Ruthless

“How now, what news?” she said.



Beau spun around and looked at her. “Hath he asked for me?”



Spencer gave him an annoyed look, as though he were actually her husband and yet again hadn’t listened to one word she’d said. “Know you not he has?”



Beau lowered his eyes and said that they must not discuss the murder any further—he couldn’t go through with it. Spencer stared at him, trying to put herself in Lady Macbeth’s position, as Beau had encouraged. Become one with Lady Macbeth. Put yourself in her place. Surrender to her problems.



And for Spencer, that meant: surrender to Tabitha. She had aided in Tabitha’s murder, after all. Her motives were different from Lady Macbeth’s, but it had accomplished the same end. “Was the hope drunk wherein you dress’d yourself?” she sputtered. “Hath it slept since? And wakes it now, to look so green and pale at what it did so freely?”



They continued to argue. Lady Macbeth told her husband that he wasn’t a man if he didn’t go through with the murder. Then she revealed her plan: get the king’s chambermaids drunk and kill him while they slept. Spencer tried to make the argument sound as logical as possible, feeling more and more connected to her character. She’d been the voice of reason with her friends that night in Jamaica, too, telling her friends Tabitha needed to be stopped. And when Aria pushed Tabitha off the roof, Spencer had been the one who rallied them together, telling them they’d done the right thing.



Suddenly, she noticed a flutter out of the corner of her eye and looked up. Standing beyond Beau, nearly translucent against the strong stage lights, was a blond girl in a yellow sundress. Her face was ashen and bloodless, her eyes were lifeless, and her head hung at a strange angle on her neck, as if it had been broken.



Spencer gasped. It was Tabitha.



Fear streaked through her. She glanced down at the floor, afraid to look in the corner again. Beau shifted on the stage, waiting for Spencer to deliver her final set of lines. Finally, she peeked across the stage where she’d seen the figure. Tabitha was gone.



Spencer straightened up. “Who dares receive it other, as we shall make our griefs and clamour roar upon his death?” she sputtered, clutching Beau’s hands. And Beau nodded, saying he was going to go through with the vile deed.



Thankfully, the scene was over after that. Spencer scuttled behind the curtain and collapsed on an old couch once used for a set, taking deep, desperate breaths as though she’d just swum the English Channel. Disaster. Pierre probably thought that long pause between lines was because she’d lost her place, not because she’d seen an apparition on the stage. She was probably out of the play for good. Maybe she should write to Princeton and forfeit to Spencer F. now. Her future was ruined.



Footsteps approached. “Well, well, well, Miss Hastings,” Pierre’s voice said above her.



Spencer drew her hands away from her face. Pierre’s waxy, made-up face looked delighted. “It looks like someone’s done her homework between then and now. Excellent job.”



She blinked at him. “Really?”



Pierre nodded. “I believe you’ve finally connected with Lady M. Loved the little shrieks, too. And you kept looking off into the distance, as though possessed. You might nail this part yet.”



Then Pierre pivoted on his heel and swished back to the stage. Beau ran toward Spencer, a huge smile on his face. “That was awesome!” he gushed, taking Spencer’s hands. “You’re really getting there!”



Spencer grinned weakly. “I thought I blew the whole thing. I acted like a spaz.”



Beau shook his head. “No, you were amazing.” He stared deeply into her eyes with such intensity that Spencer felt her cheeks get hot. “You really tapped into something scary inside yourself, didn’t you? I could tell.”



“Um, not really.” Spencer peered out beyond the curtain. There was still no one in the corner where Tabitha had stood. “You didn’t notice anyone watching backstage, did you?” she asked.



Beau looked around, then shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He squeezed her hands. “Anyway, I think with a few more practice sessions, you’ll be amazing. Let’s meet at your house next time. How about Thursday afternoon?”



“That sounds good,” Spencer said shakily. And then Beau leaned close, a shy look on his face. Spencer closed her eyes, certain he was going to kiss her lips, but then a faint whisper sounded in her ears.



Murderer.



She opened her eyes again and pulled away. The hair on her arms stood on end. “Did you just hear that?”



Beau looked around. “No . . .”



Spencer listened hard, but heard nothing else. Maybe it was her imagination. Or maybe, just maybe, it was something—someone—much more sinister than that.



A.



Chapter 19



THE BOOK THIEF



Later that same Tuesday night, Aria sat in a secluded nook at Wordsmith’s, the bookstore a block away from the Rosewood Day campus. Classical music tinkled over the stereo, and the place smelled like the freshly baked cookies from the bakery next door. But nothing smelled as good as Ezra’s cologne, which Aria was inhaling deeply as she snuggled next to him on the oversized loveseat in the café at the back of the store. It was daring for them to cuddle in broad daylight—Aria still thought of Ezra as her taboo, sexy teacher—but no Rosewood Day student came into Wordsmith’s unless they were forced to, and absolutely no one from school patronized the café. That was a holdover from the days when Real Ali was still alive—she had started a rumor that someone had found a whole finger in one of the brownies, and everyone, even upperclassmen, had banned the place. Four months into her relationship with Noel, Aria caught him sneaking into Wordsmith’s between classes, and he finally confessed that he had a major jones for the café’s cranberry nut muffins. Aria had loved him for going against the fray.



Wait. Why was she thinking about Noel right now? She straightened up and looked into Ezra’s ice-blue eyes. He was the guy she was with now.



She hefted Ezra’s manuscript out of her bag and plunked it onto the ottoman. “So I read the whole novel,” she announced with a smile. “And I loved it.”



“Really?” Relief flooded Ezra’s face.



“Of course!” Aria pushed it toward him. “But I was so . . . surprised at the subject matter.”



Ezra cupped his chin in his hand. “The subject matter is all I’ve been thinking about for the last year.”



“It was so . . . vivid,” Aria continued. “The writing was amazing—I felt like I was there.” Of course, she kind of had been there, but whatever. “I couldn’t believe the turn it took. And then the ending! Wow!”



At the end of the novel, Jack moved to New York City. Anita moved with him, and they lived happily ever after. Until a bizarre twist at the end: Jack was mailed anthrax spores from an unknown international terrorist and died. But even that was romantic: There were heartfelt scenes of Jack dying in the hospital, Anita at his side.



Then her gaze fell back to the novel. “So . . . how much of this did you want to be true, anyway?”



“I wanted all of it to be true,” Ezra answered, running his fingers up and down her arm. “Well, except for the anthrax part.”



Aria’s heart pounded, and she chose her next words carefully. “So . . . when Jack asks Anita to move to New York . . .” She trailed off, not able to look him in the eye.



Ezra’s voice grew intense. “I don’t want to be without you again, Aria. I would love it if you moved there with me.”



Aria’s eyes widened. “Really?”



Ezra leaned toward her. “I’ve thought about you so much this year. I mean, I wrote a book about you. You could come for the summer at first, see how you like it. You could get an internship, maybe, a job at an art gallery. And you applied to FIT and Parsons, right?” He didn’t even wait for Aria to nod. “If you get in—and I’m sure you will—that’s where you could go next year.”



All of a sudden, the overhead lights felt way too bright, and the oaky scent of wine made Aria’s head spin. She chanced an excited smile. “A-are you sure?”



“Of course I’m sure.” Ezra kissed her lips. Then he sat back and tapped the manuscript. “I want you to tell me everything you thought of it. Be honest.”



Aria pushed her hair behind her ears and tried to focus. “Well, I loved it. Every sentence. Every detail.”



“Surely there was something you didn’t like.”



The milk steamer switched on behind the counter, filling the café space with noise. “Well, I suppose there were a few things,” Aria said tentatively. “Like I’m not sure Anita should write Jack ten haikus—that seems a bit much. Just one or two would do, don’t you think? I certainly didn’t write you that many.”



Ezra frowned. “It’s called creative license.”



“True,” Aria said quickly. “And . . . well, I loved Jack, I really did. But why was he so obsessed with building model train vignettes in his bedroom?” She grinned and touched his lips lightly with her finger. “You would never have done something as dorky as that.”



Two sharp lines appeared on the sides of Ezra’s mouth. “The model train scenes he created were symbolic. They were of the life he wanted, the perfect life he couldn’t attain.”



Aria stared fixedly at the stack of papers in her lap. “Oh. Okay. I guess I didn’t understand that.”



“It seems like you didn’t understand a lot.”



His acidic tone made Aria’s heart drop. “You told me you wanted me to be honest,” she squeaked. “I mean, those things are so minor, really.”



“No, they’re not.” Ezra turned away from Aria, staring at an ad on the wall for filterless French cigarettes. “Maybe the book sucks, like all the agents said. Maybe that’s why no one wants to represent me. And here I hoped to be the new Great American Novelist.”



“Ezra!” Aria laid her palms flat on her thighs. “The book is awesome. I promise.” But when she tried to grab his hand, he pulled it away and curled it in his lap.



“Hallo?”



A shadow fell over them, and Aria looked up. Standing over the loveseat was Klaudia. She wore a fitted blouse unbuttoned just enough to show off her cleavage, and her Rosewood Day skirt was rolled up a few times at the waist to accentuate her long legs. A pair of dark-framed eyeglasses perched on her head, making her look like a naughty librarian.



Aria jumped so hard the manuscript fell off her lap and onto the floor. “W-what are you doing here?” She scrambled to pick up the pages and secure them with a rubber band.



Klaudia shaped her long blond hair into a ponytail. “I meet you here for art history project, remember?”



It took Aria a moment to remember their conversation in the library. “I said we should meet here tomorrow, not today.”



“Oops!” Klaudia covered her hand with her mouth. “My bad!” Her eyes flicked from Aria to Ezra. An intrigued smile spread across her face. “Hi there!”