Guilty Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 1) (3 page)

I sighed and knew it was not to be. Reluctantly, I pinched myself back to reality.

"I could never afford this. Not even a single square foot of rental."

"Who said anything about rent?"

I slowly shook my head with confusion.

"Look, Robyn, it's like this. My father gave it to me for my twenty first. Rich bastard trying to buy his neglected daughter's love and ease his guilt over dumping my mother for a bitch not much older than me."

"Did it work?"

"I'll let you know when I've got the rest of his fortune."

Aware my bottom lip was doing an impression of a yo-yo, I realized I hadn't breathed since I arrived. My head began to swim.

Mai grabbed my shoulders and guided me to the biggest sofa I'd ever seen. I sank into it like I was sinking into a cloud.

"Fresher Week can be rough, right?"

I nodded.

She made tea. Nothing like I'd ever tasted before. Sour, but refreshing. We sipped.

"Color's coming back to your cheeks. Fancy the guided tour?"

I shrugged. Not wanting to seem ungrateful and knowing I'd never again get a chance to witness such opulence, I nodded.

"Great."

Mai dragged me down the corridor into the first bedroom. Oak parquet flooring so exquisite I could eat off it. Enormous windows with a view of the tree lined campus and Lake Kimberley to die for. A four-poster bed so deliciously comfortable with the softest white cotton sheets and a mountain of pillows where I could spend all day wallowing blissfully in self-pity.

"So what do you think, Robyn?"

I bit my lip. I was going to really regret this. "I really couldn't."

"If it makes you feel better, we can work out terms."

"Such as?"

"Can you cook?"

"Sure, can't everyone?"

Her cheeks flushed. She waved intricately painted red dragon fingernails almost three inches long at me. "With these?"

"Tricky."

"Here's the deal. You cook for us one evening a week and maybe model once in a while."

I flush hot. "Model? Me? Nobody wants pictures of me."

"But you are so hot." She held up her camera and shook it. "Damn look, you melted the lens already."

We both laughed.

"So unless you prefer to swim to your bed we have a deal?"

Mai held out her hand.

I took in the awe inspiring view over the campus. Trees in myriad of Fall gold and burnt red surrounding air brushed clean brown stones and red brick low rises. Odd looking gargoyle-like statues in funny masks playfully peering at me from their rooftop hideaways. If I'd died and gone to heaven then at that precise moment a God ray would illuminate my plight. On cue the sun broke on through the clouds and lit up the apartment like the place was an angel's penthouse suite.

Every cloud had a silver lining, right? And all of course too good to be true.

I shook Mai's soft hand.

"Deal."

When we returned to the living room, I found my suitcases neatly piled up in one corner. But no one else was around.

"Who brought them up?"

Mai smiled. "Things have a habit of just appearing around here."

Together we dragged my cases to my new bedroom.

Mai left me to unpack.

A lot of my stuff was ruined by the flood water. The stains on my one decent dress would never come out. The only thing of value that survived was my tablet and laptop and only because both were by design, waterproof.

Amongst my socks, I found the leather bound journal wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag. It seemed to have survived the ravages of the flood water. Hand stitched letters on the cover spelled the name:
Madison Loxley.

I opened the journal and read the first hand written page.

Dear Robyn,

If you are reading this, it means I am dead.

The clues as to how and why are within. All I can tell you for sure is I am so very close to cracking the biggest Campus scandal in the history of American universities. Clearly, if you are reading this, I failed.

Read with care. And promise me one thing. Your life depends upon it. If you decide to do anything about this, trust no one. If you are the person I think you are and you follow my footsteps through these pages, tread lightly, fear for your soul and try to forgive me.

Not least, for abandoning you.

The following pages are my honest account of my first year at Kimberley. The year I was murdered.

Many pages will be missing. They are secrets hidden away for my safety. It is up to you to find them.

One last thing for you to remember before you embark on my odyssey. Go into the darkness guided by the light of your heart.

Your loving sister,

Madison.

P.s.

Your first task is to find the symbol I hid on the Kimberely Times network. It is the key to everything that will lead you down the same path I followed.

I flipped the next page and stopped at the first heading.

Semester 1. Week 1.

I couldn't believe how sweet and pure the human spirit could possibly be until my first day at Kimberley when I met Mai Ling. I was lonely, isolated and she took me under her wing, and into her luxurious nest like the mother I never had.

It wasn't until later, when it was too late, I realized I had entered a viper's nest. I now know that sacrifices, compromises and dark secrets can dwell, hidden beneath the perfect facade of even the purest amongst us. And how deadly can the heart's desires be.

H.G. is shaping up to be the one true person I can rely on. And yet I sense he will betray me like all the others.

There were large sections of pages missing. Someone, presumably Madison, had for some unknown reason torn out vital pages that would reveal the entire mystery surrounding Madison's death. Whoever was in possession of those missing pieces might also know I had the remaining journal. But did this other person or persons have all the missing pieces in their possession? And if not, how much did they know?

If they knew I had the remaining journal, would they reveal themselves? And if so, would they come to me as a friend or enemy?

My only clues were a list of initials:
H.G, C.W, V.W, M.X, B.D, K.K, R.E, and D.C.

And then an underlined and questioned reference that made no sense:

The Red Queen?

The White King?

I assumed they were people who somehow played a crucial role in Madison's death. Who exactly these people were, I could only guess based on Madison's routine and who she was therefore most likely to interact with. I would have to identify these people.

After the death of our parents when we were very much younger, Madison was everything to me. I would find answers. Discover the truth.

I had to gain the trust of these people. Ingratiate myself with them to learn their secrets.

Whatever the cost to me personally, vengeance would be mine.

I retrieved another pair of socks from my case. Inside another plastic sandwich bag was a Glock 19 hand gun. I removed the gun from the bag, checked the safety was on and slid it under my pillow.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ten minutes and one quick change of squelchy wet socks and shoes later, I bolted across Campus Square, already an hour late for the paid internship interview that will mark the ascent of my auspicious new career. At least that's what I told Mai. There was more to it. Something I needed to find. A secret I needed to undercover.

I found the campus newspaper, Kimberley Times, on the fourth floor of an airbrushed brown stone on the corner of Campus Square.

If I didn't get the paid internship, with desperate emphasis on the paid part then I'd be buried under the inevitable avalanche of car repair bills and citations for whatever I inflicted on my first morning. I checked my appearance in the lobby windows.

"Girl next door or girl next Pulitzer?" I shrugged. "Kick ass."

Best foot forward I pushed on into the intimidating antique revolving doors and immediately collided with a girl my age. She was fleeing the building as she wiped her streaming face with what looked like a coffee stained resume.

She grabbed my arm and held me firm with her haunted expression. "My father's going to kill me."

With that she ran off across the square. Her sobs echoed like a fading nightmare as the brass revolving doors smacked me full in the ass and I fell into the office, landing on my knees. Nice first impression, but par for the course I'm sure.

Supporting the brass reception desk, intricately carved with ghoulish masks hung from the legs like gargoyles daring me to turn and run after that girl back to Loser-ville. Behind it, a slender brunette yawned at me. She peered over her horn rim spectacles as if sizing me up for my coffin and indicated a glass wall room at the end of the office. She held out a hand.

"Penny Pine, welcome to the slaughter house. If you survive five minutes with J.C, it'll be a record semester."

My stomach backed flipped to the sound of a funeral march in my head. Penny led me to a large windowed office with a brass plaque on the door that read: J.C. Thruster. Editor in chief.

Penny knocked at the glass door.

"Don't take it personally," she whispered. "J.C. Thruster arrived five years ago, like they all do, with dreams of grandeur. Know how many awards for scoops he collected in all this time?"

I shrugged to suggest it was too late to do any homework now. But I knew every there was to know about J.C. Thruster and his entire staff. My life might depend on learning their secrets. All their secrets.

"Put it this way," she whispered. "The New York Times ain't exactly knocking down his door."

Thruster, a bald man with a black beard, beckoned without looking up at us. In another century he could have been a pirate strutting the boards of a sailing ship destined to scupper my vessel. Penny pushed me in ahead of her.

J.C. seemed about ten years older than me. He was in fact, only five. He was good looking in a world weary sort of way. Thirty one going on fifty one in an ageless preppy cardigan with worn leather elbow patches and tobacco stains. Through the sadness of pools of crystal clear blue eyes and five day old stubble over his strong jawline, a good looking man struggled to the surface in a loser-doesn't-realize-way.

Penny slopped a coffee over the hard wood over-sized desk of J.C. Thruster, Editor in chief. She fussed at his side, picking lint off his shoulders.

Thruster squinted almost disbelievingly at my resume and after nearly two seconds of careful deliberation in what appeared to be quite painful mental gymnastics, he decided my resume was good enough to mop up the pool of coffee running across his desk and dripping onto his pants leg.

He glanced up at me. "What? You were expecting a standing ovation for choosing my paper to kick start your dream?"

"My last professor recommended me."

"I don't give a damn if your Professor's got a Pulitzer Prize propping up her pretty pink toilet seat."

He chomped on an unlit cigar as if that was what all great editors did to intimidate newbies. It was working. He padded all his pockets.

"Rampant ambition, Ms. White, may have shagged your way into my office, but I only pay for results."

"It's not a salaried internship?"

"Freelance. I pay by the word."

J.C. leaned in so close I felt my nostrils slapped with cheap cologne and cheaper cigar smoke all mixed into some kind of a vile coffee-breath potion. No doubt concocted by evil press editors around the world to incinerate unworthy interns.

His eyes seemed to drink in my fear. "How are you at making coffee?"

"It stays in the cup," I snapped.

He smiled and turned to Penny. "I like her. If you last a week I'll promote you to fax girl."

Penny chewed her fingernails. "J.C. we tweet, we text, we poke and occasionally email, but we most certainly never fax. It's a twenty first century thing, J.C."

His phone rang and he pointed to his office door as if indicating I should stop off at the dungeons and try out a few torture implements like the rack for a few days. Anything to stretch me into the right size for some full on abuse at a later date to be set at his convenience. Penny glanced at the incoming call number.

J.C. screamed into the phone. "Isadora, you can't quit because I just fired your little ass."

He stabbed his fingers at a thick and heavy block of glass and wood shaped like an old fashioned typewriter. As he hit the keys, a small flame shot out of the rolling pin shaped platen.

He bent over it and stuck one end of his cigar into the flame. He puffed great clouds of smoke into the air as he listened to the other caller.

He picked up the trophy.

Penny shuddered. "It's the only award he's ever won. It means more to him than anything and he's going to throw it at someone."

She grabbed the cigar out of his mouth and to my surprise and J.C's, she stubbed out the cigar in an ashtray. She then pried the award out of his hand and gave him a scolding look the way only lovers so. She set it down on the desk and quickly left.

She dragged me out and sat me down by her desk. Indicating the sticky circle on the desk vacated by her coffee cup would be my dungeon for the next semester.

Penny leaned over. "Can you wing it?"

"What's up?"

"Isadora Prim is down and out for the count."

"Who?"

"Our sex columnist."

J.C. Thruster threw his office phone through his open door and out across the newsroom. He stormed across to me and hurled my damp coffee stain resume in my face.

"Forty eight hours to impress me."

"I don't understand, are you offering me a column?"

He nodded and looked at his watch. "Miss White, you just wasted ten seconds of your deadline."

"But what do I write about?"

He scowled.

"I mean what do you want?"

"I want what my readers want."

"Which is?"

"Sex, Ms. White. Give me hot sweaty toe-curling sex. Make us think we all have a chance of getting laid before we die."

Penny rolled her eyes. It was then I noticed that a dozen people sat around computer screens, stopped what they were doing and began watching and listening. I felt myself burn.