I guess you can say my blood went cold.
Okay, it didn’t really. But it does feel kind of like someone has spilled some really cold Diet Coke down my back, or something.
All of a sudden, my palms are so sweaty I can hardly hold on to the clipboard. My heart starts hammering unsteadily, the way it had that time I’d sung those songs I’d written myself for Jordan’s dad, and he’d laughed at me.
Christopher Allington? Christopher Allington? No way!
Except…
Except that Christopher Allington has complete access to Fischer Hall. He never has to be signed in or out, and he has the authority to order someone to let him into the director’s office whenever he wants. I know because one time the RAs were complaining about how there was never any paper left in the copier on Monday morning and Rachel said that was because Christopher Allington always has one of the maintenance men key him into our office Sunday night so that he can copy his friends’ class notes.
So he could have perused Rachel’s files at his leisure, combing them for likely victims, girls who’ll fall easily under his persuasion, girls without much experience, whom he could seduce.
And then he set out to meet them, starting up innocuous conversations and introducing himself under a fake name… all so that he could get laid without a lot of fuss. It’s like he has his own little harem of willing fresh women to choose from!
My God. It’s diabolical. It’s ingenious. It’s…
Totally far-fetched. Cooper would totally scoff at the idea.
But Cooper isn’t here…
And Christopher Allingtonis way charming. Over six feet tall, with kind of longish blond hair that he wears feathered back, he has the boyish good looks of… well, a guy from a boy band. What freshman girl wouldn’t be flattered by his attentions… so flattered that she’d have sex with him on a comparatively short acquaintance? My God, he’s cute, older, sophisticated… Any eighteen-year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. Any twenty-eight — year-old girl would go ga-ga over him. The guy is fine.
But why did he kill them? Scoring babes is one thing, but killing them afterward? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? If they’re dead, you can’t score with them again.
More importantly,how did he kill them? I mean, I know how—if, indeed, they were being killed—but how was he managing to push full-grown women down an elevator shaft when, undoubtedly, they’d be struggling against him? Drugs? But wouldn’t the coroner’s office have found some evidence of that?
My face feels hot. I fan it with my clipboard, turning my attention back toward Marnie. She’s just winding up for her big finish, which involves hip gyrations the likes of which I haven’t seen since Shakira’s last performance on the MTV Music Video Awards. She definitely isn’t imitating me. I’ve always been a rotten dancer, the despair of every choreographer I’ve ever met. I had difficulties, as they liked to point out, detaching my brain from my body, and just letting go.
Marnie pulls some kind of Carly Patterson back handspring thingie that ends in a set of splits and has the entire cafeteria on their feet, cheering. I rise to my feet as well… then start toward her. Lakeisha may have gone home, but Marnie’s still here, and might be able to confirm whether or not her roommate had ever hooked up with Christopher Allington.
But Jordan grabs me by the arm before I’ve gone two steps.
“Where are you going?” he asks worriedly. “You aren’t trying to sneak out of here before we’ve had our talk, are you, Heather?”
Jordan smells of Drakkar Noir, which is distracting. He’d worn Carolina Herrera for Men when he’d been with me, so clearly the Drakkar Noir is courtesy of Tania.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I say, patting him reassuringly on the arm—his very buff arm. He’s been bulking up for his next tour, and it shows. In a good way. “I promise.”
“Heather,” Jordan begins, but I won’t let him finish.
“I promise,” I say. “When this thing is over, we’ll have a nice, long chat.”
Jordan looks placated.
“All right,” he says. “Good.”
I see Marnie cross to the side of the dining hall where all the other acts have gathered to await the decision of the judges, and while the next group sets up for their performance, I hurry over to her.
Marnie has pulled off her blond wig and is wiping sweat from beneath her eyes. She smiles when she sees me approach.
“Marnie,” I say. “Nice performance.”
“Oh, thanks,” she simpers. “I was worried you’d be mad. I finally figured out who you were, as you can see.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Look, I have to ask you something. Could that guy Elizabeth was seeing right before she died… could his name have been Chris?”
Marnie, clearly disappointed that the only reason I’ve sought her out is to talk about her dead roommate some more, shrugs unconcernedly.
“I don’t know. It was something like that. Chris or Mark.”
“Thanks,” I say. She turns to say something slighting about one of the other acts to the trio of Christina wannabes, and I have to reach out and tug on her sleeve. “Uh, Marnie?”
She glances back at me. “Yeah?”
“See that girl over there in the fifth row, about ten seats over, talking to that blond guy?”
Marnie looks. Her eyebrows raise.
“That guy’s a babe. Who is he?”
“So you don’t know him?”
“Not yet,” she says, making it clear she intends to rectify that situation.
I try to hide my disappointment. Maybe if I can get my hands on a photo of Christopher Allington, I could waylay Lakeisha outside one of her classes and get her to make an ID that way…
Then I think of something.
“Do you know the girl?” I ask Marnie.
She purses her lips.
“Kinda. She lives on the twelfth floor. I think her name is Amber or something.”
Amber. Perfect. I have a name now, and a floor to go with it.
I get back to my seat just as two guys in drag launch into a rendition of “Dude Looks Like a Lady.” Jordan leans over and whispers into my ear, “What was that all about?”
I just smile and shrug. There’s no point trying to scream above the sound system, and besides, Sarah is eyeing me critically from over her clipboard. I don’t think she appreciates me fraternizing with the contestants, since it might render me less than impartial in my judging.
So I sit helplessly in my chair while Christopher Allington is possibly—probably—schmoozing with his next victim. Amber—from what I can tell, given that I’m only able to catch brief glimpses of her, not wanting to look as if I’m staring—seems to be coming to life under Christopher’s attentions. She fiddles with her red-brown hair and squirms in her seat, grinning nonstop and generally acting like a girl who has never had a handsome boy pay attention to her in her life. I watch worriedly, chewing my lower lip, wondering if tomorrow morning, we’re going to find Amber at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Except that I can’t really see Christopher as the murdering type. The deflowering type, yeah. But a murderer?
Then again, Evita Peron’s husband had been a notorious letch, and I read somewhere that he killed a bunch of people in Argentina, which is why Madonna didn’t want people to cry for her in that song.
Finally the lip-synch ends. Greg, the hall president, comes out and announces that the judges should begin deliberating. Everyone else gets up and heads for the Doritos (luckies). Rachel scoots her chair around so that she is facing me and Jordan and Sarah.
“Well,” she says, smiling at me. “What did you think?”
