pe­op­le. Pe­op­le we­re ge­ne­ral­ly sus­pi­ci­o­us of re­por­ters. "But I'm not wor­king to­night," I amen­ded qu­ickly. "Strictly ple­asu­re to­night. No bu­si­ness. No un­derl­ying agen­das. No­ne what­so­ever."

  After a co­unt of si­len­ce I de­ci­ded the best mo­ve was to plow ahe­ad. I cle­ared my thro­at and sa­id, "Is the Bor­der­li­ne a po­pu­lar pla­ce of emp­loy­ment for high scho­ol stu­dents?"

  "We get a lot of tho­se, ye­ah. Hos­tes­ses and bus­boys and the li­ke."

  "Re­al­ly?" I sa­id, fe­ig­ning surp­ri­se. "May­be I know so­me of them. Try me."

  The bar­ten­der ang­led his eyes to­ward the ce­iling and scratc­hed the stub­ble on his chin. His blank sta­re wasn't ins­pi­ring my con­fi­den­ce. Not to men­ti­on that I didn't ha­ve a lot of ti­me. El­li­ot co­uld be slip­ping let­hal drugs in­to Vee's Di­et Co­ke.

  "How abo­ut Patch Cip­ri­ano?" I as­ked. "Do­es he work he­re?"

  "Patch? Ye­ah. He works he­re. A co­up­le nights, and we­ekends."

  "Was he wor­king Sun­day night?" I tri­ed not to so­und too cu­ri­o­us. But I ne­eded to know if it was pos­sib­le for Patch to ha­ve be­en at the pi­er. He sa­id he had a part) on the co­ast, but may­be his plans had chan­ged. If so­me­one ve­ri­fi­ed that he was at work Sun­day eve­ning, I co­uld ru­le out his in­vol­ve­ment in the at­tack on Vee.

  "Sun­day?" Mo­re scratc­hing. "The nights blur to­get­her. Try the hos­tes­ses. One of them will re­mem­ber. They all gig­gle and go a lit­tle screwy when he's aro­und." He smi­led as if I might so­me­how sympat­hi­ze with them.

  I sa­id, "You wo­uldn't hap­pen to ha­ve ac­cess to his job ap­pli­ca­ti­on?" Inc­lu­ding his ho­me ad­dress.

  "That wo­uld be a no"

  "Just out of cu­ri­osity," I sa­id, "do you know if it's pos­sib­le to get hi­red he­re if you ha­ve a fe­lony on yo­ur re­cord?"

  "Okay, may­be not a fe­lony, but how abo­ut a mis­de­me­anor?"

  He spre­ad his palms on the co­un­ter and le­aned clo­se. "No." His to­ne had shif­ted from hu­mo­ring to in­sul­ted.

  "That's go­od. That's re­al­ly go­od to know." I re­po­si­ti­oned myself on the bar sto­ol, and felt the skin on my thighs pe­el away from the vinyl. I was swe­ating. If ru­le num­ber one of flir­ting was no lists, I was fa­irly cer­ta­in ru­le num­ber two was no swe­ating.

  I con­sul­ted my list.

  "Do you know if Patch has ever had any rest­ra­ining or­ders? Do­es he ha­ve a his­tory of stal­king?" I sus­pec­ted the bar­ten­der was get­ting a bad vi­be from me, and I de­ci­ded to throw all my qu­es­ti­ons out in a last-ditch ef­fort be­fo­re he sent me away from the bar-or wor­se, had me evic­ted from the res­ta­urant for ha­ras­sment and sus­pi­ci­o­us be­ha­vi­or. "Do­es he ha­ve a girlf­ri­end?" I blur­ted.

  "Go ask him," he sa­id.

  I blin­ked. "He's not wor­king to­night."

  "A fe­lony?" He ga­ve a bark of la­ugh­ter. "You kid­ding me?

  At the bar­ten­der's grin, my sto­mach se­emed to un­ra­vel.

  "He's not wor­king to­night… is he?" I as­ked, my vo­ice inc­hing up an oc­ta­ve. "He's sup­po­sed to ha­ve Tu­es­days off!"

  "Usu­al­ly, ye­ah. But he's co­ve­ring for Be­nji. Be­nji went to the hos­pi­tal. Rup­tu­red ap­pen­dix."

  "You me­an Patch is he­re"? Right now?" I glan­ced over my sho­ul­der, brus­hing the wig to co­ver my pro­fi­le whi­le I scan­ned the di­ning area for him.

  "He wal­ked back to the kitc­hen a co­up­le mi­nu­tes ago."

  I was al­re­ady di­sen­ga­ging myself from the bar sto­ol. "I think I left my car run­ning. But it was gre­at tal­king to you!" I hur­ri­ed as qu­ickly as I co­uld to the rest­ro­oms.

  Insi­de the la­di­es' ro­om I loc­ked the do­or be­hind me, drew a few bre­aths with my back pres­sed to the do­or, then went to the sink and splas­hed cold wa­ter on my fa­ce. Patch was go­ing to find out I'd spi­ed on him. My me­mo­rab­le per­for­man­ce gu­aran­te­ed that. On the sur­fa­ce, this was a bad thing be­ca­use it was, well, hu­mi­li­ating. But when I tho­ught abo­ut it, I had to fa­ce the fact that Patch was very sec­re­ti­ve. Sec­re­ti­ve pe­op­le didn't li­ke the­ir li­ves pri­ed in­to. How wo­uld he re­act when he le­ar­ned I was hol­ding him un­der a mag­nif­ying glass?

  And now I won­de­red why I'd co­me he­re at all, sin­ce de­ep in­si­de, I didn't be­li­eve Patch was the guy be­hind the ski mask. May­be he had dark, dis­tur­bing sec­rets, but run­ning aro­und in a ski mask wasn't one of them.

  I tur­ned off the tap, and when I lo­oked up, Patch's fa­ce was ref­lec­ted in the mir­ror. I shri­eked and swung aro­und.

  He wasn't smi­ling, and he didn't lo­ok par­ti­cu­larly amu­sed.

  "What are you do­ing he­re?" I gas­ped.

  "I work he­re."

  "I me­an he­re. Can't you re­ad? The sign on the do­or-"

  "I'm star­ting to think you're fol­lo­wing me. Every ti­me I turn aro­und, the­re you are."

  "I wan­ted to ta­ke Vee out," I exp­la­ined. "She's be­en in the hos­pi­tal." I so­un­ded de­fen­si­ve. I was cer­ta­in that only ma­de me lo­ok mo­re gu­ilty. "I ne­ver dre­amed I'd run in­to you. It's sup­po­sed to be yo­ur night off. And what are you tal­king abo­ut? Every ti­me / turn aro­und, the­re you are."

  Patch's eyes we­re sharp, in­ti­mi­da­ting, ext­rac­ting. They cal­cu­la­ted my every word, my every mo­ve­ment.

  "Want to exp­la­in the tack) ha­ir?" he sa­id.

  I yan­ked off the wig and tos­sed it on the co­un­ter. "Want to exp­la­in whe­re you've be­en? You mis­sed the last two days of scho­ol."

  I was al­most cer­ta­in Patch wo­uldn't re­ve­al his whe­re­abo­uts, but he sa­id, "Pla­ying pa­int­ball. What we­re you do­ing at the bar?"

  "Tal­king with the bar­ten­der. Is that a cri­me?" Ba­lan­cing one hand aga­inst the co­un­ter, I ra­ised my fo­ot to un­buck­le a sharks­kin he­el. I bent over slightly, and as I did, the in­ter­ro­ga­ti­on list flut­te­red out of my neck­li­ne and on­to the flo­or.

  I went down on my kne­es for it, but Patch was fas­ter. He held it over his he­ad whi­le I jum­ped for it.

  "Gi­ve it back!" I sa­id.

  " 'Do­es Patch ha­ve a rest­ra­ining or­der aga­inst him?'" he re­ad. " 'Is Patch a fe­lon?'"

  "Gi­ve-me-that!" I his­sed fu­ri­o­usly.

  Patch ga­ve a soft la­ugh, and I knew he'd se­en the next qu­es­ti­on. " 'Do­es Patch ha­ve a girlf­ri­end?' "

  Patch put the pa­per in his back poc­ket. I was so­rely temp­ted to go af­ter it, des­pi­te its lo­ca­ti­on.

  He le­aned back aga­inst the co­un­ter and le­ve­led our eyes. "If you're go­ing to dig aro­und for in­for­ma­ti­on, I'd pre­fer that you ask me."

  "Tho­se qu­es­ti­ons"-I wa­ved whe­re he'd hid­den them-"we­re a joke. Vee wro­te them," I ad­ded in a flash of ins­pi­ra­ti­on. "It's all her fa­ult."

  "I know yo­ur handw­ri­ting, No­ra."

  "Well, okay, fi­ne" I be­gan, hun­ting for a smart reply, but I to­ok too long and lost my chan­ce.

  "No rest­ra­ining or­ders," he sa­id. "No fe­lo­ni­es."

  I til­ted my chin up. "Girlf­ri­end?" I told myself I didn't ca­re how he ans­we­red. Eit­her way was fi­ne with me.

  "That's no­ne of yo­ur bu­si­ness."

  "You tri­ed to kiss me," I re­min­ded him. "You ma­de it my bu­si­ness."

  The ghost of a pi­ra­te smi­le lur­ked at his mo­uth. I got the imp­res­si­on he was re­cal­ling ever) last de­ta­il of that ne­ar kiss, inc­lu­ding my sigh-slash-mo­an.

  "Ex-girlf­ri­end," he sa­id af­ter a mo­ment.

  My sto­mach drop­ped as a sud­den tho­ught pop­ped in­to my mind. What if the girl from Delp­hic and Vic­to­ria's Sec­ret was Patch's ex? What if she saw me tal­king to Patch at the ar­ca­de and- mis­ta­kenly-assu­med the­re was a lot mo­re to our re­la­ti­ons­hip? If she was still at­trac­ted to Patch, it ma­de sen­se that she might be je­alo­us eno­ugh to fol­low me aro­und. A few puz­zle pi­eces se­emed to fall in­to pla­ce…