AllFreeNovel
Share Us
As Hank and Chris walked off, Sasha headed back toward the office. When she reached the reception desk, Joy was thumbing through a stack of local maps and brochures for restaurants and attractions. At the sound of Sasha’s footsteps, she dropped the tourism pamphlets and pounced.
“I need to talk to you.”
Sasha gave her a careful look. “Leo should be back in a minute. Why don’t we all talk then?”
Joy flashed a bright smile, which was at odds with her strained expression and the pronounced twitch in her left eyelid. “Great!” she chirped.
“Do you want a glass of water while we wait for Leo?”
“No, no. Let’s just go in there.” She cast a furtive look over her shoulder, then pointed toward the office.
Sasha let her inside and directed her to the visitor’s chair. Joy sat, and her right leg immediately began to jitter. The woman was practically vibrating in the chair.
“Is something wrong, Joy?”
“You mean aside from the dead guy?”
Sasha waited.
Joy wrung her hands together. “I don’t know these people,” she blurted. “I’ve only been dating Grady for a few weeks. I shouldn’t have come. But when he said that his friends were renting this historic house on an estate out in the country to celebrate New Year’s Eve, it sounded too good to pass up.”
“You couldn’t have known how it would turn out,” Sasha said soothingly, hoping to ratchet Joy’s nerves down a notch.
“No, that’s true. But I do know better than to put myself in a position where I’m trapped with a bunch of people I don’t know—” she lowered her voice, “—and don’t trust.”
Joy was spooked. Sasha knew she should wait for Connelly, but she didn’t want to risk Joy clamming up and deciding not to talk. He’d do the same thing, she reasoned.
She hopped down from the warm radiator cover, dragged the desk chair around to the front of the desk, and sat directly across from Joy, so close that their knees almost touched.
“What happened?”
Joy swallowed. “There are all these whispers and, you know, side eyes—everyone’s shooting each other these meaningful looks. It’s like they’re speaking in code about things I don’t know about. They all have a history. And, apparently, everybody has had problems with Rex, including Grady.”
Joy clamped her mouth shut as if she’d said too much.
“Joy, I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”
After a beat, she nodded. “You know Grady’s in business with Tessa, right?”
“Tessa mentioned it to my husband.”
“Well, Rex made a comment to him today after Tessa refused to share a room with him. He said something like maybe I need to acquire a college counseling company.”
“That’s what they do? They help kids get into colleges?”
“Not just any kids. They have a very selective client roster. They start working with families when their children are in elementary school—middle school at the latest. And they devise a comprehensive plan to mold these children into the perfect applicant for a specific list of schools the parents provide. Sports, extracurriculars, the summer classes the kids take, the volunteer work they do. Tessa and Grady’s company lays it all out for them. All they have to do is follow the plan.”
Sasha wrinkled her nose. It sounded dystopian.
Joy misunderstood the emotion behind the reaction. “You don’t get it, do you? People pay seven figures for this service.”
She furrowed her brow. “Seven figures? Parents pay a million dollars to ruin their spawn’s childhood?”
Joy bit back a giggle before she admitted. “Thank you! I thought it sounded creepy, too. But they have a waitlist like you wouldn’t believe. They turn people away left and right. That Bethany and Chance have theirbabysigned up.”
Sasha set aside her distaste for the repugnant service that Tessa and Grady offered and focused on Joy’s point. “So Rex offered to buy this college counseling company to get Tessa into bed with him?”
Joy laughed shortly. “No. Think less carrot, more stick.”
