Chapter 39
To Do:
- Invest in better bedtime restraints
- Send candidates screening test
Claire pacedin front of the whiteboard. Her footsteps echoed in the cavernous warehouse. “Thank you for joining me for another girls-only Code Purple. With your help, I’m going to infiltrate ESA’s meeting on Friday.”
Mindy raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“We’re coming with you. Obviously.” Mindy had trimmed a couple of inches off her burned hair and looked more beautiful than ever.
Claire sighed. “I had a feeling you’d say that. Fine. So, what I can’t figure out is how we’re going to spy on the meeting. Breaking into the house is too risky. We don’t know how many there are. And if we linger outside, any number of neighbors could see us and call the police. I’m thinking about shipping them some kind of surveillance device that could transmit what they’re saying to us, but what if they threw it away?”
Mindy shook her head. “The audio wouldn’t be admissible in court anyway. Can’t record them without their knowledge.”
Claire harrumphed.
Nicole glanced up from her laptop. “Spying is going to be the easy part. We’ll use the tunnels.”
Mindy and Claire stared blankly at Nicole.
“You know, the tunnels. The ones that run underneath all of campus and connect the buildings to West Haven’s underground bomb shelter? Built during the Cold War?”
Claire tilted her head. “This is literally the first time I’m hearing about them. Are you sure this is at Venor?”
Nicole sighed. “Come on, guys. I made you go on my tour sophomore year. Were you even paying attention?”
“She’s right,” Mindy said. She stopped tapping on her tablet. “In the basement of the chapel, there was a door that was padlocked shut. I always wanted to go fool around in there.”
Claire stopped pacing. “How do you know what the basement of the chapel looks like?”
“It’s where the practice rooms are. Band, remember?” Mindy was a surprisingly accomplished clarinetist.
Claire turned back to Nicole. “You’re sure they connect all the buildings on campus? Even the frats?”
Nicole nodded. “There was a framed map in the registrar’s office. ESA probably has a door in their basement.”
Claire added two items to the whiteboard—bolt cutters and dust masks. It was going to be an awkward trip to the hardware store.
“ESA doesn’t strike me as the kind of frat to leave a door bolted. So, we’ll have to hope that we can quietly break in through the basement door and then hear well enough from downstairs. Ugh, I never thought I’d spend another Friday night in a frat basement.” The smell of stale beer and body odor washed over her.
Nicole shrugged. “It’s our best option.”
Claire sighed. “I don’t love it, but it’ll have to do. Remember, no one tells the guys anything. We’re just having a normal, run-of-the-mill girls’ night.”
She bit her lip. She was already going back on her promise to be completely honest with Luke. But surely this was different. If he knew about the ESA meeting, he would probably handcuff her to the headboard to prevent her from leaving. If she could pull this off, she could find a way to get ESA out of her life forever and keep everyone she loved safe. There had to be exceptions to every rule. She’d tell him when it was over.
“At this point, this is a run-of-the-mill girls’ night. Is this our third stakeout this year?” Mindy raised her eyebrows.
“Whatever. Let’s meet back here tomorrow at seven.”
The sun was beginningto set as they pulled into the parking lot of Alabaster, a local coffee shop. Claire stared longingly at the espresso machine inside, but if she had one now, she would be up all night. Getting older sucked.
She unzipped the backpack for the millionth time. Bolt cutters, masks, and disposable gloves were still inside. She wasn’t sure exactly how many laws they were about to break, but surely they had collectively given Venor enough money to justify their actions.
“Ready?” Mindy said from the driver’s seat.
“Let’s do this.” Claire pulled on a new brunette wig and slid on a pair of glasses. Mindy donned a platinum blond wig and a Coach backpack, and Nicole paired her new waist-length black hair with a letterman jacket she had borrowed from Kyle.
They climbed out of the car and bent forward to examine their reflections in the window.
“Nothing to see here, just Chloe Patterson on her way to the library to study for the LSATs,” Mindy said.
“I like that you gave your character a backstory,” Claire said as she again applied a shade of lipstick that didn’t suit her.
They set off toward campus.
Mindy pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and adopted a Southern accent. “She just wants to save her family farm from the clutches of the evil land developers who want to pave over it and turn it into a mega strip club.”
“If the land developers were smart, they would leave it a farm and call it ‘The Hoe Down.’”
“It’s my backstory, Claire.”
“Sorry.”
They crossed an intersection and hit the eastern edge of campus. The chapel rose in front of them, a stately, three-story brick structure. Loud music thumped from one of the dormitories nearby. The ghost of the taste of cheap vodka seared Claire’s tongue.
“Are we really doing this?” Mindy whispered, staring up at the chapel.
“I have to. You guys don’t.” Claire looked at her foolishly dressed friends. “I told you from the beginning I’m completely fine with you guys staying home or being lookouts.”
“We’re not leaving you alone.” Nicole nudged her in the ribs.
“Or missing a chance to take down a bunch of woman-hating sociopaths,” Mindy added.
“Okay.” Claire turned to face the chapel. “Let’s do this.” She slid on a set of gloves and wrenched open the chapel door. “Mindy, lead the way.”
They wound their way down a narrow set of steps into the basement. It was eerily quiet. They passed the soundproof music rooms Mindy had mentioned and came to stand in front of a nondescript metal door with a padlock.
Claire glanced around. There didn’t seem to be any cameras down here. Hopefully, there weren’t any in the tunnels either. The last thing they needed was campus security blowing their cover. She pulled the bolt cutters from her backpack and clamped them onto the lock.
“Help me,” she whispered, and they all grabbed the bolt cutters. They grunted and squeezed until the shackle snapped in half. The padlock thunked onto the floor, and Claire tucked it in her backpack. There was no sense in leaving evidence behind.
Mindy pulled the door open. The tunnel walls were rock. Everything was damp and smelled like a cave. There was no light switch on the inside. Claire pulled flashlights out of her backpack and handed them to her friends. She clamped on a headlamp and turned it on.
“Only one way to go,” Nicole said, stepping inside. The hallway ended in a wall on their right. An abandoned tuba sat just inside the door on the left. They walked another couple of feet, and Claire nearly banged her shin off a cello case. Communion trays were stacked haphazardly on a lopsided table.
“It’ll be a miracle if we make it to ESA without breaking our ankles,” Mindy muttered as she climbed over an old TV.
“How are we going to know which door is theirs? These all look the same,” Claire said, gesturing at another identical metal door that evidently led to another campus building.
“My GPS is still working.” Nicole waved her phone in the air as she led the way. She was like Indiana Jones in a wig. “We should probably try to be quieter in case someone is outside one of these doors.”
They descended into silence as they weaved through the tunnels. They passed piles of old computers, overflowing file boxes, and a full-blown papier-maché dragon. Finally, after what felt like hours of walking, Nicole held up one hand. They stopped. In front of them was another metal door, and a blow-up sex doll lying face down in the corridor. Voices came from the other side of the door.
She touched her finger to her lips, and they crowded around the door. A soft light flickered through the crack in the frame. The three of them leaned in and pressed their ear to it. If someone jerked the door open, they would all fall into the frat and probably be murdered.
“I can’t believe someone tagged the house. I bet it was that bitch,” one voice said.
Claire’s heart thumped in her chest.
“But how would she know to put up that bullshit symbol? She’s not smart enough to figure out what we’re about,” a gruff voice answered.
Someone else spoke with measured pauses. “Gentlemen, welcome to your last meeting before you’re officially made members. It’ll be a short one. Each one of you has shown loyalty and commitment to the cause. Your training efforts with terrorizing Miss Hartley have been truly heartwarming. You’ve mastered the basics of intimidation, all the way up to internationally coordinated threats and explosions. Well done, gentlemen.”
Mindy’s knuckles cracked. Claire nudged her.
“But before you can become an official brother, you must prove yourselves.”
“How do we do that?” a deep voice asked.
“Our two most sacred duties as members of Epsilon Sigma Alpha are identifying women who have opportunities they do not deserve or are unsuitable for and restoring the natural order. Your initiation ritual will be your first chance to pay homage to our practices and figure out your strengths. You, collectively, will be assigned a target,” the guy that seemed to be in charge answered.
Claire exchanged a worried glance with Mindy and Nicole. Were they finally going to come for her?
“Who’s our target?” someone new asked.
There was the sound of a latch being undone and a shuffling of papers.
“She is your target. She is a business owner and, even worse, has been identified as a manipulator of local male officials. She’s not a high priority, which is why we’re saving her for the new recruits. However, every target is important. Each win brings us closer to restoring order.”
“What’s her name?”
“Wendy Flutter.”
Holy shit.
Claire’s mouth dropped open. Mindy flailed her hands beside her.
“What do we do with her?” another voice asked.
“You have twenty-four hours to find Miss Flutter and bring her here. Tomorrow night at ten p.m., we’ll show you what the eradicators do. And, as always when you’re in public, remember your cover. You are a member of Epsilon Sigma Alpha, a fraternity with unparalleled requirements for GPA and community service. You are bold, you are righteous, you are alpha. Go in justice.”
There was a shuffling on the other side of the door, and footsteps padded across the concrete floor. The flickering light went out. There was silence. Claire’s heart was going to beat its way right out of her body.
“Do you think it’s safe to go?” Mindy whispered.
The door opened.
They leapt away from the opening. A man walked into the corridor and blinked in surprise.
Claire grabbed Taser #3 from her purse and fired it. The prongs jumped the short distance in the blink of an eye. The ESA member went rigid and started to fall forward. Mindy nudged the sex doll over to break his fall, then hit him in the head with a hardcover romance novel from her purse.
Something rolled out of his pockets. Claire shined the beam of her flashlight over it. It was an expensive-looking silver pen, identical to the one she had found in the woods. She shuddered.
Nicole eased the door shut, then they turned and ran like hell. Claire made it about eight feet before jerking backward like a caught fish. Her heart leapt into her throat.
“Shit! The prongs are still stuck in him.”
Mindy whipped open her purse and pulled out cuticle scissors. She snipped the wires.
“Wait!” Claire called. An idea had struck her. She pulled out her tube of unflattering lipstick and uncapped it.
“Claire, what the hell are you doing?” Nicole hissed. “We need to go.”
Claire leaned over to the wall and dragged the lipstick across the surface. She glanced nervously at the body on the ground, but he didn’t move. Mindy must have really clocked him.
“Done!” She stepped back and admired her handwork.
TKE RULES
“Smart to try to blame it on another frat, but why would a TKE brother have lipstick?” Mindy whispered.
“Never mind. Let’s go.” They followed the beams of flashlights down the hallway all the way back to the chapel. Claire turned around no fewer than seventy-two times, but no lumbering ESA brother followed them. They snuck back through the basement and outside without incident. Once they had piled into Mindy’s car, they let out a collective sigh of relief.
“So. Wendy,” Nicole said. There was a cobweb in her wig.
“Right. Option A: we let them take her,” Mindy offered as she turned the car on. Air conditioning and pop music blasted simultaneously.
“We can’t let them kill her. Can we?” Nicole said thoughtfully.
Claire sighed. They had no choice. “You know what we have to do.”
“Call the police and let them handle it?” Nicole suggested.
“No. We have to kidnap her first.”