Privilege 1 - Privilege (11 page)

She reached for the Vogue on the top of the stack and Briana Leigh gasped.

"Oh my God! What did you do to yourself?" she asked, gaping at Ariana's back.

Ariana winced, cursing herself for neglecting to cover herself up with a robe. She had been so distracted after reading her mother's quote that she had forgotten all about the ugly, jagged cut in the center of her back.

"Horseback riding mishap," she lied quickly, leaning back in her chair so that Briana Leigh would stop staring. "I was thrown and dragged. Only for a few seconds, but the damage was done."

Briana Leigh sucked air through her teeth. "That's nasty, Emma. You should have it looked at."

"I did. They said it's healing fine," Ariana lied. Time for a subject change. "So, Briana Leigh, where are your parents?" she asked casually.

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She felt Libby Lane flinch, and the maid, who was now walking away, picked up the pace.

Briana Leigh stared straight ahead at the pristine blue water in the shimmering pool.

"My parents are dead," she said, her tone clipped.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" Ariana said with a gasp. "What happened?"

Ariana caught a warning look from Libby as she began moisturizing Ariana's feet. Clearly Libby knew the scandalous story. At least the one the public had been fed--that after Briana Leigh's mother had passed away of cancer a few years back, Briana Leigh's father had started up a sordid affair with the very young Kaitlynn Nottingham. And that when Mr. Covington had tried to break it off, Kaitlynn had snapped and killed him. Little did these people know they were actually tending to the real murderer--a girl who'd offed her father just to get her inheritance sooner.

"I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to...," Ariana said, faking chagrin.

Briana Leigh sniffed and picked up the oversize W magazine. "No. It's fine. My mother got sick a few years ago and passed away, and then my dad died in an accident a year later," she said, as she flipped past a photo shoot of Katie Holmes. "Not the most interesting story."

Libby gaped up at Briana Leigh, and Briana Leigh shot her a silencing stare that sent her right back to work on Ariana's feet with renewed vigor. Ariana stared at Briana Leigh's profile. An accident? Right. That was one way to put it. Clearly Briana Leigh didn't trust her quite yet,

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considering she hadn't even shared the lie with her--that Kaitlynn had murdered Mr. Covington.

"I'm so sorry," Ariana said, her voice dripping with sympathy. "That must have been awful for you."

Briana Leigh lifted both shoulders. As if losing her parents was no big deal. Ariana had just suffered a similar fate up in her new bedroom a couple of hours ago, and she had a feeling her heart was never going to recover completely. Yet here this girl was, cold as stone.

"But anyway, I'm not alone. I have my grandmother," Briana Leigh said. "Of course, she is a total dictator, as you saw firsthand, so it's good that she lives in the guesthouse. If she was up here all the time I'd have no life. But I do have the staff...."

At this she looked around vaguely at the man tending to the potted plants on the other side of the pool. The maid standing off to the side at a respectable distance, waiting for her next marching orders and looking bored. Briana Leigh got a far-off, almost sad look in her eye, and Ariana was surprised to feel her heart respond. What was that about? She shook her head slightly and immediately quashed the sentiment.

Suddenly Briana Leigh sat up straight and cursed under her breath. "Tabitha! My God! What are you trying to do? Boil me? Turn down the goddamn heat on this thing!"

Ariana glanced at the temperature knob for the hot tub. It was well within Briana Leigh's own reach. Y the maid pushed away from the wall and

et practically sprinted over to adjust it. "Sorry, miss."

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"You can pay for my skin graft," Briana Leigh snapped.

Ariana couldn't believe the extreme shortness of Briana Leigh's fuse and reminded herself that it would be best to avoid pissing her off.

"So tell me about this party tonight," Ariana said, deftly changing the subject again.

"It's going to be intense," Briana Leigh said, instantly calm again. She leaned back into the contoured seat of the hot tub. "It's the launch party for this new band from Dallas, Renegade Conmen. Their first album is gonna be huge."

"Are we meeting up with your friends?" Ariana asked, remembering how Kaitlynn had wondered who Briana Leigh was hanging out with these days.

Briana Leigh averted her gaze, focusing intently on the W cover. "No. Well, everyone's away for the summer."

Code for "I have no friends," Ariana thought, feeling triumphant on Kaitlynn's behalf. Plus this would also make it much easier to get close to her. A girl with no friends needed one. Badly. No matter how nonchalant she acted about the subject.

"But you'll get to meet Teo!" Briana Leigh brightened.

"Teo?" Ariana said. "Who's that?"

Briana Leigh looked at Ariana as if she'd just landed from Oz. "Teo. DJ Teo? Have you been living in a convent for the last year?"

Something like that, Ariana thought, her thoughts flashing on her cell, the prison yard, the mess hall. Instantly her heart rate started to quicken.

No. Stop. It's over. She breathed in and out slowly, surreptitiously,

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so that Briana Leigh wouldn't notice anything amiss. Within seconds she was back in the present. Focused.

"He's only, like, the hottest DJ on the planet," Briana Leigh said, sucking at her teeth, which made Ariana cringe. "And he's also my boyfriend."

"Really?" Ariana feigned interest because she knew that was what Briana Leigh wanted. "What's he like?"

"Beautiful," Briana Leigh said, as if this were obvious. "Plus he totally adores me. He writes me love letters all the time. Real love letters on parchment paper, sealed with a wax seal he designed himself. Every time I get one I feel like Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility."

"Wow. I thought e-mail killed the love letter," Ariana mused, actually slightly impressed by this Teo. And also slightly impressed that Briana Leigh could reference Jane Austen.

"Not for us," Briana Leigh said. "He wants me to have something tangible as evidence of our love. He's so romantic."

"Very," Ariana agreed. Apparently DJ Teo had a poetic side. She wondered what he saw in Briana "Call-Me-Briana-Leigh-or-Die" Covington.

But of course she bit her tongue. Because her feet were tingling pleasantly, her stomach was full, and she had the prospect of an actual party ahead of her. Briana Leigh might have been a lying, conceited bitch. But she was already coming in handy.

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THE RIGHT THING "Love the paintings," Ariana gushed, standing in the middle of the amphitheater-size room that was Briana Leigh's bedroom suite. The walls were painted a deep lollipop pink, and all the accessories were black-and-white patterns. A polka-dot love seat, striped pillows, paisley drapes. The bed was done in pink, black, and white silks, and all the wainscoting and molding was painted black. But as offensive as the overdone theme was, none of it was as bad as the artwork. Covering the wall behind her massive bed were four huge original paintings of Briana Leigh herself, each done by a different artist--a different interpretation of the same sexy pose.

"Oh, yeah," Briana Leigh shouted out from inside her cavernous closet. "I'm thinking about having new ones done. I still had my mother's nose back then."

Ariana leaned toward the paintings and frowned. She actually preferred the old nose. It gave Briana Leigh character. Now her nose was

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just a normal button. Kind of like Ariana's, actually. She had always found her own nose a little boring.

"I'm gonna jump in the shower," Briana Leigh shouted.

Ariana's heart skipped a beat, anticipating a few moments alone.

"Okay!" she called back.

Ariana stood as still as stone, training her ear on the bathroom. As soon as she heard the water running, she started rummaging through the built- in cabinets along the wall. Expecting to find piles of sweaters and T-shirts, Ariana was surprised to discover that the shelves inside were lined with books. All sorts of books, from fiction to essays to poetry to biographies. Ariana glanced over her shoulder toward the bathroom door--Briana Leigh had just turned on the shower--and studied the titles more closely. They were haphazardly arranged, but they had all clearly been read. As she picked up one book after another, she found that each one was worn or dog-eared or stained. Ariana saw a copy of Atonement, the book she had been reading before her escape, and snatched it up. She flipped to the chapter she had ended on and saw that Briana Leigh had made little notes in the margin.

Ariana was intrigued. So Briana Leigh had a deep side. She put the book down and kept looking, attacking the desk next. There were no documents in the deep drawers--nothing but cute, colorful pens and notebooks and all manner of disorganized desk accessories. No bank statements in the top drawer, either. Then her eyes fell on the Palm Treo sitting atop the desk, next to Briana Leigh's computer.

She didn't have time to power up the laptop and do a search, but maybe Briana Leigh kept her account numbers in her PDA.

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Ariana hesitated a moment, glancing toward the bathroom and the door to the bedroom, through which a servant could enter at any moment. But if she was caught with the phone in her hand she could always pretend she was simply making a call. She grabbed the PDA, her fingers shaking.

A rapid scan of the memo pad and task feature revealed nothing, so Ariana quickly searched the calendar for birthdates and memorized those of Briana Leigh, Teo, and both of Briana Leigh's parents. Once she finally did find Briana Leigh's account information, she would need the pin number, and one of these might serve.

Ariana put the phone down and paused to listen. With each passing moment her heart was creeping further and further up her throat, but there was no need to panic yet. The water was still running. She moved to Briana Leigh's dresser and opened one of the top drawers. Hundreds of pairs of mangled, unmatched socks met her. This girl was starting to remind her of Noelle, with her chaotic approach to storage. Digging around in the drawer, she felt her fingers touch something that definitely was not a sock.

Her eyes widened in glee as she pulled out a huge roll of cash, all hundreds. Jackpot. Swiftly, Ariana peeled off three bills and shoved them into her pocket, then carefully replaced the stash exactly where she'd found it--in the back right corner of the drawer. There was no way Briana Leigh would miss a measly three hundred. And now Ariana could breathe a little easier, even buy a round of drinks, without Briana Leigh catching on.

Ariana was just about to slide open the second drawer when she

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saw a brochure sticking out from under a tangled pile of scarves and necklaces atop the dresser. Her pulse quickened at the sight of the redbrick buildings, the word Atherton spelled out in an elaborate font.

This couldn't be what she thought it was.

Ariana slid the brochure out and held it up in both hands. It was a brochure for Atherton-Pryce Hall. Only the most prestigious boarding school in the entire nation. Home to dignitaries' sons and celebrity daughters. Princes and princesses and international oil heiresses and even the president's children. Atherton-Pryce Hall was the school everyone wanted to get into. It was the school that most of her friends from Easton Academy would have killed to attend.

Was Briana Leigh enrolled at this hallowed institution? How could a place with such impeccable standards accept a walking crime-against- fashion like her?

Suddenly the door to the bathroom swung wide and Briana Leigh strode into the room dripping wet, clutching a towel around her body. Ariana froze like a statue, her heart hurtling into her mouth. What would a psycho like Briana Leigh do to a person who was pawing through her things?

"Forgot my new conditioner," Briana Leigh said, snatching a bottle from her vanity table. She was about to stride right back to the bathroom when she paused and glanced at Ariana. "What're you doing?"

Ariana couldn't breathe. Her brain was suddenly blank, anticipating the wrath she had already witnessed in slight snippets that day.

Think, Ariana! Think, think, think!

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"I just saw this sitting on your dresser," Ariana said finally. She held out the brochure. "Are you going to Atherton-Pryce?"

Briana Leigh groaned and her shoulders collapsed. Ariana breathed a sigh of relief. Briana Leigh had bought it.

"You mean the epicenter of boredom?" Briana Leigh said. "Unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?" Ariana repeated, casually flipping through the glossy pages. "Everyone wants to go there."

"Not me," Briana Leigh sniffed. "I want to be with Teo, and Teo is here. In Dallas. Besides, D.C. is, like, one huge slum. I'll probably be shot."

Ariana's teeth cut into her tongue. "The school isn't in the city." Ariana paged through the gorgeous photos of Atherton's campus--the rolling lawns, the bucolic countryside. "This place is incredible."

"Whatever. It doesn't matter. Grandma is, like, obsessed with me going there. She even threatened to cut me out of her will if I didn't enroll," Briana Leigh continued, adjusting her towel.

Ariana nodded, even though she didn't quite understand. If Briana Leigh cared about Teo so much, why not just blow the grandmother off? She was already independently wealthy thanks to her dad, whom she had murdered to achieve that very end.

"So you're going there in the fall," Ariana clarified.

"I have to. What Grandma says goes." Briana Leigh turned toward one of the many mirrors in her room and checked herself out, lifting her chin to inspect some unseen blemish. "Authority figures. Can't live with 'em..."

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Can't shoot 'em, Ariana finished silently. Then her face turned beet red as she realized that Briana Leigh already had shot an authority figure. Perhaps that was why the girl had suddenly gone pale and hadn't finished the sentence herself.