Rushing to Die (20 page)

“Are you going to change out of . . .” Sheila waved a hand at my uber-­casual attire. “That?”

I lifted my chin defiantly. “No.” Getting dressed up for events hadn't helped anyone so far. Maybe, after all these years, underdressing was the key to success after all.

 

Chapter Thirty-­five

B
EFORE WE LEFT,
I called Ty to give him a heads-­ up, and once he heard the bare details, he asked to speak to Sheila. After a quick conversation, she hung up the phone.

“He said he'd meet us at the house,” she said shortly, turning on a pointed red toe toward the other end of Greek Row.

I waved arms at the front of the Delta Beta house. “Hello? We're here.”

Sheila lifted an eyebrow. “Not your house. Mine.”

Oh, crap. This was getting worse and worse. It was bad enough when I thought Sheila might be tricking me into turning myself in at the station. But if she expected me to enter the Mu Mu Mu house without a weapon (for self-­defense, of course), she had better check herself.

Ty said that he'd meet us there, and he wasn't kidding. By the time I'd followed a good ten steps behind Sheila down the block, Ty was standing outside the Moo house.

“Are you living here?” I grumbled at him.

“I had some business in the area.” His face was perfectly blank, and I couldn't detect any of the low-­key snarkiness that he usually flung my way. Maybe since Sheila was here, he thought he'd be more professional.

He started to follow Sheila inside, then did a double take, his sharp gaze taking all of me in, the fleece, the slippers, the flannel. Then he reached out and smudged something on my chest with his thumb and looked at it more closely. “Ice cream?”

My face burned. “So?”

“Just glad to see you eating something, Blythe.”

Sheila sighed heavily. “I hate to interrupt the flirting, but pref night starts in two hours.”

Ty's attention snapped to her. “Yes, I know. Let's get this done and see what you have.” Since when did Ty pay attention to the rush schedules, much less act like they were a priority? The two walked through the front door of the Moo house with purpose, and I lagged behind, not used to entering the Moo house—­invited, anyway.

There was something fishy going on. A Tri Mu wanted to help a Deb, the antisorority police officer was quick-­stepping because of a rush deadline, and I had failed to notice the dribbled melted ice cream down my jacket. My whole world had gone topsy-­turvy.

I had a vague recollection of the layout of the Tri Mu house from studying the schematics back in my undergrad days, so it wasn't unfamiliar as we followed Sheila up a back stair and into a TV room that had clearly been taken over by their version of a Rush Dungeon. The same piles of paperwork, photos, receipts, random pieces of bedazzled costumes graced their workroom as they did ours. Their computer system was similar to ours, as well. Several monitors and laptops and cords and . . .

“OH. MY. GOD.”

I froze at the tone in Ty's voice. “Is that . . .”

Sheila nodded slowly, with the same vein of caution that I had when Ty had discovered our high-­tech surveillance—­scratch that—­security system.

“Does this have something to do with the remote-­control plane?” I pointed at the toy on the desk, a black-­plastic spider with propellers on top.

“That is a Sonssuto Uber Vision,” Ty said, as if I should understand it now.

“Top-­of-­the-­line,” Sheila added. Those words I understood better, but I still wasn't sure. When Sheila stepped forward and hit a button on the flat screen, and aerial photography popped up, I got it.

“You used drones?” I screeched. “You spied on sorority row from the sky? What's next? Do you have a satellite intercepting our calls?”

Sheila crossed her arms and rolled her eyes and got all huffy. “Like you have any room to talk, Margot. Don't think that we don't know about the bug you put in Sarah McLane's car.”

Ty tilted his head at me, his eyes wide. I threw my hands up. “That wasn't us! Why would we bug her car!?”

“Because it's where she goes to talk so no one listens in at the house.”

“Lord help you all,” Ty said in a mysteriously exhausted voice. “Do you have anything useful here?” The question was for Sheila and, after a moment to collect herself, she nodded and pulled up footage of the night that Callie broke curfew and ran around sorority row mixing up everyone's Greek letters. Apparently, the Tri Mu drone flew at four hundred feet and had an excellent camera range. According to the time stamps, Callie had just reentered the Deb house about half an hour before Daria Cantrell arrived on sorority row.

Sheila had done something extraordinary. By bringing this evidence to the police, Callie Campbell had been exonerated. I couldn't wait to go to the jail and be there when the doors burst open, and she was free as a bird. I was about to suggest that next course of action when Ty leaned over the desk, drumming his fingers on the white-­painted wood and peering in to the monitor. “Where does Daria come in?”

There was a moment of silence before Sheila admitted, “We don't have the murder on film.”

Ty's head dropped low, a lock of blond hair falling in his face. I wanted to pat that tense spot between his shoulder blades where his shirt stretched tight and taut.

Sheila moved the mouse, and a scene came up. “This is all we have.” I recognized the street in front of the Tri Mu house, and it got bigger and bigger, and it looked like the drone was coming down into the bushes.

“I'm sorry,” Sheila whispered. She went on to explain that the drone was programmed to come in each night for charging, and it had right before the hour that the ME said Daria Cantrell had been attacked in the Delta Beta backyard.

Ty shook his head slowly. “Two high-­tech surveillance systems of this block and not a damn picture of anything that will help me catch a murderer.”

Sheila shot me a look, and I tried to look ignorant of the other security system.

Then she refocused on Ty, with renewed purpose. “We actually have something else. It's about Shannon's murder.” At Ty's sharp glance, she resumed the explanation in a hurry. “I just went back and looked for it today, after the Panhellenic meeting. You see, Shannon was my dear friend. A sister. At first I thought that it had to be a Deb and I was angry and I assumed that a Deb had to be involved, given the location and, well . . .” She trailed off as she glanced at me, a heavily charged expression on her face. “Their reputation.”

That brought out a thick sigh from me. “Really?”

Sheila continued, “For the longest time, I couldn't understand why you weren't arresting someone from there and battling with my own demons about Shannon.” Sheila pressed her lips together and gave her head a little shake. “And when I heard about the Delta Beta chapter's mass alibi, I came up here to prove them wrong.” She pulled up a file on the laptop. “And this is what I found.”

The black-­and-­white footage was remarkably clear for being filmed four hundred feet in the air. I wondered what those drones could catch ­people doing. Illicit things. Nose-­picking things. Could it see my PIN number when I went to the ATM? How could this technology be in the hands of untrustworthy American citizens like Sheila DeGrasse?

There it was, the Delta Beta house. And then came the entire chapter, spilling out of the house in our matching black sweatshirts that day. I remembered it so well. We had still been organized and motivated and hopeful that all our hard work was going to result in a kick-­butt pledge class that should have been coming this time tomorrow. The thought that we'd never have that was like a punch to my gut.

Then everyone loaded up in cars and drove off to the day spa, where we'd all had pedicures done, first the seniors, then juniors and sophomores.

The drone drifted toward the Epsilon Chi house to the south, and Sheila put her finger to the screen. “There's Shannon.” She whispered it, but I could still hear the tightness in her throat.

We saw Shannon get out of a car and head toward the Deb house. “Was she going in?” I asked. Sheila nodded. “Did she have the security code?”

A guilty look crossed Sheila's face when she glanced at the drone on the table. Guess that answered my question about the capabilities of the device to record PIN numbers.

On the flat screen, Shannon turned toward the woods behind the house, as if she had heard her name called.

Then, barely visible in the bottom right-­hand corner, a pixelated figure approached Shannon from behind, lifted a hand, and struck her in the back of her skull.

I gasped, involuntarily, even knowing what was about to happen. Sheila had turned away, her arms wrapped around her middle.

Even Ty took a deep, steadying breath before saying, “I'm going to need all of this.”

Sheila nodded, and Ty got out his phone to call someone to pick up evidence. I sank down in a chair, my brain on overdrive as it processed all that it had just seen. Once again, I had a sickening feeling that my subconscious knew something, had picked up on a key clue, but before I could stitch the strands together, Ty was lifting my elbow.

“We have an appointment,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument from me. But then he said, “Pref night starts in an hour and a half,” and that made me wonder all over again.

 

Chapter Thirty-­six

T
HIS TIME
I
didn't even notice that Ty drove me back to the police station. My brain was replaying the drone footage over and over again. There had to be a link there, but the harder I tried, the more I had nothing. Which was probably the right result. After all, the drone had nothing on Daria Cantrell's murder, just a dive into the bushes.

When we walked through the front door of the police station, we were immediately met with a waiting room full of very angry sorority women with hand-­painted signs saying
FREE CAMPBELL
! and
CALLI
E FTW!
and
PLEDGE DELTA BETA!
Clearly, the rush supplies had been repurposed for this impromptu sit-­in; I had never loved my girls more, for their dedication to social justice and their commitment to recycling.

Ty barely gave me a chance to lift my fist in solidarity and shout “power to the ­people” when he hurried me through the waiting area and down the hall toward the sound of Callie's voice shouting. I pulled away from his hand to go toward the holding cell and got a scowl in return. “We don't have time, Blythe.”

I held up a finger. “One sec, I need to let her know that Sheila has evidence that's going to set her free.”

“One minute,” he growled, and while I was thankful, I also wondered what his big hurry was.

Callie had her hands around bars, shaking them and yelling at the top of her lungs. Normally, this was not appropriate behavior for a young woman who should be exhibiting the highest qualities of Delta Beta womanhood. But considering she was in the clink, I was giving her a pass. “LET ME OUT!” she practically howled. “I RECANT MY CONFESSION!”

She trailed off when she saw me. “Margot!” she cried out in relief. “Finally! Did you hear?” she demanded of Ty, tight on my heels. “I'm recanting my confession.” Callie looked back at me. “That bitch Louella Jackson totally broke her promise to me! Aubrey told me what happened. Louella voted us out of rush, so why should I do anything to help her? Screw her.”

Again, given the circumstances, I was very much supportive of Callie's word choice, despite my usual feelings to the contrary. I crossed my arms and gave Ty a “when you gonna let my sister out of jail” look. He held up both hands in surrender.

“Malouf is coming down to process her paperwork after he gets the evidence from the Tri Mu house.”

Callie immediately pounced on that. “Evidence? The Moos killed someone? I knew it!”

“No, the Moos have evidence that clears you,” Ty said; then he corrected himself with a quick shake of his head. “I mean the Tri Mus.”

I allowed myself a small, satisfied smile at his slip. Finally, he was getting the idea.

“Now we have to go.” Once again, he grabbed my elbow and pulled, just hard enough for me to know that he meant business.

“Margot? Where are you going?” Callie shouted at my back, as I was whisked away. “Where are you taking her?” I supposed that was directed at Ty, and I looked up to see if he'd respond in some way. It was a little thrilling, to tell you the truth. After being swept away for an impromptu brunch at Joey's Diner, I could get used to Ty Hatfield's being all manly and taking charge and special-­ordering me coffee milk shakes.

If that wasn't a sign that I was getting my groove back, then the little zing I was getting from Ty's capable hand on my arm definitely was.

He led me to a back part of the station I'd never been to before and paused ever so slightly before slapping his palm against a door clearly marked “men's locker.”

“Everyone decent?” he called out.

I flinched, pretty sure I didn't want to walk in and surprise some half-­dressed Sutton cops. Not all of them were as young and hot as Ty Hatfield.

Then a body came out from behind a locker, and I jumped and bit back a scream until I saw who it was.

“CASEY!” I squealed, leaping into my best friend's arms for a ferocious hug. I hadn't realized until I saw his Rock Hudson smile and Cary Grant twinkle how much I had missed him this week, dealing with all the usual rush drama with a ­couple of murder investigations besides. When he squeezed back, I knew he felt the same.

And in case you're wondering if Casey was going to kiss me, since I am obviously the light of his life and he's super good-­looking and dedicated to Delta Beta to boot, the answer is, unfortunately, no. Casey likes to kiss the nonfemale half of the population. Lucky for them.

He let me go, then grimaced as he caught sight of my togs. “Oh, honey . . .” he moaned in dismay. “What have they done to you?”

Self-­consciously, I pulled down my fleece and tried looking out of the bottom of my eye at any more possible streaks of dried cookie dough ice cream that might have appeared. “I had a moment of weakness,” I said. “Did you hear? They threw us out of rush!”

The Cary Grant twinkle in his eyes disappeared, replaced by a mean Richard Belzer frown from
Law & Order
. “They're not going to get away with this,” he swore.

I loved that spirit, but I didn't see what we could do about it, since pref night was in . . . Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ty check his watch. Then Casey checked his. “Okay, boys.” I took a step back so I could better assess their lies. “What's going on? Why is Casey here? In a locker room?”

The two exchanged a mysterious look, and my stomach dropped strangely. There hadn't been anything, nothing really, between me and Ty. So why were my palms getting sweaty at the thought of secret assignations between him and Casey in the Sutton PD shower room? It wasn't my flannel pants, was it?

“Basically, Lieutenant Hatfield thinks I'm the shit,” Casey said. That didn't help the sweaty, gurgly feelings.

Ty spoke immediately after that. “I called Casey in to help with an undercover operation.”

Casey clapped his hands and bounced, mouthing the words “the shit” and I had a pretty good idea that “undercover operation” wasn't a euphemism for role-­playing good cop/bad cop in the Sutton PD shower room.

“Undercover operation . . .” I echoed, looking Casey up and down. He was as nattily dressed as usual, tonight in a black-­and-­white hound's-­tooth coat, a yellow-­and-­black polka-­dot tie with his mama's Delta Beta pin serving as a tie tack.

He was dressed in our sorority's official colors, so I could only come to one conclusion. “You're going to pref night?”

Casey reached into his inner breast pocket and pulled out a pair of what I could only presume were the finest Witness spy-­glasses that Casey's Delta Beta credit card could buy. When he settled them on his face, the effect was astonishing. The man could really pull off any accessory. It wasn't fair.

Ty gestured toward Casey. “Meet Mr. Peter Jones.”

Casey hissed at Ty. “I thought we agreed. I'm Pedro San Diego.”

“What kind of a name is that?” I crinkled my nose at Casey, who eyes lit with excitement.

“I got hooked on a telenovela in Texas. You're going to love it. Think
Law & Order
with backstabbing mothers-­in-­law and really hot Latin guys.”

I wasn't so sure about the backstabbing part, but Casey was kind of an expert when it came to hot Latin guys.

“Okay,” I rubbed my hands together. “I got it. How about . . . Lorenzo San Diego.”

“For Christ's sake!” That was Ty.

“Oooh . . .” That was Casey. “I like it.”

“Does it matter what fake name he has?”

Casey and I both swung around on Ty, our mouths dropping open in disbelief. I didn't even know what they had taught him in police academy, but a fake name was everything in undercover operations.

“Fine,” Ty said through gritted teeth. “Lorenzo.”

“What name am I going to use?” I asked, my mind burning with possibilities. Perhaps I could assume the identity of Carmen San Diego, Lorenzo's mysterious and sexy globe-­trotting twin sister.

Ty quirked an eyebrow at me, and Casey pressed a fist against his mouth the way he did when he had something really bad to tell me about a celebrity crush.

“What?”

“Oh, honey . . .”

Ty interrupted Casey. “You're not in on this one.”

“That's not fair!” I exclaimed. “I'm just as good as he is!”

“It's hard for anyone to be as good as I am,” Casey said reassuringly, and really, I couldn't argue with him on that. But I still didn't want to be left out of whatever it was they were planning.

“I can do this,” I promised. “I won't let you down,” I added when Ty didn't immediately agree.

He shook his head. “You can't pull this one off. You're too old.”

Casey gasped in horror at that one, and I was about to react similarly when I remembered all the suspicious looks I had received at the ice-­cream social. It was definitely time to find a decent dermatologist in Sutton.

“And everyone would recognize you,” Ty went on quickly.

Wait. ­People would recognize me? I peered at him and Casey. “What are you two planning, anyway?”