“We’re keeping this quiet for now. We’re holding the body until we can find her killer. So far all the NYPD knows is that the girl is missing. They’re conducting their own investigation. Scott and Marrok are leads on this case. They’ll be going to the school, talking to her friends, her family, to find out whom she was hanging out with, how she might have met this vampire. As you’re aware the blood bond doesn’t match anyone in the Coven, so whoever did this was a stranger. I don’t want to remind you of that Nephilim ring we broke up not too long ago. I’m not convinced this is related to that, but we can’t be sure. That means the rest of you need to bring in every renegade in the city. I want every unregistered immortal brought in for questioning. Every. Single. One. We’re going to get this guy. We always do.” He moved to let Oliver speak.
Ara had only seen the Regent a few times in the past. She had seen him on television, of course, talking about the economy and politics, and his picture was all over the magazines, as he and his beautiful human familiar were regulars at swanky social events. But this was one of the few times she had seen him in person, which meant the Coven was treating the mortal girl’s death seriously. She had heard the same things about him that everyone in the Coven knew—that he used to be mortal, but that he was special, having been the human Conduit and familiar to the most powerful vampire during the War. Oliver Hazard-Perry had the dignified air and stately bearing that one expected in a leader, handsome but not pretty, serious without being nerdy. His face was somber, but his tone was confident.
He cleared his throat. “First of all, I want to thank everyone for their hard work on this case. It’s deeply troubling to find this kind of violence in our midst again. And I just want to stress what you all know. The murder of a mortal by a vampire is a crime punishable by death. If you know anything about this case that can help us, please speak up. We appreciate your efforts, as you are all aware that the Four Hundred Ball is coming up on Saturday. I can’t help but think that this might be related to the fact that we are celebrating the Coven’s survival. This isn’t a random act of violence. This is a message. Let’s let our enemies know we reject it.”
Sam nodded. “Dismissed.”
“Let’s hit the kids first before her ’rents,” said Edon, slipping the case file back into its folder and tucking it under his arm. “See if any of them can tell us about this party.”
Private School Row, the blocks from Eighty-Fifth to Ninety-Second Streets between Madison and Park Avenues, was famous for its concentration of the best independent schools in the city. These elite institutions of learning were housed next to each other in former mansions and town houses or, as in the case of the French Institute, in new buildings built after razing four brownstones and annoying all its neighbors. Merryvale Academy was the preeminent all-girls school that made up the trifecta that also included Holy Heart and Tallywood-Sparrowfinch. For boys, there was New York Latin School, Bournemouth, and Westbury Prep. Duchesne School was the classic Blue Blood choice; it was the place where many generations of the Coven’s finest were educated. It was coed, progressive, and cutthroat, pun intended.
While they walked from the Eighty-Sixth Street and Lexington subway stop, Ara ran down the list, enumerating the minutiae of differences for Edon. “Merryvale girls are the snottiest because they’re the smartest. The First Lady is a Merryvale girl, as is the governor and our senator.” Turned out there were parts of her old life that she was proud of; she hadn’t realized that before.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. You went to the stuck-up school,” Edon said, scoffing at Ara’s Private Schools 101 lecture. “So how’d you fit in there?” he teased. “Can’t see you in plaid and pearls.”
“I had to wear a uniform. It was required,” she said primly and continued on unperturbed. “Tallywood has the models and the actresses, the Oscar winners. The prettiest sister, so to speak. They go out mostly with the Westbury boys, the hedge fund crowd. The Latin School is full of nerds, and Bournemouth is hippie. But Holy Heart girls are something else.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Let’s just say there’s nothing holy about those chicks’ hearts.”
In Ara’s day, Holy Heart had the bad girls, the ones who wore their skirts too short and their blouses unbuttoned a little too low, the girls who smoked in their uniforms and had affairs with their Latin teachers, the girls who were rumored to host orgies in their palatial apartments when their parents were in St. Barts. There had been so many rumors about the Holy Heart girls—blow job clubs, pregnancy pacts, cutting cliques—and at the time, Ara had believed all of them. Now that she was older she wondered if the school’s reputation—easily more sordid and a whole lot dirtier than the usual exclusive private school scuttlebutt—was concocted by the Holy Heart girls themselves in order to make everyone forget that they essentially went to school in a convent and that morality clauses were part of the school contract.
Holy Heart was housed in a large, forbidding mansion that looked like a fortress behind iron gates. “Easier to get into the underworld,” Edon cracked as Ara flashed her badge to the school camera.
A long, loud buzz sounded and they were let inside. They garnered a few curious looks from the student body as they entered the marble halls of the exclusive girls’ school. The mansion was the former home of a millionaire steel baron from the turn of the century and had all the appropriate grandeur. Ara wondered if she should have made Edon change his clothes, or if she should have combed her hair. Not that either would have helped them pass muster with the headmistress, who would have been prejudiced against them from the beginning. If the school was a fortress, the headmistress had the look of a dragon slayer.
Mrs. Cecilia Henry ushered them into her office, a warm, cozy space lined with books and portraits of headmistresses before her. She offered them both tea, which they declined. After a few pleasantries, during which Ara divulged her own association with the insular private school world, Mrs. Henry got down to business. “The police have already come by and questioned several students. We have cooperated fully, and I’m afraid that is all we can do. Having more law enforcement here would upset the parents. They are nervous enough as it is with Georgina’s disappearance.”
“I understand, and I assure you, we will be very discreet,” Ara said, explaining that she and Edon were from an elite secret organization within the police department, which was true enough. “We’d like to talk to a few of Georgina’s friends, if that’s possible.”
Edon was slouched low in his chair, his eyes slits. He hadn’t said a word so far, and when the headmistress looked in his direction, he seemed to glower. Ara wanted to kick him in the shin, and Cecilia Henry glanced at him sharply, as if he was a truant in her office. They glared at each other for a long time until Edon barked, “What’s the matter? Not interested in finding her?”
The headmistress bristled. “Fine. You can talk to the girls during free period, but I will have to get their parents’ permission, of course.”
Ara nodded. “Of course.”
They were escorted back outside, near the back stairs, where the receptionist offered them cookies. Edon took one from the delicate floral plate. “Why were you so hostile in there?” she asked when they were alone.
“These places give me the creeps,” he said. “All pristine and stuck-up outside, and a den of iniquity inside.”
“Den of iniquity?” she repeated, amused.
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “At least the Nephs are honest—dirty business in and out.”
“That cell you busted, what were they into?” she asked.
“The usual banality—human trafficking, running numbers, prostitution. What about the one here?”
“Running some kind of drug operation, manufacturing and selling crystal on the streets most likely, since we found traces of it before we torched the place.”
He nodded, then eyed the girls walking through the stairway. She shot him a look.
“What?” he asked. When his gaze ling
ered a little too long on a few of them, this time she did kick his leg.
He yelped. “Jeez, I was just trying to get a read on them. Settle down. I don’t do jailbait.”
The headmistress came out of her office. “According to her teachers, Georgina had two best friends: Darcy McGinty and Megan King. I’ve contacted their parents, and they have agreed to let you speak to their daughters. You can use the library.”
The library was a large and airy space in the addition built behind the school. Ara and Edon found a quiet nook in the back, and a few minutes later the first student, Darcy McGinty, entered. Darcy was a self-possessed platinum blonde whose lacy black bra peeped out of her uniform shirt and whose tiny plaid kilt barely covered her behind. She twirled her hair with her fingers and smirked at Edon, who winked at her.
Ara frowned and began her line of questioning, adopting a no-nonsense tone. Darcy reminded her a little too much of a few former friends of hers, those who had been fifteen going on twenty-nine and liked to adopt a jaded and skeptical air, although they were a lot more innocent than they looked. And according to her notes, Darcy McGinty was the host of the party Saturday night, where Georgina was last seen.
“You were friends with Georgina Curry,” she said. “She was at your party last weekend?”
“Yeah, so what?” Darcy said as she crossed and uncrossed her legs. Her white socks were pulled up to her knees, and with her short skirt and high-heeled Mary Janes, the whole effect was that of a stripper costume or a certain rock video fantasy of the slutty private school girl.
“It was the last place she was seen,” Ara said, checking her notes.
“Okay.”
“Was Georgina dating anyone?”
“Not really.”
“No?”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “No one ‘dates’ anymore. Everyone just… hangs out.”
“Who was she hanging out with at your party?”
“The usual crew. No one special.”
“You posted some pictures from Saturday night online. Care to walk us through them?”
“Do I have a choice?” Darcy blew a bubble with her gum and popped it.
Ara opened her laptop and shoved it toward Darcy, who started IDing the boys. “That’s Jax, he goes to Westbury; that’s Tommy, he’s at Bournemouth; that’s Henry, he goes to the Honors Program at Williams…” They clicked through all the pictures, and Ara shook her head slightly at Edon. They were all mortals. None of the boys were Blue Bloods. The Coven was a small community, and Ara knew almost everyone by sight if not by name.
“You seem to know a lot of boys from different schools,” Ara said.
“Yeah, mostly from the Committee.”
“The Committee?” Ara asked. There was only one Committee that mattered in New York. Only one Committee that they called “the Committee.” Ostensibly it was the New York Blood Bank Committee, but in reality it was run by the Coven to educate its younger members.
“It’s like a secret society that a few of my friends are in.” Darcy smirked.
Was this how Georgina met her vampire?
“Who’s that?” Ara asked, noticing a handsome, dark-haired boy next to Georgina in a few of the photographs. He looked as mortal as the rest, but he had an otherworldly beauty that could mark him as one of the Fallen. There was something compelling about him.
“Oh, that’s just Damien Lane,” Darcy said, shrugging.
“Who’s he?”
“Some kid we know.”
Ara enlarged the picture. “Did Georgina know him?”
“Yeah, of course. I told you… we all just hang out. Gigi might have been hooking up with him, yeah, maybe. I don’t know.”
“I thought girls told each other everything,” Ara said as she tapped her pencil on the desk. “She didn’t tell you what was going on with them?”
“No,” said Darcy, her voice flat and toneless.
Edon and Ara shared another exasperated glance. “All right. I’ll ask an easier question. Where does he go to school?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I think he might be homeschooled.”
“Did he leave with her on Saturday night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” Darcy said, her face turning pink and her forehead becoming sweaty. “I’m not sure. Maybe?”
Ara let it go, wrote down “Damien Lane” and a question mark. She asked Darcy if there was a printer close by and the girl nodded. Ara sent the information and the girl went to grab it from the library printer.
“Is she dead?” Darcy asked, coming back with the picture and placing it before them on the table. She had her color back and looked more composed.
“Why do you say that?” Edon asked, crossing his arms and frowning. He tipped his chair back. “You know something we don’t?”
The girl shrugged. Ara thought she would be pretty if she weren’t trying so hard to be cool. “Otherwise, what’s the big deal? Sixteen-year-olds go missing all the time,” Darcy said.
“Not from the Upper East Side,” Ara pointed out.
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because she’s not from the Upper East Side,” Darcy retorted.
“Think she’s lying?” Edon asked as soon as Darcy left. “About not knowing anything?”
“Yeah, she’s definitely lying. She’s hiding something. We have to find out about this Damien character,” Ara said, paging through the papers in front of her. “Well, Darcy wasn’t lying about everything.” The file confirmed that Georgina Curry was a financial aid student, a scholarship kid with work study on her schedule, which meant she was a teacher’s slave/errand girl.
“Her parents live in Hell’s Kitchen. Dad’s a chef, Mom manages the restaurant.” She had been dreading meeting the parents. That would be their sad duty later, and it made her even sadder to discover that Georgina’s parents had worked so hard for their only child. A girl who was now on a slab in the basement offices.
Edon glanced through the pictures of Georgina. She was a lithesome blonde who wore her hair long and straight, with a tiny, delicate gold chain on her neck, diamond studs in her ears. “Funny, she looks just like them—a poster kid for the Gossip Girl set,” he said. “Right?” He held up Georgina’s yearbook portrait.
“You can never tell—girls go out of their way to fit in,” Ara said, feeling sorry for Georgina all over again. It wasn’t easy going to a school like Holy Heart when your parents couldn’t afford the things everyone else could. School wasn’t simply an academic experience but a social one as well. Ski trips, beach trips, blowout birthday parties, exclusive dances, and the extracurricular activities were numerous and pricey for this kind of education. If Darcy knew about the Committee, it meant she was part of the Red Blood elite who were human Conduits or human familiars of the vampires. The question was, how far had Georgina gone to fit in? Far enough to get herself killed? And who was this Damien Lane?
Megan King was a chubby, freckled girl, the complete opposite of Darcy McGinty. If Darcy looked like she was already in her late twenties and had the stories and the experiences to prove it, Megan looked much younger than her years. If they hadn’t known she was a senior in high school, Ara would have pegged her as twelve years old.
Edon slouched lower in his seat, adopting a studied nonchalance, which Ara thought might work when interrogating Nephilim but was a little too much around these teenage girls. Megan glanced at him fearfully. Ara tried to project a warmer air, taking note of Megan’s gold tank watch and her battered leather bag, along with her perfectly straight teeth and shiny hair. Megan, unlike Georgina, was not a scholarship student. Her family had money and status, and unlike Darcy, whose overt and aggressive sexuality on display was a rebellion against her family’s good name, Megan appeared to be more than happy to be an example of her parents’ good breeding.
“You were a friend of Gigi’s?” Ara asked.
“Georgie’s,” Megan corrected. “The only one who calls her Gigi is Darcy, and Georgie hates it. Darcy overheard h
er parents calling her that one day and started using it.”
Ara made a note. Sounded like Georgina was a little ashamed of her background maybe. “You were at Darcy’s party Saturday night?”
Megan’s cheeks turned pink. “No, I wasn’t invited. Georgie and I were sort of friends apart from Darcy, if you know what I mean. Darcy’s friends with those C-girls, and they all sort of stick together.”
“Committee girls?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what the big deal over etiquette classes is; we already had those in fifth grade,” Megan said.
“Do you know about a friend she had, a guy named Damien Lane?”
“Yes.”
“How did they meet? Did she tell you? Darcy said he’s homeschooled.”
Megan picked her cuticles. “I think they met at some club.”
“What club? The Bank or Block 122?” Ara asked, naming a goth dance club and an exclusive, members-only nightclub that was popular when she used to go out to places like that, when she’d had the time and inclination to dance and have fun.
Megan shook her head. “Never heard of those places.”
Of course not; they had been shut down long ago. Ara felt old all of a sudden. “Where do kids go now?” she asked.
“The Sundae Shop in Williamsburg for indie music, the W-Bowl for, um, bowling, Members Only for the afternoon techno party. Outcast or Smithy, if you want to get high.”
Not so innocent after all, Ara thought. Who knew that behind that milk-fed facade was a girl who knew her way around New York nightlife?
“Yeah, I think she met him at Outcast one night.”
“Was he her boyfriend? Was she in love with him?” Ara asked.