Long May She Reign (37 page)

Juliana and Tammy exchanged disapproving glances.

The Secret Service wasn't thrilled about it, either, and more than once, they had appeared at her house to “interview” her, until Meg had finally gotten her mother to convince them to knock it off already, that it was only Beth.

Juliana frowned. “It's usually not the same user name.”

Meg nodded. “I know. She changes it, for fun, but she leaves me a little clue in there.” Some obscure, but unmistakable, reference to their past. “And you know how another post always pops up right away, saying something like, ‘Yeah, I saw her there, too, that shameless hussy!'”

“Oh, no,” Juliana said, catching on with admirable speed.

Tammy looked puzzled. “‘Oh, no' what?”

Meg grinned and pointed at herself.

“Oh,
no
,” Tammy said. Gasped, actually. “That's awful. You
confirm
the rumors?”

Yep. And boy, did it ever piss off certain uptight White House and security types. Meg nodded cheerfully.

Juliana laughed. “Then, you're right—you are a shameless hussy.”

They were on their way outside, when Paula listened intently to something in her earpiece, then raised a hand to stop her.

“Meg, would you mind diverting back inside?” she asked, her voice abrupt.

For a second, Meg was just confused, but then she was so scared that she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to get her breath. “Is it my mother? Is she all right?”

“She's fine,” Paula said, sounding distracted as she listened to whatever report she was getting. “Please just go back inside for now.”

Suddenly afraid that she might be about to faint, Meg had to lean against the side of the entrance for support. “Is it my father?” she asked, almost not recognizing her own voice. “Or my brothers? Are they okay?”

Kyle came over to take her arm and usher her into the building. “They're all fine. But we have a security concern at the dorm, and we'd like to keep you away from there until we can address it.”

Oh, God. Someone must have shown up there to try and hurt her—and hurt someone
else
, instead. Oh, God. It was snowing pretty hard, but even from here, she could see bright lights, and what seemed to be a crowd of people gathering near the Frosh Quad. Oh, God.

“Meg,” Kyle said, very firmly, as he tried to move her from where she was standing. “Please come with me. This has nothing to do with you at all. It's a situation involving Susan McAllister.”

Which made no sense at all.

“Damn it,” Juliana said, very quietly. “I knew this was going to happen.”

Which made even less sense. Meg frowned. “What are you—”

“I meant Dowd,” Kyle said impatiently. “Susan Dowd.”

Meg stared at him. “They hurt
Susan
?” Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ. Susan was smaller—and not crippled, but they both had brown hair, and some psycho must have mistaken her for—

“God, poor Susan,” Juliana said, and hurried up the walkway, almost running, as she headed towards the crowd, Tammy right behind her.

“Meg,” Kyle said, tightening his grip on her arm. “Go inside. Now.”

The
hell
she would. “Juliana, wait up!” she yelled, twisting free and starting to limp after them. “I can't move as fast as you can.”

“All right, all right, just come on,” Juliana said, without slowing down.

“Meg,” Kyle said, as he and Paula effortlessly kept pace with her. “I'm really going to have to insist that—”

She ignored him, limping as quickly as she could, and trying not to slip in the snow, which was close to impossible. As they got closer, she realized that the lights were television lights, and that most of the people in the crowd were reporters and photographers, although campus and local police officers were starting to join the group, too.

“What the hell's going on?” she asked Juliana, out of breath. “Is she—” Christ, she couldn't be, could she? “—having a press conference or something?”

Juliana scowled at her. “What, are you a complete idiot, Meg? This is the last thing she wanted. They never should have made her be your damned JA.”

What? Why did everyone else seem to know what was going on? “What are you talking about?” Meg asked. “She's upset she got chosen, and so she's going public about it?” Christ, if she'd been asked to pick the person on campus who was the least likely ever to betray her, Susan would almost definitely have been her first guess.

“The
murders
, Meg,” Juliana said. “Wake up, for Christ's sakes!”

Had she walked into some kind of psycho parallel universe or something? This made absolutely no sense. She looked over at Tammy, who was also glowering at her. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I really don't understand.”

Juliana whirled around as though she was
very seriously
considering decking her. “What the hell's your problem, Meg, you're supposed to be smart. That's Susan
McAllister
. The Boston Prep School Murders? Any of this ringing a damn bell yet?”

No. It wasn't. The Boston Prep School Murders had been a famous criminal case a few years earlier—right around the time of the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, actually. A group of rich kids at some ritzy private school over in Cambridge had flipped out on drugs, and a couple of other students—including the blond debutante valedictorian—had gotten killed. They would have gotten away with it, except that—oh, Jesus. The bell suddenly rang—clanged, banged,
slammed
—and Meg literally stumbled back a step or two.

“Oh my God,” Meg said. Talk about being stupid. Susan had looked familiar when they first met, because she fucking
was
familiar. From television and newspapers. Jesus. “She's the friend.” The valedictorian's best friend. “The one who—” Had gone after the murderers and damned near gotten killed herself in the process. The story had ruled the Boston—and national—tabloids for months—except that the Presidential candidacy of a certain Massachusetts senator was getting a hell of a lot of ink, too, and— “Oh, my God.”

Juliana and Tammy were looking at her as though she was completely crazy.

“You mean—you didn't know?” Juliana asked.

Did they think she was some kind of selfish
monster
? Meg shook her head. “Christ, Juliana. You really think I would have let her keep being my JA, if I had?
Of course
it was going to come out.” The only surprising part was that it had taken them this long to latch on to it.

They were close enough now so that Meg could see Susan surrounded by the reporters, looking overwhelmed—and scared—to the point of complete paralysis.

Which sent a wave of such blinding fury through her that she actually felt a white haze come over her vision, and a violent heat rise up into her face.

“Oh, those rotten sons-of-bitches,” she said. Kyle and Paula—and Brian and Ed—were trying to guide her in the other direction, but she shook them off, slammed her cane onto the ground as hard as she could, and waded into the crowd without it. “What's going on?” she asked, making sure her voice projected enough to cut through the barrage of invasive questions they were throwing at Susan.

If the mood of the press had been eager and excited before, now it was downright
electric
, as though her timely appearance had promptly tripled the scope of the story.

“We're taking you both into the dorm now,” Kyle said through his teeth. “Do
not
argue with me, just—”

“What, you want to help, Kyle?” she asked, so enraged that everything, and everyone, seemed blurry. “Fine. Start shooting the bastards.”

Paula moved even closer than she had already been. “Meg, cameras,” she hissed in her ear. “Filming.”

“Good,” Meg said. Okay,
snarled
. “That means, we can tape the carnage, and watch it over and over.” Then, she saw Hannah Goldman standing near the back of the group, looking acutely uncomfortable, and felt—if such a thing were possible—twice as angry. “
You're
here?” she said directly to her. “What's the matter with you? If you have any damn sense at all, you'll walk away.”

Ms. Goldman looked uneasy, uncertain—and embarrassed, especially when the rest of the press turned to focus on her.

“
Walk away
, Hannah,” Meg said. “I might be a public figure, but she isn't. It isn't news. Walk away.”

They looked at each other for a long minute, and then, Ms. Goldman suddenly nodded, turned around, and headed for the street. The rest of the reporters and camerapeople didn't seem to know how to react to this—but none of them made any attempt to leave.

In the meantime, Susan was just standing in the exact same spot, looking dazed.

“Jose! Brian!” Meg said—barked, really—to two of her agents, who were making their way towards her, trying to create a space through the surging crowd. “Take Susan and Juliana and Tammy inside. I'll be there in a minute.”

Susan was apparently a little shell-shocked, because she was very slow to react when Brian gestured for her to follow him. Meg forced her way over there—some television guy damn near cracking her across the face with his camera as he swung around to film her; Kyle knocking him onto his back in the snow in response—and rested her good hand on Susan's arm.

“Susan, I am incredibly sorry about this,” she said. “I don't think I'll ever be able to
express
how sorry I am. Go with Brian, okay?”

Susan snapped out of it then, nodded once, and let them hustle her into the dorm, along with Juliana and Tammy. Seconds later, Brian and Jose were back outside, along with Garth and Dave, clearing the way for her to go in, too. A fair number of students had stopped to see what was going on, and even more campus security and police officers were arriving, to help her agents try to control the scene.

“All right,” Meg said, and despite the number of people swarming around, jostling for position, it got very quiet. Hushed, really. “Listen up. I'm going to give you a statement, and it's the only one I am ever going to make about this. So,
write it down
.”

If nothing else, she definitely had their full attention. The college president's house was over on the other side of the student center, and he must have heard all of the commotion outside, because she could see him striding towards them, coatless despite the weather.

“I'm aware that, due to circumstances entirely beyond my control, I've become extremely well known,” Meg said. God-damn
famous
. Infamous. Whatever. “And, although I find it very unpleasant, insofar as trying to lead any kind of normal life is concerned, I suppose the argument could be made that a moderate level of media coverage is justified. But, Susan Dowd—” No, not Dowd, apparently. “Susan McAllister is a private citizen. Every single student, and employee, on this
campus
is a private citizen. They won't be news today, they won't be news tomorrow, they won't
ever
be news, just because I happen to be a student here. I am completely disgusted that you all would feel the need to invade the privacy of any member of the Williams community, for any reason, forget a situation as sordid and exploitive as this one is.”

Boy, it was quiet. She felt a little tremor of stage fright, and panic, and had to swallow.

“And I think I'll leave it at that.” She looked at the college president. “I'll turn it over to you now, sir.”

As he nodded, and started making some very similar, albeit probably more eloquent, remarks to the reporters, Meg walked, as steadily as possible, to the door of her entry and went inside.

Christ almighty.

What a nightmare.

22

WHEN THE DOOR
had closed behind her, Garth and Brian posted themselves in front of it, blocking any possible view the cameras might have, and she sank down onto the stairs, noticing now that she was trembling horribly and that her knee hurt like hell. In fact, her knee was—
fuck
, it really hurt.

Kyle took a step in her direction, and she shook her head.

“Not now,” she said, hearing her voice shake even more than her hands were.

He was obviously almost as furious as she was, but he nodded and stepped back.

“You don't look very good. Are you hurt?” Paula asked, bending down next to her. “Do you need to go to the hospital?”

She shook her head, even though she was dizzy, and nauseated, and her knee felt as though it was on the verge of exploding.

“Are you
sure
?” Garth asked, from the door. “We need a straight answer, Meg.”

“I'm fine.” She started to stand up, and then looked around. “Where's my cane?”

They all frowned at her.

“You threw it away, Meg,” Paula said.

What?
Why in the hell would she have done that? But, anyway, it seemed to be gone, so she grabbed the white metal banister with her left hand to pull herself to her feet. “Where's Susan?” she asked. “Is she all right?”

Brian pointed upstairs.

Which meant that she wasn't all right. Meg slowly started up the stairs, using her good leg to do most of the work. There seemed to be something pretty seriously wrong with her knee, but—well, maybe she damned well
deserved
it.

It seemed to take about an hour to trudge up to the second floor, and she had to stop a couple of times to rest, grip the banister, and concentrate on not passing out. The entry as a whole seemed unusually subdued, although she could here low voices here and there, and a couple of people were standing uncertainly in or near the stairwells. No one spoke to her, though.