She only hoped it wouldn't be too soon. Ariana was supposed to have been dead for more than a week. In her estimation, Briana Leigh would have to go unfound for at least a week or two if she was going to look like she had been lolling at the bottom of the lake for that long. But there was nothing Ariana could do about that now. She was just going to have to wait and hope.
It was well past midnight when they arrived at the car. Ariana kept her ears trained for the sounds of sirens or dogs or shouting voices, but none came. There was nothing but crickets and the breeze and the occasional hoot of an owl. Undoubtedly Dr. Meloni was sitting in his house right now, petting his dear Rambo and wrestling with his conscience, trying to figure out what to do next. Tell the authorities that he'd helped Kaitlynn escape and have her found and dragged back, or wait until morning and hope that no one figured out his crime? The thought of his torture made Ariana smile.
At the car the two girls changed into dry clothes. Kaitlynn chose a pair of black cigarette pants and a white off-the shoulder sweater. Ariana took out her coveted Calvin Klein dress and sighed happily as she belted it around her waist. Kaitlynn removed the rubber band from her hair and shook out her curls. Together they leaned back against the trunk of the car. If anyone were to happen along, they would be just two friends out for a moonlight chat by the lake.
"The hair suits you," Kaitlynn said with a smile.
"You think?" Ariana asked. She lifted the heavy extensions over her shoulders in a gesture that made her think of Noelle Lange. "I'm still getting used to it."
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Ariana looked at her friend with a pang. She had yet to tell Kaitlynn that she was going to Atherton-Pryce now--that they were going to have to go their separate ways--but she decided she should wait until they were far away from the Brenda T. Until they were safely tucked away in a place where they could talk and come up with a plan for Kaitlynn. Because now that Ariana had spent so much time daydreaming about Atherton-Pryce, about the fact that she could still have everything she had always wanted, she wasn't willing to give it up. She could only hope that Kaitlynn would understand.
"We should probably get going. The farther we get away from this place, the better."
"Agreed." Kaitlynn crossed her legs at the ankle and sighed as the breeze tossed her hair back from her face. "So. Where's the money?"
Ariana arched an eyebrow. "Figured out what my plan was already?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Kaitlynn asked with a shrug. "Why else would you have gone straight to Briana Leigh? The money, the body. It's perfect."
Ariana smiled. "Thanks. But I hadn't planned on using her for the body until it became absolutely necessary. And unfortunately, there is no money."
Kaitlynn stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you mean there's no money?"
Her voice was sharp. Angry. Never in Ariana's life had she heard Kaitlynn sound angry. Not even when Christmas had passed without so much as a card from the aunt and uncle and cousin she still had on the outside--the ones who had refused to take her in when her
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parents died. The ones who now had control of all of Kaitlynn's family money.
"It turns out there was a clause in her dad's will," Ariana said, walking around to the backseat with a towel. She wanted to clean out Rambo's dog hair. The new Briana Leigh Covington did not drive around in a hairy car. "She wasn't getting any of the inheritance until she was twenty-five."
"That's bullshit!" Kaitlynn shouted.
Ariana paused, leaning halfway into the car. That was definitely annoyance. She stood up again and looked over the car at her friend.
"Don't worry. I've got fifteen thousand in cash that Grandma Covington gave to Briana Leigh for emergencies. That should be enough to--"
Kaitlynn let out an irritated squawk. She walked around the side of the car and faced Ariana. Her brow was creased in consternation. Ariana stared at her friend. She felt as if she had missed something. As if she was playing catch-up.
She hated that feeling.
"You're telling me that you spent all that time with that bitch and you didn't even get your hands on the money?" Kaitlynn spat, her teeth clenched. "You have to be kidding me!"
"Kaitlynn, calm down," Ariana said, wrapping the towel around her fist. "I told you--"
"I don't believe this!" Kaitlynn seethed. "God, I should have known better. If you want something done right... But I couldn't do it myself, could I? You were my best shot!"
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Ariana's heart slowly turned to stone inside her chest. She suddenly felt cold. Very, very cold. "What are you talking about? Handle what?"
"This!" Kaitlynn flung her hands out as if to encompass the whole world. "I couldn't go myself because Briana Leigh knows me. I had to send someone else," she ranted, pacing the dirt clearing. Her growing voice startled a few night birds from the trees. Ariana's heart seized up in her chest at the noise. She attempted to focus, but she simply could not. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "So I fed you all the crap you'd need to know to get in with Briana Leigh and gave you my whole sob story and you ate it up. All of it. It was the perfect plan, Ari. Because I thought it up!"
The world started to spin in front of Ariana's eyes. She brought her hand to her head and tried to stop it, but it was no use. The person in front of her was supposed to be her friend. Supposed to be innocent, naive Kaitlynn Nottingham. But at that moment the person in front of her was unrecognizable. Fury lined her pretty face and she spat when she talked. The transformation was utterly horrid.
It hadn't been Ariana's plan. It had been Kaitlynn's plan all along. Kaitlynn had planted it inside Ariana's mind, just like Ariana had planted the identity-switching plan in Briana Leigh's head, making her think she'd come up with it herself.Ariana's stomach turned and bile rose up in her throat. Wrong again, Ariana. You were wrong again....
"But now, as it turns out, you used me to get the body you wanted and now you're leaving me high and dry," Kaitlynn ranted.
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It wasn't possible. It just was not possible.
"Kaitlynn, why?" Ariana said, her mouth dry. Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely speak past its frenzy.
Kaitlynn stepped toward Ariana. "Why? Because I killed Derek Covington. He broke my heart, so I killed him. I took out his prized antique Winston revolver and I shot him right between the eyebrows. It was me. And if you weren't such an idiot, you would have figured that out by now."
Ariana's vision clouded over so fast she had to lean into the side of the car to stay on her feet. Her blood sounded like a freight train in her ears. Suddenly all she could see was Briana Leigh's face as she sank beneath the surface of the lake. It brought back with utter clarity the sight of Sergei Tretyakov's face. She had held him under as he clung to her hands--begged for help before sinking to his death. All for nothing.
She had killed the wrong person. Again. She had killed Briana Leigh for no good reason. Just like Sergei. All for nothing.
Not again. Not again not again not again.
"But she told me," Ariana whispered hoarsely, barely clinging to consciousness. Her fingers trembled. Her knees were rubber. She could hardly breathe. "She told me on the plane that she killed him. That it was her fault."
Kaitlynn clucked her tongue. "It was. If she hadn't told him to break up with me, he'd still be alive. But she had no idea what it's really like to kill someone, did she, Ariana?"
Ariana squeezed her eyes closed. Briana Leigh hadn't been confessing.
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She hadn't been unburdening her heart. She had been drunkenly babbling. Feeling sad and guilty over the loss of her father.
And Ariana had killed her for it.
How could I have been so wrong? How could I have been so gullible? She felt so stupid. So humiliated. All those stories Kaitlynn had told her--she had believed every last one of them. Kaitlynn had played her for months, and she had simply let her. So much for her ability to read people. It was nonexiste
nt. Kaitlynn was right. She was an idiot.
But she wasn't powerless.
Ariana opened her eyes. Kaitlynn was turning away in disgust. A hot rage surged through Ariana--so hot it seared her skin. All she could see was Kaitlynn. Everything else--the car, the trees, the lake, the night sky--all of it faded to black. Kaitlynn had used her. She had lied to her for sixteen months, day in and day out. She had forced Ariana to kill an innocent girl. Something she'd sworn she would never do again. And now she was calling her useless?
With a guttural growl that echoed off the lake, Ariana lunged forward and shoved Kaitlynn with both hands. Kaitlynn shouted in surprise and fell to her knees. Ariana pounced on her and grabbed her by the hair, just as she had done with Briana Leigh.
"You miserable lying bitch!" Ariana seethed, feeling the frizzy texture of Kaitlynn's curls between her fingers. Savoring the pain on the girl's face as she wrenched her forward. She turned toward the lake. It was Kaitlynn who deserved to die. Kaitlynn who deserved to suffer a horrible, undignified end. And Ariana was going to make it happen.
"Get off me!"
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Kaitlynn whirled around and backhanded Ariana across the face. Stunned, Ariana slammed into the side of the car and fell backward onto her butt, taking a handful of Kaitlynn's hair with her. For a moment she had forgotten that she was dealing with someone who wasn't drugged. Someone who wasn't tied up. Someone who could defend herself.
Someone who could kill.
"Ow!" Kaitlynn held her hand to her head and gaped at the hair in Ariana's fist. "You bitch."
Before Ariana could even move, Kaitlynn had jumped on her and slammed her head back into the hard-packed dirt. Ariana kneed the girl in the stomach and used the moment of shock to roll her attacker off her, but Kaitlynn grabbed Ariana's foot before she could scramble away. Ariana hit the ground again, face-first. Kaitlynn pressed her knee into the small of Ariana's back and gripped her hair, shoving her face into the dirt.
Ariana couldn't breathe. She struggled, wagging her head back and forth, trying to grab behind her and get hold of Kaitlynn, but nothing worked. She was using up what little oxygen she had, starting to black out.
No. I'm not going to die this way. I just got my life back. No... no... no...
Just when she was about to helplessly give in to the oncoming darkness, Kaitlynn released her. Ariana lifted her chin and gasped for breath. She got a lungful of dirt and her throat burned. Coughing like mad, she turned over and looked up at Kaitlynn, who was now
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rummaging through the car. Hot tears coursed down her face as she fought for breath. She was still struggling to get her knees under her when Kaitlynn loomed over her once more.
"This is where we part ways, friend" Kaitlynn said through her teeth. She raised the half-empty champagne bottle Briana Leigh had lifted from the plane. "Thanks for nothing."
Ariana let out one pathetic screech before the bottle cracked against the back of her skull and everything went black.
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A PROMISE
The sky was purple.That was all Ariana was able to register before her head exploded with pain. She groaned and gripped the back of her skull, rolling over onto her side. Every bone in her body seemed to ache and there was an awful taste in her mouth.
Dirt. She was lying in dirt.
Suddenly everything came rushing back and Ariana shoved herself to her knees. The buzz of a motorboat's engine assaulted her ears, and she winced as a new bolt of pain shot through her skull. Lake Page was coming alive. The search for Ariana's body was revving up again.
I have to get out of here, Ariana thought. Now.She scrambled to her feet and turned around. The car. The car was still there. And there appeared to be some kind of note shoved between the window and door. Pressing her lips together, Ariana grabbed the
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piece of paper, torn from one of the notebooks she had bought for her new school year.
Be seeing you soon! Kaitlynn had written. She had even drawn a smiley face next to it. Ariana balled the page up and threw it on the ground. Kaitlynn had probably realized the car would be too easy to trace. Smart girl. Evil girl.
Ariana's fingers curled at the very thought of what Kaitlynn had done to her. She was going to kill that bitch. She looked down at her Calvin Klein dress, stained with dirt and blood, and her jaw clenched. She was going to murder that bitch the first chance she got.
Grabbing the keys from the ground, Ariana raced to the back of the car and popped the trunk. Empty. Kaitlynn had taken everything. The clothes, the laptop, the jewelry, the cash--even the toiletries and towels and makeup. The yawning void of the trunk stared up at Ariana, mocking her. Heart in her throat, she slammed it closed and got behind the wheel.
Please. Please, just this one thing...
She unlocked the glove compartment and reached into the back. Her fingers found her purse and the velvet bag she had stashed there the night before. Instantly, her pulse relaxed. Kaitlynn hadn't thought to check it. The Osgood paranoia had paid off this time.
Just to reassure herself, Ariana overturned the velvet bag. Dozens of priceless jewelry pieces tumbled into her palm, all lifted from Grandma Covington's bedroom the night before she and Briana Leigh had left. Ariana grinned. Hocking these would pay for a new wardrobe and computer. Her heart tingled with pride as she congratulated
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herself for thinking ahead. She opened the wallet and looked over her Briana Leigh Covington IDs, then looked for the twenty-four hundred dollars from Briana Leigh's checking account, which she had stashed in there, as well as the credit cards Briana Leigh had given her. All present and accounted for.
Kaitlynn hadn't seen any of this. Which meant she still didn't know exactly what Ariana's plan was. Ariana hadn't had a chance to tell her. Thank goodness. And unless Kaitlynn had realized that Ariana's new hair was supposed to serve some purpose, she was clueless. The thought that she knew more than Kaitlynn on at least one score soothed Ariana even further.
She turned the rearview mirror toward her to look herself in the eye and caught a glimpse of tan leather in the backseat. Her heart skipped a happy beat. Kaitlynn hadn't seen the jacket either. That was definitely going to come in handy for covering up her bloodstains until she could buy some new clothes.
Popping her green contacts out of her eyes, Ariana looked at herself in the mirror again.
"Briana Leigh Covington," she whispered to herself. "Hi. I'm Briana Leigh Covington."
She still couldn't get comfortable with the sound of it, but, in the words of Briana Leigh herself, beggars couldn't be choosers.
Ariana's heart squeezed suddenly. Briana Leigh had hidden feelings of loss and guilt and loneliness behind her bitchy veil. She had been so trusting. So generous. Yes, Ariana had been doing her a favor, but she had been so quick to give up control of her whole
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identity, just so that "Emma Walsh" could go to a good school. Could have a life.
And now she was dead. Needlessly dead. All because of Kaitlynn Nottingham.
"I'm so sorry for what happened, Briana Leigh," Ariana said, gazing out at the lake. "But don't worry. I'll take care of her. Sooner or later, she'll pay for this. I promise."
Then she started up the car, threw it in reverse, and turned around, speeding away from the lake and all the demons it held.
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SOME CRAZY
Ariana stepped inside the lobby of the Philmore Hotel and Spa and breathed in deeply. Breathed in the scents of opulence. The fresh lilies bursting from crystal vases. The pungent wax on the gleaming marble floor. The clean leather and velvet furniture. The Chanel No. 5 of the distinguished-looking middle-aged woman at the concierge desk. She took in that breath and tried to calm her terrified excitement.This was where she belonged. This was the life she deserved.
But would these people recognize her? If anyone had seen her photo ten million times, it was the staff of the Philmore. Just standing inside the gold-t
rimmed door was risky. But Ariana simply could not stay anywhere else. She had to be near the lake. Had to keep her eye on the proceedings. It was the only way.
She lifted her head and strode toward the registration desk, her brand-new Louis Vuitton trunk--filled with neatly folded designer
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items, thanks to Grandma C's jewels--zipping along behind her.
The thirtysomething man behind the counter looked up at the auburn-haired girl in D&G sunglasses approaching him. Ariana saw his eyes flick over her outfit, sizing her up with one glance. He took in the Miss Sixty jeans, the Donna Karan blouse, the leather jacket, the diamond studs (the one item of Grandma Covington's she had kept). He smiled, not a trace of recognition in his eyes. There was nothing but approval.
"Good afternoon, miss. Welcome to the Philmore," the man said. "How may I help you?"
Ariana placed her Calvin Klein clutch on the desk and smiled apologetically. "I know it's last minute, but I was hoping you might have a room available," she said with a slight Texan accent.
"Absolutely, Miss... ?"
"Covington," Ariana said with a smile. "Briana Leigh Covington."
"Yes, Miss Covington. And what type of room would you like?" he asked, typing away on his keyboard. "We have several levels. Luxury, luxury suite, deluxe luxury suite with lake view--"
"Lake view? Really?" Ariana's heart skipped in excitement. "I assumed those would all be booked at the height of summer."
The man glanced around, then lowered his voice. "Haven't you heard?" he whispered.
"Are you talking about that girl who went and drowned herself?" Ariana leaned in, the picture of curiosity.
"Yes," he said, leaning toward her. He clucked his tongue in distaste. "I'm not supposed to tell the guests, but personally, I think our
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clientele should be given all the facts and allowed to make an informed decision."
Ariana nodded seriously, even though inside she was laughing. Little did this guy know he was talking to the very ghost of Lake Page.
He stood up straight again, with an amused smile on his lips. "So. Still want a lake view?"