Platinum Prey (Blind Barriers Trilogy #2)

“I don’t know. Just life,” she answered. “I know my parents aren’t half as bad as yours with all of the pressure and demands, but…it’s still a lot.”

  “I know, sweetie,” I replied, giving her a sympathetic smile. “They just…they never stop.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Your father and lectures about colleges and grades?” I guessed.

  “Yup.”

  “Your mother and the pressure to be perfect, to be desirable, to marry someone acceptable?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it like that,” she admitted. “But yeah, it’s basically the same thing.”

  “What a charmed life we have, eh?” I said wryly.

  Speak of the devil, and she doth appear.

  “Lark, dear,” my mother said, coming to a stop in front of us. Spotting her disapproving glance, I immediately stood up straight, shoulders back, public persona in place. “I was looking for you.”

  “Everything okay?” I asked, bracing myself for the answer.

  “With the party? Of course,” she said dismissively, turning to Annie. “Why Annabelle, hello, dear. It is so lovely to see you. I feel like we haven’t seen you at the house in ages.”

  My mother loved Annie. Luckily for me, of course. In fact, had my mother chosen anyone on earth to be my best friend, it would have been Annabelle Stanley. Yes, those Stanley’s. They may not have been the oldest money, but they were as much American royalty as the Kennedy’s, and certainly more respected. Though Henry Stanley himself had never had children, the name—and the money—had filtered down to the children of his second wife, which included Annie’s paternal grandfather.

  “It’s been a crazy fall,” Annie replied. “There has been just so much going on.”

  “Yes, it most certainly has. I hope you girls aren’t being worked too hard in school. Oh! And what a lovely job you all did at the Ballet’s benefit—it was so beautiful.”

  “Oh, thank you, but it certainly wasn’t just us, we were just the help,” Annie said modestly, giving me a sideline glance that I took as a plea for help.

  “Nonsense,” my mother declared. “Before you know it, you girls will be running those committees. In fact—”

  “You said you were looking for me?” I interrupted. This earned me another frown, though she quickly smoothed her expression. After all, wrinkle lines were more critical than her daughter’s rudeness.

  “Right. There are some people you simply must greet. Would you excuse us for a moment, Annabelle? Lark needs to say hello to some old family friends. Now where did they get to, I wonder?”

  Groaning inwardly, it was my turn to give Annie a beseeching look. The last thing I wanted was to spend the whole night with my parents’ friends, but I also knew it was par for the course.

  While my mother was searching the crowd, Annie mouthed “Sorry.”

  “Come find me when you’re done,” Annie said out loud. She gave my hand a quick, encouraging squeeze, before sliding between two men in identical tuxedos and disappearing into the swarm.

  When I turned back to face my mother, I was surprised to find a guy my age standing in her place. Like every other man in the room, he was wearing an impeccable tuxedo, which he filled out quite nicely. His warm caramel eyes were smiling down at me, the grin on his face hauntingly familiar. As though he stepped straight from a Ralph Lauren ad, his brown hair was combed smoothly over to the side, sans product, and his teeth were perfectly straight and white.

  “Lark, dear. You remember the Ridells, don’t you?” my mother prompted.

  Involuntarily, my hand flew to my mouth. He looked so different, so much older, so much cuter.

  A woman with eyes the exact same shade as her son’s had appeared by his side, and she leaned in for the standard greeting. Though I went through the motions without breaking stride, I felt as though a grenade had exploded in my stomach.

  “Lark, I can’t believe how much you’ve grown!” Mrs. Ridell exclaimed, cupping my face in her hand.

  I forced out a smile.

  “And Senator Ridell,” my mother prodded me, gesturing to the tall man with snow-white hair standing on her other side.

  “Of course, it’s lovely to see you,” I managed to say through numb lips.

  “We were so delighted when we received your mother’s invitation!” Mrs. Ridell said. “We wouldn’t have missed this.”

  “Now I feel kind of bad about Adam’s eighteenth,” the Senator said, clapping his son playfully on the arm. “We just took him out to dinner.”

  As my mother and the senior Ridells began discussing us, their children, I turned my attention back to Adam.

  “Wow…It’s been a long time,” I said, still dumbstruck by his presence.

  “Yeah,” he answered, awkwardly looking down at his shoes. After a moment of silence where he stared at the shiny leather, Adam finally met my gaze. “How’ve you been?”

  “Good,” I said, pretending it wasn’t a loaded question fraught with underlying meanings. “I’ve been really good. It’s very different here in Manhattan, not at all like Connecticut, but I’ve gotten used to it…at least, as much as anyone who wasn’t born here can.”

  Adam smiled sympathetically, as if he understood what I meant.

  “Yeah, things are certainly different,” he said, sweeping his arm to encompass the ballroom and the masses of people.

  “You know my mother,” I said with a dramatic eye roll. “She was made for this life. She actually has a friend named Bitsy.”

  “You’re joking. Right?” he asked, cocking a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Not even a little bit,” I said, feeling the tension between us easing. “My friends are pretty awesome, though. You want to come have a drink?”

  Adam glanced around dubiously.

  “Yeah, yet another difference. In Connecticut we still have to pretend to hide the debauchery.”

  “We hide the debauchery,” I replied with mock indignation. “It doesn’t get rowdy ‘til all the adults head home to pour themselves into bed, hopefully around midnight.

  His face morphed into a devious grin.

  “I do have my own room at the Plaza.”

  “See, you fit right in,” I teased.

  Crooking his elbow, Adam offered me his arm.

  “Shall we?”

  “It was so nice to see you both,” I said to his parents, tucking my arm through Adam’s. “Thank you so much for coming!” I called over my shoulder as he pulled me away.

  Once we’d made our way through much of the crowd, I paused, pulling him to a stop with me.

  “Hey, I need to ask you something.”

  When he turned back to face me, a rush of memories flooded my mind. Nervousness and apprehension edged at the sides, thinking of the last time Adam and I had seen one another—on quite possibly the worst day of my life.

  SO, AS IT turned out, Blake Greyfield was real.

  Very real, according to the internet.

  In Lark’s journal she’d mentioned that Blake played soccer for Rathbourne Academy. But she’d failed to mention that Blake Greyfield was his high school’s soccer team. The guy had received more awards, more accolades, more offers than an eighteen-year-old David Beckham. And because he was that good, he had more press write-ups than probably any high school athlete ever. Naturally, this was excellent for me—it made him incredibly easy to Google.

  Of course, as with any good fairytale, Lark’s prince was every bit as gorgeous as she’d claimed—maybe even more so. His bright green eyes sparkled on my computer screen. His ever-present smile was infectious. And unlike the typical son-of-money-smirk, there was something sweet and kind in his expression.

  In addition to articles about Blake’s soccer prowess, I found pictures of him in Rathbourne’s online yearbook and a brief blurb about some charity event he’d attended with his parents. It wasn’t hard to understand why Blake appealed to Lark. He was like her and her crowd, but…not. He knew her world, but only orbited the small sphere of massive influence that
surrounded Lark.

  Blake was, as Lark put it, ‘new money’. His last name didn’t open doors to exclusive clubs and organizations. No Ivy League institution had a library or sports complex paid for by his ancestors. Although his school, Rathbourne, was in the top ten private high schools according to all the lists, it had only opened its doors in 1976. Conversely, Gracen—Lark’s alma mater—had celebrated its centennial anniversary in the late ‘90s.

  Further digital snooping revealed that Blake’s father, Henry Greyfield, was a prominent and well-respected architect who traced his humble beginnings back to the Midwest. His mother was—yes, she worked, gasp!—the proprietor of an art gallery SoHo. Since she hadn’t cured cancer, performed surgery blindfolded, or scored the game-winning goal in a World Cup match, the internet had little else to say about Emma Greyfield.

  After everything I found, I decided that I liked the Greyfields. Their way of life didn’t appear as foreign to me as Lark’s and her friends—the Elite Eight. They seemed more like a normal family who probably just took better vacations and dined at better restaurants than most.

  Most importantly, nothing, not one digital breadcrumb, linked Lark Kingsley and Blake Greyfield. Considering that both were mentioned frequently in one capacity or another, it was an extremely impressive feat. But Lark was nothing if not careful, and had been just as efficient about covering her tracks with him as she was at hiding secrets and clues for me.

  Interestingly, I did stumble across several mentions of Lark’s involvement with another guy: Adam Ridell. He was the cookie-cutter prep school boy that I’d seen pictured in the Washington Post article about Lark’s disappearance. Photos of the duo showed a beautiful couple with matching good looks and an air about them that left no doubt that they were people who mattered. In the prom picture, the one in the article, Adam gazed upon Lark as only a guy in love does. The rest of the photos I found online were candid, with no posing, no camera-ready smiles, and they told a very different story. Their body language was all wrong for teenagers in love. The pair was obviously very close, but I had a very strong suspicion that romance played no part in whatever relationship existed between the diamond heiress and the Senator’s son.

  Though it wasn’t important enough to get sidetracked with now, at some point I needed to go through Lark’s journal and look for Adam’s name.

  After spending several hours perusing the internet, my eyes were beginning to ache and the persistent pounding in my head returned. I considered putting the cyber-stalking aside for the night and doing something mindless, like playing WordHero on my phone. But there were a couple more hits left, articles I had yet to look at, and I was desperate to accomplish something productive before the day was over.

  It had definitely been a busy one, between finding the claim ticket, trooping to Larry’s Pawn for the safety deposit box key, and discovering the box itself with the mysterious envelope addressed to Blake. Except, none of that actually progressed my search for Lark. As Asher so indelicately pointed out, none of the clues so far gave any indication to her whereabouts.

  Was it possible that this entire treasure hunt was supposed to culminate here, with me sending Blake this package? So that…what? So that he could go find her?

  That theory didn’t sit right with me. For one, Lark was a smart girl. There were certainly better, easier, more guaranteed ways to send Blake the envelope. Two, I still hadn’t solved all the clues yet. So far, I hadn’t found a combination lock or password protected site that ‘whistleblower’ unlocked. And I wasn’t finished with the journal yet. Lark had planted one clue in there. Maybe there was another? And last, but certainly not least, there was the passport with my name and picture, along with two cards bearing my name. If my sole purpose on this journey was to get the envelope to Blake, forged documents wouldn’t have been necessary.

  You could just open the envelope and see what’s inside for yourself, the devil on my shoulder whispered.

  If Lark had wanted you to read the contents, she would have left you instructions to do so, the angel on my other shouldered countered.

  “Well, damn,” I muttered. “Choices, choices.”

  Of course, I desperately wanted to know what was inside that envelope. And yet, I also desperately didn’t want to know.

  What can I say? I’m complex like that.

  The missing girl had let me into her life, showed me what it truly felt like to be Lark Kingsley. She’d shared Blake with me. The fears and pressures thrust upon her by a woman who would never win mother of the year. The father that she deeply revered and worried that she would never impress. The people whom she called friends, yet knew her no better than the doorman to her family’s Manhattan digs. Most of all, she’d asked me for help.

  Me.

  Not Blake.

  Which made the fact that there was now something she wanted to hide from me all the more curious.

  Torn between the devil and the angel, I toyed with the clear, plastic tape holding the flap on the back of the envelope closed.

  Is it so wrong to want a look?

  “Finish your search,” I ordered myself. “Then you can return to contemplating your moral ambiguity.”

  With that need for progress driving me, I returned my attention to the open laptop in front of me on the coffee table.

  The next hit on the list was a brief write-up on ESPN about college soccer.

  Wow, I thought. He’s doing so well. That’s incredible—ESPN knows who Blake is.

  Scanning the article, I slowed down when I saw a mention of his name. After reading the line once, I had to go back and read it again, confused. Beyond confused.

  “Sophomore Blake Greyfield of Georgetown University scored three goals in the season opener against Syracuse.”

  Sophomore Blake Greyfield?

  No, that wasn’t right. Blake should be a freshman. He was the same age as Lark. He’d been a senior at Rathbourne when she was a senior at Gracen. I was sure of it. And yet, this article claimed that Blake was a Sophomore when he’d only graduated high school three months ago.

  Typo, I told myself, brushing off the detail.

  The reporters who covered college soccer weren’t exactly known for Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalism. Or maybe it wasn’t a typo. It was always possible that Blake had enough AP credits to technically be considered a sophomore. A number of my high school classmates left our academic halls with at least one semester, if not two, of college credits under their belts.

  That’s definitely what it is, I decided.

  The pounding behind my eyes was steadily increasing. Spots of light began dancing at the edges of my vision and I went in search of the aspirin in the bathroom medicine cabinet. After swallowing two capsules with a handful of water from the faucet, I decided to call it a night.

  On the way back to the bedroom, I gave one last longing glance towards the living room where the envelope lay on the couch next to my laptop. After a brief moment of hesitation, I continued on, leaving the seal intact.

  “Tomorrow,” I announced to the empty apartment, “I’m heading over to Georgetown. I’m going to find Blake myself.”

  Before that moment, I hadn’t considered really going to track down Blake in the flesh. Cyberstalking was one thing. Actual stalking was just plain creepy.

  Except, I wasn’t doing it to be creepy—I was searching for his girlfriend.

  Plus, I had no intention of making contact with Lark’s mysterious boyfriend. It was just an urge that overcame me with no warning: I wanted to see him in person. Because Lark was so descriptive of her feelings and their time together in her journal, I felt…I felt like I knew him. Which, yes, was obviously a little weird. But my entire life was so far past weird at this point, I couldn’t stop to worry about things like that.

  So, yeah…I’m going to do this. I’m going to find Blake, I decided.

  How to find him among the vast sea of other preppy people in Georgetown—that was going to take some thought.

  To
morrow, I’d worry about that tomorrow.

  Unfortunately, no stroke of genius occurred while I was sleeping. On the plus side, I woke up in the same place I fell asleep—my bed—and didn’t have to spend my first waking moments confused, followed by an all-out panic. So, that was refreshing. Until the night I found the butterfly necklace in my car, it had been years since the last time I’d sleepwalked. Attempting to brush it off, I told myself it was stress. That I was stressed over finding Lark, but also stressed over devoting all of my time and energy to an activity that was above my pay grade when I wasn’t even getting paid. When I should have been finding a job and concentrating on building a life for myself.

  Deciding a little fresh air might give me a new perspective on the situation, I took my laptop and the Lark files to the nearest Starbucks for an overpriced cup of strong coffee and free WiFi. But even once I was wedged in between a woman with a double stroller and a truant teenager, I still had no clue how best to find Blake.

  On the one hand, I felt pretty certain that I’d recognize him once I saw him. But then again, going to Georgetown’s campus, wandering aimlessly, and hoping to stumble across Lark’s boyfriend didn’t seem the surest of plans. Given the size of the campus and number of students, success with that strategy was about as likely as wandering around Rome and happening upon the Pope. Not bloody likely. No, I needed a more concrete plan of attack.

  Taking a gulp of my rich peppermint mocha for good luck, I opened my laptop. The Google search I’d done the night before was still up on my browser, and I clicked one of the links at random. Unsure of what to do next, I stared blankly at my screen, now on Georgetown University’s homepage. It showed an eclectic mix of students sitting in a lecture hall, attention focused on the former First Lady standing at the front of the room.

  After staring at it for so long that I was lucky I hadn’t burned a hole in the screen, the picture gave me an idea. AP classes and credits replaced the Gen. Ed. Classes required of freshmen. Since Blake was apparently a sophomore, he’d likely be taking classes specific to his major. If I could figure out his major, all I had to do was sit outside that building or section of campus or whatever, and wait for Blake to show up.