Get Dirty (17 page)

SOMEONE POUNDED ON BREE
’
S BEDROOM DOOR, JARRING
her from her nap.

“We go now,” Olaf barked from the hallway. “You get in car. Olaf drive.”

She slid out of bed, shoving her feet into her black biker boots as she pulled a striped sweater over her rumpled vintage dress. She felt almost as enthusiastic about her first group therapy session as she would be about a trip to the dentist. Except maybe the dentist would be less painful than listening to whiny girls bitch about their lives while trying to pretend like she was “participating in her rehabilitation.”

Now Bree, how do you feel about the choices you’ve made?

How do I feel about punishing bullies and asshats? Pretty darn good, actually.

She found Olaf waiting for her downstairs, holding the front door wide open.

“Won’t the alarm go off the second I walk outside?” she asked.

“Olaf disabled alarm.”

Of course he did.

Bree climbed into the backseat of the Escalade, so bleary-eyed she almost didn’t see the manila envelope on the seat.

She wasn’t surprised, really. In fact, she’d been expecting to find one of the hateful envelopes ever since she was sprung from juvie. It had been a pipe dream to think the killer would really leave them alone, and Bree couldn’t help but think that the near accident and warehouse fire were merely preludes to what he had in store for them next.

With gritted teeth Bree broke the seal and slid a piece of paper from its sheath. Just a simple message: “I will destroy everything you love.”

Dammit.

She was still staring at the note as Olaf backed the car out of the driveway. Without thinking, she pulled the seat belt across her lap and shoved it into the buckle.

It clicked into place.

“Did you fix the seat belt?” she asked, eyeing Olaf’s reflection in the rear view mirror.

“Was it broken?” he asked.

Bree twisted in her seat and squinted at the buckle. The scratches she’d seen two days before when they’d almost been run off the road were gone: the unit had been entirely replaced.

So the killer wanted to remove all evidence of attempted murder. Bree dug her fingers into the envelope. That could only mean one thing.

He was going to try again.

Dr. Walters’ office was less ominous than juvie, and without the security bells and whistles Bree was half-expecting to see as she climbed the exterior staircase to the second floor, Olaf close behind in case she got any ideas about fleeing on foot.

But like the day room at juvie, her waiting room was intentionally cheerful. The walls were painted a pale shade of tangerine, and the waiting area was decorated with a mix of IKEA sleek and kid-friendly savvy. A low table with Crayola-colored plastic chairs sat in the middle of the room, complete with a wooden train set and some Duplo blocks. The “adult” chairs that lined the wall on three sides were plush and comfy, upholstered in a sunny floral print that matched the walls, and each of the three end tables held a lamp shaped like a pineapple surrounded by a bevy of teencentric magazines including
Teen Vogue
and
J-14,
both of which showcased smiling, airbrushed photos of the heartthrobs du jour.

It all made Bree want to puke.

“May I help you?” asked an overly cheerful receptionist.

“Bree Deringer,” Bree said, countering the receptionist’s abundance of enthusiasm with a total lack of her own.

“Ah!” she said, checking a clipboard. “You’re here for our group session.”

“Unfortunately,” Bree said under her breath.

The receptionist eyed Olaf, standing silently by the door, hands clasped behind his back so the defined muscles around his chest practically burst through his button-down shirt, and her body went slack. Her eyes traced the bodyguard from his face
to his abs and back again. Slowly. Decadently, as if she wanted to make sure she absorbed every morsel of Olafiness. Then she touched her finger to her chin; Bree was relatively certain she was wiping away a line of drool.

“And how may I help
you
?” the receptionist said to him at last, her voice throaty.

Olaf merely nodded toward Bree, looking every bit like a caveman.

“He’s with me,” Bree said, smiling curtly. “Big Brother is watching.”

“Yes,” the receptionist said. “Your brother is . . . big.”

Gross.

The receptionist’s eyes never left Olaf’s face as she pointed absentmindedly at the office door. “Room B down the hall.”

And Olaf claims another victim
.

Room B was three doors down on the left, and Bree could hear an undercurrent of movement from within as she approached. Chairs being positioned on a carpeted floor, bags being unzipped, jackets being stowed. Bree took a deep breath as she paused outside the room.
Here goes nothing.

Seven or eight chairs had been circled up in the middle of a windowless conference room. Dr. Walters hadn’t arrived, but four other girls had already taken their seats, leaving an empty chair between each of them. Bree had been hoping to avoid a neighbor, but no such luck. Without making eye contact with anyone, she chose an empty seat on the far side of the room, between a tiny blond who was fiddling with a smartphone and
a curvy Hispanic girl who sat with one leg tucked underneath her and her arms draped over the back of the chair. The body language was an unmistakable “You can’t break me!” and Bree hoped that sitting next to that kind of personality might take the spotlight off her.

Her immediate neighbors ignored her, and the other two girls, both brunettes, stared at the floor and the ceiling respectively, then switched almost simultaneously, as if they couldn’t be zoning out in the same direction at the same time.

“Good morning, ladies.” Dr. Walters breezed into the room wearing a gauzy floral skirt that billowed around her as she swirled into a chair. “And how is everyone this afternoon?”

Murmurs of “good” and “fine” filled the room, but since Bree felt neither, she remained silent.

Dr. Walters didn’t seem particularly interested in anyone’s response as she settled herself on the opposite side of the circle, notepad in hand, and smiled. “Bree, it’s good to see you.”

All eyes turned to Bree, as if the other girls just now noticed that she was there.

“Welcome to your new therapy group, as mandated by the Juvenile Detention Department of Santa Clara County.” Dr. Walters gestured to the brunette on her right, then continued around the circle. “This is Kaylee, Emma, Heather, and Jacinta.”

Bree hoped she wouldn’t be tested later.

Dr. Walters glanced at her watch. “We’ll give our late bird just another minute,” she said, “before we start without—”

Just then, a tall girl with dark auburn hair rushed into the room. “Sorry I’m late, Dr. Walters,” she said breathlessly.

Dr. Walters turned to Bree. “And the last member of our group is Tamara.”

Only Bree didn’t need Dr. Walters to introduce the latecomer. She knew her face only too well.

It was Tammi Barnes, DGM target number six.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

BREE MISSED EVERYTHING DR. WALTERS SAID FOR THE NEXT
ten minutes. All she could do was stare at Tammi Barnes.

It was a mission Bree remembered well, one of the most satisfying DGM had ever pulled off. Tammi was captain of the cheerleading squad, a model student, friendly and outgoing with teachers and faculty, the center of a large and inclusive group of friends—and an unholy she-bitch to the young cheer wannabes who crossed her path. DGM discovered that Tammi was behind a hazing ritual for all the incoming JV cheerleaders, which involved forcing freshman hopefuls to give blow jobs to the varsity football team in order to make the squad. Football players filled out scorecards, which were circulated throughout the student body, and every guy at Bishop DuMaine knew which girls got an A, and which got an F.

The revenge mission was a tough nut to crack. Tammi lived a seemingly perfect life with her mom, stepdad, and two sisters. She never got into trouble, never stepped out of line, and as far as everyone knew, never kept any secrets. She was, however,
very proud of her dance skills. Tammi grew up in Beverly Hills before her mom remarried and moved the family to Palo Alto. She claimed that while in LA, she’d been some kind of dance prodigy, studying with top teachers and in demand for music videos, television, and film. Tammi would readily tell you that the only reason she wasn’t a professional dancer already was because her strict mom wouldn’t let her go to a single audition until she turned eighteen.

And that self-mythology remained unchallenged until DGM dug up proof to the contrary. The Tiny Dancer Hip Hop Academy in Hollywood, California, maintained an online database of their students, past and present, including a thirteen-year-old Tamara Barnes. Margot had managed to hack into the site and download a video of Tammi dancing in the academy recital. DGM submitted the video to a website called “Dance or Dud?” where viewers rate and share dance videos. The truly awful video of Tammi Barnes doing her interpretation of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” routine quickly became one of the most watched, and lowest rated, hits on the site.

And DGM made sure that everyone at Bishop DuMaine knew it.

But Tammi Barnes deserved the shame. She was a ruthless bitch, even more dangerous than Amber because she had a decent brain to go along with her power, and a chameleonlike ability to hide it. But now, here she sat in Bree’s juvie-mandated group therapy session. What the hell had happened to her?

“Shall we get started?” Dr. Walters said. “Remember, anything shared in this session is one hundred percent confidential.
If you are caught trying to use any of the information you learn here outside of group therapy, you will be in violation of your parole and/or probation. Do you understand the parameters of this agreement?”

“Yes,” everyone mumbled. This time Dr. Walters was paying attention, and looked right at Bree.

“Yes,” Bree said quickly, realizing her silence wouldn’t cut it.

“Good.” Dr. Walters flipped a few pages into her notepad, and took up her pen.

“Tamara, we made some excellent progress at the end of the last session, so I’d like to pick up where we left off.”

“Okay,” Tammi said with an affable smile.

“We’d been talking about your stepfather, and the verbal and physical abuse you’d witnessed in your home. Can you tell us about that?”

Tammi sat very still. “I think I mentioned my stepdad had a gambling problem?”

Dr. Walters nodded.

“Right,” Tammi said. “Well, by last summer he’d lost all of our savings, and was about to lose the house. So he bet a load on game seven of the NBA finals.” She shook her head and laughed quietly to herself. “He swore he could make up for the losses. He just needed one big score to get even and then he’d quit.” Tammi dropped her eyes to her lap and fell silent.

“And what happened?” Dr. Walters prompted.

Tammi shrugged without looking up. “He lost.”

The story only got worse from there and Bree found herself cringing as Tammi related in dispassionate detail how her
stepfather had come home hours later, drunk and angry. Tammi had corralled her sisters in their bedroom, hoping he’d just pass out. No such luck. She could hear the argument escalate from the kitchen, listening as her mother tried in vain to calm him down. Then the telltale thump, as her mother hit either the ground or the wall from the impact of his fist.

“My sisters started to cry,” Tammi said, staring into the middle of the circle. “I tried to soothe them, keep them quiet, because I didn’t want him to hear and come after us. More banging from the kitchen. My mom was pleading with him to stop and suddenly, something snapped in me. Who was this asshole? What gave him the right to hit my mom?”

“What did you do then?” Dr. Walters asked.

Tammi swallowed. “I grabbed my sister’s softball bat from her closet. One of those metal ones with a rubber grip. I slipped off my shoes so he wouldn’t hear me coming, went down the back stairs and through the laundry room. Came up behind him. I didn’t even look to see if my mom was okay, didn’t wait for her to tell me to stop because, of course, that’s what she would have done. I just swung at his head as hard as I could.”

Bree fought back tears. Last year, Tammi Barnes had represented all that was awful about Bishop DuMaine: the powerful student who humiliated those weaker and less fortunate than herself. DGM had dug into Tammi’s past to find that little nugget on which to base their revenge against her, but they hadn’t discovered this terrible secret about her family.

Would it have mattered? If they’d found out that her stepfather was a monster, would it have changed the fact that she forced
a dozen freshman girls to blow football players? Maybe not, but perhaps it did explain why Tammi was such a bitch at school. She was trying to exert power in the only place she felt she had any.

Tammi looked up at Dr. Walters, her eyes tight with confusion. “He didn’t die, but I wanted to kill him. I really did. Is that bad?”

“We’re not here to judge what’s good or bad,” Dr. Walters said. “Only to discuss how we feel, and find ways to manage our emotions going forward.”

“I felt angry,” Tammi said. “Really angry. And then as he lay unconscious, my mom screaming over his body, I felt strong for the first time in life. Like I’d taken control.”

“And where do you think that feeling came from?” Dr. Walters asked. “You’ve mentioned before that you’d always felt powerless in regard to your stepfather. What changed for you that day?”

Tammi stared back at the center of the circle, silent. Dr. Walters waited patiently, and Bree held her breath, desperate to know the answer. Game seven of the NBA finals would have been mid-June, just weeks after the DGM prank against Tammi her senior year.

“Something horrible happened at school,” she began at last.

Bree clenched her jaw. Had what DGM did to her sent her over the edge and somehow landed her here?