Born Under a Blond Sign Read online

  “Well, if he’s as into parties as Karen said, there will be. It’s 8:30 on a Thursday evening. That’s prime college party time.”

  “But what if there isn’t?” she said.

  I shrugged. “Then we make a party.”

  Brigit gave me a disbelieving look.

  She didn’t think I could make a party? “Look in my bag,” I said, holding it open for her.

  She did. “You brought bourbon. So?”

  “So, that’s a party,” I said, smiling.

  * * *

  “Mason,” I said, throwing my arms around him when he opened the door. “How the fuck are you?”

  He hugged back. “Not drunk enough.” He pulled back. “Uh… I forget your name.”

  “Ivy,” I said. “No problem. Last time we hung out, I was blitzed out of my mind.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he said, grinning. “What are you doing here?”

  “Aren’t you having a party?”

  “Uh…” He looked behind himself into his dorm. “Well, you know, after that thing with Gilbert Pike, I’ve been thinking—”

  “Hey, come on,” I said. “We got to do this in the memory of those lives that were lost that day. They wouldn’t want us to stop having fun on their account. We need to party twice as hard, just for them.”

  Mason considered.

  I pulled out the bottle of bourbon and held it out.

  He grinned. “All right, you’ve convinced me. Come on in.” He stepped aside to let us into his dorm room. Since it was one of the suite-style rooms, we entered into the kitchen area, but I could see over the breakfast bar into the living room area. No one was there, but there were bottles of liquor set up on shelves beside the couch. Lots of bottles.

  Mason stepped out of the door, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed from the bottom of his lungs, “Parrrr-teee!”

  Brigit glared at me. “I hate you.”

  I just smiled.

  “Seriously,” she said. “You are way too old for this. Doesn’t anyone besides me notice that?”

  “It’s college, Brigit. People go back to college at all ages of their lives. My being here is not as weird as you think.”

  “I do,” she said. “Hate you.”

  But people were starting to show up at Mason’s door, coming inside carrying six-packs of beer or bottles of vodka or both.

  I slapped Brigit on the back. “Look, let’s split up. You start trying to feel people out on Gilbert, and I’ll do the same. Maybe you’ll find out something that I couldn’t.” I was feeling magnanimous in my victory. Since I’d made her look a little silly, I wanted to offer her the chance to save face.

  She shook her head at me one last time, and then she slid past me to start mingling with the party-goers.

  * * *

  “Dude, I have never been more surprised about anything in my life,” said my new friend Ryder, who kept sort of hitting on me, even though I was way too old for him. He and I were standing in the kitchen together, each with a beer in our hands. It was nearly three in the morning, but the party was still going strong. “I didn’t think Gil would ever do something like that.”

  “Yeah, it’s crazy, right?” I shook my head.

  “Did you know him?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I met him once in town at The Remington, but that’s all.”

  “Oh, well, he was seriously one of the nicest guys I ever met,” said Ryder. “Really chill, you know? Not the least bit the kind of person who’d do something like that.”

  “I keep hearing that,” I said. “So, um, were you in the dorm when it happened? I understand there was a big party.”

  “Not that big,” said Ryder. “It was Monday afternoon. Only a few people are die-hard enough for that shit. And I am not one of them. No, I was in class. But it happened in my bedroom.”

  “Wait, you live with Mason?”

  “Yeah, I’m Mason’s roommate. Didn’t you know that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I thought you were at our old dorm before.”

  “I was wasted.”

  “Yeah, people are always wasted when they’re at one of these parties.” He grinned at me. “Anyway, the police had it all curtained off as a crime scene for two days, and all my shit was covered in blood and stuff.” He said this in the same tone that a guy might talk about how much weight he could lift or something. He was bragging, and he expected me to be impressed.

  Oh, college boys. They were so simple and yet so appealing.

  Ryder was easy on the eyes. Curly brown hair, smiling eyes, thick fingers.

  I’d been drinking all night, and I was thinking about how I probably needed to let off some steam. Needed to get laid. I hadn’t gone home with anyone in a while, and I was probably going to go through withdrawal or something if I didn’t—

  But I was working. Working.

  Unfortunately, my work now called for me to flirt a little bit. I put my hand over my mouth, feigning shock. “That’s awful.”

  He shrugged. “It sucked, I guess. I had to get a lot of new stuff, like clothes and things.”

  “That must have been terrible.”

  “Yeah, I was kind of upset about it. Not really the clothes and stuff, but just the fact that it happened and all. I could have used a shoulder to cry on or whatever. Hell, maybe I could still use a shoulder.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “A blond shoulder.”

  I was beginning to realize that Ryder was only offering this information to me to try to get close to me. It was a silly college boy way of getting girls in bed by preying on their sympathies. But I didn’t want to go to bed with him. Well… The point was, he wasn’t going to manipulate me in that way. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “So, how close were you to Gilbert?”

  “Uh, not that close.” Ryder looked a little confused by the fact that I had changed the subject instead of falling all over him. He cocked his head to one side.

  “Stop it,” I said. “I’m way too old for you. Don’t give me that puppy dog look, like you can’t understand why I’m not swayed by your charms.”

  Ryder blushed. “Sorry. I guess I thought…”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just curious about the shooting, honestly.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, I kept some of the stuff. With the blood. If you want to see them, they’re back in my room.”

  Was this an attempt to get me back in his bedroom? Nah, I’d shut that down, hadn’t I? Besides, he could have his pick of young girls at this party. He couldn’t be that interested in me. “Okay,” I said.

  He led me back the hall to his room.

  It looked like all the other dorm bedrooms I’d seen recently. Just like Gilbert’s. Same furniture but arranged differently.

  Ryder shut the door behind me. “I think it’s really cool that you’re still hanging out here and partying, even though you’re, um, more mature than the rest of us.”

  I arched an eyebrow. What the hell was that all about?

  “I heard they were doing drugs in here,” I said. “Is that true?”

  “It’s just,” he said, “I don’t want to let the world suck me dry. Most people, they graduate from college, they start working, and then they never do stuff like this anymore. They don’t stay up drinking until three in the morning. There’s no adventure in their lives. But you… you’ve still got it.”

  I shook my head, smiling a little. That wasn’t really how it was. This kid didn’t understand at all. He didn’t realize how young he was, how much boundless energy he had. He didn’t realize that a “full load” of college courses amounted to a part-time job with a little bit of homework, so of course he had time to party like crazy. Once he got out into the workforce and worked an actual forty-hour week, then we’d see how much adventure he had in his life. I went out drinking because… because my life was shit. If I had the things most people had at my age—a family or a husband for instance—I wouldn’t do this. I was all alone, and it was
what I did to numb myself to my reality. But he didn’t get that. Not at all. And there wasn’t any reason to explain it to him. So, I just nodded. “Yeah, that’s me, all right. Adventurous.”

  “I can tell,” he said. “We read this poem in one of my English classes and it was all about how you should seize the day. The last line was like, ‘Even though we can’t make the sun stand still, we’ll make him run.’ Or something. I don’t know. Anyway, the point is, that’s how I want to live my life. Racing the sun. When I’m your age, I want to be making the sun run. You know?”

  I just smiled. College guys were given to fits of philosophy, especially when drunk. Unfortunately, it was kind of making me want to sleep with him.

  “Plus, you know,” he said, “you’re really hot.”

  “You didn’t keep bloody clothes in here,” I said.

  “No.” He stepped close to me.

  I shut my eyes. “My friend. I came with a friend, and she’ll want to leave—”

  “She’s passed out on the couch,” he said.

  I opened my eyes. “No, she’s not.”

  He reached up to stroke my cheek. “You can go look if you want. But only if you promise to come right back here.”

  I grasped his wrist. “Stop that,” I said, but my voice wasn’t strong. I was working, and I shouldn’t do this. I needed to find out about the case, not get distracted by this guy, who was admittedly gorgeous but also not the least bit important at the moment.

  “Do you ever hook up with guys my age?”

  I looked into his eyes. My mouth was dry.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Ivy,” a voice was saying. “Ivy wake up.”

  I didn’t know who was talking to me, but I was pretty sure it was way too damned early to wake up. I tried to pull the covers up over my head, and that was when I realized that I wasn’t in my own bed, because the sheets didn’t feel right.

  I opened my eyes.

  Brigit was glaring down at me. She looked awful. Her hair was messy. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her clothes were rumpled and slept in.

  I, on the other hand, was naked and lying next to naked Ryder on his narrow bed. The only thing between Brigit and my nudity was a thin sheet.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Shh!” I said. “You’ll wake Ryder.”

  “You have got to be kidding—”

  “Wait outside,” I said. “I’ll get dressed, and we’ll get out of here.”

  She turned on her heel and stalked out.

  Miraculously, Ryder didn’t wake up as I was finding all of my clothing, and he was lying on top of my bra. I got dressed as quickly as I could.

  Then I met Brigit in the hallway.

  Ugh. I hated the way she was looking at me. I felt sick to my stomach, awash in shame. Sleeping with that kid? It had been nice. I had enjoyed it. He was energetic and a good kisser and he made me come at least three times. But I knew that it wasn’t appropriate. And I knew I shouldn’t need to sleep with him.

  Brigit threw a disgusted look at me, and then she started walking out of the dorm ahead of me. I followed her, feeling dejected.

  Once we got to the sidewalk outside the building, she turned to look at me. I expected her to yell, but her voice was soft. “And you think you don’t have a problem with drinking?”

  “Drinking?” I said. “You’re the one who passed out on the couch. If anyone needs to understand her limits with alcohol, it’s you.” Then I hung my head. “Sorry, Brigit. I shouldn’t lash out. The thing is, I never wanted you to see me like that.”

  “I’ve seen you drunk a zillion times, Ivy.”

  “Not drunk,” I said.

  “Then what?”

  I rubbed my face. “Let’s walk, okay? We’ll walk, and I’ll tell you everything, and then I’ll buy you breakfast.”

  She nodded.

  I started to walk.

  She fell into step with me.

  “The reason I got kicked off the police force was not that I was drinking too much. I don’t have a problem with drinking.”

  “You keep saying that, but after what I just witnessed this morning, I can’t believe you would say that. That guy was like half your age. How drunk do you have to be—”

  “Half my age? How old do you think I am?”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. “Whatever. He was too young for you. And besides, with everything going on with you and Miles, why would you do something to screw that up?”

  “They kicked me off the force for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’ or more specifically, having an affair with a married man during work hours, using my work cell phone. Thing is, it wasn’t so much an affair as it was a fling. He just wanted it to go on, so he kept calling and harassing me.”

  “So, they fired you because of that? That doesn’t seem fair. Did they fire him?”

  “Well, they couldn’t,” I said. “He didn’t work for the police department. He was a lawyer in town.”

  “Oh.”

  “And it wasn’t really that incident that was the whole reason they fired me. It was just the incident that provided some evidence they could use to get rid of me. See, the whole time that I worked for the department, I had this sort of… reputation.”

  “Oh,” said Brigit in a different voice.

  I walked faster.

  She picked up the pace.

  “They referred me to a psychologist at one point. They said they thought I had a sex addiction. In fact, everyone said that. When I got fired, there was a story in a newspaper that had the headline, ‘Sex Addict Kicked Off Force.’ People just threw that word around. I guess it was nicer than calling me a whore or a nymphomaniac or something, but only slightly.”

  “And are you?” said Brigit. “Are you a sex addict?”

  “No,” I said.

  We were quiet.

  The only sound was our footsteps on the sidewalk. We were walking around the tennis courts on campus. In a few minutes, we’d cross the lawn in front of Sorrel Hall and then we’d be able to cross to the main street of Keene and go to the Sunshine Skillet for breakfast. My stomach rumbled.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Sort of. Only in the sense that I don’t seem to be able to stop doing it, and I don’t really always like the fact that I do.”

  “I think that’s a textbook definition of an addiction, Ivy,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Well… maybe I don’t want to stop, okay? I mean, maybe sometimes it’s bad. Maybe sometimes I do things like sleep with serial killers—”

  “You slept with Ralph the Hatchet?”

  “Maybe,” I muttered.

  “Ivy, that’s awful.”

  “Yeah, a little bit awful.”

  “You are a sex addict.”

  I sighed.

  We walked.

  I didn’t contradict her.

  * * *

  I hadn’t forgotten the fact that I was supposed to be looking into Kent Mercer, the very-probably-married guy that Brigit was into. But after the disastrous night on campus, it seemed even more important. After breakfast, I sent Brigit home and told her to take the day off. She looked pretty rough, anyway, and she was more than a little hungover. I, however, was used to working after a night of debauchery, so I came in to the office.

  First things first: Kent Mercer.

  I started by calling my friend Eden Foxcroft. Eden had been my roommate in college, and she was probably my best friend, even though we didn’t talk all that often. Eden was a computer hermit. She had an active social life, but most of it was online, so she didn’t leave her house much. She was also a data genius. She conducted some kind of business from her home. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it seemed to be paying her bills.

  When I called her, it was usually so that she could do her computer wizardry and get me information for whatever case I was working on. But since there weren’t a lot of other local private investigators, I really didn’t think the bulk of her work came from private eyes. I didn’t kno
w how she made ends meet, and I didn’t really care. She was my friend, and she was always there when I needed her.

  “Hi Ivy,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to find out everything you can find out about a Kent Mercer.”

  “Missing persons case?”

  “Actually, I’m looking into some guy that Brigit might want to date,” I said. “It’s kind of a favor for her, but don’t worry, I’ll pay you your standard rate for helping me out.”

  “Yes, Ivy,” said Eden sarcastically, “I’m very worried about the money. You know me.”

  “I’m only saying,” I said. “I wouldn’t take advantage of you like that.”

  “We’re friends,” she said. “You’re not taking advantage. So, what’s up with this guy? Why are you looking into him?”

  “He might be married.”

  “I can check that pretty quick,” she said. “Let me call you back.”

  I hung up the phone and looked around the office. It seemed awfully quiet without Brigit around. Fluffy wasn’t even making noise upstairs.

  Damn it, I had promised myself not to call that damned dog Fluffy. It was an insulting name. If that dog were my dog, I would call her…

  I thought about it.

  Regan, I decided. It meant queen, and if she were my dog, I would treat her like royalty. Because dogs were meant to be respected. After all, we’d bred the wild out of them. Thousands of years of selective breeding had turned them into an animal that could have fended for itself into something that needed our protection. We owed dogs. We’d screwed them up, and only for our own pleasure.

  Not that I was really a bleeding heart for animals or anything.

  Anyway, Regan was not upstairs making any noise.

  And then I went into a panic that the ASPCA had come and taken her away already, and that she was in some pound somewhere, practically on the chopping block.

  I reached for my phone to call and ask if they’d taken her away.

  And the phone rang.

  I picked it up. “Hello?’

  “You okay?” said Eden’s voice. “You sound a little breathless? You running laps up there or something?”