Rushing to Die (21 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-­seven

O
NE OF THE
reasons I loved Casey Kenner like a sister was his creativity. No matter the crisis, he always had a brilliant plan. So I was astonished to find out that this sting operation was the brain baby of one Lieutenant Ty Hatfield.

“Are you sure?” I queried Casey for the tenth time, watching carefully for one of his tells. When he lied, he smiled charmingly, as if those deep, big-­screen-­ready dimples would distract anyone from sniffing out the truth.

But he stayed absolutely serious when he answered me for the tenth time. “Yes, Margot. Obviously, I wouldn't have chosen to do this.”

I palmed the still-­warm laminated press badge that Ty had fabricated for one Lorenzo San Diego, reporter for UnoVision. Fundamentally, I objected to any intrusion into the sacred rites of pref night, but I had to agree with Ty that this was the best way to get Casey into the houses. Since the college already had told all the chapters to cooperate with Nick Holden, they were already primed to answer questions from an even handsomer if unknown Lorenzo San Diego.

“You really think this is going to work?”

“Sure it will.”

My head jerked up at his nonchalance. Now that was suspicious. I knew Casey Kenner better than I knew anyone. He was rarely this blasé about supersecret, undercover sting operations. When I met his eyes, I saw a shadow that belied his breezy tone. “What? Why are you worried?”

Casey frowned as deeply as his Botox would let him. “It's about the chapter. It's all I can think about. Even if we catch the killer, will it be enough to salvage the Debs' good name?”

The thought sent me back to the Fireball and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough zone. Casey's fears weren't unwarranted. Rush had been a disaster: The Delta Beta name had been dragged through the mud, then stomped on, then another pile of mud unloaded on top of it. A chapter couldn't bounce back from a week like this easily.

I could see it all play out in my head. The next two semesters, Delta Beta would be operating at a deficit; incoming freshmen would hear all about “the murder house;” and the numbers of young women willing to attach themselves to a chapter of assumed thugs and criminals would dwindle down to nothing. Headquarters would close the house down, no longer willing to associate or fund the few losers that were left. And nearly one hundred years of Delta Beta sisterhood at Sutton would be erased.

I didn't know what I could do to stop the inevitable slide, but I did know that two women had to be avenged. And my best friend Casey had to play a vital role.

“It will be okay,” I assured him, pulling up every ounce of bounce from my mostly depleted reserves. “You're the best sorority public-­relations guru in the galaxy. If anyone can rescue Delta Beta, it's you.”

Casey got a little
verklempt
at that. “I won't let you down.”

I gave him a hug, and Ty stepped in. “We're on,” he said, his words tight and crisp as the khakis he wore. “Your first party is in thirty.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Mu Mu Mu.”

I groaned loudly.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” Ty deadpanned.

I ignored that and squeezed Casey's hand. “You can do this.”

Casey tossed his hair off his forehead. “Damn right I can.”

T
Y DIDN'T WANT
me undercover, and he didn't want me in the police van, either. Things were said that could never be taken back, like “Damn it Blythe,” and “Do you ever listen to anyone with an ounce of sense?” But I pointed out all of the convincing arguments why I should be allowed to watch Casey's live feed, like, “What are you going to do, arrest me?” And eventually, we came to the mutual conclusion that I was staying.

This was my best friend we were discussing, after all. The man who was going into the lion's den to draw out a killer. Well, we hoped that's what Casey would do. It turned out that Ty shared the same suspicions as me; that whoever had murdered Shannon Bender and Daria Cantrell was deeply invested in rush, either from the inside or out. Sorority recruitment was the only thing that linked the two murders besides the similar blows to the back of the head.

Ty's theory was that, if Senor Lorenzo San Diego appeared during the final round of rush parties, the killer was sure to make a move and, hopefully, a mistake. We had the Delta Beta cameras and the Tri Mu drone on high alert, and police officers were hiding in cars all around sorority row, keeping a close eye on the affairs. Per Ty's request, Sheila allowed Zoe to link the Tri Mu drone to the Deb surveillance system; Zoe was now monitoring the whole block with a police officer watching over her shoulder.

I used all my mental energy to focus on Casey's safety and any clues that he could dig up regarding the murders. As long as I spent one hundred percent of my brain waves on solving a crime, I wasn't thinking about the Deb chapter's not getting ready for its preference ceremony lit by the glow of a hundred candles. All that fire-­safety training gone to waste.

The Sutton Police Department surveillance van sat at the end of the street closest to the Delta Beta house. It was emptier on that end of the street since no beautiful rushees were following the sidewalk to our front porch, gracefully lit by probably ten thousand twinkle lights twirling around the porch columns. The van was quite small on the inside, not as roomy as
Law & Order
episodes would have you believe. Ty and I sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip on low stools facing the monitors that showed the view from Casey's Witness glasses, listening for sounds from his small mic.

We had eyes and ears everywhere, but the problem, as I saw it was we didn't know what we were looking for. According to Ty's theory, our killer was probably between the ages of 18 and 108, was either a man or a woman, had visited sorority row a few times, and had something sharp that s/he killed potential rivals with. You know, the typical profile.

Ty and I both looked down at our watches. Showtime.

Silently, we counted down to the start of the first party. Seeing it through Casey's eyes was pretty wild. I hadn't been in line to enter a rush party since I was an eighteen-­year-­old brunette virgin. It was clear from the visuals that Casey was getting a lot of attention, but he was handling it with the confidence and charm of Ryan Seacrest.

The doors opened to the Tri Mu house, and their welcoming song was soft and gentle, something about friends and stars and blah-­blah. Nothing could be as moving as the song that the Debs had planned to greet rushees with, about eternal friends like stars.

Casey followed the line into the Tri Mu house and instinctively, I clutched Ty's arm, as if I were the one headed into the lion's den. The Witness glasses were extraordinarily clear, and we saw everything as Casey purposely turned his head constantly, giving us a 180-­degree view around the Tri Mu house. “Too bad he can't turn around,” I murmured under my breath, then, because Casey and I have an undeniable psychic connection, Casey spun around slowly.

“He can hear you through my mic,” Ty whispered.

Oh.

“Oh?” Casey was saying to the woman talking to him. “I thought you said you liked my outfit. I was just showing you that my back looked even better than my front.”

I snickered. Even undercover, Casey was a hoot.

The girl assigned to answer Lorenzo San Diego's questions was at a loss, and I felt sorry for her. Clearly, her chapter advisor had not prepared her well for public-­relations duties. Casey took over the conversation like the PR pro he was.

“Tell me all about the pref-­night ceremony,” he prompted her. “What will the typical rushee be experiencing tonight?” She looked relieved to be able to talk about something other than the giant, well-­dressed, masculine elephant in the room.

“We've all worked so hard on it, to show girls the true meaning of sisterhood . . . It's pretty special . . .” The girl blushed as she looked down at Lorenzo's reporter notepad that Casey had insisted on, for “authenticity.”

“I like your decorations,” Casey said. “Are any of them particularly sharp? Maybe four or five inches long?”

“Um . . . no?”

“Are any of them electrical? Poisonous? Could someone strangle an enemy with these twinkle light strands . . . ?” Sweet Casey was trying to get intel for the police on possible murder weapons even when he could be violently attacked by a frustrated Moo any second. Judging by the expression on the woman's face, Lorenzo San Diego's questions were the type of hard-­hitting journalism that would earn him an Emmy if he were a real journalist. I was so proud of Casey and his professional fake-­reporting skills that were surely going to quickly ferret out the clue that would help us solve the case. Which was also a problem.

“This isn't good,” I whispered to Ty. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Sending Casey into the Tri Mu house was pretty much the same thing as sending up a giant bat signal into the sky. “Here's the guy that's going to catch you. Better attack him first.”

“This was stupid.” Fear lit up my chest, making me feel all hot and squirmy. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

Maybe Casey heard that because he started to turn his head slowly again, giving us a clear rotation of the view while his rushee was leading him back toward the Moo chapter room for the preference-­night ceremony. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but it didn't quell my nerves, jangling through my system, fast and electric.

Then the Witness glasses jerked and fell. And everything went black.

“SHIT!” Ty punched the side of the van and lifted the small mic to this mouth. “Casey? Your glasses. Pick up your glasses. We're not getting a feed here. Are they broken?”

“My glasses!” Casey's voice was still clear as a bell, thank goodness, but the screen was still pitch-­black.

“Oh no! Are they broken?”

My hand shot out and squeezed Ty's arm. I recognized that voice. It couldn't be . . .

“Let's get you some tape or something,” the woman's voice suggested, smooth and silky.

“I think they're okay,” Casey said. A pause. “There. Can you see me?”

The question was for us, but the person he was talking to might not know that. “Of course I can. But they're still dangling on the side.” A pause. “Is that a wire hanging out?”

Abort! Abort! “She knows!” I whispered.

Casey laughed. “I know. They're the newest in sun-­deflecting technology.”

God, he was good. But he wasn't going to be good enough for Sheila DeGrasse.

Ty flicked a switch on the radio box and pried my clenched fingers off his arm. “Margot? Who is it?”

What if I was wrong? I was going off a voice for heaven's sake. “It's Sheila DeGrasse! The Tri Mu rush consultant!”

“So?”

“So she knows about the Witness glasses since she was the one who put them on Shannon Bender's face!”

Ty's mouth turned down slightly. “Okay, but has she done anything to make Casey?”

No. She was being cordial and helpful, and we both knew it. Even so, when Ty switched the mic back on, I was still nervous as a pledge at her first fraternity social. Threats were everywhere, disguised as helpful ­people offering cold drinks in red cups.

“You're still black,” Ty said to Casey. “But if you're good to go, so are we.”

I wasn't! I wanted to shout, but I kept quiet. I should have known better.

“This is very informative,” Casey said. I could only assume that meant he wanted to keep going. My head fell into my hands. I had nothing to look at, anyway, just the terrifying pictures running through my imagination.

“You're a reporter . . .” Sheila purred at Casey. I wish I could tell her she was so barking up the wrong gay tree. “How interesting. Do you know Nick Holden?”

Then we heard Nick's morning-­show voice say hello.

“Do they let just anyone into the Moo preference ceremony?” I asked rhetorically.

Ty shushed me and nudged up the volume, as sound was all we had to go on now. “Yes, Nico. Remember me? Lorenzo San Diego. We covered the presidential election together.”

Wow. Casey even bullshitted big. It was so inspirational.

“Lorenzo, yes, what are you doing here in Sutton?”

“Sorority murders are the biggest story of the year.”

“My story, last I checked.”

“Oh, Nico, that's what you said about the election. You can't call dibs on these things, you know.”

Before we could hear Nick's response, we heard Sheila whispering something about the preference ceremony starting.

The sounds of music grew louder, and I could only assume that they were entering the Moo chapter room, where the preference ceremony would begin. A chorus swelled . . . what was that? Electric guitar? An opera singer? What the hell kind of music did the Moos think inspired a lifetime of friendship?

I felt a sudden movement next to me. Ty's hand had jerked up to the volume on the radio system. “Repeat that?” he asked Casey.

Sure enough, there was a scratchy sound just underneath the swelling rock aria that was assaulting my eardrums. Feedback from their stupid stereo, probably. Cut up in that mess of noise was Casey's voice saying, “Yes, ma'am.”

Crackle. Crackle.

“Step out for a moment?”

My head jerked up. That wasn't Sheila's voice. It was someone else.

“Of course,” Casey replied.

“No!” I half shouted.

But he couldn't hear me. I stood up the best I could in the cramped van, and Ty's hand clamped around my wrist. “Blythe!”

“I'm going in! We don't have visuals or audio, and you're just going to let him walk off with some murdering Moo?”

Ty's grip didn't let up, but I saw the doubts that flashed through his eyes. We had lost control of the situation if we'd ever had it to begin with, and I couldn't let my best friend be the next sister with his brains poked out.