Haunting Olivia (30 page)

Finally, she smiled and then walked back to her chair, and the audience burst into applause. None of the other contestants were smiling.

He shot Kayla a thumbs-up, and she grinned. He wanted to rush up to the stage and grab her into a hug, but he couldn’t do that. And besides, Cecily was 284

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already at the podium. Her essay sounded a bit canned, in his biased opinion. Kayla’s had been much more from the heart, much more honest and real.

Cecily finished and also received hearty applause, and then Pearl called Deenie’s name.

She didn’t move. She stared, deer caught in the headlights, above the audience members’ heads.

“Deenie, whenever you’re ready, dear,” Pearl prompted.

She still didn’t move. Cecily gave her a gentle tap on the shoulder, and Deenie almost jumped.

She stood, looked at the audience, her face getting paler and paler. Zach glanced at Olivia; her expression told him she felt for the girl. This was painful. Zach eyed Jacqueline, who seemed to be mouthing, “Go ahead, it’s okay,” to Deenie. But Deenie only stood there. Finally, she took a step and then said, “I can’t! I just can’t!” and fumbled with the curtain behind her, disappearing backstage.

“All rightie!” Pearl said. “Let’s take a moment’s break and we’ll be right back with our next contestant.” Pearl hurried through the curtain. The audience was buzzing, clearly delighted by this turn of events. In a moment, Pearl was back. “Attention, please. Unfortunately, Deenie McCord isn’t feeling well and will not be competing. Our final contestant is Brianna Sweetser.”

Marnie jumped up and clapped. “Go, Bri!” she shouted.

Brianna’s essay was good. Not canned or too perfect, like Cecily’s. Not quite as down home as Kayla’s.

She talked about being from a broken home, and how that made her stronger, more independent, made her value the importance of relying on herself HAUNTING OLIV IA

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to attain her dreams. Her round of applause was the loudest, and she beamed all the way back to her seat.

Next, Pearl announced the start of the oral presentations. Zach had no idea what the difference was between reading an essay and giving an oral presentation of an essay, but he was in pageant land. Just as Pearl announced Kayla’s name, Brianna let out a moan and gripped her stomach.

“Uhhhhhhhhhh,” Brianna groaned, falling from the chair to the floor. “Mom!”

Marnie ran up on stage. “Bri? Honey, what is it?”

“My stomach. Owwwwwww!” She writhed on the floor in pain, the kind of pain Zach had once seen Kayla in when she had food poisoning after eating potato salad at the Blueberry Summer Carnival.

Brianna continued to writhe and groan, and then she vomited all over her mother’s feet.

Pearl called for the janitor, and a young man came lumbering up the stage with a mop and bucket.

“Can you continue on?” Marnie asked Brianna.

“Do you feel better now that you’ve thrown up?”

Brianna’s response was to vomit again. This time Marnie jumped out of the way. “Can someone help me carr y Brianna to my car? I need to get her to the emergency room!”

At least ten men ran up onstage, their eyes more on Marnie’s low-cut dress than on the girl in pain on the floor.

Marnie slid Kayla, then Zach and Olivia the dirtiest look she seemed capable of, then left through a side door, with one of the men carrying Brianna in his arms.

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“Poor Brianna,” Olivia whispered. “That looks like food poisoning.”

“I think so too,” Zach whispered back. “Coincidence?”

Olivia’s face fell. “I hope so,” she said. “I really hope so.”

And then there were two. Kayla and her friend Cecily. Which told Zach that the guilty girl was either his daughter or her mentor, a girl Kayla looked up to. Cecily had had a lot to do with Kayla’s turnaround these last couple of weeks.

But there was nothing remotely off about Cecily.

And there was history, which Kayla had shared with just about the entire town, of off behavior from his daughter.

But Kayla was not a bad person. He knew that in his heart, in his gut. He knew it as Olivia seemed to know it. Kayla wasn’t responsible for the vicious threats and attacks.

Which left Cecily Carle. He stared at her, taking in her concerned expression. He saw her say, “I hope Bri’s all right” to Kayla. And then she turned to the audience and smiled, her hands folded in her lap, her expression changing on a dime.

He continued to stare at her, but all he saw was a girl smiling demurely. Great. Now he was wishing a perfectly nice girl who’d been nothing but helpful to his daughter was some kind of demon, just so it would make sense that it wasn’t Kayla.

Pearl took to the podium. “Due to the sudden onset of illness, Brianna Sweetser is no longer competing. I would like to take a short recess, just five minutes, to give our remaining two contestants a HAUNTING OLIV IA

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moment to gather their thoughts and for our janitor to give the stage a final cleaning.”

A curtain between the podium and where Kayla and Cecily sat was drawn closed so fast that Kayla was gone from his sight before he could jump up.

“Why did they close the curtain?” Olivia asked. “I want both girls in full view at all times. She ran over to where Pearl was sitting, in the first row of the aisle of seats on the left.

Zach saw Pearl say, “Oh, dear,” then rush up to the stage and pull the heavy rope. The red velvet curtains parted.

The chairs were empty. Both girls were gone.

Chapter 24

“Where the hell are they?” Zach demanded, racing around backstage. He threw open the side door and looked, straining his neck to see beyond the hill, but it was dark, and the lack of street lamps didn’t help. He hoped he’d catch a flash of Kayla’s light blond hair, but he saw nothing.

“I want them arrested!” Rorie Carle screamed as Zach ran down the steps to where Olivia stood with Pearl and the police officer. “I knew Kayla was behind everything that’s been happening, and now she’s made off with my daughter! I want Zach and Olivia arrested right now!”

“And the charge is?” the officer asked, as though he’d rather deal with the inane Rorie than where two missing teenagers were in the midst of all the earlier threats of violence.

“They didn’t raise her right!” Rorie screamed, then broke down in tears. “Oh, God, where’s my baby? Why aren’t you out there finding Cecily?” she screamed at the officer.

Zach grabbed Olivia’s hand. “Let’s go find Kayla.”

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They rushed outside, both looking in every direction. “Zach!” Olivia shouted. “Look! That’s Kayla’s watch!” They ran over to where the silver edges of her Hello Kitty wristwatch glinted. Olivia picked it up and squeezed it in her palm. “She must have dropped it on purpose, as a clue to where she was being taken. There’s no way this clasp would come undone by itself.”

“Did whoever closed the curtain pull a gun on Kayla and Cecily and drag them off ?” Olivia asked.

She froze. “Oh my God.”

Zach felt his blood freeze. He gripped Olivia’s shoulders. “What?”

“It’s beginning to add up, Zach. Cecily. She was at your house the day before Kayla found that note slipped under the door. She could have planted those notes in the trash. And then slipped the note under the door early in the morning. She was in the house, Zach. And Kayla was over at Cecily’s house the day before those markers were found in Kayla’s backpack. Cecily made those posters about Brianna, then put the markers in Kayla’s backpack!”

Zach closed his eyes. “Where the hell are they?”

he said, his heart beating a mile a minute. If Cecily was that unhinged, who knew what she’d do to Kayla.

“Zach, if it’s any help while we’re searching,”

Olivia said, “Cecily has only resorted to threats and dead rodents. The noose on my bed. She hasn’t hurt anyone physically.”

“What about Brianna’s sudden case of food poisoning?” Zach asked. “I’m sure we’ll hear later that 290

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Brianna had breakfast at Cecily’s this morning. And where is Shelby Maxwell?”

Olivia’s hand trembled around the watch. Zach steadied it. “We’ll find Kayla,” he assured her. “We’ll check Cecily’s house and the high school.”

A crowd had formed outside the town hall. Two police cars pulled up, and Zach ran over to talk to the officers. One set of cops would follow Zach and Olivia to the Carle house; the other would check out both the middle school and high school.

Zach and Olivia got into his truck and sped down Blueberry Boulevard. He was about to turn left for the Carle house when he stopped short, then turned on his blinker and turned right instead.

Follow me,
he willed the police car. It did.

The drugstore’s lights were on. Cecily Carle’s mother managed the drugstore. And it closed at seven-thirty.

His heart beating so loud he could barely hear the officers shouting something about staying back, Zach ran to the front door. Locked. He ran around to the back, where a sign indicated, “Employees and Deliveries Only.”

He tried the door.

Open.

“Kayla!” he called out, straining for a response, a whimper, anything.

“Zach, I think I heard something down those stairs,” Olivia said, rushing to the top of the stairwell. “Like something skittering across a floor.”

They rushed downstairs, the officers yelling at them to stay back. But Zach paid them no atten-HAUNTING OLIV IA

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tion. There was a locked door in the basement behind the boiler.

“Stand back!” an officer shouted at Zach; then both cops kicked open the door.

Shelby Maxwell, her face crumpling in relief, was tied up to a pole in the back of the closet, a gag in her mouth. A tray of half-eaten food was on the floor by her feet. Empty water bottles littered the room. Her face was bruised, some patches black and blue, others bright red and brand new. One of her legs was twisted at an odd angle.

And Taffy, Cecily’s sponsor, lay curled in a fetal position, her arm handcuffed to a pole. She was un-conscious, the side of her face purple and black and swollen.

“Oh, God,” one of the officers said, then radioed for help and an ambulance. After Shelby was untied, she rubbed her jaw, trying to open her mouth to speak.

“Ce . . . ly,” she managed to say. “Cec-ly.” And then she passed out.

Zach heard the sirens, which meant Cecily heard them too. He had to find Kayla. Had to.

“Zach, listen!” Olivia said. “I think I hear singing.”

They strained to listen. Olivia was right. It was singing. Beautiful, melodic singing coming from another closed door at the far end of the basement.

Zach and an officer stepped over, the officer’s gun drawn. The officer tried the doorknob. The door swung open easily.

Kayla sat handcuffed to a desk, a gag in her mouth, her eyes terrified. Cecily sat atop the desk, which was full of cosmetics. She held a tube of lipstick in her 292

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hand, which she applied to Kayla’s chin. Kayla’s face was already a rainbow of colors, her eyes lined in black and brown.

Cecily smiled. “Hi, Mr. Archer, Ms. Sedgwick,”

she said. “I thought that I’d give Kayla a makeover during the break. Ugly girls always have the edge in this competition. So now we’re even.”

“Cecily Carle,” the officer said, “please step away from Kayla.”

Cecily smiled. “Of course, officer. Anything to help.” She moved toward the police, then screamed at the top of her lungs and reached for a large purse on the floor.

“Don’t hurt my baby!” Rorie Carle cried, pushing Olivia out of the way. “Cecily! What have they done to you!”

“I couldn’t let her win, Mom,” Cecily said calmly, as though she hadn’t just screamed like a banshee or lunged for the knife in her purse. The police officer had grabbed the bag first. “I couldn’t let any of them win. And that bitch Maxwell told me to my face that I shouldn’t even enter the pageant because she caught me cheating on my biology midterm.

She was going to tell you, Mom! So I had to make her go away. I had to, right? I’m the best at everything. I’m Harvard material. You said so.”

“Cecily?” Rorie said, staring at her as though she was an alien with four heads. “What did you do, baby? What did you do?”

Cecily smiled; then the murderous glint was back in her eyes. “I had to, Mom. Everything was spiral-ing out of control.”

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“What was, baby?” Rorie asked, clearly trying to hold it together.

“Everything, Mom,” Cecily said, tears welling in her eyes. All of a sudden, the tears were gone and the demure, polite, smiling Cecily was back. Until her expression changed again. “And that bitch Taffy said she wasn’t going to sponsor me. Said she was going to tell Pearl that there was something seriously wrong with me. All because I told her that if she didn’t make my hair look like Reese Witherspoon’s in
Legally Blonde,
I’d shove a hot curling iron up her ass and then down her throat. Do you know what she said to me, Mom?”

Rorie swallowed. She glanced at Zach and Olivia, then closed her eyes for a moment. “What, honey?”

she finally managed.

Cecily pouted. “She told me my hair was too thick to look like Reese Witherspoon’s. She said that only hair like Kayla Archer’s could be cut and styled that way to look good. Do you know what else she said?”

“What, sweetheart?” Rorie asked, her voice cracking.

“She said my hair had the texture of straw from too much processing.” She narrowed her eyes. “As if she wasn’t the one who’d been processing my hair for the last year!”

“Cecily Carle, you are under arrest for the kid-napping of Shelby Maxwell and Taffy Johnson and Kayla Archer,” a police officer said. “You have the right to remain silent. . . .”

Rorie stared at her daughter as Cecily was read her rights, then began to shake. The police led Cecily away, and another officer helped Rorie follow.

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Zach and Olivia rushed over to Kayla and removed the gag from her mouth. She immediately began to sob hysterically. He frantically searched the desk drawers for a key, then saw it shining right on the desk where Cecily had been sitting. He turned the key in the handcuffs. They opened. His daughter fell limp into his arms. He picked her up.