“I bet you could slip right in if you left all your stuff with me. They’re stopping people at the door to check their bags and drinks.” My tone was even, and slightly conspiratorial.
I’m being helpful. I’m being helpful. I’m being helpful.
The mantra played in my head and hopefully translated into my smile. Haley might be able to read people, but she was playing my game now, even if she didn’t know it.
“Yeah, that would be great. I just heard someone say that they’re about to rope it off for the night.”
“Hmm.” I stuffed a bacon-wrapped scallop into my mouth and gestured to the floor where my purse was thrown at my feet.
Haley’s bag and coat joined mine and she marched into the crowd without looking back. Bingo.
CHAPTER 40
MY HEARTBEAT QUICKENED as time seemed to slow. I measured my breaths and watched Haley slip behind the black curtain into the exhibit. There wasn’t a way for me to tell how long she’d be in there, but I doubted it would be more than a few minutes; people were being cycled through quickly to accommodate as many guests as possible.
Casually setting my drink and appetizers on the ground, I located my real phone and pulled out Haley’s from the bottom of her bag. I unlocked it and tapped her contacts. The screen lit up with a short list.
AB
BC
ES
EW
Fire Alarm
GG
JL
KQ
OV
SA
SH
TK
They weren’t first names, but initials. I could tell because my own—EW—were listed as were Gretchen’s. I drew a stuttering breath. Every member of the Red Court was here in my hand. A small, irrational voice inside screamed at me to run, to grab the phone and make a break for it. If I worked fast enough, I might be able to find out who they all were before Haley could clean up after me. Or take me out entirely.
No, that was too risky. This was the kind of job that required the finesse of a scalpel, not a wrecking ball like with Matthew. I didn’t need to be taught the same lesson twice. With another quick look at the exhibit’s curtain and the stream of people filing out, I took pictures of every contact name and number with my phone. When I had them all, I opened Haley’s text messages and captured photos of those as well. By far the most texts she had were with the Fire Alarm. They messaged each other daily with updates on other Red Court members, requests for jobs, and miscellaneous comments on everything from the principal’s bad tie choices to whatever the weird smell was coming from the boys’ locker room. My first thought was: they’re friends. The second was: How could I use this? I was surprised by how much the former hurt and how much the latter bothered me.
My internal alarm clock reminded me that now wasn’t the time to examine my conscience. Before I could put the phone away, I caught my own name in the text message chain between Haley and the Fire Alarm. Without time to read it, I blindly snapped more photos. A swish of bright blond hair flashed in the corner of my eye. I was out of time.
Scrambling to toss everything back into our bags, I knocked over Haley’s wine. The liquid spilled from the shattered glass in a ruby-red pool. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Party foul!” A teasing voice rang out from a woman in front of me. All I could see from my position on the ground were her purple combat boots. She had better be gone by the time I sorted this out or she’d find herself with her shoelaces tied together.
My breath came in a hitch. I had two seconds at best to put away our phones and get the mess under control before anyone looked too closely at the teenage girl who made it.
“Ember?” Haley’s voice came from behind the woman with the boots. Bless Purple Combat Boots for being too stubborn to get out of the way.
If I couldn’t hide the evidence of my spying, I had to destroy it. Standing abruptly, I purposefully slipped in the wine and kicked our stuff to the side in my efforts not to fall—which I did anyway, landing hard on my butt. My hand roared in pain as a shard of glass sliced across my palm.
In a moment, Haley was by my side picking me up and gathering our stuff.
“Oh my God! Do you need help?” Purple Combat Boots asked. “I’ve never seen anyone actually slip in wine before.” Her eyes were wide, but she stood there smirking at me like I was an amusing anecdote she could tell all her friends.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I muttered and turned toward the bathroom.
I was already washing my hand when Haley eventually followed me into the ladies’ room.
She set our bags and coats down on the counter with a thud. “What was that?”
“Sorry. I accidentally spilled your drink and kind of panicked. The whole point of tonight was to play it cool. Nothing like falling on your ass to get people to notice you.”
I hissed as the soap stung the cut. It didn’t seem very deep, but it still hurt like hell.
“Do you need stitches or a hospital or...”
Haley was pointedly not looking in my direction as she rambled.
“I’m fine. I just need to get this cleaned up. If I keep pressure on it for a bit, it will probably stop bleeding.”
Haley fiddled with a chip in the tile wall, still not looking my way.
“Are you... You’re not afraid of a little blood, are you?”
She scoffed. “That was not a little blood. It looked like a crime scene out there.”
I waved her away and grabbed a few more paper towels to wrap my hand. “That’s nothing. I once sliced my arm open a good six inches when I fell off a trampoline.”
Haley’s head fell forward to rest against the cool tile. “Don’t talk about it,” she moaned.
“Wow. I didn’t know you were such a baby.”
Blood didn’t scare me. What scared me were the scars you couldn’t see. The hurt people kept hidden under smiling faces. Cuts could be stitched, and bones could be mended, but healing a mangled heart was another thing entirely.
“Lots of people are squeamish about blood,” she whispered between deep breaths.
“And lots of people are babies.”
She gave me a rude gesture and I laughed softly to myself. Why couldn’t Haley and I have met under different circumstances? We might have been friends.
Once I’d cleaned myself up, I collected my bag from Haley and we headed back out into the museum. Someone, probably Ethan, had already cleaned up the mess and a CAUTION WET FLOOR sign was all that was left of my brawl with the wineglass. Sorry, Ethan.