Runaway (Airhead #3) (16 page)

I hurried along beside her, practically having to jog. I had no idea how she walked so fast in such high heels. We were approaching a group of tuxedoed men and women in evening gowns.

“Found her,” Rebecca called in her Brooklynese.

The people turned and the group broke apart a little. I saw that at the center of it was Robert Stark, looking as absurdly handsome— only older, of course— as his son. He smiled at me, his teeth startlingly white against his tanned, weatherbeaten face. He’d been using his own Stark brand teeth-whitening strips, I saw.

“Ah, there she is,” he said, and put his hand on my bare back. “Nikki Howard, everyone, the star of this evening’s performance.”

All the old people smiled at me. They looked kind and attractive and rich. Very, very rich. The ladies had a lot of diamonds dripping from around their necks, and the men’s faces were very puffy and red, like they’d had too much to drink already.

“So nice to finally meet you, dear,” one lady in a long beige dress that was tastefully decorated in sparkles at the bottom said, reaching out to shake my hand. She said her name, but I instantly forgot it.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I said.

She seemed to hold on to my hand for way too long. It was creepy. I wanted to get away from her, and from Robert Stark and the rest of his friends. Or shareholders, I guess they were.

Except that two things happened at once.

One was that I glanced down at our clenched hands and noticed that around her slender, blue-veined wrist was a black velvet cord, and that from the cord dangled something that looked to me like a gold bird that was on fire.

Or, you know. A phoenix.

And when I looked up, wondering if I was interpreting what I was seeing correctly, I noticed someone over her shoulder, just coming into the ballroom.

And that was Gabriel.

Who, like me, was undoubtedly being forced to come to this party by his agent.

Except that he was with someone. A pretty brunette of about average height, who was wearing a purple dress with a black corset laced up
tight
to flatter her cute figure, and matching purple eye shadow. It took me a second to recognize who she was, Lulu’s makeover had been so complete:

None other than Nikki Howard.

Eighteen

“EXCUSE ME,” I SAID TO THE WOMAN who was still holding my hand. “I actually have to go make a phone call.”

I didn’t want to say I had to go say hi to someone I knew, because I didn’t want to draw Robert Stark’s attention to Gabriel’s date. I had no idea whether or not he’d been alerted to the fact that Nikki was still alive, or if he knew whose body she’d been put into or what she looked like.

But I figured the less attention I drew to Nikki, the better.

But Robert Stark, it turned out, wasn’t done with me.

“Oh, I’m sure your call can wait,” he said, putting his arm around me and turning me so I couldn’t even see Gabriel or Nikki anymore. “There are some more people I’d like you to meet. This is Bill and Ellen Anderson, also Stark shareholders, as I’m sure you know.”

I found myself shaking the hands of more old people in evening wear…again dripping in diamonds and rosacea…and again with black cords around their wrists with what looked to me like a gold phoenix dangling from them.

Hey, I was no expert on mythological birds. But if it had fire shooting out of its wings, was it not a phoenix?

It seemed like everyone Robert Stark dragged me around the room to introduce me to that evening had a phoenix either on her wrist or hanging from her clutch. It was so bizarre!

I hadn’t seen any gift bags being given out at the door. But maybe I’d just missed them. Maybe Christopher was completely wrong, and Project Phoenix was some kind of charity and all the Stark shareholders were donors.

It seemed kind of rude to ask, especially when they were being so gracious to me, taking so much time to ask how I was and saying how nice it was to meet me, and all of that. My mom had always told me to be kind to the elderly. I couldn’t exactly run away, even though I really wanted to. I was dying to ask Gabriel what he was thinking, bringing Nikki here.

Was she going to cause a scene? Confront Robert Stark about what he’d done to her? Didn’t she know he’d just have his security staff drag her out? No one would believe her, anyway.

Finally, Robert Stark seemed to be satisfied that I’d met enough of his shareholders, and he said, glancing at his platinum watch, “Well, I’m sure you’ll be needing to leave for the studio to get ready for tonight’s show.”

He wasn’t kidding. I saw that the hands of his watch said it was close to eight thirty.

“I do have to go,” I said. “It was really nice meeting your friends.”

“Shareholders,” he corrected me. “Never mix business with friendship, Nikki. That’s something you never could keep straight, isn’t it?”

I stared at him. Was he kidding me? Did he really think I was Nikki? I mean, the real Nikki? Did he really not remember?

“Uh,” I said. “I’m not Nikki. You know that, right? You know I’m really Emerson Watts?”

You killed me,
I wanted to add.
You killed me and put my brain in Nikki Howard’s body because she was blackmailing you. The real Nikki’s here in this room, you know. She can back this whole story up. Do you want me to get her?

But my heart was thumping so hard just from the few words I’d said, waiting for some response from him, some acknowledgment. I couldn’t get further than
You know I’m really Emerson Watts?
before Robert Stark lowered his sleeve over his watch, looked over my shoulder, and smiled broadly.

“Ah, Gabriel,” he said. “So good to see you. Thank you for coming. Can’t wait to see your performance tonight. Who is this lovely creature you’ve brought with you?”

I spun around slowly, hardly daring to believe any of this was happening. Robert Stark. Robert Stark, the man who had ruined my life, was actually about to speak to Nikki Howard— the
real
Nikki Howard, the one he’d tried to have murdered.

And he didn’t even know it.

Nikki looked even more amazing up close than she had from across the room. It wasn’t that she appeared so different than she had before. She did, obviously, because she’d gone from looking like a washed-out rag to a punk rock princess.

Her hair, now dyed almost jet-black, had been scrunched dry rather than flat-ironed, so the natural waves framed her heart-shaped face in a more flattering way.

And her makeup, rather than being a carbon copy of how she used to do it when she was in her old body, had been done for her new face, so that the tones played up her new eye color and emphasized the curve of her lips and cheeks.

It was more like she was carrying herself differently. She seemed…proud. And playful. And, yes…hot.

Suddenly, I could see why all those guys— even other girls’ boyfriends— had gravitated to Nikki. It was totally obvious to me now that it had never just been about her looks. It was about something more. Something I knew I didn’t have, because I had something else. Something that was essentially, irrevocably…Nikki.

“Why, hello,” Nikki said, extending her hand toward Robert Stark. Not in a handshake. So that he could kiss it. “You can call me Diana Prince.”

Diana Prince?
Diana Prince?
How did I know that name?

Oh, my God.

Diana Prince? That was Wonder Woman’s alter ego.

Nikki Howard had named herself after Wonder Woman.

“So nice to meet you, Miss Prince,” Robert Stark said. And he actually raised her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Have we met somewhere before? You seem familiar.”

“Oh,” Nikki said, with a kittenish smile. “I think you would remember having met me.”

“I certainly would,” Robert Stark said, smiling back. “Well, Gabriel, like I said…good luck tonight. Miss Prince…Miss Howard…good evening to you both.”

And he walked away, toward a set of his guests who were waiting for him by the ballroom doors.

It was only after he was out of earshot that I realized I’d been holding my breath the whole time, and released it.

“Oh, my God,” I cried. “You guys. I nearly had a heart attack just then. Nikki— I mean, Diana. What are you
doing
here?”

“Oh,” Nikki said, looking after Robert Stark, her purple-lined eyes narrowed. “I just wanted to see his face one last time. Before it’s behind bars.”

“I tried to keep her from coming,” Gabriel said. It was only then that I realized how highly frustrated he looked. “But she insisted. Loudly. I think my eardrums are broken.”

But now I was beginning to suspect his frustration had nothing to do with disliking Nikki. The opposite, in fact.

Nikki rolled her eyes dismissively in Gabriel’s direction. Turning to me, she said, “Please tell me your friend with the leather jacket came up with something we can use to put that scumbag in jail. Other than our word that what happened is true.”

“He has,” I said. “Some kind of theory, anyway.” I didn’t want to tell her that Christopher’s theory was totally insane, and that it revolved around…well, the two of us. “But he has no proof….” I let my voice trail off as I stared toward the ballroom doors, having just noticed something.

“Or maybe he has,” I added thoughtfully.

Nikki and Gabriel turned to look in the direction I was staring.

“Oh,” Nikki said, still bored. “That’s nothing. The old people are all leaving. They always do that. Because it’s after eight. Way past their bedtime.”

“It’s not just the old people,” I said. “It’s only the old people I just met. The Stark shareholders. Where are they going? They aren’t getting their coats.”

I started walking swiftly toward the doors myself.

“Uh, Nikki,” Gabriel said, conscious that, despite the mass exodus of the shareholders, the ballroom was still crowded with people who might think it strange if they overheard him calling me Em. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back,” I said to him. I was jogging now. Which wasn’t easy in heels.

But when I got to the hallway the shareholders had disappeared into, it was empty. Well, except for a staircase cordoned off by a velvet rope and manned by a Stark security guard.

“Excuse me,” I said, going up to him. “Did you see Robert Stark go by here?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “He’s upstairs.”

“Oh, great,” I said, finger combing some of my hair out of my eyes in a manner I hoped he’d find irresistibly fetching. “Can you let me up to see him for a minute? I’m Nikki Howard. I just have to tell him something about the show tonight. It’ll only take a second.”

“I know who you are, Miss Howard,” the security guard said, with a polite smile. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you up. Authorized personnel only.”

As he said this, Mrs. Whatever Her Name Was, with the blue veins and the sparkles around the bottom of her skirt, came hurrying up.

“Oh, hello again,” she said to me, with a vague smile.

“Hi,” I said, smiling back.

Then, to the security guard, she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late. I had to go to the little girls’ room.”

She actually said that. The little girls’ room.

Then she did something extraordinary. She held up her bracelet. The one with the phoenix— or what I thought was a phoenix, anyway— dangling down from it.

And the security guard said, “Of course, madam.”

And he undid the velvet rope and let her up the stairs.

Now of course I was bursting with curiosity to get up those stairs and find out what was going on up there.

Because it seemed like, without a doubt, those bracelets or whatever they were had some kind of significance.

I turned around and, ignoring the guard who’d snubbed me, hurried back over to Gabriel and Nikki, who’d been waiting for me back at the doors to the ballroom.

“What was that all about?” Gabriel asked.

“There’s something going on upstairs,” I said. “We need to get up there.”

“Em,” Gabriel said, pulling out his cell phone. “We’re needed onstage for the Stark Angel show, which is going on live in approximately…two hours.”

“Where’s Brandon?” I asked. I looked around the ballroom and finally saw him, slow dancing with someone who looked a lot like Rebecca. I was halfway across the room before I realized it
was
Rebecca.

When she lifted her head from his shoulder after I poked it, her shrug was eloquent.

“What can I say?” she asked. “I’ve still got it. He thinks I’m hot. And anyway, what do you care? You don’t want him.”

“I didn’t say anything,” I said. “I just need to borrow him for a minute.”

“Well, make it snappy,” Rebecca said. “And you better not be having second thoughts about his three hundred million. You let them slip through your fingers, missy. You can’t blame me for scooping up your leftovers.”

I knew she was referring to Brandon’s money, which she’d always encouraged me to try to snatch up by getting myself engaged to him. I guess she figured if I wasn’t going to go for it, she would.

“You’re entirely welcome to him,” I assured her. I’d take penniless supervillain Christopher, whom I wasn’t even sure wanted me, over multimillionaire Brandon any day.

I only wished Christopher would realize it.

“Fine,” Rebecca said. “Brandon, Nikki’s here. She wants to ask you something.”

Brandon looked scared. “Oh, no, not Nikki. She’s a bitch.” Then, when he saw me, he smiled. “Oh,
that
Nikki. Okay. Hi! Have you got your brawron?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I grabbed Brandon by the arm and steered him a few feet away from Rebecca so we couldn’t be overheard. “Brandon, I need you to get me upstairs. Your dad’s having some kind of meeting up there, and I want to see what it’s about without him knowing I’m there. Is there some way I can get up there other than the main staircase? He’s got a guard there, and the guard won’t let me by.”

“Sure,” Brandon said. “Servants’ staircase, in the back. This way.”

He slipped an arm around my shoulders and led me from the ballroom and toward the French doors out to the back garden. I’m sure everyone who saw us must have thought we were leaving the party to go hook up. Even the people who were in the garden with the fountains and the architecturally sculpted bushes would have seen Brandon lead me from the ballroom, down the paved path, and up to a door the caterers were using to bring the food in and out…it led straight into the massive, industrial-size kitchen. Everyone in there working stared at us as we walked by the chilled trays of shrimp and tiny goat cheese-filled canapés in our evening wear.

“Hey,” Brandon said, spying these. “I didn’t see those.” He plucked up a few and popped them into his mouth while I rolled my eyes.

Then Brandon opened a door and we were in a dingy hallway, with a narrow stairway that curved upward.

“See?” he said. “Servants’ staircase. I used to spend hours playing in here when I was a kid. I pretended I was an orphan and some loving parents were going to come and adopt me and take me away from this terrible place.
Ha!”

His bitter
ha!
echoed up and down the staircase.

“Thanks, Brandon,” I said. “Would you let Gabriel and Nikki know I’ll be back as soon as I can? And that if I’m not…they should call the police?”

“Sure,” Brandon said affably. “That’s Nikki back there, with the black hair?”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure I wanted to hear what he had to say about that.

“She looks kinda hot now,” Brandon said. “But you know who’s really hot. Your agent. What’s up with that?”

“Yeah,” I said,
really
sure I didn’t want to hear about that. “I don’t know, Brandon. I have to go now.”

“Okay,” he said. “You’ll let me know if you find out anything I can, you know, use to send old Robert to the big house. Because I really hate that guy.”

“Consider it done,” I assured him.

Then I started climbing the twisted staircase.…

I wasn’t quite sure what I expected to find when I got to the top. Certainly not what I found.

Which was a maid in a black uniform and a white apron opening the door just as I was about to. She was so startled to see me, she nearly dropped the entire tray of empty champagne glasses she was holding.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “Can I help you?”

I had no idea if she’d recognized me, let alone what I should do. I didn’t want her to turn me in to the security guard.