The Rose Ransom (Girls Wearing Black: Book Three) (28 page)

They would be loyal servants to
her and her new clan.

Renata took a bow, and the
cheering grew louder. She bowed again, and all the roses she had thrown into
the crowd came back at her. The ultimate sign of respect for the ultimate
actress. A standing ovation and a thousand roses thrown at the stage.

*****

“Stand up, Annika,” Jill said.

Deep in her own trance, Annika
didn’t respond, so Jill yanked at her arm until she was on her feet.

“Clap your hands and cheer,”
Jill whispered in her ear. “The play is over.”

Together, Jill and Annika joined
the rest of the students in elation at Renata’s performance. Jill acted as
excited as she could, but she had nothing on the people all around her who were
crying as they shouted, “Bravo! Bravo! Bravissimo!”

Renata took her final bow and
then raised her hands, quieting the crowd and commanding them to sit.

Like trained dogs.

Annika still had her eyes
closed. Jill helped her back in her chair.

“Thank you,” Renata said. “Thank
you everyone. Did you enjoy tonight’s performance?”

The students cheered and screamed.

“Then I ask you to keep it our
little secret,” Renata said. “Just as those who came before you kept the power
of this play a secret, so too shall you use discretion when speaking of this
night.”

Nods and hums of agreement
passed through the room.

“Lights!” Renata shouted.

A loud click, and the house
lights came on, brightening the room. The effect was immediate. Students went
quiet, sat back in their chairs, and generally looked drained. The spell was
broken.

“We have a tradition here at
Thorndike,” Renata said. “In honor of the Rose Ransom, every year we select our
own princess, who can only be returned by those who have found the three
reddest roses in the kingdom.”

Here we go
, Jill thought.
She scanned the room, finding Karmela with her eyes. She looked down at
Karmela’s hand. The ring was on her finger.

“I will now call this year’s
princess to the stage,” Renata said.

Raising her right hand, Renata
snapped her fingers, and a huge picture appeared on the wall behind her. The
audience, who had been subdued, immediately jumped to life again with a
collective gasp.

The photograph on the wall was
of Nicky and Ryan. They lay side by side on a bed covered in rose petals.

“You may have noticed that two
of our most distinguished guests were missing from the party tonight,” Renata
said. “They are missing because they have already been abducted.”

Whispers of confusion and
excitement all around. Jill sat back in her chair, stunned at what she was
seeing.

“I grow bored of doing things
the same way every year,” Renata said. “Never before have we abducted a girl
wearing black for the Ransom, but this year it felt like the right thing to do.
It felt
interesting
.”

Jill felt both terrified and
excited. Was it possible that Nicky and Ryan were still alive? Was it possible
they could be rescued?

“If you look at this photo,”
Renata said, “you’ll see two people. Nicky Bloom, our newest arrival at school
and the current leader in the Coronation contest. You’ll also see Ryan Jenson,
whose family has the means to offer up a nice ransom sum indeed. Tonight I will
give you a clue. That clue will lead you to a rose, and at that rose, you will
find another clue. There are three clues in all, and three roses. Find all
three, and you’ll find our princess, as well as her very rich friend. If you
find them before midnight on the last day of the semester, you may collect
whatever money gets offered up for their safe return.”

Jill’s eyes went back to
Karmela. She had been so certain Karmela would be the princess this year. She
had hacked into the school’s computers to make sure the Regents chose her. She
had put the ring on Karmela’s finger.

Oh, how she wished the GPS
tracking ring were on Nicky’s finger instead.

Sitting one table away from
Karmela was Kim Renwick, whose face was beaming with delight at the night’s
turn of events.

“So there you have it my
friends,” Renata said. “A princess wearing black, and a prince with a fat
wallet. I don’t need to remind you what happens to these two if nobody finds
them by semester’s end.”

“The great beyond,” somebody
said.

“Precisely,” Renata said. “It
has been many years since our princess went unfound, but still we must always
remember the rules. The Rose Ransom was a payment to bring a soul back from the
great beyond. If no one finds these two by the end of semester, the great
beyond gets to collect them both. Now, prepare yourselves. Here is your first
clue.”

When fifty summers have thickened your skin

And left gnarled weeds where flowers once bloomed

It is here that you shall find comfort

Having found none in the mirror

That was the clue Renata gave
them at the end of the Rose Ransom ceremony.

Kim loved it.

When fifty summers have
thickened your skin

An obvious reference to the
passage of time, this first line of the clue had been the most perplexing for
the students trying to figure it out. A week had passed since Renata presented
the clue, and during that week, Kim watched as her classmates went on wild
goose chases to retirement homes, hospitals, senior centers, and other places
where old folks gathered. None of them had found the rose or the second clue.

And left gnarled weeds where
flowers once bloomed

Kim was certain this second line
of the clue was about how old age made everyone ugly. But most students didn’t
get it. Her classmates took a more literal interpretation, hitting up all the
flower shops in the area, looking for another clue. Terry Reese led a group to
the botanical gardens. And another group of students, led by Brian Kingsbury,
had gone searching through the giant weed patches off Highway 82. One of Kim’s
spies reported that Brian had come back from that adventure with ticks all over
his legs. What an idiot.

It is here that you shall
find comfort

If there was an answer to the
clue, it was in this line. Where did one find comfort from the ravages of
aging? Kim didn’t know, and didn’t care to find out. She was perfectly content
for the Ransom to come and go with no winners. If no one solved the Ransom,
Nicky would get killed and Kim would win the contest.

Things were looking good, but
Kim had no intention of resting on her laurels. She had underestimated Nicky
before and lost the Date Auction because of it. She wouldn’t make that mistake
again. Now was the time to put a stake in the heart of Nicky’s Coronation campaign.

Or rather, to have Annika
Fleming do it.

Kim and Galen Renwick arrived at
the Fleming residence at eight-thirty on a Thursday night. Annika answered the
door.

“Well holy hell, look what the
mother fucking cat dragged in,” Annika said.

“Come now, Annika. There’s no
reason to be rude,” Kim said. “We’re just here to have a little chat.”

*****

The week following the Rose
Ransom ceremony was an absolute disaster for Jill.

First came that horrible clue.
When
fifty summers have thickened your skin...

Neither Jill nor anyone else had
any idea what that cryptic poem was about, and after a week of trying and
failing to solve it, most of the school had given up. It was like they were all
waiting on somebody else to figure it out. They were tired of thinking about
gnarled
weeds where flowers once bloomed
, and places where old people find comfort.
They just wanted somebody to solve it so they all could move on to the second
clue.

Jill knew that she was the
somebody who needed to solve the clue, and she sent an urgent message to the
Network for help.

Nicky and Ryan were abducted
for this year’s Rose Ransom ceremony. The first clue is out. Can someone
research it and get back to me? None of us can figure it out.

No one replied.

So she sent another message,
this one about a subject that might be more interesting to the strategists at
the Network.

I made contact with Tarin
last week. Together we cracked Renata’s phone. I’d be happy to discuss it if
someone would get in touch with me.

No response. The next day she sent
another note.

Nicky and Ryan might still be
alive. Is anyone working on the Rose Ransom clue I sent? We really should be
trying to figure it out.

A day came and went and she got
nothing from the Network. She tried again.

Could I at least have my
access to the servers reinstated? There isn’t much I can do for anyone so long
as you’re locking me out. Why has my password been changed?

No response.

Why is no one talking to me?

No response.

Why did Tarin come find me
only to completely disappear after I completed the mission he asked me to do?
Is he okay? Is there anyone out there listening?

It was like the Network was
locking her out on purpose. Like she was some outcast unworthy of their
attention.

Like they had abandoned her in
Washington to die.

Trapped and alone—that’s how she
felt when she got the all-caps text message from Annika on Saturday night.

MUST SEE YOU RIGHT AWAY. ARE
YOU HOME?

I’m here
, Jill wrote
back.

Barely ten minutes later, Annika
was standing at her front door, wide-eyed and pale.

“What’s going on?” Jill said.

“The Renwicks. They know
everything.”

Ugh. The Renwicks
. Jill
had been so busy with more important work she had been blissfully unaware of
what Kim was doing all week.

“Come inside,” she said. “Let’s
go to my room and talk.”

Annika’s story was the perfect
ending to a perfectly horrid week. Listening to it, Jill grew angry at herself.
She had been careless at the Rose Ransom ceremony, allowing Annika to speak
Shannon’s name aloud when they thought no one was listening.

“We should have known better,”
Jill said.

“It’s my fault,” Annika said. “I
was so proud of myself. I went to Rio all alone, found my way to Shannon, and
got her someplace safe. I felt like such a badass, and I couldn’t wait to tell
you I’d done it. Now Kim knows and is going to ruin everything.”

Everything’s ruined already
,
Jill thought, but didn’t say.

“It’s not as big a deal as Kim
wants us to think it is,” Jill said. “So she overheard you saying Shannon’s
name? You could have been talking about anyone.”

“That’s what I said to Kim. I
told her she had nothing and needed to get the hell out of my house. But then
she gave me this.”

Annika reached into her purse
and pulled out a piece of paper that was folded into a square. Jill took it,
opened it up, and looked at what seemed like financial data.

“What am I looking at?” she
said.

“Wire transfers,” Annika said.
“From my bank account to the front desk at the Praia de Sol hotel.”

“Oh, Annika, you didn’t.”

“I did. I sent two wires to
Shannon in the past two weeks. Somehow Kim got her hands on them.”

Jill shook her head. “And I
suppose they used this info to find Shannon,” she said.

Annika reached into her purse
again, and pulled out a black and white photo. Jill looked at it, and felt a
little like she was seeing a ghost.

There she was. Shannon Evans.
Her hair was shorter. She had no makeup on. She had piercings in her nose and
eyebrow that she never had at Thorndike, but it was undeniably Shannon. A girl
everyone thought was dead was alive and well in Rio de Janeiro, and Kim Renwick
had proof of it.

“The big problem here is the
wire transfers,” Jill said. “They connect Shannon to you.”

“I know,” said Annika. Her voice
was starting to crack. “You told me to do everything in cash. I should have
listened to you. I should have asked you before I wired her any money. I
couldn’t bear the thought of her out there with so little money to spend. When
her friends left her, they took everything. All she had left were the clothes
on her back! She’d been living that way for days. It broke my heart. I just
wanted to help her get back to a normal life. She’s been through so much.”

Two four-figure wire transfers
in two weeks. Jill wanted to tell Annika that this was more than most people
needed to “get back to a normal life,” but she bit her tongue. It didn’t do any
good to scold Annika now. The damage had already been done.

“So what do we do?” Annika
asked. “Kim said I have until next Friday to renounce my support for Nicky and
tell all my friends I was wrong. She wants me to write another text and run it
by her. She says it has to be the exact opposite of the one I wrote after the
Masquerade, something good enough to persuade all of Nicky’s backers to jump
ship.”

Annika was crying now. Jill felt
bad for her. Annika Fleming was a spoiled brat just like the rest of them, but
she had a good heart. Her love for Shannon was the real deal, so real that it
was her only true weakness. Kim had found it and was using it against her.

“The first thing you need to do
is take a deep breath,” Jill said. “This might not be as bad as it looks.”

“It seems pretty bad to me. If
Kim tells the immortals about Shannon, we’re all dead.”

“You’re focusing only on the
cards Kim has to play against you. You need to think about the cards in your
hand. What do we have to play against her?”

“Oh, Jill. I don’t like this
game. People’s lives are at stake here.”

You don’t even know the half
of it
, Jill thought.