This is WAR (5 page)

The expression on the girls’ faces said it all. Rose might as well have stormed the attic stark-naked except for a pair of cowboy boots or a sombrero or some other ridiculous “Mexican” accessory. She was doing it again.

She wasn’t thinking.

And look where that had gotten her last time.

“Get. Out.”

The tone of Madge’s voice and the thickness of the air made Rose light-headed. She stepped backward, her memory slipping back to the beginning of July: docked, expensive yachts rocking along the pier. She’d spent an entire afternoon agonizing over the perfect outfit only to have Willa stop her in the parking lot before she’d even stepped foot on the Gregorys’ ship. Quick fingers had unbuttoned her tunic, forced her out of her shorts, and tugged the scarf from her hair, cinching it around her waist instead. Madge had bitched and moaned about wasting time until Rose’s shirt had become a dress, the scarf tightened around her thin waist, her wild
hair unpinned and free. A tiny smile had pulled at the corner of Willa’s mouth as she surveyed her handiwork. And while Madge huffed behind her sister, Rose did catch a flick of her eyebrow as she looked her up and down.

Today there was no Willa to save Rose from her stepsister. Today Rose had to fight her own battle.

“I know what you’re planning, and I want to help?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Maybe they hadn’t heard her. The words had sounded so much louder in Rose’s head. “Was that even English?” Lina asked.

Sloane had the decency to avert her eyes. Madge’s smile was lethal, and her eyes were too bright as she advanced on Rose.

“I said I want to help.” Rose practically shouted the words this time, carefully enunciating every syllable like a kid doing speech therapy exercises. As Madge drew near, Rose edged closer to the doorway.

“Fabulous.” Madge stood and extended her hand, palm up. “The cost of admission is twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Rose blinked.

“What? You said you wanted in, right?” Lina demanded. “Well, it’s a club, and there are dues. Maybe your mom can take out a cash advance. There’s got to be a Quick Cash near your house.” Lina held her hand out in front of her, tilting it back and forth, assessing her nails, not bothering with eye contact.

Rose’s face caught fire.

“You guys, her mom works at the Club!” Sloane cried. “We can’t let her in.” Rose blinked. Interesting. Maybe Sloane was the cruelest of all of them. Mocking Rose so directly, with such an obvious—

“I was
kidding
, Sloane,” Lina explained.

“Now if you’ll excuse us.” Madge approached the attic door, positioning herself inches from Rose. She pulled the door open and raised her eyebrows, waiting for Rose to do as she’d been told.

She would never be able to look at these girls again. What had she been thinking coming up here? Did she just expect them to welcome her with open arms? Instead they made up fake dues for their ridiculous little revenge scheme. She paused to take one last look around the room, but as her foot made contact with the top step, she froze. If she left now she knew she’d never come back. And she couldn’t go back to her normal life. She couldn’t forget.

And then it hit her.

Before she could stop herself, she took a deep breath and spun back around. “You need me,” she said with an authority that sounded completely foreign to her ears. She might as well have said the words in Spanish.

Lina sat up a little straighter, Sloane shut her mouth, and Madge lowered her arm.

“My dad is a detective. I have access to information on the Gregorys, on everyone.” Rose was met with silence. She looked from the girls to the trunks and armoires and boxes of old papers and documents. The girls had as much of a history as the things in this attic, a story woven with threads of Willa. She might not have their history or their money, but if they were serious about getting revenge, she had something much more valuable.

“Whatever. Her dad’s lame-ass files can’t be worth twenty-five grand. Buh-bye.” Lina stretched her neck over the arm of the couch.

“I might be able to help cover part of it.” Sloane cocked
her head in Lina’s direction. Apparently Sloane was still going with her little joke. Hilarious.

This was pretty much Rose’s worst nightmare. Scorned by the very Club Brats she and Mari had spent the past three summers ripping apart. There had to be an easier way. She’d get Mari to talk to her again. She’d do whatever it took. Anything would be better than this humiliation. Rose turned to walk back down the stairs, back straight, head high. Just because she was embarking on her own personal walk of shame didn’t mean she had to advertise it.

“Wait.” Madge’s voice stopped Rose.

She didn’t turn. Madge grabbed her and spun her around.

“Welcome to the War.”

“The War?” Rose repeated. She wasn’t sure what side she was on.

“That’s what it is, and this is what it takes if you want in.” Madge paced back and forth across the room as she spoke. “You guys want to show her?” She twisted her key between her fingers while Lina and Sloane began digging through their bags.

Rose, Mari, and the rest of the staff had spent a lot of time discussing the key Madge always wore looped around her neck. Rose suspected it must open a safe where she kept her inheritance. Mari liked to imagine more sinister scenarios, her favorite being that the key unlocked a large puppy mill in the Ames-Rowan back yard.

“Twenty-five grand.” Lina slapped down a stack of one hundred dollar bills. The thwack made Rose jump. “I might need some back if my dad notices the cash advance on the Amex.”

Rose just stared at the pile of money. Two hundred and fifty $100 bills. $25,000 in cash. The most money she’d ever
seen in her life was when her mom brought home $1,000 a member gave her as a tip after his daughter’s wedding. They’d gone out to dinner to celebrate the next day. She still remembered the furrow in her dad’s brow when he watched her mom pay for the meal in cash.

Sloane was still digging in her bag and finally came up with several small stacks of money and a few crumpled twenty dollar bills. “I think this is everything. If I’m short, just let me know. There might still be some money stuck in the bottom of my bag.”

Rose forced herself not to stare. Lina was already sitting on the edge of the couch cushion like she expected Rose to sweep the money off the table and make a run for it.

Madge pulled something out of her pocket and made her way toward Sloane. “As discussed, the money will be kept in the bank, but if this is going to work we’ll all need access.” She looped a gold chain around Sloane’s neck. A tiny key rested at her collarbone. “My mother left me a safety deposit box before she died. I had copies made. We’re the only ones with them so our investment will be safe.” She handed a necklace to Lina.

A safety deposit box
. Rose had been right. Her first instinct was to text Mari. Then again, they weren’t friends anymore. And they’d never be friends again, not once Mari found out about her time with these girls.

“They’re engraved.
W.A.R
. Willa’s initials,” Madge continued matter-of-factly.

“War,” Lina repeated. The girls let the word hang in the air for a moment.

“Does that make us soldiers?” Sloane asked.

“Something like that,” Madge whispered. She sat up straighter. “My money is already in, and I’ll make another
deposit tonight.” She gathered Lina’s crisp bills and Sloane’s wads and placed them into a large, padded envelope.

Lina and Sloane exchanged a quick glance. “Madge, we thought after everything that happened with your dad’s company …” Lina began, but was interrupted.

“You thought wrong,” Madge snapped. Sloane’s cheeks turned pink. Madge’s family’s financial troubles weren’t exactly a secret. Long before Willa died, Rose had overheard Club gossip about the Ames-Rowans’ “situation.” But apparently things had changed, and Madge was more than ready to contribute her share. Maybe this “War” wasn’t a joke after all.

“As members of the War, you can withdraw money as you see fit. But the funds are to be used exclusively for the destruction of the Gregory family. Anything more than one thousand dollars has to be approved by all of us. Deal?”

Rose nodded along. Madge didn’t have a key for her. Of course not. They couldn’t have known she would show up. Nor would they trust her. But it still stung to once again be on the outside looking in. To be present, but not included.

“Have you guys ever heard of the Guardian Angels?” Madge paused directly in front of Lina and Rose, her eyes flicking between theirs.

“Aren’t those the guys who fly the planes?” Sloane chirped from the chair across from them.

“Those are the Blue Angels, S,” Lina said softly. Before she could stop herself, Rose let out a short bark of laughter.

“Something funny?” All five foot ten inches of Lina were up and towering over her in a split second.

Rose felt like she was walking on a tightrope. She’d assumed that Sloane was making a joke, but clearly Lina didn’t think it was funny. Or maybe this was just another one
of their games, another way to mess with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

Madge just stared at her expectantly.

“Er, I, um, it’s just that … weren’t the Guardian Angels some vigilante group from the seventies?”

“Point one for the new girl.” Madge resumed her pacing and rolled her key between her fingers. “The Guardian Angels single-handedly stopped almost all of the violent crimes on subways. The police weren’t doing their job,” Madge looked at Rose to really drive the dig about her dad’s obvious ineptitude home. “So the Guardian Angels did it for them.”

“So, we’re going to, like, arrest James Gregory?” The words tumbled out of Sloane’s mouth. Rose felt Lina watching her and was careful to control her reaction to Sloane’s comment. The whole situation was completely surreal. Sloane had the voice of a sixth grader and apparently the intellect to match. Rose didn’t get it. Sloane hadn’t been mean before; she’d been imbecilic. Or had she? She was a National Merit Scholar, and her parents were two of the most well-renowned doctors in the Midwest. Rose could have sworn she was dating
the
Jude Yang, who skipped three grades, had a perfect score on his ACT, and headed to Yale early. But still most surprising of all was the fact that she was actually talking. Out loud. Based on Rose’s extensive observations over the past few summers, Sloane’s preferred method of communication was a shake of the head, a smile, and wide eyes. Rose always thought Sloane used silence like a weapon to prove just how much smarter she was than everyone else, and she’d hated her for it. But this version of Sloane who frequently blurted out stupid thoughts was either messing with all of them or a complete idiot. Rose had no idea which.

“No arrests. And not just James. I’m suggesting we destroy
the Gregorys. All of them.” Madge turned to look out the small circular window in the center of the room and opened a tin of mints, slipping one into her mouth. “James might have been the one on the boat with Willa that night, but they all had a hand in this. Covering everything up. Protecting their precious boys.”

“But how do we destroy something that’s indestructible with seventy-five thousand dollars and some ghetto local police files?” Lina took out her phone and started swiping and dragging her finger across the screen.

“They killed my sister.” Madge’s words seemed to echo in the cramped attic.

It took Rose a second to process them. Somehow Madge held both James and Trip responsible for what had happened to Willa. But that didn’t make any sense. No matter how many times she tried to convince herself otherwise, everyone knew that James was with Willa when she died. How could she possibly hold Trip accountable for the sins of his brother? Trip might be a narcissistic asshole, but Rose couldn’t imagine him taking anything seriously enough to be an accessory to murder. Of course, a month ago she would have said the same thing about James.

“There’s no way we can take them both down. We need to focus our efforts on James. He’s the one who was there.” Lina didn’t stop texting the entire time she talked. Her glossy nails flew across the screen as she asked all of the questions Rose wouldn’t dare.

“It was both of them. You guys didn’t see what I saw.” Madge’s voice trembled.

Rose felt the pit in her stomach grow. She might not have seen the same things Madge had seen that night, but she’d seen enough. Too much. “Trip is unstable, and James was obsessed
with Willa. She got caught between them. Just because James was the last one seen with her doesn’t mean Trip wasn’t involved.”

“James was obsessed with Willa?” Rose couldn’t stop the question from slipping off the tip of her tongue.

Madge raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Uh, yeah. Where the hell have you been all summer? He totally loved her forever. He just couldn’t admit it. But on the Fourth they were on in a major way. Everyone assumed they’d get married because …” Madge shook her head and looked back toward the window as though maybe she’d find the words she was looking for through the glass.

“But they were only seventeen!” Rose bit her lip to stop herself from saying more.

“Old money, old families, you know how it goes,” Madge added.

“Actually she doesn’t.” Lina sniped. “Besides, their relationship was a joke. Willa loved James and James loves himself. Same old girl-loves-boy, boy-loves-his-mirror bullshit.”

“Regardless,” Madge interjected smoothly, “both of the Gregorys were involved, and both of them are lying about what really happened that night. Translation: they
both
need to be punished.”

“This is the worst idea ever. Remember what happened to Violet Garretson when she reported James for refusing to let her get out of his car when he was wasted?” Lina paused, waiting for a response.

Rose had absolutely no idea what happened to Violet. She used to be a regular at the Club, but then she’d just sort of disappeared a couple of summers ago. There had been some rumors about rehab, but no one ever confirmed or denied anything. She was just gone.

“Well, let me jog your memory. After going to the police a couple of weeks later, someone conveniently found coke in her desk drawer. Now she gets to split her summers between Betty Ford and Jesus Camp.”