Beware That Girl (34 page)

8:27 p.m.

“Jesus, Olivia,” Kate whispered. Why was she whispering? “I think you…I think we killed him!”

“Naw, he’s not even bleeding.” Olivia checked the back of the frying pan for traces of blood.

“I’m, uh, pretty sure you can bludgeon someone to death without making him bleed. This isn’t a TV show.” Kate was gasping for air. She hadn’t moved. Her feet were still covered by a part of Mark’s hip. “You saved my life! You…” Kate extricated her feet from under the body and leapt over to Olivia, who was still clutching the weapon with both hands, ready to spring into action. Actually, she was more than ready. She
wanted
to hit him again.

They stared at Mark for quite some time, trying to collect themselves. It didn’t work.

Olivia looked blankly at Kate. “He was actually going to kill you.”

Kate looked back at her just as blankly. “Yeah, he was. Yeah.”

They continued to stare at each other.

“So, uh…” Olivia broke the spell first. “How do we know if he’s alive or dead?” She was trembling now.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. How would I know? I don’t know!” Kate shuddered in time with Olivia’s tremors. She squinted at the body, which was on its side, as if he had decided to take a quick nap on the floor. “We could, uh, kneel down beside him and put an ear to his chest?”

Olivia shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. He can’t be dead.”

“Well, whatever, it’s hard to tell from this angle. We should roll him over.”

“Ew, no.”

“We’ll push him over with our feet.”

“Yeah, I guess, okay.” They walked over to the window side of the body, giving it a wide berth as they did. Was this happening? Did this really happen?
What the hell had happened?

“Ready? On three. One, two, three…”

Mark rolled onto his back. They grabbed each other and screamed.

His eyes were open.

“Oh, God!”

They jumped away from the inert body.

“He’s alive!”

“No, he’s not.”

“Sure, he is! He’s got to be. He can’t be…We can’t have…”

“Nothing’s moving, Olivia.”

They stared blankly at each other again. Shock? Was it shock? How long does shock last?

Kate swallowed. “I’ll check for a pulse.” But then she didn’t move.

“Good plan,” said Olivia, widening her stance and readying the skillet. “I’ll be ready if…”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Minutes passed. Then finally, resignedly, Kate knelt down as far away from the body as she could while still being able to pick up his wrist. Now it seemed like hours had passed.

“Nothing,” said Kate. “He’s dead, Olivia. We killed him.”

Olivia was actually ambivalent about the dead part. On the one hand, it was a problem for them, a nightmare mess. On the other, she was flooded with a righteous rage. For all that he had done to her, and all that he had made her do.
I was your tool? Of no consequence, am I?
She had to refrain from kicking the body. Instead, she waited for the fear to ricochet back in.

It did.

Olivia had killed somebody. Mark was dead. There was a dead body right there. Dead. What were they going to do? What could they do?

“What do we do now, Kate?”

“Well, uh…” Kate looked spacey. “I don’t know. We should call someone. Yeah, get our stories straight and call. We have to call, I don’t know, an ambulance. Yeah, or the cops…someone. We’ve got the tape. The tape will show—”

“What! Are you crazy? No way! It’s got to be just us.” Olivia looked at Kate in abject horror. “Get our
stories straight
? Kate, we couldn’t straighten our stories with this guy to save our souls. Think about it! We’d be ruined. RUINED!”

Kate shook her head as she stared at the body. “Olivia, we have
killed
someone.” Tears of fear or remorse slid down her face. Olivia couldn’t tell which. “This is a dead body that used to be a human being!”

“Barely,” Olivia spat. “Think! Cops? The papers? Try to wrap your head around the sexual scandal alone. Two Upper East Side girls. A predator infiltrating a top school. It’ll get wall-to-wall-to-wall coverage. Olivia Sumner and her psychotic history. Kate O’Brien, aka Katie Medvev, aka the cockroach, and her tragic murderous past. Apples don’t fall far from the trees when it comes to us and this!” She pointed to the body like it was a festering sore. “We’d kiss Yale and our lives good-bye for damn sure! Nu-uh-uh!”

Kate looked stunned. “But we can’t—”

“The papers, the media! It would start all over again, the whole 3D nightmare. And there won’t be anywhere on earth to hide after this one, baby. It would make what happened to you before look like a walk in the park. The locusts will descend and never let go. Your old man would know exactly where you are.” Then she went for the jugular. “Think how pleased he’d be about this. Think, Kate, think! What the hell!”

“Hey!” Kate threw up her arms. “I was almost killed and a man is dead. I need a minute, okay?”

Olivia felt herself flush. “Okay, sorry. I’m not myself.” She glared at the body. Yet…“But in a way I am, you know? I’m feeling weirdly clear. Look, what that jerk was saying about the risperidone was pure bull, Kate. They’re never out of my sight, ever. He was scamming you. You’ve got to believe me. You just—”

“I believe you.” Kate grabbed Olivia’s hand. “S’okay, I believe you. You’re no more nuts than I am.”

And with that, and their front seats in the theater of the absurd, both girls burst out laughing. It was laced with hysteria and tears, but it was laughter.

Followed by silence.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we? There’s no way out.” Olivia felt the air and the fight leak out of her. It was hopeless. “We’re finished.”

“No, no. Not necessarily.” Kate hugged herself. “Not if we can get rid of the body. We have to get it out of here. There’s no blood, after all. No one saw him come in.”

Okay, that was more like it. Olivia reverted to pacing, mindful of the body’s position on the floor. “Okay, so I hit him on the side of his head with a flat object, right? That kind of injury might be consistent with a car accident. I’ve seen it on
CSI.
It’s a blunt force trauma kind of deal.”

“When the hell do you have the time to watch so much TV?” asked Kate.

“Hey, it’s practically all I did in Houston.”

Kate groaned.

“No, listen. Listen! A car accident is perfect! There’s all sorts of really steep and weird places to go off on the Taconic. I know because Dad and I have almost done it in the winter on the way to the cabin.”

“And what? We’ll get your father’s car service to spring into action?”

“Right, hmm.” Olivia stroked the pan. “I don’t drive—I’m a New Yorker. Do you drive?”

“Sort of, but not really. I passed my whatever thingy out west. The school let me use their SUV to train on and for the driving test. But I haven’t sat behind the wheel since that day.”

“But that’s great! Like, we’ll stage an accident and get ourselves back to the city. Wear sensible shoes. We can do this!”

“Olivia, a car. We need a car.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” She resumed pacing. Her mind was alternately racing and flooding.

“Wait!” said Kate before she ran off to her room. “Keep watching him.”

There was zero chance of Olivia taking her eyes off the body.

Kate rushed back a minute later with her purse, furiously searching though all the contents and secret pockets. She held up a small card triumphantly. “Found it!”

“Found what?”

“I found Kevin. Call Kevin for bad trouble, big trouble, she said.”

“Who said?”

“Mrs. Chen. He’s got to be part of the triads or some deep underworld stuff.”

“And you accuse me of watching too much TV?”

“No, he’s the real deal! Where’s your phone?”

“My pocket.” Olivia turned her back to Kate. She’d reverted to holding on to the skillet with both hands again.

“Kevin will get us a car. Are you sure there are no cameras in the parking garage?”

“Positive.” Olivia nodded. “Aftab told me. It goes back to the hard-partying eighties, when there was a lot of stuff happening in this building that maybe shouldn’t have been. It’s how I knew to direct him.” She gestured to the body. “What if…I mean, maybe your guy could just take care of him.”

“That’s probably a step too far. Someone else would know, you know? Someone
we
don’t know. Potential blackmail. You’re a big deal, Olivia. I mean I totally trust Mrs. Chen, but this guy?”

“No, you’re right.” Olivia shook her head. “It’s the kind of thing that trips you up. One too many people, it’s what screws up the killers on TV.”

They snagged on the word
killers.
Kate’s face clouded and she stopped breathing. But then, just as suddenly, she seemed to return to herself.

“No.” Kate straightened. “We’re not the bad guys here. You saved my life, Olivia. No one is going to suck us down a drain. I’m not going through that again. You and me, Olivia—together. Just us. This…he is not our fault! I
know
what I am. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive, and I’m taking you with me.”

You and me, Olivia—together. Just us.
Kate was back and Olivia exhaled.

“I’ll get us a car. Just a car. We’ll be okay. You’ll see—it will be okay.” Kate dialed the number on the card. Her finger hovered over the call key. She nodded at Olivia, hit the button and closed her eyes. Waiting, waiting…

“Hello, is this Kevin?”

10:36 p.m.

None of us is prepared for tragedy. But let’s face it, this wasn’t my first time in a starring role. Turns out, experience doesn’t help. I babbled like a lunatic on meth. Words spilled out in torrents all strung together and without pause.

Kevin was not a patient man.

I managed to impart our need for transportation. I also managed to avoid the word
body.

“Weneedacar. Rightaway! Tonight! It’sanemergency!”

“Not traceable!” yelled Olivia.

“Nottraceable,” I repeated. I didn’t even know what that meant.

Eventually Kevin and I sorted it out. I think. From what I understood, the plan sounded solid. But then again, I wasn’t sure what I understood.

Kevin was going to deliver a car, and not a stolen one. It would come from one of Chinatown’s amenable Rent-A-Wreck establishments. The line—if needed—was that we had bribed some stranger to get it for us, since we were too young to legally rent.

He made me repeat this direction. He said that whatever happened, we would have to pay the manager of the Rent-A-Wreck for haulage and salvage compacting.

“It’s standard,” he said.

“But what if we don’t need—”

“It’s standard. No matter what happens, the vehicle will be hauled away and turned into a cube within a couple of days.”

“Uh, okay, sure. How much, how do we…?”

“Mrs. Chen will indicate the amount at some future date.”

He said that he’d drive it into the garage and ring my cell once. I was not to answer. And then, he said several times, we were on our own. His debt to Mrs. Chen, whatever that was, was paid in full. The car would be there by midnight.

“I heard, I heard.” Olivia was holding the skillet against her body. “It’s good.”

“Yeah.” I had to sit for a minute. I kept running my hands down my dress. They were wet and sticky with sweat. “But we’ve still got to get Redkin to the car when it arrives.” I pointed to the skillet. “Stick that thing in the dishwasher, and the knife too. Then we’ll put it back in his pocket.”

“Right,” she agreed. “Your DNA.” She looked at the dried blood on my chest. “We, uh, should…you should change, right?”

We were both tired. The shock was wearing off. The reality of what we had done was beginning to slither in.

And we still had a long, long way to go.

“Right.” I had to get the knife. Did he move? Was that a twitch? How could he be dead? My mother was bathed in blood, but still she hung on for minutes. We talked. She made me promise. Yale. Was he looking at me? I couldn’t close his eyes, so I closed mine as I extracted the knife. His hand was colder than the stone floor. Dead cold.

“Here, stick it, dishwasher.” I gave the knife to Olivia. “I’ll watch. When you get back, I’ll change.”