Faces of Fear (12 page)

"That's what we were talking about when Dr. Dunn brought you over," Dawn said as Cooper got up and headed for a waiter who was just leaving the bar with a tray full of champagne.

"So where are you all going?" Alison asked.

"Dawn and I are going to France," Tasha said. "Dawn's dad isn't using their jet, so we get it all to ourselves."

"Maybe I should go with you instead of Cooper," Budge said. "Or not," he added when Tasha rolled her eyes.

"I'm going skiing," Trip said.

"Yeah?" Budge asked. "Where?"

"St. Moritz," Trip replied as Cooper returned bearing the tray he'd "liberated" from the waiter. "With the fam."

"Can I come?" Budge asked.

Everybody ignored him.

"St. Moritz!"
Cooper said. "I'm only going to Key West."

"Okay, so I guess I don't want to go with
you,
" Budge said. "My dad has a house in Aspen, so that's where we're going. I hate it, but it's better than Key West."

"What about you, Alison?" Tasha asked.

"Nowhere," Alison said. "I'm staying with my dad for the week, and then when Conrad and my mom get back from their honeymoon, we'll be moving."

"And
then,
" Tasha said, "you'll get all the liposuction, implants, nips, and tucks you want for free."

Alison stared at her. "Why would I want any of that?"

Now it was Tasha who stared, her eyes remaining on Alison's chest long enough that Alison felt her cheeks burning.

"About one hour at Wilson and you'll know exactly why you'll want it," Dawn said.

"Come on," Trip put in. "If Alison thinks she's just fine the way she is, let it alone." The thank-you that was about to emerge from Alison's lips died in her throat as Trip went on. "Just because we think she could use some major renovation, so what? I mean, who are we to say?"

Alison stared at her fingernails, blushing again, feeling her eyes filling with tears.
Ignore them,
she told herself.
Just get up and walk away.

Then she remembered her mother, greeting everyone in the receiving line, smiling graciously even at people Alison was sure she didn't like. But what should she say? What
could
she say? Then, just as the silence was starting to get totally unbearable, the orchestra started up.

"C'mon, Dawn," Trip said. "Let's dance."

Dawn and Trip, and Cooper and Tasha, got up and headed for the dance floor, and Budge followed them, leaving Alison sitting by herself.

She wanted to run to her mother, but what good would that do? Her mother was busy on the other side of the lawn with her Conrad Dunn, talking to another couple who Alison knew she'd met but whose names she'd forgotten.

She gazed around the garden, at all the beautiful people who seemed to know each other and fit perfectly together.

So perfectly that she was already sure there wasn't going to be any room for her at all.

Not here, and not at Wilson Academy, or anywhere else in her new life.

What was she going to do?

KIMBERLY ELMONT PICKED AT HER SALAD, WONDERING HOW IT WAS that Jennifer Livingston could eat a double Whopper with fries, drink a Coke, and then eat a Cinnabon roll for dessert and never gain an ounce. Even though it had been that way since kindergarten, when they became best friends, Kimberly still couldn't quite deal with it, since she herself had to diet constantly just to fit into her jeans. "And speaking of jeans," she said out loud, "there's a sale at Macy's."

"Who was speaking of jeans?" Jennifer said, dipping a french fry into a blob of ketchup, then slipping it into her mouth as delicately as if it was a toast point covered with caviar.

"We weren't. But I was thinking about them—I need a new pair."

Jennifer shrugged indifferently. "Okay. Macy's is good."

Kimberly pushed her salad away, knowing she couldn't eat another bite and then try on clothes, and pulled out her cell phone to check for new text messages.

One new message was waiting.

CAN YOU COME TO THE RAVE TONIGHT? BRING A FRIEND. –DEAN

If she were at home, she would have stood up and yelled, "Yes!" but here in the mall she merely folded up her phone, put it in her purse, and smiled at Jennifer.

Jennifer wadded up the paper leftovers of her meal and took a long drink of her Coke before noticing Kimberly's grin, which had taken on the sort of frozen quality that she knew meant Kim was bursting to tell her something. "What?" she asked.

Kimberly glanced first in one direction, then the other, and when she spoke, her voice had dropped to a conspiratorial tone. "Want to go to a rave tonight?"

"A rave?" her friend echoed. "Really?" Though Jennifer had the face and body of a model, she hardly ever went out, and never went on dates—all the guys she knew were too intimidated by her looks to ask her out. But at a rave, she knew there would be all kinds of guys—probably older guys—and maybe they wouldn't be so shy. "Where? With who?" Not that it mattered, really, since Kimberly's mom would never let her go. But maybe this time Kim wasn't planning to tell her mom.

"A guy named Dean just invited me, and he told me to bring a friend."

Jen frowned. "Who's Dean?"

"A guy I met on MySpace. We've been chatting for a couple of nights."

Jennifer eyed her. "A guy you met on MySpace? Are you nuts?"

"He's a nice guy, and I know a lot about him. He's seventeen, and goes to Burbank High, and likes all the same things we do. He's cool, Jen. And he'll have cool friends."

Jennifer's brows arched skeptically. "Have you talked to him on the phone?"

"Not yet," Kimberly replied, unable to keep from sounding defensive.

"Then you don't have any idea who he really is, do you? He could be some forty-year-old perv."

"But he didn't ask me to come alone," Kimberly countered. "If he was some kind of pervert, he'd want to meet me alone, right? But he didn't—he asked me to bring a friend along. So I'm asking you."

Jennifer gave her a withering look. "And when you tell him you're actually
bring
ing a friend, he'll back out."

Kimberly met Jen's gaze straight on. "I bet you're wrong."

"Or else he just won't show up," Jennifer went on, "and then he'll call you later and ask you to meet him by yourself."

"Want to bet?" Kimberly said. "I bet you he shows up and he comes with a really cool guy. Besides, what else were you going to do tonight? Paint your nails?"

Jennifer shook her head. "It's just not a good idea," she insisted.

Kimberly looked around the crowded food court, then leaned across the table so no one else would hear her pleading. "C'mon, Jen. It's a
rave
! Have you ever been to a rave?"

"No. And neither have you."

Kim sat back triumphantly in her chair. "Then it's settled."

"It's not settled at all."

"What can happen with hundreds of kids around?" Kimberly argued. "Even if we don't meet up with Dean and his friend, we'll have fun. I bet we even see people we know."

Jennifer thought for a moment while she pushed the last of the french fries aside and pulled a little piece from her cinnamon roll. "All right," she sighed, knowing that once Kimberly made up her mind about something, she never gave up. Besides, Kimberly was right—there would be hundreds of people there, and they wouldn't be alone. "Tell him you actually are bringing a friend, and if he doesn't back out, I'll go."

"Super!" Kimberly opened her phone and hit REPLY, then entered her text message: SOUNDS FUN. WHERE? WHEN? WE'LL BOTH BE THERE. She hit SEND and closed her phone. "What'll we wear?"

Jennifer stuffed another piece of the cinnamon roll into her mouth and wiped her hands on her napkin. "Something new," she decided, then gathered the remains of their meal onto her tray. "C'mon. Let's see what's on sale at Macy's."

Twenty minutes later, when Jennifer had disappeared into the fitting room with an armload of things while Kimberly was still hunting through the sale racks, the cell phone in Kim's purse buzzed insistently.

She fished it out.

One new text message.

She opened it.

11 PM KESWICK AND TOBIAS VAN N UYS. CU THERE!

She knew the light industrial area of Van Nuys—her dad's company had a warehouse out there.

And a lot of kids at their school went to parties in those warehouses almost every weekend.

Good thing Jennifer had a car.

Kimberly tapped out a quick confirmation, then headed to the fitting room to tell Jennifer the good news.

Now the hunt was really on to find something perfect to wear.

Sexy, but not too sexy.

* * *

MARGOT!

Risa could still hear Conrad's voice reverberating in her head as he cried out his dead wife's name in the middle of their lovemaking.

Actually, not exactly in the middle—more like toward the end, at the precisely worst moment, making the wave of ecstasy that had been building within her suddenly collapse away to nothing.

So much for their first night in Paris.

And Conrad didn't even seem to know he'd done anything.

Risa gazed at her reflection in the big bathroom mirror, her mascara smudged from the tears she'd barely been able to control until she was alone. The peach peignoir Lexie had bought her for their wedding night flowed over the curves of her body, but she no longer felt sexy in it. In fact, she wanted to rip it off and throw it away, ridding herself of even this reminder of the mistake she'd made.

Why had she ever thought it would be a good idea to marry Conrad while he was still grieving for Margot?

Margot.

That single word, uttered with a passion that would haunt her memory for the rest of her life.

Maybe if he'd said it next year, or next month, or even next week, she'd have been able to laugh it off. But he'd said it
tonight,
the first night of their honeymoon.

The most important night of their marriage.

And he'd said it after one of the most magical evenings she had ever experienced—dinner at La Tour d'Argent, with a view of the Seine and Notre Dame, followed by a slow walk through a perfect Parisian night back to the Hotel de Crillon, where they'd sipped champagne and danced on the terrace of the suite that had been Leonard Bernstein's favorite.

It had all seemed like a fairy tale.

And then that word.

That one word that had ruined everything.

Risa slowly massaged Danielle DeLorian's new moisturizing cream into her face while she listened to her new husband breathing rhythmically in the bedroom.

Maybe she should pack up and leave—leave the room, leave the hotel, leave Paris.

Now
that
would be melodramatic! Straight out of the kind of romance novel she hated, even though she'd never actually read one.

And too impulsive, too.

Sighing, she pulled two tissues from the holder and began removing the makeup from her face, and as her real face emerged, so did her sense of fairness.

How long would it be before she herself slipped and called Conrad "Michael"?

She sank down onto the velvet bench in front of the vanity and fantasized about telling Lexie why she had left Conrad after only two days of marriage.

It sounded ridiculous, she abruptly realized after using every word she could think of to make herself sound terminally wounded.

So he'd had a slip of the tongue. So what? If she couldn't overlook this one small thing, then she didn't deserve to be married to a man as wonderful as Conrad Dunn. And he certainly didn't deserve to be stuck with someone as thin-skinned as she obviously was.

"Get a grip, Risa," she whispered grimly to the mirror. "Get over yourself."

She finished removing her makeup, dropped the tissues into the gilt wastebasket, then clicked off the bathroom light, walked across the darkened room, and slipped back into bed.

"Honey?" Conrad said sleepily, pulling her close. "Where've you been? You're cold."

His warmth seeping into her, she snuggled into him. What happened earlier had been no more than a slip of the tongue, and one of the more common ones at that. Not only would she never mention it to anyone, she wouldn't even think about it again. She was married to a man she loved, and one who loved her, and she was in Paris on her honeymoon, and she wasn't about to let a single word ruin everything for her.

A moment later Conrad was snoring softly, and a few minutes after that she, too, drifted into a peaceful sleep.

KIMBERLY ELMONT FLUSHED THE TOILET AND PUSHED HER WAY OUT of the grimy stall into the crowded warehouse restroom. She wet her hands, but there was no soap, and the only paper towels in sight were overflowing the trash bin and littering the floor, so she shook her hands as dry as she could, then shook her head, too.

Mother would die if she saw this place.

Still, she found herself grinning as she fluffed her sweaty bangs. This was even more fun than she'd thought it would be. And what could possibly happen to her with this many people around, as long as she didn't drink more than a single beer, and stayed completely away from the drugs all the girls around her were putting into their mouths?

One beer, and no drugs. Those were the limits she and Jennifer had set for themselves when they were still two blocks from the warehouse and heard the pounding music. When they pulled into the jammed parking lot, they almost lost their nerve completely, but paid their way in, got their hands stamped, and easily exchanged a drink ticket for a beer at the bar, no questions asked. After surveying the sea of people, she knew there was no way she'd be able to spot Dean in the crowd—if they found each other, it would be pure luck. Next time they'd arrange a specific place to meet.

A place where they could at least find each other.

Within a few seconds, some guy asked Jennifer to dance, and Jen had grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the dance floor, where a teeming crowd was twisting and writhing under the strobe lights, dancing with whoever happened to be closest.

She'd danced for nearly an hour before retreating to the restroom, but even after the short break she wasn't sure how much longer she could last, since the warehouse kept getting hotter, and the music louder. Now, she freshened her lipstick and tried not to be too obvious as she watched while two girls she thought she knew from school snorted white powder up their noses.